#but instead of it directors just borrow the characters and ideas and create it in something absurd

[soupnoodle]

my friend who went to see the new master and margarita movie, not familiar with the book: what the fuck is going on

me, watching the new master and margarita movie, familiar with the book: what the fuck is going on

[mirajaneswritingshenanigans]

When Fear Becomes Strength

Fandom(s): Vincenzo Series

Pairing(s): Jang Han-seo x BestFriend!Reader

Summary: All the signs were there in the past, only you were too young to understand what was happening. Years later, you’ve become a witness to Jun-woo’s vicious behavior towards Han-seo. Now Han-seo fears what will happen next. This time he turns his fear into strength.

Disclaimer:  I do not own any character mentioned in this work. Every character and scene belongs to the writers, producers, and directors of Vincenzo. I am simply borrowing dialogue and characters to create this work of fiction.

A/N:  Y/N-Your Name. This idea came to me at 3am (09/28/2022). Instead of sleeping, I had to write it. I think I wrote Jun-woo a lot worse than he actually is. I mean, Jun-woo is a horrible enough person as is. Cha-youhg doesn't get kidnapped. Han-seo lives, because I said so and that man deserved so much better than what he got in the show. Just saying. Anyhoo, I hope y’all enjoy this. Bold Italics is a memory. ✨✨✨✨-Signifies a time lapse. 

Warning(s): Mentions of abuse. C-PTSD. description of violence/abuse. Netflix subtitle translation used. out of character moments? a few cuss words. abrupt ending? (I had no idea how to end this, I’m sorry.)

Word Count: 8,368

It felt like time had stopped. You weren't sure how to react to the scene before you. Jun-woo held Han-seo tightly by his tie. Anger clear on his face. His fist was raised, but stopped when he noticed you standing in the archway to the living room. He let go of his tie and began to straighten it up. "You should always remember to look your best." Jun-woo said in a sweet tone, trying to make it seem like he was helping and not hurting. You were stunned by the sudden change in his attitude. He gave Han-seo a hug whispering to him "we'll finish this later". Once he let go, he smiled at you and left the house, slamming the door on his way out.

Han-seo leaned against the wall, sliding down. He pulled he knees close to his chest and rested his forehead on them. You slowly walked towards him, kneeling in front of him when you were close enough. "Han-seo?" You whispered. "You were never supposed to see that side of him." His tone was filled with anguish. He looked up from his knees to meet your gaze. Your heart breaking when you saw the bruise forming on his right eye. The red mark in the corner of his lip. The hand print across his left cheek. What hurt the most was seeing the fear and pain within his eyes. Tears steadily streaming down his cheeks. "He's going to hurt you. He always hurts the people who find out about his violent side. That's why I can't keep friends. He... I c-can't lose you." Han-seo had a hard time speaking over the lump forming in his throat. The mere thought of Jun-woo hurting you terrified him and broke his heart.

He leaned forward, kneeling on his knees, and pulled you into his embrace. Sobs began to rack his body. You tightly wrapped your arms around him. At this point tears began to stream down your cheeks as well. Seeing him so hurt and scared broke you. You began to gently rub his back. After several minutes his body had stopped shaking. His sobs becoming softer.

"Please." Han-seo whispered. You pulled away from him to look at his face. "Please, what?" You asked with a puzzled expression. "Please, don't leave me." Han-seo said, his voice cracking. "I won't. I pinky promise." You held your right pinky out to him, he gently wrapped his left pinky around yours. He gave you a small smile when you pressed your thumb to his and kissed the tip of both of your thumbs. "I take pinky promises very seriously. No matter what Jun-woo attempts, I won't leave you." You reassured him when you pulled your pinky away. He leaned his back against the wall stretching his legs out and sighed heavily. You moved to do the same right beside him.

"How long has he been doing this to you?" You asked quietly. Han-seo sighed heavily before answering "since I moved into the Jang household as a child." You glanced at Han-seo, you could tell this topic pained him. "I'm sorry for you. Being hurt by someone that is supposed to love you and protect you is a terrible pain a person has to live with." You told him gently. He stayed silent staring off into the room. "I'm also sorry that I hadn't noticed sooner. I've been your best friend since we were children. Yet, I've missed all the signs that you were being abused and mistreated." Your voice became even softer as you spoke and sounded so much sadder than you had intended. "Please, don't feel guilty for that." Han-seo reached into your lap and took your right hand into his left hand. "You were a child! How could anyone hurt you?! It’s so wrong!" Your voice rose in anger as you spoke. You felt his grip tighten on your hand. You looked up to see that Han-seo had raised his right arm to cover his face and moved his legs closer to his torso again. For a moment you were puzzled. Then it hit you like a freight train derailing and crashing. Your tone and voice rising had triggered Han-seo. "Han-seo. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to..." You lowered your voice and spoke more gently.

You weren't sure if he heard you at all because he had stayed in that position for a few more seconds. Eyes shut so tightly, arm still raised to protect his face. Legs close to him to protect his abdomen. You took note of how heavily he was breathing at the moment. I swear I'm going to kill Jun-woo myself for this. You thought to yourself. You felt his grip begin to loosen on your hand. He slowly began to lower his arm and stretch his legs out again. He hated that hearing the anger in your voice had triggered him the way it did. A part of him knew you weren't angry with him. The other part felt threatened and vulnerable and told him he needed to protect himself. "I'm okay." He whispered keeping his gaze cast towards his lap. You turned your hand over in his, where you could interlock your fingers with his. "I'm sorry. I truly didn't mean to trigger you. I was angry that anyone has the audacity to lay a hand on you." You told him. "That happens sometimes." He told you. Silence had fallen between the two of you. Both of you sat like this for hours before moving to his bed to sleep.

✨✨✨✨

Your body cramped when you woke up the next morning. Sitting on the floor, not moving, for hours wasn't the best idea before laying in a bed. You had decided to stay with him last night. You weren’t willing to leave him alone. You were currently lying on your back. Han-seo snoring away on you. While you had slept he curled into your left side, his right leg lazily draped over your pelvis. You glanced down at his sleeping form. How is that comfortable? You silently wondered when you saw he had his left arm folded in between you and his chest. His other arm slung over your abdomen. His head laying on your chest, more towards your shoulder. He looked so peaceful in this moment. You gently moved his hair to check his eye. You sighed heavily when you noticed the swelling got worse over night and the bruising darker. You gently began to run your fingers through his hair. Han-seo sighed softly before his voice filled the room. “Morning.” You laughed a little at his muffled groggy voice. Even though his eyes were still closed at the moment you still decided to smile at him. Your heart melting at the way he was smiling with his cheek pressed into you. 

Both of your bodies jerked when you heard the front door slam open. He quickly sat up in bed. "He can't know you’re here." He said in a panicked tone. He rushed to hand you all of your belongings before ushering you into his closet. "Just, stay quiet. Okay? This is for your protection." Han-seo pleaded with you as he handed you your phone. Your only response was a small nod before he quickly, but gently shut the closet door, leaving you in the dark. He was thankful that his room was farthest from the front door, almost clear across the house. He quickly jumped back into to bed and covered up. Making it seem like he was still sleeping.

"Oh, dear brother." Jun-woo called out. "I know you couldn't possibly still be sleeping." Your blood ran cold when you heard Jun-woo's slightly muffled sinister tone through the closet door. You flinched when you heard the bedroom door being slammed opened. Not being able to see what was happening may be a blessing or a curse. Though being able to hear, even if slightly muffled, was a curse as well. You weren’t sure which one you would consider worse. "Is something wrong?" You heard Han-seo’s timid voice. "I'm here to finish what I started. I was rudely interrupted by Y/N, remember." You wanted so badly to open the closet door and deck Jun-woo in the face.

"Hm, this won't do. Have you learned your lesson?" Jun-woo asked in a mocking tone. "Y-y-yes, s-sir." Han-seo stuttered out. "What is that lesson?" You could hear Jun-woo's footsteps moving across the floor. You figured he was walking closer to the bed to tower over Han-seo. "Th-that I-I'm your p-puppet. I-I’m not a-a-allowed to th-think for myself." Your heart felt heavy at how scared Han-seo sounded. "Very good. Get dressed, I've got to take you to the doctor. Make up a lie about those wounds." Jun-woo said before leaving the room slamming the door harshly behind him. Being in the closet, you had missed the way Han-seo had flinched and covered his ears.

About three minutes had passed before Han-seo opened the closet door. When he saw your face he gave you a sad smile. You slowly moved forward to hug him, but he held his hand up in a gesture to stop you. "If you hug me, I'll break." He said weakly. You wrapped your arms around yourself and nodded. "Is it safe to step out of the closet?" You quietly asked him, trying to peak over his shoulder. He shook his head no. "I need to get changed, quickly. Once you hear us leave the house, wait ten more minutes and then leave. Okay?" He said as he reached beside you to pull out one of his suits. You nodded "okay". "I'm sorry. For all of this." He gently told you before closing you in the closet again. You could hear him shuffling around his room. Trying his best to get ready as quickly as possible. "Come on!" You heard Jun-woo angrily shout from somewhere within the house. His voice clearly filled with impatience. "Coming." Before Han-seo left the room, he opened the closet once more. "I'll see you later, maybe?" Han-seo whispered. "If it's possible." You whispered back.

He closed the door once more. You sighed heavily. You never imagined that this is how your morning would go. You listened carefully for their departure. After a few minutes you heard the door slam shut. You figured that was Jun-woo's doing. You silently pulled your phone out and set a timer for ten minutes. Making sure it would only vibrate. You also made sure the phone notifications were set on silent. You didn't want to risk being caught if any of their guards stayed behind. Your mind raced with a million thoughts. Especially thoughts of how to explain to your other best friend and roommate Cha-young why you didn't come home last night. Those ten minutes began to feel like years to you. When the timer finally went off you quickly and quietly gathered all of your belongings and made your way out of the house. At this point you didn’t care that you were leaving the house in his over sized shirt, underwear, and socks. Your clothes and shoes bundled up in your arms. When you felt that you were a good distance away from his house you had decided to call Cha-young for a ride. You waited patiently at a bus stop for Cha-young to show up. You only had to wait for about ten minutes. You jumped up from the bench and rushed to her car when she parked to allow you to get in.

"Why didn't you drive last night?" Cha-young asked when you got into her vehicle. "Because, I didn't feel like it." You replied while shrugging. She gave your appearance a once over but didn’t comment on it. "Who did you visit last night?" Cha-young glanced at you when she stopped at a red light. She only glanced for a moment before turning her attention back on the road. "Han-seo." You told her honestly. Cha-young was fully aware of the friendship between you and him. Granted, she was shocked when she found out he is the childhood best friend you always spoke of so fondly. She was equally as shocked when Vincenzo told her that Jang Jun-woo was none other than Jang Han-seok. You remembered how shocked Vincenzo, Cha-young, and Mr. Nam looked when they discovered that by being friends with Han-seo meant you also got to know Jun-woo.

You were sitting at the table in the law firm office, sifting through a folder while waiting for Cha-young. "I've been fooled." You looked up to see Cha-young, Mr. Nam, and Vincenzo walk through the door. "Did I miss something?" You asked. "It's been revealed that her old colleague Jun-woo is actually Jang Han-seok." Mr. Nam said. Your heart dropped at the mention of the last name. Vincenzo gave you a puzzled look. "That can't be right. I mean, with what's happened so far, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me." Your words rushed out. "Why do you say that?" Cha-young crossed her arms. "Well, because Han-seo is my best friend, so I know his brother fairly well." Your words were met with surprised expressions. “How long have you known Han-seo for?” Mr. Nam asked curiously. “Since we were children.” You said. “When Han-seo introduced his brother to you what name did he give to address him by?” Vincenzo questioned. “Uh, he was introduced to me as Jang Jun-woo.” You told him honestly. “That would explain why you can’t imagine him as Jang Han-seok. But, how did you not notice before that he’s Cha-young’s colleague. You’ve also been friends with Cha-young for a long time, correct?” Mr. Nam asked. “I try to separate my work life from my personal life. I never talked about him around Y/N, and I never allowed the two to meet.” Cha-young answered for you. “Well, you did keep me away from your work up until you came to Jipuragi Law Firm. Then I started popping in whenever I could, just like now.” You told her. Mr. Nam still looked shocked at the information that was being shared. Vincenzo looked as if he was plotting something, and Cha-young looked neutral to it all.

Back then you couldn't fathom that Jun-woo would do such heinous acts of violence. Now, considering what you witnessed last night, you could believe it. You sighed heavily and slid down in your seat. "Something's happened." "Yeah, I walked in on Jun-woo hurting Han-seo." It wasn't a question but you replied anyhow. Cha-young sighed heavily as she parked the car. Being caught up in your own thoughts made you miss the fact that she had pulled up to Geumga Plaza.

Cha-young turned to face you. "Listen, Vincenzo and Han-seo have a plan. I don’t know what that plan is, but Vincenzo is trying his best to help take down Jun-woo. With help from Han-seo of course." Cha-young told you. "That's good news. Sounds like the two of you are pretty close now." Cha-young turned to get out of the vehicle. Clearly not wanting to address your assumption. You smiled to yourself at her reaction.

Once you got out, the two of you made your way to the law firm office. When you walked in you were greeted by a shocked looking Mr. Nam. You were puzzled by his look until you looked down at yourself. Your face grew warm when you remembered that you weren’t fully clothed. "There's a reason." You told him as you rushed to pull your pants on. "A reason for what?" You glanced over to see Vincenzo enter the room. "That they were barely dressed." Cha-young answered for you. "Interesting." Vincenzo said as he took his over coat off and sat at his desk. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands together. You figured that was your queue to explain yourself. You sighed heavily as you took a seat in the closest chair to you. You set your shoes and shirt from yesterday on the table in front of you. After doing that you leaned back, clasping your hands together and resting them on your abdomen. "I went to visit Han-seo last night. When I got there I noticed that the front door was wide open so I walked in." You began to tell them. "When I made it past the entrance I froze." At this point your voice grew softer as tears began to blur your vision. "Han-seo was being held tightly by his tie. His eye, his mouth, and his cheek already hurt. It looked like Jun-woo was going to hit him again, until he noticed me." You cast your gaze to the ceiling, trying your hardest not to cry. "You don't have to explain further, if it hurts to do so." Mr. Nam gently rested a hand on your shoulder squeezing it lightly. You nodded in response to him. Vincenzo had gotten up from his desk to hand you a box of tissues.

You had failed at trying not to cry. Some tears had fallen. You leaned forward for the tissues to clean your cheeks and blow your nose. "It hurts because I've known Han-seo for years. How did I miss all the signs of abuse?!" Sadness and frustration laced heavily in your tone. Mr. Nam sat down beside you. "Sometimes, the abused get so good at hiding the abuse, that no one can tell what goes on behind closed doors. Until the abused feels comfortable enough to tell someone, no one will know otherwise. Sometimes they never speak up at all due to fear of retaliation from their abuser." Mr. Nam spoke softly to you. "Han-seo told me that Jun-woo always hurts people when they find out about his violent side." You had rested your elbows on the table, clasped your hands together, and leaned your forehead against them. "My other problem is, why didn't I notice Jun-woo's sinister behavior before." You sounded so defeated at this point that it even made Vincenzo’s heart ache to see you like this. "Evil has a way of deceiving people." Vincenzo stated. "He's beyond evil! He’s a monster!" You didn't mean to raise your voice but you had reached your breaking point.

You stood up so abruptly that your chair fell on its back. "I can't take this bullshit anymore Vincenzo. Everything he has done thus far, it's cruel. Everything he continues to do is cruel. Either you figure out a way to stop him or I will." Your voice was filled with rage. "I'm begging that you let someone else handle him." You turned to see Han-seo entering the room. The pleading look on his face made your anger disappear and your heart ache. “How did you get away from your guards and Jun-woo?” You asked him. “Jun-woo didn’t stick around at the hospital. Said he had better things to do than wait around for me. As soon as they discharged me, I slipped away from the guards.” Han-seo replied. “Now, back to what I previously said. Please, let someone else do something about Jun-woo. I can’t lose you too.” You looked down at your feet as you processed what he was saying. Looking up at him you said “fine. But next time I see him I’m gonna slap him, and if he dares to hit back I’m gonna kick his “family” jewels.” Cha-young couldn’t hold back her laughter at the last part of your statement. “Fair enough.” Han-seo said with a smile. Your chest filled with warmth when you noticed it was his genuine smile.

“Since you’re here we should go over our plan.” Vincenzo began to walk towards him, when he was close enough he wrapped one arm around his shoulder to lead him out of the room. You, Cha-young, and Mr. Nam stood puzzled on what to do. You startled a little when you felt your phone buzz. Pulling it out of your pants pocket you opened it to see a new text from Han-seo. The less you know, the better.~Han-seo You held your phone out to show Mr. Nam and Cha-young. “Well, I suppose that makes sense.” Mr. Nam said as he walked to his desk to sit down. “Does it though.” You could hear the pout in Cha-young’s voice as she spoke. You couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had suddenly washed over you. Maybe not knowing is the best, but that doesn’t make me worry any less. You silently thought to yourself. You took this moment as an opportunity to go change into the shirt you wore yesterday.

Two hours had passed before Vincenzo and Han-seo showed up again. “We’ve set the first part of our plan in motion. Later tonight the second and last part will be set in motion. If all goes smoothly, this blood feud ends tonight.” Vincenzo stated with such confidence that it concerned you. You decided to brush off that feeling considering you knew his background pretty well at this point. “I’m seriously sorry about this morning.” You turned your attention to Han-seo as he spoke. “You did what was best for me. Don’t worry, I don’t hold anything against you.” You told him, giving him a soft smile. Sometimes, the abused get so good at hiding the abuse, that no one can tell what goes on behind closed doors. Mr. Nam’s words from earlier rang loudly in your mind when you saw Han-seo’s posture become more relaxed.

All the signs were there, I was just too young to understand what was going on. You thought to yourself. “Is everything all right, you keep zoning out.” Han-seo’s voice pulled you from your thoughts. “Uh, yeah. I have a lot on my mind at the moment. That’s all.” You replied. Han-seo nodded and continued his conversation with Cha-young and Vincenzo. You missed the concerned look that Mr. Nam had been giving you for the past ten minutes. “The last part I will take care of, with help of course.” You turned to Vincenzo as he spoke. “Okay, you’ve told me that you both have a plan. Part of that plan is already in motion as we speak, and the rest is to happen tonight. But, you haven’t given me any details of the plan.” Cha-young stated in frustration. “It’s for your own safety. More details will be given out later.” Vincenzo told her. Cha-young ran her hands down the length of her face and sighed heavily.

“Let’s not discuss this further. Place an order of what you want for lunch, including you” He glanced at Han-seo as he spoke. Of course Han-seo had to be silly about it, he first looked around the room acting like that wasn’t directed at him. Then he pointed at himself with a smile. Vincenzo rolled his eyes at his antics before nodding his head at him. “Once the orders are placed, Y/N and I will pick them up for you.” He finished speaking. You gave him a puzzled look because you would think he would have the food delivered to the firm. You studied his face noticing he was giving you a look that said he needed to speak to you alone. Your stomach dropped as your mind began to run rampant with thoughts of why that could be. Once everyone wrote down their order, Mr. Nam made the call and said Mr. Cassano will pick up the order. He was told it would be done in an hour.

Thirty minutes of talking about anything and everything had passed by when Vincenzo suddenly stood up. “There’s no harm in going to wait for our order now.” He looked at you as he spoke. You nodded your head and stood up. Slowly following behind him. He had to stop once because you had fallen so far behind. You mumbled an apology when you caught up to him. The rest of the walk to his vehicle was filled with complete silence. Once inside the vehicle that’s when he began to break the silence. “I’ve discussed this with Han-seo already, but the last plan involves you.” Vincenzo said as he fastened his seat belt and then turned the key in the ignition, putting the vehicle into drive as he pulled away from the building. “Wait, why?!” You asked him in a panicked tone. “Because, you may not know this, but you’re Jun-woo’s weakness.” Vincenzo stated as a matter of fact. You gave him a puzzled look, even though he was paying attention to the road so it was pointless but whatever. “Vincenzo, how could I be a weakness to such a monster?” Your words dripping with hatred. “I’ve observed his behavior when you end up having to be around him with Han-seo.” “What behavior would that be?” “It’s the jealous look he gives Han-seo when you stand so close to him. The fact that when he looks at you he always shows you a genuine smile. It’s the way his posture is severely stiff and on guard around everyone except you.” “Vincenzo, what are you getting at?” “What I’m getting at is that man may believe he is in love with you. What I know is, he doesn’t know what love is. You’re more of an object that he wants to possess.” The vehicle was stopped at a red light when Vincenzo glanced at you. Your blood ran cold as you realized this was the other-shoe-waiting-to-drop. You also began to think hard about all the moments your were roped into spending time with him and Han-seo together.

As if on cue your phone vibrated in your pocket. By the time you were able to pull it out of your pocket, Vincenzo was parking the car. You sighed before unlocking your phone to see a new text notification. Heart pounding frantically when you read the name of the sender. We should talk tonight-Jun-woo You felt nauseous when you saw that he had added the emoji with hearts surrounding it. “Something wrong?” Vincenzo turned in his seat so his body was facing you more. “First off, shouldn’t your body be turned towards the door and not me. You know, never expose your back or whatever.” You pointed out to him. He gave you a smirk and nodded at you before turning his body towards his door. “Second, and lastly. Jun-woo texted me. His ears must be burning or something.” You turned your phone so that Vincenzo could see the screen. “Or the universe may be working in our favor.” Vincenzo stated. “Either way, I don’t like this.” You whispered as you sent a reply to Jun-woo. What time and what location-Y/N You silently stared at your phone impatiently waiting for a response from him. You barely heard Vincenzo say that he’ll be back. Time seemed to fly before you finally got a reply. How about my place, around 8pm. Don’t tell Han-seo. Let this be our little secret (winky face)~Jun woo You felt bile in the back of your throat. Hating the fact that Vincenzo may have been right about the universe working in your favor. It still made you wonder how you fit into his plan to knock Jun-woo down several notches. Fine. I’ll see you at 8pm, don’t expect me to dress fancy or anything like that.~Y/N This time you only had to wait three minutes for a response. Someone’s in a mood. I like it.~Jun-woo Vincenzo gave you a puzzled look when he got in the vehicle handing the food off to you. As he was getting in you made a gagging sound. Instead of explaining it verbally, you handed your phone over to Vincenzo. You watched a grimace grace his features. “Disgusting.” He said as he handed your phone back to you. He turned the key in the ignition and put the vehicle in reverse. Making his way out of the parking lot and back to the law firm.

✨✨✨✨

“How did Han-seo react to the last part of the plan?” You asked when Vincenzo put his vehicle into park at the plaza. The entire ride back had been silent up until this very moment. “He was fuming. He hates it. He’s fiercely protective of you. Have you noticed that?” Vincenzo asked as he pocketed his keys and unbuckled his seat belt. “I have. He’s always made me feel safe and comfortable.” You softly said as you unbuckled your seat belt. “Wait, I need to know that you consent to being part of this. That if it comes down to it, you’d be willing to face whatever comes your way. No matter what it may be.” Vincenzo gently grasped your forearm. “For Han-seo, I’d do anything. Even if it meant losing my own life.” You admitted. Vincenzo nodded as he let your arm go. The two of you stepped out of the vehicle and headed to the office. Walking together in silence. Your heart felt heavy and your soul felt tired. However, you meant every word you said to Vincenzo.

“We’re back.” Vincenzo announced when he walked through the doors. You walked to the table with the food in your arms. Setting the bag down on the table and passing out the correct orders. You sat down beside Han-seo. You pulled your phone out, opened the text messages, and turned the screen towards him. You closely watched his reaction to the texts he had to read. You could see the anger flash across his face, then it was replaced with a look of fear. He looked up into your eyes. Your heart sunk at all the emotions hidden within his stare. Fear, hurt, and anger. “Is there really no other way?” He turned to Vincenzo who happened to be mid bite. “There isn’t. Unfortunately for Y/N, this works more in our favor. I know the exact time and location.” “Wait, what if this is a trap.” You practically shout out. Vincenzo raised a brow at you. “I’m prepared for that. I just need to tell the others involved.” “Is there nothing we can do?” Cha-young asked motioning her index finger at herself and then at Mr. Nam. “Stand by and wait for instructions. That’s the best I can tell you.” Vincenzo finally took the bite of food after he spoke.

You glanced at Han-seo and noticed the way he was poking at his food instead of eating. You hated to admit that you had also lost your appetite as well. He looked up to meet your gaze and gently spoke “I’ll eat, if you eat”. You smiled and gave a small laugh. “Okay” you told him as you took a bite of food. Mind drifting to an old memory.

You tilted you head as you placed your lunch box in front of Han-seo. You noticed how he slumped and poked at his food. Something was clearly wrong but you didn’t know what. “I’ll eat, if you eat.” You said as you sat down across the table from him. “Oh, Y/N. I’m sorry I didn’t notice you at first.” He said in that cheerful goofy voice of his. “I’ll eat, if you eat.” You repeated to him. He gave you a look of curiosity before saying “okay” and began to eat. You didn’t ask what was wrong. Instead you talked his ear off about one of your favorite hobbies while eating. From that moment on, that phrase was spoken by one or the other between the two of you.

Han-seo smiled to himself when he saw a small smile grace your features. It was clear to him that his words triggered a happy memory for you. He startled in response to Mr. Nam tapping his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mr. Nam said. You glanced up to Han-seo, without thinking you spoke his name softly and reached for his hand. He didn’t flinch or move his hand away from you. Instead he intertwined his fingers with yours, squeezed a bit tightly, and took a deep breathe. When he was more composed, his grip in your hand loosened but he didn’t let go. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to react like that.” Han-seo said. “No need to apologize. I should have verbally announced myself before tapping your shoulder.” Mr. Nam spoke in a calming tone. I wish I wasn’t like this. Han-seo thought bitterly to himself. “It’s okay.” You told him as you gently squeezed his hand. “Thank you.” He said. You smiled at him before he turned his attention back to Mr. Nam “what did you need my attention for.” Mr. Nam took a moment to answer. “Oh, I was going to ask if you would like some tea or coffee.” “Tea sounds good.” Mr. Nam nodded as he walked off to get himself and Han-seo a cup of tea.

Cha-young and Vincenzo stayed silent during the whole ordeal, neither one knowing how to respond, but taking note of how to get Han-seo’s attention when they needed to. Vincenzo also took note on how it seemed like you were able to ground Han-seo. After about three minutes Mr. Nam returned to the table, carefully placing a cup in front of Han-seo. You gently gave his hand another gentle squeeze before releasing it. He took that as his cue to continue eating.

“We set into action the moment you arrive at Jun-woo’s house.” Vincenzo suddenly said. You nodded “I understand.” “This means that you need to stick to your part of the plan. Regardless of how protective you are of Y/N.” Vincenzo said in a stern voice. Han-seo looked up from his food “I’ll try my best.” “If that’s how it is, than I’ll accept that.” “When you said for us to standby. What did you mean?” Cha-young asked him. “What I mean is, the two of you will stay in the surveillance van. Mi-ri will hack into Jun-woo’s cameras so that we have a live feed of what’s going on and of what’s being said.” Vincenzo answered honestly. Cha-young nodded in understanding. She looked like she wanted to say more, but opted to stay silent instead.

No more questions had been asked, so everyone decided to finish eating in silence. Once the food was gone Han-seo slowly stood up. “I should head back now, before anyone notices my absence and begins to look for me.” He announced as he stood.  Not that they care enough about me to do so. He thought bitterly to himself. “Keep in mind that you’re not supposed to know about Y/N meeting up with Jun-woo tonight.” Vincenzo said. Han-seo nodded. “I’ll play dumb, it’s what I’m good at apparently.” He gave a sad smile as he spoke. “Be safe.” Cha-young looked up to him as she spoke. You saw Mr. Nam nod in agreement to her statement. He gave you one last smile before he walked out of the office. After Han-seo left Vincenzo began discussing what he expected from Mr. Nam, Cha-young, and yourself.

✨✨✨✨

You looked yourself over in the mirror one last time. You had told Jun-woo that you weren’t going to dress fancy or anything. So, you opted for your favorite hoodie paired with a comfy pair of pants and combat boots. You startled when you heard your phone go off. Slowly you reached over to pick it up, unlocking the screen. Do try to be on time. I have a surprise for you.~Jun-woo That statement alone made you feel quite uneasy. I’m leaving my house now. Hold your horses.~Y/N You had hit send before you could change your mind about your wording. This was one of those moments where you knew your sass would get you in trouble. You sighed heavily as you walked out of the house, locking the door behind you. From what you understood, everyone was already in place for what would go down tonight.

The drive to Jun-woo’s felt like it took forever, that was just your nerves getting the best of you though. You slowly pulled into his drive way. When you had gotten close enough you silently stopped and put the vehicle into park. You took a moment to compose yourself before getting out of your vehicle. You rang the door bell when you got to the door. You couldn’t bring yourself to knock because your hands were shaking a bit.

“Look at that, you’re on time.” His words and wicked smile greeted you when he opened the door. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at him as you stepped past him into his home. You had missed the way your attitude had made his lip twitch in annoyance. Jun-woo had his back facing you as he closed the door. You stopped dead in your tracks. Your heart sinking and your blood running cold. “Surprise.” Jun-woo said as he walked to stand next to Han-seo. He was currently kneeling on his knees, hands bound behind his back, head down and slouched forward a bit. Jun-woo roughly grabbed him by the hair to pull his head up. The moment his eyes locked with yours tears began to blur your vision. “What the fuck?!” You angrily shouted at Jun-woo. “Simple, he had what I wanted. I’m sure you understand what I mean by that.” He released him, pushing him roughly causing him to fall to his side.

Jun-woo crouched down next to Han-seo’s body, pulling a knife out of his pocket. You stepped forward but stopped when he pointed the blade in your direction, waving it back and forth in a motion to say no. “You’re a monster.” Your words dripping with anger as you spoke. He scoffed at your words “you realize I’m doing all of this for you, right?” “Why the fuck would I think that?” “It’s because I love you.” “Jun-woo, this isn’t love.” He lowered the blade to Han-seo, cutting the rope that bound his wrists. He used him to push himself to stand up. You stepped back as he stepped closer to you.

Han-seo slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. His head throbbed with every movement. His entire body ached. He froze, watching Jun-woo walk towards you. “You were never meant to get mixed up with this side of me. You were only meant to ever see the clueless, puppy like, and adorable Jun-woo. Not the cold blooded, I get my way, I never fail Han-seok.” His tone colder than you had ever heard it. “I refuse you.” You said defiantly as you threw a punch towards his face. You had clocked him in the jaw pretty hard, but all it did was made him stumble away from you a bit. Rubbing and flexing his jaw he turned to you again, this time pointing a gun at you. When he stumbled he had reached into his pocket to pull it out. Somehow you and Han-seo had missed that.

“This silly game ends here. You have a choice, him or you.” You froze when you heard the lever on the gun click. It was at this moment that Vincenzo burst through the door. This had startled Jun-woo and caused him to pull the trigger. The bullet had missed you and landed in the wall beside you. With this distraction you moved past him to kneel beside Han-seo. “It’s rude to interrupt.” He pointed his gun at Vincenzo. “You’re worse than I thought. You lure a woman to your house and kidnap your own brother.” Vincenzo said stepping more into the room, Jun-woo followed his moves with his gun. “As if you’re one to talk. I’m sure you’ve done far worse than I.” Jun-woo stated bitterly.

You slowly helped Han-seo to his feet as the two of you watched the scene before you. “Y/N, don’t think you can escape. I want you to stand next to Vincenzo, right now.” He commanded. “Hurry up now, or the next round goes straight into this idiot’s skull.” He turned his attention towards you. You gulped as you slowly made your way to stand where you were told. Han-seo didn’t move from where he stood, out of fear that one of you would be shot.

“Be a good brother and grab that hockey stick over there.” Jun-woo didn’t take his eyes off of you or Vincenzo as he gestured with his free hand. He took a deep sigh “either do as I say or one of these two get shot.” He stepped closer to you. You looked passed him to see Han-seo slowly walk towards the hockey stick. “I want you to beat this mafia scum to death.” You turned to Vincenzo, he didn’t even flinch. “You sick bastard. You never should have been born!!” You raised your voice in anger.

The sound of his open palm slapping your right cheek resonated throughout the room. The impact causing you to fall to the ground. Anger boiled within Han-seo. Jun-woo squatted down in front of you. “Now, that really hurt. I shouldn’t have been born?” Jun-woo grabbed your chin forcing you to look at him. “Brother, don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?” Jun-woo asked as he roughly released your chin and stood up again. “Now, unfortunately you have to stay where you are while Han-seo does as he was told.” Jun-woo’s form loomed over you, gun pointed directly at your head.

“If I kill Mr. Cassano, what happens next?” Han-seo asked without moving. “Simple, we have one less issue to worry about. And maybe the two of you get to live.” Jun-woo shrugged his shoulders as he spoke. “What makes you think I won’t speak out against you?” You raised yourself into a sitting position. “You’ll do as I say or else I could end you at any moment. Duh!” He responded. “Stop stalling.” He directed his words at Han-seo. “Do as he says.” Vincenzo said. You glanced up in shock. Looking between him and Han-seo. “I’m sorry… Mr. Cassano” He stepped forward slowly raising the hockey stick with every step. “It’s okay, you have no other choice.” Vincenzo spoke again. You looked over to Jun-woo in time to see his eyes roll. You could tell he was growing impatient with every moment that passed by.

“Okay. I’ll make a decision I won’t regret.” He angled the hockey stick and slammed it hard into Jun-woo’s side. The moment you saw him angle the hockey stick was when you decided to fall to your side. When the stick made impact with his side, it had caused him to pull the trigger, making the gun go off. The bullet barely missing you as it flew past. He groaned in pain as he fell to the ground. He was momentarily stunned by what happened. He was laying on his back when Han-seo was about to hit him for a second time. The gun went off again, the bullet lodging itself right into his left bicep. The stick fell loudly to the floor as he went to cup his wound. This gave Jun-woo enough time to jump to his feet. Han-seo lunged forward grabbing for the gun, still in Jun-woo’s grasp. “Please, stop!” Han-seo struggled against him. He was pushed away.

Jun-woo turned towards you and Vincenzo. Aiming the gun directly at you as you tried to leave with Vincenzo. He was able to fire twice before he was back to struggling against Han-seo. The first shot missed, the second one however, grazed your right bicep. Pain instantly making you stop in your tracks. Vincenzo giving you a concerned looked. That’s a six shooter. He’s only got one round left. You thought to yourself. You weren’t even sure how your panicked brain had figured that out, but here you were.

Han-seo continued to struggle against his brother. Frantically trying to steal the gun away from him. “Please, stop!” Han-seo begged, maneuvering the two of their bodies to where the gun was pointed at the floor. “Let go.” “You really… shouldn’t have been born. Never. You scum.” Han-seo tightened his grip, which had caused the gun to release the final round. Jun-woo used more of his strength to push against Han-seo. His movement causing them to stand and the grip loosen. He punched Han-seo in the face, knocking him to the ground before taking off. Vincenzo was distracted by checking your wound, giving Jun-woo just enough time to run out the balcony door and jump down to the ground below.

Cupping your wound you went to Han-seo. Kneeling down beside him as he began to sit up. Vincenzo made a call before he walked out of the house. “He’s going to get him. Don’t worry.” You told him. The two of you startled when you heard the door open again. Instantly relaxing when you noticed it was Cha-young and Mr. Nam. “Are you hurt badly?” Mr. Nam rushed to your side, helping you to your feet. Cha-young was helping Han-seo stand. “Just the wound on my upper arm.” You told him. He nodded as he led you out of the house. “Can I get your keys.” Mr. Nam politely asked when you stepped outside. “Uh, yeah.” You dug your keys out of your pocket and handed them over.

He unlocked your vehicle. You slowly lowered yourself into the backseat behind the driver’s seat. Cha-young sat in the front seat. Leaving Han-seo to sit in the back with you. At this point you began to feel woozy and light headed from the blood loss. “Here, let me turn this into a tourniquet.” Han-seo was taking off his tie as he spoke to you. All you could do was weakly nod your head at him. “It might hurt a bit.” He began to wrap it around your arm, pulling it tightly each time he wound it around. You winced in pain. “I’m sorry.” He whispered to you, tying off the tie. The ride to the hospital was rough. At one point you closed your eyes.

✨✨✨✨

When your eyes opened again, you were met by the brightness of a hospital room. You began to sit up slowly. Glancing to your right you see Han-seo with his head down, your hand in his. “Oh, you’re awake.” Mr. Nam spoke softly as he walked into the room. “How long have I been out for?” You asked him. “About six hours, give or take.” He responded. You glanced down to Han-seo again. “He’s been by your side the whole time after he was looked over.” Mr. Nam went to stand on your left side. You smiled softly “it’s always been like that. Whenever we’d get hurt, no matter how the other was feeling, we’d stay by each other’s side.” You gently ran your free hand through his hair. The movement causing him to stir. He sat up quickly when he noticed you were awake.

He was greeted by a soft smile when he met your gaze. He looked over to see Mr. Nam and his face became warm. Mr. Nam didn’t say anything, he only smiled. “Any word from Vincenzo?” Han-seo directed his question at Mr. Nam. “He said to let you know that Jun-woo is no longer a threat, also to say farewell, you’ll hear from him eventually.” Mr. Nam responded. “Okay.” You could hear the hurt in his voice. “This isn’t a forever goodbye, you’ll probably see him again, at some point in the future.” You gently squeezed his hand.

“If I didn’t know better, it would seem like the two of you are in a relationship.” You looked over to see Cha-young leaning against the door frame. A smirk gracing her features. Your face grew warm at her comment. “It’s funny, we’ve heard that from everyone around us since we were teenagers.” Han-seo admitted openly. “Well, I can see why. The chemistry between the two of you, it’s like you’re both puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together. Two souls that became one.” Mr. Nam said fondly. “It just feels natural to me. They’ve always been there for me.” Han-seo met your gaze, you could see fondness in his eyes. “Even when I tried to push you away at one point. You were stubborn and continued to stick by me. I’m sorry I was such a pain and said such hurtful words back then.” He spoke softly as tears began to blur his vision. Guilt overwhelming him. “Hey now, I could tell you were going through a rough time. I didn’t know what exactly, but my gut said you needed me more than ever then. I’m sorry that I hadn’t known what was going on sooner.” Your voice gentle as you spoke. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. Except put you in danger of his wrath.” With his free hand he reached forward towards your face, to gently wipe away the tears that streamed down your cheeks.

“Thank you, for being there regardless of not knowing fully what was going on.” He whispered as he stood leaning towards you to gently place a kiss upon your brow. Mr. Nam and Cha-young silently watched the two of you. “We should go.” Mr. Nam whispered to Cha-young. She nodded at him before speaking, “listen, we’re going to head home now. The doctors informed us that you have to stay here a few days before they discharge you. It’s because you needed a blood transfusion, so they need to monitor you.” Han-seo sat back in his chair. “I’ll still be here.” He reassured you. “You always are.” You said with a smile. 

“I’m proud of you. Just so you know.” You told him. “What for?” He asked softly. “For being able to stand up against your brother.” He smiled softly, his chest filling with warmth at your statement. He was pretty proud of himself as well. It may have taken him years to do so, but he had finally turned his fear into strength. Making him able to go up against Jun-woo. However, he knew if it hadn’t have been for you, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. He wasn’t ready to admit it out loud, you were the reason he was able to do what needed to be done. Even if that had meant risking his own life. 

Main Masterlist

[devilsskettle]

oh man i have a Lot of thoughts about the autopsy of jane doe, both positive and critical For Sure, i'd be SO excited to see your analysis of it! definitely keeping an eye out for that 👀

thanks! i'm working on something article-like to talk about the film and i don't know what i want to do with it yet lol but if i don't post it on here i'll definitely link it. it's mainly a discussion of gender in possession/occult films in the same way that carol clover describes in men, women, and chainsaws - that there are dual plot lines in occult films, usually gendered masculine and feminine respectively, where the "main" feminine plot (the actual possession) is actually a way to explore the "real" masculine plot (the emotional conflict of the "man in crisis" protagonist). typically the man in crisis is too masculine, or "closed" emotionally, where the woman is too "open," which is why she acts as the vehicle for the supernatural occurrence as well as the core emotions of the film. the man has to learn how to become more open (though if he becomes too open, like father karras in the exorcist, he has to die by the end - he has to find a happy medium, where he doesn't actually transgress gender expectations too much. clover calls this state the "new masculine," and we might apply the term "toxic masculinity" to the "closed" emotional state). part of the "opening up" feature of the story is that it allows men to be highly emotionally expressive in situations where they otherwise might not be allowed to, which is cathartic for the assumed primary audience of these films (young men). another feature of the genre is white science vs black magic (once you exhaust the scientific "rational" explanations, you have to accept that something magic is happening). the autopsy of jane doe does this even more than the films she discusses when she published the book in 1992 (the exorcist, poltergeist, christine, etc) because the supernaturally influenced young woman who becomes this kind of vehicle is more of an object than a character. she doesn't have a single line of dialogue or even blink for the entire runtime of the movie. the camerawork often pans to her as if to show her reactions to the events of the movie, which seems kind of pointless because it's the same reaction the whole time (none) but it allows the viewer to project anything they want onto her - from personal suffering to cunning and spite. 

compare again to the exorcist: is the story actually about regan mcneil? no. but do we care about her? sure (clover says no, but i think we at least feel for her situation lol). and do we get an idea of what she's like as a person? yes. even though her pain and her body are used narratively as a framework for karras' emotional/religious crisis, we at least see her as a person. both she and her mother are expendable to the "real" plot but they're very active in their roles in the "main" plot - our "jane doe" isn't afforded even that level of agency or identity. so. is that inherently sexist? well, no - if there were other women in the film who were part of the "real" plot, i would say that the presence of women with agency and identity demonstrate enough regard for the personhood of women to make the gender of the subject of the autopsy irrelevant. but there are none. of the three important women in the film, we have 1) an almost corpse, 2) an absent (dead) mother, and 3) a one dimensional girlfriend who is killed off for a man's character development/cathartic expression of emotions. all three are just platforms for the men in crisis of this narrative. 

and, to my surprise, much of the reception to the film is to embrace it as a feminist story because the witch is misconstrued as a badass, powerful, Strong Female Character girl boss type for getting revenge on the men who wronged her, with absolutely no consideration given to what the movie actually ends up saying about women. and the director has said that he embraces this interpretation, but never intended it. so like. of course you're going to embrace the interpretation that gives you critical acclaim and the moral high ground. but it's so fucking clear that it was never his intention to say anything about feminism, or women in general, or gender at all. so i find it very frustrating that people read the film that way because it's just. objectively wrong.

there's also things i want to say about this idea that clover talks about in a different chapter of the book when she discusses the country/city divide in a lot of horror (especially rape-revenge films) in which the writer intends the audience to identify with the city characters and be against the country characters (think of, like, house of 1000 corpses - there's pretty explicit socioeconomic regional tension between the evil country residents and the travelers from the city) but first, they have to address the real harm that the City (as a whole) has inflicted upon the Country (usually in the forms of environmental and economic destruction) so in order to justify the antagonization the country people are characterized by, their "retaliation" for these wrongs has to be so extreme and misdirected that we identify with the city people by default (if country men feel victimized by the City and react by attacking a city woman who isn't complicit in the crimes of the City in any of the violent, heinous ways horror movies employ, of course we won't sympathize with them). why am i bringing this up? well, clover says this idea is actually borrowed from the western genre, where native americans are the Villains even as white settlers commit genocide - so they characterize them as extremely savage and violent in order to justify violence against them (in fiction and in real life). the idea is to address the suffering of the Other and delegitimize it through extreme negative characterization (often, with both the people from the country and native americans, through negative stereotyping as well as their actions). so i think that shows how this idea is transferred between different genres and whatever group of people the writers want the viewers to be against, and in this movie it’s happening on the axis of gender instead of race, region, or class. obviously the victims of the salem witch trials suffered extreme injustice and physical violence (especially in the film as victim of the ritual the body clearly underwent) BUT by retaliating for the wrongs done to her, apparently (according to the main characters) at random, she's characterized as monstrous and dangerous and spiteful. her revenge is unjustified because it’s not targeted at the people who actually committed violence against her. they say that the ritual created the very thing it was trying to destroy - i.e. an evil witch. she becomes the thing we're supposed to be afraid of, not someone we’re supposed to sympathize with. she’s othered by this framework, not supported by it, so even if she’s afforded some power through her posthumous magical abilities, we the viewer are not supposed to root for her. if the viewer does sympathize with her, it’s in spite of the writing, not because of it. the main characters who we are intended to identify with feel only shallow sympathy for her, if any - even when they realize they’ve been cutting open a living person, they express shock and revulsion, but not regret. in fact, they go back and scalp her and take out her brain. after realizing that she’s alive! we’re intended to see this as an acceptable retaliation against the witch, not an act of extreme cruelty or at the very least a stupid idea lol. 

(also - i hate how much of a buzzword salem is in movies like this lol, nothing about her injuries or the story they “read” on her is even remotely similar to what happened in salem, except for the time period. i know they don’t explicitly say oh yeah, she was definitely from salem, but her injuries really aren’t characteristic of american executions of witches at all so i wish they hadn’t muddied the water by trying to point to an actual historical event. especially since i think the connotation of “witch” and the victims of witch trials has taken on a modern projection of feminism that doesn’t really make sense under any scrutiny. anyway)

not to mention the ending: what was the writer intending the audience to get from the ending? that the cycle of violence continues, and the witch’s revenge will move on and repeat the same violence in the next place, wherever she ends up. we’re supposed to feel bad for whoever her next victims will be. but what about her? i think the movie figures her maybe as triumphant, but she’s going to keep being passed around from morgue to morgue, and she’s going to be vivisected again and again, with no way to communicate her pain or her story. the framework of the story doesn’t allow for this ending to be tragic for her, though - clearly the tragedy lies with the father and son, finally having opened up to one another, unfortunately too late, and dying early, unjust deaths at the hands of this unknowable malignant entity. it doesn’t do justice to her (or the girlfriend, who seems to be nothing but collateral damage in all of this - in the ending sequence, when the police finds the carnage, it only shows them finding the bodies of the men. the girlfriend is as irrelevant to the conclusion as she is to the rest of the plot). 

but does this mean the autopsy of jane doe is a “bad” movie? i guess it depends on your perspective. ultimately, it’s one of those questions that i find myself asking when faced with certain kinds of stories that inevitably crop up often in our media: how much can we excuse a story for upholding regressive social norms (even unintentionally) before we have to discount the whole work? i don’t think the autopsy of jane doe warrants complete rejection for being “problematic” but i think the critical acclaim based on the idea that it’s a feminist film should be rejected. i still consider it a very interesting concept with strong acting and a lot of visual appeal, and it’s a very good piece of atmospheric horror. it’s does get a bit boring at certain points, but the core of the film is solid. it’s also not trying to be sexist, arguably it’s not overtly sexist at all, it’s just very very androcentric at the expense of its female characters, and i’m genuinely shocked that anyone would call it feminist. so sure, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, but let’s also be critical about how it’s using women as the stage for men’s emotional conflict 

also re: my description of this little project as “a film isn’t feminist just because there’s a woman’s name in the title” - i actually don’t want to skim over the fact that “jane doe” isn’t a real name. of the three women in the film, only one has a real name; the other two are referred to by names given to them by men. i’ll conclude on this note because i want to emphasize the lack of even very basic ways of recognizing individual identity afforded to women in this film. so yeah! the end! thanks for your consideration if you read this far! 

[cinema-tv-etc]

There has to be a better way to binge There’s a lot of big shared universes that should be easier to binge By Alex Cranz Jun 20, 2022

I’veI’ve been binge-watching TV shows and movies since the 90s. First, it was churning through my sister’s old VHS recordings of Doctor Who and X-Files, then there was collecting and watching whole series of anime piecemeal from places like Sam Goody and Suncoast. By the early 2000s, companies began releasing series by the season instead of by the episode (for actually affordable prices) and that made binge-watching shows a lot easier. Just popping to the library to pick up a season of The Sopranos was a heckuva lot easier than asking to borrow someone’s VHS recordings. Now, binge-watching a show is simpler than ever, but the biggest complaint is that people have to binge for fear of spoilers and wish they could savor a show distributed episodically.

I don’t care about that. Spoilers are rarely a barrier to enjoyment for me and I learned a long time ago how to space watching a really good show out to maximize the episodic thrills. No, my issue with the current binge model is it doesn’t account for shared universes and all the weird watching orders that can be required. Nor does it account for older shows which often aired in a different order from which they were produced, leading to weird story inconsistencies as characters get introduced long after they actually show up in shows. And it seems like it should be an easy problem to solve for.

As Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, and whatever HBO Max and Discovery eventually become wage war with each other to be the top streaming service in the U.S. they are frantically focused on content. Which wasn’t how the streaming wars were supposed to be waged. The idea was that streaming would give us more choice, not only in content but in how we watched that content. Yet instead of new ways to engage with the shows we want to watch the streaming services are focused on acquiring new franchises or pumping millions into their established franchises. Concern for the actual experience seems to have taken a seat in the third row of the car.

This has led to weird situations like the lack of support for 4K and HDR in a lot of content across these streamers, franchises seeming to migrate from platform to platform with no fanfare, or HBO Max continuing to ship one of the buggiest apps around. Churn, where people are constantly subscribing to services and then dropping them when they’ve watched the content they’ve wanted to watch, seems to have become such an expected part of the business for streamers that there’s little emphasis on actually keeping people on the platforms for longer than the duration of the shows they wanted to watch.

But there are so many helpful little tweaks that streaming services have refused to use that I do sometimes wonder if any of the people running these platforms actually use them. This brings me back to how hard it is to binge older content. If you want to watch Star Trek: The Original Series you can either buy it from something like Apple TV or Amazon Prime or stream it on Paramount+. In both cases, you’ll be watching in air date order as opposed to production order or in-universe chronological order.

Watching something like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer or CW’s The Flash is even more difficult. Those shows often include big crossovers with their sibling shows and unless you pull up a guide somewhere to figure out the viewing order of those crossovers you’ll find yourself missing crucial parts of characters’ story arcs.

“[P]art of the promise that came with streaming was a “better than cable” experience that allowed for personalization and curation that creates a more intimate connection,” Julia Alexander, Director of Strategy at Parrot Analytics and former Verge reporter told me. “People watch TV series in different ways, chronological, release order, or thematic - but services don’t allow for this personalization, and it’s counter-intuitive to what makes streaming so great.”

This kind of personalization shouldn’t be a hassle. This is a very solvable problem for streaming companies because all it requires is custom playlists—a technology that been available for a very long time!

“Creating a more personal, intimate viewing experience increases satisfaction, and makes the inherent value of a platform more obvious, which can help increase retention,” Alexander said. “As companies vie for keeping customers' attention month after month, allowing for more personalized curation goes a long way - and with such little effort.”

Yet despite what should be a relatively low lift, the streamers haven’t actually done it. It feels very weird that you can’t choose to watch Star Trek: The Original Series in a fan-preferred order instead of the air date order that front-loads some of the series’ most macho and sexist episodes instead of the more cerebral ones that made the show so enduring. That order was selected nearly 60 years ago by a bunch of execs who were scared of the science fiction show and wanted to entice people with alien ladies in bikinis and gods who like to engage in fistfights.

Allowing for more personalized curation goes a long way

The Star Wars universe is another one that could benefit from playlists that allow you to watch content in the order set in the universe, rather than the order they were filmed. Are you supposed to watch Solo before or after The Mandalorian? Where does Obi-Wan Kenobi fall versus The Bad Batch or Rebels or the upcoming Ahsoka? Wouldn’t it be nicer if Disney+, instead of a Google search, could help you figure that out? Franchises like the gargantuan Marvel Cinematic Universe, the smaller Snyder-verse, and even Grey’s Anatomy, and 9-1-1 would benefit a lot from customizable playlists too.

Given some streamers, like Paramount+, already have playlists designed to mimic linear channels, playlists that queue up the shows in the order you prefer shouldn’t be difficult. But it would require streamers to stop trying to see how many prestige shows they can mine from established franchises and start thinking about what made streaming so enticing to begin with: choice.

🔗 👉 https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/20/23175918/there-has-to-be-a-better-way-to-binge

Is streaming just becoming cable again? Julia Alexander thinks so

[letterboxd]

Blurring the Line.

As a new Space Jam film beams down to Earth, Kambole Campbell argues that a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium is what it takes to make a great live-action/animation hybrid.

The live-action and animation hybrid movie is something of a dicey prospect. It’s tricky to create believable interaction between what’s real and what’s drawn, puppeteered or rendered—and blending the live and the animated has so far resulted in wild swings in quality. It is a highly specific and technically demanding niche, one with only a select few major hits, though plenty of cult oddities. So what makes a good live-action/animation hybrid?

To borrow words from Hayao Miyazaki, “live action is becoming part of that whole soup called animation”. Characters distinct from the humans they interact with, but rendered as though they were real creatures (or ghosts), are everywhere lately; in Paddington, in Scooby Doo, in David Lowery’s (wonderful) update of Pete’s Dragon.

The original ‘Pete’s Dragon’ (1977) alongside the 2016 remake.

Lowery’s dragon is realized with highly realistic lighting and visual-effects work. By comparison, the cartoon-like characters in the 1977 Pete’s Dragon—along with other films listed in Louise’s handy compendium of Disney’s live-action animation—are far more exaggerated. That said, there’s still the occasional holdout for the classical version of these crossovers: this year’s Tom and Jerry replicating the look of 2D through 3D/CGI animation, specifically harkens back to the shorts of the 1940s and ’50s.

One type of live-action/animation hybrid focuses on seamless immersion, the other is interested in exploring the seams themselves. Elf (2003) uses the aberration of stop-motion animals to represent the eponymous character as a fish out of water. Ninjababy, a Letterboxd favorite from this year’s SXSW Festival, employs an animated doodle as a representation of the protagonist’s state of mind while she processes her unplanned pregnancy.

Meanwhile, every Muppets film ever literally tears at the seams until we’re in stitches, but, for the sake of simplicity, puppets are not invited to this particular party. What we are concerned with here is the overlap between hand-drawn animation and live-action scenes (with honorable mentions of equally valid stop-motion work), and the ways in which these hybrids have moved from whimsical confections to nod-and-wink blockbusters across a century of cinema.

Betty Boop and Koko the clown in a 1938 instalment of the Fleischer brothers’ ‘Out of the Inkwell’ series.

Early crossovers often involve animators playing with their characters, in scenarios such as the inventive Out of the Inkwell series of shorts from Rotoscope inventor Max Fleischer and his director brother Dave. Things get even more interactive mid-century, when Gene Kelly holds hands with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh.

The 1960s and ’70s deliver ever more delightful family fare involving human actors entering cartoon worlds, notably in the Robert Stevenson-directed Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Chuck Jones’ puntastic The Phantom Tollbooth.

Jerry and Gene dance off their worries in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ (1945).

Mary Poppins is one of the highest-rated live-action/animation hybrids on Letterboxd for good reason. Its sense of control in how it engages with its animated creations makes it—still!—an incredibly engaging watch. It is simply far less evil than the singin’, dancin’ glorification of slavery in Disney’s Song of the South (1946), and far more engaging than Victory Through Air Power (1943), a war-propaganda film about the benefits of long-range bombing in the fight against Hitler. The studio’s The Reluctant Dragon (1941) also serves a propagandistic function, as a behind-the-scenes studio tour made when the studio’s animators were striking.

By comparison, Mary Poppins’ excursions into the painted world—replicated in Rob Marshall’s belated, underrated 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns—are full of magical whimsicality. “Films have added the gimmick of making animation and live characters interact countless times, but paradoxically none as pristine-looking as this creation,” writes Edgar in this review. “This is a visual landmark, a watershed… the effect of making everything float magically, to the detail of when a drawing should appear in front or the back of [Dick] Van Dyke is a creation beyond my comprehension.” (For Van Dyke, who played dual roles as Bert and Mr Dawes Senior, the experience sparked a lifelong love of animation and visual effects.)

Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and penguins, in ‘Mary Poppins’ (1964).

Generally speaking, and the Mary Poppins sequel aside, more contemporary efforts seek to subvert this feeling of harmony and control, instead embracing the chaos of two worlds colliding, the cartoons there to shock rather than sing. Henry Selick’s frequently nightmarish James and the Giant Peach (1996) leans into this crossover as something uncanny and macabre by combining live action with stop motion, as its young protagonist eats his way into another world, meeting mechanical sharks and man-eating rhinos. Sally Jane Black describes it as “riding the Burton-esque wave of mid-’90s mall goth trends and blending with the differently demonic Dahl story”.

Science-classroom staple Osmosis Jones (2001) finds that within the human body, the internal organs serve as cities full of drawn white-blood-cell cops. The late Stephen Hillenburg’s The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004) turns its real-life humans into living cartoons themselves, particularly in a bonkers sequence featuring David Hasselhoff basically turning into a speedboat.

David Hasselhoff picks up speed in ‘The Spongebob Squarepants Movie’ (2004).

The absurdity behind the collision of the drawn and the real is never better embodied than in another of our highest-rated live/animated hybrids. Released in 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit shows off a deep understanding—narratively and aesthetically—of the material that it’s parodying, seeking out the impeccable craftsmanship of legends such as director of animation Richard Williams (1993’s The Thief and the Cobbler), and his close collaborator Roy Naisbitt. The forced perspectives of Naisbitt’s mind-bending layouts provide much of the rocket fuel driving the film’s madcap cartoon opening.

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Roger Rabbit utilizes the Disney stable of characters as well as the Looney Tunes cast to harken back to America’s golden age of animation. It continues a familiar scenario where the ’toons themselves are autonomous actors (as also seen in Friz Freleng’s 1940 short You Ought to Be in Pictures, in which Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to try his acting luck in the big studios).

Daffy Duck plots his rise up the acting ranks in ‘You Ought to Be in Pictures’ (1940).

Through this conceit, Zemeckis is able to celebrate the craft of animation, while pastiching both Chinatown, the noir genre, and the mercenary nature of the film industry (“the best part is… they work for peanuts!” a studio exec says of the cast of Fantasia). As Eddie Valiant, Bob Hoskins’ skepticism and disdain towards “toons” is a giant parody of Disney’s more traditional approach to matching humans and drawings.

Adult audiences are catered for with plenty of euphemistic humor and in-jokes about the history of the medium. It’s both hilarious (“they… dropped a piano on him,” one character solemnly notes of his son) and just the beginning of Hollywood toying with feature-length stories in which people co-exist with cartoons, rather than dipping in and out of fantasy sequences. It’s not just about how the cartoons appear on the screen, but how the human world reacts to them, and Zemeckis gets a lot of mileage out of applying ’toon lunacy to our world.

Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ (1988).

The groundbreaking optical effects and compositing are excellent (and Hoskins’ amazing performance should also be credited for holding all of it together), but what makes Roger Rabbit such a hit is that sense of controlled chaos and a clever tonal weaving of violence and noirish seediness (“I’m not bad… I’m just drawn that way”) through the cartoony feel. And it is simply very, very funny.

It could be said that, with Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis unlocked the formula for how to modernize the live-action and animation hybrid, by leaning into a winking parody of what came before. It worked so perfectly well that it helped kickstart the ‘Disney renaissance' era of animation. Roger Rabbit has influenced every well-known live-action/animation hybrid produced since, proving that there is success and fun to be had by completely upending Mary Poppins-esque quirks. Even Disney’s delightful 2007 rom-com Enchanted makes comedy out of the idea of cartoons crossing that boundary.

When a cartoon character meets real-world obstacles.

Even when done well, though, hybrids are not an automatic hit. Sitting at a 2.8-star average, Joe Dante’s stealthily great Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) is considered by the righteous to be the superior live-action/animated Looney Tunes hybrid, harkening back to the world of Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin. SilentDawn states that the film deserves the nostalgic reverence reserved for Space Jam: “From gag to gag, set piece to set piece, Back in Action is utterly bonkers in its logic-free plotting and the constant manipulation of busy frames.”

With its Tinseltown parody, Back in Action pulls from the same bag of tricks as Roger Rabbit; here, the Looney Tunes characters are famous, self-entitled actors. Dante cranks the meta comedy up to eleven, opening the film with Matthew Lillard being accosted by Shaggy for his performance in the aforementioned Scooby Doo movie (and early on throwing in backhanded jokes about the practice of films like itself as one character yells, “I was brought in to leverage your synergy!”).

Daffy Duck with more non-stop banter in ‘Looney Tunes: Back in Action’ (2003).

Back in Action is even more technically complex than Roger Rabbit, seamlessly bringing Looney Tunes physics and visual language into the real world. Don’t forget that Dante had been here before, when he had Anthony banish Ethel into a cartoon-populated television show in his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Another key to this seamlessness is star Brendan Fraser, at the height of his powers here as “Brendan Fraser’s stunt double”.

Like Hoskins before him, Fraser brings a wholehearted commitment to playing the fed-up straight man amidst cartoon zaniness. Fraser also brought that dedication to Henry Selick's Monkeybone (2001), a Roger Rabbit-inspired sex comedy that deploys a combo of stop-motion animation and live acting in a premise amusingly close to that of 1992’s Cool World (but more on that cult anomaly shortly). A commercial flop, Back in Action was the last cinematic outing for the Looney Tunes for some time.

Nowadays, when we think of live-action animation, it’s hard not to jump straight to an image of Michael Jordan’s arm stretching to do a half-court dunk to save the Looney Tunes from slavery. There’s not a lot that can be fully rationalized about the 1996 box-office smash, Space Jam. It is a bewildering cartoon advert for Michael Jordan’s baseball career, dreamed up off the back of his basketball retirement, while also mashing together different American icons. Never forget that the soundtrack—one that, according to Benjamin, “makes you have to throw ass”—includes a song with B-Real, Coolio, Method Man and LL Cool J.

Michael Jordan and teammates in ‘Space Jam’ (1996).

Space Jam is a film inherently born to sell something, predicated on the existing success of a Nike commercial rather than any obvious passion for experimentation. But its pure strangeness, a growing nostalgia for the nineties, and meticulous compositing work from visual-effects supervisor Ed Jones and the film’s animation team (a number of whom also worked on both Roger Rabbit and Back in Action), have all kept it in the cultural memory.

The films is backwards, writes Jesse, in that it wants to distance itself from the very cartoons it leverages: “This really almost feels like a follow-up to Looney Tunes: Back in Action, rather than a predecessor, because it feels like someone watched the later movie, decided these Looney Tunes characters were a problem, and asked someone to make sure they were as secondary as possible.” That attempt to place all the agency in Jordan’s hands was a point of contention for Chuck Jones, the legendary Warner Bros cartoonist. He hated the film, stating that Bugs would never ask for help and would have dealt with the aliens in seven minutes.

Space Jam has its moments, however. Guy proclaims “there is nothing that Deadpool as a character will ever have to offer that isn’t done infinitely better by a good Bugs Bunny bit”. For some, its problems are a bit more straightforward, for others it’s a matter of safety in sport. But the overriding sentiments surrounding the film point to a sort of morbid fascination with the brazenness of its concept.

Holli Would (voiced by Kim Basinger) and Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) blur the lines in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Existing in the same demented… space… as Space Jam, Paramount Pictures bought the idea for Cool World from Ralph Bakshi as it sought to have its own Roger Rabbit. While Brad Pitt described it as “Roger Rabbit on acid” ahead of release, Cool World itself looks like a nightmare version of Toontown. The film was universally panned at the time, caught awkwardly between being far too adult for children but too lacking in any real substance for adults (there’s something of a connective thread between Jessica Rabbit, Lola Bunny and Holli Would).

Ralph Bakshi’s risqué and calamitously horny formal experiment builds on the animator’s fascination with the relationship between the medium and the human body. Of course, he would go from the immensely detailed rotoscoping of Fire and Ice (1983) to clashing hand-drawn characters with real ones, something he had already touched upon in the seventies with Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, whose animated characters were drawn into real locations. But no one besides Bakshi quite knew what to do with the perverse concept of Brad Pitt as a noir detective trying to stop Gabriel Byrne’s cartoonist from having sex with a character that he drew—an animated Kim Basinger.

Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) attempts to cross over to Hollie Would in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Cool World’s awkwardness can be attributed to stilted interactions between Byrne, Pitt and the animated world, as well as studio meddling. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr (who was on the film due to his father running Paramount) demanded that the film be reworked into something PG-rated, against Bakshi’s wishes (he envisioned an R-rated horror), and the script was rewritten in secret. It went badly, so much so that Bakshi eventually punched Mancuso Jr in the face.

While Cool World averages two stars on Letterboxd, there are some enthusiastic holdouts. There are the people impressed by the insanity of it all, those who just love them a horny toon, and then there is Andrew, a five-star Cool World fan: “On the surface, it’s a Lovecraftian horror with Betty Boop as the villain, featuring a more impressive cityscape than Blade Runner and Dick Tracy combined, and multidimensional effects that make In the Mouth of Madness look like trash. The true star, however, proves to be the condensed surplus of unrelated gags clogging the arteries of the screen—in every corner is some of the silliest cel animation that will likely ever be created.”

There are even those who enjoy its “clear response to Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, with David writing that “the film presents a similar concept through the lens of the darkly comic, perverted world of the underground cartoonists”, though also noting that without Bakshi’s original script, the film is “a series of half steps and never really commits like it could”. Cool World feels both completely deranged and strangely low-energy, caught between different ideas as to how best to mix the two mediums. But it did give us a David Bowie jam.

‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ is in cinemas and on HBO Max now.

Craft is of course important, but generally speaking, maybe nowadays a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium’s history is the thing that makes successful live-action/animation hybrids click. It’s an idea that doesn’t lend itself to being too cool, or even entirely palatable. The trick is to be as fully dotty as Mary Poppins, or steer into the gaucheness of the concept, à la Roger Rabbit and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

It’s quite a tightrope to walk between good meta-comedy and a parade of references to intellectual property. The winningest strategy is to weave the characters into the tapestry of the plot and let the gags grow from there, rather than hoping their very inclusion is its own reward. Wait, you said what is coming out this week?

Related content

Rootfish Jones’s list of cartoons people are horny for

The 100 Sequences that Shaped Animation: the companion list to the Vulture story

Jose Moreno’s list of every animated film made from 1888 to the present

Follow Kambole on Letterboxd

[mammoney-honey]

Summoning Circles: What to Offer the Brothers GN!MC

MC doesn’t need to set up anything to summon them since they have their pact but sometimes its just nice to add a bit of drama. It’s also a good way to get the brothers to accept Just Because gifts. So what would would MC lay out as an offering for their favorite demon in their pentagram?

Lucifer

Lucifer is hard to get gifts for because hes a man of few words and fewer guilty pleasures

MC does their best to keep an eye out for things he does like and finally sets things up when they feel that Luci needs a bit of a break

They mostly offer things that would make for a good date night but with one small exception: special gourmet dog treats 

He won’t admit it, he says Cerberus is just a well trained guard dog, but that big boy gets only the best and MC knows that Lucifer will appreciate the gesture

The rest is all about setting the mood so Lucifer couldn’t possibly say no to staying

The first thing to accomplish this is the finest bottle of hellfire aged wine, a special request put through to Diavolo for whatever he thought Lucifer would like most

And to accompany a good drink you need some good food as well. A charcuterie board supplied with recommendations from Barbatos and Luke. The little guy should be called a mouse rather than a dog with how much he loves cheese. It took a long time for him to stop talking about it

One of the things that MC looks most fondly on of their time with Lucifer was quiet nights in listening and dancing to new music. They didn’t always share the same tastes but they were always willing to give it a go

So MC would find a vinyl, the only thing Lucifer would listen to the purest that he is, of their most recent favorite song or band so that they could share it with him

The last thing offered is that which Lucifer would want above all else as his own, MC

They can think of nothing else that would gain Lucifer’s attention more than offering their full and complete self. His pride could never allow him to deny taking MC when they offer themselves so willingly

He appears in full demon form, he can’t think of who would be ballsy enough to try and summon him and he has to pull back on his full power once he sees its MC

“MC, my dearest love, the pageantry is appreciated but overall unneeded. All you ever have to do is call my name, all I wish is to hear my name on your lips. But now that I’m here lets make sure you are screaming it”

Mammon

He is another one who is hard to gift things to but for the opposite reason as Lucifer. He likes too many things, wants everything and so it makes it impossible to tell what would actually mean something to him

MC tries their best to lay out things that will show how much they love and appreciate their favorite demon

Money of course is the first thing that is set out but not just spare Grimm or human cash

No, MC will put gift cards out for Mammon’s favorite places or for a date that they can have together. It feels more personal that way and they hope it shows that they pay attention to the things he likes

Mammon has a wardrobe to rival Asmo’s but he insists that it all has to do with his job as a model. Gotta keep up appearances and all that yanno. Hes just a label whore though and everyone knows it

He also just melts at the idea that MC might be thinking of what he would look good in so if they put out a new outfit or accessory, even if its just new sunglasses or a belt, he just about explodes

He will scoff and say that hes not sure if human styles are really his thing but of course puts whatever it is on quickly

Next would be a very special edition of the TSL dvds, a directors cut that even Levi couldn’t get his hands on. He has watched it with MC so many times he could practically recite it but they were always borrowing from Levi so it was about time to start wearing out their own copy

The last two things are more personal, something that shows just how much MC thinks of and misses being with him

The first of that is MC’s favorite set of pictures they took with Mammon, a silly photo booth strip that captured their first kiss. MC had surprised him on the first snapshot and it showed a progression of him getting redder and redder before finally kissing them back

Lastly is a page from their diary, as intimate an offering as they can possibly give. Its from a day where the longing for Mammon was at its strongest and filled with sweet words of how much they miss their first man

Mammon is freaked out at first thinking he is being summoned by another witch and is confused to see MC before taking it all in

“H-hey you don’t have to go through all this. I mean of course The Great Mammon won’t say no to the the things he deserves but ... b-but you only ever need to say my name, there is no where I’d rather be than with you”

Levi

Levi has a bad habit of just buying whatever he wants but considering that he has so many fandom’s its not hard to find some piece or another he doesn’t have 

MC feels like his brothers don’t give much thought to his gifts though, just typing in a name they know and getting whatever they find. They want to give him something more personal and can’t just be bought and shipped in two days

MC starts to watch a lot of craft, cooking and cosplay YouTubers to try and put everything together themselves. It felt more genuine that way at least to them

MC tries to keep things diverse, hitting a couple of Levi’s favorites but mostly avoiding anything Ruri related since they are afraid of messing it up lmao

Instead they focus on the anime’s and games that they watched and played together. Almost like a collection of inside jokes that they are using to summon him

The first thing MC sets out is a prettily decorated plate of macrons, doing their best to replicate the colors and flavors described in the one bakery time management game they always played

MC also went through Levi’s super secret fanfiction accounts I will fight you he is totally a fic writer because he has so many self inserts and fix it fics  and wrote out comments for every single thing he had written. They printed them out not because they didn’t think he read them but to show that they were the ones that left them

Along with the comments MC also created art for Levi’s most beloved OC, creating cute enamel pins of them in chibi form with the cannon character he paired them with

 The last two things came as a sort of combo, a couples cosplay from the romance anime they had watched together. The protagonist had been a shut in otaku who had found his soulmate when they were reborn into his world and Levi had latched onto him immediately 

It had taken a lot of blood sweat and tears trying to get both of the outfits cannon perfect but damn it MC was not going to settle for anything less

At one point they forgot they were making it for Levi and just got caught up in the the drama that was finding the perfect buttons and trim color

Overall they were so proud of the sewing skills they just wanted to call on him the moment they were done so he could see but they got a hold of themselves so they could set up what they had planned

Levi was summoned into the circle still wearing his headset and fingers tapping at a controller that had been left behind

His demon side comes out at having been cost a serious match from the sounds of it but his anger turns to confusion at seeing MC and then into wide eyed amazement at all of the things in front of him

He started to gush about every single thing he saw before he realized that MC was there beaming at him 

“You went through all this trouble to prove that you aren’t a normie and yet you summon me this way?? J-just say my name like you’re supposed to! I kind of like hearing you say it anyway ...”

Satan

Satan surprisingly doesn’t like being the center of attention and thus doesn’t really like surprises or receiving gifts. He also doubts that anyone understands him enough to give him what he wants cocky ass that he is

The idea for the things to set out in his summoning circle came to MC when discussing love potions with Satan and Solomon one day. They were talking about how smell plays such a strong part and Satan let slip some of the things he might smell after MC listed some of theirs

So while MC doesn’t have much, well any, experience in magic or potions they do want to try to stir up those feelings those smells produce in Satan

The first thing he had said came as a surprise to no one, the smell of parchment and ink

MC used each of them as their own separate offering on the pentagram. They used a fancy new calligraphy quill dipped in green ink that matched his eyes to write a long love note for him

The ink was still wet on the parchment that they set down and left the quill and remaining ink as the second gift

The next thing he mentioned was another one MC expected: tea leaves

So MC just walked into their local tea shop and let their nose lead the way. Anything that caught their attention or made them want to keep smelling they bought, creating their own special blend just for Satan

It wasn’t necessarily something that Satan would say for himself but MC had started to burn different candles in their room when he would come to rant when he was angry, trying to find a scent that he could associate with being calm when they helped him work through the anger

Whatever candle seemed to work the best is the candle that MC sets out for him. Probably something woodsy, pine or balsam or even sandalwood. It brings back good memories for MC, kissing all those worries of his away and hopes it does the same

The last item is one that made MC blush when they heard Satan admit it, he had liked the scent of their shampoo

He hadn’t said that specifically but he had closed his eyes and described a scent that he couldnt place but that he adored and when MC was taking their shower that night it clicked 

It might have been a little lame, leaving a bottle of shampoo out for Satan but MC knew that when he realized what that scent he loved so much was that he would get the cutest blush

They weren’t disappointed when they summoned Satan. He hid his shock of being summoned this way well, taking his time to walk around the circle and examine each offering. He immediately knew where they had gotten the inspiration and teased them about being such a sap

He stopped when he got to the shampoo though, not sure how that fit into the equation until he smelled it. It dawned on him and there was that blush that he tried to hide by turning his face away

“You always did like to make things difficult on yourself didn’t you? I’m only ever a call away for you kitten. Now come here and let me really breath you in, you’re simply intoxicating to me and I can’t stay away.”

Asmo

Asmo is never shy about when he doesn’t like gifts that people have given him but he has only ever cherished what MC has gotten him. Every small trinket and gift he has on full display in his room and he will wear something that MC got them when he misses them the most

He also will do it when he wants to bother his brothers and show off that MC simply lavished him in gifts (Mammon and Levi are the only ones who fall for it lmao)

So MC decides to offer Asmo things that will allow him to parade around their love for him, things to keep them close when MC isn’t there

The first thing that MC gets Asmo is new nail polish, a color that they agonized over finding because they wanted it to match his eyes perfectly

Asmo has a very organized planner, its how he keeps track of all the events he is invited to, when he has dates, who hes slept with, who hes going to sleep with and everything in between

MC commissions custom made stickers for him so he can decorate the pages of his planner even more. Specifically a whole sheet of cute stickers of them together he could use for when they planned date nights

The next thing was something for Asmo’s room which he was always changing and refreshing so it looked forever interesting for Devilgram pics

MC gets a large print of Asmo’s favorite picture of them together and puts it in a beautiful frame that perfectly matched his favorite decorating style. Perfect to show to the world that Asmo was their favorite demon and that they looked so good together

And so they can take even more pictures of themselves together MC buys a Polaroid camera for Asmo. His phone will always be his favorite thing to take pics on but this way they could have them printed instantly and it continues to let him be trendy

Lastly MC gets Asmo a necklace. A dainty rose gold chain that he can wear with practically everything and with a diamond accented heart shaped locket that could easily be tucked away if needed. It was an enchanted locket, thanks to the help of Solomon, and it warmed when MC was thinking of him

Its the first thing Asmo grabs and quickly puts on, showing it off for MC

“Oh MC you are simply the cutest thing I have ever seen~ I’m sorry I don’t have something to give you in return. I hope the fact that my heart beats only for you will make up for it, now come here I’ve been without kisses too long.”

Beel

Its SO hard not to just grab whatever is in the kitchen at the time and throw it in the summoning circle and call it a day for Beel

But he is more than just his hunger and MC is always striving to show him that they understand that 

It was harder than expected, just because asking anyone what Beel might want always got them food answers. They thought Belphie might be helpful but only got told “he probably just wants a nap ... its what I would want”

MC starts to think of all the most special moments they had with Beel, trying to think what about them made them so memorable and they knew for a fact that it wasn’t the food

The first thing they come up with is a banner that MC made to cheer him on at one of his games. It had gotten a little tattered and torn because it had rained that day but they just couldn’t let it go

Mostly because Beel after winning had ran up into the stands and kissed them for the first time. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t ever kissed but they had always been the one to make the first move but this time Beel had come to them. Of course in the biggest gesture possible

It was cheating a little bit offering a cookbook, it was still food related, but it felt better than putting in actual food 

This particular cookbook was special to MC too, they had spent several months trying to recreate one of the recipes from it down in the Devildom when MC didn’t have it. Even their D.D.D had been no help in finding the human world dish they were trying so hard to recreate

It had finally been Beel who had found someplace that sold the food they had been craving. He had even been able to bring it back completely untouched just so that they could have it all though he didn’t complain when they offered him several bites from their fork

MC pulls the next thing from their own shelves at home, a well read copy of Lord of the Flies. The spine cracked and little notes about their favorite parts scribbled in the margin

It was one of the human novels that Satan had and one of MCs favorites from school. Beel had caught them reading it and thought the title was ironic but the more he watched MC get engrossed in reading the more curious he got

He eventually asked MC to read it to him, he actually liked books even if most didn’t take him for the type it was just that he had a hard time actually reading himself. He always got distracted by food but audio books always worked well for him when he was working out, it turned out to be even better when MC read to him when he was eating

It was the best of both worlds for him and he found the story actually pretty funny, slightly worrying MC but they figured they couldn’t blame a demon for getting enjoyment out of a story like that. He did find their lack of food concerning though so at least there was that

One of the things that Beel often complained about when MC was living in the devildom was that when he went to go eat they weren’t always there. Sure Beel would ask them to tag along whenever possible but it didn’t always happen. He would call them from the kitchen at times and tell them that he missed them

MC was sure the other brothers would have something to say about it but knew that Beel would genuinely enjoy the next thing MC offered. Amagnet with his favorite picture of them. It was MC caught in a candid he took, mid bite in a dessert he had made them and his hand could just be seen wiping some whipped cream off MC’s cheek

It was a way that Beel could have MC with him at his favorite place every time

The last thing that MC laid out was something that was inspired by Beel. He had once given them a coupon for a free meal by him and they had thought it was just about the cutest thing ever

They made him a whole coupon book of favors ranging from cooking any meal he wanted to recording his workouts for him and of course lots of coupons for hugs and kisses

Beel isn’t used to being summoned at all so hes slightly disoriented when he finds himself suddenly in the human world. As soon as he sees MC though its nothing but smiles and he doesn’t even notice the gifts until after

“MC did you know I was thinking about you? Sometimes I just say your name and hope you will appear ... so if you ever think of me just say my name. I want to be here, even if its during dinner” 

Belphie

Belphie is not one to beat around the bush at all. He is a creature of habit and just wants more of the same things that he already has. Dont fix something if its not broke right?

So its fairly easy to fill his summoning circle with things that he loves, just adding to his ever growing collection of happy nap time things

That isn’t to say that MC just grabs whatever blanket or pillows they have laying around, they still want it to be special for him

So yes the first two things they offer to Belphie is a pillow and blanket, there was never going to be anything else but MC spent a long time putting their love into finding just the right ones for him ... and still couldn’t find what they wanted

MC used this as an excuse to create something themselves for their sleepy boy. They dived deep into youtube and pintrest and spent more money than they care to admit on materials until finally they made what they wanted

The first was a quilt large enough for three cause the twins like to make MC a sandwich in a cow print pattern that matched his pillow and demon form marks, lined with the softest fabric she could find that was the same purple as his eyes 

His pillow was another quilted design, this time of a cloudy night sky with a sleepy cow jumping over the moon. MC stitched his name in pretty gold thread on the back long with a sweet ‘I love you’

There was one last fluffy thing to give to him, this one MC knew he would probably scoff and tease them about but they couldn’t help it. They saw the angry looking cow plushie and just could not walk away 

They have actually been sleeping with it when they miss him most and even if he doesn’t like the plushie the fact they have slept with it so much will make him a bit fonder of it

Even though they were pretty sure that Belphie knew every star in the sky MC couldn’t help but get a book with stories about the constellations. He might already know them all but they thought that he might still enjoy hearing them read to him as he drifted to sleep

The last thing MC has to offer him is also star related. A star map of the day that they made their pact. It was the day that MC had fully forgiven everything that had happened before and their relationship had truly began

When Belphie was summoned he was half asleep but knew who it must be even in his sluggish state. He gave a big yawn and looked around at all the things around him 

“At least things are already set up for the perfect nap, including having you. MC next time just say my name alright? Its much more of a drag this way ... and I want to know when you are dreaming of me”

[shelovescontrol91]

In order to lure Camila Cabello to “Cinderella,” Kay Cannon borrowed a page from Prince Charming’s playbook. Sony told Cannon she could direct the film — she had already been writing the screenplay — provided she could convince the pop star that “Cinderella” should be her acting debut. So off Cannon went to Miami to meet with Cabello, having packed a glass slipper she’d bought on Etsy, even though her producers told her that would be “weird,” she says.

“I was there for, like, 30 seconds. And I’m like, ‘I hesitate to do this!’ And I pull out this glass slipper. ‘Does it fit?’”

However embarrassing, the gesture worked. In May, Amazon Studios bought “Cinderella” from Sony — with Cannon’s blessing — and it will premiere on the streamer on Sept. 3. While it’s disappointing that the movie musical won’t primarily play in theaters, the director, who has a daughter too young to get vaccinated, sees only the bright side.

“If the goal is for people to feel joy,” Cannon says, “I think we’re going to reach more people.”

At 47, Cannon is among the still-too-small group of women directors who have a Midas touch for mainstream, feminist comedies. After getting her start as a writer for “30 Rock,” Cannon wrote the three “Pitch Perfect” movies and directed “Blockers,” an emphatically R-rated comedy with a dirty mind and a loving heart.

In summer 2017, Cannon had just completed filming “Blockers” when her agent told her that James Corden wanted to speak with her about a “Cinderella” project. She jumped at the chance — but only because she wanted to meet the late-night talk-show host, not because she had any interest in fairy tales or princess culture. In fact, Cannon was certain that any new “Cinderella” would be a non-starter, since Disney’s 2015 live-action version, starring Lily James, had grossed more than $540 million worldwide so recently. “Nothing’s going to come out of this,” she remembers thinking.

But when Corden and his Fulwell 73 producing partner Leo Pearlman pitched her the idea of a “Cinderella” musical with contemporary songs, saying she could rewrite the fable however she liked, she immediately changed her mind. “I have no poker face,” Cannon says. “And I was like, ‘I want to do this!’”

Cannon’s “Cinderella” has a thoroughly modern message. Ella isn’t interested in marriage, wanting instead to travel the world and be a designer.  Cannon also toned down the canonical cattiness of Ella’s stepfamily, and upped the story’s comedy potential. All the while, characters such as the stepmother (Idina Menzel) and the prince (Nicholas Galitzine) are singing songs like “Material Girl” and “Somebody to Love” and “Pitch Perfect”-style mashups like “Whatta Man” with “Seven Nation Army.”

At every step, her guiding principle was “How can it be different?” “I wanted people to get their money’s worth,” Cannon says, “or why do it at all?”

In an interview with Variety, Cannon talks about how COVID-19 affected “Cinderella,” her experience as a woman director and how things have changed in comedy.

The Cinderella story has been told and retold, and had just been a live-action movie when you signed on to write this. How did you want your version to be different? And is it significant here that Camila Cabello is a woman of color?

Yes, I wanted to make sure it was incredibly inclusive. And her being Cuban Mexican is no small thing, and what she represents to millions of people — not only her fans, but to millions.

The story has mostly been told and retold almost exclusively by men: I feel it when I watch. The 2015 Kenneth Branagh “Cinderella” was hugely successful, and it was beautiful. And I love the Whitney Houston, Brandi “Cinderella.” It just feels a little told from their gaze. And I really felt like it was important to me to tell it through my gaze.

Can you talk about creating the Fab G, and what you wanted from that character?  

So many amazing actresses have played that role — so I’d written that role to be a man. And, quite honestly, the only one who fit all of everything I wanted was Billy Porter; I wrote it with him in mind. He’s just such a great singer. He’s just so talented. Because I wrote it specifically for Billy, the character kind of came easy. I just wrote it in his voice, and tried to make it funny. I had actually had another song in there, and then as soon as Billy was confirmed, we picked “Shining Star.”

Is the Fab G gender non-binary?

We talked about it. In having many conversations with Billy, I was like, “I think the answer needs to come from you.” He has said “they/them,” and “magic has no gender.” Non-binary for sure.

You started filming in England in February 2020. Tell me about shutting down because of COVID.

We had shot the ball the first week of March, which is something I do not believe I would have been able to do coming back — and it wasn’t a super-spreader. I’d shot all of the Fab G stuff, and all the basement stuff.

It felt like something out of “The Amazing Race” — like, pack up all your stuff! I’d been in the U.K. for like four months, and my family was there. My daughter was going to school there, and my husband was the writer on set. So we packed everything up, and then Camila and her family and my family, we flew back. My husband’s family is in Maine, and so we just stayed in Maine the entire time.

That sounds so nice, actually.

I did all of post in a boathouse in Maine. It was pretty awesome, actually.

During the break, what were you doing?

It was like getting a second prep, really. I was working with my editor, Stacey Schroeder, and we were putting together what we had. And then I was able to see what I needed and what I didn’t need. And I was doing a ton of rewriting, and I was doing a ton of prep that we didn’t necessarily have. Because I had all the opening, I had the finale, I had “Somebody to Love,” I had “Am I Wrong,” “Material Girl” — all these big numbers.  

Movie theaters have reopened, and this was obviously made with a theatrical audience in mind. How did the Amazon of it all happen?

Sony is a business, first and foremost. I know that Sony loves the movie, and that partnership was really great on that level. So I think it was hard for them to give it up, but I’m really quite happy that people can see this in this safety of their own homes with loved ones. And it is a wonderful theatrical experience, especially with the music and the sound and everything. And it will open theatrically in some theaters.

It not being a wide release in theaters means that we’re not healthy yet. And so that’s what’s the most upsetting — that we’re not healthy.

As you were moving from being a performer to being a screenwriter, did you always have directing in mind, or was that something that you discovered you wanted to do?

I was led to it. When I was at “30 Rock,” by like Season 5, I really wanted to direct an episode. And I was too chickenshit to ask. I was the writer/producer who was always on set — at that point, I’d spent my 10,000 hours on set for sure. And it wasn’t until I had a meeting with Nathan Kahane at Lionsgate, and he was like, “You should be directing your own stuff.” I have such a respect for academics, and I never went to film school, so I just didn’t think I could do it.  And then once he put that in my head, I was like, “Yeah, you know what? I can do it.'”

And is that how “Blockers” came about?  

Exactly. Yeah, they sent me the script with an offer to direct. And with no questions asked. I didn’t have to do any kind of auditioning.

That is very rare! Obviously, things have gotten better for women directors in the past few years, after years of the most appalling statistics. What obstacles do you feel like you’ve faced as a woman director?  

Especially with “Blockers,” I had a very good experience. I feel like the obstacles I have to face really are from the powers that be that still fight me at every level on what women want to watch, or think is funny. Or what is funny — forget gender.

My stuff happens to have female leads, and it’s female driven. So the jokes are coming out of women’s mouths. And I cannot tell you the amount of fighting I have about what they think is going to work, and what they think isn’t going to work. And there’s a lot of like, “I have all the expertise, you do not have the experience.”

And it’s just like, ‘I’ve been working in the comedy side for 15 years now — successfully.” And so what ends up happening is, I fight and fight and fight, and then I just do it and get it in. And then it gets put in front of an audience and the audience laughs. And then they have to say, “OK, that does work.” And you might not think that that’s that big of a deal. Maybe that’s creatively for everybody. Maybe it’s not gender specific. I tend to believe that it is gender specific.

Is that at the studio level?

From my experience, it’s mostly the studio level. And maybe I’m just sensitive to it or whatever. But I just feel like there’s a lot of conversations about what is funny out of a woman’s mouth. What’s allowed. And I feel like no matter how much success I had with “Pitch Perfect,” I think it’s still as much of a fight now as it was then. Which doesn’t make sense to me.

With “Cinderella” too?  

Oh, especially with “Cinderella.”

And now we’re back on the record after going off for a bit! I rewatched the “Black Tie” episode of “30 Rock” yesterday, which you wrote with Tina Fey, in which Paul Reubens plays an afflicted prince. That was the moment in Season 1 when I realized, OK, I love “30 Rock.”

[Affects Prince Gerhardt voice] “THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY BIRTHDAY.”

That was the first thing I ever wrote! You know, professionally.

An unbelievable calling card to have as your first screen credit.

Yes! I was asked recently who is my Fab G, and my answer is Tina Fey. I wrote stuff as a friend she was reading. And I never thought that she would consider me for her staff, and she just grabbed me and was like, “You’re gonna do this!” I thank her every day for giving me that opportunity.

There are so many conversations right now about what’s acceptable in comedy. As a screenwriter who’s done mostly comedy, how do you feel about that?

Right now I think we’re in the muck, and I think we’re striving for equality. And we’re trying to work things out! Of course we should look back at things that were done 15 years ago, and be like, “Oh, no!”

I don’t know if this is a story I should tell. But I can remember getting notes to put the f-slur into “Pitch Perfect” as them being bullied like by the cool athletic guys. And I was like: “No! I can’t do that.” I think I put it in for a draft, and a friend of mine read it, and she’s like, “You cannot have that in.” And I was like, “It’s a note I was given!” I was told to do that, you know?’ And then like realizing, no, it’s unacceptable. You cannot use that word. Even if you’re trying to show that it’s awful, don’t do it.

You have to have your moral compass, and know what’s right for you. And there’s just some things we just shouldn’t tolerate anymore. And they’re just not acceptable. I’m certain if I looked back at stuff that I would cringe, you know? Or just, that’s how people thought then. And I was one of those people. But certainly now if you know better, you do better, right? Is that too soapboxy?

This interview has been edited and condensed.

[aion-rsa]

How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe

https://ift.tt/33NlKGy

Marvel’s Thor, the first theatrical live-action film to feature the comic book giant’s version of the Norse God of Thunder, opened in theaters a decade ago, on May 6, 2011.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring a then little-known Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor was the fourth film in the still-nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was also — as we look back at it now — a pivotal one in the development of the MCU.

“I’m very proud of my part of it,” Branagh told us a couple of years ago about his handling of Thor. “Which was providing a sort of backbone that they could comically riff off, but at least it originally contained some of the high stakes Nine Realms import that that larger mythology has to have as well.”

Thor took the franchise off the Earth for the first time and into the cosmic side of the Marvel mythology, introducing audiences to the Nine Realms, the kingdom of Asgard and other mind-bending concepts that comic fans had adored for years but which were a major risk to put in front of mainstream moviegoers.

Even the character of Thor — with his helmet and his hammer and his arch way of speaking — often seemed to skate perilously close to laughable in the pages of the comics themselves. But he was also a mainstay of the Marvel line and a charter member of the Avengers, the superhero team that Marvel based its entire initial run of films upon.

Marvel

Thor didn’t take the Rainbow Bridge to the screen

A Thor movie based on the Marvel Comics version of the character had, surprisingly, been bandied around for years even before there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The God of Thunder debuted on the page in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. A founding member of the Avengers, he joined Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp in the pages of The Avengers #1 (September 1963). In the ensuing decades, he has starred in multiple iterations of the Avengers comics, plus many ongoing and limited series of his own.

An animated version of the character debuted in 1966’s Marvel Super-Friends show, while the first live-action incarnation of Thor (played by Eric Kramer) showed up in the 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns, a follow-up to the late 1970s series The Incredible Hulk.

While Thor continued to turn up in various animated Marvel properties, it was in 1991 that the first full-length, live-action Thor movie was proposed — by no less than Sam Raimi.

The director, who later went on to make the first three Spider-Man movies and who is now working in the MCU on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, revealed to the The Hollywood Reporter in the wake of Stan Lee’s passing that he pitched a Thor movie to the Marvel Universe co-creator over lunch.

“We worked together writing treatments and took it to Fox and pitched it,” Raimi recalled. “And they said, ‘Absolutely no. Comic books don’t make good movies.’ This was in 1991.”

The rights to Thor bounced around Hollywood for a few more years (at one point it was set up at Sony with David S. Goyer writing and possibly directing) until landing back at Marvel Studios, which had reinvented itself as an independently financed production company in 2005 with distribution through Paramount Pictures. The studio, run at the time by David Maisel with Kevin Feige as president of production, hired Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend and the unfilmed Batman Unchained) to write a script for Thor, with Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) coming aboard to direct in August 2007.

Marvel

Enter Tom Hiddleston as Loki…

No sooner did Matthew Vaughn sign up to direct Thor than he seemingly left just as quickly, although it was officially announced in May 2008 that he was departing. Creative and budget issues seemed to have sealed his exit. “Marvel loves the script,” he wrote in The Guardian in late 2007. “The only problem is that it has been costed at $300m and they ask how I am going to reduce it by $150m.”

Even though Thor had already been scheduled for a June 4, 2010 release date, Marvel still had to find a director. Talks were held with Guillermo del Toro, but he decided to direct The Hobbit instead (which he ended up leaving as well). At the end of its search, Marvel finally chose Kenneth Branagh, the Irish actor and director best known for his epic adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henry V — which kind of provided an idea of the tone Marvel was looking for.

Branagh was finally signed in December 2008, telling MTV News, “It’s a chance to tell a big story on a big scale…It’s a human story right in the center of a big epic scenario.”

Once Branagh was signed, the movie’s release date was pushed back from June/July 2010 to May 6, 2011, providing plenty of time for the film’s extensive visual effects to be designed and created and for Branagh to find his cast — starting with the God of Thunder himself.

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The first person allegedly approached was Daniel Craig, who had just starred in his second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It was because of his commitments to the already massive 007 franchise that Craig turned down the hammer-wielding Asgardian, although it’s somehow hard to imagine the tough-as-nails Craig as the egotistical (at least at first), young Odinson.

A long list of young, relatively unknown actors tested for the part, including Chris Hemsworth (who was just making his brief but scene-stealing appearance as James Kirk’s father in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek), his brother Liam, the equally obscure Tom Hiddleston, Kevin McKidd from Grey’s Anatomy, Alexander Skarsgard (Godzilla vs. Kong), Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Joel Kinnaman (The Suicide Squad), and others. But Chris Hemsworth ultimately won the day, with Hiddleston landing the consolation gift that would keep on giving, the role of Thor’s villainous adopted brother Loki.

“That was my starting point, was that you have a character with a predisposition toward mischief,” Hiddleston said about playing the trickster god, during a 2010 set visit attended by this reporter in Manhattan Beach, California. “An inclination toward chaos and a delight in imbalance, and you couple that with the fierce intelligence that he has, and a chess master’s ability to manipulate events three or four steps ahead of the game.”

Adding even more gravitas to the production was the signing of the legendary Anthony Hopkins to play Thor’s father, Odin, along with Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Rene Russo as Thor’s mom Frigga, Colm Feore as Laufey, the king of the Frost Giants, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and others. Also signed: Samuel L. Jackson for his third appearance as Nick Fury (in an end credits bonus scene) and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, marking the live-action debut of the bow-and-arrow-wielding Avenger.

Filming on Thor began in mid-January 2010 and wound down in early May, with shooting taking place at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, California (Marvel’s studio home in the MCU’s early years), Santa Fe, and other parts of New Mexico, and locations in northern California.

Colm Feore told The Deadbolt that the Shakespearean training which he, Branagh, and Hopkins all shared enabled them to quickly communicate with each other while shaping the characters and finding the right tone: “One of the things that was enormously helpful on Thor was that during the breaks, Tony, myself, and Ken would be talking in Shakespearean shorthand about what the characters were doing, what we thought they may be like, and how we could focus our attention more intelligently.”

During that same set visit to the Manhattan Beach set of Thor, Marvel president of production Kevin Feige told this reporter and others that the movie was going to feature more extensive post-production work than other Marvel films. “When you walk around Captain America or Iron Man, you can get it,” he explained. “With Thor, what you’re seeing is only 30% of what the movie will be. This is the big question mark and to me that makes it the most exciting. I like it when people don’t exactly know what we’re going to do.”

Reshoots were completed in late 2010, while The Avengers director Joss Whedon shot the end credits scene in which Nick Fury reveals the Infinity Stone known as the Tesseract to Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard).

Marvel

Marvel takes a big swing with Thor’s hammer

Introducing Thor and the Asgardians — who were essentially aliens, with technology so far ahead of our own that they seemed like gods to the ancient, more primitive people of Norway more than a millennium ago — was a major gamble for the MCU and its then-president of production (and now Chief Creative Officer) Kevin Feige.

Out of Marvel’s first three films, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were massive, out-of-the-box hits, while The Incredible Hulk was a middling success at best. Yet all three films were Earthbound and dealt with plausible (as far as it went) science and technology. The science of Thor was — to borrow a phrase from the late science fiction titan Arthur C. Clarke — indistinguishable from magic.

“Asgardians are kind of ‘been there, done that’ when it comes to that kind of stuff,” said co-producer Craig Kyle to this reporter and others on the set visit. “For them to send you across the universe, it’s as easy as turning a key … Their technology is only as sophisticated as it needs to be to do extraordinary things.”

Making Thor, Odin and the other inhabitants of Asgard, Jotunheim and the rest of the Nine Realms into extra-terrestrial beings mistaken for gods by ancient humans took Thor away from sword-and-sorcery and fantasy and more overtly into the science fiction genre. But it also provided the film with a back story and mythology that was perhaps easier for modern movie fans to swallow — more Star Wars than the Völuspá.

“We just kept trying to humanize it all, and keep it very real,” Chris Hemsworth told Superhero Hype at the time about his approach to the title character. “Look into all the research about the comic books that we could, but also bring it back to ‘Who is this guy as a person, and what’s his relationship with people in the individual scenes?’ And working with someone like Kenneth Branagh, who has all those bases covered and has so many ideas, it was a hell of a time!”

In addition to taking the big creative risk of bringing Asgard and Thor to the screen, the movie took several other chances as well. Starting a tradition that Marvel would return to with films like Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor did not function as a traditional origin story. We meet Thor, Loki, Odin, and enter Asgard with only a brief introduction detailing the history of ill will and war between the Asgardians and the Frost Giants.

Thor’s journey in the film is not that of an ordinary character being bestowed with great powers and learning how to use them, the typical arc of a superhero film. He is fully formed here, if flawed, and as the film progresses he learns to be a better version of the immensely powerful being that he already is — with the help of the human beings that he meets during his fall to Earth.

When Thor — the likely successor to his father’s throne — reignites hostilities with the Frost Giants partially due to his own immaturity, Odin decrees him unworthy of wielding Mjolnir and banishes him, powerless, to Earth. That leaves the door open for the crafty Loki — who has discovered that he is not Asgardian after all, but the child of Frost Giants — to manipulate and scheme his way into power himself.

Marvel’s other big gamble was making Loki a much more fully developed antagonist than had been previously seen in many comic book movies. Skillfully portrayed by Hiddleston in a performance that made him an instant star, Loki is an empathetic, nuanced character whose longing for the love and attention of his adopted father — who lavishes more of both on Thor — leads him down a dark path and into a character arc that would take several years and movies to play out.

“I think Loki intuitively feels that he doesn’t belong there, he doesn’t belong with the family in Asgard and doesn’t belong in the pantheon of gods,” said Hiddleston at the time. “He’s confused about his place in the universe … We all reach a point in our lives where we think, ‘What the hell are we supposed to do with our life?’ Thor reaches that point in this film and Loki does as well, so yes, maybe if Odin had made him feel valued and respected and essential to Asgard, then it would have been okay.”

Marvel

Thor smashes all preconceptions

Thor had its world premiere in Sydney, Australia on April 17, 2011 and opened in that country — Hemsworth’s native land — four days later. It premiered in 56 more markets before finally opening in North America on May 6, 2011.

The film earned a 77% fresh rating and mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the performances by Hemsworth and Hiddleston, as well as the grandiose family drama on Asgard, but less impressed by Thor’s journey to Earth and the climactic battle there against the massive golem-like Destroyer sent by Loki to kill Thor.

More importantly for Marvel, the film connected with audiences despite the perception that Thor was largely unfamiliar or dated. Thor earned $181 million at the North American box office and a further $268 million abroad for a worldwide total of $449 million.

While that ranks it near the bottom of the 23 MCU movies released to date (along with Ant-Man and Captain America: The First Avenger), it was a far from shabby showing for the early MCU and proved Marvel’s calculation that it could expand Marvel’s footprint on film beyond already established characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Hulk.

“I liked it when people said, ‘Iron Man’s the B-Team. You’re calling out the B-Team!’ We knew it wasn’t,” said Feige on set about using what were perceived as lower-tier Marvel heroes. “We knew it was going to be great. And that holds true for Thor … here’s another one that will redefine us and at least raise the bar of what a comic book movie is, for both people who’ve read comics and those who haven’t.”

Thor expanded the boundaries of the MCU into the realms of space, alternate dimensions and cosmic conflicts, while putting another key part in place for the impending arrival of the Avengers. And while 2013’s follow-up, Thor: The Dark World, was a misstep and considered one of Marvel’s few outright failures, the studio brilliantly reinvented the character in 2017 with Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, moving him away from the initial Shakespearean grandiosity and into a more humorous space.

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That in turn allowed Thor and Hemsworth to have one of the most profound character arcs across the entire span of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His story in those films, the box office clout of Ragnarok, and Hemsworth’s enthusiasm for the role led Marvel to commission 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder — marking the first time an MCU hero is venturing into a fourth solo movie.

Ten years later, while not a perfect film by any means, Thor is still an enjoyable, consciously weird Marvel epic that proved the God of Thunder could bring the lightning even to modern audiences. And while Thor has seemingly abandoned the throne of Asgard for now, his first film’s place in the MCU pantheon is secure.

The post How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2RWjeeA

[202008063dci2021]

Student number: 202008063

The Decisive, Distinguished and Daring Doll House Demeanour.

Henrik Ibsen’s, 1879, three act Norwegian play resulted in him being hailed as the champion of women’s rights although he claimed the deep touch on feminism was unintentional. He stated, to support his proof of intentions, “I have never written a play to further a social purpose. I must decline the honour of being said to have worked for the women’s rights movement. I am not even sure what women’s rights are.”

Figure 1. An example of one of the many covers for the play ‘A Doll’s House’. https://images.app.goo.gl/hyVDrzhDmsHoTriW8

After a successful Broadway production ‘A Doll’s House’ was brought to screens in 1973. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZo6gL3CwrE

Director Patrick Garland and main actors Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins made the film version a favourable result. They managed to portray the inequality between men and women and the overbearing patriarchal society proficiently. This adaptation of ‘A Doll’s House’ which is set in Ibsen’s native Norway, the characters don’t spend time talking about things that are specifically Norwegian (so if I didn’t research the context of the play, I wouldn’t have a clue it was set in Norway.)

Figure 2. A film poster advertising the 1973 production of ‘A Doll’s House’. https://images.app.goo.gl/FkNMu5hufz3tZEyU9

The single set living room is like any uptight middle class room you would see during that time: the hyper-repressed Victorian Era. A time when women were expected to be submissive to their dominate husbands. Men were the breadwinners; women were the child carers.

The fact that it is a single set and doesn’t leave the boundaries of one room in a middle class family flat meant the director could devote their attention on the psychological plausibility of the plays themes and motifs. The simplified onstage set is adequate because this play is seen as primarily verbal.

The actors are dressed in contemporary costumes. Torvald, Krogstad and Dr Rank wear black trousers and dark golf sweaters. Nora and Mrs Linde wear dark tight fitting similar dresses. The minimalist costumes allow us to be more focused on the plot and dialogue rather than how correct the costumes should be for the time period. Ibsen reinforces the sense of real life by having the characters act like they had no idea the wall was there when acting, making the audience seem invisible to them. This created more focus towards the story development, character development and meaning of the play rather than us interacting with the characters.

Throughout the entire play, Torvald treats Nora like a child and his very own puppet. He refers to her as ‘little’ alongside many demonetising, objectifying nicknames he has for her as though it is engraved into his head and enjoys reminding himself that she is beneath him and as a person she is small and controllable which we later find out is the only thing he likes about her.

Act Three

We are thrown into the middle of a miscommunicated fantasised marriage between Nora Helmer and Torvald Helmer. It is not until the end of act three we see Mr Helmer’s true colours and how he really feels towards his wife of eight years. In this act it becomes evident that Torvald never really loved Nora and only loved himself which was made clear by his reaction to Krogstad’s letter when he doesn’t hold back his harsh and careless words towards his wife. Instead, he is enraged by the letter after discovering Krogstad holds something over him meaning he must do whatever Krogstad wishes to save his reputation and it was all down to his wife who borrowed money to save his life forging her deceased fathers signature not second guessing the consequences. Torvald verbally abuses Nora and in some adaptations of the play he resorts to physical assault. He calls her dishonest, immoral as a woman and tells her she is unfit to raise their three children. Until Krogstad revoked his threat of blackmail and sends them any evidence he has back to Nora so she can destroy it, cleaning her own slate. Torvald then claims to ‘forgive her’ now his reputation and power are no longer at stake.

Nora explains to her husband that they are now strangers expressing her feeling of betrayal and disillusionment by his response to the scandal involving Krogstad. She explains she now sees she has been treated like a doll to play with her whole life, first by her father, then by Torvald. The fact that she was willing to kill herself to save his reputation and expected him to want to sacrifice his reputation for her, but proved her completely wrong causing her eyes to open on his false love for her and that she doesn’t really know him at all like she thought she did.

I believe Nora is a very likeable character and that isn’t just because I am a young woman who supports feminism. We see her character development throughout the entire play from her not minding her doll like existence in which she is pampered and patronised. Then to her proving she isn’t just a ‘silly girl’. She understood business details. She’s intelligent and possesses capabilities beyond just wife hood. She explains how she did years of secret labour to pay off her debt. Also, the fact that she was willing to break the law to save her husband shows her courage.

Figure 3. A distressing closeup of one of the many actors who have played Nora. https://images.app.goo.gl/sBFKkJimeP5L111t5

In the scene when Nora confronts her stranger of a husband and stands up to him and stands up for herself is when I realised the extent of the patriarchal society in which we deem as the norm. It irritated me that I didn’t pick up on it earlier in the play which I think is why the final act stuck so well with me and why I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Nora is seen to lack her individual identity and instead represents all women in that time period who were roped into marital life to be controlled and directed by men. Her sudden decision to leave her husband, kids and family home of eight years inspires us women of the modern era to know we don’t have to rely on anyone except ourselves and we each have our own identity and opinions which should not and will not be shaped by a man. “There is no limit to what us women can accomplish.” A quote which fits alongside this fabulous feminist play.

[engekihaikyuu]

Hyper Projection Engeki Haikyuu

Prince of Stage vol. 9 - Interview Translation with the new Karasuno cast!

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Part 1: The First Years Hinata Shouyou: Daigo Kotarou Kageyama Tobio: Akana Ryuunosuke Tsukishima Kei: Yamamoto Ryousuke Yamaguchi Tadashi: Oribe Yoshinari

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Full interview translation and more photos under the Read More! Please do not repost my translations or scans.

Please give us a highlight or something to watch out for in the upcoming play. Daigo: The atmosphere and activity that’s in Engeki Haikyuu is really distinctive, and I think it inspires a very unique feeling when you watch it.  This production is going to have few scenes with matches and instead portray more of the main character’s shared emotions. ��We’ve changed everyone in the Karasuno cast, and we’re all challenging ourselves at something new!  Right now in this moment, I feel a burning desire to not lose to the previous productions.  I have a hunch that the outcome will be a spirited production.  Please look forward to it as you wait! Akana: Even though it’s a play, it does have the flavor of a live concert.  With the footage, the music, and the acting... it’s a production that has really a lot of realism.  I would rather people come with the same excitement as if they were going to see a concert rather than a play, and then I think they’ll be able to enjoy it even more.  When it comes to the production, I think there are parts that will leave you pondering after you’ve seen it, but I hope that when you finish watching Engeki Haikyuu that you leave feeling refreshed.  Maybe if you can feel like, “Tomorrow I’ll work hard!”  It’s a show that can cheer your up and leave you feeling brighter, and I think that’s something that a lot of other productions don’t have.   Yamamoto: When it comes to enthusiasm, the previous cast have definitely passed that on to us... in that respect nothing’s really changed.  With Worry-san as our director and our chief, we’re gradually taking in new ideas, and trying a lot of new methods that haven’t been used in Engeki Haikyuu before, so I think it’s going to turn out completely different from the previous shows.  And with that difference, I hope we can show off our new “Karasuno colors.”   Oribe: I was able to watch the previous show, but it’s like everyone else has said, we’re going to be a completely different Karasuno from before.  And I really want the audience to see us already.  Rather than a specific highlight, I feel like I want people to really pay attention to all of it.  We want to surpass what the previous Karasuno cast have created, in a sense.  To have inherited something that has this three-year history, it means that we’re the ones who have to keep it going.  So everyone is working together so that we can continue the legacy of those three years.  It’s a promise we have within our team, and I’d like to be able to convey that to the audience.  

Please tell us something about how you relate to your characters. Oribe: Well Ryousuke-kun and I are like the actual characters. (laughs) Daigo: I do wonder if you’re just normally like that or if you’re being in character, as Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, I mean. Oribe: Isn’t it fine if just being normal matches being in character? Akana: …..I think if you were really like them, people might dislike you? Everyone: Hahahah! (laughs) Daigo: But doesn’t Yamaguchi feel the same way?  Maybe. Akana: But he doesn’t hate being that way really? Daigo: But Ryousuke-kun might dislike Yoshi.... Yamamoto: ….I mean if I did, I can't really say so. Oribe: Hey!  At least deny it?!   Daigo: I don’t actually have a lot in common with my character...  I think just about everything is different.   Akana: You aren’t really alike, huh. Daigo: But maybe we’re a little alike in our enthusiasm?  Or at least I’d like us to be.  As an actor, I can really respect how much he loves just that one thing.   Akana: I’ve been told that my face is like Kageyama’s, also my aura.  Or the shape of my head.   Daigo: Your personalities aren’t that similar at all though.   Akana: Some of our circumstances are a bit similar.  If I’m trying to manage a group, people usually hate me at first. (laughs)  But fundamentally our personalities aren’t the same.  I can’t love something to the degree that I’d be that much of an idiot. Yamamoto: For me, I also have bad eyesight.   Daigo: Oh that’s very true. (laughs) Yamamoto: And I’m also very smart, and have blond hair. Akana: Hang on, no you don’t! (laughs) Oribe: You’re also very tall! Daigo: And you can jump really high.  It’s actually really amazing.  He’s exactly like Tsukishima that way.  

If you could pick a favorite character within the series, who would it be? Daigo: Kiyoko-san!  Because I always love the cute girls in anime...  I’m kidding.  In all seriousness, I love Hinata Shouyou.  He’s so bright and energetic, and I love that about him. Akana: For me, it’s Oikawa Tooru.  I mean, he’s popular, right?  Girls are screaming kyaa kyaa for him during matches, so he’s basically like a star.  I kind of want to live my life like that. Yamamoto: My favorite character is... well I kind of end up focusing on my own character as I read? Daigo: Yeah.  That’s really true! Yamamoto: So because of that my favorite character ends up being the character I play.  In the end, my favorite is Tsukishima.  When I’m reading the manga, I get excited whenever Tsukishima does anything.  If I could try playing a different character, it would be Kageyama I think.   Oribe: In all honesty, I didn’t have any favorite characters when I first read Haikyuu.  But when it was decided that I would play Yamaguchi, it’s exactly like Ryousuke-kun said, I started being really aware of Yamaguchi while reading, and in the end Yamaguchi became my favorite character.  If I could try playing a different character, I’d also pick Kageyama.  Kageyama and Yamaguchi are complete opposites and their personalities are completely different.  So I get kind of curious as to, “If I played him, how would I do it?” and stuff.   Akana: ...ohhhhh. Yamamoto: It really doesn’t matter to you, does it? (laughs) Daigo: That was suuuch a displeased response! (laughs) Akana: No no!  I’m actually really happy.  The fact that other people think of my character and go, “I wanna try playing him too.”   Everyone: ….hmmmmm. Akana: Okay, good job everyone! Everyone: (laughs)

Please tell us a story from your rehearsals. Akana: Everyone’s getting to be really good at volleyball now.  Because everyone keeps playing during breaks so our breaks aren’t even breaks. (laughs)   Daigo: Kou-kun is always moving around so much at rehearsals, but even for like 10-min breaks he’s still practicing volleyball.  It’s to the degree where I kind of wonder if he might be an idiot! (laughs)   Kanegae: Hey, I can hear you!  Who are you calling an idiot?!   Everyone: Hahahah! (laughs) Daigo: No but really, he'll always stay super late for more volleyball practice.  He’s getting better than everyone else, so I think he’s pretty amazing. Akana: I mean his athleticism was outstanding to begin with. Yamamoto: And he’s got that shaved head. Kanegae: Hey!  Who are you calling bald?! Daigo: He didn’t actually say ‘bald.’ (laughs)

What were your first impressions of each other, and your impressions of each other now? Daigo: My first impression of Nosuke (Akana) was basically, I thought he was crazy. Akana: Hang on a second... how many times have we had this conversation? Daigo: I mean I’ll say it however many times.  It was my first impression after all.  Because we met during our costume fittings.  Nosuke went first and I went in after he did, and he just went, “Ah!  I forgot to wear underwear!”   Oribe: Ehh?! Yamamoto: Why were you going commando?! Akana: Well, I can’t sleep with underwear on.  And that day was in winter and it was cold, so I had on thermal leggings, and I’d put on my pajama pants over those to sleep.  And leggings feel pretty snug on the body so they’re basically the same as underwear anyway.  That’s why I thought I had them on, and the next morning I took off just my pajama pants and put on regular pants instead over the leggings.   Yamamoto: Do you call them leggings?  Aren’t they long johns?   Akana: Eh?!  Don’t people call them leggings?   Daigo: Yeah, if you’d said long-johns I’d know better what you were talking about.  I don’t know about leggings.   Akana: People from Nara say leggings* though...  Ah, well, then, I was wearing long johns. (laughs)  So then when it was time for costume fittings and I had to strip, I had to say, “I’m... not wearing any underwear...”  

*Akana actually uses a slang word for thermal leggings that’s borrowed from Korean, which is partly why Ryousuke doesn’t really know why he’s saying that instead of the more standard word: 股引.  This is difficult to translate exactly because English doesn’t have a very slangy word for leggings or thermals and certainly not one that we borrow from another language.  Leggings was the best I could do because in all fairness, guys don’t really wear them.  

Daigo: That was before we became friends so it wasn’t something you could really joke about, but you laughed a lot. (laughs)  So that was us at first, but lately I’ve found some things I can even respect about him.  Nosuke’s really really good at dancing.  And he’s really quick to memorize choreography, and then he takes the initiative to teach people who can’t do it yet.  He’ll even suggest like, “Maybe it would be better if you tried it this way,” and so I thought he was really dependable.  I respect that a lot about him. Daigo: Actually, Yoshi and I went to the same high school.  And we used to hang out a lot privately. Oribe: It’s pretty funny.  When we were in school we used to just hang out normally as friends, but now we’re working together.  It feels a little off.   Daigo: It’s not like that anymore, but at first it did feel really strange.  

Please give one final message to people who will be going to see the show. Oribe: I want everyone who’s going to come see Engeki Haikyuu to be able to feel the passion and enthusiasm of the show in person.  I think there are a lot of different ways they can enjoy the show, thanks to our teamwork, and so please look forward to the tour!   Yamamoto: Worry-san said to us, “Let’s make this next productiong while keeping in mind the keywords, ‘connect,’ and ‘entrust.’”  This production is something that’s been entrusted to us by the previous cast, and we have to connect with that in order to continue, it’s important to understand that.  While being mindful, we as the new Karasuno generation will make a new wind blow, this is our starting point, but first we have to take that first step.  I hope we can really burst onto the scene together.  We’ll be working really hard! Akana: Since we’ve had some time at rehearsals now, I can say with 120% certainty that it’s going to be a fun show.  There’s no way it won’t be with this cast.  I’m sure there are fans that are uneasy because of the completely new cast, but I think if they just make their way to the theater to see us even once with all of their expectations, the rest of their time will be spent just enjoying the show.  Please wait for us! Daigo: I want people to feel extra motivated and invigorated because of watching Engeki Haikyuu.  I want to work hard and do my best together with everyone who comes to see the show.  I have this image where the audience can be motivated because of us and that we also work harder for them, and I’m going to work extra hard at the thought of seeing everyone’s smiling faces.  I want to make a show where we all encourage and empower each other.  

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Translated by @nimbus-cloud Please do not repost my translations!  To me, this includes screenshots of bits and pieces taken out of context, especially if they don’t link back to me.

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If you’d like to buy the magazine that features the original interview, you can find it on Amazon JP: (x)

Parts 2 and 3 with the second and third-years will follow!

[nekoannie-chan]

Insecurities

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Word count: 2788 words

Summary: You’re married to Steve, however, there are many rumors about him, what would happen if you misunderstood a situation and believed that the rumors are true?

Warnings: Maybe it is sad.

A/N: My native language is Spanish so if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

This is written for @prettyyoungtragedy ‘s Maya’s 10K (WTF) challenge! with prompt # 10:

“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”

I took some inspiration from episodes 21 and 22 of the second season of the TV show “Desperate Housewives.”

In this universe the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and they managed to stop HYDRA in time, so Ultron or Vision was not created, nor was there a Civil War.

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don’t steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other’s people. The only exception is the ones I gifted ‘cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Marvel’s characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

You had married Steve almost six years ago, you two had met after he had been thawed, and after the New York attack, you had started a relationship. Now you had two children, a girl and a boy, who were twins.

Since Steve had obtained a very important position after he and Fury managed to unmask HYDRA without S.H.I.E.L.D. fall; but a few weeks before that event you had married in secret.

Natasha had found Steve’s little secret almost two years after you had married, so that day Steve invited her to dinner with you so she could meet you, although, from the first moment she saw you, you knew she didn’t like you since then she always behaved very rude to you every time they came to meet.

You sighed and threw the newspaper away, you hated the false news that used to appear in any media, and you knew that Steve kept you as a secret to prevent his old and new enemies from hurting them.

You gave the snack to your children, while the twins ate you called to his cell phone, he didn’t answer.

“Surely he is in a meeting or a mission,” you thought to try to calm yourself down.

You watched TV distract you for a while the children were sleeping, there was an Avengers interview, but what left you frozen was the way Natasha behaved with your husband, you turned off the TV without even watching the interview.

You received a call from your best friend and he asked you if you had seen the interview, you said yes but now you feel confused, you didn´t understand what was happening, immediately your friend went to visit you, you were talking for a while about everything that had been going on and suspect things

“Y/N you must go and see if all that is true, I think your husband acts too weird,” your friend said.

“I don’t know, I’m afraid of what I can find,” you replied unconvinced.

“You need to know the truth,” she insisted.

“What if the rumors are true?” you asked afraid.

“I have a gun, so go calm and I’ll take care of the children and you can go on my car, so they won’t recognize you, it’s different from the car they know,” your friend offered.

She was right, Steve always refused to talk about his work with you, sometimes he said as an excuse that it was better that you didn´t know to prevent someone will hurt you if they tried to obtain the information and other were secret projects and therefore he wasn´t authorized to share the information with others who were not involved.

You were going to the Triskelion, you were determined to face that pair once and for all, so you didn’t mind driving more than two hours to get to the place.

Halfway while you waited for the traffic light to change, you saw something that caught your attention completely, a couple walking hand in hand towards a cafeteria, the couple looked too much like Steve and Natasha. You were so focused on what you saw that you didn’t notice the change of lights until the other drivers began to despair and heard the noise of the horn, you started and immediately looked for a parking lot.

You took the glasses that your friend always had in the car and picked up your hair, you hoped they didn’t realize that it was you, you entered the cafeteria, and you sat in a place where you could see and hear them but they couldn’t see you. You noticed that Steve didn’t wear his wedding ring.

You asked for the first thing you saw on the menu, you were most cared to listen to what they were talking about, you didn’t recognize the people they were with, by photos you knew some of their coworkers, the only ones you knew in person were Romanoff and director Fury, although it was possible that the other people also worked in S.H.I.E.L.D., because of the way they talked, it didn’t seem like they were partners.

This time Steve and Nat’s mission was simple, pretend to be a just engaged couple to get some information from the suspects because the business that these people had was wedding planning but the real business was the illegal sale of weapons.

“How long have you been in a relationship?” asked one of the suspects.

“Four and a half years,” Steve replied.

“And you have thought about what kind of wedding would you like,” the other suspect asked.

“Not yet, we have seen some ideas but we have not liked anything,” Natasha said.

The suspects show them some ideas but none seemed to convince them.

“I have a question, have any of you been married before?” One of them asked.

“Y-No…”

“No, we don’t, we want this to be forever …” Natasha intervened before anyone suspected Steve was lying.

Then you saw they kissed, you had seen enough so that you didn´t finish listening to the conversation, you had verified that the rumors were true, you left the money that covered your food and the tip on the table although you hadn´t eaten much and left from the cafeteria with your heartbroken. You return to your home immediately, you wanted to run away but you are not going to leave your children alone or with his father.

Four and a half years … the twins were four years old, which meant Steve had started cheating on you when you were pregnant.

You still didn’t believe what you saw in that cafeteria, you felt betrayed, as if during all these years you had lived in a lie, maybe he was with you just for the children and not because he loved you.

Besides, you didn’t know his friends, he always told you the same excuse and what if you were the lover?

What if you were not legally married and the wedding had been a very well planned farce?

Maybe that was the reason he kept you as a secret and Natasha treated you so badly.

When you arrived at the house, you vaguely told your friend what had happened and what you had decided to do, you knew you had her support.

You weren’t going to wait for him to hear more excuses or lies, you had to get out of there immediately, and you put in a suitcase that you had borrowed from your best friend some of your belongings, you hadn’t noticed the presence of the twins in the door frame.

“Mommy?” your son called you.

You turned and saw the little ones holding each other hands, for a moment you stopped, you sat on the bed.

“Come here, my babies,” you called them

They approached, the boy sat next to you while the girl sat on your lap.

“We’re going on a trip for a few days,” you informed them.

“And daddy?” your son asked.

You knew how much they loved him but you couldn’t break their hearts too, maybe after a while, you would tell them the truth.

“No, dad doesn’t come, he has a lot of work,” you explained and the children saw each other a little confused.

“Can we take Cookie?” your daughter asked.

“Sure, and Rufus too,” you replied when you saw that your son was going to ask the same thing.

Your son took his sister’s hand to go to their respective stuffed animals in their bedrooms.

You would not go in your car, it was obvious that they were going to locate you, nor your cell phone, you had enough money for two months at least, and then you would worry about how to get more.

You could not leave the country or go with any family because it was obvious that he would find you and you will be in problems, you wanted to disappear so you remembered that a few weeks ago you had seen in the supermarket some rent cabins in a place very far.

It was perfect, nobody would look for you there. You rented the cabin as soon as you arrived at the place, the best, they didn’t even ask your name so you didn’t have to lie, the children looked happy and they forgot that their father wasn´t with you.

You saw yourself in the mirror and you sighed, you felt that you weren´t as beautiful and young as Natasha but at least you would have liked him to tell you the truth, you had no idea how to explain what happened to your children, you weren´t sure if they would understand the seriousness of the matter.

Steve arrived at your house, he missed you a lot because the mission instead of taking it one day, took two more days because they had immediately started working on a plan to catch the enemies and also felt a little bad for the mission, he had never liked having such missions where he had to be a couple of his partner. The mission had been much better than they expected;  they not only obtained the information also they caught the criminals and secured the weapons that the criminals had, he had been so busy that he didn’t even notice that you didn’t answer the messages he had sent to you.

“Doll?” he called you when he entered.

He didn’t hear any response, so he looked into the kitchen but you weren´t there.

“Kids?” he called, although later he felt silly, obviously you weren’t going to leave the little ones alone.

Terror seized him when he heard no response again, he began to check the house.

“Maybe they went to the supermarket or took the children to the park,” he thought

He found your cellphone in the bedroom when he checked the second floor, went back down and saw that the keys to your car were where they always were, and your car in the garage. He knew perfectly well that you didn´t use another transport when you went out with the children.

He called your best friend and she said she didn’t know where you were, he called all the places that thought you could be, you weren’t there it was like you just disappeared, no, rather Steve was sure that some of his enemies had kidnapped you.

He immediately called Fury, he needed to find you as quickly as possible and save them from the danger in which he believed you were.

The following three weeks were eternal to Steve, he hardly slept, the only thing that mattered him was finding you alive and safe, it was not possible that you had simply disappeared, he had checked at all airports, at all places that had thought you could be, several members of the organization participated by order of Fury in the pursuit, Clint also participated, he could understand what Steve felt, surely if his family disappeared he would also lose his mind.

That day you had decided to go to the supermarket, you let the children choose the cookies, however, you didn´t realize that someone had discovered you, you kept shopping, nor did you notice that the person had followed you to the cabin.

“Cap, I found them,” Clint informed him.

Steve immediately arrived where Clint was waiting for him.

“Barton, are you sure they are there and safe?” Steve asked incredulously, he was completely surprised at where you were.

“I found them in the supermarket and followed them here, your wife looks a bit sad, that’s all, although before you enter, I think you should listen to her, I don’t think anyone has kidnapped them but rather they ran away from you,” said Clint.

“It doesn’t make sense …” Steve felt confused.

“I just think you should know her motives first,” he said.

Steve nodded and went to the cabin, knocked on the door, you went to open the door as quickly as possible so that the children didn´t wake up but you got a big surprise to see him there.

“Steve…”

“Doll, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he greeted as he opened the door further and entered the place.

“Sure come in,” you murmured.

You leaned out to make sure Natasha wasn’t with him until you don´t see another person outside you closed the door and went to the room where Steve had already sat.

“Hmm, what about the children?” he asked, not seeing them.

“Upstairs, taking a nap,” you replied.

You were in silence for a few minutes, which suddenly became very uncomfortable.

“What do you want?” you asked suddenly.

“Why you run away? I’ve been worried all these weeks believing something bad had happened to them “he questioned.

“You’re a cynic, after everything you did you still ask me that” you couldn’t believe he was looking for an explanation

"I'm sorry, I know I have had a lot of work and I have hardly been with you but I will ask for vacation and go wherever you want," he tried to apologize.

He thought it was because he hardly spent time with you and the kids, in the past, you had had a few discussions about it, but now he wanted to fix things. You slapped him with all your strength because you couldn't stand that he acts like an innocent and lies to you again.

“What the…?”

“Do you think I don't know that you cheat on me with Natasha? I know you are getting married soon, at least you would have had the courage to tell me “you claimed.

“What are you talking about? I don't date her” he sounded very confused and actually in his mind he didn't know what you were talking about.

"Don't lie, I listened to the cafeteria conversation ..." you started to say.

Steve opened his eyes, now everything has sense, it was a misunderstanding, he had no idea how to fix it but he would try because he didn't want to lose you.

"That was a mission, you can talk to Fury if you don't believe me, there is nothing between Romanoff and me, Y/N you are the only one I love, I just care about you and our children," he interrupted.

"She's prettier, younger, and more talent than me," you said.

You felt like nothing in comparison to Natasha.

"For me, you are the most beautiful, seriously there is nothing between her and me," he tried to take your hand.

“Do you have…? I saw you kissing her,“ you asked by removing her hand to keep her from taking it, you needed to know the truth.

"Nothing happened, she kissed me as part of the mission, seriously Y/N, you're the only one," he assured you.

"You never tell me anything about your work, I don't even know who your co-workers are, you never tell me anything," you recriminated, you felt that at any moment you were going to cry.

"I do very dangerous things ..." he began.

"You always say the same, so you want me to believe you and have confidence?" you were tired of the same excuse.

"Give me another chance, please, I don't want to miss this, I'll tell you everything, we will go with Fury and you'll know everything there," he promised.

“I don’t know …” you weren’t convinced.

“Please Y/N, you are my only reason to continue, one last chance please,” he begged, almost crying.

“Will you still love me when I am no longer young and beautiful? You know I will grow old before you “you felt the tears fall down your cheeks.

“I don’t care about that, I will always love you,” he said.

He approached you, wiped your tears with the back of his hand, and gave you a little kiss, he was still afraid you would reject him.

“All right, just one chance,” you said.

“Daddy!” the twins shouted, they already woken up.

They ran to him and Steve took two children, now that he saw you, he felt better, nothing bad had happened to any of you.

“How have you behaved? Have you been good children? ”He asked.

“Yes!” They answered in one voice.

“Mom said that you had a lot of work,” said the little girl.

“I had it but I finished it,” Steve said.

“Are you staying with us?” The boy asked.

“Yes, what do you think if we stay another week and spend the four of us time together and have fun?”

“I love you Y/N.”

“I love you. Steve”

Now Steve was going to fix the mistake he had been making for years and you were going put on time they had lost in recent weeks.

[dumb-american]

The Rebuild of Final Fantasy VII: Your Expectations Will (Not) Be Met

I apologize for the stupid title and I promise I’m going to talk about the Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I have to get this out of the way first. Sometime in the mid 2000s, acclaimed artist and director Hideaki Anno announced that he was going to remake his beloved anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion the way it should have been the first time, free from technical and budgetary restraints. Evangelion had a notoriously strange ending when the original anime aired, consisting of character talking over still images, abstract art, and simple animations. It was highly polarizing and controversial. Anno, for his part, received death threats and the headquarters of the studio that produced the anime was vandalized. Soon after the initial uproar Anno would direct The End of Evangelion, a retelling of the final two episodes of the anime, and that seemed to mostly satisfy the fanbase. Looking back now, The End of Evangelion wasn’t “fixing” something that was “broken,” no, it was a premonition: a vision of things to come. Why remake the ending when you can just remake the whole damn thing?

The mid 2000s also saw the birth of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: a sub-series of projects expanding the universe and world of the video game that had “quite possibly the greatest game ever made” proudly printed on the back of its CD case. The Compilation consisted of three games, all on different platforms, and a film. First was Advent Children, a sequel to Final Fantasy VII, where three dudes that look like discarded Sephiroth concept art all have anime fights with our beloved protagonists, culminating in a ridiculous gravity defying sword fight between Cloud and Sephiroth. Before Crisis and Crisis Core are prequels that expand the story of the Turks and Zack Fair, respectively. Then there’s Dirge of Cerberus, an action shooter staring secret party member and former Turk Vincent. Were these projects good? I’d say they were largely forgettable. Crisis Core stood out as the obvious best of the bunch and I think may be worth revisiting.

As a business model, the practice pioneered by the Compilation would continue on and eventually brings us FFXIII (and sequels), FF Versus XIII (which would later become FFXV), and FF Agito XIII (which would later become FF Type-0). If that’s all incredibly confusing to you, I’m sorry, I promise I will begin talking about the Final Fantasy VII Remake soon. Suffice it to say, both Final Fantasy VII and Neon Genesis Evangelion have a certain gravity. They punch above their weight. They are both regarded as absolute classics, flaws and all. And yet, in both cases, the people responsible for their creation decided that their first at bat wasn’t good enough and it was time to recreate them as they were meant to be all along. I think this way of thinking about art is flawed, limitations are as much a part of the creative process as vision and intent. Yet, we find ourselves in a world with a remake of Final Fantasy VII, so I guess we should talk about it.

From this point forward, there’s going to be major spoilers for every Final Fantasy VII related media. So, be warned.

So, is the Final Fantasy VII Remake any good? To me, that’s the least interesting question, but we can get into it. FFVIIR is audacious, that’s for sure. Where Anno condenses and remixes a 26 episode anime series into four feature length films, the FFVIIR team expands an around 5 hour prologue chapter into a 30+ hour entire game. Naturally, there will be some growing pains. The worst example of this is the sewers. The game forces you to slog through an awful sewer level twice, fighting the same boss each time. This expanded sewer level is based on a part of the original game that was only two screens and was never revisited.

Besides the walk from point A to point B, watch a cutscene, fight a boss, repeat that you’d expect from a JRPG, there’s also three chapters where the player can explore and do sidequests. The sidequests are mostly filler, but a select few do accomplish the goal of fleshing out some of the minor characters. You spend way more time with the Avalanche crew, for example. Out of them, only Jesse has something approaching a complete personality or character arc that matters. The main playable cast is practically unchanged which was a bit surprising to me. I figured Square-Enix would tone down Barret’s characterization as Mr. T with a gun for an arm, but they decided, maybe correctly, that Barret is an immutable part of the Final Fantasy VII experience. Also, it’s practically unforgivable that Red XIII was not playable in the remake considering how much time you spend with him. I don’t understand that decision in the slightest.

The game’s general systems and mechanics, materia, combat, weapon upgrades, etc. are all engaging and fun and not much else really needs to be said about it. I found it to be great blend of action/strategy. Materia really was the peak of JPRG creativity in the original FFVII and its recreation here is just as good. The novelty of seeing weird monsters like the Hell House and the “Swordipede” (called the Corvette in the original) make appearances as full on boss fights with mechanics is just weaponized nostalgia. In general, the remake has far more hits than misses, but those misses, like the sewers and some of the tedious sidequests, are big misses. It is a flawed game, but a good one. If I were to pick a favorite part of the game, I’d have to pick updated Train Graveyard section which takes lore from the original game and creates a mini-storyline out of it.

If that was all, however, then honestly writing about Final Fantasy VII Remake wouldn’t be worth my time or yours. The game’s ambition goes way further than just reimagining Midgar as a living, real city. There’s a joke in the JRPG community about the genre that goes something like this: at the start of the game, you kill rats in the sewer and by the end you’re killing God. Well, when all is said and done, the Final Fantasy VII Remake essentially does just that. Narratively, the entire final act of the game is a gigantic mess, but if you know anything about me then you know I’d much rather a work of fiction blast off into orbit and get a little wild than be safe and boring.

In the original games, the Lifestream is a physical substance that contains spirits and memories of every living being. Hence, when a person dies, they “return to the planet”. It flows beneath the surface of the planet like blood flows in a living person’s veins and can gather to heal “wounds” in the planet. In the original game, the antagonist, Sephiroth, seeks to deeply wound the planet with Meteor and then collect all the “spirit energy” the planet musters to heal the wound. The remake builds on this concept by introducing shadowy, hooded beings called Whispers. The Whispers are a physical manifestation of the concept of destiny and they can be found when someone seeks to change their fate, correcting course to the pre-destined outcome. Whispers appear at multiple points throughout the game’s storyline both impeding and aiding the party. The ending focuses heavily on them and the idea that fate and destiny can be changed. We receive visions throughout the game which some will recognize as major story beats and images from the original game. After dealing with Shinra and rescuing Aerith, the game immediately switches over to this battle against destiny and fate that you’re either going to love or hate. The transition is abrupt and jarring. While Cloud has shown flashes of supernatural physical abilities throughout the game, suddenly he has gone full Advent Children mode and is flying around cleaving 15 ton sections of steel in half with his sword. The party previously took on giant mutated monsters, elite soldiers, and horrific science experiments, but now the gloves are off and they’re squaring up against an impossibly huge manifestation of the Planet’s will. Keep in mind, in the narrative of the original FFVII, the Midgar section was rougly 10%, if that, of the game’s full storyline. This is, frankly, insane, but I’d be lying if I didn’t love it.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake, with its goofy JRPG concluding chapter, is forcing the player to participate in the original game’s un-making. We see premonitions of an orb of materia falling to the ground, we see an older Red XIII gallop across the plains, we see a SOLDIER with black hair and Cloud’s Buster Sword make his final stand, we see Cloud waist deep in water holding something or someone. We all know what these images represent, they’ve been part of imaginations for decades. But the Final Fantasy VII Remake allows us (or forces us, depending on perspective, I guess) to kill fate, kill God, and set aside all we thought we knew about how the game would play out post-Midgar. The most obvious effect of our actions is the reveal that Zack survived his final stand against Shinra and instead of leaving Cloud his sword and legacy, helped him get to Midgar safely. I have my doubts and my worries about the future of this series. I’m not sure when the next part of the game will be released or what form it will come in, but I can’t believe I’m as excited as I am to see it.

Of course, part of me wishes they’d just left well enough alone. Remakes are generally complete wastes of time and effort. Not all, but most. Maybe I’m, to borrow a term from pro wrestling lingo, a complete mark here and I just love JRPGs and Final Fantasy VII so much that I’ll countenance close to anything bearing its name. I’ve tried my best to be as critical and fair as possible to the game and I hope that if you’re on the fence and reading this I’ve maybe helped you decide if it’s for you or not. I think the Final Fantasy VII Remake is worth your time if you’re looking for a good, meaty JRPG. It’s not perfect and it’s final act is insane, but that just makes me love it more.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like for Zack, Cloud, and Aerith to face Sephiroth in the Planet’s core? I know 15 year old me did. And he may get his wish.

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

‘Til the End of the Line (or Not) OR: See? We TOLD You “No Homo.” Love, Markus and McFeely

*****WARNING: 99.9% SALT!! Contains spoilers for Avengers Endgame!!****

I guess this is part two of my personal processing of Endgame. @pitchforkcentral86 was not satisfied by my timey-wimey Endgame post, which centered on Steve’s choice to go back in time to be with Peggy and the implications of that choice. She remarked that yeah, it’s great that Steve might not be a total piece of crap, Pym particles, yada yada, whatever, but it still didn’t make her feel any less despair over this ending.

The source of her agony: Steve and Bucky’s relationship and its utter lack of satisfying resolution. So I shall address that now, because I think I feel worse about that than anything, and I can’t explain it away with Pym particles.

Anyone who has any investment at all in the relationship between Bucky and Steve — whether you are a Stucky person or whether you view them as platonic but deeply connected best friends — has probably had to spend the last two movies scraping around the floor, searching for crumbs, signs, any hints that these two people care about each other. We have been begging the Russos, the screenwriters Markus and McFeely, anyone who would listen, for anything to suggest that they are even on the barest of speaking terms, let alone that they have the intensity of relationship that the MCU spent 3+ movies explicitly convincing us that they have. I’ll even come out and say that although I ship Stucky in fandom and fic hardcore, I am not an MCU canon Stucky person per se. I’m 100% fine if the MCU wants to treat this as a deep, fraternal friendship. In fact, I see some benefits to this interpretation. How wonderful if men could love each other so deeply and have it NOT be sexual or romantic. But I’m also 100% fine with people interpreting this as romantic love, and there were times throughout this franchise where the actors, various parties in production, and Marvel itself has been agnostic on the subject, if not encouraging of gay interpretations of their relationship. Let it be what you want, fans have been told. Or just flat out post a pic of Steve and Bucky on #National Boyfriend Day like Civil War comic writer Mark Millar. Sure. At times, it almost felt safe to ship them. As soon as Civil War drew to a close, however, it started becoming... inconvenient for Bucky and Steve to be together. Steve needs to go to the Raft. Bucky needs to go into cryo. Steve needs to become Nomad and go secret avenging. Bucky needs to do his Vibranium Brain Magic (TM)/goat herding complex PTSD recovery program. Side note: Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is my provisional diagnosis based on virtually nothing, because Bucky’s character has gotten so little substantive screen time that we can only guess at his psychological state, save what can be conveyed through glistening eyes and woobieface and “... but I did it.” Wow. Bowl me over, you really got me right in the McFeelys. Though +1000 to SebStan for working what he got to work with to the max. That motherfucker can act. We know for certain approximately jack shit about Bucky’s internal experience post-Winter Soldier. And so, like pretty much everything with Bucky and this friendship/ship arc, I will just guess at what is actually wrong with him. But after 70 years as a POW being tortured and possibly gaslit and definitely brainwashed, that is almost the textbook recipe for complex PTSD, so imma go with that. Returning to this distance. Now, it first appears to be largely logistical in nature. Steve is over here, Bucky is over there. Golly, just too busy to hang these days. All this secret avenging without you. And when we pine — pine — for the meaningful reunion of these two in IW, instead we got a “Hey brah, how's it hanging?” “You know, old and traumatized lol” exchange and a “let’s make sure our dicks don’t touch” back-slappy hug that lasted two seconds. This is without any hint as to whether these two have seen each other yet after Bucky’s de-thawing, leaving us to wonder whether this is really the big reunion we have been waiting for. 

(If we had audio, the sound would be 70% slapping.)

I’m going to pause here, because for many of us, this was devastating. After all, we were left with this shot of Steve as Bucky made the choice to go into cryo, a choice that seemed only somewhat justifiable on the vague grounds of “I can’t trust my own mind.” (Me either, pal.)

Ugh.

Perhaps this was also an avoidance strategy — easier to go back on ice than deal with the emotional fallout of what just happened. And who could blame him? He is probably still relearning how to cope effectively with things after his entire coping system was destroyed by his time with Hydra. But Steve was clearly disappointed or, at the very least, saddened by this. He gets something back just to lose it again. Enter distance. He leaves and goes avenging. Emotionally, perhaps this move to cryo created distance as well. Their relationship was on such fragile ground at this point, mostly an artifact from the ‘40s, and their chance to deepen it was taken away by the writers because Bucky wanted to go on ice for reasons and Steve needed to do Steve things. And so when IW rolled around, oh, did we want them to have a substantive reunion. But alas, we did not get that. We saw equally substantive exchanges between Bucky and Sam or Rocket and far more substantive exchanges between Steve and pretty much anyone else. And then we got the ultimate separation — (fake) death. Again. A traumatic, unplanned loss that costs another five years from their timeline, all before they even got the chance to properly re-establish a friendship. Again, I’m going off of what we actually see portrayed, not off of what we assume or would like to see. We have absolutely no idea how much Steve and Bucky interacted in Wakanda. But Steve busted Sam out of the Raft quite early, early enough that he still had a messed up face from the time Tony went in (unless he was getting beatings on the reg, which is possible). So if he was hanging with Sam since before Bucky went on ice, and Sam just visited Wakanda for the first time in IW, either Steve was borrowing the Quinjet to secretly visit Wakanda on his own to hang with Bucky, or he hadn’t been back to Wakanda since he left the first time. 

Regarding Steve visiting Wakanda between CW and IW — I found this bullshit from Markus and McFeely on the subject of whether Steve and Bucky met or talked prior to IW. The writers could not even agree about their own characters, with one saying that Steve and his crew probably visited Wakanda and hung out with Bucky and the other saying, eh, the two of them “maybe Skyped.” As to the former, this is not at all supported by the narrative or by logic. Infinity War is clearly Sam’s first time in Wakanda, with all that drama about “zomg you’re gonna hit those trees, bro!” as they are flying into the city. And why would Steve  leave his team alone and vulnerable, probably taking the Quinjet, their only form of reliable and safe transportation, so he could go visit Bucky alone? He’s not there for a booty call, y’all, because these guys have barely even rekindled their friendship. Moreover, the other secret avengers know how important Bucky is to Steve. This isn’t a secret. There would be no reason to go alone and no reason for T’Challa to forbid Nat, Sam, and Wanda from coming to Wakanda. So it makes no sense that Steve has visited Wakanda prior to IW, and thus, that would make IW their first meeting, which is… utter and heartbreaking garbage. But at least they had motherfucking SKYPE. MAYBE. Fuck. You. Very. Much. 

So, in the face of this shit reunion and Bucky’s subsequent dusting, some of us kindled hope for the upcoming Endgame. Perhaps we would get flashbacks. We knew there would be flashbacks or time travel because we saw stuff in the trailers and sneak peeks from the set. So maybe there would be something there to account for the utter lack of attention to their relationship in Infinity War. Again, this was the mere request that Markus and McFeely and the directors acknowledge wholeheartedly what they have been building for these characters since the beginning of their time in the MCU. This was not even strictly about Stucky. This was about doing justice for these characters as humans. But there were no flashbacks. Who knows what happened in Wakanda. We will have to fill in the blanks on our own. Not a single comment could be spared to even signal whether the IW Wakanda scene was their first time seeing each other since cryo.  “How’s that new arm treating you?” or “God, it’s been so long”/deep emotion would be all it would have taken to not keep us wondering one way or the other. This suggests a lack of consideration to the fans of these characters and this relationship — which, again, Markus and McFeely slaved to get us to pour our hearts into. So… Endgame. What was that? Bucky and Steve didn’t stand next to each other at Tony’s funeral. Okay. Bucky is not an A-list Avenger. He did kill Tony’s parents. Awkward. Bucky was comforted by Sam, his… guy he sat behind in the Volkswagen in Civil War and fought next to in IW, and he needed comfort apparently (?) because he… killed Martha and Howard Stark (??), which was sweet, and much more spontaneous affection than we’ve seen from Steve in an age, but what the actual fuck??? Was that Mickey Mouse standing behind the Iron Man 3 kid wearing a “Falcon and Winter Soldier” miniseries t-shirt?

And that ending. This was maybe the one implied nugget of friendship between them visible with an electron microscope. They obviously had at least one deep conversation about Steve deviating from the plan to go have a life, and they obviously had a discussion about who would succeed him as Cap. My dreams of Bucky Cap were dashed into dust, but as @pitchforkcentral86 said, it would have been cruel to give it to Bucky. Bucky would possibly have taken it if Steve kicked the bucket in EG, but it makes the most sense to be passed along in a planned way to Sam. So maybe they had at least one good conversation. Way, way off camera. Bucky said he would miss him. Recycled TFA line. Thank God it was not involving the words “jerk” and “punk.” Glistening woobie eyes. Steve leaving to go be with the one person who can make him feel like a whole human being, apparently, because there is nothing and nobody tethering him to this time in history anymore.

Whoa— wait— WHAT??? These are the moments where I literally double check the credits for the Cap movies to make sure that it says “Markus and McFeely.” Then I check the latest Avengers movies to make sure they also say “Markus and McFeely.” And they ALL DO!! The same two men painstakingly crafted the story of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, two men who — let’s be literal in the narrative here, for the sake of making a conservative argument — are best friends from childhood. They hammered on this story HARD, making sure that their relationship was so strong that by the time 2016 rolled around, the depth and intensity of their friendship and Steve’s commitment to it would tear the Avengers apart. And along the way, something else happened.

When you put two people in relationship like this, you have to know that there will be consequences. People will grow very emotionally invested in their relationship, because that is exactly what the writers were asking the audience to do. These dudes did their job, all right! And then something else happened, quite easily, even though these things will also happen under much harsher conditions: Stucky. Winter Soldier alone probably launched a hundred thousand ships for these two — gay, gay ships, so very gay, the glitteriest, gayest of cruise liners — from a hundred thousand ports around the globe. This ship has permeated pop culture even outside the fandom (some dumb gross man jokes from Screen Junkies within, but the Stucky shenanigans start at around 3:15).

And perhaps that’s when Markus and McFeely realized what a monster they created, one that would clash in ugly ways with their forthcoming (heterosexual) narrative, — their endgame for Steve. And so what did they do? Overcorrect. Wildly. Pull the plug. Bucky and Steve can’t fall out as friends completely, but what’s the next best thing? Give them almost zero screen time together, lest anyone be tempted to think they have a serious relationship — and again, I’m just talking friendship at this point, let alone anything else. Make their lines devoid of substance. Keep us wondering about the nature of their dynamic. Did the distance grow too great? Is Bucky not able to reconnect with anyone? Is Steve too busy? Too salty?? Who knows! These are possibilities, but none are explained. Then just poof Bucky off the face of the earth for 5 years to create existential distance. And in the meantime, ensure that Bucky is shown as not even a passing thought for Steve Rogers. Ensure that his name is never once uttered by Steve until he is about to leave him to go be with Peggy — oh except when, in a real dick move, when he emotionally whumps his past self with the news that Bucky is alive for the sole purpose of getting out of a stranglehold. At the same time, ensure that Steve is seen becoming single-mindedly fixated on Peggy Carter, and make sure the audience — including all those pesky Stucky shippers — knows that he considers her the “love of his life.” Ensure we see the compass with increasing frequency and with maximum longing. Insert Steve finding the absurd photograph of himself on the Director of SHIELD’s desk, facing the door for any junior colleague to see her pining over him like a schoolgirl long after he died, which is just about the least Peggy Carter thing I can ever imagine (and these people created and wrote for the Agent Carter TV series!!!).

Then give us our first openly gay person in the MCU. And drop him in the same scene that you confirm once and for all that Peggy Carter is the love of Steve Rogers’ life. Have Steve be so fucking cool with it that he makes us proud and relieved that he’s not a homophobe. Whew! Only… it makes us feel kind of gross, and maybe we can’t quite figure out why at first. But maybe it’s because it feels  personal, like a concession, like the writers and director knew exactly what they were doing to a lot of people who feel a very specific way about Steve’s sexuality and about his relationship with Bucky Barnes. It feels like a tone deaf nod to the fandom. Sorry, guys. No homo. We really did try to warn you with the whole Sharon Carter thing. (Sharon Carter, in an act of gross and misogynistic misuse, remains one of the most criminally mistreated characters in the entire MCU, arguably serving almost entirely as a “no homo” device before being completely discarded, never to be heard from again.)

Which got me thinking — was this move to distance Steve and Bucky so abruptly a reactive move? The divide between Steve and Bucky that happens in IW and EG feels so cold and inorganic. It does not feel at all driven by the natural arc of the characters as established by the creators themselves. It feels rushed and confusing, like it just needed to happen for plot convenience (though not even clearly that), and once again, we are left trying to figure out what the fuck is actually going on.

Part of that is probably needing to lay the groundwork for Steve’s feelings of alienation, which lead him to his ultimate choice to go back in time. He can’t feel too connected to Bucky or he won’t want to go back to be with Peggy. But could part of this also possibly be a reaction to how strongly Stucky was adopted by the public? Did Markus and McFeely realize how much more strongly we love the idea of Steve and Bucky — as friends or lovers, who cares? — rather than Steve and Peggy, which was probably their ending for Steve all along? Did they realize their terrible mistake of bringing them so close, endearing them to us so much, and then realize “OH SHIT,” and then slam on the brakes? Is that why IW and EG felt like absolute shit for their relationship, even for those who are not total endgame Stucky people?

Okay, but what if their friendship just ran its course? Friendships do that, even really deep ones. These two have had a huge chronological and experiential rift that never was really healed (thanks to our dear writers). Steve saved Bucky’s life thrice but they never really reconnected. Presumably. As far as we know in the narrative we are given by the writers. Okay. Let’s say you need to get Steve back with Peggy and for Bucky to become pals with Sam instead because contracts and actors. Whatever. Fine. But if you are going to play the “our friendship has come and gone” card, you need to fully PLAY IT. You can’t make it some vague option that might be true because we can’t figure out what the hell is going on. They need to have an actual conversation. For fuck’s sake, if we have time to fuck around with Korg and Miek on the couch and time to have Banner take selfies with kids and do stupid time gags and a bunch of other little shit, there is enough time to have a brief conversation somewhere to imply that “things have changed” or “people change” or something to imply that the writers were even thinking about the course of Bucky and Steve’s relationship as more than just a platform to launch Steve back to Peggy and launch Bucky toward Sam for their spinoff series.

There was just no depth. How can they give us three movies composed almost entirely of Mariana Trench levels of depth between these two men and then give us virtually nothing in IW and then next to nothing in EG to “round out” their entire storyline? The shape of the emotional momentum in this relationship is so wonky and dissatisfying, and the lack of comment on the dissolution of their friendship in the narrative, the fact that it isn’t even being acknowledged, is one of the worst parts. This relationship died without being honored or even attended to at the most basic level, after being told that it is perhaps the most important relationship in Steve and Bucky’s lifetimes and being shown evidence of that fact.

Moreover, let’s get real — calling Peggy the love of Steve’s life should do nothing to diminish his friendship with Bucky Barnes. That’s not how love works. You don’t just get one person. You can have a best friend — hell, you can have two best friends — and a woman you love. (And even moreover, you don’t have to leap back through time to find closeness just because you can. But that’s another matter with Steve’s character that I will address in a future speculative character analysis on Steve in an effort to explain how he got to this point, because I have a super depressing head canon about it involving traumatic grief and loss.) 

But just like comic book science, perhaps there are comic book rules about love and affinity. You only get one person, and Steve gets Peggy. And apparently Bucky gets Sam. Because contracts. But as I said before, I would have been okay if they had a dissolution of their friendship because that was the course of their friendship. Just tell us what is happening. Have the decency to respect your characters by giving their relationship a true arc, whatever it is. You can’t just recycle a TFA line and call it an arc. That is not an arc. Markus and McFeely goddamn know better and we know they know better, because we just saw a beautiful relationship arc closing with Tony and Pepper and, on a smaller scale, with Tony and Peter fucking Parker.

By the way, the small in-person and symbolic interactions between Tony and Peter in EG? Those are what high quality, emotionally salient, brief interactions between people who care about each other look like.

1. Tony’s picture of Peter in his kitchen: He can see from where he does his dishes. He looks at it meaningfully and thoughtfully before making a major plot-essential decision that risks his way of life.

2. Tony and Peter’s reunion hug: It starts off with some humor and classic Peter rambling. Becomes a full-ass, real hug. Nobody slaps the other’s back. Peter remarks, very sincerely, “oh, this is nice.”  <3

3. Tony’s death scene: Peter is visibly and truly wrecked. Tony looks at him in a heartfelt way. Words are unnecessary. It is perfect.

Bonus IW moment, because it is one of the most moving images I have seen in the MCU: Tony has Peter’s ashes in his goddamn mouth, eyes closed. Defeated.

Jesus Christ. Don’t tell me Markus and McFeely don’t know how to write characters and brief, powerful interactions, even when the characters are not together. They most certainly are very, very capable of this.

So why did we get the lifeless, quippy drivel and lame physical contact they gave Bucky and Steve in IW and EG? Which, regarding their last convo, was Bucky spilling his guts and Steve being like “Yeah brah, you’ll be fine, don’t be a fucking idiot while I’m off being happy with the only person in the universe who can make me complete #surprisesoulmates.” Bucky offers his quippy mandatory TFA callback retort so that the audience remembers that these two once gave an actual fuck about each other at one point in the narrative.  Cue slappy-back-no-dick-touch hug. And please don’t tell me that this is just how men from the ‘40s hug. I would buy that for TFA, but after everything they’ve been through in Winter Soldier and Civil War? I am not buying it.

**Slap-slap**

So we get a Steve Rogers who exits the MCU permanently by making a contentious, questionable final choice with questionable implications that take a graduate degree and/or a hive mind to questionably figure out (or else I’m just a fucking idiot and I’m the only one who needed those things). And we also get the profoundly dissatisfying demise of a relationship that we invested a tremendous amount of emotional energy in because that is what the screenwriters and directors asked us to do. 

I am not writing this as a diehard Stucky shipper. I love Stucky, don’t get me wrong. It’s all I read and write in fandom. And I can certainly buy a world (at least, in Caps 1-3) where canon Steve’s love for Bucky is the gay kind and vice versa. Sure. But I am writing this as a person who loves good characters and good story, and this is such a hard fail that even if I had no emotional investment in these two characters, I would wonder what Markus and McFeely had against Steve and Bucky that they let their garden succumb to drought while they tended so considerately to Tony and Peter and Tony and Pepper and Steve and Natasha and Steve and a dead woman and Thor and Bruce and Thor and fucking Rocket, pretty much all of whom (with the exception of Tony and Pepper) have had so much less at stake, so much less time invested, and so much less of a reason for the audience to give a fuck.

But more importantly, I am writing this as a lover of Steve and Bucky, two people who have a well-established, rock-solid, indisputable human relationship that deserves so much more than what it got, especially given all of the unspeakable suffering these men have experienced separately and as a byproduct of their separation. Canonically. This is not made up fandom shippery superimposed upon Markus and McFeely’s precious creation. This is the truth of these two men as determined by the hands of the creators who also neglected them into nothingness, which is arguably a fate far worse than one or both of them dying an actual, final death.

I am left feeling disappointed and betrayed as a fan, wishing, as others have confided in me, that I was more of a Tony person and had been all along. Because then I would be walking away from this still grief-stricken, but at least it would be for the right reasons.

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I will leave you with this, arguably one of the last in-character moments for Bucky and Steve in the MCU. 

[clairvoyantxatu]

On Pokémon and Insensitive Portrayals

WARNING! LEAKED CONTENT FOR POKEMON SWORD AND SHIELD AHEAD! AS WELL AS DISCUSSION ABOUT CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS! AND PLEASE, DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE TEXT, I TRIED MY BEST NOT TO DEMONIZE ANY OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED IN THIS DEBATE!

So, I’ve just found out that some Jewish fans have condemning the design of Impidimp’s final evolution, Grimmsnarl, for being eerily similar to antisemitic caricatures from Nazi propaganda.

They claim his green complexion, curly dark hair and long, pointy nose is pretty close to Third Reich-era depictions of Jewish people. The issue is similar to the controversy surruounding Jynx that happened when the series first came to the West. I decided to write this in order to expose my opinions on the matter, and maybe prevent further conflicts between defenders and accusers. Keep in mind, I can’t speak for Jewish people since I’m not one of them, but I personally believe anyone can share their opinions about controversial topics as long as they don’t commit the mistake of thinking they know more about a group they don’t belong to than themselves. Here goes my thoughts:

I personally DON’T believe Game Freak, as a company at least, is actively discriminatory against any group in particular; the majority of their employees, even the main members of its staff, might hold some biases coming from the still pretty conservative Japanese culture they’re inserted in. But they’ve already shown thorugh their actions throughout the years they’re not trying to perpetuate hatred towards any group in particular, even taking some measures - some of them, even too drastic, IMO - to secure that, like changing Jynx’ color palette starting from Gen III, temporarily replacing Brock in the anime with Tracey and slightly altering Gym Leader Lenora’s default design to please the fans concerned with their possible racist implications. But I think the biggest proof of that is how, starting from Gen V, they’ve been making an effort to include more diversity among their human cast, including more and more characters with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds with each passing generation, and even alluding to sexual diversity from time to time - if only through subtext, in the latter’s case (save for that post-op trans woman in the Battle Chateau, which got slightly less explicit in the English localization). Of course, not everything is perfect in that department, as can be attested by their reluctancy to depict the Player Characters in their more dark-skinned variations, as of X and Y, (and before that, the complete absence of that possibility in-game) in promotional art and spinoff media outside of screenshots of main series games designed specifically to showcase character customization, but I’d like to think this had more to do with the Japanese market - still their main target audience, despite the franchise’s success over the entire globe - being hesitant to accept character designs outside certain “standards” for their PC’s even to this day, to a lesser extent than in the past, of course. But one thing that people need to understand is that companies are complex entities encompassing many individual minds; them having flaws and making mistakes from time to time does not necessarily mean they are rotten to the core, even if, in the end, their main priority is making money for themselves (altruism is NOT a strong point in capitalist societies, sadly, but I digress).

With all that said, I’d like to point out as well, that sometimes, good intentions are not enough to perform a good deed; in fact, they can lead to grave consequences! And it’s not different with representation; sometimes, one can intend to portray a character from a certain group in a positive light and end up being tremendously insensitive, usually due to their own ignorance towards that group. I believe that’s the case with Jynx and other examples from Pokémon; while I’m one of the fans who prefer to believe Jynx is based on the Youkai Yama-Uba (refer to this link for more info on that: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jynx_(Pok%C3%A9mon)#Origin), I cannot deny there is a strong similarity between Jynx’ original design and blackface caricatures, specially since the Yama-Uba is usually portrayed in Noh theatre by performers wearing blackface - even if without the intention to emulate actual black people. It doesn’t help that the anime chose to portray this species as Pokémon’s equivalent of Santa Claus’ usual elf assistants, possibly linking Jynx to Zwarte Peit, a infamous folklore figure heavily associated with Santa as well. In regards to the substantially smaller Lenora controversy, I personally believe it was the case of GF misinterpreting some depictions of black women from less-enlightened times, in particular those borrowing from the mammy stereotype, as something more positive than they actually were, possibly connecting them to traditional Japanese ideals of femininity and motherhood, but that’s just a wild guess, I admit. What I’m sure, however, is that while Lenora’s apron could be excused as a means to carry her archeological tools, even if I’ve never seen an actual archeologist wearing aprons to do so, her original Gym Leader Title in the Japanese version of the Gen V games, “Natural-born Mama” raises a lot of suspicion against the intent behind her design, specially since she’s not known to have children, have a particularly “motherly” personality, act as a mother figure towards any character in-game or have an occupation that could be interpreted as being akin to a mother’s role; the best I can think of is Lenora and her husband referring to each other as “mama” and “papa”, but considering other Gym Leader titles refer more to their main character features, and Lenora’s relationship with Hawes is more of side note in comparison to her role as Nacrene Museum’s director... the fact the rest of her characterization is pretty straightforward, lacking any racial elements to it, however, lends credency to the idea GF didn’t intend her to be a caricature of black women.

Nevertheless, the closeness between those depictions and real world racist depictions of minority groups is still unsettling, at least to some. And just because the author’s intention wasn’t to offend a certain group, it doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to dislike their work for that. After all, so many people hate Palkia’s design for resembling male genitalia despite that obviously not being the intention! What if they coloured Cloyster light pink instead? Would you blame people for associating it (even more) with a vagina? I’m not saying we should storm off GF’s office demanding they change Grimmsnarl’s design while accusing them of being bigots, specially since I don’t believe it’s the case at all; all Im saying is that there’s a strong point of favour of those discontent with the characters’ design, despite all claims that it’s not meant to represent something they despise. I don’t know if GF should feel impelled to change Grimmsnarl’s colouring to solely please those people, but I’m sure I’d also hate if they created, even unintentionally, a character who bore too much resemblance to a particularly negative depicition from a group I belong to, say, some Fuu Manchuu-esque Evil Team Leader or the like. If they simply made a new Pokémon with a Chinese-inspired aesthetic, even if some elements were a bit cliché, like Ludicolo is for Mexican people, I wouldn’t mind nearly as much.

And I don’t think anyone should dismiss those concerns, much less with weak arguments such as “if you see racism in that, then you’re the real bigot” like I’ve seen out there, just because they don’t grasp the ideas I exposed above. Neither do I approve the attitude of people who react with too much intensity to opposition towards their accusations or jump the gun and accuse GF of being prejudiced towards a specific group without enough evidence or incite violence of any kind towards them because of those unfortunate depictions. Remember, they come from a culture far away from our Western issues, so it’s more likely than not that they aren’t even aware of them, specially more relatively obscure elements like old Nazi propaganda. Having a British man as one of their main designers can help, but even Western people aren’t aware of all Western problems, so...

[tiefighters]

20 Facts About the Making of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Twenty years ago, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace graced movie theaters with an excitement level that’s still talked about today. But it wasn’t an easy path to get there. From developing film techniques & technology that seem common now, to a massive storm wiping out most of the Mos Espa set in Tunisia, there’s more to the story of making of Episode I than you probably know.

The Making of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, written by Laurent Bouzereau and Jody Duncan, was also released in 1999 and features candid tales of the production direct from writer and director George Lucas, the cast, and the crew of one of the most anticipated films in history. In addition, Lucasfilm produced a number of behind-the-scenes features that explored the making of the movie.

Check below for 20 behind-the-scenes facts and anecdotes straight from the people who were there. 

1. George Lucas wrote the Episode I script by hand with just pencil and notebook paper. In fact, he writes all of his scripts this way.

2. One of the biggest influences on the making of The Phantom Menace was The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Not only did a significant number of the television series’ crew and production team later work on The Phantom Menace, some of the techniques they perfected while filming the series were then used on Episode I. Rick McCallum, producer of the prequel trilogy, called the show a “testing bed to learn a new way of making films.”

3. Jar Jar Binks was originally designed with green skin. The design team later realized that most aquatic creatures on our own planet don’t sport green hues, so they changed his skin tone to orange instead.

4. Yaddle is actually an early “young Yoda” design. Concept artist Iain McCaig began designing the Jedi Master’s younger look as an eight-year-old version of the character. “That concept eventually became another Jedi in the film, Yaddle,” he revealed.

5. The moving mechanism inside Threepio’s head is a missile gyroscope. Chief Model Maker Lorne Peterson had found it and let the effects team borrow it, he said in the making-of featurette “Discoveries from Inside: Models & Miniatures.”

6. The design of the heavy troop transport in The Phantom Menace, the MTT, was inspired by elephants. In the featurette “Conversations: Doug Chiang Looks Back,” the concept artist talked about using familiar shapes to help the audience understand a design on a basic level. “If you look at the front of the MTT, the tiny little slits represent the elephant’s eyes and his forehead,” said Chiang. “And the trunk, I turned into the door, and the tusks actually become the two guns on the sides. “

7. Costume colors are specific to the planets of the galaxy far, far away. Iain McCaig and costume designer Trisha Biggar worked together to create the palettes: gray, brown, and black for Coruscant, green and gold for Naboo, and sun-bleached sandy colors for Tatooine.

8. Ewan McGregor had dialogue coaching to prepare for his role. He worked hard to capture the calming tones and inflections of Sir Alec Guinness to best play the character, which he called “quite tricky.”

9. Samuel L. Jackson got the role of Mace Windu in part through an appearance on the British talk show TFI Friday to promote a different movie. The casting director for The Phantom Menace, Robin Gurland, heard that Jackson made his wish to be in the new Star Wars known while chatting on the talk show, and the rest is history.

10. Ahmed Best was discovered through his performance in the theater show Stomp. Gurland happened to catch the show and spotted Best in the cast. His energy and performance made her realize, “He’s Jar Jar!”

11. Greg Proops and Scott Capurro recorded their podracing commentary in prosthetics and makeup. The footage would later be used as reference for their digital characters, Fode and Beed.

12. Plo Koon was named after the son of creature effects supervisor Nick Dudman. “I decided to call one of the Jedi Plonkoon, because we called my son that during his first year of life,” he said. “I wrote down Plonkoon, George crossed out the n and Plo Koon was born!”

13. The three Wookiees in the Galactic Senate all wore the same Chewbacca costume from the Lucasfilm archive. The actor in the old suit was filmed three different times with slight adjustments made to the hair. “When the shots were put together, we ended up with three different Wookiees out of one suit,” said Dudman.

14. The very first scene of The Phantom Menace that was filmed featured Darth Sidious and Darth Maul. Their balcony chat on Coruscant marked the beginning of production in 1997.

15. After a monstrous storm destroyed almost everything on the Mos Espa set, the Tunisian army helped rebuild it. Thanks to the fact that one set was luckily left in one piece — the landing ramp of the Naboo Royal Starship — plus the efforts of the entire crew and local helpers, production continued without delay.

16. The Jedi and Sith went through three hundred aluminum lightsaber blades while filming The Phantom Menace. Stunt coordinator Nick Gillard helped build the new lightsabers for the physically and mentally intensive duels.

17. Watto only has one full tusk so the audience can see his mouth move accurately when he speaks. The Toydarian was originally designed with two large tusks on either side of his trunk-like nose, but they would have prevented his lips from fully shaping words with an m or a b. One tusk was broken off and his lopsided smile was born.

18. Watto was also the first CG character that the effects team went to work on. Through his design and motions, the team quickly learned how to achieve what they wanted on featured digital characters. Even just the cord on his tool belt had to have its own computer program written to simulate its movement properly. (The same program would later be used for Jar Jar’s flapping ears.)

19. Some of the audience members at the Boonta Eve Classic podrace crowd are colorful cotton swabs. Sometimes practical effects work best to achieve just the right three-dimensional look for faraway shots, and a model maker had the creative idea to use the swabs in the arena models.

20. Some of the cheers and jeers emanating from the audience at the podrace are from a San Francisco 49ers game. Sound designer Ben Burtt recorded crowd reactions at the football game himself.

[red-applesith]

Is there any merit to the claims that the ST movies haven't been planned at all and that each director just takes things where they want? I always see antis claiming that but I've never seen proof of it? But at the same time some of the things cast members have said (mainly Daisy) do make me wonder if they have any idea of where the story of their characters is going. I would find it concerning and amateurish if there was never any plan at all from scratch.

Tbh Nonnie, antis have absolutely no concept of reality so I wouldn’t pay attention to any of the things they say. Even when they quote a director or an actor verbatim they misinterpret the meaning of the words used. 

Regarding the trajectory of the characters, my take from reading obsessively interviews since 2015 and fangirling over the series of “Art of Star Wars” books is that like most projects, the creators of the ST came up with the main STORY ELEMENTS but then each director was given carte blanche to create THEIR story (the script). 

Rey is a scavenger, Kylo fell to the darkside, Finn is an ex-stormtrooper are all story elements for instance.

In short, do I believe they knew they wanted to tell a certain story? Yes. 

Did they plan every single detail in advance? No --Otherwise, they wouldn’t have fired Trevorrow mid-way through the project and they wouldn’t need to reshoot scenes all the time (TFA had tons of reshoots, TLJ had a few and rumor is that they’re reshooting some scenes of TrOS right now). 

Projects like Star Wars have so many moving pieces. Things will evolve and change over the years. That’s normal. 

I looked up for you an interesting article I’d read about the influence of Lucas’ original ideas for the ST. Perhaps it will explain better than me. 

From www.starwarsnewsnet.com

PABLO HIDALGO SHEDS MORE LIGHT ON GEORGE LUCAS’S INFLUENCE ON THE SEQUEL TRILOGY

Not that long ago, some concept art from George Lucas’s pitch for Star Wars Episode VII finally surfaced, revealing that some of the key concepts that The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were built around were inspired by his treatment after all. Now, Pablo Hidalgo is taking to Twitter to explain the creative process on how things changed from conceptualization to actualization.

The first couple of points worth discussing here were actually brought up by Full Of Sith Podcast contributor Bryan Young on his Twitter page, where he noted that a number of story elements from both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were borrowed from Lucas’s story treatments based on The Art Of… books for both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Young mentioned that many of the plot points for the character of Kylo Ren were already decided by Lucas: that he would betray his uncle, kill many of his fellow students, and ultimately murder his own father. Likewise, Rey would ultimately convince Luke to get out of his depression and do something about the war. The key difference is that both of these events would have happened in the same Episode VII – whereas in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, they’re both late-movie plot points. Hidalgo added to Young’s observations by noting that Kylo Ren’s origin was actually intended to be explored in Episode VII instead of Episode VIII:

In a very general sense, the original idea of 7 started midway through what we now know as 8.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

So the difference between The Force Awakens and Episode VIIas it was originally conceived was that the story would have coincided with Ben Solo’s fall to the Dark Side. Instead, we’re introduced to him being Snoke’s apprentice for a few years:

The son falling to the dark side was always in the mix. The movies just ended up having it already an established fact.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

Later, Young got into an argument with an Expanded Universe fan who was unhappy with the direction of the new films. The EU fan argued that Star Wars Legends was closer to Lucas’s vision (it wasn’t), an Young responded by reiterating what was mentioned above, with other users chipping in to suggest that Lucas’s ideas weren’t completely scrapped so much as they were reworked by the people working on the new movies. Hidalgo added to the conversation by adding some of the code names for the other characters:

Skyler and Kira (and Kira wasn’t the first proposed name either; she had at least two others) became, after a fashion, Finn and Rey. The Jedi Killer morphed from Talon corrupting the son to becoming the son. Uber became Snoke. The starting point shifted. Yadda yada yada.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

“The Son” and “The Jedi Killer”, of course, referring to the character that would become Kylo Ren. “Talon”, interestingly enough, refers to the Sith Lady that was seen in the Star Wars: Legacy comics (an idea that Lucas did pull over from the Expanded Universe, though not in the way that the character was originally meant to appear). It’s also worth emphasizing that these are story treatments and not scripts – as far as we know, Lucas only completed an outline for Episode VII and only had a few other ideas for the other two movies:

I think the fact that a lot of people refer to the as ‘scripts’ show they don’t really understand what it is they’re talking about.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

Lastly, Hidalgo noted that “Skyler” (Finn) was originally The Son (Ben Solo) in some drafts of Episode VII:

Skyler was the son in some versions. And as for how all that was gonna go down, that ain’t my story to tell.

— The Tweets of San Francisco: A QM Production (@pablohidalgo) January 3, 2018

What an interesting dynamic that would have been… Nonetheless, we saw Kylo Ren and Finn play off of one another in The Force Awakens as foils, but not so much in The Last Jedi(where they don’t even share a scene).

That’s all for now, but it’s fascinating looking into the thought process that led to the creation of what we now know as the first two chapters of the Sequel Trilogy – and how Lucas ended up being a little more involved with these new movies than we once thought.