#anyway here's my dissertation on why music is just as important in setting a scene

[empyrealarc]

boss battle, but also reverse boss battle pls

BOSS BATTLE! @gatecoeur

The Challenger: Arelette Gatecœur!

The REIGNING. DEFENDING. CHAMPION OF THE COSMOS!!: Ana'Hira S'byll-Breed.

The Stage: Sanctuary of Serenity, Ana's "chosen throneworld" from which she planned to rule over the cosmos. The planetoid is empty, save for the new vessel of Eternal Hunger and the Nexus of Bae.

The Scene: Ana is slipping. The pet names, cutesy '~' noises, and the spark in her eyes is gone. She is preceeded no longer by the sound of laughter, but by the rumbling of her stomach. Espirit Cosmique, sworn to the defense of reality, knows what she has to do, and is mighty enough to do so. Though she tries and tries to get through to her friend and ally, she is met only by gluttony and greed. She is forced to act...

The Soundtrack: Not Ready To Die by Avenged Sevenfold!

And here's why!

The song is a guitar and drum heavy MARCH through a seven-minute tale of an ancient evil and the once innocent souls stood against it and fallen to it. With tonal callbacks to a composition about hopelessness, the funeral march, and requiem.

[Lyrical Snippet] GONE! Cast away in time. Evil yours? Now evil mine. So, I robbed you blind. The voices in my head suggest a less than peaceful side. DAMNED, watch the masses fall! Burn 'em down, control 'em all!

A glimpse into Ana's ascent from demi-godhood to true divinity. Rid her father of his permanence, stole his throne and yet... the weight of her actions is changing her. Making her worse. The faith she brought together is no longer her beautiful coalition. They're a tool. A weapon. Fodder. And Arelette seeing this, knows something is wrong.

[Lyrical Snippet] You can't break me! Crushed the fears of yesterday. You can't change me Barriers our trust will fade. I've stood in the dark, been waiting all this time. While we damn the dead... I'm trying to survive.

A piercing moment from Arrie's perspective. Though she has been rebuilt, altered, upgraded and even made 'cosmique', she REMAINS Espirit. A good soul dedicated to helping those around her, putting her life on the line against governments, shady corporations, evil gangs and even GODS to ensure life is worth living for those who can't see it as such currently.

The trust she had in Ana is gone in lieu of her new perspective. She's been serving alongside a dark entity for some time, but no longer. She can't live with herself if such continues, if such evil continues to wear her friend's skin.

[Lyrical Snippet] Through the madness we find, loyalty is no match for power. Say goodbye to your life, left to rot in your darkest hour... Friends won't help you now as long as you're mine!

The voices presented in the story come together at this point. They've been in sync before, it seems that even at their end, they can find another chance to be as one.

Loyalty is no match for power. "You'd betray me?!" "You've betrayed our plan, Ana!"

Friends won't help you now. There is no Faith Militant around. No back-up, no NPCs, nothing but God and her Right Hand. One has to go, to ensure balance in the universe, but...

[Lyrical Snippet] I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to die! I'm not ready to die! I'm not ready to die! Ready to die! (Ready to die!) (Ready to die!)

It's rare to face the end prepared. Neither thought today would be that day. A shame it most certainly was.

REVERSE BOSS BATTLE!

The Challenger: Lana'Bita S'byll-Breed~

The Champion!!: Arelette 'Dumps like a Truck' Gatecœur!

The Stage: The Town of Agua Fria Arrie's warehouse loft. It's the easiest way to get her guard down, and wearing a familiar face helps, non?

The Scene: Ana is closing in on Lana. She's made some enemies, refuses to come in for questioning, and needs to fucking escape before her sister straight yops her in twain. How lucky for her she manages to find 'The Dearest' unprotected and unassuming? Especially after the ass whooping she got from Remus or whatever his fucking name was? Sounds like it's time to be PETTY!

The Soundtrack: I Can't Decide by the Scissor Sisters!

And here's why~

This song is a jaunty, lively piano-driven tune about someone happily resigning themselves to murdering, torturing and just HURTING a pure individual! Not for any good reason, not for their own benefit... the singer acknowledges that they're a piece of shit and rather than steer away from it? Let's keep dancing and scheming on your death sugar!

[Lyrical Snippet] It's not easy having yourself a good time. Greasing up those bets and betters, watching out they don't four-letter. Fuck and kiss you both at the same time... Smells like something I've forgotten, curled up died and now it's rotten! I'm not a gangster tonight, don't wanna be a bad guy. I'm just a loner baby... and now you've gotten in my way!

She knows she's a terrible piece of krutack. She's horrid and vile and uses people for her own amusement and delight! She realizes that at some point in her life, she did have a heart... or a soul. But it's gone now! Fed to the void she was spawned from and there ain't no going back~ (note: using ana's preferred 'baby' instead of her own 'sugar' is meant to further the Deception; strengthen the anguish.)

[Lyrical Snippet] I can't decide whether you should live or die! Oh, you'll probably go to heaven, please don't hang your head and cry... No wonder why, my heart feels dead inside. It's cold and hard and petrified, lock the doors and close the blinds. We're going for a ride!

Lana has seen all the affection Arrie has earned. From her own dance partners, from Ana herself? The girl is innocent of any 'true crime' except for existing in her airspace and as such? She gotta die! Or be tortured. Or be eaten. Or replaced. Or- the list goes on and on, because creative torture is a specialty both Ana and Lana share. There are ways to wound and mar and WRECK that don't get spoken about in public and who better to unleash them upon?

She wants only to HURT. If killing achieves the most hurt? COOL! If not? She's got options, sugar! That's why she's doing this wearing Ana's face. It has to hurt from the very top and not stop hurting until it's over.

[Lyrical Snippet] Oh, I could throw you in the lake, or feed you poisoned birthday cake. I won't deny I'm gonna miss you when you're gone. Oh, I could bury you alive! But you might crawl out with a knife and kill me when I'm sleeping... that's why~

Win or lose? Death or Freedom? Arrie or Lana? The jaunty dancing monster has had her fun and achieved her goal. Turned her counterpart's friends and allies into pieces in her sick game and twisted the knife as much as she could. There's nothing sweeter, and believe her sugar, she's tried cinnamon toast crunch since arriving on Earth. It don't compare~

[creativityobsessed]

Be Brave Adachi, or the musical shaping of episodes 1-4

Part 4: Episode 4

This is part of a 4 part series. You may wish to start with part 1, where I introduced the main musical cue we’ll be following and how it represents Adachi questioning the world as he knew it. Or, if you missed part 2, or part 3, you might want to start there.  

If you would like to follow along, please cue up 13:15 in episode 4.*

HOO BOY does everything happen in Episode 4! I swear every time I went back to rewatch to check something I noticed 2 more things that were worth mentioning. Go get your drink of choice, we’re gonna be here a while.

Since we have so much to talk about, and there’s not much new going on, I’m going to gloss over the 1.5 rotations of Questioning that happen right after Adachi gets off the phone with Tsuge. Y’all probably recognize it by now, right? Right. 

The really interesting new stuff in this episode starts after Kurosawa rescues Adachi and Fujisaki, while they’re walking back to the office. Here, for the first time in full since episode 1, we get a repeat of the guitar music that I called Adachi-at-home in the first post in this series. Now, I’m gonna have to make a slight retraction because a) I didn’t know yet that this was gonna be important later, and b) it’s more interesting than I originally thought. So, to add some nuance, this guitar cue is not just Adachi when he’s on his own, fully relaxed, it’s that plus Adachi ruminating on how he doesn’t compare to Kurosawa. In the first case, he’s wishing for just one of Kurosawa’s good qualities. Here, he’s pointing out that they are “fundamentally different” with overtones of I am fundamentally worse than he is. The super interesting thing that I missed the first time around though is that this is the tune of the Home section. Sure it’s in C-sharp major (ish) rather than A major (not exactly a related key, but not an unrelated key either, at least if you ask Brahms^), but the melody is the same enough that I DEFINITELY should have caught that. What can I say, *shrug* pandemic brain.

So, anyways, given what I have since discovered about this guitar cue, I’d like to revise what I think it’s about - it’s about Adachi’s unacknowledged crush on Kurosawa. He still doesn’t realize yet that Kurosawa is something he wants, but moments like these show us just how much he wants it. 

Around 16:15, at the end of Fujisaki’s internal monologue in the elevator, Questioning comes in. This time, though, it’s not about Kurosawa in the slightest. When I was first trying to come up with a point to this series so my Intro to Musicology professor wouldn’t hunt me down for writing a “here’s some stuff” paper, I was all ready to say Kurosawa is the answer and call it a day. But if that’s the case, then why does Questioning start here? Sure, he just found out that Fujisaki knows about Kurosawa’s crush, but the worldview that he’s questioning isn’t that Fujisaki is more observant than he thought. It’s his reaction to her disinterest in relationships. Furthermore, this version of Questioning is far more stable than previous ones - instead of a tritone or other non-chord set of vertically stacked pitches, most of the Question phrases end on unison D, or some version of D + F-sharp (usually in the m6 orientation, rather than M3). Each Question phrase is approximately in time, or at least close enough that we have a sense of when the next will happen, where in the first few versions of Questioning the space between each phrase rotation felt indeterminate. I think what we’re seeing here is that even though Adachi still has questions, his life has already changed. He has a better sense of the people around him, and is less terrified of asking questions.

The Questioning section actually pauses when Kurosawa notices Adachi’s wound, and we don’t head into the next section immediately. In fact, we don’t ever get the next section here - we jump straight to Home, as Adachi starts back in on how much better Kurosawa is than him. It’s in the piano here, I think mostly so that they don’t have to change instrumentation midway through (we’ll see why in a second). This version of Home is the same slow tempo as the guitar version, and it’s very dry. All of the harmony is in block chords, which contributes to a kind of emptiness. But that’s ok because it doesn’t last. 

After a single (musical) sentence, Adachi begins to hear Kurosawa’s own self-loathing through his thoughts. As this happens, the chords that were once in blocks stretch out into arpeggios, filling in the spaces around the melody, in a move that reminds me so much of the way that letting go of a bit of anxiety can feel like unfurling from a tiny space.** Kurosawa’s “I’m sure he finds me annoying” is immediately followed by the addition of a cello line - and I’m about to go do some rewatching looking for where cello is important, but my first impression hypothesis is that cello represents Kurosawa’s inner headspace, particularly after some of the ways I noticed it being used in ep. 7. The cello twines around the piano line that we’re already familiar with, possibly as a metaphor for the way that Adachi and Kurosawa are having similar thoughts. And, as with earlier episodes, we end without a full resolution - we get a cadence, sort of, but the piano continues for a bit and ends with a cluster of notes with G as the main thing that catches our ear. For those unfamiliar, G is not a particularly tonic-feeling note in A major. It’s flat 7, which helps tremendously in feeling like we are NOT in major, better suited to the melancholy nature of the various thoughts flying around here. 

And then. Ok, and THEN. The part I have been writing this entire series to talk about. So, to set the scene, right? Adachi thanks Kurosawa, Kurosawa deflects but gives Adachi a direct, blinding smile, and for once Adachi doesn’t squint. He returns the smile. He has become comfortable here. 

As if that weren’t enough, the music comes in, and yes, we’re back to Questioning, but it is absolutely in time, with two beats of 6/8 between each iteration of the Question Phrase. Furthermore, this version has both guitar and glockenspiel in it - the guitar is Adachi’s home instrument, and here it suggests he’s become comfortable with questioning the world around him, while the glock does more to highlight the difference in the treatment of time. 

We don’t move on from this section for a bit, because Fujisaki interrupts his thoughts. We do, however, get hints of the next section - a rising line in the piano timed in the same way as the next section will start, for example. The underpinnings of the Questioning section provide a lush background for Adachi’s monologue on visiting Fujisaki’s mother, something the first version of Questioning could not have done. Adachi is being very brave here, and the changes to our favorite cue are a reflection of that. 

As he finishes we head in to the section of the piece, which is mostly accompanying shots of Fujisaki being overwhelmed, Adachi being worried that his attempt to be brave has gone wrong, and not much happening. There’s a weird loop in the middle, which makes me think that they tried it with the whole track and it felt waaaay too long without anything happening. 

Anyway, after she reassures him that his bravery is appreciated, we head into the Answer section. Adachi and Fujisaki’s chitchat isn’t what’s important here. The important thing is we have the Answer section, and here it is fully scored, electric guitar and bass, percussion, the works. Not only that, but the cue ends, and it ENDS ON THE TONIC. We did it folks! We found the resolution! And it turns out, the way to get there was to BE BRAVE.

This may not be the end of the whole series, but this is AN ending. This is the pan-out that we get at the end of every 90s Hollywood teen romcom. Adachi has Learned Something with capital letters, and it’s not that he loves Kurosawa or even that he needs to give up his low self-esteem. It’s that he can be brave, and he can contribute. It’s hard, and it may take four episodes of building to it, but he can do it.

Which is a lesson he’s really gonna need for the beginning of 5. But that’s a story for another time.

If you’ve followed my nerdery this far and you’ve enjoyed this series, please let me know via likes, replies, and/or reblogs. I may eventually continue the series if there’s enough interest (there’s some FASCINATING things that happen to this cue in episode 7, for example), but for now, I’m gonna go take a nap.

I did a follow up in response to an ask, if you really really want more.

*All video timings and quotes are from Irozuku Subs videos. If you’re watching somewhere else, your mileage may vary slightly.

^If you’re a SUPER HARD CORE theory nerd, look up Neo-Riemannian Theory for how this works. Or just if you want your brain to explode. Either way, have fun, cause I need it for my dissertation and I STILL don’t quite understand how it works.

**Not an Academically Approved metaphor. This is why I’m doing this on tumblr.

[bbclesmis]

Entertainment Weekly: Dominic West on why Les Misérables' Valjean and Javert are like Mean Girls

Victor Hugo’s epic tale of redemption and revolution Les Misérables is set in nineteenth-century France — and 2004’s meme-generating Mean Girls is…not.

Yet, the two have more in common than one might think, at least according to star Dominic West, who portrays Jean Valjean, a.k.a. Prisoner 24601.

Valjean begins the series, now a six-part miniseries premiering on PBS’ Masterpiece Sunday, newly emerged from 19 years in prison. He begins his life anew, wanting to shed his past and build a life for himself — but the dogged pursuit of his former prison guard, the newly minted Inspector Javert (David Oyelowo), puts him once more on the run.

That obsession, which finds Javert tracking Valjean across France, reminded West of a key scene in Mean Girls and popular meme. “This is a massive case of Why are you so obsessed with me?,” he jokes. “Jean Valjean and Javert really are Mean Girls, and it’s not clear why Javert is so obsessed with him. To an astonishing degree.”

For West, one of the most difficult parts of the role was exploring that cat-and-mouse game and why these characters can’t let go of each other. He says his costar David Oyelowo slightly disagreed with West’s assessment, which is that the relationship has an element of something “psychosexual.”

He explains, “There is a moment in our TV series where I strip off in front of David, as a prisoner; I’m being released and he does cop a glance…There’s a certain sexual obsession. There’s something going on between these two men. And we didn’t want to play that too much. It’s not explicit in the writing, and certainly not in Victor Hugo, but I think with our modern sensibilities you’ve got to look for an impulse that strong. And there’s no stronger impulse than love and sex.”

West is bursting with pop culture comparisons for the new Andrew Davies adaptation of the tale, which is known most famously to people in the form of the Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil musical. This six-part miniseries, which debuts April 14 at 9 p.m., is not a musical and hews more closely to the novel.

In advance of the premiere, EW called up West to talk how much the musical inspired him (hint: not at all), why Iron Man ain’t got nothing on Valjean, and what it was like trying to keep his cool opposite Oscar winner Olivia Colman’s comedic antics.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How familiar were you with Les Mis when you signed on? With the musical’s popularity, it seems almost unavoidable, especially in Britain.                          DOMINIC WEST: I escaped it! I hadn’t seen the musical and I hadn’t seen all of the film of the musical, so I was pretty new to it all. I certainly hadn’t read it. If I was honest, I was slightly put off by the musical. I also thought, “Well it’s just been made into a film. What’s the point of doing it again?” Then I read Andrew’s scripts and I saw why it was a classic. Then I read a book, and then I decided I thought it was the greatest hero in literature and I had to do it, but before all that I didn’t really know much about it at all.

Something that struck me in this adaptation is how much we really get a sense that Valjean is a scary guy. He’s a hardened criminal who is reforming, and we see that in the ferocity you lend him in early episodes. For you, how did you tap into that and then how did you hammer out the journey to his gentler side?                          The problem with the story is the only thing he’s guilty of is stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed his starving nieces and nephews, who when he then gets jailed for that, they then presumably all die. This guy hasn’t done anything wrong. In fact, he’s been completely wronged. That’s one way you find how brutalized he’s been, how unfair he feels the world has been to him. There’s a rage in there which I found because he’s constantly being told he’s a beast, he’s a brute, he’s a good-for-nothing. Throughout the story, he’s constantly thinking of that of himself. So, he does need to be as brutish and as frightening as possible at the beginning. If he’s always been a nice guy, there’s not much of a journey to go on. It’s just more dramatic when the Bishop shows love to this guy if he’s terrifying.

I was watching the first episode the day the sentencing for Paul Manafort came out here, and it struck me that Jean Valjean got 19 years for a loaf of bread and this guy got way less for something objectively worse.                          [Laughs] Yeah. It’d be great if he got 19 years hard labor. [Laughs] It was a real problem for me getting my head around that, you just sort of think, “Hang on a second, a loaf of bread?” That is just nuts. That’s crazy. But that was one of the big things that I had to come to terms with in terms of psychological things with Jean Valjean —this sense that if you brutalize people, then they believe they’re not worthy of anything. They believe they are brutish and they behave accordingly. That’s a lot what Victor Hugo was trying to talk about.

David Oyelowo is your foil as Javert. What was that push and pull like with him?                          He took the lead on it really. I kept trying to get to know him and go out for dinner with him or something, and he kept avoiding me and ignoring me. I thought, “Oh, he’s not very friendly.” And then at the end when we finished, we went out, we had this great time and I said, “It’s such a shame we’re only just getting to know each other now.” Then he said, “Oh no, that was totally deliberate. I didn’t want to get to know you. I didn’t want to feel easy with you.” And he’s right – if you socialize with people, there is a chemistry between you, there is an ease between you, which the camera catches.

Andrew Davies is so well-regarded as an adaptor, having tackled everyone from Austen to Dickens to Tolstoy. Why do you think he has such a knack for adapting these very big books by canonical authors?                          He won’t do a book that’s less than two inches thick, I think. [Laughs] But I suppose he got good at it with Pride and Prejudice. When I was looking back at the scripts having read the novel, [I noticed] almost every significant and memorable scene that I remember from the novel, he managed to somehow get into the screenplay. And when you consider how long the novel is, that’s an extraordinary achievement. He’s just very good at selecting the nuggets and finessing the bumpy bits. Because another thing that strikes you when you try to work out what happened, there’s an enormous amount of coincidence, as typical of 19th-century novels I suppose. What he’s very good at doing is condensing the important stuff, but also of unknotting the more grating bits of structure, which modern audiences don’t really buy.

You have some great face-offs with Olivia Colman as Madame Thenardier, and you’ve both been praised for your dry wit and sense of humor on set, so what was the funniest moment you shared together while making this?                          [Laughs] Oh god, well the trouble with her is she’s so damn good that she can be roaring with laughter right up to action and then suddenly she’ll do the most devastating scene of sadness. I thought I could do that, and I thought I could run with the big leagues, but I couldn’t…There’s a big fight scene where they all pin me down on the table, [and] she gets me by the hair. She did pull my hair quite deliberately I think. Then I get a red hot iron bar out of the stove and I burn myself with it to show them how it’s nothing to me. But anyway, it’s a serious scene for Valjean. As we were preparing before action, she and Adeel [Akhtar], who played Monsieur Thenardier were doing this impression of this couple who are on British TV [on] a thing called Goggle Box, which shows ordinary people watching TV. Everyone’s crying with laughter listening to their impression of this couple. She was constantly doing impressions and cracking jokes, and I just remember that one scene where I realized I had to stop listening to her and concentrate on the work at hand.

In some ways, this story is more religious than modern audiences often see – was that an aspect you tapped into? How do you feel about Hugo’s assessment of God in this story and God’s power in Valjean’s life and destiny?                          It’s obviously central. Hugo does a three chapter dissertation on the state of the Catholic church, nunneries in particular. He’s not a great fan of Catholicism, but he’s definitely a believer in God. You can’t really do Valjean without having that dimension to him. He believes in God; he believes he’s been saved and can be redeemed. That’s fundamental to him. You can’t understand him without that. The candlesticks become a symbol of that belief in God. This Archbishop, who gives him the candlesticks, is a wholly good person and the power of that virtue is what turns Valjean into a hero. That virtue does not come divorced from his God. That does not exist in a vacuum. My faith is less certain, and more modern skepticism, but there’s not really any room for that with Valjean. Without being specific about a religion, he has to believe that there is a higher power and that that higher power has saved him.

Valjean is a very physical role in a lot of ways. Did you have to do a lot of training for it?                          Yeah, that was a nightmare. He’s essentially described as the strongest man in the world, who can fight ten men at a time. He climbs up the sides of buildings rescuing children, and in the book, he climbs up the mast of a huge tall ship and rescues a sailor who’s trapped on a yard arm and then jumps off it into the ocean and stays underwater for a full five minutes so everyone thinks he’s dead and then escapes. He’s a superhuman; he’s the original superhero. I’d like to see Iron Man do 19 years hard labor in a 19th-century prison. He’s tough as nails. That was quite daunting for me. I did a lot of boxing training; that’s the toughest training I know.

Would you be up for playing him in the musical version should the opportunity ever arise?                          I think there’s a reason you haven’t heard me sing much. [Laughs] I think I’ve got a lovely voice, and all I’ve ever wanted to do is musicals. The only one I’ve ever done is My Fair Lady. I played Professor Higgins, which is a part that’s written for a non-singer. I was constantly trying to put songs into Les Mis. As much as I would love to play Valjean in the musical, I don’t think anyone’s going to ask me too once they hear me sing. [Laughs]

x

[minaminokyoko]

Favourite avengers movies scenes?

How on earth do you expect me to ever narrow down enough to not list the entire trilogy in general? Holy hell. I am a big fat Marvel fangirl and I could write a fucking dissertation on scenes complete with charts and graphs. For the sake of argument, let me see if I can at the very least just highlight the tippy top favorite moments from the first three Avengers films. Keep in mind, I fucking love all three of them to death and could rave about them for days at a time.

The Avengers

-Loki’s confrontation with Nick Fury. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film so fucking well, man. It’s just brilliantly done to see that whatever humanity that we saw in Loki in Thor has pretty much flown out the window and he’s here to wreak havoc and start a war, and he doesn’t care how many people he destroys in the process. I also like that it shows the vast gap in power and experience between the SHIELD agents and an Asgardian. Loki all but flattens everyone in a matter of seconds. Seeing him among other Asgardians can kind of make you forget he’s literally a thousand year old god and is tough as nails. He’s also low down and ruthless and that’s the kind of thing that is scary as hell when you realize that’s what they’re all up against.

-Nat’s “interrogation” with the Russians. I actually love every single Avenger’s introduction scene, but this one is so delightful in that Nat shows us just why she is an Avenger even though she has no enhanced abilities: deception, manipulation, and just being an incredibly agile combat expert. I am most delighted with her scene because before Avengers, I had no regard for Nat at all and thought she was just fanservice, but here, she completely proved her worth as a character and to the team, and I got on board as a fan of her just from her opening scene wiping the floor with these idiot Russian dudes.

-Tony and Bruce getting to know each other in the lab. From a character standpoint, this is an outstanding scene. Tony is trying to draw Bruce out of his shell, and the sympathy and empathy he has for him is so palpable that it’s why we all dubbed them the Science Bros and why it’s one of the best friendships in the Avengers. Tony is so awesome for joking with Bruce and treating him like a normal person and reminding him that there is at least one person aboard that helicarrier who doesn’t see him as some terrifying monster and knows just from reading up on him that he’s not a bad person. It’s so charming and wonderful.

-Stuttgart. Man. Man, oh man, this is a well done scene. The build up to Loki’s horrifying actions is so great and so is this freaking diva’s grandstanding once he demands the poor, confused Germans kneel before him. It’s fascinating to me because Loki has an almost childlike need for attention, as if his frustrations with his failure to take over Asgard as king has manifested itself into this very basic need to be acknowledged as being a powerful threat. Loki could kill an average human being with a flick of his wrist. His comparison of “an ant has no quarrel with a boot” while cruel is accurate, but here’s the thing, Loki: if you fuck with enough fucking ants, you can get your ass into a lot of trouble, and we’re fireants, not sugar ants, buddy. And ants who band together get shit done. The old man who stood up to him, in my book, is a fucking hero all on his own and I think it’s one of the most well crafted pieces of dialogue in the entire MCU. “There are no men like me.” “There are always men like you.” Oh, standing ovation for that piece of dialogue. Give it an Oscar. Then Cap swinging in to kick ass and Tony swooping in beside him with an equally over the top entrance to Loki’s was the icing on the fucking cake.

-Thor retrieving Loki. Hnnnnnnngh, okay, so here’s the thing: I fucking love Thor and Loki’s relationship even before Ragnarok came out and upgraded it. Thor is and always has been since his first movie a man with very deep emotions who loves and loves deeply with all his heart, and his confrontation with Loki just wounds me so much. How Thor throws Loki to the ground and yet yanks him to his feet and just holds him there, his hand on his face, looking so torn between agony and relief that his brother is alive. “I thought you dead.” “Did you mourn?” Fuck me, this scene is absolutely brutal to my feels. Thor and Loki’s debate was nothing short of excellent as Thor tries to bring Loki around, and the thing is, he means it. He means every fucking word, that he would take the Tesseract and bring his brother home, and he doesn’t care about facing the music, he just wants his goddamn brother back even after all Loki has done so far in the story. Y’all better stop sleeping on Thor, man. His heart is by far the best thing about him, forget all the delicious muscles and that perfect teddy bear smile. Thor has miles and miles of heart, and that’s why I love this scene so much. 

-Nat tricking Loki into revealing his plan. This scene is so good I based an entire goddamn fanfic around its premise. Dude. Nat fucking Romanov, y’all. I love how this scene is staged and executed. I love Loki starting out almost gentle and conversational, as if for once he’s going to just be an actual person and not a monster, and then he slips back into that nasty egotistical megalomaniac when he thinks he has one over on Nat. And then Nat fucking schools him. It’s why I have a personal headcanon that he developed a hatecrush on her after she, a mere mortal, tricked the goddamn God of Mischief. It solidified Nat as one of my favorite female heroes forever. I loved seeing her use that feminine “weakness” to let him run his mouth. I also love that his cruel words did in fact affect her and motivated her even more to both save Clint and to go to war with Loki at the end.

-The whole ass helicarrier attack sequence. I mean, I don’t even need to go into detail. You already know. 

-Tony confronting Loki. This is the scene that assured us that what followed would be one of the greatest fight sequences in cinematic history. I pretty much have most of Tony’s dialogue memorized because it had such an effective impact on me from a storytelling standpoint. Tony standing up to Loki as a mortal man with no suit, candidly threatening him with barely suppressed rage that Loki murdered Coulson, a comrade, in cold blood, is downright amazing.

-The battle of New York. Boom. Again, no words necessary. Perfect fucking sequence from start to finish.

-Thor trying one last damn time to bring Loki around. Oh, my heart. My poor fucking heart. Thor really loves his brother and he would do anything to have him back. Is it naive? Yes. But it’s also a beautiful statement of what family truly means to Thor and it breaks my heart. The fact that a tear slides down Loki’s face when he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment” is so not cool. As much as Loki pretends to be the Big Bad Wolf, there is something still young and human inside of him even though he pretends it isn’t there. All my creys.

-Hulk trouncing Loki. I went and saw The Avengers three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, everyone cheered so loud I didn’t hear the Hulk say “puny god” over all the noise. It was that satisfying a scene.

Age of Ultron

-The entire beginning sequence. Fucking loved it. What masterful ass-kicking and showcasing of the team dynamic. It made me want a longer lead in to how they all got reunited because it was so enjoyable. “Language!” Oh, Cap.

-Jarvis and Ultron’s first scene together. Dude. James fuckin’ Spader, man. I never knew I could be so intimidated by a man’s voice. It was so unsettling for so many reasons, the resentment, irrationality, and anger from his unusual birth and creation. It was all the more frightening when he turned on Jarvis, and at the time, we didn’t know he hadn’t killed our beloved butler. 

-Picking up Mjolnir. This scene needs no elaboration. It’s just perfection. Even people who complain about Age of Ultron admit this scene is just flawless.

-The team confronting Tony over creating Ultron. Cap’s line, which we now know goes even further after the events of Infinity War, just make me want to die. “We’ll lose.” “Then we’ll do that together, too.” Tony’s face, realizing that Cap doesn’t care that he fucked up–he cares that Tony couldn’t trust the team enough to let them in on what he was dealing with–is soul-crushing. Tony realizes he was wrong to assume instead of being honest with them. 

-The confrontation in Wakanda. Everything about it was badass and it hits you right where you live seeing the Avengers having to face their biggest regrets and most painful moments of their pasts. Especially Steve’s. The image of him and Peggy finally getting their dance was so not okay. Special props to Tony in the Hulkbuster armor. That was one hell of a fucking brawl.

-The Sokovia final battle. There are just so many awesome points in the final battle sequence, man. Everyone is out there just kicking ass and doing what they do best. Special props to Hawkeye getting through to Wanda, and Hawkeye’s “nobody would know…nobody” moment with Pietro. 

Infinity War

Disclaimer: I have no idea how to isolate moments in a movie that is by far one of the most well written comic book movies since The Dark Knight, but I guess since you asked, I have to try anyway. Hoo boy. Strap in. 

-Loki’s death. Let me explain something to you: I went entire years without caring about Loki, and then around the time The Dark World came out, I slowly became converted to both a Tom Hiddleston and a Loki fan, and then after Ragnarok, he finally just seduced me completely to being smitten with his stupid trashy self. It is important that you realize that I recognize that Loki is a selfish, inferiority complex-having, murdering bastard and I do not excuse a goddamn thing he does because of his fucking Daddy issues. That being said, in spite of how much of a flaming trashbag he is, I love him anyway, and I tried for months to tell myself that I knew as a fellow writer that Loki was going to die in Infinity War. It was assured not only from the trailer, but from me knowing that his character arc was always going to end with his death. What hurt most of all is that, as I predicted, Loki died trying to save Thor. I cried my eyes out. Hell, once Thanos closed his hand around Loki’s neck, I covered my eyes because I just didn’t have it in me to see it end this way for him and for Thor. Thor being helpless to stop it is truly what made it worse. There is nothing on heaven or earth Thor wouldn’t do for Loki, even knowing how wicked Loki is. And the fact that Loki couldn’t let Thanos kill Thor after all these two have been through was like an icepick through my heart. Loki wouldn’t have died protecting Thor if Thor had not loved him unconditionally this entire time we’ve watched their story. Thor’s love did have an effect on Loki throughout these films, and that’s why I literally burst into sobs and couldn’t bear to see him die that way. It is one of the most gut wrenching things ever put to film, and certainly in the MCU. I’ve only had the stomach to watch that scene twice because it hurts me so much, and neither time was I strong enough to actually watch Loki’s final moments. Goddamn, it’s just so painful. Capped off with Thor slowly crawling over to his brother to be with him one last time before the ship explodes and just laying his head on his chest in the kind of grief that honestly should get Hemsworth a fucking Oscar. Bravo. 

-Cap, Widow, and Falcon reuniting with Vision and Wanda. Holy shit, yes. This fight was gorgeous, gripping, and fucking awesome. Special props to Cap and Widow being the ride or die Avengers Mom and Dad team. We can infer from their actions that the two of them have been together since the end of Civil War possibly, so you can not tell me Cap and Widow are not a thing on some level. Captasha all day, err day. They perfectly compliment each other and I headcanon that they’re together and no one will convince me otherwise.

-”We’ll fight you too.”/”We don’t trade lives.” That sound you hear is me screeching. Some people have said Cap wasn’t given a ton to do this time around, and I emphatically protest it simply because, yes, he has less screentime, but man, he does so much work in this role that reminds us of why we all love Captain America. His values mean so much. Cap will lay down his life in the blink of an eye for someone who needs it. He cares so deeply. He is the pinnacle of selflessness and it’s so important to see in this film.

-Thor meeting the Guardians. Perfection. Just…perfection.

-Irondad and Spiderson aboard the Space Donut. Jesus fucking Christ, I am so on board for Irondad and Spiderson that it’s insane. I love that entire fucking interaction from start to finish. I love Tony’s strict, fatherly anger and exasperation because he just wants his baby boy to be safe on earth while he’s on another suicide mission, but the baby boy wants to help his dad out and baby boy also doesn’t quite realize the consequences because he’s too young. Extra points for Tony’s death-glare after Parker says, “It’s kind of your fault I’m here” and the fact that even the fucking cloak did a double take at Parker when he said it. Oh, it’s so perfect.

-Gamora making Peter promise to kill her if Thanos gets to her. I just…I want to die. This was so beautifully done, and so in character for both of them, and Peter and Gamora are just so soft and sweet and in love that it’s so overwhelming. At the very least, I take a small comfort in knowing that they were a happy family for four years before this shit happened to them.

-Gamora “killing” Thanos. Again, can we just award Oscars to like half the fucking cast in this movie? Jesus Christ, I cried at this scene too because the fact that she’s just completely unraveled as she finally thinks she’s killed her goddamn abuser is so deeply tragic. Gamora is my favorite Guardian. Hands down. She is so three dimensional. She tries so hard and she is so much more than the deadliest woman in the galaxy. She is so complex and it is the worst pain ever to know that Peter actually kept his promise and tried to kill her to prevent her from being in the hands of her abuser again and Thanos foiled their plan, and had the fucking nerve to say, “I like him” before he took her again. 

-”It’ll kill you.” “Only if I die.” “…yes, that’s what killing you means.” 

-The battle of Wakanda. Motherfucker. This is some A+++ motherfucking good shit hurr. What always gets me hype as hell is Cap and T’Challa sprinting down the goddamn hill at 80 mph and I just can’t even handle that shit because it was so good and satisfying. Everything about this battle was incredible.

-The battle on Titan. Same thing. It’s so creative and well crafted and amazing. You feel every blow. You flinch. You want them to beat that son of a bitch but he’s just so fucking strong. It is an incredibly engaging fight, man. Hoo boy. 

-Thor’s entrance to the battle of Wakanda. I distinctly remember the entire audience going absolutely apeshit during this scene the night Infinity War premiered. Like the first Avengers, I saw it three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, the crowd went fucking wild. That was so fucking satisfying, man, as are the neat little scenes of levity with Cap introducing himself to Groot and Cap and Thor remarking on each other’s changes in appearance. It was so pure and good and perfect.      

-Cap squaring up with Thanos. I. Can’t. Breathe. It was so powerful. Like the above scene of “we don’t trade lives,” this is why we love Captain America. Why we love Steve Rogers. This man, this mortal human man, took one goddamn fucking look at that twelve foot all powerful alien giant and said, “Not today, bitch.” Steve fucking Rogers stood there and took it. He put his life on the goddamn line for Wanda, and for Vision, and for the rest of the universe, and he actually held that goddamn line for a moment. The incredulous look on Thanos’ face is what seals it. He is utterly confused that this little man is actually holding him back, that this mere mortal doesn’t give a fuck that he can’t overpower him, but he is giving it his all because that is who he is. Steve will not quit. Steve will not falter. Steve will die doing what’s right and that is one of the most moving things in the whole MCU, imo. He just planted his feet and said, “No, you move.” I know we saw that scene in the trailer, but it was so unbelievable to see it in context that Cap gave it everything he had trying to protect Wanda and the rest of the universe, and I still get choked up just thinking about that shit. 

Welp, you asked for it and now you have it. I told you I was gonna rave, man. God bless anyone who actually read this nonsense. Marvel had me at hello with these characters and they have way too much sway over my emotions, as you can see above. Ten years, man. Ten years.