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deliciousscaloppine · 4 years ago

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Hot Takes Galore: A brief overview of fandom backlashes that influenced fanfiction writing traditions as I have personally experienced them:

In today’s segment I am going to talk about copyright infringement.

First let me preface this by saying I have only ever been in 3 fandoms, starting from 2008 and I have never been terribly active - like this blog has been the most active I’ve ever been in any fandom ever. I am not going to talk about particular fandom dramas because I am pretty clueless about that. What I am going to talk about is that friction between “reality” and online spaces that brought about changes that are still in effect today in the way fanfiction is written and perceived.

In 2008 as I was entering, nearly every piece of fanfiction had a disclaimer about the author not owning the characters, which were the property of Corporate Entity X, or Author Y, and also not profiting from the work in any shape or form. At the time getting money from writing fanfiction was a gigantic taboo, and almost no one did it, or advertised that they did.

But as I understand through convention culture printed writing did circulate in exchange for money (zines), and at least in Japan one could sell doujinshis (self-published stories and comics, often within the framework of another work) in certain events. Although this was largely considered “illegal” under copyright laws, and artists could be persecuted or blacklisted from entering the industry if discovered. That’s also why fanartists often to this day may screen where and when their work is viewed, and move to take down reposts, or call others to protest if artworks are circulated without permission outside of the artist’s page.

Older fandom people also hated authors that moved against fanfiction, a big case being Anne Rice, the vampire lady everyone - including me - copies when writing about vampires. And now I am going to talk a little about that.

Usually, writers, just sit somewhere cosy and write, and often they have no idea, absolutely no idea, on how to manage their writing properties - usually a lawyer does that, and lawyers want A Lot Of Money (A brief brush with justice and lawyers over a civil dispute I won, cost me 1000 euros out of nowhere, in a single day, and no I couldn’t avoid it because I was the accused one, so I had to appear with some representation).

So sometimes, quite often, it’s a lawyer that activates a writer or other artist to move against “smaller” copyright infringements, in order to make bank. And if one suffers such a case, they should make it as apparent as possible to the other party that they have no money, and the pressure will go away immediately. But even MORE OFTEN a small copyright infringement, may lead to a sequence of bigger ones, and ultimately the de facto loss of rights from one’s writing properties, and of course revenue.

And for a lot of published authors, they just don’t know for how long they can publish things - publishing houses that have them signed can close, book sales can drop, tastes change, personal problems, and anything else may mean that they could find themselves without a source of income at any point in the future, while they are aging and becoming more and more irrelevant.

A very famous case currently, is that of Alan Dean Foster, the writer who has done some novelizations for movies like Star Wars and Alien, and is no longer receiving revenue from that - while his wife is hospitalized and their family needs the income - because Disney absorbed the company that had signed the contract with him, and chose to not honor the previous contract. To make them pay he will have to go into a huge legal battle with a corporate giant, which he cannot afford. But they still absorb income from these novelizations.

But how does fanfiction tie into that, and Anne Rice’s case (which if memory serves right, also went through a series of personal problems, including her husband’s death during that time).

So for a lot of writers, fanfiction may be that tiny breach that may threaten their rights in the future from tresspases of distribution networks. Meaning, people write vampire fanfiction based on Anne Rice’s work? What if another publishing house used the template of her works (historical settings, bleeding orifices, religious themes, homosexuality and sexual trauma etc) and produced a royalty free series of such works with a team of professional writers that do not own the work - who often have less rights, like not owning the characters, or the storylines, participating in a very small scale, so their payment goes down etc)

And in this way EVERYONE SUFFERS. Big Name Published Author fades into obscurity and goes into poverty and payroll writers are horrifically abused.

A lot of hobbyists, and hobbyist writers whose sole dream is to be published in some shape or form, do not really care, and do not concern themselves with the legal aspect of creation, or the technical skill that it takes to produce writing on a consistent basis, which can only happen if you’ve got your basic needs covered. So they might see this type of backlash as inherently privileged.

But it’s not really a privilege, there has been a global recession in basic working rights for everyone, and lovers of fiction don’t have to condone, of course, attacks against them, but they need to put that kind of backlash in perspective. Someone did write the content you enjoy, THEY ARE NOT DEAD YET, and may have opinions on how it should be managed, especially when it pertains to their livelihood.

It’s a delicate balance that we all must keep in order to keep corporate regulations out of it.

For instance with the recent danmei explosion The Untamed brought forth, Ao3 was banned in China. Now a lot of you might know that this was caused by some real person fic involving the actor Xiao Zhan, which led to a whole other level of drama. But make no mistake this was a political act to protect the interests of the domestic publishing industry as it prepares to do an international opening that will bring in several billions from foreign markets.

Because Ao3 has been expanding as a platform globally it brings about changes, and in many cases steals readers away from traditional publishing, so it becomes unacceptable economically for a bunch of hobbyists to influence tastes, market mores, and create sensationalism around certain properties out of literally the blue. This is not a good thing for a lot of corporate thinking, they set the product and we are supposed to buy it. We are not supposed to go, it would look greater with a bunch of anal, and then put forth a million words altering the character of the intellectual property.

Why you ask? Again, because another publishing industry might choose to imitate the style of danmei fanfics and produce works that hijack readership, or lead to breach of contracts, making an unsafe environment for workers in this industry (Xiao Zhan’s case.)

Nowadays I see more and more fanfic authors coming out of their shell to ask money for writing in the form of donations, patronage and commissions, as fandom involvement is also becoming vastly monetized. The market of conventions coming into social media platforms. A strange more exists still in which while “legally wrong”, as long as money is not asked on the publishing platform (Ao3), it may not count as copyright infringement. But fanfic authors, may still be treated with hostility for this, for not “deserving” to profit from someone else’s properties, or even worse for “stealing” readership.

For instance a recent argument I have seen from lgbtq authors, is that they remain unsupported by fandom spaces, who often proclaim themselves as lgbtq or lgbtq friendly (something that is not true), but at the same time they are not looking for published lgbtq stories, or authors, or even treat these with open hostility, or a lot of bias.

Fandom is not comprised from “readers” in the traditional sense, definitely not friends of literature, and it’s free, no one really has to pay anything to read a published fanfic. So it’s a pretty loose demographic with no set characteristics, and no interest in investing time and money in something for long. It’s an online social activity and not a readers’ movement, highly influenced by peer pressure and branding. It’s basically a gigantic group of people who don’t really do anything for no one, and may develop a parasitic connection to intellectual properties (I am sorry peers, it’s the truth).

And it’s perhaps the biggest counterculture scene at the moment in the developed world. To this day it treats even its own authors with tremendous suspicion, disregard and dismissal, meaning that even if someone can get some money and recognition locally through writing fanfic they are on thin fucking ice at all times for all the reasons but mostly attracting unnecessary attention to themselves and subsequently the scene. A pattern that we will see is endemic to all forms of fandom backlashes.

So to this day in contrast with fanart, fan writers may not be compensated for their troubles, but may also be ousted from their domestic professional spaces for writing fanfic that may infringe on their intellectual property.

The thing is, for me, that fandom culture can become incredibly supportive of corporate practices that harm actual people (writers, they are people too) but when they realize that the same corporate practices may be used against them, it’s too late to realize that it’s not a lottery of who wins by crying more, and by the time that happens, a corporation or industry who has used them to do its dark bidding, can stop catering to them because ultimately they have become again irrelevant once a well defined demographic of readers and viewers has been secured.

So if you are going to do counterculture, at least do it right. Be respectful of the writers/authors of the content you consume and mindful of their troubles, do not generate public strife that brings in political regulation in favor of corporate interests. Become interested in writing culture, support your fanfic authors with lasting engagement in their work, even if it escapes the narrow confines of a certain fandom. It’s simple. Eat, live, pray, fuck, or something.

#fandom history?

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allywrites360 · 4 years ago

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Red Shoes - Analysis/Review

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” - Merlin

““But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.”

So this film just released in North America, and I thought I’d share some thoughts and overall themes/metaphors from this film. But first, I’d just like to encourage you (if you haven't already) to go and support this film. It pretty inexpensive, and was made by an independent animation studio, which I think is absolutely amazing. Now onto the analysis!!

Love the concept of everyone being an adaptation of a fairytale character; adds to the society being shallow and appearance focus as a whole, as fairytales were traditionally focused on dichotomy and physical beauty.

The lighting, and really animation as a whole, is phenomenal for a film made by an independent studio. The shading and colour grading is a real standout, though. And the landscapes!! They feel really three dimensional, and gorgeous.

[ID - A shot of a sunrise, beautifully lit behind a belltower - End ID].

Scoring/motif for the main villain is amazing.

Introduction to the protagonist is really not setup well. Did she actually get sent away from the palace? How long was she gone? How desperate is she to save her father? All of these questions are left unanswered, and no prominent character traits are shown through her first scene. She could be clever? All she did was change her hiding spot, so even that’s a stretch.

I hate the king’s narration. The dialogue is choppy, and repetitive in a completely irrelevant way.

The lore around the tree is really unclear. Why haven’t the shoes worked for Regina? Why do they work for Snow? Will they not regrow?

Love the transition scene to the dwarfs; makes it feel as though they’re just been walking listlessly since the spell was cast. Which, y’know, more or less true.

[ID - A shot of the seven dwarfs walking together through the centre of a forest in midday, looking slightly dejected - End ID].

Love the fact the mirror points out that ‘wisdom’ and ‘kingdom’ don’t rhyme; I paused to point that out.

I will say that the action scenes are really well directed/choreographed. The camera flows really nicely, and always follows our protagonists (ooh, tying into the dichotomous nature of fairytales overall?), which makes the stakes and emotions feel higher/more personal.

The villain’s voice acting and dialogue is really sharp and entertaining. She feels like a real threat (and also uncannily similar to Gothel but).

Love the wooden front on their house disguised as a castle. Really nicely done metaphor for them clinging on to a cheap version of their pasts; refusing to move on, which is torn down when she arrives. Also ties in to the “what’s on the inside outweighs what’s one the outside” moral.

[ID - The seven dwarfs’ house, which is a cave, with a wooden cutout shaped and painted like a castle sitting in front of it to give the illusion of a grander living space - End ID].

Can I also say I love that her first reaction isn’t insanely positive to her new appearance? In general, she just notes there’s been a change, which is a really nice subversion of the ‘overweight people have to be unhappy at the outset’ trope.

Her facial expressions are also really animated, which is something I’ve always loved (see Ariel, Anastasia, etc.), especially her eyes. Really well designed. Actually, all the expressions suit the characters’ personalities really well. Great job, animation department!

The fact that all seven dwarfs are names after popular mythical characters is really inventive (much more so than simply naming them after a character trait), as well as having their diverse fighting style be built from that, which I loved. Could even be allusions, but I don’t know enough about the original stories to say.

Hate the electric guitar of Prince Average. Highlights how much he doesn’t belong in this movie. His name is horribly uncreative, and his pop culture references break the forth wall, and aren’t funny, as they aren’t used properly. With him as the involved antagonist for most of the film, I can’t take the threat seriously. Other comic villains have been done so much better, such as Prince Charming from Shrek. The only valid line he has is about ‘dwarfs’ vs. ‘dwarves’; I never know which to use. “Finally, the big guns, thank you!” One more fourth wall break from this man I swear.

Love the added detail of the shoes not being able to be removed once you place value on the beauty they give. It’s hard to let go of that temptation; and if you don’t, you won’t be seen as your true self. It also highlights how she loves herself at the outbreak of the movie, and is therefore able to remove them freely. Also gets rid of the the deus ex machina of her shoes coming off freely in the water.

Wish we could’ve seen her doubt grow as she realizes they wouldn’t have helped her in her original form. Feels like we were a bit disconnected from her emotions. Which might not be a bad thing… if we assume Merlin in the protagonist.

Nice foreshadowing to her father being the bunny; if you know to look for it.

References such as ‘#blessed’, or ‘Pablo Picasso’, don’t work in the slightest. They serve no purpose, and aren’t funny simply because most would recognize them.

Normally I would make a note about Merlin and Snow having really standard, basic designs, but one, this animation studio is small, and on limited resources, and two, it, again, relates back to the shallow, uninteresting societal expectation of beauty that refuses to be unique.

Ahh, nice that apples are what trip the guards up in the chase scene through the market. Symbolic.

Love that she’s willing to defend the dwarfs even when she realizes they won’t help her in her original form. Again, wish we could’ve seen her emotions pertaining to that a bit more, although the reflection shot in the mirror (reflected from the shot at the start of the scene) was nice. Speaking of that, the broken, fragment reflection of her ‘fake’ self, is beautiful, because it isn’t a representation of herself, however at the end of the scene, we see the reflection in the same manner, but with her original self, but due to newly inflicted self doubt, we get a split second of that reality being fragmented too.

[ID - Snow White frowning as she looks into a shattered mirror leaning against the wall of an alleyway in her society-dictated “beautiful” - End ID].

[ID - Snow White looking into the same mirror, frowning, and having removed the shoes, restoring her to her original appearance - End ID].

The three bears (I’m assuming an allusion to the Goldilocks mythos) don’t really serve any plot relevance… however they are cute, so make of their inclusion what you will.

Again, the scene where she exits the dwarfs’ home; it would’ve been great to see a shot of her internal conflict before she submits herself to giving up her freedom for Merlin and Arthur’s. Relating to that, I have noticed that the hostage situations have shockingly low stakes in this film. For instance, at the end, Merlin is simply held in a branch, and a second later, Snow is willing to give up her life to set him free.

The movie didn’t end up using this (which was a nice subversion of expectations), but if Merlin had used all his spells in the final battle, and needed just one more shot, it wouldn’t have been a deus ex machina, because we establish previously he has the one Snow gave him for luck. I assumed it’d comeback again, but turns out they just used it as a symbol (for having the flower, a symbol of outside beauty, float out of his hand), for him letting go of his shallow mindset.

[ID - Snow White (wearing the shoes which change her appearance) smiles at Merlin, in his dwarf form. In his hand there’s a paper flower she folded from one of his spells - End ID].

Really love the joke about the mirror being hurt by smoke. Get it? Smoke and mirrors? Now that reference is funny; and also ties into the theme of false fronts/illusions. But not gonna lie, all that was an afterthought. It genuinely made me laugh.

Love that they rebuild the house too. It’s not beautiful, at least in a traditional sense. It’s cracked, uneven, but personal to them; they did it as a family. I’ll give the writers credit for so fully entrenching the theme into every frame and action. Nothing is meaningless in this film. Well, at least surrounding the protagonists.

Ooh, ooh, I could forgive the use of pop as their love motif if at the end, when there are no facades, it’s replaced by original scoring. I don’t remember that scene in all that much detail though.

The tree thing is… strange, I’ll admit, but considering Regina puts all her stock in the beauty which comes from the magic tree, it makes sense it’d be rooted into her magic in some way. The apple details are cool (notches shaped like seeds on the trunks), if nothing else, considering the scene with the three attacking is not investing the slightest, beyond some inventive attacks from Merlin (the action and attacks surrounding him aren’t executed all that poorly).

The directing in general is phenomenal in this movie; which is something I’ve been trying to put a bit more attention on lately.

Love small details like Merlin holding his back after the fight, circling back once again to the fact these characters are more similar than they realize (if you remember, that’s what she used as a cover when she first woke up).

[ID - A shot of Merlin running, pressing a hand against his back as he does so - End ID].

Okay, I can suspend my disbelief for a lot of things in this movie, but when Snow dives into the lake, that surface tension would’ve seriously hurt her. If even some waves would’ve been added, it would’ve not only added suspense to the scene, but made it a bit more grounded as well.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.” That line is by far my favourite from the film. I love that it shows his guilt. She’s chosen to love him despite his appearance, but he won’t do the same for her. And now he has to look in the mirror at that ugly part of his personality.

[ID - At night, Merlin in his dwarf form stands beside Merlin in his human form. The dwarf version of him looks irritated as he looks up - End ID].

(Assuming Merlin named the rabbit, and if I’m being honest I didn’t pay attention to that) It’s sorta fitting to his character that he named it ‘Long Ears’ - a notably physical attribute.

While I do like that, just because the climax called for it, the sword didn’t suddenly lift from the stone, I really dislike that it was broken out by sheer force; which goes goes against the entire magic system/point of the sword and who gets to hold it.

Kronk as the magic mirror is hilarious. I want to credit the screenwriters for his lines… but I have a strong feeling it was mostly improv. Well done whoever is to credit for that.

Now this action scene, with Merlin being attacked by the tree roots, is insanely well done. For maybe the first time in this movie, I feel the suspense I’m intended to, and the setup and just character movement in general is really inventive. You feel his emotions and breath in this scene, which takes serious talent.

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?” - On a related note, I’m proud of this movie for not falling into the traditional ‘misunderstanding breaks up characters before the final battle’ (they technically do split up, but it’s the fault of Merlin’s unresolved selfish intentions rather than a petty matter) through Snow seeing the love spell, and assuming the worst even though Merlin never uses it.

The vines could be a metaphor as well; in this battle, they’re the shallow desires holding him back, while he, with the assistance of others, has to break his own way out (as shown by him using his lighting to crack a small hole in the doors (or exit) of the room.

[ID - Merlin is running towards the “camera”, however, he looks surprised as a vine grabs his waist, and attempts to drag him back into the castle - End ID].

“I’m sorry, Snow White.” That’s the first time he uses her name; and he does it mentally; in a voiceover. It isn’t to impress her, or win a competition. It’s how he truly sees her now. Also, so beautiful how his motives go from being self centred, to focused on her; he changed because of her influence. It’s been done before, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful here.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” That wasn’t his final line (he survives), but if it was… that would’ve been so powerful. Still is, just in a different way.

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.

And I loved that it was a hug immediately after his spell is broken. He isn’t trying to gain anything, he’s just happy to be with her, which is super romantic.

[ID - Both now restored to their original forms, Merlin and Snow White sit on the ground just outside the palace hugging each other, both smiling with their eyes shut. The king, and a few of the dwarfs stand in the background - End ID].

Onto a few of my favourite lines;

“I was worried about you!” “I was worried about me too. But- but mostly you!”

“If you could see the real me…” “I think I can see the real you… eyes open or closed, I still see Merlin.” What a great line. What a great theme. You don’t need to know the facts about someone, or see their original appearance, to know who they are. And I think that’s beautiful.

“Someone you’l be proud to be seen with.” “I think you’re right.”

“I thought that we were both under the same spell… but I was wrong.”

“He likes you more than he likes me,” as she looks down at the shoes.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.”

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?”

“I’ve never been so glad to be chubby and green again.” - Because it means he’s not alone.

“I’m sorry, Snow White.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.”

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.”

I’ll just say, as an ending thought, that the 2D animation of their wedding is adorable.

Overall, I’d give it 8/10. Nothing phenomenal that was entirely groundbreaking, but there’s a lot of heart to be shown here, with some truly amazing characters, even if some of their universe isn’t all that intriguing. Would highly recommend.

#red shoes and the seven dwarfs #red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #film analysis #animation #animation analysis

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ohlayarfp · 4 years ago

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Film Review - Misteri Dilaila by Syafiq Yusof

Misteri Dilaila is a Malaysian horror thriller film that went viral in 2019. I rarely watch Malaysian films because when i do, it’s usually the same plot all over again. Drama, romance, action, comedy and everyone’s favourite, Horror. I feel like these genres are the usuals everywhere but what makes it unbearable for most of us Malaysians is how similar every story is. Rich boy meets a poor girl. Rich boy falls in love with her and when they get married the mother hates the poor girl. They fight and one day someone dies and the end. For horror, it’s just about some people getting haunted by a ghost that was sent by a close friend of theirs.

The thing I understand about the horror hype for Malaysians is how our culture is deeply rooted with mystical beliefs and as religious as we tend to be, ghost stories seem to intertwine with our faith for countless years. Personally, I believe in Asian ghosts more than the western versions. This is probably due to my own family having our fair share of sights into the world of the undead.

The reason why I chose to talk about this film is because of how disappointed I felt when I watched it. Unlike most Malaysian films, it had the potential to be a great one. The look of the film was far better than the usual ones we got and the story building had a Gone Girl vibe. What made me disappointed was the fact that while watching that film I was hopeful and excited thinking finally a Malaysian Filmmaker is making a psychological horror instead of those in your face jump scares.

The story is about a married couple, Jefri and Dilaila, who were spending their holiday together at a luxury vacation home in Fraser’s Hill. After a petty issue where they end up quarrelling at each other, Jefri discovers his wife went missing the following morning. Next thing he knows, a mysterious woman who also goes by the name of Dilaila shows up one night where she claims to be his wife. Adding more confusion is the supernatural occurrences that regularly haunts Jefri whenever he’s alone in the house.

Throughout the whole film, I was at the edge of my seat thinking that there’s finally a malaysian filmmaker that is about to introduce a character with a mental illness as the protagonist which would’ve justified his hallucinations of the ghost. Unfortunately, it was just like other films where there’s no actual context to the sightings, they were just ghosts being ghosts and haunting him for no reason. Well that’s for the 2nd version of the film.

Another fun fact about this film is that it went viral due to the alternate endings it has. When the film came out in the cinemas, people were surprised to hear that they had different endings when they discussed it with their friends. This was purely the filmmaker and his team’s intention. Different halls have different endings and this was meant to be a surprise for the audiences. It was a great marketing strategy and considered as a genius way of thinking for some people while some were mad that they were being ripped off.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

As a person that watched both versions, I was unsatisfied with both versions as both endings angered me. Nevertheless, I didn’t think it’s an absolute flop though. Both versions have the fair share of plot twists. The first version revealed that the protagonist we thought all along was the actual antagonist. He was the one that killed his own wife whilst every supporting character was a part of the police team that were acting to make him confess to his wrong doings. It was then stated that the hallucinations he got was a result of his guilt and him being under the influence of drugs all along.

The second version on the other hand is more mystical. The ghosts made more appearances in this version. The protagonist is still the good guy but the inspector that was involved in the case turned out to be a fake policeman and he was working with the imposter Dilaila. Towards the end, Jef found out that his wife has been dead a long time ago and the ‘wife’ he was holding turns out to be something else (this we never see on screen though).

Personally if i were to choose an ending, I would choose the 1st version as it makes more sense logically but I can understand why people love the 2nd Version. Malaysians and their thirst for horror films explains the statistics. But a famous film reviewer on YouTube (ZhafVlogs) once made an instagram poll and asked his subscribers to choose between the two versions and surprisingly it was a tie. This proves that the director made the right decision to come up with alternate endings.

*END OF SPOILERS*

The film then landed in a controversy within the next few weeks after the premiere. Someone noticed that the story was awfully familiar. It was then proven that the story was 90% similar to a few films from India, America, Russia and more. People were comparing it to a film called “Vanishing Act” and they were right.

As a film student, I am aware about the concept of adaptation so I personally see no wrong in the filmmaker’s act. However, I can understand why people are mad. The filmmaker went silent once news got out about him “stealing” the idea and “claiming” the story as his. But based on my research, I never found him claiming the story as his before. Although, he also never mentioned about him making a remake of the initial film as well. The filmmaker went silent for a long time and people kept sending him hate comments but soon died after a few months.

A year later, the issue was raised yet again by someone and this caused the filmmaker to finally speak up. He explains the concept of adaptation and how he was inspired by a scriptwriting book called Save The Cat which said that “A good artist copy, but a great artist steals”. He also states about there being so many films abroad that have the similar concept to an older film such as Fast and Furious with Point Break, Avatar with Pocahontas and Inception with Paprika. He finally came clean and stated that he was inspired by a stage play from France called “A Trap for a Lonely Man”. He then added his own twist by adding some horror elements knowing that it being the target audience favourite genre.

Also regarding the quote from Save The Cat, (in my opinion) I feel like what the author was implying is about ‘stealing’ stories from life. Not stealing the exact plot codes from other films. This is based on my understanding from the phrase which I assume Syafiq may have misinterpreted it.

He raised logical points from a filmmaker’s perspective and he also raised some issues about being pressured from his father (Yusof Haslam) and brother (Syamsul Yusof) who were well known filmmakers as well. He said that everyone kept on telling him to be better than his father and brother. Sadly, when he was at his lowest, even his family turned their backs on him and said that it’s fully his fault.

From my point of view, I was initially furious with him for not being able to defend himself by explaining about the adaptation because I feel like most Malaysian audiences are unaware about it. People assume adaptation is from book to film when it's more than that. I, myself, learnt that from film school. And I’m not entirely defending him as well, I’m still disappointed in him for not speaking up sooner. But I do empathise with him as well. The audience were quick to attack him. The film industry in Malaysia is not entirely in the best state for these past few years. So a film like Misteri Dilaila made everyone hopeful for more quality films like it only to be betrayed at the end when they found out that it wasn’t his own creative idea and a total rip off. I still feel like he did a good job with his visuals which was an improvement from the local films around that time.

Reading through the whole issue and looking at how this decision to “copy” the plot codes as he was inspired from the Save The Cat book has opened my eyes. As a filmmaker, I feel like i should always do research before starting on a project and the best thing is to always be honest with our intentions. If it’s inspired by a remake, then set it straight and give credit to the original piece. Don’t keep it to yourself. It is terrifying though, being in his state where everyone turned their backs on him, even his own family. He released a few films after that, saying that film is his job and that it is his source of income so as much as it may seem hard sometimes, life still goes on. Sadly, he received a lot of backlash and people lost their faith in him. People were being sarcastic and teasing him if the film was even his.Seeing that happened to him opened my eyes. People may let it slide but they’ll never forget. Once you screw up, people will remember and use it against you.

Pictures of the set:

Links to Film Reviews:

A Non-Horror Fan's Guide To Watching 'Misteri Dilaila'

https://rojakdaily.com/entertainment/article/6414/a-non-horror-fan-s-guide-to-watching-misteri-dilaila

Misteri Dilaila (2019) Review

https://www.caseymoviemania.com/2019/02/misteri-dilaila-2019-review/

Movie review: Misteri Dilaila

https://www.thesundaily.my/style-life/reviews/movie-review-misteri-dilaila-DJ649603

Link to news about the controversy :

Is Local Horror Film ‘Misteri Dilaila’ a Rip Off? Here’s What The Director Had To Say..

https://juiceonline.com/is-local-horror-film-misteri-dilaila-a-rip-off-heres-what-the-director-had-to-say/

Horror fans slam ‘Misteri Dilaila’ for ripping off Hollywood film ‘Vanishing Act’

https://www.malaymail.com/news/showbiz/2019/03/05/horror-fans-slam-misteri-dilaila-for-ripping-off-hollywood-film-vanishing-a/1729154

Clarification/Statement by the Director about the issue (in Malay);

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=649749852534594&set=pcb.649750949201151

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spicy-ryls · 5 years ago

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Ranty TROS stuff below. I wrote this on and off days so it might sound disconnected but yeah. Sorry it’s kinda long and my spelling and grammar might not be the best but I just wanted to let my feelings out.

I’m still trying to accept this movie. I watched it on the night of 19 December, the premier date for Malaysia, and I still remember my visceral feeling towards this movie. I remember feeling so empty, baffled, sad and shocked, almost like I just lost a relative or one of my cats, and I’ve experienced that multiple times in my life and it sucks.

Sometimes I think, how could I be so attached to this trilogy? I’ve literally spent so much energy defending TLJ and the ST from the backlash in the local fandom to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore and I removed myself from the local fanbase as much as I could. But I’ve never felt so betrayed and almost embarassed that I was so invested into it.

I never grew up with Star Wars. Instead, I started watching TFA while I was in that age period between 19-20. I was a little shit and I was still adjsuting to adulthood, so it pretty much was almost like in the process of being born again as an adult. At the time I was making a series of webcomics under the title ‘Gods Among Men’ and I was pretty much drawing almost exclusively Hades/Persephone stuff and I was drawing Hades as this typical tall, dark & handsome guy. At some point, my friends and I just joked at how much I loved that trope that’s it’s like my type in fictional guys, and yes I still love it.

So my friends just said to me “hey, watch the new Star Wars, you’ll love it!”

And I was HOOKED.

I got so into it. I watched all of the other movies, even the Christmas Special. And I loved the character of Kylo Ren so much. Initially I wasn’t instantly into Reylo. But after some fanart or fanfic or two I fell down the rabbit hole of this ship that I loved so much and the two characters of Rey and Kylo/Ben whom I had such a strong connection to.

Q4 of 2017 was the best year for me as a fan of this franchise. I was so excited for TLJ. I was super involved in a lot of local Star Wars related stuff and at that point people just knew me as “That Rey (cosplayer) who liked Reylo and Kylo Ren a lot”. I had made many friends and acquaintances over the year. And then TLJ came.

And the community was divided.

A lot of male fans I knew were so enraged by the movie. “TLJ ruined my childhood!!” they shouted on their facebook wall. “RJ and KK ruined Star Wars” they yelled. It just cemented the Star Wars Fanboy trope so badly that it was laughable that grown men 3 times my age with family AND KIDS were yelling about it for TWO WHOLE YEARS and because I was the one publicly championing the ST, all they talked about to me was about how much they hated it, and it’s still brought on in passing conversation to this day. I hated having to meet these people at events because my encounters are always unpleasant.

Time passed. The Reylo community was prosperous and it really was a golden age of content. We were excited to see how the ending of a saga was going to be, with a definitive Ben Solo redemption and Reylo being canon. And then came the announcement of JJ returning to direct Episode IX. I instantly had a gut feeling that it was not gonna be good, but I will hold my trust to him since he directed TFA. BOY I WAS WRONG.

The TROS panel at SWCC ended in a somewhat hopeful note. Later in the year, interviews were being published, and in the beginning it was all fine and dandy. I can’t remember when the news of reshoots started popping out, but even then I gave them the benefit of the doubt that because this movie was going to tie in all of the other 8 movies and surely they had to do something right about it. Then came in a lot of red flags in merchandising, marketing, cast interviews, etc. Daisy’s and John’s infamous interview felt so OOC for me that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. And at this point, my hopes were very low. I felt something was very off in everything and I was almost inactive of soc med or any TROS news because I wanted to watch the movie with no outside influences. I didn’t even read any leaks and only heard about it in passing.

Then came the week of the premier. I was putting my expectations super low. I just thought of all the bad things that could happen like Rey Palpatine or Kylo/Ben dying and I went into it with that thought. Before the movie, I had to sort of minggle with the crowd of a private screening event as Rey. But I just had so much anxiety before I could even get in costume to the point where I did cry. And it didn’t help that some of the other cosplayers and minders had already seen the movie the previous day and were having borderline spoilery conversations, which did upset me further. Eventually I calmed down enough, but I was still feeling a little down. It sort of helped that the attendees who are usually normal people are usually the kind to take pictures with the more masked or sith-looking guys or my friend who was masked Kylo so I could usually be left alone.

And finally, it was time to watch the movie and I can still remember how dumb I was for thinking this movie was going to be smart. There was just too much going on and I was so in shock of how poorly written, edited and directed it was. There was hardly any cheer or gasps in my cinema throughout the whole thing, although there were one or two who tried to whoop at the Lucasfilm logo but they kept quiet for the rest of it too. It was such a different experience from the one I had of my first TLJ screening. 80% of the time I just had a blank expression on my face and the only time I sort of got excited for were the Rey and Kylo/Ben scenes, except that ending. I really did not like this movie. I did not feel hopeful at all and the ending the just felt so off. I was relieved to see that I was not the only one who thought of it that way.

This movie effected me so much that I had trouble sleeping, loss of apetite, loss of focus and random bouts of crying in my car for how hollow I felt for about a week+. There was a huge convention on the same weekend and everyone who knew me pretty much came up to me and ask how I was and what I thought about the movie, and a simple glance and head shake was enough to convey how much I felt, and I just did not want to talk about it on a busy con day. But after a busy con weekend, I went in full force on venting it out on Twitter and finding myself in discord support groups and I’m glad I was not alone.

Now it’s been 11 days since I’ve watched TROS and I’ve sort of clamed down from being mad about it. But I don’t think I could accept an ending to a saga for how botched it was which stemmed from fan pandering and corporate greed. But I have never been so proud to be in the Reylo community, who are tirelessly finding concrete evidence on how badly edited it was and just how messy things were behind the scenes. I’m glad to have met all of you and even befriend some thanks to this ship and our love for Rey and Ben Solo and every character in the saga. I am very saddened at how badly treated every character was from Rey to Leia and everyone in between, but it’s not going to stop us from creating good fan content and what we’ve had so far is incredible.

Stay strong and save what we love. ❤

#rant #tros

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gamingsmug157 · 4 years ago

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How to build a cheap powerful gaming pc

50 Most effective Gaming Internet websites To Pay a visit to In 2017

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kyliexc · 5 years ago

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AYOOOOOO, it me, mini from the blockkk ~ and im here to give you a very bratty kid. she’s rude, unfiltered, ride or die and a hell of a fighter. truly, i hate her but i hope you enjoy her and i wanna plot with everyone new and old pls.

chicago’s very own kylie castillo has been spotted on madison avenue driving a bentley continental gt, welcome ! your resemblance to becky g is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty first birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re hot tempered , but being brave might help you . i think being an aries explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be a bottle of patron, messy makeup brushes and a joint. & ( female + she/her ) + ( mini , 23, she/her , est )

We got a pinterest board right here ! Besides that, give this a like and i’ll mssge u!

Basic Information

Full Name: kylie valentina castillo

Nickname(s): ky, kyky, k, kybby

Age: 21

Height: 5 ft

Date of Birth: April 15th 1998

Zodiac sign: aries

Hogwarts house: slythindor (slytherin + gryffindor)

Ethnicity: mexican

Nationality: american

Gender: cis female

Pronouns: she/her

Orientation: bisexual

Religion: agnostic-catholic

Tattoos: a peach on her ass, #2 tramp stamp and canon becky g tattoos

Language(s) Spoken: english + spanish

Accent: american with a hint of spanish

Favourites

Weather: fall

Colour: yellow or pink

Music: sebastian yatra, reik, travis scott,

Movies: halloween or selena

Sport: soccer, basketball, hockey, volleyball

Beverage: tequila

Food: chicken or carne asada tacos

Animal: lions + dogs

Family

Father: alejandro castillo, soccer player (jersey #7)

Mother: lupe castillo (molina), seamstress/designer

Sibling(s): ricky castillo

Step Siblings: jesse james altera, elissa altera

Pet(s): sushi and lola (dogs)

BIOGRAPHY

FAMILY HISTORY

kylie castillo is 2nd generation American, meaning that both pair of her grandparents immigrated to the United States a looong time ago from Mexico, and both her parents grew up in the USA.

Her dad, alejandro castillo grew up in Los Angelos, California working to be a big time soccer player, and he got scouted but he ended up playing for MEXICO, and when he wasn’t playing for the official team, he played for Barcelona FC. So her dad made a name for himself in soccer.

Her mom, lupe castillo molina grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She went to school and started up her own fashion brand, it was small and slowly growing as she was working as a seamstress for different companies all over Chicago. It took awhile to take off, but it did, and she had a shop in Spain bc she was illegal in the US and it was easier to stay in Spain and gain citizenship. ANYWAY, her shop blew up in Europe before getting big in the US.

Both met in Barcelona where lupe was just a fan. it suddenly became more after they got pregnant, and after they married with their first child they decided to settle in Chicago.

They were together until Kylie was 12 years old and her mom started seeing angelo altera, eventually marrying him for a few years. This means that she’s step siblings with lennon james and elissa altera!

That marriage didn’t last that long, so right now both her parents are single, separated and living in different households that share the same customs. EXCEPT, kylie’s mom and dad seem to be sorta reconciling~

lupe castillo currently lives in New York for her step kids and kids while alejandro castillo still resides in Chicago, and sometimes Los Angelos.

WHO IS KYLIE CASTILLO?

kylie was born in Chicago and she had a pretty normal childhood. she grew up in a house with her parents, siblings and grandparents under one household, growing up with hispanic traditions. She grew up speaking latin american spanish meaning she’s bilingual and is 100% PROUD of her ethnicity even though she has been told the typical slurs from ignorant people, but you know, it happens. it’s really only made her stronger as a person.

kylie has always been the closest to her dad and he implemented not just in kylie but in all of his kids that if you work hard you can achieve anything. to not let anyone tell you that you can’t do things. this was especially true with sports. ofc having a soccer player for a dad, kylie was automatically interested in soccer, all of her siblings were and are. they were known as the sports family on the block.

while her dad taught her sports and to toughen up in any situation, by no means does this mean she was a tomboy. she can play a game of soccer in 6 inch heels. if you don’t think so, she’ll prove it to you! So while her soccer interest grew, her mom would introduce kylie to clothes, makeup, cooking. all of that stuff so kylie always knew to be presentable. ‘let them judge you by what you wear so you can prove them wrong with who you are.’ is one of a thousand quotes her mom would tell her about life.

even if kylie grew up comfortable and in a good position, her parents instilled the value that you gotta work hard to get what you want. if you don’t implement blood, sweat and tears, you haven’t earned it. So if you know kylie, she’s a partier mixed with a workaholic sometimes mixed with a UFC Fighter dEKJGDKJFSGH

When her parents broke up, she went on a rebellious streak, more of a streak than the one she’s always on. she had family that weren’t the safest but for kylie it was safe. so she got involved with some shady characters, and she’s done some stufffffffffff. hmu if you wanna know more. FKJGHDFKHGJ that went on for awhile, she was wildin and she settled into her new home with her step siblings and step dad.

Kylie is still very much closer to her dad than her mom but she loves them both, bouncing between houses and states (since her mom lives in NYC now) to hang out with each of them often.

In a grand total, she’s a problem child that just likes to have fun.

CAREER

There was at one point where she wanted to be a soccer player like her dad but for a women’s team. although there were times growing up where she would definitely show guys she could kick their asses in the sport. she still can!

When her dad found out what she wanted, he made sure and he worked with her everyday to make her a better player, EXCEPT, kylie overworks herself, A LOT, even when her dad didn’t schedule practices. it didn’t work out for her in the end because during a game she really messed up her knee where she had to give up the sport.

She was DEVASTATED, and she moped for about a day before she found something else, which was makeup. She actually rlly slowly got into it, watching tutorials, practicing on her lita’s, siblings, tia’s, mom, etc. By networking through her mom’s connections, she landed a couple of gigs to do makeup for a couple of backstage things and movie productions. she was getting around to a lot of stuff.

For awhile she was an MUA, and works with a lot of different people. she doesn’t care who you are as long as you’re chill, but then she wanted to try something different and went into music. She is step siblings to lennon james, and there is a lot of musical influence in her life, so of course she was going to dip into that.

Her style of music is primarily in spanish, targeting that market and since it’s being big in the US, she’s definitely one of the prominent artists since she’s one of the few born in America that makes this type of music. So currently she’s working out stuff with music, working on collaborations, and then doing things in other fields.

Kylie doesn’t believe in limiting herself, if she wants to do something, she’ll do it. She also very much loves to work with charities and going to marches for things she believes in, using her platform for things like that ... even if she isn’t the best person to look up to.

PERSONALITY

kylie is literally F I E R C E. she’s got two types of personalities, one where she’s a home body and loves her family, will beat you in a quick game of soccer. she’s that bubbly girl with the laughter, sarcastic remarks followed by a smirk at the end of it

BUT

she is also that girl that when it’s time to work, she is scary. she knows what she wants, she knows how she wants it and she will get flustered when it’s not like that. she’s got a whole ‘that BIIITCH’ personality, like when she’s on the red carpet, she just has it going for her kind of thing.

but she’s a goof, and that’s something everyone will notice. she loves to make people laugh and smile.

if you’re an asshole, those are her favorite types where she’s just drawn to those people. she really does love a challenge.

A big thing for her is she is really hot tempered. talk shit get hit, is kinda her thing. if you wanna start an argument, don’t expect to come out of it without a scratch on you when you’re with kylie. she just has that mentality that if you don’t wanna talk it out she already has her hands up to start swinging.

If you’re close to her, she will ADORE YOU. This girl is ride or die for anyone she loves, she doesn’t care what you did, or how other people perceive you. if you’re close with kylie, that’s all she cares about. she’s too loyal.

connections?

old school friends

old school enemies

makeup clientele

squad?

ride or die

drunk friends

sibling like friends

exes ( good + bad + messy + angsty )

crushes ?

former lovers to friends

um, anything? let’s brainstorm ! :)

#i wrote a whole ass novel again #some things changed #ish #FDKJGHDKF #wealthyhq:intro

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cutesuki--bakugou · 6 years ago

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Shameful

Pairing: Bakugou x Koge (OC)

Koge’s Tag

Rating: Teen, for cursing and suggestive conversation

Word Count: 4,309

Me 3:09 PM: Hey love, I just got off the train. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, okay?

Cutesuki 3:11 PM: ok. just show the guard at the door your id, theyll let you in.

Me 3:11 PM: What, they don’t know who I am by now? （＾ｖ＾）

Cutesuki 3:12 PM: utsuro theyre just following my rules. you could be a shapeshifter coming to try and kill me.

Me 3:12 PM: Ooh, true. (¬‿¬) But what if I have a fake ID, too?

Cutesuki 3:14 PM: they can tell. ill order you an access badge.

Me 3:15 PM: So I can come whenever I want?! (⊙ᗜ⊙)

Cutesuki 3:15 PM: not if you act like that you cant.

Me 3:16 PM: Oh, sorry. I’ll be stoic. (・∀・) And mean. All your employees will hate me.

Cutesuki 3:16 PM: probably

Me 3:17 PM: Uh, I was joking! (ｰｰ;)

Cutesuki 3:17 PM: lol

Koge gave a small roll of her eyes, placing her phone back into her jacket pocket. The chill of the mid winter air fogged her breath, making her feel like she was walking through clouds. Why the weather decided to get so awful on her day off was beyond her, but she hated it. Not only was it her day off, she also had special plans that involved a lot of walking. The act of walking isn’t want got to her, but the fact that it was so cold her nose felt like it was frozen solid did. Even though she was wrapped head to toe in warm clothing, the petite woman felt like an icicle, and the thought of stopping at an approaching coffee shop peaked her interest.

Hm, coffee sounds good, she thought to herself. I wonder if Katsuki would want something. It’s a bit late in the afternoon, but he’s probably worn out. I’ll get him one.

Ducking into the shop, Koge got herself a nice hot cup of straight black coffee and Bakugou his odd mixture of what he always preferred. The man liked spicy coffee, which really wasn’t all that much of a surprise to her, though she couldn’t help but pick on him for his enjoyment of it. There was always the retaliation that she was a freak for liking straight black coffee, which was just as bitter as her personality.

‘That’s okay,’ Koge would always tell him, sly grin on her face. ‘You’re married to me, so you must like my bitter personality.’

Sipping on the hot bitterness from her cup, Koge continued down the sidewalk after her purchase, her body warmed by the drink. She wasn’t the only one to relish in the joy, however, as there was a series of movements from her swollen abdomen. “Oof, chill out there, girl.” Koge whispered quietly to the frozen air. “You always get way too excited when I drink coffee.” Rounding a corner, Koge’s gaze was pulled towards the large building across the street at the end of the block.

Damn, it was ugly. A huge, industrial style with very few windows, and it almost made Koge think that it had popped right out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The thing looked like it could withstand a bomb, with thick dark grey concrete, pipes and steel decorating the exterior. Yes, it was architecturally brilliant, but that didn’t make Koge thing it was any less ugly. Still, it was noticeable, recognizable and marketed perfectly for who worked inside. This had been the first time she had seen this new building, as her lover had just finished construction of this new firm headquarters and moved his entire team just a week ago.

After carefully crossing the street, Koge made her way to what she assumed was the entrance, noticing the two guards standing outside chatting. They seemed quite lax, something that Koge knew Bakugou might snap at them about, but she decided to keep it to herself. Conversation coming to a halt as she approached, one guard whom she was familiar with gave her a welcoming smile. Although this middle aged man had a kind face, Koge had seen him take down people with no mercy or hesitation. She liked him enough, and if Bakugou trusted him, then she could as well.

“Hello, Koge! Come to see the new building, eh?” He held out his hand, not in a way to shake hands, but was silently asking for her ID. Koge nodded, handing both of the coffee cups out towards the other guard, who took them from her. “Hold those, please? And yeah, it’s finally my day off so I can come see it.” After digging through her pocket, she removed her wallet and fished out her ID, giving it to the waiting man before her. He took it, turning on a small flashlight and shining it on the plastic.

“How’s the kiddo?”

“Ah, he’s with his grandparents today. The other is still latched to me.” Koge patted her swollen belly gently, waiting patiently for the return of her ID. With a small chuckle, the guard handed it back to her, turning off his flashlight and placing it back into his pocket. “Not for too much longer. Head on in, I think he’s in his office on the top floor. If not his secretary will tell you.” While Koge put her ID away, he flashed a badge to a sensor on the wall, the large glass doors sliding open with a beep. Koge took her coffee back, heading inside after thanking the two men.

Ooh, secretary. How spoiled. But, he deserves it. He’s worked so hard to get to this point, and so quickly, too. He’s only twenty-seven and his hero firm has grown this huge! I’m so proud of him.

Much to her surprise, the inside of the building was a much more modern industrial style than the outside, with polished concrete and stylish brick walls. The furniture in the lobby matched the style, with red, orange and army green accents. How cute, he sure did decide to keep to his brand. I love it.

After a quick trip up the elevator, Koge followed the signs to Bakugou’s office. Before she could get in, she found she had to stop at a large desk, with three women sitting behind it, all doing computer work. Only gaining the attention of one of them when she approached the desk, she had to stand up on her toes to see the woman better. “Hi, I’m here to see Katsuki?”

The woman had visible surprise on her face at the use of Bakugou’s first name, cocking her head to the side a bit. “I’m sorry, but he’s in a meeting at this time with his Public Relations Manager. Were you… Did you have a meeting with him as well?”

Koge felt a twinge of annoyance at the mention of the PR person, giving a small cough to clear her throat. “I’m his wife. He’s expecting me.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but--”

“Yeah, no buts. Buzz me in, please.” Koge started towards the large doors that she assumed were the entrance, stopping at them when they still did not open. She glared over her shoulder at the women, who were glancing between themselves in confusion. “Buzz me in. Believe me, he likes me a lot more than caring about the slight inconvenience it would take to replace you.”

The woman that had spoken to her first gave a small cough to clear her throat, trying to stay firm. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but his Public Relations Manager stated that they should not be disturbed.”

Koge gave an annoyed click of her tongue. “I’m sure she did. You’re really going to fight with me on this one, huh?” Placing both cups of coffee down on a small decorative table that rested at the edge of the doors, she pulled out her phone.

Me 3:32 PM: Your little brats out here won’t let me in. They say your PR lady told them to not let anyone in.

Within the minute, the doors opened, an obviously annoyed Bakugou standing in the doorway. His glare was immediately locked on the women at the desk, who shifted about nervously in their chairs. The main one spoke up, quickly standing to show him respect. “I-I’m sorry, sir, it’s just that Ms. Ito--”

“I don’t care what she said. I gave you permission to let this woman in, did I not?” Bakugou approached Koge, noticing the coffee and picking it up for her. “Yours?” He addressed her directly, his expression softening. Koge smiled, giving a small nod. “And yours.”

The woman at the desk he had addressed gave a low bow. “I’m sorry, Sir! It won’t happen again!” Bakugou started back through the large doors, Koge at his heels. ��We’ll discuss it later.” Koge didn’t have time to see the reactions of the women as the doors snapped shut behind them, looking up at her lover curiously. “Are they new?”

Bakugou sighed, giving a nod as they made their way down a small hallway, which displayed his awards, trophies, paper certificates and permits. “Yes. Well, a few months at least. But they are scared of Ito. Everyone here thinks she’s vice president or some shit when she’s literally only the PR person. Irritates me.” In his frustration, he brought up one of the cups of coffee, taking a sip before Koge could tell him it was the wrong one. The cringe that crossed his features as he swallowed the bitter black water made her giggle, and he quickly handed the cup to her. “Ugh, fuck that shit is gross!”

Laughing, Koge took the cup, watching as he downed a large gulp of his coffee to rid himself of the taste. “Aw, it is not. Yours is the one that’s gross.” Bakugou shook his head, giving a satisfied hum. “No way, it’s good. Thanks.” He held the ID that hung around his neck up to a sensor, the door opening for them. Once open, Koge’s gaze immediately landed on the obviously flustered woman that stood beside a large dry erase board, impatiently tapping her foot.

Koge couldn’t believe how much she wanted to kick this womans ass, just from looking at her. Sure, she knew that anyone who worked so directly with Bakugou needed to be strong willed and stubborn, but this woman wasn’t just that. She truly was the definition of a bitch.

“Sir, please, this really can’t wait.” Ito addressed Bakugou the instant he returned, pointing a marker to the board to bring attention to her writing. “I need you to approve these appointments so that I can get them paid for and scheduled.” Bakugou sighed, placing his coffee down on his desk before glaring at the annoying white board that he hated. “Why do you have to bring that stupid board in here? I hate looking at things on it, why can’t you just give it to me digitally.”

“This is the best way for me to explain myself to you, and I can easily put posters or flyers on the back side for you to see. It’s not the same when looking at them digitally.” The woman adjusted her glasses, tapping the board with her marker. “Just come read these ideas and let me know what you think.”

Koge read the information on the board as she removed her outer layers of clothing, setting them down on a couch against the wall. “He said that he would prefer the information digitally. Don’t you think you should listen to your boss?” Ito shot a sharp glare at her, tapping her nails against the plastic of the marker in her hand. “I know what works best for him, I’ve been doing this job for ten years, three of them being for this firm. I’d appreciate you keeping your comments to yourself.”

Bakugou shared a glance with Koge that told her to keep it down, to which she begrudgingly agreed with a huff. Arms crossing over her chest, she let them rest on her swollen belly, making her way closer to Bakugou’s desk as he read aloud what was on the board.

“Poster series… Blankets and shit…. More magazine stuff? No--” Bakugou shook his head, moving around the desk to his chair. “After the last magazine shoot, I don’t want to do that shit again.” He pulled the chair out from under the desk, motioning for Koge to sit. She did so happily, leaning back in the plush leather that comfortably supported her aching back. “Oh god, that last magazine thing was terrible! When they were done it didn’t even look like him.” Koge reached up to take his hand gently, which he allowed. “He looked better in the one before that, but… It was so saucy we couldn’t even show our son, who has been excited that his dad is in magazines since he knew what they were.”

Ito cleared her throat, removing Koge’s chance to speak again. “The last magazine was a huge hit. Another series is in serious demand, the public want more of that content.” Koge narrowed her eyes, a bit suspicious of this. “The public… or women? You do realize that Katsuki’s main demographic is teenage and young adult males, right?”

“The men go for the interviews and the women go for the pictures. If it makes money and doesn’t ruin his image, than it works.” Ito grabbed the top of the whiteboard, pulling it down so that the other side was visible. Koge let out a sharp laugh, annoyed and amused at the mock posters and photographs taped to the board. “Doesn’t ruin his image? Do you even realize how those types of things make him look?” With quite a bit of effort, she stood, waddling her way towards the board to see the images better.

Bakugou took her place in the chair, rubbing his temple. “Koge, it’s alright, it does work.” With a shake of her head, his lover pointed to one of the posters that had him displayed in a provocative pose, with just his mask on as the image stopped right at his hips. “No. This doesn’t even look like you at all. Look how skinny! You’re not thin like that.”

“What? I’m not fat—“

“That’s not what I’m saying! You’re… you’re buff Katsuki, you’re not a rail like this. I’m not saying you’re fat. But you’re body doesn’t look like this.” Koge looked up at Ito, the woman towering over her. “Why do you let them photoshop him so much?”

Ito gave a small huff, looking away from Koge, as if she were an eyesore. “I have no control over what the magazine company wants to do.”

“Not true, you have to approve it, like you are now. Katsuki, you haven’t noticed that?” Koge looked over towards her husband, who looked like he was about to throw them both out. “I don’t usually give a shit. I don’t notice how much they change me, if they do.”

“They do. I don’t know why they would. This is so much better.” Koge moved her finger to another poster, of Bakugou in mid battle. “This is how he should look. All scuffed up, angry and strong. He’s not a little sissy boy.”

Ito shook her head, pointing to a number above the sexier poster. “Look at this number, it’s higher than the one for that poster. That means that this style is more sought after—“

“By that demographic. By young adult women and teenage girls.” Koge made her way back over to Bakugous desk, opening a marketing binder that rested there. “You have numbers in here I’m sure and percentages based on different groups of people…” Bakugou watched her, but didn’t intervene. “Hm, you’re right, Koge. I’m pretty sure that eighty seven percent of my fan base isn’t into that shit.”

“They’re not! They can’t be—“ Koge was cut off by Ito snatching the binder back, holding it to her chest. “That’s company data! You can’t look at this.”

“I’ll have you know she can.” Bakugou snapped back. “Who do you think helps me with numbers and making decisions? I trust her more than a room of CEO air heads any day. Show her your numbers, I’m interested in what she’s talking about.”

“But Sir—“

“Fine, then let me see them.” He held his hand out towards her, to which Ito reluctantly handed the binder over. Bakugou flipped though it for a minute as Koge came around the desk to join him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “I’m pretty positive that data is being pulled from demographic percentages depending on age, gender and location. Here, see.” Koge put an accusing finger on a chart. “Eighty seven percent of women from age sixteen to twenty three want more of that photoshop nonsense. But that age group is only thirty something percent of your fan base.”

Koge gave Ito a glance, noticing that she wasn’t going to give in to this. “I think you’re trying to cater to a group of people that doesn’t really matter all that much. Or maybe…” She placed her hand on the top of Bakugou’s head, ruffling his hair gently. “Maybe to things that you want to see, huh?” Ito’s face instantly flushed red. “What?! Who do you think you are, to say something like that to me! That is absolutely ridiculous!”

“I don’t think it is. I think you’re taking advantage of his ignorance when it comes to the marketing side of his brand. That’s why he hired you, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He may be smart, but he has no time to deal with that type of nonsense.” Koge moved her hand down to Bakugou’s back, a bit surprised that he was so quiet about all of this. “You say you know what’s best for him? You aren’t even listening to what he wants, what he likes, or even what the majority of his demographic wants.”

Heading back to the board, Koge pointed at the image of him in battle. “Look at this. Look at how both sexy and strong he looks. His body is completely unedited, his costume is a bit ripped in places. He’s sweaty and grungy and that glare is enough to make the ladies need to change their underwear. But that is a woman looking at it. A man, or a young boy aspiring to be a hero, would look at this and think, he looks so cool. So badass. So strong. Okay sure, some men might fight him sexy and a lot of women will find him powerful.” She shared an amused glance with her lover, who only glared at her with his ears red in embarrassment.

“You release that?” She gestured to the more sexual image, disgust crossing her features. “You’re only going to hit a small percentage of his fan base. But this?” Again, she slapped her entire palm over the more powerful poster. “You release this and you will hit everyone. Because this is sexy and powerful. If you respected him and his image, you wouldn’t be making him do the sex appeal thing.” Koge let out a long breath, feeling a bit winded from her ranting. “He might be attractive, but not in that type of way. That’s more of a pretty-boy type of thing.”

Ito shook her head, hands firmly on her hips. “I don’t agree. I think you just don’t want your husband half naked out for the world to see.” Koge sputtered an amused laugh, both hands on her stomach as the child inside wiggled about. “Listen lady, I could care less what other women see of him. Because only I get the full show. Get it? That man on the poster isn’t even my Katsuki. It’s a fake. Where are his scars? They even smoothed out some of the muscle lines to make him look less muscular!” Koge glared up at the taller women, who finally seemed on the edge of breaking.

“You have no right to come in here and criticize me for doing my job.”

“But you’re not doing your job. You know, I don’t like you.” Koge made her way back over to Bakugou, who stood and once again gave her his chair to sit, which she accepted gladly. “Ever since Katsuki hired you. For petty things at first, like at one point I was really upset that you and him were constantly going on trips. I was jealous that you got to see him all the time when I didn’t. But now, I just realize that you’re awful.” She took a sip of her coffee, glad to see that it was still warm. “It’s so obvious that you’re taking advantage of his ignorance of what needs to be done for his image. I’m not going to let you do that to him.”

Ito was red faced now, completely flustered and embarrassed at being called out. Koge didn’t care. But, she also didn’t want to cause discourse in Bakugous firm.

“But… I will admit that on the things that don’t involve him with his tits out, you do very well. The meet ‘n greets, the autographs, his book, his interviews, they’re all fantastic. So you do know how to do your job. I truly think that this is just a hiccup driven by personal desire.” Koge closed the binder in front of her, pushing it back over towards Ito, who was staring at Koge in surprise.

“You can have a crush on my husband all you want.” Koge spoke quite curt, planning on getting her point across the first time. “But you won’t have him. So if that was your goal, this little sexy series? I truly hope it stops here. Every once in a while, sure, let him model underwear for an ad because he’s got a nice butt. I won’t be quiet the next time I see him being degraded like that.” She looked up at Bakugou, who was staring down at her with intense focus. She gave him a small smile, effectively breaking him out of his daze. “Do you agree with me, Katsuki?”

Bakugou turned his crimson glare to Ito, who was standing there red faced and leaking guilt. “This is something I just didn’t even notice… I just thought it was all normal, I hear about that half and half bastard doing this shit, and even Deku.” Koge nodded, opening one of his drawers to peek into it curiously. “Mhmm, but that’s a part of their look. Of their brand. They’re pretty boys. You are raw power, Katsuki. Believe me, women find that just as attractive as your fake photoshopped abs.” She pulled out a stress ball that resembled his gauntlets, beginning to squeeze it and pass it between both hands. “I love these. Another good decision you helped make, Ito.”

Ito only gave a small nod. “I won’t let it happen again. But… these are already almost finished contracts. We can’t back out of them, now, these companies will never work with us again.” Bakugou sighed, moving to stroke Koge’s hair gently as he thought. Then, as she looked up at him, an idea crossed his mind.

“Koge. We’ve never done anything, have we?”

“Eh?” Koge felt a bit of heat rush to her cheeks, giving a small shake of her head. “N-no…” Bakugou looked back over towards Ito, nodding to motion her to come over. “Change the contacts, to do do a family shoot and interviews.” Koge took his hand, a bit of worry creasing her brow. “Are you sure? Is that safe?”

“No one knows where we live, not even the people that work here. I want to do it, with you and Matsu.” He held her hand tightly, the excited interest on his face filling Koge’s stomach with butterflies. Smiling she kissed the back of his hand. “Okay. Let’s do it, then.”

As Ito came up to take her binder, Bakugou put his hand on it, stopping her. “Make it happen, Ito. Though, we will have to discuss your behavior further. I can’t just let it go.” Ito nodded, taking her binder when Bakugou released it. “Yes, sir. I’ll have the contact sent to you digitally for review. Thank you for… not firing me right off the bat.”

“I wouldn’t want him to fire you.” Koge spoke up, catching the womans attention. “Like I said, you do your job well. All of this that he has is with your help. But you gotta stop the thirst.”

“Y-yes, Ma’am. I don’t want to be rude, but… for someone so small, you’re kind of scary.”

“I’m married to Katsuki. I have to be a little scary, right?”

“I suppose…” With another bow, the woman left with her dry erase board in tow, the wheels making an annoying squeak as they rolled. When she was finally gone, Koge sighed, turning the chair to face Bakugou. “Holy shit, Katsuki, what was that creature.”

Bakugou scoffed, leaning over the chair a bit, gripping the arm rests for support. “Utsuro, that is what is known as a woman with a huge crush on the big boss who’s married and is still trying to get into his pants.”

“She’s icky. I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“You were right, though. Thanks.” He placed a kiss on the top of her head, moving his hands to caress her belly. “How’s she?” Koge placed her hands over his, smile crossing her lips. “She’s great, Katsuki. She’s been a little wiggly thing all day, though.” Bakugou nodded, able to feel the child against his palms. “It’s because you’re all worked up. How about a tour?”

“I’d like that, Katsuki. After a kiss. Or two.”

“Or ten.”

“You know me too well.”

#bnha writing blog #bnha scenarios #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakugou x oc #bnha fanfiction #bnha #my hero academia #fanfiction #oc #original character #koge #cutesuki scenarios #personal writing

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wannawritefast · 6 years ago

Text

The Crown of Brooklyn

A/N: Hey! I have recently become obsessed with the mobster!AU. And I haven’t written for our beloved Cap in a while. So I did a thing. I hope you like my thing. I certainly like this thing. I’m tagging @caplansteverogers cuz I love her and she inspired me to write this! Feedback is appreciated and, once again, requests are OPEN. xoxo, Echo

Warnings: Death (including death of a single mother of a young girl), blood, violence, alcohol use, mentions of sexual harassment and rape, attempted roofie

You grew up amongst crime. Your father was involved in a mob in Brooklyn and your mother worked as a spy for them. Your parents would have been more surprised if you didn’t enter into the life of crime in Brooklyn than if you had.

Unfortunately, they died when you were in your teens but it came with the territory and you easily made peace with the fact that they had died doing what they chose to do. And you made easier peace with the fact that you wanted in.

Somehow you infiltrated the mob that had taken out your parents and investigated their deaths. But rather than take out the boss you became family of sorts to him.

He never had children and always wanted kids of his own (something about scaring any possible wives away with revealing his job). He held you close as he got old. He doted on you as if you were his own daughter and you were the little princess of the mob. When he passed away he passed his job to you: his only child and the young queen of one of the most powerful mobs in Brooklyn.

As you rose to power you evolved the mob into something different, something unprecedented; you focused your mob on the women. You cleaned out the plague of oppression in strip clubs still keeping them standing but actually taking care of your workers and recutting their pay to be fair. The strippers enjoyed their jobs but not the harassment that came with it.

You swapped out your heist squad with inconspicuous girls. Overall you found that they just did the jobs better.

You didn’t kill the men or condemn any of your girls that wanted to pursue relationships. But any men that continued to treat you or your girls like garbage after fair warning to change their ways were taken out immediately.

Your numbers grew quickly. Women on the streets of Brooklyn were terrific allies. You became a guardian angel of sorts to the women that had been taken advantage of, harassed, and violated. Even though Brooklyn was high in crime, the numbers for rape, sexual harassment, and domestic abuse went down and the perpetrators were dealt with seemingly overnight. Even when you left Brooklyn to travel, your destination was cleansed of their sexual assault perpetrators. Your reputation traveled around the world as much as you did and you became influential.

The archetype that women were catty and two-faced was only true in movies as far as your experience was concerned. You took care of your girls and they helped you in many more ways than you could have possibly imagined. Who knew girl positivity and togetherness could be so powerful?

Your team was built of the most boss women you had ever possibly met. As it turned out you had assembled the best weapons engineers, self defense trainers, and hackers the city had seen and it was all underneath everyone’s noses because you were girls. And they were your girls. The mutual dependency made everyone close and your sisterhood type of bond rivaled that of sororities. Let’s just say Elle Woods would be proud.

Under the moniker of Juno, the queen of the Roman gods, you made it a point to learn hand-to-hand combat (anything with a blade became your new favorite) and trained those in your care. Soon enough, grown men cried in fear of the women they so commonly threw aside in their pursuits of power. Bitches had never been so feared in all of Brooklyn.

The Bitches specialized in diamonds. Your black market sales made incredible amounts of money and you made sure that your girls were paid before you were. Your new weapons became something that the other gangs sought after and, in exchange for providing arms, they offered protection and backup when jobs needed to get done.

The gangs of the world soon had a soft spot for The Bitches and the scariest mob bosses took you under their wings. You joined them for family dinners and to much of them you were like an adoptive daughter or sister. They understood that you didn't get involved in bad blood feuds between the other gangs but saw you as family nonetheless. Enemies were powerful but nothing beats the power of friends. Naturally it came as no surprise when your gang became the most successful in all of Brooklyn.

Well… Steve Rogers and his goons wouldn’t agree with that. But who gives a fuck about him?

The two of you hated each other. Although you never dared attack the other, it was abundantly clear that you were oil and water. You didn’t mix. Something about power-crazed mob leaders that had equally large egos and self-assurance in their abilities. You never interacted with him and you liked it that way.

Your assistant pinged your BlueTooth earpiece in the middle of a meeting. “Juno, we have a situation.”

With your codename ringing in your ear (in case your lines were tapped), you raised your manicured finger to the businessmen in the room, demanding a moment. “Can it wait?”

She took a deep breath. “Not really…”

“Why?” You asked suspiciously.

“It’s Rogers…”

“Fuck him,” you said, with no hesitation and returned to speaking to your audience again.

“He’s here.”

You paused. That made you stop in your tracks. Your skin prickled and blood boiled at the mere sound of his name. “He’s here? Why the fuck is he here?” You spat. The people around the table all jumped.

“It’s one of our girls.”

Oh hell to the no… Without a second thought you slammed the projector remote into the table and shattered it. A part of the glass table rained down with it as you stalked for the door.

“Meeting dismissed,” you growled as you threw open the door and it banged against the wall. The hinges snapped off the threshold. “I have a dead motherfucker to deal with.”

You smoothed your white jacket and pencil skirt and cracked your neck as you unholstered your vintage pistol.

Your assistant met you down the hallway. Victoria was your temper control, thank god for that.

Seeing your warpath, she immediately slowed you. “It wasn’t him or any of his men.”

It sated you a little bit but you were still fuming. He knew better than to just show up uninvited, unannounced. What kind of bullshit was this? “Then who’s responsible?”

“I didn’t tell you who was taken out…”

“Doesn’t matter. Whoever did it is going to pay with their life.” With that, you pushed past her and into the room where Rogers and his boys presumably were. You couldn’t believe that he thought he could just waltz in here on your turf as if he owned the place. You shoved the door open and were met with four men all looking at you, two out of the three startled.

“Well, hello to you too,” James prompted. Your eyes immediately landed on Steve, the bastard. He only blinked casually at your storming.

“Shut it, Barnes!” You snarled. “Start talking Rogers. Why the fuck are you here?”

Your rival mob boss stared you down cooly. Two alpha personalities in one room created a volatile environment. Especially with Steve motherfucking Rogers. “Cursing isn’t becoming of a lady,” he mocked.

“Well, it's a good thing that I’m not a lady, Rogers. I’m your worst nightmare.” You got in his face, the white of your suit contrasting the volatility of your temper.

“I’m the King. I’m your worst nightmare.” He got in your face right back and stared you down right back with his light blue eyes that contrasted his pitch black suit.

“Yeah, you’re both nightmares. Get a room some other time,” your jaw dropped as your head snapped to one of his cronies… Sam. “Meanwhile we have a real problem.”

You bristled a bit and you weren’t sure if the wave of heat that washed over you was embarrassment or anger but you brushed it aside. “Please! Steve wishes he could.” You glanced at the boss standing next to you. He narrowed his eyes at you. “That’s not important right now though.” Taking a deep breath, you prepared yourself for the damage and nodded at Victoria to fill you in.

“There were two bodies discovered at 3 AM this morning at our docks. One of them was a Rogers cronie… a man known as Phillip.” Steve gulped beside you as Victoria continued. “The second was one of our own… Cleo.”

Your heart dropped at the announcement but you took a deep breath. “What were they fighting over?”

Victoria shook her head. “They weren’t fighting.” You cocked an eyebrow. “They were sniped. In fact, our intel tells us that the cron- uh- Phillip was planning on proposing later that evening… to Cleo.”

You needed to sit down. Cleo had disclosed to you that she was dating someone new. Someone who actually loved her… and her daughter. Her daughter… She didn’t tell you he was a Rogers goon. You felt sick to your stomach.

“Her daughter is with a social worker. I sent Florence over there already to get her situated in the meantime and I… um… I have custody papers when you’re ready to look over them and-”

You cut her off with a motion of your hand. That was a matter you would take care of later. “Any word from our private investigator?”

“Actually,” Sam interjected, “we sent in our P.I. as well… And there’s reason to believe that there’s a new mob in Brooklyn and they want your titles.”

“‘Titles?’ What do you mean ‘titles?’” You interrupted Sam.

“We mean they want you and Steve…” He drew a line with his finger across his neck.

“We don’t… We aren’t working together. Does this new gang have any brains whatsoever? Do they know that we’re not allied?”

“Yeah.” James spoke this time. “They just don’t care. And they’re getting bolder.”

Steve crossed his arms and spoke. “They took out one of our artifact ships last week. It was leaving our harbor on the way to pick some up and they exploded it. 150 meters from the docks. It was a power play.”

You took a deep breath. “What does this mean for us?” You asked. “Why do I care? For all I know this is a ploy by you to take me out.”

“Y/n,” he addressed you, softer than usual. Steve always called you by Juno when he did talk to you. This was serious. “There were two bullets… in each.”

You gulped. One would have been a coincidence. Two… was not an accident. Especially if Phillip was sniped. “You’re sure it's the new gang?”

“They signed off on the deaths. They took credit for it,” Sam interjected.

“I wouldn’t be asking for help unless there was a real threat here…” Steve turned to you, his face dead serious. “In fact, you’d probably be the last person I went to in conflict. They want my crown and power and will do anything to get it. Including take down threats, like you and me. I will not let them tread on innocent bystanders and pull civilians into the crossfire.”

His eyes held a certain plea. You hadn’t seen any expression close to this one cross his features. Ever. Although you would rather be arrested than help Steve under normal circumstances, this was not normal. And deep down you knew that you needed his help just as much as he needed yours, if the speculations about the new gang were to be believed. No matter how much either of you would want to deny that you needed help at all.

“Fine,” you agreed, “I’ll help.” A smirk pulled on the corner of Steve’s mouth. You pulled the whiskey in the glass vial off the alcohol shelf in the room and, after taking a swig, you poured it into five glasses. You maintained eye contact as you offered a glass to the mob boss standing in front of you.

“If your men or their families don’t feel safe, I can set them up a space. Just say the word.” Everyone in the room now had their glass. Victoria merely held hers respectfully but didn’t drink. She was never any fun. But Steve downed it in one go and returned the glass to you to be refilled. “It’s nothing Juno can’t do. But there’s something you should know, Steve.”

You refilled it generously. “I wear the crown here. Not you…”

“I hope you know, Steve, that this doesn’t mean I trust you.” You were seated in the booth of one of Steve’s restaurants: a swanky joint with invite access only. Tonight it was empty except for you, Steve, and the “up and coming” mob boss who was running late.

You smoothed your long red dress and subconsciously ran your fingers over your garter knife holster, just in case. Tapping your painted fingernails on the white-clothed table you took a sip of the red wine offered to you. The diamond necklace perched on your collar bones was a comforting weight but still did little to calm the small bout of anxiety in your system.

“I know it doesn’t. I still don’t trust you either.” Steve unbuttoned and rolled the botSteves of his shirt sleeves. He adjusted his red handkerchief. The two of you truly hadn’t intended on matching. It just happened. “God, he was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago…”

“Steve,” you started. He turned toward you and for a moment you realized how nice he looked. Only for a moment. “If I die tonight, the hit is going on your head.”

“You’re not going to die,” Steve grabbed his whiskey and took a sip as he reclined back and crossed an ankle over his knee. “It’ll be fine.”

You scoffed as you pulled your pocket mirror out of your clutch, which conveniently had bullets in it, and were reminded of the 1930’s style mini-pistol securely lodged in the middle of your chest. With the mirror flicked open you dabbed at your lipstick delicately with your finger.

“You look good. I have no idea what you’re fussing over.” Steve commented as he lightly scratched his nose. Was that a compliment? Your eyes shot to him in shock.

“Did Steve Rogers, the second best mob boss in Brooklyn, just compliment me?” You hovered a hand over your red lips in exaggerated surprise.

He rolled his eyes at you and was about to respond when the door to the dining room was thrown open. Steve and yourself stared at the swaggering young man who strode to your table.

“Sorry I’m late,” he breathed, but there was no apology in his tone whatsoever. “Traffic.” He snapped his fingers at one of the waiters and ordered vodka. The young man briefly sized you up by running his eyes unabashedly up and down your frame before turning to face Steve. What a pig… “So what seems to be the issue? I was invited here by the esteemed Steven Rogers with no explanation. I’m not complaining, by any means. But I do think you called me here for a reason,” his eyes landed on you again. “The eye candy is incredible by the way. How much is she?” He leaned forward with a smirk. Your jaw dropped in disbelief. Who did he think he was?

“She’s not for sale, asshole,” Steve asserted. He had his eyes narrowed at the little shit. The blood roared in your ears as the man’s vodka was set on the table. Your temper was no longer amiable. There was blood in the water now and you and Steve were honing in on your prey like you had a thousand times before.

You patted one of Steve’s clenched fists that was resting on the table. “Don’t worry, Steve. I’ve got this…” Your fingers wrapped around your wine glass and brought it to your matching lips. “Darling, you wish you could afford me.”

The man chuckled darkly as he ran a hand through his hair. “Ah, I see. No, don’t worry. I can respect an arrangement. Hey, sweetheart, tell your-”

“I’m not a messenger,” you sipped your wine. “And Steve and I have no arrangement. But I’ll tell you what can be arranged: a bounty on your head… or a hit. Your choice really.”

The man leaned forward threateningly. “I’m sorry but are you in any position to be making threats, whore?”

You blinked slowly and ever so slightly pulled down the top left side of your dress to reveal a tattoo of a minimalist crown: your unmistakable emblem of power. His reaction went from anger to lust to nervousness in mere seconds. The man gulped harshly as he downed his vodka and strained to keep his eyes challenging. You pulled the fabric back up and tapped Steve’s hand again. “I’ll let you cut back in, Steve.”

It was your turn to lean back once Steve took the reins. As he leaned forward you saw the amused sideways smile he had directed at you before it turned bloodthirsty. Something about watching it happen caused you to stir a little.

“You should really think about who you threaten before you do it. But you won’t have to worry about that anymore.” Steve poured himself more whiskey.

“Why-why is that?” The man stammered as his hands found his lap. This guy thought we wouldn’t retaliate…

“Because you’re going to shut down your sorry charade, pack your things, and leave Brooklyn.” Steve stared the man down. “And never come back.”

A waiter set down a tiramisu in front of you, Steve, and this sad excuse for a gang boss looking like he was going to wet himself.

You decided to speak up again. You stuck your fork in the rich slab of custard, coffee, and pastry. “Did you think you could take out my best programmer, yank her daughter away from her only stability in life, and not deal with the wrath of her aunties, one of which is Juno, the Mob Queen of Brooklyn?”

“I-I have a-uh-a sniper.” The man stuttered. He was grabbing for straws.

“I’m sorry,” Steve piped up. He stretched his arm closest to you out and laid it on the rim of the booth. “But are you in any position to be making threats, you son of a bitch?”

You chuckled at Steve’s response. “You’ve got two options: my way or Steve’s. Which one would you prefer?” You swirled the dark liquid in its glass.

“The latter.”

You nodded in agreement. “I thought so.”

The scoop of tiramisu on your fork tasted delicious. You watched the man in front of you wear regret on his face. This man was not cut out for the mob life. He wore his emotions too outwardly. You were doing him a favor really.

“Did you honestly think that you could threaten the two most powerful people in Brooklyn and get away with it?” Steve asked as he began eating the dessert in front of him.

The man only stared at his dessert contemplatively. You went back to your clutch to check your phone. But before the screen could even turn on, there was a clatter at the table in front of you.

You, startled by the sudden commotion, looked back up. The man’s hand was hovering over your wine glass with a tiny vial clutched in his fingers. A roofie bottle. Steve had one hand wrapped around the man’s wrist and the other had a gun pressed against the man’s temple. Steve was staring the man down, a deadly look in his blue eyes.

You couldn’t stop yourself from shaking with rage. In one swift motion you pulled your pistol out of your dress and stood up, knocking the table over. It toppled to the side noisily and the sound of utensils, plates, and glasses hitting the tile floor echoed through the empty room.

You pointed the gun at his forehead and a humorless laugh escaped your lungs. “You motherfucker… Looks like we’re doing this my way. Any last words?”

The man looked at you like he was a man with nothing to lose: the most dangerous look in the world. “You’re a bitch,” he spat. Quicker than a blink he drew a knife from his jacket and stabbed it into your outer thigh.

You screamed in pain and your leg began to give out for a few seconds. You supported yourself before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, I am.” And with those words you fired your gun.

The man slumped lifelessly in the booth and rolled to the side onto the floor. You dropped your pistol to the booth and fell back into the seat. You stared at the knife protruding from your leg with a wince.

Steve stepped over the legs of the fallen table and got to the other side of you. Your head was now thrown back against the rim of the booth, trying to manage the sharp pain running up and down your right leg. Maybe if you didn’t look at it it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

“Are you ok? Can you walk?” His voice sounded. Your eyes were clenched shut in pain.

“I have a knife in my leg, Steve… What do you think?” You brought your neck back up. There was a knife in your leg. The only thought going through your head is that it would be a good idea if the knife was removed. You reached your hand to grab the handle. But Steve’s hand grabbed yours to stop it.

“You’re not thinking right. Don’t touch the knife or you’ll lose more blood,” You nodded in agreement. That made more sense you supposed. He yelled for his guard to call one of his medical cars. His guard raced off noting the urgency of the situation. “You need to lie down. Come on. Let’s get you to the floor.”

You nodded through the nausea and lightheadedness that was seizing you and helped Steve help you to the black tile floor. Keeping your leg as still as possible, you used the rest of your body to slide off the booth.

“It’s gonna be a few minutes,” Steve remarked softly. You were laying on the ground now and your vision was starting to sparkle a little bit. “Let me get you more comfortable.”

Steve was remaining calm as he took off his jacket and threw it over your torso. He began unbuttoning his dress shirt leaving him in a wife beater. His dress shirt was quickly rolled up and stuck underneath your head. You closed your eyes and took deep breaths, not daring to look at your thigh.

“Steve?” You inquired. You could feel yourself slipping out of consciousness.

“Yeah?”

“Can you take off my heels please?”

“Yeah…” You felt the shoes get pulled off your feet but any pleasure that it may have provided was overpowered by the agonizing pain in your leg.

“Steve. I think I’m going to pass out.” You warned. Your hand latched on Steve’s. His opened to accommodate yours. It felt nice.

“You’ve gotta stay awake or… I’ll… I’ll take your crown.” He offered. His tone wasn’t serious but you appreciated the effort.

“If I wasn’t able to wear the crown,” you opened your eyes to look at him. His blue eyes looked into yours with something that looked strange… Worry, maybe? That couldn’t be right. Your mind was playing tricks on you. “I’d be more than happy for you to wear it.”

You felt your eyes roll to the back of your head and you blacked out.

You woke up in an unfamiliar room. It was a bedroom with typical furnishings but it had hospital equipment next to you instead of a nightstand. You stared up at the canopy draping over the top of the bed for a few seconds.

The silkiness of the sheets felt smooth against your skin. Remembering what happened before you went unconscious, you gingerly hovered your hand over your leg from above the covers.

“And Juno lives,” a voice sounded from the doorway. Footsteps moved along the carpeted floor and they stopped at your bedside. You turned your head and saw Steve standing with his hands in his pockets.

You groaned groggily. “Are my girls ok?”

Steve smiled at your question. It wasn’t a vicious smile but a kind one. One you hadn’t seen him wear before. Your heart didn’t skip a beat… did it? “You got stabbed with a knife in the thigh, passed out, had to get stitches (which I ever so graciously covered for you) and you’re asking if someone else is ok?”

You shrugged… it’s all you had the energy for. “Well, are they?”

He chuckled and shook his head at you. Maybe the nurse needed to look at your cardiac vitals too… “They’re as good as when you left them. You need to rest.”

“I can’t rest. I have to-,” you attempted to sit yourself up. Steve only put his hand out to stop your shoulder when it reached his palm. It felt like he had pushed you full force back into the mattress. “I have to lie down… For a while.”

“Is there anything you need that I can bring you?” He crossed his arms over his chest as he peered down at you.

“My pistol, my phone, and three shots of tequila.” You listed earnestly. “Please.”

“I can get you one of the those,” he responded before leaving the room.

You whispered to yourself. “Please be the tequila…” He sauntered back in with your phone and you reached for it longingly. You figured you would just have to settle for next best.

It touched your fingers and you unlocked it immediately to dial Victoria. But before you could touch ‘call’ Victoria herself appeared in the doorway.

“Oh thank God you’re alright!” She rushed into the room and hugged you tight. “I thought you had been taken out when Steve called and said you’d been stabbed.” He called them personally?

“Well, unfortunately for Steve, this bitch is still alive and kicking.” You winked at Victoria playfully and turned your gaze to Steve briefly. “Sorry, darling, you can’t get rid of me that easily,” you joked.

“Damn,” he cursed exaggeratedly. His eyes glistened humorously. “I can not believe you foiled my elaborate plan.”

You shifted the tone of the conversation and forced yourself to sit up, a little stronger than when you had woken up. “I suppose I’ve overstayed my welcome.” You yanked the blankets off your torso and shifted to move off of the bed.

You finally saw your leg since you had been ever so rudely stabbed in the leg. There were bandages wrapped from the base of your hip to the top of your knee. Your thigh was officially sans knife. The small use of your muscles sent a hot shockwave of pain through your leg and up to your lower back. Your expression soured instantaneously as you took deep breaths and steeled yourself to stand. Nausea welled up and punched you in the gut but you weren’t going to let a tummy ache stop you.

Victoria and Steve alike rushed forward to force you back to laying down. “What are you doing,” Victoria scolded, “Your leg isn’t even close to being healed.”

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Lie down, Y/n.” Steve ordered you. You knew he was probably right but the dominant part of your ego didn’t take orders from anyone, especially Steve. Defiantly and weakly, albeit, you pushed him to the side with the back of your hand and stood to your feet.

Or at least tried to. Steve had been right. The moment your injured leg was standing was the moment your knee buckled and you started to fall to the floor.

Your hands scrambled for the closest thing to hold onto to stop the impact. Your fingers wrapped around the IV stand but it wasn’t enough. Fortunately for you, Steve had better reflexes and caught you as you continued to fall. He swiftly grabbed your torso and secured you from falling further. With his calloused hands on your waist and your hands on his muscled biceps you stepped backwards and sat back down.

“Why didn’t you listen to me?” He asked as he pulled away slowly, uncertain if you still required his assistance.

You rolled your eyes at him. “Does this face look like it follows orders?” He cocked a challenging eyebrow at you. “The answer is no, Steven. I don’t follow orders. Besides you don’t want me here. We’re rivals. Remember?”

“Yes, I do remember. But I do also remember you getting stabbed in the fucking thigh in front of me. In my restaurant. While carrying out a plan of my volition. I am responsible for you getting injured. You need to heal and you are going to stay here to do that.” Steve had his hands on his hips.

“I have my own doctors, Steve. I can heal at my headquarters. I have power here too.” You leaned forward with as much dignity as you could muster.

He clutched his forehead in frustration. If nothing else you were glad that you were still able to piss him off while minorly incapacitated. “This isn’t about power, Y/n. This is about you being hurt. And I don’t think Victoria’ll let you leave here until you’re healed if I ensured your safety. Which I do.”

Your head snapped to Victoria who looked conflicted. She visibly squirmed at the equally scrutinizing looks you and Steve were giving her. “He has a point, Juno. Us moving you would do more harm than good.” You could practically feel Steve’s infuriating and victorious smirk. “Joan and I can handle it. We can send you documents and you can sign them on your tablet and send them back to us.”

“Victoria…” You started. This was NOT happening.

“It’s better that you get a break any way. God knows you need it.” She fiddled with her nails. Then she began to move for the door. “Getrestandfeelbetterbye!”

“Victoria!” And she ran out of the room shutting the door behind her. You were gaping like a fish.

She just… She just left you.

Alone.

At your rival’s headquarters.

While you were at a physical disadvantage.

You slowly turned your head back to the man standing in front of you. “Told you,” he chided.

“There’s no need to gloat, asshole,” you glared at him. “I hate you,” you mumbled.

“No, you don’t. Not anymore. You’re just angry.” He took a deep breath. “What kind of entertainment do you like? TV, movies, card games…” Steve suggested.

“You know what would be great?” You clapped your hands together in faux enthusiasm. “If you located the nearest cliff and took a long walk right off of it!”

He winced apathetically. “Sorry, doll, no can do.”

“Don’t patronize me.” You moved to lie down and tried to use your muscles to pull your hurt leg back over onto the mattress. But they either didn’t want to comply or they clawed at your nerve endings violently.

Steve’s hand found the underside of your partially bandaged knee and lifted it gently onto the bed. You weren’t sure whether to thank him or snap at him. “I still don’t like you, Rogers,” you jabbed as you crossed your arms over your chest and stared at the shut door to the room that seemed to mock you. “But I do like Netflix.”

“Really? You tell me you hate me and expect me to give you something after that?”

“Yes.”

“No. That’s not how this works. I’ll help you get healed but if you’re going to be rude then I don’t think I should help you pass the time.”

“Are you seriously wagering with a cripple right now?” You asked incredulously.

“Yes.” God, you wanted to rip his pretty eyes out of their sockets!

“Fine,” you growled. With gritted teeth you apologized. “Thank you for treating me and…” Your voice trailed off into a murmur, “I’m sorry for being difficult.”

“What was that?” He asked obnoxiously with a hand to his ear. This asshole.

“I’m sorry for being difficult.” You enunciated venomously. You pressed your lips together and crossed your arms as you stared at the wall rather than him.

“Now… was that so hard?” Steve’s voice was maddeningly smooth and his blue eyes glittered tantalizingly.

“No. It wasn’t actually.” You spat.

“Good. Then you’ll have no problem doing it again in the inevitable future.” Your anger began to bubble like lava.

“Can I have my Netflix now?” He raised a brow. “Please.”

“Why yes you can!” He over enthusiastically responded. Steve produced a remote from his suit pocket and pressed a button. An LED TV began to slowly lower from a slot in the dark ceiling.

“You’re lucky I don’t have my pistol, jerkwad. I would’ve shot the ballsiness right off of you.”

“I bet,” he agreed amiably as pressed more buttons on the remote nonchalantly.

You huffed a deep breath. “Dammit, Steve. You’re supposed to respond to me with witty repartee. You’re not being any fun.”

“Mmhmm.” The screen was open on the Netflix main screen and he tossed you the remote. Steve dragged a lounge chair to the side of your bed and reclined in it. Suit and all. “What are we watching?” He prompted.

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. “What?”

“Did I stutter? I asked ‘what are we watching,’” He answered matter-of-factly.

“Why? Don’t you have your mob to run?” Your brows were furrowed.

“I’m the mob boss. I can do whatever the fuck I want. And I want to watch something.” Even though you couldn’t quite argue with his logic your jaw was dropped and you didn’t move. He huffed and snatched the remote out of your hand. “I’ll choose then.” He clicked on the arrows and settled on a crime tv show.

You were still staring at him. He was contentedly facing the screen. He turned to face you, his blue eyes looking into yours. A stray blonde curl fell out of his gelled do. It was endearing. “What are you looking at?”

You shook your head and faced the screen. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing…”

The two of you simultaneously inhaled and exhaled a deep breath.

Halfway between episode 3 and 4 and making jokes about the the criminals, you fell asleep. It was exhausting, what could you say… You had gotten stabbed not even 24 hours before.

Steve hadn’t noticed you had fallen asleep initially. He thought you were ignoring one of his comments. It wasn’t uncommon. When you hadn’t responded after a few repetitions, he opened his mouth to give a biting remark and expected you to respond in like fashion.

But when he looked over at you, head lolled against the pillows, hair askew, and mouth slightly ajar, something weird happened.

Steve smiled to himself.

Not because of how vulnerable you looked (maybe that was part of it) or even because there was a little bit of drool seeping onto the pillow but because one of the most vicious and vengeful and ruthless people he knew slept looking like an angel. There were bags under your eyes and there were spots of imperfections on your skin. He couldn’t tell if it was despite them or because of them but he thought you looked… dare he say… well, beautiful.

He looked away. It felt oddly intimate watching you sleep if only for a few seconds. A little bit of an invasion of privacy. Steve gently readjusted your awkwardly flayed arms and pulled the covers up to your shoulders, careful not to wake you. He stood silently from his chair and walked noiselessly to the door. As he closed it shut, Steve took one more peek at you.

You only scrunched your nose momentarily in your sleep. Deadly, he thought.

But in that moment, Steve knew that he was completely, irreversibly and undeniably fucked.

The following days and weeks were nice. Startlingly nice. Every morning Steve dropped off a coffee for you and checked on you, if only for a few minutes. And every night, after he was done with his work for the day, you fell asleep watching that horrid crime show on Netflix with Steve. Like clockwork.

For meals, he would help you limp down to the dining room when you were finally able to move out of bed rest. He would visit you on his breaks. It didn’t matter if you were engaging in conversation with him. Steve would still sit in the room while you were communicating with Joan and Victoria. It wasn’t invasive at all… It was nice just to have his presence in your room.

You weren’t sure when the two of you began helping the other problem solve but the two of you were certain that you should have brainstormed together earlier. Neither of you were willing to admit, however, that the fault was with your pride… What? Steve’s ego couldn’t even fit through the door sometimes.

But you guessed you could say, at the very least, that you were on friendly terms now…

“Joan,” you switched your phone from one ear to the other when Steve poked his head into the threshold and rapped on the wood with that signature smirk on his face. You smiled at him reflexively and waved him in. “No, I agree we’ve given him plenty of time to pay. You have my stamp of approval to send in the Valkyries….”

Steve meandered into the room and fell back into his recliner. Joan’s tinny voice sounded on the other end. “Will do…” The sound of a keyboard typing filled the silence for a few seconds. “Your order is in.”

“Great! Let me know how that goes. I want a mission report emailed over immediately after …Oh! Is Phoebe there?” You asked hopefully.

“One moment…” The sound of Joan calling Phoebe to the phone was faint but still exciting for you.

“Hi, Anthie Juno.” The voice of Cleo’s three-year-old came on the line. Your heart warmed instantaneously.

“Hi, darling! How was school today?” You asked enthusiastically.

“It was fun! I went on- I went on the swings!” Her little voice informed you excitedly.

“Oh my goodness! Did you go so high?”

“I did, Anthie Juno. I was like a bood!” She giggled as she finished her semi-mispronounced sentence and the sheer adorableness that you imagined was happening on the other side of the line made you hold your chest.

“I bet you were,” you were beaming through your words. “I miss you so so much, Bee.”

She giggled again, at her nickname this time. “I miss you too. When can, when can I see you?”

You glanced over at Steve. He was smiling in your direction and your heart jumped a little bit. There was no doubt he could hear Phoebe speaking. The little girl practically yelled in the speakers whenever she was on the phone.

“I don’t know, Bee…” You wanted to see her but you didn’t want to overstep your bounds with Steve. He had already been so helpful. You almost felt indebted to him.

Steve spoke up. “She can come tomorrow if she wants…” He sat up in his seat.

Your eyebrows shot up. You put your hand over the microphone. “Are you serious?”

He nodded nonchalantly. “Absolutely…”

Your spirits soared. “How does tomorrow sound?”

The squealing on the other side of the line was answer enough. “Ok! Ok…” You could practically hear the gears turning in her little brain. “I’ll- I’ll see you tomowow! I love you! Bye!” The moment before Phoebe hung up you heard the beginning of Joan calling to her.

You chuckled and shook your head as you put your phone down next to you. “I’ll have you know, Steve. She is very excited to come over tomorrow.”

The smile on his face matched yours and his eyes crinkled. “I certainly hope so. I’d miss you if I hadn’t seen you in that long.”

“Steven, no one could ever get tired of this face.” You framed your face with your hands comically.

He jokingly winced to himself as he stood from his spot. “I don’t know about that.” Steve offered his hand when he arrived at your bedside.

You dropped your jaw dramatically and swung your legs over the side of the bed and took his hands. Making sure that you were standing securely on your uninjured leg, you placed a light amount of pressure on your stabbed leg. You could only stand on the ball of your foot before it began to hurt.

He, almost instinctively, wrapped your arm over his suit-clad, muscled shoulders. You hobbled through the bedroom on your way to dinner with Steve supporting you at your side.

“You know…” You pressed your hand against the wall of the hallway to hold yourself up as you addressed Steve. “You’ve been so nice to me that I feel like you’re buttering me up for something.” You were only half joking.

“The King of Brooklyn? Butter you up?” You rolled your eyes at his self-proclamation. He looked at you from the corner of his eyes, slowing his pace to allow you to strengthen your muscle a little bit. “Now where would you get an idea like that?” Steve resupported you, this time with one hand on your waist and the other grasping your outstretched hand.

You just glanced at him from the corners of your eyes as you continued to limp to the dining room.

“I am not buttering you up, Y/n,” he corrected. “If I wanted something from you, I’d tell you. Honestly. Like how much your hair needs a brushing.”

Your jaw dropped as you scoffed at him. “Well, I don’t exactly have the materials to look presentable, Steven. I don’t need to spend much time like you do but I do need the proper instruments.”

It was part of your banter to roast each other.

“I can send someone to the store to pick up some stuff for you?” Steve suggested.

You smiled at him gratefully as you continued to limp along. “That’s alright… I can have Joan send some stuff over when she drops off Phoebe tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?” He asked.

You nodded assuredly. “I owe you big time, Rogers. Seriously, thank you.”

He only shook his head and smiled at the floor… bashfully? “You don’t need to thank me. I was being decent.”

“Steve, mobsters aren’t decent. I know a handful of bosses who, if I were their enemy, would have let me bleed out or took me out while I was down.” He looked up at you once again and you, in turn, looked straight ahead as you paced yourself down the hallway. “So, yes. I do owe you, Rogers. I owe you and then some. When you figure out how I can make it up to you, let me know and I’ll be there. Anytime.”

He smiled genuinely at you. “Anytime?”

“Anytime,” You confirmed without hesitation.

He chuckled to himself and your heart lifted a little bit. Just a little.

After a few moments of silence, Steve spoke up again. “I know how you can make it up to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he took a deep breath. “Dinner.”

“‘Dinner’?” You were confused. “Is that a code for something that I’m not aware of or-”

“It’s code for,” he lowered his voice, “I want to take you out to dinner after your leg is healed because I like you, Y/n.”

You halted in your tracks as your heart did a tap routine. He liked you? You had had your suspicions but there was no way you could have been absolutely certain until now.

“What if I said no?” You inquired. You weren’t serious. You definitely wanted to go on a date with him but you made it a point to see how a man would react to rejection before pursuing a relationship with him. Just because you really liked him didn’t mean he was exempt.

“I’d be disappointed but I’d respect your ‘no.’ You’re busy and you’d have your reasons, I’m sure.” He shrugged and aided you as you continued to limp to dinner.

“And if I said yes?” You prompted.

A goofy smile graced his features again. “Then I’d be excited and plan the best damn dinner you’ve ever had.”

“That’s quite the claim, Rogers.” You teased with raised eyebrows.

“You can see if it has any merit if you decide to go to dinner with me.” He smirked at you cheekily.

A sideways smile of your own moved your cheeks. “It seems like I’ll just have to.”

“It’s a date then.” He declared. You pretended not to see the kick in his step as the two of walked to the dining room. Steve supported you as you trekked to the dining room, his hands holding yours.

You supposed that’s how it was always meant to be: the two of you working hand in hand.

After all, you knew the value of a good relationship with others…

Especially one with your future husband.

#steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #captain america x reader #mobster!steve #mobster!au

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frangipani-wanderlust · 6 years ago

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So…Jurassic Park is on Netflix and I haven't watched it in years. Buckle up as I liveblog for you, the original and still champion:

JURASSIC PARK!

I always forget about this beginning bit with the dinosaur in the box.

I'm very confused about what version of "spared no expense" involves putting a dinosaur on a forklift. Like, they couldn't get a crane and just drop it into the cage from above?

"The underwriters feel that the accident has raised some very serious safety questions about the park." Uh, yeah, mister insurance dude. They're using forklifts to move dinosaurs. I feel like those are valid concerns.

Wow. Congratulations on the amber-mining foreman to make paleontological excavation sound vaguely sinister there.

Sam Neill! Hooray!

Who's the radar guy? "Christopher John Fields." Huh. Oh! That's Billy Brennan from the third movie. Played by a different actor.

Dr. Allen Grant, everyone. Giving nightmares to children since 1993.

For the record, I'm kinda on Dr. Grant's side with respect to kids. I'm very happy for other people to have them, but I'm not especially attached to the idea of having my own.

I understand the movie needed someone to make things go wrong. But I really don't understand why they needed to make Nedry so gross. Every scene he's in is just disgusting. Which is really unnecessary.

Ian Malcolm is basically the GrandMaster from Thor: Ragnorok in an earlier incarnation. With the exception that Malcolm does actually care if other people suffer, albeit in an abstract way. Personality-wise, though? Dead identical.

I do like that they're basically letting the music carry this scene. One of the only John Williams scores that has genuinely unique musical thoughts in it.

youtube

Oh yeah. There's dinosaurs. Big as very big life.

Woo, that's a good shot by that lake.

"Don't you mean 'extinct?'" I don't like Dr. Malcolm. He's a jerk.

My dad's over here complaining that you can't clone people by having them randomly step out from behind each other on a movie screen and be exact duplicates. Which is hard to argue with, I admit.

This incredibly fake southern accent in the explainer movie is driving me bananas.

"Are these characters auto…erotica?" I don't want to know about your weird kinks, lawyer guy!

"We control their chromosomes, it's really not that difficult!" Yeah, just a simple matter of genetic engineering.

I'm having a very hard time with BD Wong not being the SVU psychologist here.

Why is the cow a puppet? Couldn't they afford to borrow a live cow? It's not like it was actually going to be eaten by a dinosaur.

Malcolm is a jerk, but he makes a lot of valid points here.

Samuel L Jackson with hair!

The gate aesthetic is very 1990s.

The dilophasaurus description is basically Komodo Dragons. Hate those things.

They're all so excited about this miserable triceratops. That poor thing looks very, very unhappy to exist at all.

Malcolm looking so distressed about dinosaur droppings. Nobody ever said biology was neat and clean.

Although, that is a lot of poop. That's more than that triceratops' weight in poop! How on earth did it poop that much?

All these lovingly close-up shots of vintage Macintosh tech.

Oh, man the water cups. Classic.

This T-Rex attacks the cars scene is way more intense than I remember. Yikes.

Malcolm getting the T-Rex's attention so that Grant can get the kids away is…legit. I hate him slightly less.

And Nedry is dead. Good riddance.

"The thing about climbing is, you never look down." I have never understood this. How are you meant to climb down without looking where you put your feet?

"Must go faster!" And Ellie's just in the passenger seat screaming.

I kind of love how basically all the merchandise in the gift shop is stuff you can buy IRL. They marketed the crap out of this film.

This is a very intense debate these guys are having about whether the computers will come online again after a hard reset. I didn't even buy that in the 90s. Of course, it's gonna work. You always turn it off and back on again.

Oh my gosh, Tim is such a gruesome kid.

You tell 'em, Ellie.

Muldoon is really addicted to hunting. Send off your buddy while being stalked by the highly lethal predators. Great plan.

I learned a good trick with electric fences to tell if they're on. Get a long stick with some green in it. Hold the back end and put the far end directly on the fence. Slowly slide the stick forward. The stick is not a conductor, but the water in it is. If the fence is turned on, you'll feel slight tingles, but not the full charge.

That is a well-placed palm leaf when the velociraptor eats Muldoon.

"Unless they figured out how to open doors." Well, anybody can open the handle doors! Dogs can figure that one out.

So, this is the weirdest *NIX GUI I've ever seen.

Allan Grant indulges his lifelong dream of kicking a dinosaur in the face!

And the T-Rex rescues them from the velociraptor! Whoo-hoo!

"After careful consideration I've decided not to endorse your park." Dr. Allan Grant, OUT.

youtube

#jurassic park #the original #still the best #allan grant #ellie sattler #ian malcolm #humor #liveblog #jurassic park spoilers #do i still have to warn for that #after twenty-five years?#a quarter decade is past the spoiler expiration date?#isn't it?

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years ago

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THE WEEKEND WARRIOR 4/2/21: GODZILLA VS. KONG, THE UNHOLY, OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL

I’m really not sure how I feel about doing the Weekend Warrior at quite the level I was doing last year. Even though the box office is slowly coming back, it’s still very frustrating to write about, and honestly, the Disney announcement last week about all the movies being delayed or dumped to Disney+ kinda brought me down. It just tells me that many studios are giving up on theatrical just as people have gotten so used to watching stuff at home, they don’t care about going out and being in rooms with other people, especially strangers. I guess I can understand that, but all the negativity that pervaded the narrative in 2020 is finally doing its damage as theaters reopen and some may have trouble even filling 25% capacity for some movies.

Then again, I’ve just come back from a weekend at the Oxford Film Festival, which became one of the first American film festivals to go in-person, although it is doing a bit of a hybrid in-person with virtual, so locals and a few out-of-of-towners (mainly me) were able to see all of this year’s great programming at one of the outdoor (and then indoor due to weather) venues. I was on the feature doc jury and got to see 11 terrific documentaries, some of which hopefully will get distribution and get out there, but why wait? While most of the movies are geoblocked to the United States (and some to Mississippi), there’s so much great programming to check out over the next month, and you can do so via OxFilm’s virtual cinema, which includes many great features and shorts. As far as the juries, I can highly recommend the Jury Prize winners, In a DIfferent Key, a fantastic film about autism directed by Caren Zucker & John Donvan, and the runner-up, Patrick O’Connor’s Look Away, Look Away, an amazing bi-partisan look at the fight to keep the Confederate-created flag of MIssissippi or change it, depending on your side of the fight. It’s a doc that really needs to be seen in other parts of the country. (Unfortunately, those are both geoblocked to Mississippi, as is Chelsea Christie’s Bleeding Audio, which tells the tragic story of the rise and fall of San Francisco’s The Matches and won for Music Documentary.) There are movies available everywhere in the United States though, and you can check out the full line-up of movies here.

Anyway, OxFilm gives me hope that there’s a future for theatrical moviegoing and as far as the box office, that hope comes in the form of the first holiday weekend since NYC and L.A. reopened as the Good Friday day off for most schools and Easter Monday that continues the vacation for others might persuade people to check out what’s happening in theaters, and fortunately, it’s a movie that’s so easy to market based on the fact that it has two of the biggest movie monsters facing off for the first time since 1963.

That’s right -- opening on Wednesday is the anticipated GODZILLA VS. KING KONG, starring… well, does it really matter who it stars other than Zilla and Kong? Probably not. The fourth movie in the Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Monsterverse takes the star of 2017’s Kong: Skull Island ($168 million at domestic box office) and pits him against the title character of 2014’s Godzilla ($200 million) and 2019’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters ($110.5 million). MInd you, I just include those domestic grosses for reference, because even if we take into account that scary dip from Godzilla and its direct sequel, it won’t really matter when you take into consideration a little thing called…. COVID! We’ve already seen movies gross more than $50 million since everything shutdown

I already reviewed this over at Below the Line, so I don’t have much more to say in that regard. It’s good if you like giant monster fights but isn’t much beyond its amazing monster battles, which is why I won’t even mention the actors that appear in it or any of the characters.

Godzilla vs. Kong is probably going to be the widest release since COVID hit with 2,600 theaters on Wednesday and then expanded to 3,000 on Friday when Regal reopens many (but not all) of its theaters. While I expect it to do fine on Weds and Thursday, making probably $4 or 5 million, it should really explode on Good Friday, which should allow it to make somewhere between $18 and 20 million over the three-day holiday weekend, so let’s say $25 to 26 million before Monday.

Also opening theatrically, this one on Friday is the Screen Gems horror movie THE UNHOLY from Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, the directorial debut by Evan Spiliotopoulos (writer of Disney’s mega-blockbuster Beauty and the Beast live action movie and the Rock’s Hercules ), who adapted the story from James Herbert’s novel “Shrine.” The movie stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as disgrace journalist Gerry Fenn who is trying to get stories for a supernatural tabloid when he comes upon a deaf teenager named Alice (Cricket Brown) seemingly praying at an oak tree in a rural community in Massachusetts. When she seemingly gets her hearing back and is able to talk, word quickly spreads that she’s able to communicate with a benevolent Virgin Mary-like spirit that gives her the powers to heal. Since this is a horror movie, you can probably guess that things quickly get ugly and scary. THe movie also stars the wonderful Katie Aselton as a local doctor, who doesn’t do very many doctor-y things.

Before we get to my review -- and I’ll blame the review embargo on it for this week’s column being so late -- let’s talk about the movie’s box office potential, because religious horror-thrillers have quite a significant draw over a certain audience going straight back to the ‘70s with movies like The Exorcist and The Omen (the latter one of my all-time favorites) and The Unholy does dip into the toe of both of those. It’s been a long since there’s been one of those which might make this a draw for audiences into theaters, especially over Easter weekend -- that may be meant as irony -- but there’s also a little movie called Godzilla vs. Kong, which is just way more of a draw even with it being on HBO Max, but also because it’s likely to get better reviews. I’m not sure how many theaters Sony is getting this into, but I expect it’s somewhere around 2,000 or so, and that might be enough for the movie to make around $4 to 5 million this weekend, but probably VERY frontloaded to Friday.

Now let’s get to that review…

The Unholy begins with a flashback scene to “February 31, 1845” with a scene right out of the Salem Witch Trials of a woman being mutilated and strung up to a tree. This plays a very important role in a story that involves a fairly ludicrous premise that mostly involves Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character finding something called a Kern Baby, essentially a porcelain doll wrapped in chains that he decides to smash in order to create a fake supernatural story about how smashing the doll causes crops to fail. In fact, smashing it releases the spirit of the woman we saw in that opening scene possessing a deaf teen girl named Alice who starts to heal everyone in her rural community, while also releasing the evil that had that woman’s spirit bound into the doll in the first place.

There isn’t that much more to say about the plot to a stupid horror premise so full of religious hokum as more characters get involved with trying to figure out if Alice is actually healing people or not. This includes the benevolent local priest Father Hagan, played by William Sadler, and a Bishop (really) played by Cary Elwes, who is using such a bizarre accent, kind of like a cross between the Bronx and a heavy Irish brogue, that it’s impossible to take his character very seriously.

Just knowing what studio garbage Spiliotopoulos has written did not make me very hopeful for his directorial debut, which is just all over the place in terms of tone and pacing, dragging at times and then throwing the type of cheap jump scares and schlocky CG horror creatures at the viewer with very little of it actually being very scary. " (The creature version of "Mary" just looks silly.) Besides being highly derivative, ripping off almost every religious horror movie, both bad and good, some aspects of the movie are so laughably bad that it’s hard to take much of it seriously. Worst of all, it ends with just a really horrible climax that reverses any good will the movie might have created with the casual young horror fans that usually like this thing. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s another one of those unrare “F” CinemaScores we see whenever a studio horror film doesn’t bother matching up to the quality of something like The Witch or Hereditary. Horror fans definitely want more than the usual these days, and The Unholy just seems like a lazy waste of time.

A movie that I’ve been looking forward to seeing and just haven't had time to watch is Emma Seligman’s SHIVA BABY (Utopia) that stars Rachel Sennott as 20-something Danielle who runs into her sugar daddy (Danny Deferrari) at a shiva with his wife (Dianna Agron) and their baby, as well as her parents (Fred Melamed and Pollyw Draper) and Molly Gordon as Danielle’s ex-girlfriend. It’s actually playing at the newly reopened Quad Cinema, so who knows? Actually I did watch Shiva Baby and was kind of disappointed. It seemed very twee and precious, and Sennott's character seems like the type of spoiled Millennial white girl that I hate in indie movies like this. I also just didn't find it particularly funny. Oh, well.

Streaming Friday on Netflix is Ricky Staub’s CONCRETE COWBOY, starring Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin and Lorraine Toussiant with McLaughlin being a teenager who moves in with his estranged father (Elba) in North Philadelphia where he learns about his passion for urban horseback riding.

Opening in New York (at the Angelika and Village East) on Friday and in L.A.and other cities on April 9 is the Oscar-nominated International Feature THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SKIN (Samuel Goldwyn Films), written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and starring Yahya Mahyni, Dea Liane, Koen De Bouw and Monica Bellucci. Tunisia’s submission is the story of Sam Ali, a Syrian who leaves his country for Lebanon to escape the war with hopes of travelling to Europe to be with the love of his life. To fulfill that dream, he allows his back to be tattooed by a contemporary artist that actually brings more trouble to the poor young man.

Hulu will debut the doc WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (Hulu), which I still haven’t gotten around to watching but seems like an interesting subject for a doc.

A little closer to home at the still-closed Metrograph, they’re playing Claire Dennis’ 2004 film L’Intrus through April 8, and on Friday will open Sky Hopinka’s experimental debut maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Grasshopper Films) which follows Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier as they wander around the Pacific Northwest, mostly speaking in the Chinuk Wawa language. The latter is free to digital members ($5/month, $50 a year!) and $12 for non-members… pretty easy decision there, huh? Ms. Dennis’ film is also available to members.

Not only that, but New York’s Film Forum is also reopening this Friday with the double feature of Almodovar’s remastered Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and his new short The Human Voice, starring Tilda Swinton; the fantastic doc The Truffle Hunters; as well as his Fellini’s masterful Oscar winner La Strada (Janus Films, 1954), starring Anthony Queen and the wonderful Giulietta Masina! (That’s what I’ll be seeing this Sunday!) On top of that, Film Forum will continue its fantastic Virtual Cinema programming, which will launch Eric Roehmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992) this Friday with Roehmer’s A Tale of Summer (1996) joining the Virtual Cinema starting Friday April 9.

Got exciting news that Film at Lincoln Center will be reopening on April 16, but this week, they’ll be launching the latest edition of Neighboring Scenes, its annual series of Latin American films done in conjunction with Cinema Tropical. It’s 10 films that you can watch with an all-access pass for the low price of $80, and it usually has some good movies in the program.

A couple others out this week, including Funny Face and Every Breath You Take (Vertical), which I don’t even have time to look up what they’re about. Sorry!

That’s it for this week. Next week, Neil Burger’s sci-fi coming-of-age thriller, VOYAGERS, will hit theaters.

#the weekend warrior #godzillavskong #theunholy #movies #reviews #streaming #shivababy

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fma-facts · 7 years ago

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What is the level of techology in Amestris? Did anyone ever wrote a compendium? They certainly have telephones, radios, and at one point I'm fairly certain they mentioned movies (although there are no televisions yet). Also, it looks like they have colored photographs.

A good question! This was actually discussed in the first guidebook, believe it or not. It’s not the most in-depth list, but it is fairly specific about what’s what, so I’ll share an excerpt from the book itself. The “lecture” is given by Winry.

Excerpt from Winry’s lecture on Amestrian culture and technology in Fullmetal Alchemist Profiles (Perfect Guidebook 1), pages 94 - 95

Food and Common Items

You want to know what kind of things we eat? The same as everyone else really. Meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, and bread. We eat as much bread as we want from the pile of bread that is placed in the middle of the table. Rice? That’s the staple food from the island country in the east, right? We don’t really eat that. Now that I think about it, even though Ed hates milk, he loves stew, which has milk in it. What a weirdo huh?

Speaker

This is a speaker. You can amplify your own voice through a microphone. It seems like a lot of fun. I bet it would feel great to use it to sing a song.

Radio

The radio is one form of entertainment. But there still aren’t very many stations yet. It’s used mainly for listening to special announcements.

Phone

This is our house phone. Isn’t it nice? Rotary phones are standard. In the city they even have payphones.

Means of Transportation

The main modes of transportation in this country are trains, cars, and horse drawn carriages. Trains are basically for long distance trips. I’ve ridden on one a few times myself, but it’s not a very comfortable way to travel. It made my butt hurt so much that I could hardly stand it. Cars are used mainly for getting around in the city, and in the countryside carriages are the most common. By the way, vehicles for air travel haven’t been invented yet. But I think they’re conducting tests of the technology.Not very many people own automobiles yet. You hardly ever see any in the countryside. It’s too bad, because they look so cool.

Winry’s Update on Trends

I’ve seen that movie about the guy that turns into a fly. Resembool is in the countryside, so a theater owner brings a movie projector to our town. So I haven’t seen too many movies yet. Next time I’d like to see one with a lot of scenes involving automail.

After that, Winry goes on for two more pages to talk about automail. As for technology not mentioned by Winry… Electricity seems to be commonplace even in the countryside (we even see power lines running through Resembool), and we know the military has tanks and flamethrowers. I can’t recall specific examples of seeing them at the moment, but I’m fairly certain typewriters and telegraphs exist as well. Other than that, I think the guidebook just about covered everything we’ve seen.

If you’re ever writing a fic and find yourself asking, “Would they have this technology in Amestris?”, the general rule of thumb I go by is that it’s equivalent to what would have existed in Europe or America in 1914. Be sure to check not only when a technology was invented, but when it became commonplace! For example, a quick google search will tell you that refrigerators were invented in 1913, but that doesn’t mean you should just give the Rockbells your average Kenmore in every fic. Automatic refrigeration technology (aka the kind where you don’t have to keep buying blocks of ice) didn’t really hit the public market until the mid-20s, and even then, the refrigerator as we know it today didn’t become commonplace until the 50s. So if you’re not sure if a technology exists in Amestris and you want your fic to be period accurate, I’d recommend doing a little research first to see what point that technology was at during the mid-1910s.

(Of course, this is all just my two cents on how I would write a period accurate FMA fic. You don’t have to follow my rules, and FMA is a fantasy series where people walk around with robot arms like it’s no big deal, so there’s a little bit of leeway in terms of technology. But now this ask has gotten off-topic anyway…)

#Amestris #Locations #chrisis-averted #Inbox stuff

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codywalzel · 7 years ago

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The Emoji Movie (And Weak TV/Movies in general)- A Entreaty to Cut the Snark

(In a public forum anyway, if you just want to goof off in conversation with friends, knock yourself out.)

So, if you’re drafting your scathing tweet for whatever the current week’s freshly released and much hated property happens to be:

Please don’t. Take Emoji, for example. First off, I didn’t work on Emoji. I have many friends that did during my time at Sony, but this essay isn’t for their sake. I would have worked on Emoji if offered for reasons I’ll get to later, but for now let me start with this: None of the respectable artists that worked on the film wanted it to turn out how it did. Business people with only a secondary interest in art controlled a product, with which they hoped to make money, and guess what, it worked. I’m not trying to throw executives under the bus here either. Executives, whose job is to make money, not to make “good” movies, don’t always the time or budget to assure quality. And honestly, even for the world’s best filmmakers, with infinite budgets and complete control, quality is never a certainty. So, especially in a time crunch, with a full slate, and unproven filmmakers, quality is not necessarily the best business plan for execs. At least that’s the perception to many of us working on a project, and I can see from their perspective the logic that stance. It’s a, “I don’t care if the fart joke is stupid, kids will LOVE it!” kind of thing. Often, sensationalism and even bad press can actually be a good business plan, because that assures the movie won’t be buried. Kids like poop jokes, and adults want a ticket to the train wreck. The decision-makers on the film probably leaned into the low brow as an allure for the marketing campaign, making it a far more visible film due to all the negative buzz surrounding it. The producers don’t care if they’re serving McDonald’s or filet mignon, they’re playing a completely different game, and it’s about getting butts in seats at any cost. Incredibly talented artists fought hard to make the most of a bad situation, and as is usually the case, were outvoted time and again by money, because money had completely different goals. I’m in no way advocating an acceptance of mediocre filmmaking, or a lowered set of expectations for your media consumption. I am, however, trying to make a case that the culture of snottiness, and smug, side-mouth “witticisms” is one of misspent energy, presuming your goal is to help contribute quality art to the world.

The reason I say not to waste time crafting some cutting diatribe is, the public negativity won’t ever hurt the execs, they won’t see the criticism, and they don’t care because the movie did fulfilled its financial responsibility as a product. But the artists who try and fail to make good movies take the brunt of all the negativity and snark that gets thrown out there. Even though filmmakers will likely never see your specific post, every bit of nasty amateur commentary contributes to a general culture of creativity-stifling artist bashing. Although we should always hold professionals to the highest standard, you have to try and be realistic about the amount of control they have on a project like this. This is not to say you shouldn’t recognize crappy choices for what they are, go ahead and notice what doesn’t work about a movie. Professional reviewers can and should dissect a work’s failing. But, there’s no point in taking so much glee in throwing rocks in the town square. The world just really doesn’t need another sick-burn Tweet featuring your “hot take” on the movie. We get it. You’re smart and the filmmakers are dumb. Your opinion is the same as everyone else’s, but you worded it slightly differently, so that 160 character Twitter review that starts with “Apparently…” and oozes smarm from there is better off left in the drafts. This type of schadenfreude is among the nastiest behaviors to which creatives regularly subject each other. To be working on a very visible project means that almost every artist on that film or show has legions of fans that adore their original work, and an entire industry to speak to their talent. Yet so often I see the artists themselves, and not just the one work, lumped together in the public eye as “the idiots who made that bad thing.” You might ask, “Why would they take that crappy job then?” For the same reason people who haven’t make it into the industry yet take jobs bagging groceries: to pay rent, to support their families, to pay for classes to improve themselves, or just to get them through to the next, better job. It’s not every day that the Iron Giant or Finding Nemo is staffing up, and you never know what kind of project a movie is going to turn out to be going in. So many huge successes fought their way to greatness after an incredibly rocky start. And many movies at a promising studio, with a great premise and solid leadership, end up being terrible. There’s no way to know going in. If you truly think you’re the exception to that rule, take out a loan and open a small studio, because you’ll be the most successful figure in Hollywood history if you can predict a hit every time.

Everybody knows now that the Emoji Movie is bad at this point. Any of the slew of amateur ”reviews” now will just be a race to the bottom, another rotten cabbage to throw at the guy with his head in the pillory. In these situations it feels like all the sassy internet hecklers, many of whom have little or no relationship with the process of actually making films, are lining up to kick a downed opponent, and make themselves look like a tough guy. Each slam is looking raise the bar on the new meanest possible insult, “_____ (movie) was so terrible it made me want to kill myself with my own ticket stub through a thousand tiny paper-cuts”. The desperation of scrambling to find a “hot take” on an exhausted property is palpable. So many Facebook Status “Film Gurus”, Youtube Movie Ranters, and the ever scholarly forum commentators, are always at the ready to weave a mixture of diatribe and condescending, film-school-freshman lecturing. There’s this ever present tone of “if they only knew these obvious filmmaking truisms, they’d be smart like me, and make better movies. Please, please when will a producer drift into this forum, recognize my intelligence, and give me movies to make instead?” They then usually proceed to lay out some “rules” they’ve read from various screenwriting books. Rest the rules, because I guarantee you that the artists involved in these films read the same books. The filmmakers are just as big of film buffs as us, they watch all the same shows and movies, and they study filmmaking theory through books, blogs, criticism, and movie absorption the same way we do. Yet, with all their knowledge, you still get this kind of “bad” movie, which just shows you how hard it is to make a movie work. There is a harsh reality to showbusiness’ balance of commerce and art: a businesses’ goal is profit, and Hollywood Filmmaking is a business. Here’s a shortened example of what it might take to get a “good” movie made: 1. Someone makes it through the long and cut-throat-competitive thresher of endlessly pitching their ideas. For the sake of condensing many steps, we’ll cut to the part where the project is the 1% that makes it through development hell, and we’ll say the filmmaker survives their 50/50 shot of being replaced by the studio for someone they like better. 2. The filmmaker convinces the studio that “quality” will be a factor that earns money for this movie, and not one of a many possible marketing directives. 3. The filmmaker is also able to assure those footing the bill that they can achieve quality, and in the process get enough creative control to make the thing work. That often includes either convincing a studio that your ability to execute a vision is superior to theirs, or tricking them into thinking both of your visions of the movie are the same, and quietly seeing how many of their notes you can hide under the carpet while you and your trained creative team actually make it work. (On rare occasions execs are either excellent collaborators, or trusting enough of filmmakers to let them do the creative work they were hired to do.) 4. Assuming the filmmaker is able to settle the control issue, and wrestle the steering wheel from the people whose money they are spending, then the filmmaker must then have been correct about their vision being a good one that will work on screen. 5. Finally, if the stars align, then the millions of moving pieces that make up a film/show are somehow kept from falling apart. If all those fragile pieces work in unison, and nothing major changes with the leadership at studios, or the state of the industry as a whole, the project has a chance of being “good”. Even then, there’s no guarantee that “good” thing will make money. On every project I’ve ever worked on, even the ones I’m proud of, the whole is so much less than the sum of it’s parts. Sometimes I already follow every person I work with on a project on social media when I come in on the first day. There are usually talented people in every department, an all star team, but the project is almost never an all star result. Sometimes it’s not even something I would watch.

Due to the safety and reach of the Internet, the culture of “critiquing” filmmaking has given every basement dwelling cynic and film school sophomore an outlet for their bitter condescension. I think this has led to the general impression that the most important thing that critics do is tear movies apart. I’ve even seen actual, professional critics resort to a kind of schoolyard rap battle to see who can deliver the most crushing blow to a film. But, the most acclaimed critics in film history spent much their time championing films they love- celebrating successes rather than brutally attacking failures. People like Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin became legendary figures in film history by using their influence to introduce the world to filmmaking that might have otherwise gone overlooked. Hate what you want. Bash what you want. I’m not going to try and fight some crusade against internet flame culture. But, since so many of the people who so joyfully hate on films online claim a passionate love of cinema, just know that a horde of nasty tweets doesn’t help cinema in any way. Way more terrible movies are made than great ones, that’s both the law of averages, and a sad reality of the business. So, although one can learn just as much from a bad movie as a good one, keep it balanced- If you find that the goal of your criticism is to dog-pile an already hated property, I'm begging you to choose again:

-Be the bold person to articulate dissatisfaction with a beloved movie instead.

-Or champion the strong parts of a despised movie.

-Or even continue in the awesome tradition of Tony Zhou, by doing the hard work it takes to neatly point out successful things a strong movie accomplishes.

-But most of the time, if you're in such a bitter mood that you want to publicly slam a bunch of strangers, your best option is to bury that opinion deep, deep inside of yourself, log off of your computer, and go deal with whatever is making you so angry.

#ask #movies #criticism

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moviesihaveseenbeforeiamdea-blog · 7 years ago

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#810 The Thin Blue Line

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Released: August 25, 1988

Directed by: Errol Morris

Written by: Errol Morris

Starring: Randall Adams, David Harris

Had I Seen it Before? No

A Fun Anecdote Before We Fall Into Despair: Morris met Werner Herzog while he (Morris) was planning a movie about serial killer Ed Gein. Morris asked Herzog for his help in digging up the grave of Gein’s mother. Herzog showed up at the designated time of the plan, but Morris flaked. This led to a long series of events with Herzog questioning whether Morris could follow through anything, and led to a bet that if Morris finished his debut film, Gates of Heaven, Herzog would eat his own shoe. Morris finished the film, and the subsequent result was that we now have a documentary called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

There is a lot of unique power in a documentary, and they are probably my favorite genre of film. I’ve talked about in the past few entries to some degree about my belief in how a work of art creates an emotional truth using a false construction and argues emotionally throughout. Documentaries still very much fall in line with this, but they are grounded in a more intellectual structure by nature and present their case often in more formal, distant terms. Their arguments are often logical in a way that fictional films would be ill-suited to convey. Documentaries like Herzog’s Into the Abyss single-handedly reversed my opinion on the death penalty, turning me from a tepid supporter to a full-throated critic with its depiction of the process as a complete loss of time and humanity from everyone involved, from the victim of the condemned to the condemned himself to the executioner. Documentaries have a power, and it’s one that when used effectively, is unrivaled.

Although Morris himself disputed the label of documentary for his breakout effort The Thin Blue Line, it’s not unreasonable to understand the massive impact on documentaries and documentarians that this film would have. Maybe Morris shirked the label of a documentary because of its connotations with a static, disinterested viewpoint which tend to make up a good bulk of the genre up to the making of this movie, with few exceptions.

Among Morris’s innovations to the field he desperately wants to avoid being identified with is the hyperfocus on one criminal case of a man of no importance, the recreated scenes from the crime based on witness testimonies and court documents, and the dramatic flair brought by Phillip Glass’s intimidating score. Few if any introductions are made to the subjects in the speaker that aren’t said by the speakers themselves. There are no name cards or cutesy set-ups. Voices simply start speaking into the void of the camera, doing their best to present themselves as they want to be seen.

All of these characteristics of The Thin Blue Line can be found in productions like Sara Koenig’s Serial podcast, Netflix’s Making a Murderer, or HBO’s The Jinx. There is a mutual exchange with one of Morris’s influencers, Werner Herzog, whose monomaniacal impulses are present but subdued in Morris’s own work. There is a legacy that this film has, and with good reason.

Randall Adams, the wrongfully convicted (Source)

Morris does an excellent job of maintaining the structure of the narrative, pushing the story through its ins and outs and never overtly giving way to one definitive interpretation of an event until the moment when you’ve been made most impressionable. It’s then that Morris strikes in with what feels like an objective realization but is, on closer inspection, editorial speculation channeled through his subjects. It’s a myopic view to assume that documentaries are free of any subjective bias simply because they rely on what should “objective” facts like testimony, paperwork, and educated guesses. To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. And Morris knows it.

Randall Adams is a man entirely sympathetic to Morris and, by extension, the viewer. As he narrates his version of the events, he does not hedge, waiver, or contradict himself. His body language is constrained, respectful, and his eyes plead with Morris and the camera to believe him. At one point, Adams recalls watching an episode of the Carol Burnett show in his motel room at a time which would preclude him from the possibility of the murder of Officer Woods, and a later image Morris includes in the movie confirms that the Carol Burnett show was indeed airing at the time Adams claimed he was watching it. It’s a small detail, but in a case who penalty is death, it’s the small details that Adams’s story will live or die by.

And just as interesting is the way in which Morris portrays Dallas. A place long known colloquially as “The City of Hate,” Morris paints Dallas through his interviews with the people who live about it as a city of barely-restrained contempt and rage, all too willing to devour the innocent like Adams. Adams himself recalls a member of his family remarking that if there ever was a Hell on earth, it’s Dallas, Texas. I’m not sure if that descriptor is still apt today. It’s been nearly thirty years since The Thin Blue Line was released, but it’s only been about a year since the city was the center of a series of police killings that happened in any already fraught racial and political climate. Morris prominently features Vidor, a small town outside Dallas where Davis Harris hailed from, and a regional center for the Ku Klux Klan, the kind of town that isn’t simply tolerating the Klan but is made up of it.

Adams is positioned as someone swallowed up the inevitability of tragedy that occurs from a place as hateful and entrenched as Dallas. Adams may have been dumb in hanging out with a clearly-dangerous sixteen-year-old, but you can’t fault the man for wanting any kind of trouble. He didn’t. It found him anyway.

Officer Mark Woods, the victim (Source)

There is a certain amount of pointlessness that seems to be recognized by Morris in which subjects he chooses to include in the movie. The prosecutor who brought the case against Adams declined to participate in the movie, but many of the law enforcement officers and the presiding judge both chime in and reveal a sentiment that they were always pushing for how they should resolve the murder of a police officer so that it would carry through to a cathartic conclusion. At no point does there seem to be any genuine doubt from the people responsible for condemning an innocent man to death. Adams himself notes that it seemed to him throughout some of the judicial processes it felt obvious that the question of his innocence was entirely irrelevant, the only thing that mattered is how and when they could kill him.

One of the people responsible for Adams receiving the death sentence is a psychiatrist named Dr. Grigson, who is notable in that this whole movie originally started out as an investigation into his career. Known as “Doctor Death,” Dr. Grigson was a psychiatrist frequently used in cases where the possible sentence could include death to perform evaluations on the defendants. Encouraged by the prosecution, Doctor Death would invariably claim that if the defendant were to be released, he would murder again. It was only when Morris met Adams as a result of this initial investigation did he realize that Adams was not a danger and that his trial was likely a miscarriage of justice.

There are stories like this throughout. Witnesses with something to gain, inconsistent testimony used like a bludgeon against Adams’s consistent defense, Officer Woods’s partner being near-useless in her description of what happened, and David Ray Harris’s knowing demeanor about what really happened that night all show a judicial system that got the result it wanted and not the result it should’ve worked for.

It’s unnerving to think how quickly your life can be seized from you in the name of justice. We know this. I know this. The trade-off we make is to give a privileged few the ability to take from us what we most privilege in our own lives. This is one of the cornerstones of a civil society. We do this in the hopes that the system will be near-infallible, but we all know that it isn’t. Even if there is no injustice committed against us by the state, we are all at aware of at least one instance in our lives when someone we knew or someone we saw was denigrated and humiliated by a system we all tacitly endorse, and whose misapplication is never taken as seriously by us as it should.

David Ray Harris, the likely murderer (Source)

This movie is often remarked on for its sense of activism, which is maybe more explanatory for why Morris recoiled at the idea of marketing it as a documentary. There’s an inherent bias towards structure and anticipation of a particular kind of argument once you label a film with a well-recognized genre, and something affixed with a generic label can live and die by how well the movie fits in with audiences’ expectations (see: The Cabin in the Woods and the misplaced disdain that movie gets from people claiming it isn’t “scary” enough for a horror film). It’s the same logic that led Jon Stewart to repeatedly denounce The Daily Show as a news program.

I believe Morris’s aversion the documentary label is to shed the responsibility that might come with claiming to be a documentary. Purists might take issue with The Thin Blue Line for its artistic ambitions and the creative liberties it takes with the story, and for Morris, the point isn’t even to be a part of cinematic movement tied to a form, he wants to send a message. Morris, sight unseen, ignores the conventions of the documentary and positions his film as a deeply-researched, deeply political work that carries a chip on its shoulder and an ideology in its heart.

But I think it would be a misunderstanding of Morris’s intent and the movie’s construction to claim that The Thin Blue Line is interested in heroes and villains Morris makes no particular point to paint Harris as evil, only as the likely murderer. It never lionizes Adams, either, instead of showing him for what he was: an aimless guy going nowhere fast, who got caught up in a sequence of events he never had any influence over.

Morris is steadfast in an unsentimental pursuit of the truth, something which inadvertently positions him as a sort of antiparallel to the sins of the state actors who simply wanted a result in condemning and executing Adams. While Morris’s aim is undoubtedly nobler in his desire to find the truth of the matter, both Morris and the men who botched a case so badly that Morris had to become involved were both interested in a sort of rational explanation for the world that is outside their control. Morris might have been right about Adams’s innocence, but his intuition and judgment came from a place of the same futility he supposedly condemns: that of a man trying to impose how he’d like the world to be in place of how it is. If only that mentality more often led to the Randall Adamses of the world being exonerated rather than convicted in the first place.

Final thoughts:

Randall Adams had his case reviewed as a result of this movie, and eventually had his verdict overturned and was released when the prosecution declined to press for a re-trial. Adams received no financial compensation from the State of Texas, sued Morris for the rights to his life back, and became an anti-death penalty activist. According to the internet, he lived in such obscurity that his death was only discovered a year after the fact. There’s no shame in any of that, except for his not having received any compensation from the state.

David Ray Harris was convicted of a separate murder which happened during an attempted kidnapping. He was sentenced to death and finally executed in 2004. His final words were “Sir, in honor of a true American hero: Let's roll. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I’m done.” The reference to the American hero was reportedly words said by Todd Beamer on the United 93 flight before fighting the hijackers attempting to crash the plane into the Capitol Building during the September 11 attacks.

I don’t know if it was FilmStruck, the film itself, or my lackluster TV, but the visual quality of this film was abhorrent. This movie might be in dire need of a remastering, the noise was insane and every 40-60 frames the film seemed to flash a single frame that was more exposed than the rest, making the picture look like it was lighting up.

Recommended: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, and Into the Abyss, Herzog’s own 2011 documentary on a capital murder case. Like Morris’s film, Herzog examines the questionable verdict of the case. Unlike Morris’s film, Herzog uses the case as a more explicit condemnation of the death penalty.

#movies #errol morris #the thin blue line #documentary

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