#and laugh a little too much at your jokes cus they’re extra funny

[ace-no-isha]

anyways recently i’ve been really thinking about what it means to be alive and the terror of aging and growing up cus those are two separate things. growing up means taking on more responsibilities and cutting off alternate paths that your life could’ve taken. it means committing a third of your life to being a cog to capitalism till you die cus pension is not going to fund our generation cus the older generations failed us and are wasting it all and there will be none left for us when we are old. and then the growing old part. do you not feel horrified knowing one day your body is going to become less functional than it is now? joint issues run in my family. i’m going to be in even more constant pain than i am already if i get old and that’s the mildest of it. watching everyone you love die? externalizing the emptiness that consumes your very being and having nothing to fill it? being left behind. i cannot. i will not. it is just not happening.

and the ppl who say but what about the good!!!! it will never balance it out. two days a week where one is prepping for the next work day and maybe two weeks vacation is not enough to make little moments worth waiting for. i’ve already traveled. i’ve loved deeply. i’ve gotten tattooed and i speak six languages well. i’m not proud of who i am outside of these things but i’ve tried. i’ve failed a lot. i might only be 21 but even being 21 is a failure. me 10 months ago didn’t want this and it feels like they were more and more right the more time passes

going absolutely bananas can you tell? anyways gonna watch saiki k we’ll see if sober me flips out over this ciao

i got tipsy 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

[s1utspeare]

@staidwaters asked for Li Cu and “selcouth” (in reference to this post; send me a prompt!), and since someone ELSE requested selcouth for a character I gave you an extra word lmao. THANK U SO MUCH FOR THE PROMPT!!! I LOVE U!

Also I will put these in a whole collection on ao3 at some point lol. 

selcouth—unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet wonderful hiraeth—a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home with maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past

There’s a time, when he returns, when he realizes he doesn’t know where home is. 

Objectively, of course, he knows where he lives. He knows that there’s an apartment with his father in it and his bed and clothes and things are there, but that’s different. It never quite was a home, but it really isn’t anymore, because it’s just… it’s so small. He’s spent weeks with the stars as his ceiling, even more looking at the same four walls of his room in the Wang compound, so an apartment with beat-up furniture and storage closet that was never used for storing things isn’t that much different from any other apartment he could be in. 

He tries going to Su Wan’s first. Part of him wants to because he missed Su Wan, but it’s mostly because he didn’t know for weeks if his best friend was dead or alive, so when he wakes up in the middle of the night with a short, sharp gasp, all he has to do is listen, and he can hear Su Wan breathing next to him in the bed. Also, Su Wan will cuddle him whether Li Cu wants him to or not, so that’s nice. 

It doesn’t last, though, because every morning he has to go downstairs and say hi to Su Wan’s parents, and Su Wan’s parents tolerate him, but they don’t really like him, and they really don’t like him now, after he filled their garage with packages and dragged Su Wan off into the desert. Also, sometimes he doesn’t want to be cuddled because that’s like arms pinning him to the ground and it takes all his willpower not to punch a sleeping Su Wan in the face, but to instead lie stiff as a board until morning. 

So he packs up his stuff and moves to Hao-ge’s, which is different, but not exactly better. Hao-ge is dealing with his own grief, his own loss, and Li Cu feels in the way of all that fury and rage. He knows, logically, that Hao-ge doesn’t blame him anymore, but he can still see Hao-ge’s face, streaked with tears, his fist pulled back, his voice strangled with anger and pain. Li Cu’s leg throbs. 

He stays for three days, just to be polite. He watches their shop while Hao-ge goes out of town to visit some relatives, to figure out what they’re going to do with his grandmother’s things. He knows Hao-ge is probably going to sell the store. It’s not just because he doesn’t want to run it; he honestly can’t, financially. Hao-ge’s not ready to let it go, quite yet, so when he gets back, Li Cu lets him have the space back, to trace over and memorize the corners of his home before he has to leave, makes a mental note to bring Su Wan over to help him pack, to keep him distracted. He didn’t sleep well at Hao-ge’s anyway, especially when he was gone. It was too quiet then. 

He can’t couch surf, after that. All the rest of his friends are dead. 

He uses some of the stupid money that Wu Xie paid him at the very beginning—and it’s really not even enough, Wu Xie should be putting him through college—to rent a hotel room for a couple nights. That’s nice at first. He has his own space, a big shower, cable tv. But he doesn’t know it, his body can’t relax in an unfamiliar room with big, wide windows and only one lock. He spends two sleepless nights lying on his back, on his side, on his stomach, pacing the carpet. He gives up after night two, when everything’s hazy and dull in the back of his head, and checks out. 

He spends the afternoon wandering around the city, toeing past the restaurants and coffee shops and arcades that he used to hang out in, the soccer fields and schools and parks he passed every day. There’s the manhole cover that broke and the city’s never gotten around to fix it, so there are perpetual orange cones around it in a cult-like circle—no, no, don’t think about cults, cones can’t have cults, it’s just a circle, Li Cu, come on—and there’s the statue of a dog near the center of the park near his house and he likes dogs, even more when they’re—not attacking him, they didn’t attack him, the dust of Wu Xie’s grandfather is ground into your bloodstream—and there’s the library that he and Shen Qiong used to go to for story time when they were really young—and now she’s young forever, a bullet in her brain between her eyes she died angry with you she died alone she died at the hands of her family—and eventually he’s on the soccer field and he’s lying flat on his back in the grass but there’s too much light and he can’t see the stars. 

He can’t see the stars. 

He can’t fall asleep if he can’t see the stars. If he can’t see the stars maybe he’s underground again, maybe—

“Kid, you can’t sleep there.” 

He lifts his head, wearily. It aches, heavy on his neck. It got dark at some point, except not right now, because there’s a police officer shining his flashlight into his eyes, and he squints into it. 

“Come on,” the officer says, “Go home.” 

Li Cu laughs and flops back onto the grass. The police officer mutters something that sounds like a swear word under his breath and comes through the gate, marching over to Li Cu and hauling him, albeit gently, off of the turf. 

“You been drinking?” the officer asks. Li Cu shakes his head. “Can’t smell any on you.” The man scoffs. “Jeez, kid, no offense, but you look terrible.”

Li Cu just blinks at him. He’s really tired, actually. 

The officer sighs. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. You got an ID?” 

Li Cu remembers that his ID is in his wallet which is in the pocket of his backpack and he knows it’s there because he had to use it to pay for the hotel.

 He hands the entire thing to the officer, who sorts through it, glancing at Li Cu every so often in concern, and clicking his tongue contentedly when he finds what he’s looking for. 

“Alright,” he says, “Let’s get you home.”

Li Cu’s glad this officer knows where his home is, because Li Cu has no idea.

Never mind. Li Cu is pretty sure this isn’t his house. 

The police officer rings the doorbell, and unfamiliar chime. A loud, deep voice inside says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” and then the door is flying open, and a large man with wild hair is staring down at them. 

Li Cu frowns because he has no idea who this guy is. 

The guy seems to know him, though, because he rolls his eyes, turns back into the house and shouts, “TIANZHEN!” 

Li Cu winces, cause his head kind of hurts now, and that was not helpful. 

The man turns back to look at them. “What did he do?” 

“Uh,” the officer says, because he’s shorter than Li Cu, actually, so he must be feeling very intimidated by this large man, “He was sleeping on the soccer field at the high school.” 

The door man snorts. “Of course he was.” He folds his arms, leaning against the doorframe, looks Li Cu over. “Yeah, you look like a mess, Ya Li.” 

“Wha?” Li Cu says, because that’s weird, that this strange giant man with large arms is calling him Ya Li. 

“That’s what Xiao Wan called you, right?” the man asks. “Su Wan? Your best friend?” 

Li Cu gapes. “How do you know Su Wan?” He backs up a step. “Is someone stalking me again?” 

The police officer looks very alarmed at that. “Again?” 

“He’s joking,” the Person-Who-Calls-Him-Ya-Li says, “No one’s stalking him. His friends came to me for help a while back, but he wasn’t with them.” 

The police officer does not seem convinced, but at that moment, a familiar face appears in the doorway behind the Person-Who-Calls-Him-Ya-Li. 

“Wu Xie?” Li Cu asks.  

Wu Xie looks just as surprised as Li Cu is. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” the officer says, “He was trying to sleep on the soccer field. Which is actually illegal. So I brought him home.” He frowns. “This is his home, right?” 

“I don’t know,” Li Cu says. 

“Yes,” Wu Xie says quickly. “Yes, you brought him to the right place. Sorry, he’s been a little out of it lately. Stress at school, you know. Not sleeping very well.” 

“How’d you know that?” Li Cu asks in surprise, because as far as he can remember, he hasn’t seen Wu Xie since before the Wang compound. There’s a fuzzy memory of an apology, of being carried, but after he’d been thrown out the window, he woke up on a train. 

He glares at the windows to the side of the house. He does not trust them. 

Wu Xie gathers him by the shoulders and pulls him through the doorway. “Thank you, officer. I’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen again.” 

“Okay…” the police officer says. “Um. Get some rest, kid.” 

“Mmm hmm,” Li Cu mumbles, even though he knows that probably won’t happen, and Wu Xie shuts the door. 

“What’s the matter with you?” he asks. “You’re supposed to be at home.” 

“I dunno where it is,” Li Cu says. He yawns, widely. How long has it been since he slept? He has no idea. 

“You don’t know where your house is?” Wu Xie says slowly, like he’s trying to figure something out. He’ll be able to do it. Wu Xie has a Big Brain. 

“My house is where my house is,” Li Cu says vaguely. “I dunno where’s home.” 

Wu Xie goes silent for a moment. “I see.” 

Li Cu blinks himself into less of a stupor, figures out where his hands went (they were on the end of his arms). “I’ll go back there, I guess. Sorry.” 

“No, no, wait,” Wu Xie says, which is funny, because Li Cu hasn’t moved. “It’s late. You’re… really tired. We have a couch.” 

“Good for you,” Li Cu congratulates him. 

Wu Xie closes his eyes for a second, gritting his teeth. “The couch is for you.” 

“You’re giving me a couch?” 

“Oh my god,” Wu Xie says. 

The Person-Who-Calls-Him-Ya-Li laughs. “You sure chose a good one, Tianzhen.” 

“Shut up, Pangzi,” Wu Xie mutters, because apparently he is this Tianzhen person. 

“Make him take a nap for an hour,” Pangzi says, wandering off down the hall. “Then dinner’ll be ready.” 

“We had dinner earlier,” Wu Xie calls after him. 

Pangzi stops, looks at Wu Xie pointedly. “Nope. Dinner. In an hour. So the kid can join us.” 

“Oh,” Wu Xie says. “Oh, right. Yeah. Dinner.” 

Li Cu might puzzle through this if he were more awake, but he’s really not. “What?” 

Wu Xie sighs at him. Li Cu should really stop making him do that. “Alright,” he says, “Come with me.” 

Li Cu dutifully follows Wu Xie down the hallway, because he’s followed Wu Xie into worse places. 

They come out into a wide-open room, full of books and random vases and boxes of papers and bits and bobs. Sure enough, there’s a couch there, and Wu Xie steers Li Cu over to it, pushing against his shoulders gently to make him sit. The couch is pretty soft, a well-worn type of feel to it, like someone has sat here every day for years and years and filled it full of memories. 

“I’m not going to ask if you need to be hom—back at your place, because I really doubt it,” Wu Xie tells him. His voice is coming from below Li Cu’s ears, so Li Cu looks down to see Wu Xie pulling off one of his boots, so Li Cu flops over his knees to pull of the other one, but his fingers get tangled in the laces, and he gives up and lets Wu Xie do it.

Wu Xie sighs at him. He takes Li Cu’s backpack and puts it next to the coffee table, where Li Cu can see it. He appreciates that. It’s good to know where things are. If you know where your things are, you can’t lose them. If you know where snakes are, they can’t bite you. If you know where Wu Xie is, you don’t have to miss him. 

“Lie down,” Wu Xie says softly, and the couch really is comfortable, so Li Cu tentatively pulls his legs up and sets his head down and gazes at the lamp next to an armchair. 

Wu Xie drags the throw blanket from the back of the couch and settles it around Li Cu’s body, which might be a little overkill, because Li Cu isn’t going to be here that long, he’s just going to rest for a moment, and then he’ll leave. Then he’ll get out of Wu Xie’s way. He’ll go back. Just a few minutes. 

Wu Xie straightens up, grunting a little bit, and Li Cu almost says, don’t go, but he bites his tongue.  He can’t ask that much of Wu Xie. Wu Xie’s already giving him a couch. 

But then, Wu Xie doesn’t leave. He goes over to the armchair, picks up the notebook lying tent-style over its arm, flips through it. Someone’s glasses are on the end table, and that someone turns out to be Wu Xie, because they go on his nose as he takes in whatever the journal says, chewing the inside of his cheek absently and tapping a pattern out on his knee. 

Li Cu blinks, slowly. Wu Xie is warm and marvelous, he thinks. He’s fading into a soft glow, backlit by a warm light that reminds Li Cu of something, something good, something he thought he lost, but maybe not. Maybe not. 

He falls asleep and dreams he’s home.

[asterekmess]

S3A - E4

Alrighty, here we go. Maybe I’ll get a little less fired up this time.

Be Kind, Read More’s (I’m bad at puns or jokes.)

Thoughts:

So, I get that they’re trying to amp up Scott becoming an Alpha or whatever, but I just really hate the concept of dogs needing to know “who the alpha is.” It’s a really harmful myth that leads to a lot of frustration for owners and a lot of fear for their dogs. I actually recommend anyone with a dog, or thinking of getting a dog to look at this video to understand how huge a myth that whole Dominance thing is. He explains it better than I ever could. That also doesn’t work in the show, since we know that all werewolves have sway over dogs. Derek does it like a fucking pro in S1 (Yeah, he scares the dogs, but it’s entirely controlled. The dog didn’t freak until he wanted it to.)

Woooow, Scott actually working at his job? That’s new!

Deaton, mistletoe is poisonous to anyone. Wtf are you on about “to the dog, and you too.” literally everyone is poisoned by mistletoe.

Is this a reference to a movie or something? IT’s so fucking creepy and gross, him sticking his hand under the dumpster and getting bit. And what’s with the whispering??? JENNIFER did you bite someone? WTF? Also, he literally can’t get any closer, dumbass. He’s on his knees right up against the dumpster.

I hate this woman. This show I think has a lot of issues with actual foreshadowing and making villains appear earlier in the show. Like, they knew Jennifer was going to be the villain. So what was all this extra shit? All the random clips of her grading papers and getting spooked walking down the halls of the school. She’s literally committing murder every single night and is far scarier than even werewolves, even without the extra powers. Showing us this stuff directly contradicts her being the villain. I can’t tell if they thought we as an audience were too smart and we’d figure out she was the villain, so they had to cover their tracks extra hard bc we all know that plot twists should only ever happen when it makes no sense, or if they thought we were too dumb to notice that they didn’t put any effort into her character until she starts being actively creepy.

I hate this. I hate all of it. I’m disgusted and nauseous just fucking watching this, knowing that Derek isn’t fucking choosing to do any of this. He’s literally under a spell that’s making him worry about her, because she wants an Alpha guard dog.

I’m also gonna point out that since the show hadn’t told us that Derek was being controlled yet, they were trying to show Derek being interested in Jennifer and trying to make Jennifer someone Derek would be interested in. In order to do that, they made her jumpy, suspicious, anxious, and over-talkative. And crazy smart. With brown hair. Just saying.

The Crucible? Dude, you started the class on The Heart of Darkness literally last Wednesday. Chapters 1-3 weren’t due till last Friday. Why can’t this show fucking make up its mind?

Aannnnd here we go. Love watching Scott laugh about something that he knows Stiles is absolutely terrified by, seeing as Heather DIED. God, if you want Scott to look funny, can you not make him make jokes about something that’s getting people killed and traumatizing his best friend? Jesus.

I...I feel the need to point out that Stiles jumped exactly the same way Jennifer did like two seconds ago....just saying.

Honestly, I like that this Danny did this, not just to fuck with Stiles (in a non-sexy way) but also to try and subtly point out that he can hear them talking about virgin sacrifices. Maybe keep it down boys?

As much as I hate this shaky camera, slow-mo to fast-mo stuff, it’s still so much better than the CGI/Green Screen. Just, so much.

Boys, stop sticking your tongues out while running, you’re gonna bite them off and that shit doesn’t grow back. Also, I wanna give Isaac props here for managing to keep up with Alphas. Speedy Boi. AND, did you notice the look on his face before he ran after them? TOTALLY different from the look on his face before he attacked Cora in the woods. Not play time, kill time.

Those are...those are also not wolf sounds. At least I know Cora wasn’t a sexist thing? Seriously, wolves sound terrifying enough on their own, no need to add in the lion--wait didn’t I read that they don’t use lions roars most of the time, they use tigers instead? Whatever. NO need for the cat noises. I get it for the actual roaring stuff, but the snarls can be wolfy, can’t they?

How long did they have to stand there waiting for the cops to arrive? THe whole class is just standing around in a crowd? You know, I’d believe it, honestly I don’t think Finstock would think to make them go back to the school. He’s not great at the adulting thing.

How--How did Kyle’s girlfriend know? She’s not on the track team, is she?

I hate this whole “He’s got a point” thing. Stiles admitted that he agreed the Alphas were connected somehow but his reasoning is perfectly sound. Are you seriously telling me that Scott didn’t talk to Deaton about this? We can assume he did, because it’s Scott and he tells Deaton Everything. But that means Deaton DIDN’T tell him what he knew, openly lying to him. And none of that should matter anyway, because Stiles is Scott’s best friend. It is not too much to ask for him to just believe Stiles. In fact, it’s pretty fucking basic friendship stuff.

ALSO I hate that Isaac appears to give zero fucks about Erica. “They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me” But no mention of Erica? Or of how they imprisoned erica and boyd for four months? No mention of his own pack members? Seriously?

Hi cora. Hi derek. I really really wish you were going to be a reprieve from the bullshit of the rest of the episode so far, but instead you’re going to break my heart by refusing to give me even the slightest hint at Derek and Cora giving any kind of fucks about each other and finding out that the sibling they thought was dead is not dead. Nothing. We get absolutely Nothing. I don’t even get to see where the FUCK Cora got the exercise clothes from? Did they go shopping? did they go find her bag of clothes that got left in a building somewhere when she was taken? Huh? SOMETHING?

I’m just so...disappointed, and it’s definitely not directed at Derek.

Also, Derek, your alarm sucks ass if it only tells you that someone’s at your place once they’re outside the door.

I’m gonna be honest, Derek does need to work on his ranged combat. He’s all about the up close and personal, our boy needs a quarterstaff or something. Maybe a bat?

Sup duke? I hate your guts.

Sup Harris? I hate your guts too.

I don’t--I don’t even wanna talk about this scene with the twins. I just...what the absolute fuck? Those kids need so much therapy. I just feel ill. Also stop with the making werewolves masochists for some reason! Stop it! It’s boring and dumb!

I literally refuse to believe any of that had plot relevance. I think the twins are just being assholes for the fun of it. That is so convoluted in so many ways.

Other than the really really overdone British villain trope thing, I literally have nothing to say about this scene. Other than, you know, the part where Derek outright refuses to kill his pack even with a fucking PIPE through his CHEST, yet somehow we’re meant to believe that he wanted to kill them on the full moon even when he had no proof that they’d hurt anyone? Love that logic. Yah. Uh huh. Side note: why do I even like this show? Side Side note: It’s cus’ Derek and Stiles and Cora and Isaac and Boyd and Erica and Lydia are all fucking awesome. Honestly, Allison too. And Danny. And Jackson. And Kira when she comes in. Even Malia has potential

Isaac, honey, you have claustrophobia and that’s a legitimate medical concern that Harris would need to make adjustments for.

HI BOYD. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH OH MY GOD. Thanks for stabbing me in the heart with that friend comment. My everything hurts now. I love you. Also, bye, cus’ you don’t come back for the entire rest of the episode. awesome.

Is it even remotely okay for the school to make students handle chemicals and fuck with the janitor’s stuff/do custodial work? Like, detention is detention and the school/Harris has no business using the students for free labor.

Fucking pathetic. I hate this stupid Alpha command thing. I hate this whole plotline and no I’m NOT going to stop complaining about it any time soon. It’s stupid as fuck.

Stiles how do you expect Lydia to know about this shit when no one fucking talks to her except you??? SEE? YOU SEE? THAT is how you use humor in a tense situation!

Lydia, Stiles is human.

Please stop with the sexual tension, it’s pissing me off. Allison fired over a dozen arrows into Erica and Boyd, then help her grandfather kidnap and torture them and sliced Isaac to ribbons. I’m not done being mad at her, and Isaac Damn Well shouldn’t be either.

Okay WHAT? Since when is English the last class of the day? It was their first class an episode ago! What the fuck are you talking about? and WHY are you writing “Great Expectations” on the board!!???? Even if The Crucible was for a different class you’re STILL ON HEART OF DARKNESS.

I just-I get that they’re teenagers, but that’s seriously the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and even though Allison’s still pretty high on my shit list at the mo, she’s way too smart not to know that this is stupid as fuck. Just because the Alphas are being stupid doesn’t mean you PISS THEM OFF. Nothing you just did HELPED at ALL. You didn’t Hinder them or Weaken them or ANYTHING. You just played a stupid ass prank???

So...Stiles has a free period in the last period of the day? When no one else does? Yet somehow he’s in all their classes AND we SAW him AND LYDIA in Scott and Allison’s English class? ALSO the twins are Miraculously now in the English class as well, even though they weren’t there on the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL??? WHat the FUCK This is a show about HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS and you can’t be fucked to actually get their stupid fucking Schedule right? The same with the full moon. The two things that should always be consistent are the FULL MOONS for the WEREWOLVES and the SCHOOL SCHEDULE for the STUDENTS. You spend hours of episode planning time on making outfits and references to horror movies, but you can’t get A SIMPLE FUCKING TIMELINE right?

I know Stiles hasn’t talked to Deaton all that much so far in the show, but this is a really weirdly long introduction to him asking Deaton for info, when I honestly expected him to just push in and say, “HEY, so how about those human sacrifices, huh? You keeping something from us again?”

I hate them cutting up these scenes so much. Derek’s effectively been pinned to the ground for an entire school day at this point.

Actually, this little speech of Duke’s is where I got a huge headcanon for the show about how truly monstrous Duke and the rest of the Alphas are. He says he didn’t know that killing your own Beta adds their power to yours. But, shouldn’t that be like a really well known thing in this werewolf world of horrific murders and “Rite of passage, into his pack” mentality that the show seems insistent on showing us? Instead, I think that Duke is actually like he says he is. The Demon Wolf. He’s a fucking demon and all werewolves know it, because he and his pack are disgusting and twisted enough to kill their own pack. I firmly believe, beyond all reason because fuck this show, that Alphas have a biological imperative to protect their pack, to keep them safe and happy and provide for them. That the reason no Alphas really knew about what happens when you kill your own Beta is because no one ever would. It’s the most taboo, horrific thing a werewolf can do, harming their own pack. Their own family.

STOP TOUCHING PEOPLE’s FACES. ESPECIALLY DEREK’S.

I love Derek’s line so much. “You’re a fanatic.” Like. Yes. Completely shutting him down. That was so good.

Also, Duke. you literally just said “You’ll get to know me.” and now you’re mad because “Know me? You’ve never seen anything like me.” I wish someone would just pick him up by the scruff and toss him out a window.

What’s with the sudden lightning? and why is the thunder happening at the same time?

I have literally had the fifteen minute rule held over my head so many times. We once got locked outside our orchestra room for fifteen-minutes and one of the secretaries from the front office had to let us in, and then they had to send us a sub teacher because ours was sick but even though she called in, they’d hadn’t bothered to call the sub yet. the fifteen minute rule doesn’t exist, and I wish so fucking badly that it did. PLUS. I thought School was OVER????

Stiles, you should know better. The Celts were accused of human sacrifice by the Romans, who were trying to demonize them and take over their land. (which is pointless, since the Romans participated in tons of human sacrifice, even if they didn’t explicitly call it that. Anybody heard of the fucking Colosseum?) Plus, there isn’t any actual evidence that isn’t from extremely biased Latin texts that indicates the Celts performing human sacrifices as religious rites. You’re right though, cus’ the show does pull a lot from the concept of Celtic Druids. It just does it horrifically badly and completely misconstrues them by using the modern myth of the druids rather than the historical reality of them. I was a classics major, with an obsession on Druidic practices. Fight me about it.

Thank you Stiles, for calling Deaton out. Also, what does Deaton mean ten years? He was the Hale emissary six years ago. Jesus christ, this isn’t hard.

I hate to say it, but that is correct, Deaton. Druids were philosphers and scholars. That’s because Druid was a SOCIAL CLASS not a JOB. They didn’t believe they were “keeping the world in balance’ but they believed the world was MADE UP of balances. The Celts didn’t believe in letting people die for the sake of “maintaining the balance.” Their social structure was based on equality between the sexes and community ownership (a bit like socialism, it’s actually why the Romans hated them so much, they represented the exact opposite of Roman Ideals of hierarchy and private ownership with the male head of family in charge) But I digress. My bad.

Cue the dropbox ad

So what’s with the chanting? There wasn’t chanting when Heather was taken? Or Emily? Is the method of abduction supposed to be different for every group?

Ooooh, Dell school computers. Did they lose their Mac contract?

Oh Look! It’s the consequences of your actions!

They have so much time to react and do something to keep the boys from merging while they’re busy taking their dumb shirts off.

For the record, Druid is not the gaelic word for “wise oak”. It’s generally accepted to mean “oaken knowledge” or, less literally, “the one whose knowledge is great” (since oak was considered to signify greatness). But those are just semantics and I’m not as bothered by it. I’m MORE bothered by the use of the word “Darach” which does NOT mean Dark oak. “ach” is an Irish suffix meaning “Belonging to” and Darach is an NAME, as in like Emily or Janice, it’s a Name not a title. One that means “belonging to the oak” (actually, it’s masculine, so it would mean “Son of oak”). Scottish Gaelic and Irish are still real languages and you mistranslating things and taking words from their already incredibly oppressed and abused culture is really fucking annoying. So, uh. yeah. Listen, this is one of my few areas where I know anything so I had to complain about it. I get that it’s just a show. I really do. But it’s my post, so meh. Also, you bet your ass I have opinions on the concept of a Nemeton as well. But that’s not for now.

I find it kinda hilarious that none of the names on those papers had last names. Tom. Terry. Tim P. almost has a last name.

and now we break my fucking heart. Actually, first I wanna give this show some props for once. The music they use for this season is very drum based, very repetitive, and it really helps with the ritualistic vibe they seem to be going for. The chanting, etc. I worry about what they pulled that stuff from, cus’ if it’s from actual religions that’s fucking dicey, but the atmosphere is good.

NOW we break my fucking heart. Fucking fuck. It hurts, especially knowing that Isaac already had one flashback today. And then they have to go and add anger to my turmoil by having him go to SCOTT. Fuck scott. I fucking hate this.

Bye Harris. No, wait, I have questions. So Harris helped Jennifer somehow. By...what, helping her fake her identity? Was he her reference for getting the job at the school? Or did he help her with the killings, by finding her students/teachers who fit the bill? When he says “They’ll figure you out” is he talking about the cops or the wolves? Does he know about the supernatural? If he does, does that mean that he knew who Kate was when she found him in that bar? Bye Harris.

Last Thoughts: I’ll give this episode props. It had sunlight in it. Uh...I honestly can’t think of anything else I enjoyed. This shit, this shit is why people write fanfiction. These mistakes with the timeline and the schedule and the character’s whose personalities flip back and forth at random? The refusal to acknowledge trauma and deal with it appropriately? I honestly don’t even know how to feel about the show selling this Derek/Jennifer romance to us and then revealing at the end that he was under a literal spell the whole time. That he had sex with her while under the influence of her magic. That these oh so brief moments where we actually get to see Derek smiling and joking and see a hint at his personality and his intelligence and maybe even his past, they’re all forced on him. It’s all a trick. He has sex with her while he’s incapable of giving consent. It’s fucking rape, shown on-screen. And the show portrayed this as romantic, for the sake of their stupid fucking plot twist. We were encouraged to like this relationship because we didn’t know he was being Controlled. Ugh. Bleh. Plus there’s the whole thing where once again Stiles is being ignored and Lydia has no clue what’s going on, and Deaton is hiding things from everyone and Boyd is barely a character. And Allison’s behavior is never dealt with, and Scott is just...Scott. This is why I make changes.

[kara-dolan]

The Day We Met

A/N- I’ve been working on this for the past week I hope you enjoy. Also, I suggest listening to Or nah by somo, and bad intentions by niykee heaton near the end of the story on loop.Um, but yeah enjoy.

Summary- You and your roommate decided to go to the beach making a quick stop at the store to get snacks and drinks never would you have imagined running into the Dolan Twins there.

Warning- OH GOD THE SMUT. Maybe some flirting. Sarcasm on point. Feels for fucking days.

Word count- 4,163  I am so tired lol

I was with my roommate and a couple of their friends getting snacks before going to the beach. I was in charge of getting beverages, so of course, I went to get bottled water. What I didn’t expect to see was the Dolan Twins in front of me arguing as to which kind of water they were going to get.

“Excuse me,” I say squeezing past them getting their attention.

“Oh, sorry…” they say in unison.

“It’s no problem...” I started to say and looked at them for the first time in person they sounded and looked so much better in person. “Sorry, but aren’t you the Dolan Twins?” I asked. They looked at each other and then back to me. “Yeah, we are. I’m Grayson.” He said reaching his hand out.

“Yeah, I know. Um, I’m Y/N.” I say laughing a little while taking his hand. His hand was huge compared to mine “You guys are hilarious by the way”

“Thanks, did you want to get a picture with us?” Ethan asked me. I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to interrupt your shopping.” I say getting 4 bottles of water off the shelf. “Really?” Grayson asked. “Yeah, I mean you are just human at the end of the day… even though you are attractive and funny and sweet, and I need to go drown in the ocean now…” I say laughing and blushing a little.

“Ocean?” Ethan questioned while Grayson just smiled. “Yeah, I’m going to the beach with my roommate and a couple other people.” I say walking down the aisle more. They followed surprisingly. “Which beach?” Ethan asked.

“I don’t know I recently just moved to California from Y/H/P. My roommate knows more of the area.” I explained walking more towards where Y/R/N was. “Anyways it was great meeting you guys.” I say turning to walk back to Y/R/N.

“Who were they?” Y/R/N asked. “Oh, uh… they’re the Dolan Twins…” I say smiling and looking back to see them looking at me with confused faces. I turned back to the group.

“Anyways let’s go. I’m tired of surfing the isles lets go surf some waves.” I say giggling. “Okay, the corny jokes need to stop.” Y/R/N said. I wrinkled my nose and shook my head “Never going to happen.” I say. We checked out our items and went to Y/R/N’s car, it was a 1967 Chevy Impala in midnight blue. I was stuck in the back with the surfboards and Y/R/N’s creepy friend Reed. It wasn’t how he looked, cause let me tell you physically he was okay; dirty blond hair, tanned skin, athletic build, green eyes, but his personality was shit.

“Hey Y/N, want to go skinny dipping when we get to the beach, I’d love to see what you got under that bikini…” he breathed into my ear. I pushed the boards between us and cringed away into the far corner of the car. We finally reached the beach and once the car was put in park I opened the door and grabbed my board and sprinted to the water not waiting for anyone. Once I reached the water's edge I pulled my hair up, removed my clothes only to reveal the olive-green bikini that clung to my body perfectly.

 I waxed my board and took off into the water. I paddled out looking for the best wave once I saw it I paddled towards it. Turning my board around I paddled until I could jump up onto my board to ride the wave. Once I was on my board I moved with the wave trying to forget life and just be in the moment, I was mid-thought when I felt the droplets of water on my shoulder. I didn’t even notice when the sky darkened and people on the beach screaming about the rain, but that’s not what I was worried about.

I started to make my way back to shore as fast as I could, I needed to get out of the water. The only good thing that comes out of weather is that it made the waves harsh which helped push me faster but still near the deep water my board got knocked out from under me. I tried to remain calm as a shark brushed by me, I was scared for sure, but I didn’t need to freak out, I would most likely be attacked if I freaked out. The next thing I knew I was being pulled out of the water and onto a jet ski. I immediately engulfed the air gripping the muscular figure in front of me.

“Thank you, thank you, so fucking much.” I say in between labored breaths. “Hold on tight.” He yelled back while taking off. Once we reached shore I got off the jet ski and collapsed onto the sand hyperventilating.

“Hey, hey, hey, you’re okay just focus your breathing.” A voice said, and I looked up. “Ethan?”  I asked confused getting my breathing back to normal. “Yeah, Grayson’s here too. You’re a surfer you know how bad the water gets when it storms, why didn’t you come back to the beach when the sky darkened?” he asked me while Grayson came jogging towards us. “I wasn’t thinking or paying attention I was just… I don’t know.” I say shaking a bit. “Well, your board is completely wrecked…” Grayson says wrapping a towel around me.

“I couldn’t give two shits about my board right now… just thank you… both of you but, what are you guys even doing here?” I questioned. They looked at each other then back to me, “Well you said you were going to the beach and we thought that sounded like a great plan.” Ethan said. “Yeah, and we didn’t think you actually meant you were going to go drown in the ocean...” Grayson said letting out a soft chuckle which made you smile.

“Y/N!!!! ARE YOU OKAY?!” Y/R/N ran over with an umbrella screaming. “Yeah dude, I’m fine. Chill… Ethan here got to me before any sharks got to take a bite.” I say nonchalantly. “Wait, there was a shark?!” Ethan asked panicked. “Yeah… That’s why I didn’t move. I was staying calm, so I didn’t get attacked.” I say. Grayson started to laugh, and I raised an eyebrow in question, I shook it off and began to stand which made Grayson stop laughing and rushing to help me up. He had my hand on his shoulder and his on my waist.

“Thanks…” I say giving him a small smile. He just stared at me with his light brown eyes which were decorated with flecks of green… “Anyways, I should get home. Y/F/N can we go I am soaked and I just want to go.” I say pulling away from Grayson.

“No-can-do Reed is going to be renting out the beach house so the rest of us are going to stay. He said it was your idea.” Y/F/N says. I scoffed and rolled my eyes “No, it wasn’t my idea. I’ll take an Uber back to the apartment then.” I say looking for my bag which was about 10 feet from where I was. I turned away from everyone walking over to get my bag. I grabbed my phone out of it pulling up the Uber app when I noticed the twins in front of me.

“Why don’t we drive you back?” Ethan asked me. We were standing in the middle of the beach while it was pouring rain. “Sure…” I say pulling on my extra T-shirt which like everything else was soaked. We ran to Grayson’s Bronco. “God, the Bronco is sexier in person…” I say under my breath, but Grayson heard me and laughed. “Sorry, I’m a vehicle enthusiast. Please tell me this baby has a Ford 170 cu in straight-6, modified with solid valve lifters, a 6-US-quart oil pan, heavy-duty fuel pump, oil-bath air cleaner, and a carburetor with a float bowl that compensates against tilting?” I say getting in the back seat. Grayson and Ethan both looking back at me in awe. “What? My uncles a mechanic. I got to know this stuff.” I say smiling.

“Who are you?” Ethan asked me. “I’m Y/E/N. No, but it in all seriousness please tell me the carburetor has a float bowl cause without it we could break down.” I replied. “Yeah the carburetor has a float bowl” Grayson said looking away from me to start the Bronco. I nodded as we pulled away from the beach and onto the street. We pulled up to a red light and Grayson turned his head back to look at me, “So… uh, who is Reed?” he asked.

I scoffed “Some asshole that Y/R/N is friends with. He tried to set himself up with me, but he isn’t my type.”

“So, what is your type?” Grayson questioned looking back in the review mirror. I licked my lips and smiled “Umm… I don’t know all I know is that I don’t like douche bags and well… Reed is… he’s the leader of douche-bagery.” I say smiling at Grayson then looking away. “Well, Reed sounds like an amazing guy.” Ethan said. “Oh yeah, totally.” I retorted. He looked at me then to Grayson then back to me.

“You guys do that a lot…” I say. “Do what?” They asked me in unison. “The talking at the same time and looking at each other then back to me.” I say giggling. They looked at each other then back to me I laughed, and they joined in. “Okay, I see what you mean now.” Grayson said smirking. I blushed and looked away so he wouldn’t notice. “Yo, you know what I just realized.” Ethan said grasping my attention. “What?” I questioned. “We have no idea where you live so Grayson is just driving around in the rain.” He answered with a chuckle. ‘Damn these boys are going to be the death of me’ I thought to myself.

“Oh, yeah you’re right. Umm… my address is 4708 Turtle St.” I say blushing. Ethan put the address into his phone and directed Grayson. When we arrived, they pulled into the parking garage finding a spot not too far from the stairs that lead to my apartment.

“Do you guys want to come up? I can order a pizza…” I asked them. “Pizza? I’m down. Ethan?” Grayson responded. “You’re my ride so yeah I’m down as long as we can get pineapple pizza.” Ethan said turning to look at me. “Pineapple pizza is a must in my apartment.” I say giving them a smirk as I get out of the car. I get my keys out of my bag as I jog up the stairwell to my apartment door when we reached my door Grayson and Ethan burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked them. “Your apartment number is… it's uh… never mind.” Ethan said. “What? 69? Yeah, I know I picked it out. So, if you guys are done giggling like a couple of bitches I’ll be inside ordering the pizza and changing into some dry clothes.” I say opening my front door and walking to my room smiling. I was in my room taking my hair down and removing my drenched clothes drying off with an oversized towel when I heard the front close. After I put on soft grey shorts and an oversized black hoodie I brought the guys some towels to dry off a bit.

“Here, figured you guys might want to dry off a little.” I say handing them the towels which they immediately took and began removing their clothes. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa hold it. As much as I like seeing you guys shirtless in the videos it’ll be a bit awkward for you to strip in my living room. There are two bathrooms, one in my room the other in Y/R/N’s room.” I say holding up my hands and averting my eyes. Grayson and Ethan just stood there with smirks on their faces and continued to remove their tops which made me back away into the wall by my bedroom door.

“Okay, I get it you have sun-kissed abs. Damn, are you guys trying to start something?” I asked them cocking my eyebrow at them. “What exactly would we be starting Y/N?” Ethan asked cocking his own eyebrow this time. My eyes widened, and I blushed looking down which made them chuckle.

“Hey, relax we’re joking, we’ll go to the bathroom.” Ethan says walking through my bedroom to my bathroom. “You’re adorable when you blush though…” Grayson said winking at me heading to the other bathroom. “What the fuck?!” I semi yell throwing my hands around. “Whatever…” I say sighing in defeat and taking my phone out to finally order the pizza.

“Hey, I’d like to place an order for a large pineapple pizza, oh… and cheesy garlic bread.” I said to the person taking my order. “And will this be pick up or delivery?” they asked me. “Delivery, the address is 4708 Turtle St. Apartment number 69A.” I replied. “Is this a crank call?” they asked. “Um… No, my name is Y/F/N Y/L/N.” I replied again.

“Okay, it’ll be there in about 20 minutes. Cash or Credit?” they asked. “Cash.” I state. “Alright, thank you for ordering from The Doughfather Pizzeria.” They say hanging up. “Did you just order the pizza?” Grayson asked me coming from Y/R/N’s room shirtless rubbing the towel on his wet hair. “Uh… um… uh yeah.” I say focusing my eyes on his intense ones while I grip my hair and let it go.  I look away and walk towards the kitchen to get some plates.

“So…” he says leaning against the counter next to me. “Yeah?” I ask reaching up on my tippy toes to get the plates. “Here, let me help.” He says reaching above me grabbing them and setting them down in front of me. I turn around only to be met by his bare chest “Thanks…” I say breathlessly. He bent down and whispered, “No problem.” And pulled away smirking.

I scoffed and smiled, “Bit cocky aren’t you Grayson?” I asked him. “You know you can call me Gray right?” He retorted. “Oh, is that so?” I flirted a little stepping a little closer. He didn’t move, he wasn’t bothered by how close I was. He licked his lips and clenched his jaw looking away from me then setting his gaze back on to me.

“Am I interrupting something?” Ethan asked coming out from my room with his shorts and shirt on. “Not one bit, I just ordered pizza.” I say staring into Grayson’s eyes before turning away to grab the plates. I walk away from the kitchen and set the plates on the table. I could feel both of their eyes on my ass which made me feel a little self-conscious.

“You guys want to watch a movie while we wait for the pizza?” I asked them turning around to see their eyes snap up. “Sure” they say in unison again which made me giggle and they blushed. “Great it’s settled we will watch the screen that plays the movie. Not my ass.” I say rolling my eyes walking to my room to grab ‘It Follows’. “Scary movie anyone?” I say coming out of my room holding it in my hand. “Gray gets scared watching horror movies.” Ethan said while trying to hold in a laugh.

“No, I don’t.” He said shoving Ethan a little. “Um… Chill we’re going to watch the movie and if anyone gets scared they can hide under the covers, so I will most likely be under the covers more than anyone…” I say blushing and smiling awkwardly. “That’s adorable.” Ethan says to me. “Yeah, I am adorable, so to quote you ‘Deal with it.” I say sticking my tongue out at him laughing. I went over to the TV and put the movie into the DVD player, then grabbed a huge blanket from the chair by the balcony.

They came and joined me on the couch underneath the blanket Grayson on my right side and Ethan on my left. At the beginning of the movie, it was very awkward with the sex scene because Ethan and Grayson stared at me through most of it. But once the creepy bitch popped up their eyes were glued to the screen. I had the blanket near my neck just in case I needed to hide. Halfway through the movie, I was already under the blanket asking if the scene was over yet.

“No Y/N it’s not over yet. We’ll let you know when it is though.” Ethan said to me. Grayson, however, joined me under the blanket. “Hey.” He whispered. “Hey…” I whispered back. “I just wanted to sa-” He started but was interrupted by the doorbell.

“I’ll get it!” I yelled jumping out from underneath the blanket tripping over it and crawled/ran to the door which made them laugh. I open the door to find the pizza delivery girl. “Delivery for Y/F/N Y/L/N.” she said. I take the food and pay her the money plus a tip she thanked me and left. “Guys the pizza is he-” I start to say turning around already seeing them at my kitchen table, “Okay then…” I finish saying. I put the box on the table and we all ate in silence which was weird.

“Guys it’s getting late. I kind of want to get to bed soon.” I tell them after we get done eating. “Yeah, sure, no problem. I’ll just go get my shirt and we’ll go.” Grayson said. “Thanks…” I reply. Grayson went to the bathroom he took his shirt off in and came out putting it on. “It was great hanging out we should do it again sometime.” I say walking them to the door. “For sure” Grayson responds.

“We should get each other’s number, so it’ll be easier to get in contact with you instead of showing up here to get you.” Ethan said. I nodded, and we exchanged numbers and they left. I went to my room stripping out of my clothes to shower when my doorbell rang. I threw on a robe and ran to open my door, “Gray? Didn’t you guys just leave?” I asked him. “Yeah, I just forgot something.” He says coming into my apartment closing the door behind him. “Um… what could you have possibly forgotten?” I asked him running my fingers through my hair.

“This…” he says pinning me against the wall planting his lips against mine which sent electricity through my entire body, his plump lips were moving like a steady heartbeat. I returned the kiss deepening it by wrapping a leg around his waist and reaching my arms around his neck in which he responded by bringing his hands to grip my ass and lift me up. I pull away to laugh only to be met by his lips attacking my neck which made my laugh to turn to a moan. He stopped looked up at me and smirked and I bit my lip and kissed him again pulling on his bottom lip with my teeth. I pushed myself off the wall with my back pinning him against the opposing wall.

Lust filled our eyes as our emotions heightened, we were getting high off each other’s presence. I pulled away from the kiss putting my hands on his chest resting my forehead on his. I swallowed and gasped “Well, damn Gray.” I say breathlessly. He chuckled, and I removed my hands from his chest biting my lip again looking at him as I slid my hands down around my chest going to the robes tied string slowly undoing it. It dropped from around my shoulders exposing my chest and falling from my arms down to my waist.

I gripped his shoulders leaning down licking his neck up to his jaw. “Fuck…” he groaned, I glanced up at him giving him an innocent look. “Do you need some help… daddy?” I ask him sweetly reaching my hand between my legs rubbing his dick through his jeans in response he growled pushing off the wall slamming me back into the wall we started this on. I hissed at the pain, but I was far too gone to care, I took his mouth on mine again pushing myself up to tower over him. I pulled away pushing him away which made him let me down letting the rest of my robe fall to the ground.

“Are you okay? Was I too rough?” He asked me with worry in his eyes. I laughed, “No. You weren’t rough. I’m just… wanting to take this to my room.” I say grabbing his hand leading him to my bedroom. Once we entered I shut my door and led him over by the bed pushing him back onto it crawling on top of him gripping and sliding his shirt up and over his head. I planted trails of kisses from his neck down to his abdomen stopping just above his jeans. I undo his pants sliding them off him while straddling his lap, I grab the back of his neck pulling him up his lips meeting mine while I grind against his hard cock as he fondles my breast. I grab his hands bringing them to my neck having him wrap his fingers around it and I moaned into the kiss.

I slip off him breaking the kiss hooking my fingers around the top of his boxers pulling them off releasing his dick, I slowly licked up his shaft, my tongue circling the tip of his head collecting the precum from it. He automatically started gripping my hair as I start to lower my mouth over his dick sucking all of his length. He pulled my hair each time I came up and slammed his dick further into my mouth making me choke. It wasn’t long until I felt his dick twitch inside of my mouth which made me stop and kissing the tip of his dick which made him groan.

“Y/N please…” he begged. I straddled his waist again leaning in and whispering in his ear “I want you to make me scream… daddy.” Hearing this he stood up and dropped me on the bed which made me giggle but when he spread my legs apart roughly my giggles faded. He slid a finger past the entrance of my pussy and over my clit making me bite my lip and moan out his name which made him stop.

“What did you just moan Y/N/N?” he asked. “Grayson…” I moaned again.

He stood up and flipped me over on my stomach. “Grayson? What are you doing?” I ask looking back at him only to see his hand making directed contact with my ass. “Fuck…” I moaned. “Who am I baby girl?” he asked me. “Daddy…” I moan, he pulled my ass towards him sliding his dick between my folds then inserting it slowly in and out till he couldn’t take it anymore.

He thrusted into me hard and deep at a faster pace I could feel my walls tighten around him. “Damn baby, you’re so tight and wet for daddy.” He says slapping my ass and pulling my hair forcing my head back to look at him. I was biting my lip with my eyes closed holding back my moans. He let go of my hair pulled out and flipped me around. He forced my legs open holding them down and started to eat me out.

His tongue fucking my entrance while sucking on my clit, I whimpered when he inserted 3 of his slender fingers inside of me immediately hitting my G spot. “Fuck Gray… I’m going to cum.” I moaned while grinding against him. He stopped fingering me pulling his mouth away from my swollen clit, he looked at me with a dark expression and slap my clit which was the breaking point for me. I squirted all over his hand and chest my screams bordering on pain and pleasure. Coming down from the climax I notice he was kneeling in front of me smirking and licking his fingers.

“Never made anyone squirt before…” he says looking up at me smiling. “No ones ever made me squirt before. But let’s take care of you now.” I say sitting up and getting on my knees in front of him. I take his dick in my hand and sucking on his tip lowering myself down teasingly. When he started to groan I sucked his cock to the point my cheeks hallowed out. His dick twitched inside my mouth notifying me he was coming.

“Swallow it. All of it.” He demanded as I looked up at him with my mouth full of his cum. I swallowed it all every drop. “I had already planned to… daddy.”  I say getting up wiping the side of my mouth with my thumb and walking to my bathroom to shower.

  To be continued…

[lorrainecparker]

ART OF THE CUT with Oscar Winner Alan Heim, ACE

Alan Heim is the former President of American Cinema Editors and is the current President of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. His first gig as a picture editor was The Sea Gull (1968). He has edited for a slew of the best directors in the business, including Sidney Lumet, Mel Brooks, Bob Fosse, John Hughes, Milos Forman, Barbra Steisand, Tony Kaye, and Nick Cassavetes. Heim is an Oscar winner for Best Editing for All that Jazz and was nominated for an Oscar for Network. He also won or was nominated for several ACE Eddies and Emmys.

(Normally I am careful to clear all photographs and image in my articles, being careful to credit photographers and copyright holders when necessary. In this article, most images are pulled from the internet. If you own the rights to one of these images and wish me to pull it or credit it, let me know.)

HULLFISH: Was the last thing you cut a documentary? Or have you cut any documentaries?

HEIM: I have but the last thing I edited was a film about Hank Williams about a year and a half ago (I Saw the Light) which I had a great time on actually. It was picked up by a distributing company sight unseen which is very unusual. From the beginning, I said the cut is too long. I was hired late because the original editor never started the film due to an injury, but by that time it was five weeks into the production and I was way behind. They finished shooting around Christmas and I finished and I called the director and I said I think the film is really terrific but it’s three hours and 20 minutes long. He said, “no problem.” Well, we never got it short enough and it’s partly the pacing. I know a lot of people who saw it and really thought it was wonderful. On the other hand people say it was too long. So we finally went back into the cutting room and took out about 10 minutes which was not enough but it was a lovely movie, and if that’s going to be my last movie, I don’t mind at all.

HULLFISH: One of things that brings up to me is the social engineering aspect of being an editor. How do you deal with the director in knowing when to push harder or to know that you can’t push too hard?

HEIM: Don’t get me started.

HULLFISH: The whole point of this interview is to get you started.

HEIM: (laughs) One of the things you have to realize about being an editor is it’s two thirds psychological, maybe more. You are between the director’s vision and idea of what he shot and what he really shot. You are the conscience of the director in a way. So there’s no point in being dishonest with directors because two things will happen: They’ll either dismiss you – I don’t mean “get fired” but they’ll just not listen, or it’ll just start off on a nasty foot. So you just try and protect the director. Look, I don’t want to seem particularly vain about it because I don’t have the right answer half the time either, but the director usually thinks that they’ve got it. They’ve nailed the shot. They’ve nailed the scene. And they often don’t. And to be able to turn the director and let him see your vision is incredibly important. Fosse (director, Bob Fosse) referred to me as his collaborator and I think that’s just the best compliment coming from a guy like Fosse.

Director Bob Fosse on the set of All That Jazz

He also said I was his conscience because everybody wants to get that last little frame of what they think is wonderful, but maybe it’s the frame before. As an editor, you have to be kind of neutral. You have to be a neutral observer. You have to protect the material. You have to protect the actors and sometimes you have to protect the director from his own instinct, or from the producer. That’s a situation that can be unpleasant.

HULLFISH: I haven’t had that problem before. Sounds like a precarious position.

HEIM: You learn things. Even test screenings. You learn something if you listen. You’re always learning. That’s what I love about the business. I was cutting a pilot and a friend was down the hall cutting a series for HBO and I walked by her room and I see a couple of three people outside the suite in suits. It’s cliche but they were… and I poked my head in and said, “So are you getting a lot of notes?” And she said, “I told them the other day that if they are going to give me notes they have to go outside the room write down the notes.”

I was on a movie called Grey Gardens – we were ready to show the film to the head of the studio – Colin Callendar – and Colin was not available so our producers kept sending this stuff back up to HBO for notes, but there was no way the people at HBO had the authority to give notes so at a certain point, I said, “I really don’t want to fight with this anymore.” and Lee Percy came on and he finished it and we had a shared credit. I think Lee’s finished two movies that I started on… maybe the other way around.  Notes: Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad.

HULLFISH: You mentioned screenings, and sometimes the notes from them can be strange from audience members, but there’s a tremendous value to just being in the screening and feeling things in a different way with a real audience, right?

HEIM: I did a really bad comedy called Beer years ago, and Bob Chartoff was the producer, of Chartoff/Winkler, the Rocky pictures. He and Winkler had broken up and I knew this was a bad movie, but I wanted it to work. And I figured Chartoff would be interesting. So we had a screening for Orion Pictures, they were our producers, and I kept telling the director and Chartoff that the film had no ending. It was kind of a disaster. There was a lot of funny stuff in it but for no reason and it got mean at the end, really mean-spirited. So we had this meeting and the director, Patrick Kelly, who was well over six feet tall and enormous. He is the kind of guy who wears sandals in the winter, you know, an American flag bandana down around his head, very tall. And Chartoff was a very tall thin man and Chartoff was sitting next to me at the screening and the audience absolutely loved the movie for about 50 minutes maybe an hour and Chartoff, every time there was a big laugh, he would give me a shot in the ribs, which I probably still have bruises from. And he would say, “See?” and I would say, “Wait.” And at the end of the movie we all wanted to crawl out of the theater. Two of the screening cards – which I kept for a long time – somebody had added an extra column after good, fair, poor: they’d added “shit” and checked it off all the way down. On another card, the card asked: “What did you learn from this movie?” – It was a comedy for God’s sake – and somebody wrote: “Don’t ever take free tickets to a movie.”

HULLFISH: OK, let’s go a little more highbrow. Let’s talk All that Jazz. I was talking to Dody Dorn about how much she loved the famous pencil snap with no sound as – spoiler alert – as the Joe Gideon character has a heart attack. Can you talk me through that?

Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon in All That Jazz

HEIM All the actors sitting around doing the table read, they were being cued to laugh. And it wasn’t very good so Bob got in a comic for the second day of shooting. Everything took a long time on that movie. Bob got in a comic and that guy was actually telling jokes and that didn’t work either. And it just seemed like we had a laugh track going and it didn’t seem right. So at some point, and it was probably Fosse’s idea, but I probably started to fade out the track. So we just took it all out and we put in the loud sounds but they’re the kind of sounds you would hear when you’re having a panic attack. Sometimes you don’t hear anything, and sometimes putting out a cigarette sounds like gunshots. Cracking the pencil was like that too, it just worked. So we left it like that.

Fosse and Dustin Hoffman on set of “Lenny.”

When I worked with Fosse when he came into the cutting room we would re-work scenes and we never put them down until we were happy with them. Later, when we had the whole picture, we might go back and do a couple little things, but every scene we tried to polish as much as possible to get the most out of it. Which is why I was on some films for 14 months with him. Every day was an adventure, absolutely every day.

HULLFISH: I wrote an essay about how – with pacing and rhythm – we can learn from other arts and Fosse was obviously a dance guy so did you have a common language of rhythm and pace? Is that overthinking it?

THE FAN, Lauren Bacall, Maureen Stapleton, 1981, (c) Paramount

HEIM: A film I did after All That Jazz was called The Fan, with Lauren Bacall. I met the director and we had a nice talk. Everybody thought he was way over his head. A commercial director, who became much better later. First day of dailies, they were cripplingly slow. it’s an epistolary novel that takes a form of letters that the guy who writes to this stage star that he’s obsessed with. So we have him on the steps of his tenement in Manhattan and he’s reading a letter and he’s actually reading the letter, and it’s deadly dull. At the end of watching dailies the crew did something I’d never seen before. They all applauded, but I didn’t applaud. So he turned to me and said, “How come you didn’t applaud?” and I said, “It’s very slow and I’m really very worried about that.” And he said, “I come out of commercials I can get everything down to 60 seconds.” I said, “This is a movie. You’ve got to get it to 90 minutes.” After that he didn’t trust me at all until I showed him a couple of cut scenes and he said, “Oh, I see what you were talking about.” And he started to pick up the pace of the movie and we were able to beat that down. That might’ve have been the worst thing I ever said to a director.

HULLFISH: How do you get that beat down to a proper pace? A lot of people say that a movie has its own rhythm, so what do you do if the rhythm is that slow and it shouldn’t be?

HEIM: I know what you mean. Back in New York we used to say that the actors talk too slow. Movies of the 30s and 40s people talked fast as hell. And they filmed 70 to 80 minutes long and they stepped on each others lines, but it was rehearsed and it was crisp, and you might not like it but it moved things forward. Then there was a period when the actors – and directors – tended to be kind of indulgent. You can’t make the actors talk faster. I discovered that you can basically take a love scene, and if you overlap the dialogue, it seems like an argument. That’s not a great trick but I’ve done it – or close to it – when I want to pick up pace.

I loved working with Nick Cassavetes because he would go over with the actors and say, “Stop acting. Just know your lines and be fast between takes.” So we would tighten the hell out of it. A film I did with Cassavetes was The Other Woman. If you look at it closely you’ll see that that Cameron Diaz is out of sync a lot. Because we just cut her words together. She and Nick did not get along, and Nick and I both felt we just want to make it better. And if she doesn’t know her lines when she comes on the set let’s just make her say the lines so we cut around it. Those films are really tight cutting. It’s hard to do. If the actors are slow, you just get stuck. I love molding the performances. That’s the raw material. I look for the best takes and I try very hard to protect the actor’s integrity. I look at dailies first. By noon I’m usually looking at the dailies and I will know which takes I want to use. And then if I sat down with the director in the evening and he didn’t like any of the takes that I liked, then I knew that means trouble down the line. I would always use the best take in my mind that the actor has done. And sometimes the director would say, “Why did you use that one? Why didn’t you use this?” To get back to what I was saying about The Fan – I was cutting a sequence with Lauren Bacall, who’s not much of a dancer. And we had to protect her from her physical stuff. So one night, a friend of mine, asked me if I would come over and run the film with them. My wife came along and we had a great time, but they could pick up on the fact that I was stopping her just before she fell off. So the choreographer came in one day and after I got the sequence put together and ran it. He looked at me and said, “You know I couldn’t figure out where you were cutting when I looked at All That Jazz, and now I see you don’t cut on the beat. You cut near the beat.” That’s true. To cut on the beat is kind of wooden and I wasn’t aware that I was doing that. I just cut where it seemed comfortable with the movement. When I started working with Fosse. I discovered that the choreographer’s job is different than a stage choreographer: It’s to guide the audience’s eyes around the screen. So Fosse used a lot of close ups of body parts, feet and hands, but there was always this intention to keep the flow going. The first thing I did was Liza with a Z and people said it was too much cutting. To this day I don’t agree. That’s where I learned a lot of stuff. That’s when I learned how to cut musical numbers and I really loved doing it. It is the same with a dialogue scene, you really have to lead the audience in cuts. When I was a sound effects editor, an editor named Aram Avakian (who edited Mickey One) was a brilliant editor and had a great visual sense. He was very smart. I was working as a sound editor on The Group and he came up behind me, and it was a dinner scene of two people talking, and he said, “That’s a great cut.” I turned to him and asked, “Why is that a great cut?” And he said, “Because it just seemed like two people talking. Look at it again.” So, I rolled it back and forth and I told him I didn’t see it. He says, “Look at where the direction of the fork is now and then when you cut you come back and you move the other way.” And suddenly I learned all I ever had to know about physical editing. It was kind of amazing because I never thought of that. The motion from one carried over into the next take. It can’t always happen, but when it does it is thrilling.

HULLFISH: You said one of the things about cutting musical scenes was to try to have the flow of the motion of one shot lead the audience’s eye to the next cut.

HEIM Paul Taylor, the modern dancer and terrific choreographer had specials on PBS. Somewhere he learned the idea that movement should go from one shot to the next. Most specials you don’t see that. He’s got dancers running around the stage like crazy but there’s always a flow. I found it thrilling. I met Fosse back in New York. I was doing a lot of television as a sounds effects editor and I’ve done a little bit of picture cutting, and I got a call from a guy named Kenny Ott. He was a well-known line producer in New York, and he asked me if I’d be interested in working on a TV show with Bob Fosse and Liza Minnelli. I said “sure.” So I went up to meet Fosse at the Broadway Arts studio. It’s a little space. By the way, the Broadway Arts Studio is the one that’s replicated in All That Jazz.

My late wife had seen Cabaret and I hadn’t got to see it yet. I wasn’t really a fan of movie musicals. So I met Fosse. He’s in the middle of the room, and all these dancers are hurling themselves around us. We’re talking in the middle of the room. I’m not a musician but I was a music editor. We talked for a while and I got no sense of whether I was going to get hired or not, but I loved the energy in that room. I just loved the dancers. They would come sliding right up to our feet, and the room was filled with heat and sweat – running around, motion, and color. After that I went over to the Ziegfeld – saw Cabaret – and I came home that night and I told my wife, “I want him to hire me. I really want to work with this guy.” And it worked out. That led to Lenny and Lenny led to All That Jazz and that led to some other stuff, then Star 80 and then he died.

HULLFISH: I remember seeing Star 80 when I was fairly young and found it very disturbing.

HEIM: Oh boy, oh boy was that a disturbing movie! We were finishing All That Jazz and Bob came up one day and he said, “I found the next film I want to do.” He gave me a copy of the Village Voice, which is where the article about Dorothy Stratten came from. I read the article, and thought it was perfect for him. It’s this Svengali-like figure with a lot of women and a lot of degeneracy. He was in show business all of his life and the guy – the husband of Dorothy Stratten – he was a hanger on. He was kind of a guy looking to make his career on her. Fosse had a lot of contempt for show business He also loved it. Which I think is a line from All that Jazz. “I love show business, I hate show business.” That’s all he knew… that’s not true. He was a very bright guy. Very well versed in psychiatry and many things and he hung with good people: Paddy Chayefsky and Herb Gardner and a whole bunch of New York people. That’s really how I ended up doing Network. I’m pretty sure Bob suggested me to Paddy even though I had done two films with Sidney, it’d been several years in between.

Director John Hughes © 1985 Universal Pictures

To get back to the question about screening: after a day of shooting, having the crew go into a theater and watch the dailies… you learned a lot just from sitting there. Directors never said much to me, but you learn something just from being in the room. You’re sometimes there till midnight. In Chicago sometimes with John Hughes, later than that. He’d shoot all day and into the evening. One night my crew and I got a late call that said “John’s not going to be in until midnight.” So we went to the movies.

HULLFISH: So you started screening dailies at midnight?

HEIM: Somebody told me that they did a TV show where they’d shoot all day and then the director would come in and work with the editor on the previous day’s material. So that puts you into midnight or early morning. It’s crazy. It’s a young man’s game.

HULLFISH: When did you switch from editing on a Moviola or a KEM to Avid?

HEIM: 1995. That’s when I moved out here to LA. A bunch of us who were editing feature films in New York were approached by the CMX company – CBS I think it was. They were developing a laser pen editing system which was used for a while and they gave us instructions on how it worked. You had these disks and it came as if you were bringing a cake to a party, but it could only hold 20 minutes of material. So you couldn’t hold a feature film on it. You’d have to stop set up a new thing. And we talked about that. Eventually they used it a lot in television. I was wrestling with whether I should learn an electronic edit system. I was really good on a Moviola and I didn’t even like the Avid particularly. But the last stuff I did on film I did I used an English bench and a motorized picture and track synchronizer. The last few films I did on film I loved that bench, because it was really intimate contact with the film. I only used the Moviola to screen on, then.

HULLFISH: A lot of people liked to screen on a KEM, right?

HEIM: I never did. We did Lenny on a Moviola and Fosse was having trouble seeing the screen, so we did All That Jazz on the KEM. So I would adapt. I preferred the Moviola, I was faster on it. I didn’t have to stretch over those tables.

HULLFISH: So you moved to Avid in 95 because…

HEIM: I was given the opportunity. I was offered a film in San Francisco where the guy would teach me LightWorks and I would teach him film. I was still cutting on film when I got a call to do a Barbra Streisand movie back in New York and Sony wanted me to do it on the Avid. So now I have to learn another system. And Sony said they would give me an instructor. Well they gave me the guy who was doing maintenance on the lot and my assistant and I, she never worked on a film either on Avid. The guy started to turn on the machine, but suddenly he’s called away. So that’s Monday. And so Monday afternoon I went over to the guy in charge of rental equipment and said, look I’m going to New York on Saturday. I’m going to be in the cutting room on Monday. And if you don’t get me an instructor who can teach me, just me, I’m going to insist on the LightWorks. So they got me an instructor from Avid who actually was also an editor and we spent three intense days just stuffing whatever I could into my head. And at one point I remember just putting my head on the keyboard, three or four, in the afternoon on Friday and I said, “That’s it. I can’t do anymore of this.” Most editors I know, of my generation, are not particularly adept at the electronic stuff. But we do try and tell stories and that’s what it’s about. It’s a tool. I liked it, almost immediately, but I may have liked the LightWorks better.

HULLFISH: Thelma is still on LightWorks. Why do you call yourself a storyteller? How does the editor actually tell a story in the edit room?

Bob Fosse and Dustin Hoffman on set “Lenny”

HEIM: Working in film, you manipulate time. The editing process is really the last opportunity to change the story before it goes out into the world. How do we tell a story? It has to do with the rhythm – of the pace of it – you can turn a picture into something completely different, in the editing process, than was intended. You can’t really get away from the script, nor would you want to, but there is a lot of excess material in the script as there always is. So we just try to make the story better. We try to make it more concise. We try and direct the audience to what they should be looking at any given time. Stanley Kauffmann who was a film critic of some repute in New York said, and I paraphrase here, “You always want to watch the person you’re watching. Even if you didn’t know it at the time.” Now that’s what an editor does. Where you put a reaction shot… where you stay on somebody and you don’t cut… you’re trying to lead an audience.

There’s a scene in Network where William Holden follows Faye Dunaway into the kitchen. He’s in a rage because she’s ignoring him. She’s busy with her job and career. He talks about being an older man with a younger woman. And I rarely cut away from him in the performance. The first time I cut away from him is because he flubbed his line. And I cut to her. I found her reaction shot that seemed right, it wasn’t from where it was supposed to be, but it’s her reaction shot. And then I put in a second one because I wanted to see how she was responding. So once I was forced to it, because his performances was so good, and once I wanted to do it. I wanted the audience to see what she was feeling. That’s what an editor can do. The other thing you can do: Beatrice Straight played William Holden’s wife and there’s a scene where she confronts him: How long has the affair been going on and it’s in the kitchen and the kids walk in. It’s two and a half minutes long and Sidney and Paddy Chayefsky and Howard Gottfried – who was Paddy’s partner – and the co-producer said we got to lose it. I said, “No. I don’t think so. It’s a really great scene.” They said, “It is slowing down the picture.” I really argued for keeping the scene. Also, I thought we should tale that scene and put it before William goes off to the beach to that horrible scene where they make love and she just talks about television the whole time. That horrible wonderful scene. In the original script, they were in the opposite order. I said we have to turn those two scenes around and they were adamant not to do it. Finally, our producer, Dan Melnick, was flying to New York, so I said, “Let’s let Danny decide.” So Melnick sees it – he sees the whole picture. Monday morning I got a call from Howard Gottfried and he said “Aaaa-lllllan…” – he kind of sung my name, and you know when people sing your name something weird is going to happen. He said that Danny came up with this great idea to keep the scene and switch the two scenes around. So I said, “You know Howard – I don’t usually say this or anything like this – but that was my idea and you were fighting it for two weeks.” And he said, “Does it matter where a good idea comes from?” And you know he’s right. It was a very valuable lesson. And the scene stayed and she won the Academy Award for that two and a half minutes.

HULLFISH: It was a great performance, but why specifically did you argue for the scene as a storyteller?

HEIM: I loved everything in it, but I also thought it was very necessary. Here’s a guy who devoted his whole life to this television network and his wife clearly played second fiddle to his career, and now it was turned around a little bit.

HULLFISH: And why switch the order of the scenes?

HEIM: If we saw him having this ridiculous sex scene with Faye Dunaway, and then he came home to this strong woman. You would say “What a schmuck.” She knew stuff was going on, but this time she sensed he was in love with her and she confronted him, and he needed that confrontation. It made me very happy to keep it in the movie. You don’t get too many chances to do that, you really don’t. This one just jumped out at me. I knew Paddy Chayefsky is a hell of a writer. Spectacular. So when Paddy is saying that I had to really fight for it. I don’t usually fight for a scene. Usually I do it much more subtly over the course of the edit, if I really feel strongly about it.

HULLFISH: It’s about trusting the process, right? Yes, you can try to force it, but it’s better to just see what happens as context changes and as needs change and maybe the director becomes less attached to the emotion of the shoot.

HEIM: Right. Been there a couple of times.

HULLFISH: That’ a balance, right? You have to have enough ego to know that you have something to say and you’re strong in your opinions, but set enough of your ego aside to be in service to the director. You have to be willing to address notes.

HEIM I took notes from everybody. I mean anybody who had a good idea or what I thought was a good idea or a worthwhile idea, I would take a shot at it. I always tell editors it’s not your movie, it’s the director or the producer or somebody else who owns that movie. You can contribute, this is where the editor comes in. You edit it. You try and correct mistakes. Keep the story and the path it should be on. It’s not your movie. They always say you should do invisible editing, which is bullshit, but it depends. You have to listen to the material. You have to feel the material. I used to think that when I worked with film it was almost like a plastic medium… like if you bend a piece of steel a certain number of times, you’ll eventually break it. It took me a while to feel that with electronic editing, but I don’t think I’ve ever changed what I do, the style. I’ve watched some of my older movies recently and I don’t think I would make many changes in them. I might speed up a couple of scenes. When I cut scenes now, I tend to make them a little bit faster. The other thing that happened on Doc, I was cutting a simple scene with Stacy and Harris playing cards. I’m cutting it on the Moviola. You’d put it in a little black plastic matte and that would give you the aspect ratio. So I was cutting this scene and I had the matte in there and they’re playing cards sitting at a table playing cards. I cut it, looked at the scene and looked absolutely terrible. None of the cuts matched but it’s two guys playing cards. How could this be? So I took the matte off. It turns out they had been changing their vests in between takes. I asked Harris, “What’s the story with that scene where you guys are playing cards and you change your vests?” And he said, “We were trying to mess up the script girl to see if she would would catch it.” Then he turned to me again and he said, “Did you catch the shirts?” And it turns out they were also changing shirts with subtly different striped patterns between takes and I missed it because on a Moviola screen, that’s really hard to see.

HULLFISH: I was just talking to someone about storytelling, and about how a joke is a good way to practice storytelling. It’s really just a short story. You don’t want to ruin it with too much detail or making it too long. Set it up and get to the point.

HEIM: Yes, but there are there are other details too that you need. Mel Brooks would explain it’s not enough to say, “It’s a car.” You have to say, “A Buick with three holes in the fender.” A little detail doesn’t hurt. And it depends on where you put the detail. It’s all in the timing. It really is rhythm and delivery. A friend of mine wrote a book called “The Lean Forward Moment.” Interesting idea that you lead the audience in a certain direction and then you pull the rug out from under them. You push them into the next scene. I hate exposition. Most editors do. And I worked in films where I’ve told the audience something three times – verbally told the audience something three times. They don’t get it. So you cut one out. Now it’s two times and they still don’t get it and you’re cut down to one and that’s enough. They get the second and third time. You’re boring them. They know it, sometimes you don’t even need the first time. For me that would be the ideal filmmaking: information without telling anybody. Just let them discover it. If you can make the audience complicit or make the audience feel something, it’s hard. There’s a lot of visual stuff like Jaws. A shark jumps out from behind the pillar and you don’t expect it. It makes you jump, that’s easy. But to do it in a dialogue scene, and have people follow every word and feel it. That’s that’s hard. That’s rare. I was delighted the first time it happened: when the audience applauds at the end of the opening number of All That Jazz. Because you don’t see audiences applaud, or in the Notebook when people are crying.

HULLFISH: True. You’ve edited for John Hughes

HEIM: John Hughes had that ability to do meaningful and funny. He could reach the audience. His stuff reached on a very elemental level. He was really a good writer.

HULLFISH: Earlier in our discussion you mentioned that we rarely get to cut scenes in sequential order. Almost never. Talk a little bit about that or about scenes where it sounded looked great when you cut it originally, but then, in the context of the film, it changed in some way.

HEIM: When you look at dailies, you’ve got to start somewhere. I look at them and they say, “Well, I want this scene to start on the closeup of the actor.” So I edit the scene based on that choice. And then when you put that scene in context of another scene, maybe you can’t go from the previous scene to the close up of the actor for whatever reason. So then you have to start shifting. Or sometimes you’ll have a scene that says exactly the same thing in a different way than a scene that’s elsewhere in the movie. So you you start shifting. You can’t be rigid. Once you cut the scene, it’s really nice, it’s really good. But then you look at it in context and you say, “I don’t need this or maybe I only need half of it.” These are the decisions you make with the director. But when I do a first cut, I put pretty much everything into it that was shot because I think that everybody deserves to see that. You can’t take it away early. And when you’re trimming a first assembly down from its initial length, sometimes it’s easy to get the first half hour, but when you have to start cutting an hour or an hour and a half, you begin to feel holes. And I’ve never liked gaps in a story.

still from Grey Gardens – Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange

HULLFISH: One of the things that I learned from writing this book was that I needed to let my director see all of the lines in every scene, even if I was very confident that the lines would eventually be cut. It seems like common sense, but I felt like, “If I’m right, then why show them?”

HEIM: The problem is a director has a rhythm. The director knows what he shot. Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes they’ll say, “Where’s the shot of the finger? There was no shot there.” Most of the time there is. Sometimes you find something after a slate or something. Fo you, the director knows he shot those lines you took out. So you’re starting off really badly because you’re throwing the director’s rhythm. Later, you can ask, “Do we really need those three lines?”

HULLFISH: I wish I had learned that earlier: the director needs to the scene. I got to see it with and without. The director never got to see it, so he can’t come to the same conclusion, so he never owns the decision. Lesson learned.

HEIM: I don’t know how editors learn that stuff nowadays. Now it’s learning on the job for most people.

HULLFISH: Alan, thank you for a great discussion. It was a pleasure to speak with you.

HEIM: My pleasure as well.

This interview was transcribed with SpeedScriber, which has recently come out of public beta and is now available.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 Art of the Cut interviews have been curated into a book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV editors.” The book is not merely a collection of interviews but was edited into topics that read like a massive, virtual roundtable discussion of some of the most important topics to editors everywhere: storytelling, pacing, rhythm, collaboration with directors, approach to a scene and more. CinemaEditor magazine said of the book, “Hullfish has interviewed over 50 editors around the country and asked questions that only an editor would know to ask. Their answers are the basis of this book and it’s not just a collection of interviews…. It is to his credit that Hullfish has created an editing manual similar to the camera manual that ASC has published for many years and can be found in almost any back pocket of members of the camera crew. It is an essential tool on the set. Art of the Cut may indeed be the essential tool for the cutting room. Here is a reference where you can immediately see how our contemporaries deal with the complexities of editing a film. In a very organized manner, he guides the reader through approaching the scene, pacing, and rhythm, structure, storytelling, performance, sound design, and music….Hullfish’s book is an awesome piece of text editing itself. The results make me recommend it to all. I am placing this book on my shelf of editing books and I urge others to do the same. –Jack Tucker, ACE

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