#her drive her motivations why she takes the hunt for the director so personally why she's obsessed with winning why tex drives her insane

[losttranslator]

#no idea what stormblood is but ya #carolina in RvB for sure 😂😂 @lilac-ari

Some people??? Don't like CAROLINA???? Arguably the best written character in RvB?? Her character was thought-through from beginning to end, she has a satisfying, well paced and well defined character arc, her flaws are realistic and her motives sympathetic - especially once you get to the Director reveal - and she works extremely well off the rest of the cast. She's not my favorite character but she has stellar writing that makes it so hard to NOT like her, or at least empathize with her.

thinking about how fandom's media comprehension gets reduced to the level of a toddler's whenever a woman is involved

[meggannn]

guerrilla does something interesting in HZD with aloy and her motivations and how they let her goals differ from the player's goals. most of the time when a main character's driving goals differ from the audience's, it means the writing has misfired and it feels jarring when you shine a spotlight on it. but it definitely works in HZD because guerilla knew what the player's immediate interests would be—they open their game with huge scenic shots of a pre-industrial community contrasted with these enormous robot dinosaurs! they want you to be sucked into the mystery of why things are the way they are—and they also knew going in that they had had to tie the player's interests to aloy's goals as a character (john gonzalez, the narrative director, talks about it a bit in this interview). and over time, the two start to bleed over as aloy starts to care about the old ones and we start to care more about her. i don't know if they'll continue this strategy in HFW, but they've set themselves up in a really unique situation with the contrast of aloy's focus on the present/future and the audience's interest (mostly) in the past.

i've been trying to find a way to articulate the ideas in this post for a while, and i am really tired so forgive me if this gets redundant or some sentences don't make sense lol. spoilers for HZD obv

in HZD, aloy, the motherless outcast, is largely concentrated on finding out the mystery of her origins. i mean hopefully we, the player, are also interested in that because it's a pretty unique set up (it's not possible for someone to not have a birth mother... right?), but i'm willing to bet that most of the audience was overwhelmingly more interested in figuring out what the hell happened to the old ones of this world (us) and why robots are wandering around everywhere, than we were about figuring out what happened to aloy's mom. (i'm aware that is a large assumption, but i think it's a pretty safe one considering the reactions i see when people finish the game usually mention APOLLO in some way, or ask if it's still around or there's a way to bring it back.)

for aloy, the status quo of robots-that-nobody-really-understands wandering around is just a constant of her life, and discovering her mother is her pressing issue. for us, this world's major differences between our world (why did we die off and why are robots now the dominant species on earth) are more fascinating. so guerrilla ties the micro and macro mysteries together so that we are also interested in aloy's journey about her origins: by making the story of her birth and the history of the world woven into the same narrative fabric

aloy even directly says "it (finding out info on the past) isn't why i'm here" and sylens replies sarcastically "of course, what's the whole of human history compared to the search of one girl?" it isn't until after aloy realizes she's a clone, that she doesn't have a traditional birth mother, when she faces the nora and decides to stop HADES because GAIA asked her to, in a sign of extreme maturity and character growth (imo), does her goal of helping GAIA by beating HADES now start to align with the player's goals of trying to "set the world right" (by helping GAIA by beating HADES).

it's interesting because if anything, sylens, the anti-hero and arguable deuteragonist, is the character whose goals most match up with the audience's own throughout HZD: he's the one who is seeking out the knowledge of the old ones, he's the one who mourns losing APOLLO the way we do. aloy doesn't really react to what became of APOLLO at all (when it's revealed what happened to it, her immediate response is sorrow over the alphas' deaths, the more human element compared to sylens's laser focus on info-hunting). sylens is... also a total asshole and might be an anti-villain in the upcoming games (i hope not; i hope he's more of a rogue agent than an actual villain, personally) so it will be interesting if the audience eventually starts feeling torn between aloy's goals (save the world today) and sylens's (recover what can be saved the world of the old ones)

for aloy, APOLLO's absence is not a loss because she's never known a world without the knowledge of the old ones. why does she care about expending energy to hunt for info on our music and art and politics and wars? how does shifting through datapoints about things she doesn't understand and tools/tech she doesn't have access to help the planet today? after discovering GAIA's origins and purpose, i'm sure she'd probably be interested in recovering APOLLO if there is anything left of it to recover—even she's only interested in it to honor samina/elisabet's memory and the effort of PZD—but a lot of the fandom (myself included) keeps hoping and speculating and wondering if APOLLO is still around because APOLLO is the audience, or rather, it's the last scraps of what's left of us. we have an interest in APOLLO but aloy never shows any interest in or sorrow over it besides to vaguely wonder what happened to it. her interests are in the here and now.

when the audience looks at her world, we see what we've lost, and we know APOLLO is a way to get some of it back. for aloy, she's definitely engaged and interested in the old ones' technology and wants to make sure PZD's work is continued and restored and rebuild GAIA, so if APOLLO turns out to be around i'm sure she'd be interested in it, but for now, she's got too many things going on to consider it a priority. and even if she did, it would have to come after she's taken care of the immediate threats of the other chaotic subfunctions; and she would have to justify the time and energy spent on APOLLO to the value it gives her world (a world that doesn't utilize focuses as much as PZD had hoped, and a world whose language has likely changed enough that they might not even understand what they were being told) because she'd have to do it for her world. her world is already here, the old ones' world is gone, and her world the one that needs saving, not the possibility of bringing the old ones' back

so guerrilla has set themselves up with something very interesting here imo where the protag and the audience have mostly aligned but largely separate primary interests and i'm very curious to see how these interests will keep aligning, or not, in the future. personally i think they'll make the main focus of the series discovering and befriending the subfunctions and restoring GAIA, while also wrestling with modern-day politics in an effort to start preparing contemporary groups of people for a more holistic understanding of nature and machines, with the hopes of preparing them for GAIA's return and a future where they 1. take care of the planet and 2. stop attacking machines for parts lol. and i think they'll drag out the mystery of APOLLO possibly still being around until the end (assuming there will be 3 or more games).

personally, when i look at what we've been given so far (everything could change when HFW comes out), i could go either way on if APOLLO is still actually around or not. it would be an interesting (if expected) twist, but i wouldn't want it as wish fulfillment; i wouldn't want it to be used as a cheat that suddenly means ted faro's harm can be negated, or brought back as a HEA in a way that implies knowledge will suddenly be used and spread equally or even easily. also we should consider APOLLO is now an AI of its own! it will have opinions and things and the will to act on them!

discounting the overwhelmingly difficult logistics of introducing APOLLO to a new world that has evolved without its involvement from its inception, if APOLLO comes back in the way the we, the audience, want it to, then spreading several millennia's worth of knowledge to several diverse, warring peoples is full of difficult challenges that you are now suddenly introducing; aloy + GAIA + co. would now be in charge of not only taking care of humans on this spinning ball called earth, but also educating them equally and fairly. it's a huge task to introduce on aloy's already very busy schedule! so frankly i wouldn't be surprised if they wrote APOLLO off and went with an "it sucks but we have to make the most of the world the old ones left us" angle—or, alternatively, have aloy (or sylens!) dedicate the rest of her life traveling and hunting down and/or spreading what remains of APOLLO'S knowledge?

idk! there's a lot to dissect here about what guerrilla is doing and where APOLLO fits in as both a possible ally/villain and a narrative tool to keep us interested (it is a carrot on the stick for the audience)! and i find it all very interesting!!

[reidingandwriting]

Chapter Three: “Your Obedient Servant”

“You’ve kept me from the room where it happens for the last time.”

Word count: ~2450 words

Warnings: Shitty parent, verbal abuse from mother, language, bullying, brief mention of alcohol, mention of guns, implied murder, typical Criminal Minds-esque details towards the murder but nothing graphic.

Characters mentioned: Neutral!Reader, Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, Aaron Hotchner

Original characters: Reader’s mother and father, Este and her family, Lara, Andrew Walker, and Abby. 

Mentions of: David Rossi, Erin Strauss, and Penelope Garcia

A/N: And here we are! Chapter three! I think I have marked all warnings but if there are any I’ve missed, please feel free to let me know! As always, feedback is always appreciated. This chapter is kind of background of reader focused and I’m so sorry for that. I hope y’all can enjoy anyways and enjoy the turn made towards bringing everyone in. Next chapter will fully bring the team in and I’m excited! That’s enough out of me, enjoy the chapter!

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Eight years old…

“What in fresh hell are you doing?” A voice came from your doorway, one that belonged to your mother. You didn’t look up from where you laid on the floor, a colored pencil in your hand and a coloring book was spread out in front of you. Your room was illuminated by the lamp on your bedside table, it being well past your bedtime.

“Coloring. Couldn’t sleep.” Footsteps got louder as your mother approached and you flinched as she snatched the book up.

“What time is your bedtime?”

“Eight-thirty.” She cleared her throat. “Ma’am.”

“And it’s midnight. So your ass should be where?”

“But I wasn’t making any noise.” Your eyes met your mother’s and her harsh glare made you look back down. “In bed.”

“That’s right.” She grabbed your arm and pulled you to your feet, and you tried not to wince. “If I come check on you and catch you out of this bed again, you’re gonna be in so much trouble, kid.”

“But what if I can’t sleep?” You asked as you climbed back into your bed.

“You’ll fall asleep eventually.” Your mother turned off your lamp, the warm glow of the room now being replaced by total darkness. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Your mother walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. You listened for a minute to make sure she was really in bed before you pulled your stuffed animal to your chest and screwed your eyes shut.

“Unfortunately.”

Sixteen years old…

“Happy birthday, kiddo. The big sixteen.” You smiled as you held your phone, sat on the bench outside of school as you waited for your mom to pick you up. Your dad was on the other end of the phone, and you had to admit you missed him. “Still up for your visit this weekend?”

“Are you? You pulled a Mom and bailed on me last time.” Your words could sound harsh to anyone passing by, but there was no malice behind them, just a teasing smile. And you could practically hear your dad rolling his eyes.

“Brat.”

“Yours truly.”

“I promise, nothing will stop me from seeing you this weekend. It’s not every day your only child turns sixteen.” A sigh from the other end makes your heart clench. “I miss you, kid.”

“I miss you too, Dad. I can’t wait to see you.” “Ditto.” Muffled voices were heard in the background before your dad spoke again. “I have to go, but I expect to hear all about your birthday extravaganza Saturday.”

“You mean my trip to the bookstore with Este and dinner with her family? Mom’s too busy with her new fu-”

“Uh uh. It may be true, but don’t finish that sentence.” You could hear the smile in your dad’s voice, mixed with irritation. “I love you, sunshine.”

“I love you, Dad. See you Saturday.”

“See you then.” You hung up and tucked your phone into your pocket, opening the book that sat in your lap to read as you waited for your mom to pick you up from school.

You were delved deep into your book, the sound of the athletes practicing in the nearby fields fading into silence as you let yourself become entranced in your book. You didn’t notice the looming shadow of Lara standing over you.

“Well, thanks, Y/L/N! I’ve been looking for a new book.” You jumped when you heard her voice. She snatched the book from your hands and you reached for it, but she was quicker.

“Give it back!”

“Really? David Rossi?” Lara scoffed and tossed the book over her shoulder where it landed in a pile of mud by the sidewalk we were on. “Whoops.” Lara walked past you, her shoulder knocking harshly into yours. “It’s too easy with them.” Lara said to herself and you ran to your book, and your eyes watered as you knelt down to pick it up, the book being covered in mud.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.” You whispered to yourself as you held the book and tried your best to wipe the mud off it. You sighed in resignation and walked to the trash can a few feet away and set the book in. You were going to the bookstore tomorrow, you could replace it then.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when a car honked and you looked up, noticing your mother’s car. “Come on, we’ve got places to be.” Your mother yelled from the open window and you nodded.

“Coming.” You called out and jogged over to the car, throwing your backpack into the backseat before you got into the passenger seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” She gestured to your red eyes before she noticed your dirty hands. “Gross, how old are you?” She slapped the back of your head and you digged for napkins in the glove compartment while apologizing repeatedly.

“I’m sorry. Lara threw my book in the mud and I tried to save it.”

“Those were weird books anyways. She did you a favor.”

Twenty-two years old…

“Look at our college graduate, Jess.” Este’s father, Phil, smiled from the head of the table. “Look out, world, you’re not prepared.”

“I will not be taking over the world until Y/N is. They still have one year to finish their master’s degree. So I’m taking a gap year. Maybe I’ll go husband hunting.”

“Or, you know, do something that’ll look better on your job applications.” Este’s sister deadpanned.

“Where’s the fun in that?” You nudged Este with your foot and gave her a playful warning look. Este stuck her tongue out at you and you mirrored her expression.

“I wish Y/N would have majored in the same thing as you, Este.” Not even fifteen words out of your mother and the whole atmosphere was brought down. Why couldn’t she be with Joe? Jonah? J-something. “Instead of aiming for the FBI, where you’re not even guaranteed a job.”

“Which is why I majored in criminology. Minored in digital forensics. And I’m earning my masters in forensic psychology.” You responded, not sparing her a glance.

“And if you still don’t-”

“I think my credentials will be impressive regardless.” You paused as the waitress stopped by, setting everyone’s plates down. You thanked her as she left, before looking at your mother. “Even if I don’t immediately get offered a job, I don’t mind. I can work my way to the FBI. I don’t get bored of something within a month.” Bella’s eyes widened and Este smirked to herself as she took a sip of her drink.

“I would sure hope not! College would have been a bad idea if you couldn’t work at something for a month.” Jessica, Este’s mother, tried to joke but your mother was relentless.

“I hope you fix your personality before you apply or they’ll never let you in through the door.”

“You don’t like it? I learned from you.” Your mother stood from her chair, the chair scraping loudly against the floor.

“I’m done.”

“Drive safe.” You called out to your mother’s retreating form and rolled your eyes as you turned to Este. “Drinks?”

“Drinks.”

Twenty-five years old…

“So, you’re about halfway done with your training at the Academy.” You sat across from your field counselor, Abby. “How have things been?”

“Andrew and I had some… creative differences with firearms training.”

“Creative differences?” Abby asked and you thought back to the day.

You had missed the vital shots multiple times, and you and Andrew both were getting irritated at each other. What was meant to be motivating turned snarky, which had started to turn condescending. You started off getting close to your vitals, and with each negative comment, your concentration turned to frustration which led to further off shots.

“If you could make these three shots so I can leave, that would be great. Come on, how are you going to ace rifle training but not handgun? I might as well talk to our program director and tell her your future in the Academy and FBI is a deadend. But if she ever needs a sharp-shooter…” And something snapped inside you, and you shot the five targets in front of you perfectly. Alternating between head and chest shots, straight in the middle. Bullseyes. You turned to face Andrew, walked towards him and set your gun in his hand.

“You may leave now.” You walked towards the doors of the firing range and called out. “See you tomorrow.”

“I see.” There was a hint of a smirk on her face as she spoke. “You know you can’t let people get to you like he did. It may have benefitted you this time, but there will come a time where you’ll reach your breaking point and lose your temper at your superior and risk your job.”

“You know about my parents, it’s kind of genetic.” You sighed. “But I will work on it. I know I need to.”

“Good. And I’ll have a word with Andrew about his motivational methods.” You let out a laugh before your session continued.

Thirty-one years old…

You sat in Hotch’s office and your body language screamed ‘angry.’ Your arms were crossed over your chest, your foot tapped against the floor, and if that wasn’t enough, the saying if looks could kill truly applied to you right now. If looks could kill, Aaron Hotchner would be a pile of dust in his chair. But like usual, Hotch’s body language was as usual. Professional, stoic, cold. He’d warmed up to the rest of the team, surprising you that he wasn’t truly emotionless after all. But that persona never came out around you. All that came out was indifference at best. Disapproval at worst, often paired with anger. Disappointment. That’s all you’d ever be, huh?

You had been called to Hotch’s office after you got back from your latest case. You’d never seen Hotch as mad as he was then. To anyone else, it might seem like he got mad because he cared about you and your wellbeing. But that was not the case today. You didn’t follow his orders, and now you were to pay the consequences.

“I am slow to anger, but I toe the line as I think about the effects of your choices on the team. I look back on where we failed, but in every place I checked, the only common thread?”

“Let me guess, me?” You interrupted.

“Your disrespect.” Hotch narrowed his eyes at you.

“You call me inexperienced, a danger to the team.” You leaned forward as you began to speak.

“Agent, if you’ve got something to say-” You raised your hand, cutting him off.

“Name a time and place, face to face. Then we can really talk.” You rested your hands on his desk, matching the expression he was giving you.

“That is enough, Agent Y/L/N.” Hotch spoke after a minute of your stare-down, and you settled back into your seat.

“I’m just an agent, trying to do my best for our team. I don’t want to fight but I won’t apologize for doing what I believe was right.”

“Careful, Y/N, or it’ll be the end of your career at the BAU. Not mine.”

“I won’t apologize for my actions, if that’s what you’re looking for.” You shrugged.

“Then be prepared to meet with me and Strauss tomorrow morning to discuss your placement on this team.” Hotch leaned back in his chair.

“Are you fucking serious? Every agent on this team has gone against orders. Even you have given the middle finger to direct orders several times. I make one call that goes against your orders, one that allows us to save the hostage and take in the unsub, and now you’re threatening my career?” You scoffed and looked your boss in the eyes as you stood up. “Unbelievable.”

“Nine sharp, agent.” Hotch kept eye contact with you as he spoke.

“Oh, I have the honor to be your obedient servant, sir.” You turned on your heel and stormed out of the office, slamming the door as you left.

Today…

You sat outside Andrew Walter’s house, lying in wait. Andrew lived in Baltimore now, having quit his job to work at a local FBI field office. You think a federal agent would have been more private about his life; it didn’t take Penelope Garcia to figure out where he worked. Where he lived. You had been waiting for the perfect moment to revisit him, and now you had it. Now was all waiting for the window of opportunity to hit. The window to open just enough for you to seize your chance and show him what all you had become since you graduated from the Academy.

The last light flickered off in his home and you looked down the street. No cars moving, no sounds of laughter or conversations could be heard from your spot. It was almost eerily silent, but there was a rush of an unknown emotion flooding through you. You tucked your gun into your waistband, snapping your gloves into place, and adjusting your hood over your hat. You got out of your car and walked up to the house, a smirk on your face.

---

“Come in.” Hotch glanced up from his paperwork, JJ standing in his doorway.

“I know we don’t typically take cases only involving one person.” JJ said as she walked over to Hotch’s desk. “The detective thinks there is a possibility it could be related to the Fairfax murder.”

“And do you?” Hotch held his hand out for the file and JJ set it in his hand before taking a seat.

“The possibility is there, but the similarities are basic. Both victims were men who died by gunshots. But our Fairfax victim was married, this guy is single. And in Baltimore. There’s a bit of distance between the two cities, but definitely a doable drive.”

“We’ve seen further.” Hotch opened the file and his brows furrowed. “And he died by gunshot?”

“There was some blunt force trauma involved, but the M.E. says the cause of death was the gunshot wound. All the other injuries were sustained antemortem.”

“Personal?”

“Or was our unsub physically incapable of subduing him before injuring him?” A beat of silence.

“Everyone else is here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. We have a case.”

Taglist: @spideyspeaches @ssa-sugar-tits @willowsbendtothewind-blog @lazy-bird-fanfics @spencerhotchner @lolychu @ajeff855 @averyhotchner @meowiemari @liagzs @herecomesthewriterwitch @colorful-quinn @haylaansmi @theroyalsaikou @boring-yet-creatively-odd @drreidsconverse @notyourcupofteax @catherine-nelson @reids-mismatchedsocks @lieswithoutfairytales @devilswaldorf @panhoeofmanyfandoms @sassiest-politician @yoshigguk @httpeacewitch @feedthemadness-sweetie 🤍 Taglist and requests are OPEN, send an ask/message/whatever makes you comfortable to be added or send a request :))

[darkpoisonouslove]

2, 3 and 4 :)?

Thanks! :D

This one is from a Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries AU that I haven't talked about yet because it's still a mess in my head and I don't particularly care about the murders if I'm being honest, just about the setup they provide. So if this ever gets written, it's only going to be the emotional scenes with character development and barely anything on the actual crime solving.

2. What’s your favorite relationship in your story? Could be the main one, one your characters shares with a friend, etc.

My favorite relationship is between Griffin (the main character) and Bloom, who she takes in at the end of the first episode since Bloom has nowhere to go (or that's what she tells her) and isn't quite of age yet. I love the way they rely on each other since both of them are loners of their own doing because they're both convinced they are dangerous to the people around them and keep their distance to keep everyone else safe from themselves. It turns out that Griffin was friends with Bloom's dead parents and the relationship between the two of them helps Griffin come to terms with her past and her involvement in the events that killed Bloom's parents. Griffin helps Bloom break away from her fear of herself and learn more about herself and her abilities. They just really make each other's lives livable and much more and I love how they bring out so much positive change in the other.

3. If you had to direct a scene from your fic, what would you choose? Why? What would it look like? What techniques would you use to convey certain emotions? What would the set look like?

I think I'd pick the scene where Griffin's best friend - Faragonda - is brought in for questioning on suspicion of murder. I choose this scene because it brings out the most emotions from Faragonda. She's a warm person but she has a lot of trauma and hurt buried deep down and this scene brings all of that to the surface. Her private life and her emotional state are undergoing scrutiny by a person who's a stranger to her and by her best friend and she has things she would like to keep private from both of them. There's a big moment in the scene where feelings of hurt and pain between Griffin and Faragonda come out and there's a very tense feeling because that is a big reveal that they need to deal with to keep their friendship going but in the current moment they need to push it down in order to be able to prove Faragonda's innocence and there are these opposing impulses that are both aimed at saving their friendship in completely different ways. There's a lot of unwillingness on Faragonda's part to admit the truth even when she knows that not admitting it could get her in jail for murder and there's a lot of desperation on Griffin's part to help her friend only to be slapped in the face with how detrimental her past decisions have been to their friendship. On top of that, there's also the matter of them both a) mourning their shared friend that was killed, b) find the killer in order to honor their friend and find justice for her murder and c) shame that neither of them knows their dead friend well enough to be of more use to the investigation. It's a very emotional scene and one that speaks volumes of their characters and friendship.

Now I don't know much about directing but the scene would take place in a room for questioning and I would keep it as decluttered as possible. Only a table and chairs and the characters inside. Both as a way of leaving them nowhere to hide from the truth and so that there won't be anything to distract from the emotions that are taking place. Even their clothing would probably be an idea plainer than usual for that purpose. There will be, of course, fidgeting with any part of their outfits and avoidance of eye contact. I would mostly focus the camera on Griffin and Faragonda with enough time for the words that are said to sink in for both of them. There will only be quick shots of Valtor to remind that he is there both as an outsider to their friendship (something that will annoy Faragonda) and as the new variable that they desperately need to get out of the mess they've made (since left to their own devices, they managed to end up with suspicions of murder and bitterness between them). I could see Griffin standing while Faragonda and Valtor are sitting and towering over them as the one with the highest drive to get everything resolved (since she doesn't have any notions that are holding her back like the other two do). There's definitely a distance between her and Faragonda and it doesn't grow when the reveals happen but it's there to show the way they are stuck at a certain distance from each other thanks to their choices. Valtor is very much the one directing the conversation, though, and handling the impact that the confessions make on the two of them. That's all I can think of for now. I tried my best but you tell me if you'd hire me as a director. XD

4. What are your main character(s)’ motivations? What do you consider their main drivers?

Griffin's motivation in coming back to Magix City and solving crimes is to make up for her past mistakes. She's done some bad things that she can't make her peace with despite the long time that's passed (over 17 years) and she is trying to do the right thing now. Or at least that's what she tells herself. In fact, she is trying to run away from the overwhelming guilt she feels about her mother's death and she's trying to protect her father from herself because she's making him suffer with her inability to let go of that as she's still hunting for the killer over two decades later. She feels that if she finds out who murdered her mother and finds firm evidence of the motive, it would help her put the past to rest (and maybe feel less guilty).

The motivation of the other main character - Valtor - is actually a big twist so like MAJOR SPOILERS (I say like I'm confident this will definitely see the light of day and it might very well never see the light of day but still)). Valtor's main focus is finding a way out of the situation he's in where he's being blackmailed into working for the wrong side of the law. He did some things he shouldn't have (much like Griffin) and now they're being hung over his head by the big baddies and he needs to do what he's told which makes Griffin feel wildly betrayed when she learns about that in the last season. And I still haven't figured out what his cover-up motivation will be while he's hiding his true intentions because I haven't had time yet to consider all the characters individually while I'm piecing together the big picture.

There are several other characters who make appearances in almost every episode but I haven't yet figured out all of this AU so I'd rather not talk about them before I've decided what goes where.

Ask me fanfic questions

[alwaysthinkingoutloud]

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 3, Season 1 (Potage)

The first scene of the episode takes us back to Abigail’s memories of hunting with her dad. That whole memory provides us with a brand-new aspect to who Abigail is what Hannibal might see in her.  Suddenly, it makes us question if Hannibal saw her as something more than a tool to draw Will in. Afterall, Hannibal’s philosophy would not sound too strange or bizarre to Abigail than what she already is accustomed to. She grew up being taught to normalize killing and eating what she kills with maybe different reasons than Hannibal, but obviously she still is the most fitting instrument to whatever he is planning.

Alana comes to Will’s house to talk about Abigail’s waking up from the coma and when Will expresses his concerns for Abigail’s being left alone, she says “Dogs keep a promise a person can’t”. And Will replies it with “I am not collecting another stray”. While she is trying to warn Will before he makes a huge commitment he probably cannot keep, because of guilt; she compares Will to a dog and Will compares Abigail to one. In the previous episode’s article I had already expressed my thoughts about Will’s relationship with dogs and how I think it represents his animalistic, urge-full side. So I find this set of metaphors to be a touch-on to Abigail’s yet-hidden killer side and Will’s subconscious recognition and acceptance of that, along with his own.

The conversation of Alana and Abigail is pretty informing about who Abigail is. When Alana walks into room and says that she is a psychiatrist, Abigail’s curious, if not tactical, question of what kind? and Alana’s saying family trauma (and not, for example, criminal something), ends up Abigail’s facial expressions to suddenly change into one that looks victimized. I do not believe it was an emotional transaction, I think it was one on purpose. As Alana later will say, Abigail shows enough-to-be-considered-healthy emotion about her parents’ deaths but also enough detachment from what happened to falsely suggest a lack of connection on her behalf. Her jumping from the topic of her parents’ being dead and her dad being a serial killer to making plans about college is not a mere denial caused by being traumatized but also a strategical move that someone of guilt would do. Her lying to nurses and trying to analyze Dr. Bloom is not a very victim-like behavior, she manipulates and tries to establish a position of dominance. I am this close to almost suggesting that this is something Hannibal would do. Hannibal made a fantastic move, bringing Abigail into the equation. (Abigail’s yet-to-come talk with Freddie is another example to what this paragraph is telling too.)

When Jack, Alana and Hannibal come into the same room together; everybody’s priority is different. Jack wants the case to resolve at all costs (at the cost of Will’s or Abigail’s stability), Alana wants the best for Abigail and Will, protecting their mental health and Hannibal wants neither. He wants the case to stay unresolved or resolved in a way he is pleased, and he wants both Will and Abigail in a position that is furthest from being stable. Actually in his thinking, he does want the best for them. Afterall, that is how Hannibal operates. He wants people pushed to their darkest potential, to unleash their beast, in whatever form it may come. He does that by increasing chaos around him and he feeds on that chaos. He sets things into motion to ends that even he sometimes does not know what of. So of course, he will agree with anything that stirs up the pot, which is right now Will and Abigail coming together.

Hannibal and Jack walks into classroom when Will is giving a lecture about the Copycat Killer. While doing so, he describes the killer in detail and to our knowledge, quite accurately so too. Hannibal seems to be listening to him intrigued and almost fascinated at Will’s deductions about the killer since they are so right and his smile reaches its max (well… max at Hannibal standards) when Will points out that the unidentified caller is in fact, the Copycat Killer. He is not just enjoying the thrill to be discussed as a killer in the same classroom he is standing in, without a soul knowing; what he enjoys the most is Will’s closing in. His spot-on deductions on what kind of person the killer is. Maybe this is the first time Hannibal hears someone speaking about the real version of him who is not wearing a person suit and doing that quite accurately too. Will is getting to know him, real him, and Hannibal enjoys it.

Will and Hannibal take Abigail for a walk in the greenhouse, Will supporting Abigail’s arm with his own. There is a one-second scene where Hannibal also touches Abigail’s arm (but that is all it is, a very no purpose-serving touch) to try and help her sit just like Will does and looks at Will, almost hoping to find appreciation or approval, which makes me smile.

During the conversation of Will and Abigail, the camera focuses on Hannibal only right after Abigail says, “That’s not all I brought out in him”. Up until then, Hannibal seems almost bored with their conversation about her mom. But that sentence makes something in him move, suggesting that he may be hoping Abigail to bring out something in Will too. Maybe that something being protective feelings against her which can be manipulated to familiarize Will with normalization of crime. Abigail continues to express her concerns about being messed up and having nightmares. But Hannibal only says “We will help with the nightmares.”, so they will not with her being messed up part? Well, why on earth would he? That is exactly how Hannibal wants her, messed up as others would say, or perfect as Hannibal would. Then, Abigail finally asks a question to Will that intrigues Hannibal the most, “Does killing somebody…feel that bad?”. Hannibal almost holds his breath waiting for Will’s reply. In return, Will gives a very interesting answer. He does not say yes it does, he does not confirm. He says, instead, that it is the ugliest thing in the world. He maybe right, but ugliness is not equal to badness, is it?  Ugliness is a measure of visual taste, not a measure of morality. He almost suggests, killing may be an ugly act, but does not necessarily feel bad.

“It is not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks of killing people for a living.”

says Will to Freddie, in response to her threats about badmouthing him to Abigail. Obviously, Abigail already became family for Will. He protects her and shows a very different face of his when his relationship with Abigail is threatened to get compromised. A face that Hannibal loves seeing Will with. So when Jack asks Hannibal why he let Will say those words, Hannibal gives some Hannibalistic answer while smirking in a very non-subtle way. Of course, he would not stop Will in one of those rare times that he reveals his inner demons, Hannibal counts on it, even.

The second time Alana and Hannibal have different opinions (the first time was about Will going to see Abigail) is about if it is right for Abigail to visit her home where all the crime happened. While Alana disagrees with the idea on an attempt of saving Abigail from possible trauma, Jack chooses to go with Hannibal’s idea which is that confronting everything that happened in her home could be healing for Abigail. Jack is so blinded by his professional ambition to figure out everything hastily that he does not even realize how much damage he is causing unknowingly by each time not taking Alana’s professional opinion over Hannibal’s, whose motive actually is the opposite of Jack’s.

I think right about here is a good place to express my thoughts about Hannibal’s effect vs Jack’s effect on Will/Abigail. Although Hannibal is supposed to be the so-called ‘villian’ in this show, the serial killer, the cannibal, the person who drives people’s minds off the edge, the person standing opposite of law enforcement; he has a moral code. A code that is very different from the consensus but nevertheless, a code. And all the mind games he plays with Will and Abigail are meant to serve a purpose of helping them achieving their highest selves. Not forcefully making them into someone they are not, not harming them of out nowhere, but watering the seed of whatever it is inside them. To his thinking, he is elevating them. Helping them. On the contrary, Jack being one of the good guys in the show, the FBI director, the voice of justice; he manipulates and uses Will and Abigail never having their best interest in his mind. The only thing he cares about is the crimes and criminals; and everyone else’s stability and sanity, if lost on the way, is considered collateral damage. Unlike Hannibal, he does what he does to Will and Abigail knowing that it might end up harming them. So it is open to discussion, if Jack’s morality is any better than Hannibal’s. Or if his even is half consistent as Hannibal’s. I will come back to that in the coming episodes.

While still in the office and the four are talking, we learn that Jack’s motivation to take Abigail home is about gaining information about the Copycat. That is probably when the wheels started turning in Hannibal’s head about diverting FBI. Hannibal’s acts are never well-planned or calculated until the moment of actually killing someone. Although he is spotless on his murders, he rolls the dice and works with the material he is given on the events that lead up to those murders. Yes, he has one great big plan that consists of bloodshed, severed limps and a few people on specific positions; but he does not have one definite way to reach that. He goes with the flow placing the pieces into their places, which is what makes him that exciting: His unpredictability. 

The short conversation happening between Will and Abigail about Will’s empathizing and his putting himself in her father’s shoes are seemingly pleasing for Hannibal. Afterall, more bonded they become, greater the chance of Will protecting her on all costs and consequently that cost being slipping away from the light side into Hannibal’s lap (sigh). When the topic of why they came there (to find out about the man who called the house that morning) comes up and Will asks her about the caller, she throws a very quick glance at Hannibal while saying that she did not recognize the caller’s voice, which suggests that it is a lie. Hannibal looks a little surprised, either for the fact that she remembered his voice, or that she did and did not blurt it out. Considering Hannibal’s thick accent, it is unlikely that someone would not recognize it after hearing it. So the second option weighs more heavily, just as her suggesting Hannibal being the man on the phone on a reenactment proves it so.

“One cannot be delusional if the belief in question is accepted as ordinary by others in that person’s culture or subculture. Or family.” 

says Hannibal and it says a lot. Is not this the very thing Hannibal is trying to do? Putting together a family where his beliefs will be accepted as ordinary? Providing the same freedom to other members of his family as well? Making a family to set them all free, along with himself?

When Marissa shows up and somewhere in between the events calls her mom a bitch, considering the look Hannibal gave her (a very similar look he had given to Franklyn after he blew his nose and placed the dirty napkin on the table), her death was expected. The combination of that and finding the stone stained with Nicholas Boyle’s blood would be an obvious one-stone-two-bird solution to Hannibal’s diverting FBI from the Copycat Killer plan.

The second time Will dreams about the stag is at least as illuminating as the first one. He dreams about the stag right after the Copycat Killer kills someone. The first time, he saw it after Hannibal killed Cassie Boyle. And this time, we will learn that he sees it after Marissa was killed. I do not think that is a coincidence. This time though, as a difference, Will sees himself as the stag getting into a defensive position against Abigail’s throat being cut, again by himself. So he has no way out, either he is the guy killing Abigail or he is the stag who we already know is a killer, although is in defense right now. This almost suggests that deep down he knows regardless of the path chosen, there is no escape from blood. There is only a lesser evil, maybe, and that is killing to save. And the stag is the representative of this lesser evil in the dream, which is interesting because well, we know the stag will turn into Hannibal. Almost to suggest that, Hannibal’s true evil self without the person suit and Will’s maybe acceptable lesser evil sides will be one, to complete one another. (I may be reaching with that one…)

When Alana, Abigail, Will and Hannibal reach to cabin; the look on Hannibal’s face when Will asks Abigail if there is anyone else beside her and her dad who has been to the cabin and she says no, suggests that it is not true, although she is not aware of it and it also suggests that the plan of Hannibal is put into motion. In a little while, he also loudly accuses of Nicholas to kill his sister and Marissa, suggesting he is the Copycat Killer. 

While Hannibal is making remarks about this killer not being Garret Jacob Hobbs because of leaving a body behind and not eating all of it, Will gives him a little disturbed look. Either because Hannibal looks too certain speaking, or because deep down, Will is smelling something suspicious. He actually gave a very similar look to Hannibal when he came into his classroom in between his lecture about the Copycat Killer. I do not think it is a coincidence, but it is very arguable to what degree Will’s awareness was at that point, even on a subconscious level. (There is another possibility that Will’s looks at Hannibal are just/also because he finds Hannibal glamorous with the way he thinks and everything ;)) )

Hannibal, hearing Freddie talk about someone else lurking around the house, asks her if she saw Nicholas. So we conclude that by putting the blame on Nicholas, what Hannibal hopes to achieve is to draw him out to the house to talk to Abigail to clear his name and… Well, there is no “and”. That is probably as far as his plan went and Hannibal did not know that Abigail would kill Nicholas but we can say he hoped she would. Creating a bond (preferably) and/or leverage (that can be used if Abigail did not turn out to be compliant) between them perfectly.

After Abigail escapes from the hospital and comes to Hannibal’s office, in between the conversation Hannibal says, you climbed over the wall, which means, apart from its literal meaning, that after she killed Nicholas, she is now free. By killing him, she broke her restraints and now in new territory. Then, he tells her to come down from there, suggesting after climbing over the wall, what you do is to come down, where Hannibal is also standing. Meaning, Hannibal also had climbed over the wall and now they are at the same side, so she can relax. This is the family where the belief is accepted as ordinary.

While Hannibal convinced her that if she did not hide the body, nobody would believe her innocence right after she killed Nicholas, insinuating she had no choice but to ask for Hannibal’s help; now that it is all over, he tells her that most people actually would believe that she was innocent. Abigail who understands that she has been manipulated, puts the pieces together and reveals that she did know Hannibal was the one who called the house. Not trusting her enough yet, Hannibal does not deny what she is saying so that she would feel let in, but not so much to let her in all the way either, creating a balanced relationship dynamic (of course, in the eyes of Abigail) between them. Then, by saying “No more climbing walls, Abigail, he makes sure she understands they are in the same side now, as equals (he lets she thinks) and there is no going back.

[charliejrogers]

Under the Skin (2014) - Review

For a lot of science fiction movies, I find myself enjoying the ideas of the film more than I think I actually enjoyed the film. It’s what I’ll refer to as the Annihilation-syndrome, named after the 2018 movie that I found to be an absolute bore while also being an exceedingly intellectually stimulating discussion about the nature of cancer, mutation, and biology in general. The film I am reviewing now, 2014’s Under the Skin, honestly is nowhere near as unenjoyable as Annihilation, but I mention the film because I think much of this review will focus on the really interesting ideas this movie brought up which might make you think I thought this is a masterpiece. It’s not. It’s good, very good even, but not as good as its theme and ideas.

A lot of my restrained enthusiasm has to do with the fact that the film is purposefully cryptic and full of esoteric imagery. While there are spoken parts, I don’t think much would be lost if we couldn’t hear what was being said. That is to say, the dialogue doesn’t do much to make sense of what we are seeing displayed on screen.In fact, there are large sections of characters interacting without any dialogue, yet everything is understood.

To its credit, what we are seeing is largely very beautiful from a cinematography point of view. Much of the film takes place in the city of Edinbugh, Scotland and it captures well the urban grit of the city and how our protganoist fits well within that urban environment. The way the red lights of Edinburgh’s traffic lighst cast a foreboding, menacing band over the protagonist’s eyes as she drives about town on the hunt for men to ensnare in her trap shows that this dangerous character is right at home in the anonymity of the city.

The protagonist is played by Scarlett Johansson, who spends most of the film alternating between being the pinnacle of seduction in the eyes of the heterosexual male gaze and being a lifeless void. That’s because Johansson plays an alien (I think) or at the very least a humanoid being who seems to have the sole purpose of finding lonely men, taking them back to her lair, and trapping them in a sunken-place-like void where ultimately everything but their skin is extracted from them. I’ll henceforth refer to this character simply as “the humanoid” with she/her pronouns for clarity. We never learn the humanoid’s motivations, but we know that she’s not acting alone. She’s supported in her ventures by a (presumably) humanoid motorcycle gang who also double as agents who will clean up her messes.

At the beginning of the film, the humanoid appears to have no free will or consciousness. When she comes across her first dead body, she is more interested with the ant crawling along the body than the woman who used to inhabit that body. She simply steals that woman’s clothes, and begins acting out what seems like a pre-designed course for finding and trapping men. As soon as she has completed an interaction with a human, all of the emotion drains straight out of her face. Johansson’s face takes on a scary lifelessness on par with Billy Skarsgård’s Pennywise the clown from the It movies. There’s a scene where the humanoid, in the process of attracting a new victim, stumbles across an infant that has been abandoned at the beach and is screaming out. Perhaps the director is toying with audiences’ biases that the humanoid, appearing as she does as a human woman, will “naturally” want to reach out and save this baby. That she doesn’t seems to signal to the highest degree that this “woman” is no woman at all, but a cold, merciless something else.

Yet, somehow, by the end of this movie, I found all my sympathies lying entirely with this decidedly inhuman killing machine who makes her living preying on people just like me. This is because something happens that changes the humanoid about midway through the movie. Up to that point, it would be easy to classify the film as a feminist revenge fantasy, where men’s penchant for objectifying women and their aggressive desire to “conquer” women is met with a dish that is served so very coldly. It’s oddly satisfying to watch men who will blindly get into a car with a complete stranger and follow her into a creepy house just because they want to fuck her, end up being exposed as little more than skin around a bag of meat.

But then the humanoid comes across a man whose face deviates greatly from the norm due to some unnamed medical condition. It very much resembles the face of the protagonist from The Elephant Man. He is out an a walk at night to the grocery store. The humanoid doesn’t see him like the rest of the world does. She doesn’t understand how insensitive her genuine question about why he shops at night might be to him. In a darkly ironic sense, she’s the first person in his life to truly see him as a man and not a hideous monster. He has none of the arrogant sexual bravado like the humanoid’s prior victims. He’s sexually innocent, a virgin. When she offers to take him back to her place, he doesn’t take pride in any successful conquest. We see that he’s pinching himself just to prove that he’s not dreaming. It’s a heartbreaking sequence. Whereas we may have been on board, at least symbolically, with the humanoid’s cool takedown of the patriarchy, this particular abduction flips the script. Our sympathies lie more with the man than the “woman.”

Why he doesn’t succumb to the same fate as the other men is not clear. Notably, he’s the first we’ve seen that isn’t fully erect despite the humanoid ardent attempts at seduction. Secondly, he’s like the first to take some stock of the fact that he’s been lured into some black void from another dimension. He obviously finds Johansson attractive, but it’s almost like he is more amazed by what is happening, his penis “disarmed” so to speak, compared to those who came before him who were “armed” to conquer. And in lacking their sexual aggression, he was deemed to have a “lighter”, purer heart, preventing him from sinking into the deep of her trap.

This seems to change the humanoid. It’s as if she questions her whole purpose in life up to that point. Maybe all those men who had come before were as gentle as sweet as this one. Or maybe she yearns to be more than a monster.

Previously we had seen the humanoid stare at women from her car in much the same she looked at men, yet we never see her take women as a victim. It’s more like she was curious by these creatures, like she didn’t know they would be there. She shows the same curiosity towards her own body. She stares at it, hugs her curves. Just after her encounter with the man with the dysmorphic face, she looks long at her face in the mirror and then at a fly stuck to a window. It’s as if she’s looking at how she looks to others (humanoid) compared to what she really is (more like a bug, an alien). As the film goes on, it’s almost as if she’s trying to convince herself the skin is not a farce, that it’s really her, that she’s real, and that there’s nothing else under the skin. There’s an ironic beauty in the dysmorphic man wanting to be seen for what’s on the inside where she wants to be seen for her outside.

We subsequently see the humanoid undergo something of a coming-of-age as she flees into the more rural surroundings of the bogs of Scotland, presumably to avoid her motorcycle-driving allies who don’t want her to veer off course. The camera work in this part of the film highlights her as a stranger in this strange land, with her hot pink sweater standing in stark contrast to the drab Scottish milieu. And truly from the rocky/pebbly beach below the impossibly high bluffs at the ocean to the Mars-like desert shrubbery of the bogs, Scotland has never made Earth look so alien. Yet it’s in this foreign land, far from the trappings of the dirty city that the humanoid experiences the pleasure of being a human, or more specifically being a woman. For a few days she is even one man’s princess, and I think it confuses her so much that she enjoys it.

The genius of this film is the way it makes you forget that the humanoid isn’t actually human. In the latter half of the movie we celebrate her cautious steps towards humanity. There is a love scene that is among the most intimate I’ve seen filmed. Yet, we also fear for her and feel sorry for her when her fantasy comes crashing down and it is revealed to her and to us that her initial approach to men proves was much more appropriate.

This is a slow film that rewards patience, but ultimately it doesn’t do much to excite. There are abstract sequences of light and color accompanied by discordant sounds of chanting that seem straight out of the Jupiter sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. These do little more than confuse, and sometimes bore. And even if the lack of excitement is deliberate (perhaps intended to deconstruct female seduction) that doesn’t make it anymore enjoyable. Still, it is a beautifully shot picture that provides a stunning condemnation of our male dominated society. It would manage to make even the most bitter-hearted viewer feel sympathy for a humanoid who just a half-hour ago was on a cold-blooded murder streak. Still, even if it doesn’t introduce any hard-hitting questions about humanity like the best sci-fi, in the end it revels in a different dominant theme of sci-fi: no matter the monster man meets, man is always the ultimate monster.

 *** (Three out of four stars)

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

This past decade(s) there have been few great horror movies. Lost in uninspired sequels/prequels and few original storytelling and mostly based on cheap jump scares instead of truly scary moments told in actual pictures, the modern horror movie seems to struggle with delievering horrifying sequenses and being, yeah well, truly scary.

Sure, there have been some great exceptions, like “The Witch”, “The Babadook”, Ari Aster’s first two full feature films “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” - but all in all they are just a few bad (as in really good) seeds midst all rotten fruits.

During the 2014 edition of Cannes Film Festival in France a director named David Robert Mitchell broke out with his truly original and horrifying “It Follows” and it was immediately praised for its original take on STD’s and stunning visuals even if shot on relatively low budget.

The film starts out in the suburbs on a calm evening, only a mother is out packing out her car of groceries, when suddenly a young lady is storming out in panic. The mom on the other side of the street packing out her car asks if everything is alright, and the young lady answeres “yes” but we can clearly see that’s a lie. But we really don’t have a clue what is going on. Not yet anyway.

The girl is running back to her house, now with her father worried sick, but only to get her (fathers) car keyes. She drives off and it now seems that she is being hunted by someone. Or something.

Ending up on a beach,  a place for the youth to relax and enjoy one another (in one form or another), the young lady seems to feel safe - for the moment. But by the arrival of the morning she’s no longer alive. As so often in horror movies the first character(s) we meet is not the protagonist nor the heroine, but an establishment of how great of a threat someone - or by the state of the properly tufted young lady rather SOMETHING (more than a human)!

Shortly thereafter we meet another young lady. She, Jay, is much clearly “in focus” as we got to spend time with her in her room dressing up for a date. Just as her, the audience believes the date is something special - and as they meet up outside a cinema (that is showing Charade with Audrey Hepburn) it really seems so. They play a game, that first seems very sweet and innocent. They pick a person around them who they would like to switch lifes with. The guy starts, and as they bought tickets and have entered the lobby and without Jay guessing right about who he (her date, that she by the time think is “Hugh”) has choosen he reveals that he would like to change place with a little kid. They joke around that he can then poop himself anytime he wants, but when he later gets killed by the entity it has taken the form of his mother - that probably took advantage of him sexualy when he was younger - and just wants a normal family to be taken care of. But now I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets wind back!

In the movie theater, waiting for the film to start, Jay now take her turn in the game and chooses someone she would switch with. She does so pretty quickly and when he tries to guess who she have choosen he takes a wild guess at a girl in yellow dress. Which confuses her just as much as the audience - since such a girl is nowhere to be seen in the saloon. That freaks him out, but not for the obiously reason we might first think. They rush out of the saloon and he excuses himself with the need for air - and maybe some coffee.

If we “look” at the the girl only “Hugh” can see we are only given very little information. She cannot be seen by others than “Hugh” and 2). she wears a yellow dress. It sounds cheerful, pretty and warm, but in color analysis yellow also have negative associations. According to this site yellow also stands for cowardice, sensationalism and mental illness. Does that means that he is “seeing her” only in his mental state? It could appear so, but shortly after they have sex he then drugs her. Which is confusing, because he doesn¨t have to drug her to have sex with her - which the situationen otherwise suggest - and that the director really “playfully” uses to create confusion and uncertainty.

When she wakes up again she is constrained to a wheelchair. The situation is just as bad for her as for the viewer. Has he taken her there to kill her? It could appear so but soon he calms her down with the assurance that he hasn’t taken her there to harm her. But why? A person is walking towards them and he explains that now that he has “passed it on” by having sex (hence the interpretation that the film is about STD’s) and that she under no circumstances let those persons walking towards her touch her. Which might be confusing and scary for Jay, but the viewer now get the connection to the girl in the beginning. That is dramaturgically called an catalyst (or: plantation), where a person or happening is introduced but only to give the story bigger meaning later on.

Jay is dropped of outside her house, and then “Hugh” dissapears. Which could be seen as a comment on modern “dating” where a guy (or girl in some cases) dumps the “victim” right after having sex. We live in a society where we throw away stuff way to easily and that seems to have been taken on even socially.

From the porch, Jay friends and one sister Kelly, sees everything and rushes to her to make sure everything is alright. But it isn’t (obviously). So they call the cops. But as the sex was consensual and he didn’t really hurt her, and his identity seems scetchy they can’t really do anything. But he will play a part and has not yet been played out in the story. We just don’t know how yet.

The next day, when Jay is in school, she is approached by an old lady. She don’t recognize her, but was told to watch out for shady people walking slowly towards her - even if “It” is taking the form of a stranger or a more familiar person to get close to its victim. And if we now presses paus and goes back a bit to “Hugh” and his lady in yellow dress. WIth this new information we understand that she was “it” trying to get close to him. And with the older information about yellow being  a “color of cowardness” we can now “read” that the “it” also can take the form of the fear and guilt of the victim. He feeling bad for taking advantage of her, simply put to get laid but in the context of the story to “pass it on” and no longer being the first target in line. We also learn that it’s only the first (latest) person in line to be haunted by “it”. Which only cements Jay’s role as the protagnoist - who ALWAYS should grow and evolve through the story (wheter it might be an childrens story, a book in general, a video game or in this case a movie) towards the morality of the story.

So, what might the morality of the story be then? Maybe the answere is in the way “It” approaches its victims - by assuming familiar characters thats also seems to hold some personal trauma to them. By running away from the fear and hide away and hopes the problem just dissapears, people die. Maybe it’s traying to say to us: don’t walk away from your fears, or trauma, but try to meet them and work against them so you by time can move on from them without taking to much psychological harm in the long run.

One of her friends is Paul (played by Kier Gilchrist that some years later would get a wider brakethrough in the Netflix-show Atypical where he plays a young man with Asperger syndrome) who seems to have a more than friendly history with Jay (played by Maika Monroe) which is made clear throughout the storyline as he tries to “get in her pants” but with his logic only to be “heroic” by letting her “pass It on to him” and thereby getting her out of the haircross of “It”.

But Paul is not her first choice. Maybe she doesn’t like him back, but probably beacuse she doesn’t want to put her friend in danger. The “lucky one” is instead a neigbhour with a car and a tough appearance. He helps her get to places and after an accident he sleeps with her - with the same motive as Paul, or at least he says so. Appearently, he doesn’t really believes in her “crazy theories” (since he doesn’t have all the information the other characters, and we as viewers, have) but just wanted to have sex. Which is going to punish him. But why? Because of the souless sex? Or because he doesn’t take the problem, the fear, seriously and tries to really solve it but instead live on with his life as nothing have happened? Probably both! Lying to get what you want is not very nice.

As she can see to the neighbour’s house across the street from her own window, she can see when a stranger (everyone who “has it” can see them walk around, but not anyone else) aproaches his house and throws a stone through the kitchen window - that also happened to her the evening after she “got it” - so now David (who both directed and wrote the film) plays with something that is called repetition - simply because something is happening more than once to improve the dramaturgelly effect, and the second time around escalate evertything - in this case by making “It” visible, and something Jay now can take action against. The first time, when it happened to herself, she only heard the noice of a window getting crashed (or, it was Paul sleeping on her cauch who heard it and then alarms her). This is very effective since Jay sees the intrusion as it happens and she now have a moral obligation (as the protagonist also always should be a moral compass for the viewer and always act “right” to not alienate the viewer to much) to help him. Which she’s really tries to do. But as “It” takes the form of his mother, probably by confronting him in form of someone familiar but also with a boob hanging out so maybe tries to comfort him by breastfeeding, who now is banging on his door - and as he opens she jumps him and his storyline is now literally over.

An interesting detail that is established early on in the story is that one of Jay’s friends - Yara (played by Olivia Luccardi) - is reading The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky on her “e-reader” and as she later on is hurt badly and put in hospital she use the text to “use it” on her friends and their situation. Especially Jay is reflected by it:

As she understands that she can no longer run from “It” but have to confront it (her fears, that seems to be related to giving birth as she sees “It” as a burned out woman who’s water just broke... and later as a very scary child that almost looks more like something of a monster in a video game) and no longer just run away frorm “It”. So they go to a swimming pool to set a trap for “It” and it finally seems that the gang has the upper hand in all this. A well telled story “always” make us feel like its all hopeless but then let a ray of light shine through!

As they are going, “It” now appears on the rooftopp in form of a naked man. As Jay drives out of the garage and out on the road, she gasps as she sees the man on the roof. Because he is naked? Maybe partly, but mostly because “It” probably have taken the form of her father - who have never been seen in the film, so he’s probably “out of the picture”, maybe because he was molesting her as a child and have been kicked out - or maybe, even better, put in prison for it.

As they set the traps around the pool they still feel they have the upper hand in the situation. But as Jay puts on her bathing suit and goes into the pool, some beautiful shots of her under water (and the reflection of her body on the surface) suggest that she no longer have a personal face and have lost herself to “It”. This goes hand in hand with the paragraph from The Idiot that Yara later reads to Jay in the hospital. The struggle and personal questioning gives her... if you all excuse my choice of words... depth.

As the final confrontation takes place nothing goes according to plan. All their planning and preparations is wasted in a blink of an eye. But as everyone who tackles with their personal problems in life realises that you can never plan your life to full - because so much other stuff is going to happen that you possibly can’t take into calculation, but rather have to be adaptive and improvise to overcome all obstacles - our group doesn’t give up but reorganizes and finally overcomes all problems. Together. Hiding all alone and trying to solve her problems all by herself wouldn’t help much but rather end in her death.

As Jay and Paul “find each other” (see: the gif where their hands toches) earlier on, they “finally have sex” but since it’s just for helping her, and he probably feels that she doesn’t really want, he doesn’t feel like it was so great that he hoped it would be. But as he stood by her all the time, and had more romantic intentions with her all along, they end up together. At least in a way. And as they walk down a road in the end, and we see a person walking behind them, we are suggested that they never fully killed “It” and that it’s still after them. Which probably both is a play with the expectations that horror movies ends with an “open road” to an sequel - but also tells us that even if we start to tackle our problems, trauma, with for exemple therapy, our ghosts will never really leave us alone. But that it’s getting easier by time, especially with someone on your side. Linou have studied film production for a year in Stockholm, and are now studying screenwriting in a program of three years (180hp) in Dalarna. This is what he came up with after re-watching the film and read “Hansel and Gretel” with his class and the teacher breaking down all terms for us.

[chiseler]

“You think I’m the only one in this town who doesn’t like people?”

Following the JFK assassination, and especially after Charles Whitman climbed the Texas Tower in August of 1966, shooting and killing 14 strangers over the course of a lazy afternoon, lone mad snipers became an easy thriller standby. Targets, The Day of the Jackal, Two Minute Warning and dozens of other films since the late ‘60s have focused on a man, a rifle, and a perch. While snipers weren’t unknown to Hollywood prior to 1963 (Suddenly, Murder by Contract—even The Manchurian Candidate was in production before the assassination), they focused almost exclusively on gunmen with a purpose, paid assassins who were after a single, specific target, a politician or a mob hit. 1952’s The Sniper was not only one of the earliest films centered around an urban sniper, but remained an exception, really until the moment Whitman began pulling the trigger.

While on the surface The Sniper is a standard, straightforward police procedural about the hunt for a killer, what made it different was that the killer in question was a presumably unbalanced presumed vet who was killing random brunettes around San Francisco with a high-powered Army-issue carbine rifle. What also made the film different for the era was its focus on the psychology (some boilerplate Freudian hoo-hah) driving the killing spree. But beyond even all that, deep down it’s a profoundly strange picture disguised, for all its groundbreaking elements, as any other B thriller.

But let me back up here a second and come at this from a different angle.

In 1945, like so many intellectuals and Hollywood types (and when was the last time those two appeared in the same sentence?), director Edward Dmytryk began his little flirtation with the Communist Party. A few years later, like so many others, he found himself dragged in front of HUAC where he was  asked to name names. When he refused, he was thrown in stir along with the rest of the Hollywood Ten on charges of contempt of Congress.

After a few months in prison, though, Dmytryk had a change of heart and called his lawyer. In 1951 he was released from prison, appeared before HUAC again, but this time in a far more cooperative mood, providing interrogators not only with 26 names, but also detailing how he’d been pressured to slip subliminal Commie messages into pictures like Crossfire. After this, having lost his martyrdom and no longer beloved of Hollywood’s Communist community, Dmytryk found himself  just as effectively blacklisted as he had been before. So he moved to England and teamed up with producer Stanley Kramer, who would put him back to work for the next several years.  

This is not the place to discuss Dmytryk’s politics, his justification or damnation, to pass self-righteous judgments long after the fact. But it is interesting to consider the first film made by a man fresh out of prison would be a message film about a rogue gunman picking off Californian brunettes, and one has to wonder if his time behind bars in any way influenced the film’s opening crawl.

Written by a powerhouse trio at the time (script by Harry Brown from a story by Edna and Edward Anhalt), The Sniper opens by informing us that present-day laws and law enforcement were useless when it came to dealing with sex crimes, and that the story we were about to see concerned a man “whose enemy was womankind.”  

In the film’s first few seconds we meet the man in question, Eddie Miller, and it’s clear he’s teetering on the edge of something bad. Arthur Franz hadn’t yet established himself as a genre stalwart, playing rational, low-key, friendly sorts in the likes of Invaders from Mars and Monster on the Campus, and here turns in a remarkable performance as a believable psychopath. He never goes over the top and bug-eyed, instead playing Eddie as a tightly wound but always self controlled young man who may get occasionally twitchy and sweaty but always remains nearly emotionless.    

A former mental patient who is well aware that things are going wrong in his head again, Eddie does what he can to get himself committed, but no one’s cooperating. In fact seen through Eddie’s eyes, the entire world is simply one slap, one humiliation after another. To some of us anyway, he’s an extremely sympathetic character.  

Marie Windsor

Although later in the film the police come to the conclusion that he must be an ex-soldier, we are never given any proof of this apart from his weapon of choice. It doesn’t matter—now he drives a delivery truck for a laundry service. One of the regular customers along his route  is attractive young  nightclub pianist Jean Darr (Marie Windsor), who appears to be one of the few people, and certainly the only woman, who’s nice to him. So when what he believes to be a seduction turns out to be, well, not only not a seduction but  ends with Jean treating him like any other errand boy, he snaps. It’s the only scene in the film in which his face reveals any emotion at all apart from confusion or cold boredom. That night he waits on a rooftop across from the bar where she works and shoots her as she heads home.

Enter the police, which adds another layer onto the external story behind the film. As Det. Kafka (if there is any significance to that name it’s never made clear), Adolphe Menjou, is also playing against future type as a gruff, less than suave, and mostly hapless cop. A few years prior to the film, Menjou was known as one of the fiercest defenders of HUAC in the business, which of course made his pairing with Dmytryk here a potentially disastrous one. By all accounts, however, it was a perfectly amicable working relationship, so much so that Dmytryk would use him again in a few of his subsequent films . But that’s irrelevant, too.

As more seemingly random dark haired young women are being picked off around the city (which in spite of all the location shooting is never identified as San Francisco), the police bring in criminal psychologist Dr. Kent (Richard Kiley) to work out a profile. With precious little evidence, the doctor jumps to the remarkable conclusion that these are in fact sexually motivated shootings. And that leads to the first head-scratching scene of the film.

Taking Dr. Kent’s very broad conclusion at face value, the cops round up every pervert in town for a line-up. Now, given that there have been no witnesses who saw the shooter, a line-up is pointless. Perhaps the cops realize this, which explains why the chief interrogator (sitting at a table in front of an auditorium full of officers) runs the line-up like a routine from an old Bob Hope special, introducing and dismissing the peeping toms, gropers, and rapists with well-prepared one-liners.  To a schlub who writes obscene mash notes to strangers he begins, “So, Bob, they say the pen is mightier than the sword...”

It’s an oddball comic scene completely out of step with the rest of the film, and a scene that makes no sense within the context of a serious police drama. It’s darkly  funny, yes (especially considering that we’re dealing with convicted sex offenders as the butt of bad jokes), and had the rest of the film been handled in this tone, well, it would have been a very different picture. As it stands it’s merely jarring and leaves viewers wondering what the hell it’s doing there. Personally I can’t recall another cutaway even remotely close to this in  any other Dmytryk picture. Logically enough, though, the scene ends with dr. Kent muttering “this is pointless” before leaving the room.

He then goes on to deliver the film’s heavy handed message to the mayor, the press, and the other investigators—namely (and here’s where I wonder if Dmytryk’s prison experience is being reflected)  that anyone arrested for a sex crime of any kind should be locked in a psych ward until they’re cured of their personal glitch. And if they aren’t cured, they should be left there locked away for good.    

That leads to another delightfully baffling line of dialogue as Kafka orders a teenager with a broken antique rifle be sent to a nearby bughouse. “I don’t wanna be looking for this kid again in a couple years,” Kafka explains, “when he’s got a real gun...or maybe an axe.”  

(An axe?)

In spite of a few weirdnesses along the way The Sniper still played like most any boilerplate thriller while at the same time being years ahead of the game both in terms of subject and solution. Extrapolating a bit on Dr. Kent’s recommendation, the kid being sent to the psych ward had not been convicted of a sex crime—he was just acting weird. Likewise, following the latest school shooting the do gooders are once again calling for the  psychological incarceration of anyone who thinks differently, acts differently, isn’t like everyone else, as they represent a very tangible future threat. But the answer to this hamfisted solution can also be found in the very same scene. Before being sent to the local Bin, the above-mentioned teen with the broken gun tells Kafka, “You think I’m the only one in town who doesn’t like people? There’s millions of ‘em!” And we’ve been proving him right since 1966. So maybe it’s time we stop talking about locking these people up pre-emptively, and finally come around to accepting the simple fact that mass shootings might well be nothing more than  a rational response to an insane world. by Jim Knipfel

[motivatedminds]

“When someone says 'Jo what you said has really helped me', it still astonishes me”

As well as the emotional challenges that raising a family brings, stay at home Mum, Jo, found herself needing to overcome an unhealthy dependency on alcohol, but with 24% of adults in England and Scotland regularly drinking over the recommended guidelines, Jo wasn't alone. She recognised that she needed to take control of the problem before it completely took control of her, and after receiving help from several agencies she completely turned her life around.

However her journey had left her feeling battered and bruised and she admits feeling like her mental health took a hit from years of turmoil. Whilst feeling more stable, she soon found herself in a mundane cycle of school runs, housework and food preparation and now with a clear head, her sobriety left her with a thirst for life.

Whilst research suggests that stay at home parents are more likely to report depression than their employed counterparts, finding work that fits in around childcare can be problematic, and that's why Jo decided to look for a voluntary role that would complement her family arrangements, not challenge them, and help her to finally move away from her demons.

She said "I had worked up to being 4 years sober when I decided I wanted more for myself so I hunted out some volunteer work. I searched through various organisations and came across Motivated Minds, I thought 'brilliant that’s a bit of me' especially considering they were offering all the help I had just been receiving and more."

She recalls "I was so nervous on my first day, I could only muster up the courage to serve teas and coffees to the staff members, but slowly I took on extra work." Despite her evolving role, there was still one thing that Jo couldn't do, and that was drive. But over time it became increasingly apparent that this was a much needed role, so she saved up enough money to complete an intensive week long course and took her theory test too. She failed her first theory but didn't let it get her down, she said "I had been trying to learn to drive since I was 18, but this time I had a real purpose and motivation to try again as I knew passing my test would make a huge difference to my role at Motivated Minds."

Jo soon passed her theory and practical test and to this day being a volunteer driver is proving vital to Motivated Minds as she currently collects food donations for their food bank at least twice a week. 

But driving is just one of the many personal goals that Jo has achieved since volunteering at Motivated Minds. In 2018 she joined the team in Wales to climb Mount Snowdon after months of training and emotionally preparing for such a big challenge. She said "Climbing that mountain was the most physically and mentally challenging thing I had been through (apart from getting sober). Climbing this mountain was more than just walking up a hill for me, it was the most special, amazing, liberating feeling standing at the top of the mountain....AMAZING !!"

After the challenge Jo returned to Essex with a new sense of confidence and pride which has since enabled her to participate in long distance learning. Despite 'failing' school, she has now completed a Level 3 in Mental Health and Level 2 in Understanding Autism, Challenging Behaviour and Mentoring, which has not only helped within her voluntary role, but because both her children are autistic, she has grown as a parent too which has had a positive impact on her home life. 

Not content with all that she had achieved, the sky really was the limit as Jo made the bold decision to take on a skydive raising over £200 for Motivated Minds whilst falling fearlessly from a great height! Carla Andrews, Managing Director of Motivated Minds said "Jo has made a spectacular transition from stay at home Mum shackled to modern day unhealthy coping strategies, to a courageous individual inspiring others to reach new heights."

She continued "not only am I incredibly grateful to Jo for her hard work and dedication but I'm very proud to have had the privilege of being part of her journey. At Motivated Minds we want to see people overcome barriers and achieve great things, and Jo has done this in abundance. She is a real inspiration, and her journey has only just begun!".

Jo now leads a weekly support group called 'A Cup Of Kindness' which is followed by a craft class delivered by her Mum who is always there for moral support - which Jo admits helps a lot with her anxiety. She said "I get a lot from helping and relating to others, I have been there so I know how it feels and I want to be a wellbeing champion who whole-heartedly believes in people." She added "I still to this day find it strange when someone says 'Jo what you said has really helped me', it still astonishes me."

Carla concluded "Jo has been at Motivated Minds for nearly 3 years and has taken her voluntary role by storm. While some give a little, Jo has given everything, and this has transformed her life. All we can do is provide opportunities for our team to grow, develop, and meet new people along the way, it is Jo's passion and drive that has led her to get the most from volunteering with us, and we look forward to more life changing successes over the coming years."

Jo added "I owe a lot to Carla for seeing so much potential in me, she sees more than just my diagnoses, and sees beyond my past, she has always just treated me with kindness and respect. She helped me realise that I have the tools, I just needed the help to find them and to be shown the ability to use them and I haven’t stopped since"

Volunteers’ Week is an annual celebration of the contribution millions of people make across the UK through volunteering and takes place every year between 1-7th June. If you would like to volunteer with Motivated Minds get in touch with Carla on 07846 209846. From tradesmen to help renovate their new Happy Hub in Eastgate, to volunteer counsellors, and Walk 4 Wellness leaders, they have a role for everyone.

[guyveranimefan87-blog]

"Captain Marvel" review -  Not terrible, but not marvelous either.

As we all know, the latest MCU movie "Captain Marvel" had finally reached our cinemas, and thus after months of drama surrounding it, with one group hailing it as the best thing Marvel ever did, and other claiming it would be a movie that would destroy the whole franchise... before anyone had a chance to see it... we can finally see how is it.

And well...

In my opinion it's a solid Marvel movie, not bad or anything, but nothing special either, something around the level of "Captain America - The First Avenger", or first "Thor".

It has it's moments, but compared to previous MCU movies like "Doctor Strange" or "Black Panther" it lacks something that would make it special and unique.

I mean, with "Doctor Strange" we had our first introduction to magical side of MCU, plus trippy visuals connected with the Mirror World, and "Black Panther" had introduced us to the whole new culture and unique visual style of Wakanda, so they had something going for them even in their weaker moments.

And I don't think "Captain Marvel" has something like that.

I mean, 90's references are cool and I got a few chuckles out of them, but if I wanted to remind myself of those dumb and glorious times, when I was younger, slimmer and less cynical I could go on Tumblr...

Oh, yeah I am already here.

And people who don't remember those times would probably be as baffled by seeing pager and dial-up modems, as they were be seeing alien cities and spaceships...

But let's start at the beginning, that is with the plot.

Our heroine is Vers, a member of an elite military unit known as Starforce serving the interstellar Kree Empire, but despite her unquestionable power and fighting skills, her commander and mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) has doubts about her performance, since she has a tendency to let her emotions guide her, something that Kree warrior shouldn't do.

Yeah, this cyborg guy from “Guardians of The Galaxy” is there too...

Vers emotional problems are connected with the fact that she lacks memories from before she joined the unit, and is tormented by recurring nightmares where she sees chaotic and fragmented pieces of her past.

Still, as I mentioned before, she is still a powerful and confident warrior, so despite Yon-Rogg's doubts, she takes part in a mission to extract a deep-cover Kree agent from one of the border planets controlled by an ancient enemy of her people, a shapeshifting race of Skrulls.

Mission ends badly, as it turns out that the agent was already compromised by Skrulls and Vers is captured during a resulting ambush by a Skrull commander, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who used some kind of memory probe to access her buried memories... that turn out to be about her previous life, but not on one of Kree planets, but rather on a primitive, backwater planet C-53, also known as Earth.

Apparently Skrulls are looking for a scientist known as doctor Wendy Lawson (Annette Bening), that Vers somehow used to know, and who according to her memories developed some kind of new faster-than-light engine.

Vers manages to escape captivity using her ability to generate energy blasts from her hands, as well as her hand-to-hand skills, but the escape pod she steals from Skrulls gets damaged, causing her to crash-land on Earth, to be precise in one of Los Angeles Blockbuster Video stores.

Does anyone remember Blockbuster Video anymore? Sorry, getting back on the topic...

Her less-than-stealthy arrival alerts the local authorities, including a pair of S.H.I.E.L.D agents, Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Mothafu#kin Jackson), who are a bit skeptical when a woman "dressed like for Lazer Tag" tells them she is an alien soldier who hunts other aliens, who are shapeshifters, but they are attacked by one of Talos's troops, confirming that her story is true.

And thus Vers and Fury would have to join forces to stop Skrulls and find the truth about our heroine, from her fragmented memories...

Before the movie I was curious and to be honest rather worried about how screenwriters would tackle the backstory of Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, since in the comics it was rebooted so many times, that I doubt that even people writing her remember about everything, with numerous costume, identity and power changes, not to even mention new personality traits with each new writer...

But they did managed to jump this hurdle, by creating a completely new origin story from the ground up, that while using certain elements from her comic book counterparts, gives us something relatively simple, and accessible to causal moviegoers and hardcore nerds alike.

And let's be honest, since Carol is not exactly the most popular character ever, despite numerous attempts at making her relevant in the last few years, so I don't think there would be any purist fans outraged by the changes made for the movie.

I mean, whole cast of "Guardians of The Galaxy" had undergone massive changes, and everybody was OK with that, heck some of those changes were even retconned into comics, so probably here it would also work that way.

As for the plot itself, it really did reminded me of first "Thor".

I mean, we have a superhero from an advanced race, that is dumped on Earth without having any idea of how the place works, but finds a hypercompetent human sidekick, and together they stand against Big Bad only for The Hero to unlock their True Power in the third act.

Yeah... Seems kinda familiar, eh?

It's not necessarily bad or anything, but it's really a shame that some things hadn't been expanded upon a bit, like Kree culture, relationship between Carol a.k.a Vers and Yon-Rogg, etc.

I mean "Black Panther" managed to fit whole three act formula into the plot, while also show the viewers quite a lot about Wakanda, so why not here?

Movie also drags a bit in the middle, as save for two action scenes, most of the story-arc is comprised of our heroine and Fury driving from place to place looking for answers, talking a bit and so on, which is not really adrenaline-filled superhero cinema...

It hadn't reached the point when I got really bored, mainly due to good chemistry Larson and Jackson have together, but I did though that MCU movies managed to overcome their pacing problems after Phase One, so it wasn't a pleasant surprise seeing that they had taken two steps back here.

Another controversy about the movie way before it's release was our lead, Brie Larson, not only because of doubts about her acting prowess, but also quite a few ill-thought things she said be it in interviews, or through Twitter, but the latter is not really important here, so let's focus on the former.

After watching trailers and promo clips quite a few people were doubting Larson's ability to carry the movie, and accusing her acting of being "stiff" and "emotionless" and they were partially right, though I am not sure all the blame can be put on actress herself.

Vers/Carol does seem rather stiff and emotionless through most of the movie, but it looks more like a conscious decision of director's part, as I mentioned Kree pride themselves on controlling their emotions, which is fine, but severely limited Larson in the role, as it's hard to say anything about her character's personality.

I mean, there are a few scenes when she does show that she can act, usually during her scenes with Nick Fury, cause as I mentioned before, they have a nice chemistry together, flashbacks from before she was trained as a Kree warrior, but still comes out a bit bland through most of the runtime.

It becomes even more jarring during the scene when Vars meets her old friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), who is rather shocked to see her, torn between happiness and confusion, giving a strong, emotional performance... while Larson keeps the same facial expression through most of it.

As I mentioned before, it's not the actress's fault, but it does harm the movie on some level.

Samuel L. Jackson however absolutely nails it as younger, less cynical Fury.

Now, we got used to gruff, no-nonsense and properly paranoid commander of S.H.I.E.L.D but here we get Nick who sees a being with superpowers for the first time in his life, and is appropriately shocked / awed by the fact that aliens exist, which gives Mr. Jackson an opportunity to have a bit of a fun with the character.

I mean, I had never expected to see Fury going "oh so cute" about a cat, or freaking out about seeing an alien, but it's lot of fun watching him do it, and judging from his actor, a lot fun to play it, which is rather infectious.  

Also, this cat is awesome.

Sadly, yet again movie’s villain remains one of it’s weak points.

I mean, damn, I really though that after "Black Panther" and "Infinity War" we got over the so-called "Marvel Curse" and villains who are not Loki wouldn't suck anymore. And yet, here we are, back to square one...

Now, don't get me wrong, Ben Mendelsohn does what he can to sell Skrulls leader, and even managed to have some fun with his portrayal.

For example being rather laid-back and even funny in his true form, and a bit stern and stiff in his preferred human form, as well as giving each of them a different accent, but as they say, You cannot get water out of a stone.

He got very little to work with in terms of motivations, background or even personality of his character, making Talos quite flat, despite the actor's best efforts.

If I had to compare it to other Marvel villains, he would be right there with Malekith the Accursed from "Thor - The Dark World", as both movies had absolutely wasted a great actor due to not giving him anything he can use, nor any freedom to flesh the character out, which is a damned shame.

I mean, they tried with a bit of a twist near the end, but You can see it coming from miles away, so it's not really a surprise, and nor does it help our villain in the slightest.

What else...

... Oh yeah, I had evaded this particular elephant in the room for long enough.

Before the movie premiered many people, myself included, were afraid that it would delve too much into politics, since both the cast and Marvel PR people were putting a lot of emphasis on the feminist message of "Captain Marvel", throwing the phrase "First Female Marvel Hero" etc.

Thus I had expected a sexist, and politics heavy crap like "Ghostbusters 2016", but really for all the bluster of Marvel execs, and journalists focusing of this, the whole "feminist" part of the movie turned out to be nearly nonexistent.

I mean, sure we get a scene with male soldiers telling Carol she is "too weak" to be a pilot, or a guy who obnoxiously tries to pick her up, but it's not like the movie spends extended periods of time on it, or goes to extreme length to show all men as idiots, manbabies and chauvinists, as "Ghostbusters" did, so really there was no point to the whole sh#tstorm about it in the first place.

And really, "Wonder Woman" was really a lot more about "Girl Power" than this movie, so I don't think that people who expected it to be about "powerful femininity" and stuff would be totally satisfied with it...

Other than that, we get good special effects (Especially the ones used to de-age Jackson and Gregg), few nice fight scenes, especially in the third act, overall good acting despite problem mentioned above, and a few obligatory callbacks to other MCU movies...

And that's basically it.

It's a competently done movie that nevertheless lacks the bang it supposed to have, and I think that in a few weeks most people would forget about it, like they probably did with "Doctor Strange" and "Ant-Man & The Wasp", because they would be busy talking about "Endgame".

It would still make a ton of money, as all MCU movies do, even if it clearly show that their formula got a bit stale at this point, and even without making a lasting impression it was a well-made popcorn flick.

Still, it shows that Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel does have a potential as a movie character, despite all weird stuff Marvel did with her comic book counterpart, but it wasn't the time when this potential had the chance to be fully utilized. So, better luck next time, Carol?

[ah-maa-zing]

The Longbow Hunters (Arrow 7.02)

I’d like to start off this review by stating the freaking obvious: I love Felicity Smoak. 

I mean, I’ve always loved her, even when the writing has failed her, and even when I haven’t loved her choices or her actions. But when she’s written with the kind of agency she deserves, the determination, the drive and the steely-eyed focus as she has been in ‘The Longbow Hunters’, well, nothing could be better. 

Two episodes in, and I’m really enjoying Beth and her team’s style. The show is as dark as ever, but there’s an intensity - particularly in the prison scenes - that feels like the characters’ actions have real stakes that won’t randomly disappear into the ether because “reasons”. Many (most?) of the complaints about 6B were that characters were contorted, pretzel-like, into unrecognisable caricatures of themselves - previously decent characters turning into assholes overnight. And yes, while in some cases it may feel like a bit of a stretch to develop a speedy redemption, I can certainly appreciate the new writing team’s attempts to course correct as quickly as humanly possible. 

One of the things that appears to be gone for good is “Team Arrow”, in whatever iteration it has taken over the years. Which makes sense, given that the Arrow part of the equation is off the grid for now. Still, it’s somewhat unsettling as a viewer (especially seeing it from Felicity’s perspective) to come into a new status quo where there are new rules and restrictions, and where Felicity no longer has free rein over information and intelligence gathering, which has typically been her domain. Even if she weren’t already desperate for personal reasons, I’d expect her to be feeling pretty unempowered by the whole set-up. 

Curtis doesn’t seem to be having that same problem, and if I can just get on my soap box for a second (I really hope I don’t spend the entire season complaining about him) - what exactly is his role on the show anymore? There are already, in my view, far too many ‘regular’ characters at the moment and it does at times feel a little crowded. But of all of these characters, for me Curtis is the one that seems to have no unique utility at all. There are better vigilantes than him, and there are better hackers than him. So far all I see as his purpose is continuously whinging about how hard his life is (when he’s the one who’s suffered the least), and for other characters to crack “grab your balls” jokes (which, while funny, aren’t exactly essential). Like I say, I hope I don’t keep repeating myself on this point as the season goes on, so if Curtis could just take a job in a neighbouring city or disappear into a hole or whatever, that’d be grand (sadly I think the opposite is probably going to be the case). 

Anyway...I really enjoyed the conflict between Felicity and Diggle, which feels both warranted but also really sad. I said last week that all the characters barring Oliver, Felicity and William have found a way to move forward with their lives over the last five months, and none more so than John, who has a new sense of order and purpose within ARGUS. Setting aside that brief insanity of last season, this has always been his MO -- finding a place for himself within an established structure, be that the Army or Team Arrow or ARGUS, and do his job really, really well. 

All that to say that I do understand where he’s coming from on the Diaz front. He’s got the ARGUS Deputy Director on his back, which again is a realistic situation (a black ops organisation as regimented as ARGUS would never allow the Director’s husband to run amok with its resources), and he feels the need to maintain order and colour within the lines, if you will, so that he and his family don’t face the blowback. I get it. 

That said, I’m still incredibly disappointed in him, which I think is partly the point and is definitely a great source of angst. His explanation to Felicity about not wanting to sacrifice his family makes sense, but at the same time, Felicity and Oliver are (or were) also his family, and her point about the last six years actually meaning something to her is such a gut-wrenching moment. I think this is the point that Felicity realises she’s all alone in this. It’s not that John doesn’t love Oliver or that the others won’t help (though “whatever you need” seems to have its limitations), but the way she sees it - Oliver just doesn’t matter as much to them as to her. So he went to prison to sacrifice himself for them - so what? None of them are willing to go the extra mile to save him like he would them. As for John, when he was in prison, and Lyla went to Oliver for help in breaking him out, he didn’t even hesitate. Against all odds he went in and broke his brother out, and while that might not be possible in this case, Felicity must still feel the sting at the lack of reciprocity from John. 

Which is why I enjoyed her being at odds with John on this, even if they came to an understanding by the end of it, and which is also why I loved her move at the end of the episode. Going to Samanda Watson, not to break Oliver out but to fulfil the terms of his imprisonment, is such a baller move, and I am really looking forward to them working together. 

I’m excited about Felicity’s arc in the upcoming episodes, especially while Oliver’s in prison and she’s essentially on her own. If the trajectory continues the way it has been, I think we’re in for a ride. 

Speaking of prison, Oliver is finding his footing a little bit now, though how long that lasts remains to be seen. This storyline continues to excite me because it is so unlike anything we’ve seen before and the possibilities are endless. Oliver ‘found another way’ this time (I’m glad he didn’t kill Yorke. I know he’s an asshole but I kind of liked him), but will he be able to do so again? At a certain point, the net will tighten and there won’t be any more loopholes to find. And that’ll be an interesting place for Oliver to be. 

I still think Stan the Fan is a Diaz plant; he’s too shifty by half. But I am temporarily enjoying the dynamic between him and Oliver, esp. because it gives Oliver a chance to roll his eyes and be the straight man to someone else’s banter - a role that Oliver has always excelled at. I loved that he fashioned a makeshift slingshot from a broken pencil (of course he did), and it reminded me of him making a bow and arrows out of curtain rods in ‘Corto Maltese’. Oh Oliver, you are such a McGyver. 

Like Felicity, Oliver’s entire focus now is getting Diaz off the board in order to protect his family. The fact that they are on parallel paths towards the same goal frames their individual storylines incredibly well, and makes anything else in between almost superfluous. 

I don’t know quite what to make of the Dinah Double Act™, and I’m not sure I entirely buy both of their seemingly easy acceptance of each other. Why Dinah feels the need to protect Laurel from Diaz is beyond me - surely they would be using her as bait if anything? - especially since, from what I can tell, Diaz doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to hunt her down. Still, I can buy that Laurel feels something towards Quentin and his death at Diaz’s hands, and I can live with that fuelling her motivation to live the way Quentin would want her to. I also think that this episode allows all of the women who appear in it to maintain their own agency and motivations, however complex (or unearned), and that can only be a good thing. It’s no surprise, given this episode was written and directed by women, but it does feel a long time coming. 

I do think that the fight against Silencer was pretty effective - man, that is an interesting power. In fact, all of the Longbow Hunters seem to be pretty formidable in their own right. Kodiak, the guy with the shield, broke John’s assault rifle IN. HALF. Goddamn, it’s about time we had some menacing villains. The Longbow Hunters present a significant threat to no-longer-Team-Arrow, and it doesn’t pass me by that the only way Silencer was defeated was by Laurel and Dinah sonic-crying her together. Methinks no-longer-Team-Arrow may need to re-form again in some way soon enough. 

I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface here on many of these plot points, but there is so much going on (in a way that it all seems to hold together) that it’s fascinating to see how it will all come together. Especially given the apparently bleak future our characters have in store for them. 

To which -- Future William. I find it hard to believe that Oliver and Felicity would just abandon William, unless “leave” is a euphemism for something more sinister, which it appears might be the case. Otherwise, why would Felicity install a tracker in the hozen (called it!) and set the coordinates to Lian Yu? Furthermore, did she set those coordinates in 2018 when she gave him the hozen the first time? Did she want him to go to Lian Yu in some interim time before the 20 years? What on earth did she expect him to find there? And why was Oliver’s bow buried in a box? Who buried it? What did that note say? Why did Roy burn it up? Why are they heading back to Star City? Why did Roy and Thea break up (or what happened that he ran to Lian Yu to forget about it?)? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. Isn’t that exciting? So many things we have yet to learn, so many mysteries, big and small. I’ve missed this. 

I continue to enjoy Future William and Old Man Roy’s dynamic; William is such a passive-aggressive asshole and it’s hilarious. I find it interesting also that he states he doesn’t even know how to use a bow and arrow, but he is a tech genius. Guess we know which parent he takes after. One question I have is whether the future we are seeing is ‘fixed’ or immutable, or whether whatever has happened in the interim 20 years can be undone or redone in a way. I still wonder whether William is the “new Green Arrow”, back to correct whatever went wrong in the intervening years that caused Oliver and Felicity to disappear from his life. The framing shot of him holding the bow hints towards that, but given that he claims he doesn’t know how to use it suggests that either he’s trained by Roy in upcoming episodes, or the wielder of the bow is someone else. Intrigue. Also intriguing is the question of when in time William is abandoned by his parents; if we expect to see young William in the present-day timeline (as I hope we will), then when exactly is it that their paths diverge? Time will tell. 

“My wife taught me a thing or two” - HIS. WIFE. TAUGHT. HIM. A. THING. OR. TWO. Ask me when the day will come when I stop reacting like a crazy person to every mention of Felicity as his wife and Oliver as her husband. Answer: NEVER. THAT DAY WILL NEVER COME. Bless.

“What’s an Overwatch?” made me laugh. Especially since Oliver doesn’t bother answering. 

“My wife and son were attacked. I’d do anything to protect them.” - a) I love the intensity of the way he says that, and b) isn’t it great that he then uses Yorke’s love for his wife and son against him? 

Speaking of, Oliver stabbing himself and pinning it on Yorke is THE most Oliver thing he’s ever done. LMAO. I definitely laughed at him overplaying the “you stabbed me! HE STABBED ME!!!” dramatic writhing. Even Brick looked amused. 

“There’s only one Green Arrow, and he’s in prison” - you tell ‘em, Felicity. 

The dialogue feels a lot tighter this season, and as I’ve mentioned before, characters’ motivations make much more sense. Long may it all continue. 

Okay, but I really do enjoy snarky Laurel. I’d rather that than a fully redeemed member of Team Arrow. I think she plays better as a (semi-)villain.

I miss Felicity’s pink hair. Sob. 

Diaz’s flamethrower gun was cool, but John giving him a well-deserved beatdown was cooler. 

All this ARGUS focus makes me miss Lyla. Bring her back, show. 

Felicity needs some actual friends like, right now. GIVE HER SOME FRIENDS WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT HER MORE THAN THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR STUPID JOBS. 

Nice thrown in mention about William being gay. 

Also, does Old Man Roy just wear his Arsenal suit all day and night? Doesn’t that get...itchy? And smelly? And uncomfortable? And unnecessary? Oh Roy! 

Felicity is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more forgiving than I would have been. I’d have told everyone to fuck off and firebombed the place as I walked out (not so much on that last part, but ya know). 

I’m glad the show knows that Quentin wasn’t really Laurel’s father, even if they can’t seem to make that distinction in interviews. 

Honestly, Beth is just about the best thing that could have happened to this show right now. Imagine this team two years ago?!

Felicity and Oliver are each other’s ride or die, and I cannot wait for their reunion. 

[hysterialevi]

Legend pt. 3

Author’s note: Sorry these chapters haven’t been that frequent. Lately I’ve been running a bit low on motivation and I didn’t want to rush anything out, so that’s why these parts have been taking centuries to release lol. But I’m excited to get back to work, and I hope you all enjoy this fic. Thanks for being so patient and sticking with me through all these stories. Love you guys :)

From Bruce’s POV

THAT NIGHT

Rushing through Gotham’s streets in the Batmobile, John sat beside me and happily spoke to himself as we carried on with our nightly patrol, keeping an eye out for any criminals that could’ve been running amok. 

Even though the clown was technically supposed to be hiding from the Agency right now, that didn’t stop him from wanting to help me with my work as Batman. And considering the situation we were in, I wasn’t in much of a position to turn him down. 

Recently, the crime in Gotham had become relentless, and ironically, Waller’s presence didn’t do us any favors. If anything, the director and her agents just seemed like different types of criminals to me, and it was my job to get them out of the city. Fast.

I just hoped John would actually follow my code. I had no problem putting my trust in him, but he wasn’t exactly a man of restraint, and the last thing I needed was for someone to get killed tonight. Lord new this city had seen enough death.

“So, what’s the status, Bats?” John asked with an energized, toothy grin, breaking the silence. “See any baddies on the loose?”

I squinted slightly at the road ahead, gazing through the beams of my headlights.

“Nothing so far.” I replied. “Things have been pretty quiet tonight.”

“Why the nervous look?” He commented. “Isn’t that what we want? Or are you just getting bored? ‘Cause I certainly am. I wanna punch someone already! Hehe!”

“Well,” I said, hugging a corner, “I was expecting to see at least a robbery by now, but it’s been peaceful. A little too peaceful for my liking. It’s almost as if Gotham’s...waiting for something. Biding its time.”

John shrugged. “Sounding a bit paranoid there, buddy. But, hey. Who knows? Could be because of the Agency. I mean, heck -- if weirdos like me are hiding from them, I imagine common criminals would also want to keep out of their sights, too. Not to mention we are driving around in a giant murder machine. Not exactly subtle.”

“...That’s true, I guess.”

“Relax, Brucie,” he reassured with confidence, patting my shoulder. “I swear, you’re gonna have a full head of grey hair before the sun rises. You have a partner now, remember? This burden is no longer yours alone to bear. I promise, if I see anything out of the ordinary like that shattered window up there, you’ll be the first to know.”

A pang of realization hit me at that statement and I came to a sudden halt, causing John to lurch forward like a slingshot with a yelp.

“What?” I asked, taken by surprise. “Where?”

John regained his composure and peeled himself off the dash, pointing upwards at what appeared to be an apartment building. 

“There...” he said with a slight groan. “I bet someone used it to break in.”

I furrowed my brow at the scene and prepared my gear, slowly exiting the Batmobile.

“...Or out. Come on. Let’s go take a look.”

THE APARTMENT

Grappling up to the broken window with my arm around John, the two of us landed on a simple balcony as we discreetly checked inside, making sure whoever caused this damage wasn’t still around.

“...See anything?” John whispered, peeking over the sill. 

“Looks clear,” I observed. “But the apartment’s a mess. There was definitely some sort of struggle here. Be on your guard.”

Activating my earpiece, I contacted Alfred as John quietly hopped inside ahead of me, navigating his way around the toppled furniture.

“Alfred,” I said lowly, “John and I have come across a peculiar scene in a nearby apartment. It looks like a fight took place here...and a rather violent one at that. I’ll send you the address, but don’t call the GCPD just yet. I want to inspect the area first.”

“Of course, sir. Keep me updated...and please, be careful.”

Returning to the situation at hand, I started examining the wrecked apartment and the clues scattered around me as John conducted his own investigation, both of us trying to formulate a cause for this mess.

Some of the furniture had been broken, numerous dents had been beaten into the walls, and a flickering lamp rested on the floor along with some shards of glass. How did the neighbors not hear any of this? Were they simply gone when it happened? ...Or did someone make sure their lips stayed shut? I had to find out.

“Batman!” John called, beckoning me to the kitchen. He was kneeling down by something, but the counters in front of me blocked my view. I hurried over.

“What is it?” I asked. “Did you find anything?”

Carefully treading through the ruined furniture, I stepped next to my partner and crouched beside him, only to come to an abrupt pause when I noticed there was a man lying against the stove with a gun in his grip.

Both his shirt and hands had been stained with blood -- most-likely his own, considering the wound on his abdomen -- and his face was riddled with severe contusions. Judging by their freshness, this man was attacked today.

“...What do we do?” John questioned. 

I reached for the man’s gun, checking the magazine. None of the ammunition had been depleted.

“He didn’t have a chance to fire,” I concluded. “The attacker must have taken him by surprise. Or at least been quick enough to bring him down before he could defend himself.”

John gazed at the disarray around us. “...Well, he certainly put up a good fight without the gun. Maybe he was trying to get to it?”

I nodded. “Possibly. Hang on a minute. I’m going to see if I can identify who this man is.”

I contacted Alfred again.

“Master Bruce,” he greeted, sounding relieved. “How goes the investigation?”

“There’s a body here,” I reported, “but I don’t recognize their face, and neither does John. I need you to search the database for any possible matches.”

“A body?” He repeated grimly. “Oh, dear. What do they look like?”

I scanned the victim. “Male. Caucasian. 185 centimeters. Short blond hair and a beard. Appears to be around his early thirties. Has a distinct series of tattoos on both arms and on the side of his neck. Scar just above the left brow bone.”

Alfred was quiet for a minute.

“...Find anything?” I checked.

The butler deemed successful.

“Sir, I’ve just looked up the address you sent me and cross-referenced that with any people who fit your description...and there’s only one match. His name was Joseph Hunt.”

I froze in shock, falling silent as I suddenly realized who this man was.

“Joseph Hunt?”

“That name mean something to you, Bruce?”

I examined the man, a series of memories rushing through my head as I observed his somewhat familiar features.

“I went to school with Joseph as a kid,” I concluded. “If I recall correctly, he was always quite the bully. Didn’t exactly have any friends. Clearly, not much has changed.”

“...Indeed,” Alfred confirmed in an uneasy tone, searching for more information about him. “According to the codex, Hunt had quite a troubled life. Despite going to the same school when you were children, it seems that the two of you took very different paths as adults.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Hunt lived a life of crime,” he explained. “It says here that he was involved in multiple robberies, drug deals, burglaries, and even an attempted murder. Of his own father, no less. He also worked with The Pact for a time. It...certainly raises the question of whether Hunt was the...true victim in this scenario.”

I caught on instantly. “You think someone killed him out of revenge?”

“It’s definitely a plausible explanation. You can’t commit that many felonies without making enemies, Bruce. Just look at Thomas. Behavior like that is always certain to be your undoing.”

I glanced at John for a moment who was still busy rummaging through the evidence around us, eagerly waiting for an update from me.

“True, but unfortunately that doesn’t really narrow it down,” I countered. “There were loads people working with The Pact, and who knows who he was mixed up with before then? I only know one of his victims personally, and they’re in prison right now. It had to be someone else.”

Alfred paused. “Wait, you know one of his victims?”

“Yeah,” I responded casually. “Oswald Cobblepot. He’s not a victim of Hunt’s crimes -- as far as I’m aware -- but he was one of the kids Joseph would bully back in school. And I’d always be the one to protect him...” my voice softened at the recollection, and I couldn’t deny that I felt a tad nostalgic thinking about my childhood. 

But I quickly snapped back to reality with a gentle cough, bringing my focus back to the crime scene. “Ahem. Like I said though, he’s in prison. So it couldn’t have been him.”

Alfred was unconvinced. “...The Batcomputer would disagree.”

My mind went into a state of alarm. “What are you talking about?”

“Official records would tell you that Cobblepot is still being held in Blackgate, when in reality, he was released just two days ago at the request of the Agency. For what reason however, I couldn’t tell you. Details are close to nonexistent.”

“Dammit,” I cursed. “Why would the Agency set someone like Oswald free? They know what he’s done -- what the Penguin’s done. Surely, they wouldn’t trust him...but then again, Waller does have a habit of using criminals in place of her own men. I mean, look at Harley and Selina. Hell, she even slapped a collar on Bane. I guess there’s really nothing stopping her from recruiting one extra pair of hands.”

Alfred agreed. “I’m afraid you could be correct, sir. Question is: why now? And why Oswald? Out of all people, what’s convinced Waller that she needs his help? Nothing good, that’s for sure.”

“We’ll figure that out later,” I said. “Right now, I need to deal with Joseph. We can’t just leave him here--”

“--The hell?!” A man’s voice interrupted. “Get away from me...!”

Whipping around at the sudden outburst, I let out a quiet gasp when I saw that -- contrary to what I was expecting -- Joseph was actually still alive, and attempting to swat John away with a very weak, bloodied arm. 

“Geez!” The clown exclaimed. “I was only trying to help!”

Joseph’s head whirled towards me, revealing a pair of fatigued, darkened eyes.

“...Batman?” He breathed out, recognizing my mask instantly. “When’d you get here...? What’s...what’s happening?”

I carefully approached the panicked man.

“It’s all right, Joseph,” I comforted in a low, but gentle tone. “You’re safe now. My partner and I just arrived a few minutes ago.”

That only seemed to confuse him more.

“You know who I am? How do you...ah, what the hell. I don’t even care anymore. What do you want from me? You here to arrest me?”

I knelt down next to him.

“Slow down, Joseph. We’ll get to that, but I need to ask you a few questions. First things first: do you remember what happened? Or when it happened? Do you know who the assailant was?”

Joseph appeared to relax slightly, and his shoulders slouched out of relief, but the rest of his temperament still felt incredibly restless.

“...I-It was...after I got home,” he recalled, his body limp with exhaustion. “Don’t know what the exact time was, but the sun was down already.”

“Where were you before that?” I asked. A faint look of shame spread across his face.

“The Stacked Deck. I go there quite a lot. Guess that’s why it was so easy for the attacker to figure out my schedule.”

I found that a bit strange. “Wait, you think they were studying you?”

Joseph shrugged. “It would make sense. I mean, when I opened the door, he was just...standing there. Right in the middle of my own, goddamn apartment. Like he was expecting me or something.”

“That does seem odd,” I agreed. “Any idea who he was?”

The shame in his expression grew even more prominent at that, and his head lowered out of guilt.

“I was gonna shoot him at first,” Joseph confessed, gesturing to his gun, “but when he told me who he was... When I finally saw his face... I just...couldn’t. A stupid fuckin’ move, I know, but I just didn’t have it in me.”

I urged him to go on. “Who was he? Do you have a name?”

His lifeless stare sharpened with concern, and his jaw tightened out of anxiety.

“...Oswald Cobblepot.”

Shit, I thought to myself. Alfred was right.

But...it still didn’t make any sense. Joseph wasn’t a saint, sure, but he never caused enough trouble for the Agency to notice him. At least, not while I was with them. 

So, why would they let Oswald go after him? What did Waller gain from killing some random criminal? Was Joseph really that much of a hindrance to them? I doubted it. This whole situation was a mystery...and I had the feeling Joseph knew more than he was letting on. But it was time I let the GCPD in. If the Penguin was back on the streets, they needed to be aware.

“I think I’ve heard enough,” I concluded, rising back to my feet. “John, keep an eye on him. I’m going to contact GCPD.”

“Wait!” He insisted. “...Do you really think handing him over to them is a good idea?”

I halted mid-action, my hand paused just beside my earpiece. 

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” John continued. “Waller has her boot on Gordon’s neck right now, and she’s certainly not interested in helping Batman at the moment. If we give Joseph to her, who knows what’ll happen? She could just finish the job behind closed doors, and then we’d never figure out the rest of the puzzle! Besides, this guy was with the Pact! And he clearly has history with that Cobblepot punk, too. He might know some things we don’t. Things that we can keep hidden from Waller...”

I mindlessly began to lower my hand.

“...That’s...actually a good point,” I admitted. “But what would you suggest we do with him instead, then? Like I said before, we can’t just leave him here.”

John scratched the back of his head in thought. “Why not bring him back to the cave?”

I stared at him in bewilderment. “You’d let him inside the heart of our operations?”

“You know me, Batsy,” the clown reminded, placing a palm over his chest. “I have a knack for reading people -- just like I read you back when we first met -- and something tells me we can trust him.”

I crossed my arms. “And if we can’t?”

John scoffed. “Pfft, you’re Batman, for Pete’s sake! What’s one common criminal to deal with if things go awry? We could handle him easily! Unless, of course, you’d rather risk Waller getting her hands on him...”

I sighed in defeat, glancing back at Joseph reluctantly.

“...I’ll consider accepting his help,” I announced, causing John to clap excitedly, “but we’re not taking him to the cave. Not for now. In the meantime, get him to the Batmobile. If we’re going to move him anywhere, we need to patch him up first.”

Pulling Joseph’s arm around his shoulder, John eagerly lugged our new “friend” to safety and gave me an approving thumbs-up, strolling away merrily. Meanwhile, the other man wearily stared at me in wonder -- almost as if he had been expecting a much worse outcome -- and simply allowed my partner to drag him off as he said a quick word.

“...Thank you, Batman.” Joseph croaked, his voice raspy and wounded. “A man like me doesn’t deserve your help, but you gave it anyway. I won’t...I won’t forget this.”

I nodded firmly at him. “You refrained from taking a life tonight, Joseph. I’m sure you’re a better man than you think.”

He brought his eyes to the floor in sorrow, a hint of regret coating his intense gaze.

“Yeah...I used to tell myself the same thing.”

[emilywatchescursedshow]

Ep 15 - The Benders

Director: Peter Ellis Writers: Eric Kripke, John Shiban

Oh man. Ok so to be honest this was another rough episode for me, but I’m going to try to focus on the stuff that I liked before I get to my one big gripe with the story.

I loved the performance of the cop in this episode. I think that actress did a really good job. In general I liked her story and that she got resolution for her brother’s death by killing the main villain. I liked the way she interacted with Dean. I also liked that there was zero sexual tension between them, which was an interesting and sort of new dynamic for Dean to have with another character. I feel very comfortable chalking this lack up to the fact that she was a brunette, but it was still nice to see her boss Dean and have him not flirt with her in return. I do think it’s sort of hilarious how often they have the Third Character on the show be a lady, but I guess that’s what needs to happen when you have two (supposedly) het hotboi protags. Anyway, we stan anyone who puts Dean in handcuffs.

We get some good Dean moments of trying to navigate being a human person interacting with another human person which he is very bad at. I enjoyed watching him stretch across the hood of the car to try to get the antennae to use to pick the handcuffs. Don’t read too much into that.

I also liked that this episode had a lot more Action throughout the episode. The past couple have primarily been a lot of backstory to explain the events. This episode was just them Investigating The Weird Thing which was more entertaining because we get to watch the events actually play out. I thought the characterizations of the children were pretty well done, even with the minimal dialogue they had. One of them had a weird laugh that I thought fit well with the spirit of the episode, and I thought the actress who played the little girl did a good job also. Honestly if you told me when I was 12 that I would get to roll around in dirt, behave absolutely feral, and stab some dude in the leg with a knife with little provocation I would also be having the time of my life.

That being said, I think the events of this episode are very stupid. First of all, this episode is supposed to be weird because there’s no supernatural element. Dean has at least two lines to the effect that “well normal people just are crazy I guess” which I hate. In so many of the past 14 episodes, the antagonist has been essentially a human, and I don’t think the supernatural element of those stories really affected the person’s motivations. The motivation for these villains is just that they like killing people. They say like “humans are the ultimate game” but the humans they capture make fucking awful hunting targets and get murdered very easily, so that part doesn’t really make that much sense either but whatever.

As much as I don’t want it to, this episode reminds me a lot of the X-Files episode “Home,” which is a pretty infamous episode and has similar themes of “isolated country family goes sort of nuts.” I don’t know which episode is most successful in carrying through with these themes, but I don’t like “Home” either so maybe the conclusion is just that the point of this theme is very unclear.

Anyway, moment to moment thoughts: - Guy gets scared and disappears under car - Oh good we don’t have to go thru any intro rigamarole before getting the bros in these police uniforms - This bar is named Kugels Keg - Oh noooo Dean playing darts oh nooooooooo - Dean wants to have ~fun~ - Uhoh Sam vs motorcycles,, will Sam get snatched? - Lmao the audio work on that cat scratch and hiss was really, uh, something. Then some weird chime just looking at Sam’s feet. Uhoh Sam's gone - "like the rifle?" gross - Dean is gay for himself - The police officer knows something - Uhoh Sammy's pov in a cage - Amber alert namedrop - Oh my god the car just fucking drives by at that exact moment?? - It's the guy from the beginning "smells like the country" "we're in the middle of nowhere" from the guy in the cage who doesn’t know where they are - SHOW ME THE MONSTER oh they're just people LMAO - Yasss tug that pipe Sam - Uhoh Dean got caught "that Michael Jackson skin *smnthn*" .. uhoh there writers, maybe don’t do this - Dean trying to guilt his way into this officer's graces "I have to take you in" yeah no shit oh she's down I guess - "it’s a bracket" - This guy is gonna die ugly - Are they like feeding a monster or something? - There are a lot of shitty cars on this property - Is he being hunted? Thats what it looks like - Ok he just got stabbed to death - "your luck is so pressed" - The actress for the police officer is doing a really good job - Dean's promises are worth nothing lol she locked him to the car good for her - Oh creepy girl why is this officer being referred to by her first name - Officer down - Stretch Dean STRETCH - The giggle boys - They took her hair down? - Food service? No it's Dean. But this doesn't feel right. - What the hell is this episode - Turns flashlight on directly into eyes - Specimens from victims.. brains?? - Yes they're being hunted those are big game photos - Human bone rattle while presumably human butchering is happening. Also weird plinky music for atmosphere love the horror game vibes - Teeth - Creepy daughter stabs Dean - Knocking people out from behind seems like the mo - Are they out of cages? - Is the best hunt human? It seems pretty lame - "you're a sick puppy" - The girl is evil - Oh they're scared of cops - No don't burn deans eye out - He's opening the door? - Dean you're literally tied to a chair - Uhoh cop lady on his back - Classic shot guy behind other guy - Literally kill him. Or knock him out. Or cage him. I don't want this scene with the cop lady - Oh she just murdered him cool I was really worried with where that was going - The girl?? - What the FUCK was this episode - Luck pressed - This actress is killing it

So yeah, I have mixed feelings about this episode. I think if I just accept the conceit of the weird murder family the rest is actually pretty well well done. The pacing and tension in the episode is pretty good, and the supporting actors (except maybe the dad, who’s a bit too much and not enough at the same time) do a good job. I had fun watching it, which is the most important thing.

[melissagt]

Rumor has it that Darth Akori'ira has a pet nexu.

Thank you! This turned into a rather long response, but I’m happy with it!

The Caraboose (posted on AO3 as well!)

Feelingthe warmth of the ceramic mug seep into the palms of her hands, Lanasettled back into the overstuffed armchair across from theall-but-named Director of the Sith Academy on Korriban. Well, one ofthem, at least. Her appointment had been to meet with both of theAlliance agents, not just one. But, Cytharat had been called upon tosettle a rather deadly dispute between acolytes. Some things neverchanged, it seemed.

Sheallowed her eyes to take in her surroundings – the mismatchedfurnishings, the mishmash of artwork gracing the walls, the two desksset back to back…one perfectly ordered, the other a perfectlyordered mess. Everything that spoke of two complete opposites beingstuck together. Yet somehow, it worked. Lord Cytharat and the Wrath were quite the team. They played ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ like professionals. They got results, and they got things done. 

Shesipped her tea in silence, regarding the tightly wound woman beforeher. One knee bouncing over the other, a sheathed sword aching to bedrawn. The Twi'lek may have hated being forced to sit idle, impotentand useless, or so she called it, but she certainly had a way ofmotivating people into action. And Cytharat played off of her more‘extreme’ nature perfectly. It was the perfect cover. Rebuild themight of the sacred institution of the Sith, and recruit for theAlliance on the side.

“Haveyou identified any more promising new pros-” Lana’s words caught inher throat mid-sentence as she felt a cold, wet somethinggraze over the side of her hand. She looked to her left, nearlyjumping out of her skin (which by her standards meant a slightwidening of the eye…perhaps an arch of the brow…certainly nothingthat would actually give away her surprise) at the sight of a verylarge, very hungry-looking nexu smiling at her. “Oh, hello there,”she stated, as if the concept of having a nexu snuffling at one’sshoulder was the most normal of occurrences in the galaxy. “I’dheard rumors that you’d taken on a new friend, Lord Wrath.”

“Oh,Shake n’ Bake?” At the sound of her voice, the nexu let out alumbering chuffle and promptly trotted-paced-stalked the few stepsover to sniff at the Wrath’s shoulder. Nudging a giant clawed paw offof the arm of her chair, the Twi'lek had to lean to the side to seearound the feline’s imposing frame.

“Shaken’ Ba-?”

“Don’t.Ask.” The Twi'lek shook with laughter, her amusement clear as dayas she took in the sight of Lana’s rather righteous version of aquirked eyebrow. “But no, she’s not mine. This…this is Nik’sbaby,” she added, giving the thickly muscled cream-colored hide aseries of patting slaps with the palm of her hand.

Atthat point, the over-sized tooka took it upon herself to try andclimb into the Twi'lek’s lap, which did not work. Letting out asurprised screech at being stepped on, Lord Akori'ira ratherunceremoniously grabbed at the nexu’s jewel-encrusted collar anddirected her off the of the chair, pushing a hand firmly against theanimal’s rump to prompt her to sit down.

“C'mon,Bacon, you’re acting like a spoiled brat,” she scolded.

Lanahad to hide the curl of her smile with a sip of tea, thoroughlyamused at the scene before her. Here was the Empire’s Wrath (orshould it now be changed to the Alliance’s Wrath, even though itdidn’t have the same menacing ring to it), a woman who was well knownfor her short span of patience, coddling a three hundred pound housecat like a child.

“Sohow exactly did our nefarious pirate associate end up with…”Seeing that Shake n’ Bake (that was simply ridiculous, but whatever,she could do for a laugh) had finally settled down on the floor,lolling a very large head up against the Twi'lek’s calf, she let herwords trail off, and instead finished her sentence with a wave of herwrist in the animal’s general direction. Nexu were not exactly knownfor their friendly natures, and were generally best left alone in thewild.

“Well,to hear him tell it, he’s had Bacon for a long time…sinceshe was just a cub,” she began. The Wrath let an arm hang off overthe arm of the chair and idly stroked at the bristly fur at the topof the animal’s head. “Back when they were on Taris for the firsttime, him and Nox…” she shifted in her seat, her restlessnessgetting the better of her momentarily, “they came across along-dead female, caught in a trap. Her mother…” Bending to theside slightly, she looked down to see that the feline was nowengrossed in the process of washing her two giant-sized front paws.“From what he said, Bacon was half-frozen, three-quartersstarved, completely covered in parasites, and probably wouldn’t havemade it another night on her own.”

Leaningback in her chair, Lana took another sip of her tea, legs idlycrossed in front of her. “She’s still a wild animal though…”

“Ohyes, she has to run. A lot. And hunt. Otherwise, she gets toodifficult to handle.”

“Theycouldn’t possibly have kept her on the ship for long.”

“No,she was on Dromund Kaas, and then when Nik bought the estate onAlderaan, he had her moved there. Plenty of room to run and nobodyfor miles except for herds of deer and nerf to hunt.” She chuckledthrough her nose, her single lavender eye staring off at some distantspot well below the stone floor. “I bet he bought that land just asmuch for caraboose here, as he did for Nox. He’s a sack of mush whenit comes to his girls…don’t let anybody tell you different.” Hergaze came back to focus and she looked Lana right in the eye, a grintugging at the side of her lip. “Don’t tell him I said that,though,” she laughed.

HisGirls. Lana had to hand it to Andronikos, if it wasn’t for hisincessant hounding about Darth Nox’s definitely-not-deaddisappearance, the Alliance would have gotten off to a much differentstart, or perhaps not at all. From the pirate himself, to the Wrathherself…along with the Wrath’s twin sister (who was currently onTython seeking out candidates from the other side of the galaxy), toCytharat, and even Theron Shan…and all of the contacts they broughtwith them…they were all there because of one person who was hiddenaway, unreachable and likely frozen in carbonite. All but dead.

Lanahad worked with Darth Nox for a time, though she felt that she’dnever really gotten to know the woman. Know of her yes, butshe’d never been allowed into the Inner Circle in the same way thatothers had. They’d never fully trusted each other (which shegrudgingly had to admit was probably Theron’s fault, in part).Perhaps it was for the best…someone had to stay objective andpractical about matters. And practicality dictated that one personcould hardly seem worthy of such trouble. Surely they could findsomeone else to put up as a figurehead for their little undergroundoperation.

But,the person she would have chosen to lead, the person who would havekept the Empire together without the need to form a separate faction,was dead. Darth Marr’s death had left the Empire crippled by a powervacuum. And Sith did as Sith always do…they fought amongstthemselves, rather than focusing on the true threat – the EternalEmpire.

Ifthey couldn’t have the man himself leading the vanguard, then theycould at least have the woman he personally groomed to lead. Theloyalty that Darth Nox inspired in those who chose to share theirlives with her…that was what they needed.

“That’snot like you, Beniko…”

“Hmm?”Lana murmured under her breath. “I apologize, Lord Wrath, it justgot me thinking…”

Shaken’ Bake suddenly sat up on her haunches, poised as if she’d heard avery interesting noise off in the distance. She made a snufflingchuffle again, her split hairless tail swishing back and forth on thefloor behind her, then started to lap at the white fingers danglingby her face.

“It’seasy to forget that we weren’t the only ones uprooted by this…turnof events,” she mused. Grimacing, the Twi'lek pulled her fingersaway from the slobber and promptly wiped them dry on the side of thechair. “Nik told me that Nox used to joke around about Baconbeing a total daddy’s girl, but ever since she disappeared, thecaraboose has needed extra attention. It’s been a couple years now,but she still knows something is up.”

Lanaleaned forward to help herself to a second cup of tea, yet anothertug of a smile pulling at her face when she thought for a momentabout the seeming miracle that the table and tea service it borehadn’t gone crashing to the floor from the nexu’s meandering. “Isthat why she’s here with you, then?” she asked with no lack ofcuriosity on how the beast got on with all of the acolytes…or ifthere had been any accidents sinceher arrival.

“WhileNik and Theron are off playing Find the Spy, or Hunt the Spy, orwhatever Spy Stuff they’ve been up to? Yes. For whatever reason, sheseems to like me,” she chuckled. “Who would have thought thosetwo would have ended up thick as thieves?”

Nodoubt it was a surprising turn of events, considering Lana hadbeen present the first time the two men had laid eyes on eachother…with Nox standing in between them waiting for all hell tobreak loose.

If looks could kill…well, for the Force-blind at least.

“Andthe acolytes…there haven’t been any…?”

TheWrath laughed, leaning over to slap-pat Shake n’ Bake’s side again.“They know she’s off-limits,” she responded, shifting in her seatso that she could reach to scratch at the base of her tail,apparently a much-loved rub spot, if the beast’s grumbling purr wasany indicator. “She gets her daily run down in the lowerwilds…harasses the tuk'ata. Drives Lord Renning crazy. And if shetakes a liking to any particular acolyte? Well, those are the ones wesend to you.”

“That’squite an interesting selection process…”

“Isn’tit though?”

[ncmagroup]

by First Round

Here at First Round, we’re always searching for advice that gets overlooked or goes unshared, hoping to find the stones that company builders don’t even know to turn over.

Whether it’s through in-person events, online discussions on First Round Network (our internal Quora-style platform), or the articles and interviews we share here on the Review, we’re driven by an ambition to create the space founders and startup leaders need to exchange that “trapped” knowledge.

And in those spaces, we’ve seen time and time again how the conversation inevitably drifts back to a single topic. Whether it’s a Fast Track mentorship pairing, an intimate Co-Founder Forumdinner or a CTO unconference, hiring always seems to be top of mind.

There’s no shortage of challenges that could benefit from a dose of outside perspective, from finding hiring practices that scale to bringing on a new exec to nabbing a great in-house recruiter. And then there’s the interview.

When you’re scaling quickly, moving at warp speed, and sitting on several hiring panels, interviewing can seem like a task you just need to get through. But it’s worth pausing to remember that the decision to hire someone is an expensive and far-reaching one. And since you’re forced to make it after spending (at most) a few hours together, maximizing what you can learn about candidates in those precious few minutes becomes all the more crucial.

Of course, we’ve shared a fair amount of interview best practices in the past here on the Review. (Two particular must-reads come to mind: the seven characteristics that help you hire a top performer and this roundup of interview questions previously scattered across the Review archive).

But given the high-stakes nature of every hire, interviewing chops are always in need of sharpening. And that means our hunt for a crazy-good interview question is never over. We’re endlessly fascinated by the go-to inquiry in everyone’s back pocket, the kind that makes you want to steal it for your own hiring toolkit.

To that end, we’ve spent the past few months reaching out to some of the smartest and most thoughtful operators in our network to pose a simple question: What’s your favorite interview question and why?

The responses we got back were first class. What follows is an exclusive list of 40 interview questions, sent to us by the sharpest folks we’ve met or just outright admire. Some of the questions are (deceptively) short and sweet, some are probing and unexpected, others hinge on targeted follow-ups. Broken down by topic, they tackle everything from how candidates understand the role and process feedback to their first summer job, worst boss, and the last time they changed their mind. Most importantly, these incredible founders and company builders break down why they lean on these questions — and what to look for in the answers you hear.

We hope this collection serves as a rich jumping-off point that you can leverage as you design your own process, whether you’re building it from scratch or looking to give it a refresh as you double-down on hiring. Let’s get started.

QUESTIONS TO HELP UNPACK PIVOTAL TRANSITIONS:

1. What do you want to do differently in your next role?

When he asks this question, Instacart co-founder Max Mullen usually sees two kinds of responses — and there’s one camp that the best candidates usually fall into.

“I find that the best answers highlight what they’re running toward, rather than what they’re running from in their current job. If they launch into what they don’t like about their boss or current company, that tells you a lot. It tests whether they’re a positive person and how they handle adversity,” says Mullen.

“I also can often pick up on what interests them about our company specifically, and get a sense for how much research they’ve done. Finally, it gets into motivations — if they bring up how they’re looking for a more challenging opportunity, you can probe how they want to make an impact or the types of problems they’d love working on,” he says.

2. Imagine yourself in three years. What do you hope will be different about you then compared to now?

Julie Zhuo is a favorite of ours for a reason. The VP of Product Design at Facebook quite literally wrote the book on how first-time managers can approach building out their teams. She’s graced the pages of the Review before as well, sharing her well-honed perspective on hiring designers, and the essential (and unique) questions every manager should ask.

“At a growing organization, hiring well is the single most important thing you can do,” she writes in her book. “The most important thing to remember about hiring is this: hiring is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity to build the future of your organization.”

When we followed-up with Zhuo recently to find out what floats to the top as her favorite question after hiring hundreds of candidates over the years, her response had a similar focus on the future. “Asking a candidate to describe her vision for her own growth in the next three years helps me understand the candidate’s ambitions as well as how goal-oriented and self-reflective she is,” says Zhuo.

3. For the last few companies you’ve been at, take me through: (i) When you left, why did you leave? (ii) When you joined the next one, why did you choose it?

Kevin Weil likes to walk through a candidate’s recent career history with a unique lens. “I love this question because it helps me understand how they think through big decisions,” says the co-creator of the Libra cryptocurrency and VP of Product for Calibra at Facebook.

Weil finds he learns a lot about underlying motivations by unpacking why people leave and join companies. “What were they optimizing for that the career move maximized? Are they looking for safety, or are they eager to take risks?” he says. “Are they trying to develop new skills or perfect existing ones? Has their goal been to scale their management experience, or dive back into execution to get their hands dirty?”

Weil recommends paying special attention to how candidates cobble an answer together. “It’s interesting to see whether they weave the answer into a narrative arc or outline a series of distinct decisions,” he says. “Do they think big picture? Are they a great storyteller?”

Transitions are also Branch CEO Alex Austin’s favorite place to mine. “I find that it’s in the space between jobs when people have to make decisions entirely independently,” he says. “There’s no team member they can steal credit from or that can do work for them. It’s the only time in their career when you can get an incredibly deep insight into how they think and what motivates them. Then you can evaluate their answers against the characteristics you believe are required to succeed against the role.”

Get candidates to tell you about the transitions between jobs, rather than about each one. That’s a better window into what they value and how they make decisions.

QUESTIONS FOR SUSSING OUT MOTIVATIONS:

4. Among the people you’ve worked with, who do you admire and why?

On its face, this question might not seem to be designed to uncover motivations. But that’s exactly what Jules Walter is digging for when he asks it in interviews.

As an angel investor, product lead for Slack’s growth and monetization team and co-founder of CodePath.org, Walter stays busy pursuing the causes he cares about — and he’s interested in learning more about the values that drive folks who want to join his team.

“I want to uncover a candidate’s values, but I’ve found that asking about that directly isn’t as effective,” he says. “This question pulls out those drivers in a more subtle, yet honest way. What they admire in others tells you a lot about what they find important.”

You’ll learn a lot more about a candidate’s values by asking her who she admires. It’s a telling glimpse into the qualities she’s striving to cultivate herself.

5. Tell me about a time you took unexpected initiative. Follow-up: Can you tell me about another?

Brian Rothenberg is something of a growth guru. As the former VP of Growth at Eventbrite (and current investor at defy.vc) he’s shared the answers to the toughest growth questions and tried-and-true tactics for tailoring strategies from zero all the way to IPO.

So it comes as no surprise that his go-to interview question helps him uncover those candidates who push the bounds of their own personal growth. “I’ve found that the best people on your team consistently take initiative, even when it’s not expected of them,” says Rothenberg. “But after they give one example of an initiative in action, it’s critical to follow up by asking for another. I want to see a pattern, whether it’s at work, school, or any other place.”

6. What’s something great about your current or previous job? Why?

bethanye McKinney Blount is a fount of company building wisdom. Across the course of her career, the co-founder and CEO of Compaas (and former engineering leader at Reddit and Facebook) has shared insights on everything from troubleshooting troublemakers in startup culture to introducing comp transparency.

“Asking this question in interviews tells me two different things,” says Blount. “First, I learn what someone loves and values — what’s important to them. Second, they nearly always follow up with a qualifier,” she says. “They’ll often say something like ‘But that doesn’t make up for…’ and so they’re also telling me something they don’t love. I find that second piece to be very instructive. It helps me understand where they feel uncomfortable, unsupported, or generally unhappy.”

7. What motivates you to work?

This one comes from Varun Srinivasan, former Senior Director of Engineer at Coinbase (where he had front-row seats to the company’s wild ascent and came through the other side with a valuable collection of lessons on scaling).

“On its face, it’s a simple question for the interviewer to ask. But it requires a tremendous amount of thought and introspection from interviewees,” says Srinivasan. “I’ve found the asymmetric nature of it unlocks valuable discussion. Great candidates will be able to articulate their intrinsic motivators and reflect on why they’ve worked at startups before — or unpack why they want to break in. Less-than-stellar candidates won’t wade into that self-inquiry. They’ll provide surface-level answers such as ‘I like hard technology challenges.’”

Jopwell co-founder and CEO Porter Braswell opt for a similarly open-ended question: What does success mean to you? “I find that asking questions like these makes the candidate pause and think,” says Braswell. “That helps drive a more organic and free-flowing conversation where I get to know the interviewee and what drives her on a deeper level compared to going through her resume.”

8. Looking back on the last five years of your career, what’s the highlight?

According to Michael Vaughan, this question is more powerful than it seems. “It tells me what type of person they are, what matters to them and how they think,” says the former COO of Venmo and current EIR at Oak HC/FT.

“For example, if they tell me about a personal accomplishment, then I know personal career development is a huge area of focus. If they tell me about the accomplishment of a direct report or the team, then I know they care about developing people,” says Vaughan. “If they tell me about a company feat, then I know that they tie their own success to the company’s success — which is a great mentality for weathering the early stages of a startup.”

QUESTIONS ON THEIR FIT FOR THE ROLE:

9. What are you really good at, but never want to do anymore?

Bryan Mason, Chief Business Officer at VSCO, is a fan of this question because it gets candidates to do three things:

Reflect on what they’ve learned about themselves.

Test their ability to speak with humility about being “good” at something

Talk about stuff you may find valuable on their resume, that they in fact no longer want to do.

“It’s amazing how often people answer saying they never want to do exactly what I’m hiring for in this role,” he says.

There are incredible candidates who excel at exactly what you’re hiring for. The trouble is that they don’t want to do it anymore.

10. What’s the difference between someone who’s great in your role versus someone who’s outstanding?

When interviewing candidates for LendingHome, co-founder and CEO Matt Humphrey is on the lookout for a keen understanding of the difference between A+ performance and what he calls “A+++”.

“I always follow-up with: ‘Can you give me some specific examples of this in your career and the results you saw?’ I look for how they answer the question just as much as the content of the answer itself,” he says. “The best candidates can answer almost immediately, maybe even with a wry smile because they know exactly what I’m getting at and they’re proud of doing something that was truly above and beyond.”

11. How did you prepare for this interview?

When he asks this question, Jonah Greenberger is testing for three things: proactiveness, resourcefulness, and passion.

“Those qualities are critical for almost any position,” says the CEO of Bright (a First Round-backed company). “I also like that this multi-purpose question is so open-ended. It gives room for candidates to show how concise, creative, and clear they are.”

12. What do you believe you can achieve with us personally or professionally that you can’t anywhere else in the world?

Shiva Rajaraman (CPO at WeWork and former VP of Product at Spotify) typically ask this question at the tail-end of an interview cycle.

“I like it because candidates reveal their individual motivations, creativity, and commitment to our mission all in one response,” says Rajaraman. “Often, they haven’t really thought about our company or capabilities deeply. The answers here can be revealing as to whether we are truly the best fit. It also helps cement that we are a special place for the person to thrive. Most importantly, if a candidate is able to articulate her ambitions and how we can help her achieve them, we are one step closer to closing her.”

Questions about why someone wants to work here and take on this particular role may seem routine, but they’re incredibly important. Often, candidates are fleeing something else and haven’t thought deeply about what they want next.

As the Corporate Communications Manager at Looker, a company that’s put tremendous thought and care into bringing new people on board, Tamara Ford John similarly recommends digging into what makes candidates passionate about the specific opportunity in front of them. “I always ask candidates, ‘Why do you want to work here? Why do you feel you will be good at this position?’” she says.

“I’ve found that the specifics of why someone is drawn to your company and believes they’ll succeed in a given role are often overlooked. It’s incredible how many times I’ve seen people fall down when it comes to answering these questions in interviews.”

13. What are the three most important characteristics of this role? How would you stack rank yourself from strongest to least developed among these traits?

When Jack Krawczyk is hiring for WeWork’s Product team, he’s hunting for candidates that have both a deep understanding of the role and an appreciation for the spots in which they still need to grow.

“I use this question when hiring product managers, but it can work for other roles,” he says. “I’ve found that it forces the candidate to be introspective and provide examples of how they’re a student of their craft.”

14. Tell me about your ideal next role. What characteristics does it have from a responsibility, team, and company culture perspective? What characteristics does it not have?

As the head of Square’s seller and developer business units, Alyssa Henry has her hands full, so the ability to quickly uncover alignment — or misalignment — in the hiring process is critical. Rather than asking directly about a candidate’s interest in a particular role, she’s found it helpful to abstract out to their ideal next role, a scenario that captures what they’re really after.

“This two-part question helps determine if there’s a match in expectations for the role. Particularly when you hear the answers to what they’re not looking for, sometimes you realize that the candidate is actually a better match for a different role,” she says. “But my favorite part is that it gives you the selling points you need to hit on when it comes time to close the candidate. You already know what they value, which makes it easier to tailor your pitch.”

15. It’s September 5, 2020. What impact on the business have you made in the year since you’ve joined?

When hiring for PatientPing, co-founder and CEO, Jay Desai wants to get candidates talking about the future, what the world will look like once they get the job, settle in and start making an impact.

Here’s what he’s able to learn from this question:

Timing: “I’ve found that it provides visibility into how long the candidate thinks things should take,” says Desai. “Folks coming from larger companies assume things take longer than they should, while someone from a smaller, scrappier startup might want to go faster than they should.”

Where their focus lies: “You can learn a lot from how they describe their hypothetical impact. Are they results-oriented, using numbers to describe their impact?” says Desai. “Maybe they’re more process-oriented, describing their impact in terms of the systems they’ve successfully set up. Candidates who are more people-oriented will talk about how the org will have grown and how the team will have developed.”

Understanding of the role: If a candidate is way off-base from your expectations when describing what they’d hope to achieve, that’s telling in a different way. “It tests the extent to which they have internalized this role and what the company is asking them to solve for,” says Desai.

The work to overcome other misunderstandings about the role and the hiring manager’s expectations doesn’t stop once a candidate officially joins the team. To continue strengthening relationships and getting to know each other, Desai relies on an incredibly tactical framework that provides a bedrock for productive employee/manager relationships.

QUESTIONS ON WORKING WITH OTHERS:

16. Tell me about a time you strongly disagreed with your manager. What did you do to convince him or her that you were right? What ultimately happened?

When we surveyed our network of thoughtful founders and operators, several mentioned this as their favorite interview question. Since they each had different points of emphasis and takeaways, we’ve combined a few perspectives here to highlight why this question packs such a punch.

Let’s start with Cristina Cordova. She joined Stripe as the 28th employee and first business development hire. In addition to joining First Round’s Angel Track program, she’s since led multiple teams across Business Development, Financial Partnerships, Partner Engineering, and Diversity & Inclusion functions — which means she’s done her fair share of hiring.

And this question has become her go-to in interviews for a few reasons. “It shows me how far someone will go in order to do what they believe is right,” says Cordova. “The way candidates choose to unpack the anecdote also shows me how they convince others in the face of obstacles. Do they use data? Do they gather support from others?” Asking about what ultimately happened is also particularly illustrative. “How they speak about not getting their way tells you a lot about whether they’re willing to disagree and commit to execution,” she says.

Current Head of People and Development at Opendoor (and former SVP of Sales at Yelp) Erica Galos Alioto leans on this question as well. “I’m looking to see how candidates deal with conflict in a work environment,” she says. “Do they openly address it and see their difference in opinion as a strength? Or are they unable to see the other person’s perspective? Do they try to resolve it or silently let it bother them? This tells me a lot about their ability to communicate effectively and how they will handle disagreements with others at work.”

Former Airbnb VP of Engineering Michael Curtis is also a fan of diving into how candidates handle disagreements in interviews. “I like this question for a few reasons,” says Curtis. “First, it’s hard to give a fluff answer to. I also find it gives me a great signal on the candidate’s personality in a number of dimensions, and it serves up useful data points that can be used in reference checks later on.”

Curtis probes deeper into the topic with targeted follow-ups that really get into the weeds of how the disagreement with their boss went down:

What was your manager’s reasoning?

What arguments did you find compelling in favor of the decision?

What was your reasoning and most compelling arguments against?

Were you ultimately right?

In addition to sharing more of his go-to questions (“Think of a time you had to cut corners on a project in a way you weren’t proud of to make a deadline. How did you handle it?”), Curtis lays out tips for focusing interviews on culture and character.

17. Tell me about the best and worst bosses you’ve ever had, specifically, in your career. What was the difference?

As the CEO of Foursquare, Jeffrey Glueck finds that candidates aren’t usually prepared for this question. “They often reveal what makes them tick through their answers,” he says. “While the best one is interesting for picking up insight on how to get the most growth out of them, I often find that the worst boss answer is more interesting. You might learn that they react strongly to micromanagement, are fiercely independent, or are very individual comp focused.”

The key is pushing candidates to get specific. “Don’t let them off with vague answers,” says Glueck. “They don’t have to name names, of course, but you need to insist they talk about two specific bosses at specific companies, not generalizations.”

18. What’s one part of your previous company’s culture that you hope to bring to your next one? What one part do you hope to not find?

Ben Kamens, the founder, and CEO of Spring Discovery (and alum of Khan Academy and Fog Creek Software) finds this question to be an effective way to probe candidates’ thoughtfulness when it comes to working with others, uncovering their understanding of how team dynamics and culture intersect.

“Do they immaturely rant about the failings of past teammates? Do they thoughtfully consider why certain problems existed, maturely discussing the tradeoffs their previous company had to make?” he says. “Can they reason through why one company or industry’s problems or culture might not apply to another’s?”

QUESTIONS ON LEARNING FROM MISTAKES:

19. When was the last time you changed your mind about something important?

For Sarah Fetter, the Executive Director of Dialog, this interview question is all about evolution.

“It allows you to see how — and if — the candidate’s belief system or set of core values has changed. How did a powerful experience or impactful person shift the candidate’s worldview?” she says. “Follow up with more questions to find out what they felt before, during and after the experience of being challenged — that will tell you a great deal.”

20. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from a peer and how have you used that lesson in your day-to-day life?

This one comes from Dan Slate, Director of Product Management at Wealthfront. “I’m looking for a candidate’s ability to identify superpowers in those around them that they want to improve upon themselves,” he says.

“I like this question because it allows me to assess their self-reflection and growth mindset. Depending on the answer they provide, it can also be a good window into how humble they are.”

21. Tell me about a time you really screwed something up. How did you handle it and how did you address the mistake?

“In one fell swoop, this question tests for humility, self-reflection, problem-solving and communication skills,” says Chad Dickerson, former Etsy CEO turned coach-to-other-CEOs at Reboot.

He notes that it also provides greater insight into the scope of responsibility in prior roles. “The bigger one’s scope, the bigger the mistakes and the more complex the remediation of those mistakes,” says Dickerson.

22. Tell me about a time you made a mistake or failed at something. What did you learn from this experience? Can you give me two other examples?

As an alum of Glossier, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Product Hunt, Corley Hughes has serious team-building chops. When hiring, she likes to focus on how a candidate has learned from failure — but she’s found that asking about it just once isn’t enough.

“Asking for three examples gives me a better sense of someone’s actions and the natural way of working. Everyone who’s adequately prepared for an interview has one rehearsed answer on learning from failure in their pocket,” she says.

“The folks who can point to three different times they’ve messed up show that they have a well-honed habit of looking objectively at a situation and talking openly about what they’d do differently. I’ve found that these people tend to naturally self-course-correct, are constantly learning, and are willing to share bad news quickly, which are must-haves on my team.”

When listening to the answers, she’s specifically looking to see whether the candidate can:

Speak comfortably and openly about mistakes.

Reflect and apply what they learned.

Demonstrate that they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Every candidate has one canned answer on learning from failure in their pocket. The people who can point to three different examples are the true constant-learners — and the folks you need on your team.

23. When have you felt the lowest in your career? Did you realize how you felt in the moment? How did you respond?

Codeacademy co-founder and CEO Zach Sims (who’s previously shared his fundraising wisdom on the Review) is scouting for the tenacity with this question.

“We’re looking for people that know that careers have lots of ups and downs,” he says. “Can you handle those with aplomb, working through the downs with your team and the upswing that hopefully follows? Candidates that have experience with this rollercoaster can often ride out startups better than others.

QUESTIONS THAT SURFACE SELF-AWARENESS:

24. What’s one misconception your coworkers have about you?

Umbrella co-founder Sam Gerstenzang once wrote that it’s not the presence of weakness, but rather a failure to recognize it that usually holds people back — and accordingly, his go-to interview question centers around self-awareness.

“I’ve found this question tends to open up a candidate,” he tells us. “By asking for a misconception rather than something coworkers simply don’t know about you, the interviewer often receives a more important and revealing truth while also understanding how the candidate relates to their co-workers.”

In Gerstenzang’s experience, the misconception is often something a candidate wishes they had more or less of, which helps understand their underlying motivations. “A less-than-great answer often reveals an underdeveloped sense of self or poor communication with co-workers,” he says.

Asking about misconceptions is a powerful tool. It speaks to both your conception of yourself, and your understanding of how others perceive you — both of which are critical.

25. What are you better at than most anyone else? What’s your superpower and how will you leverage that to make an impact at this company?

Roli Saxena has some incredibly insightful interview questions up her sleeve. The current Chief Customer Officer at Brex (and former VP of Revenue at Clever) has previously spoken to the Review about how she hunts for resilience and prioritization to find candidates who are well-equipped to combat burnout and overwhelm.

Another one of her favorite questions similarly straddles two qualities. “By asking about their superpower and how that will specifically help them in this role, you can learn a lot about candidates’ self-awareness and how prepared they are,” she says. “If they can tailor their response to what our team is focused on and how they can add value, I know they’ve done the homework — both on our company and on themselves.”

Lenny Rachitsky is also a fan of asking candidates to share their superpowers. “As a manager, it’s important to help people flex what they’re really good at, instead of just trying to improve on the areas they’re struggling with,” he noted in his recent advice for handling performance reviews.

Here’s what the former Airbnb product lead is specifically looking for in answers to this interview question:

Getting thoughtful and concrete. “The best candidates take the time to pause and really think about it,” says Rachitsky. “It’s a red flag for me if they jump to stock-sounding generic answers. I want them to identify something focused, not vague.”

Showing humility and authenticity. “Can they honestly point out both good and bad? Do I feel like they are being real? I’m looking for an authentic insight into this person’s strengths and weaknesses,” he says. “Which is why I often tack on this follow-up: ‘If I were to ask your colleagues at your last job to tell me about you, what would I hear?’ I find that it consistently gets to real honest stuff.”

Rachitsky shared his thoughts on the role of superpowers in performance reviews, emphasizing a manager’s responsibility to describe their reports’ strengths — and how they can flex them further. Get his tactical advice (and incredibly helpful template) in this Review article how performance reviews can help managers uplevel from good to kickass.

26. If I were to go and speak to people who don’t think very highly of you, what would they say?

This question is clearly designed to probe the depths of a candidate’s self-awareness. But Gabriel Otte is also hunting for another quality: empathy.

Self-awareness isn’t just about understanding your own shortcomings. Develop empathy for the people who dislike you — otherwise you’ll get caught up in justifications and evasions that make it tough to truly internalize the criticism.

“When I pose this question to candidates, I’m always looking to see how much empathy they have for the people who don’t like them,” says Otte, the co-founder, and CEO of Freenome (and a partner in First Round’s Healthcare Co-op). “Do they evade or try to justify why people might not like them? Or are they in denial and think no one dislikes them?”

QUESTIONS TO FIND OUT HOW THEY RESPOND TO FEEDBACK:

27. What’s one critical piece of feedback you’ve received that was really difficult to hear? Why was it difficult and what did you do with that information? What did you learn about yourself?

As Medium’s Head of People, Pema Lin-Moore typically asks this question in the career history portion of the interview. “It gives me a glimpse into how a person responds to feedback that’s out of line with how they see themselves or how they wish to be seen,” she says. “You get a sense of how self-reflective a person can be, how resilient they are, and the type of environment they’ve been operating in.”

Nolan Church also similarly recommends probing into how a candidate deals with difficult feedback. “I learn more about someone from this question than anything else I ask,” says the Chief People Officer at Carta. “It gives me insight into an area for development, how they respond to feedback, and their level of introspection, vulnerability, and humility.”

In addition to providing question #11, LendingHome co-founder and CEO Matt Humphrey submitted another excellent question that also fits in here, adding a slight twist: “I always say ‘We’ll ask about this in references, but I’d love to hear it from you as well: Very specifically, what’s the most recent piece of critical feedback that you’ve gotten?” he says.

For him, the preface to the question is particularly key. “I’ve found that throwing in the ‘references’ comment is important because it tends to bring out more honest responses,” says Humphrey. “I’m literally looking for them to get into the nitty-gritty of the when and the how, not fluffy or abstract responses. So it’s helpful to have candidates know that if they lob in a softball, I may hear something different when I’m doing reference checks.”

28. Find a way to give the candidate feedback in the interview.

This one is less question, more targeted tactic, but it’s such valuable interview advice for hiring managers that we had to include it here. It was suggested by Nicky Goulimis, co-founder and COO of Nova Credit.

“In every interview, I try to find a way to give a candidate constructive feedback and see how they react,” she says. “How we navigate tough conversations is critical for how we’ll be able to work together in the future, so it’s important to test.”

It’s always unique to the candidate, so it’s hard to give one-size-fits-all advice, but here are two tactics she relies on to create an opening for a constructive feedback opportunity:

Feedback on the exercise: “Our business interview process typically involves a take-home that we have candidates present,” says Goulimis. “We always applaud the candidate at the end to share our appreciation, but then everyone on the interview panel goes around sharing feedback, both positive and constructive. It’s incredibly instructive to see a candidate internalize that feedback and respond to it in the moment.”

Feedback on their potential fit: “I also share constructive feedback when debriefing with candidates. I talk openly about what’s really exciting to me and where I still have question marks,” she says. “In addition to demonstrating my commitment to transparency, it also offers them an opportunity to react to or address those areas while they’re still being considered.”

QUESTIONS THAT PUT PASSION FRONT AND CENTER:

29. What was the last thing you nerded out on?

Shawne Ashton, VP of Growth at mindbodygreen(and former Director of Business Operations at Zola) levels this one at candidates as a final question. “It helps me get a sense of whether this person is a life-long learner, self-starter, naturally curious, and able to teach themselves new things they’re interested in,” she says. “By emphasizing that it doesn’t need to be work-related, I find that I also get to know the person a bit more beyond their direct job experience, and it ends the interview on a fun note.”

Upstart’s Head of Strategy and Partner Operations Cindy Smith asks a similar question, with a slight twist: Tell me about a topic that you’ve taken it upon yourself to learn about. “I want to hear them talk about something they’ve received no formal training on,” says Smith. “It shows curiosity, tenacity around learning and it helps me gauge how a person tackles hard topics and new challenges.”

30. What are some things outside of work that you’re irrationally passionate about?

While this question may seem like a standard getting-to-know-you inquiry, Laura Behrens Wu uses it as an opportunity to delve deeper into a candidate’s motivations.

“I’m looking for people who are intrinsically motivated, and hobbies are often an outlet for that,” says the co-founder and CEO of Shippo. “Over the years, I’ve found that intrinsically driven individuals typically have other passions outside of work that they pursue in an obsessive-like way. For example, if a candidate tells me they run 10 miles a day as a hobby, that’s a signal of a strong internal drive.”

31. What’s the first job you had, that’s not on your resume, and what did you learn from that experience?

This question is one of Maryann Kongovi’s favorites. “It relaxes the candidates and leads to fun conversations about summer jobs,” says the VP of Operations at Algolia. But there’s the intention behind it as well. “I always come away with better insight into their values and perspectives on work itself.”

QUESTIONS THAT THROW A CURVEBALL:

32. Why shouldn’t we hire you?

Romy Macasieb finds this question is a useful (and unexpected) tool for excavating where a candidate still has room to grow. “It goes much deeper than your standard ‘What are your 3 areas of improvement?’ type questions” says the founding PM and current VP of Product at Walker & Company.

“I like that it allows interviewees to play both sides of the table. They could highlight the skills they’re missing or why they might not be what we’re looking for by saying something like ‘You shouldn’t hire me if you want someone that is quant-only,’” Macasieb says. “But they can also turn the focus to why you might not be a fit for them. I’ve heard responses like ‘You shouldn’t hire me if you have an open office floor plan.’”

33. What should our team be doing differently that could yield 10x improvement?

Meka Asonye leads the Startup & SMB sales org at Stripe, a group that advises venture-backed companies on their commerce, monetization and expansion strategies. “I’m looking for folks who have a bias for action and can think like an owner,” he says. “Can they think at the CEO level, beyond just the job they’re applying for?”

Sometimes, this question surfaces some real gems. “We’re actually considering piloting one of the ideas a recent candidate mentioned. I’ve also had interviews where people have mentioned things that we have seriously considered but scrapped for various reasons,” says Asonye.

But when the answers are less than stellar, here’s where candidates tend to go wrong:

Ambitions aren’t lofty enough. “Oftentimes I hear ideas that are a 10% improvement, not 10X. The temptation can be to offer non-controversial, minor tweaks to the process,” says Asonye.

Can’t think of any suggestions. “This one is a big red flag for me, as I tend to see candidates in a second or third round interview after the candidate has met with five to 10 people,” says Asonye. “They should be pretty well-versed in our company and product by then, so it’s often a sign that they haven’t done their homework.”

To troubleshoot conversations that have stalled out, Asonye offers helpful footholds with these guiding questions:

Why might we be unable to raise our next round of financing?

Why would someone choose to work with our biggest competitor?

What product or service might we introduce that would be valuable to our core customer?

34. Teach me something.

This open-ended and surprising prompt was part of Nathalie McGrath’s interview toolkit while she was the VP of People at Coinbase. “It can tell you a great deal about a candidate’s thought process,” McGrath says. “How do they communicate and reason through an issue? Do they start from first principles? As an added benefit, I often get a glance into something they’re passionate about — plus the chance to personally learn something new.”

Kevin Morrill is also a fan of this approach in interviews — one that he’s built on and thoroughly thought through after asking it hundreds of times over the years. Morrill’s an engineering manager at Quizlet, former CTO of Mattermark, and the creator of Buried Reads, a fascinating newsletter that’s a must-read in our inbox.(He co-authors it along with his wife, Danielle Morrill former CEO and co-founder at Mattermark, and current GM at GitLab).

And when we asked why he favored this approach in interviews, Morrill was at the ready with this thorough Google Doc explanation on what he calls “the five-minute communication question.”

Here’s how it works: Morrill asks candidates to break down a topic for him. It can be anything — a hobby, book, or project — but they’ll only have five minutes to take him from a beginner to someone who understands what’s most important about the topic. Here’s a preview of what he’s come to look for in their explanations:

Empathy. As an interviewer posing this question, the key is to keep your face vacant and minimize interjections. “A star candidate will pick up on this and ask if I understand so far,” writes Morrill. “These are the same kind of people that empathize with customers and think about it in all the work they do once we hire them.”

Giving an analogy. Using a shortcut for explaining concepts is a telling indicator of a candidate’s skill. “One example I heard while someone was teaching me the basics of poker was to take advantage of the fact I had played backgammon, even though I hadn’t played poker. He talked about how in backgammon all the pieces on the board are exposed information that both players can see, but in poker, you have hidden information,” writes Morril. “These types of explanations go a long way towards quickly communicating an idea with all kinds of implications very succinctly.”

Taking the time to pause. “Once the trigger-happy type candidates get going, they don’t have any kind of bulleted list or outline in their head of what they hope to get across,” writes Morril. “What’s most incredible about this is how accurately it predicts disorganized and non-goal directed behavior on the job.”

It is amazing how many candidates won’t premeditate before diving into interview questions. Those who take the time to stop, think it through and have a few crystal clear points are amongst the best people I’ve ever worked with.

QUESTIONS THAT DIG INTO HOW THEY THINK:

35. If you were to take over as CEO of your current company tomorrow and had to increase your company’s current rate of growth, what three areas you would invest in?

Jeanne DeWitt heads up Revenue & Growth for North America at Stripe, so naturally, her favorite question has a growth bent to it. But by asking candidates to play CEO, she’s uncovered a sharp way to assess them on a few different variables.

“I’ve found it gives candidates an opportunity to highlight their strengths and strategic thinking,” she says. “But it also provides a chance for them to exercise empathy. If they get into how their hypothetical actions as CEO will affect the team, that signals a certain thoughtfulness about how their own working style impacts their peers or reports.”

36. How would you build a product for people who are looking for an apartment?

Bangaly Kaba (VP of Product at Instacart and former head of growth at Instagram) gives candidates 45 minutes to work through this one on a whiteboard. It’s part of the product sense portion of the PM interview process — and he finds that this seemingly mundane hypothetical can prove to be very difficult.

Here’s why it’s one of his favorite questions to ask in an interview:

There’s no one right answer. “As the interviewer, I’m agnostic when it comes to the exact product solution,” says Kaba. “What I care about is the rigor of the candidate’s approach, the depth of thinking and coherence of the product outcome, and the frameworks used to get there.”

It’s relevant to everyone. “Many product sense questions are niche and pertain to the company you’re interviewing for, which carries bias because there’s asymmetric information between interviewer and interviewee,” he says. “But finding housing is a universal need.”

It’s hard to game. “Even if you know the question in advance I can offer new constraints or twists that are similar to on-the-fly changes that PMs face day-to-day,” says Kaba. “It checks whether the interviewee can think the thorough the product idea holistically.”

37. What are 10 ways to speed up Domino’s pizza delivery?

When hiring for Coinbase’s product team, Max Branzburg likes to throw this unexpected, pizza-chain related inquiry out there.

“There’s no one right answer, but what I like about this question is that nearly everyone has the same context beforehand,” he says. “Good responses demonstrate an ability to ask clarifying questions, structure thoughts, be both creative and analytical, and consider technological and operational solutions. Plus, it’s undeniably fun.”

QUESTIONS THAT FLIP THE SCRIPT:

38. What can I tell you about working here?

A few years back at our CTO Summit, Kellan Elliott-McCrea gave an incredible talk on how Etsy grew their number of female engineers by 500% in one year. So we weren’t surprised that his take on interviewing was similarly deep and insightful.

The former SVP of Eng at Blink Health and Etsy CTO finds that the fundamental model we use to interview within the tech industry is wrong. “It assumes we’re panning a stream of high performing technical specialists for a few gems. This may have been true once upon a time, but it isn’t the world we live in anymore,” says Elliott-McCrea. “Software is a straightforward technical project, but a difficult social, cultural and operational one.”

Here’s his take on what interviewers should focus on instead:

Treating the interview as a collaboration to make sure that the role is a good fit is the first priority. Making sure the candidate has a positive experience is the second priority. Everything else is a nice-to-have.

39. If you were in my shoes, what attributes would you look for in hiring for this role?

NerdWallet co-founder and CEO Tim Chen recently shared his takeaways from navigating the shift from first-time founder to seasoned exec on the Review, which surfaced some particularly interesting insights on hiring, including how he’s revamped his approach to interviewing execs and the surprisingly honest reason why he interviewed every single person up until the NerdWallet team reached 200 people.

And when we followed up with him to get his favorite interview question, he surfaced yet another intriguing tactic: asking what the candidate would look for if they were on the other side of the table.

“Some of the attributes they list off are surprising,” says Chen. “It helps you think about the role in a different way. I’ve also found that candidates tend to highlight their own strengths, so it gives you a window into who they are. You can also get a sense of whether they’re good at breaking nebulous problems, like hiring, into the key drivers.”

40. What have I not asked you that I should have?

“This question surprises almost everyone,” says Liza Hausman, VP of Industry Marketing at Houzz. (And it’s the perfect one to end on.)

“I like it because it tells me what they think is important about their skills or experience. It also lets me know if they have an interview strategy of their own, which can be useful if they’re going to be building out a team.”

Got a favorite interview question of your own?

Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

40 Favorite Interview Questions from Some of the Sharpest Folks We Know by First Round Here at First Round, we’re always searching for advice that gets overlooked or goes unshared, hoping to find the stones that company builders don’t even know to turn over.

[myrainygivercollection-blog]

8 eye-catching marketing trends for social media in 2018

8 eye-catching marketing trends for social media

Promoting your business via web-based networking media works for one valid justification: everybody is there. In any case, 'everybody' incorporates a ton of different advertisers, which implies the general population you need to reach areas of now getting immersed with promotions from contenders. That you need to emerge isn't news. Be that as it may, how you can emerge via web-based networking media in 2018 is news—on the grounds that for each stage, there's a rising pattern you can use to get seen and connect with your devotees. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Here's all that you have to ace web-based life advertising this year.

Instagram patterns Pattern #1: Instagram is the new Facebook

"For advertisers hunting down an internet-based life stage that can give access to a developing gathering of people of profoundly connected with clients, Instagram has turned into a market pioneer." — Owlmetrics, Instagram Stories Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Instagram is an extraordinary stage for posting your movement photographs. Get your most loved and combine it with an individual message utilizing any of these formats from Canva: Travel Blog Instagram Post, Orange Madrid Travel Instagram Post, and Travel to Spain Instagram Post. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Instagram has been developing like insane, and there are a couple of reasons why. For one, it's as yet a glad, chipper place where individuals share photos of their morning meals and get-away goals, as opposed to regurgitating their political assessments. For another, it hasn't yet achieved the promotion immersion that provoked Facebook to switch around its calculation once more to organize "companions, family and gatherings" (we'll get to that later). Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

"One explanation behind Instagram's quick reception among promoters is the pipeline of 5 million dynamic publicists on Facebook. As Facebook faces advertisement stack immersion on its primary application, advertisers have more motivations to try different things with Instagram promoting. Facebook can give the equivalent focusing on abilities on Instagram, yet there's a developing number of promotion types and more accessible stock on Instagram for publicists to drive transformations." — JD Prater, Director of Growth Marketing and Customer Acquisition at AdStage. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Be that as it may, Instagram is a characteristically visual stage, which implies it requires an unexpected methodology in comparison to Facebook's content forward posts. In the event that the picture doesn't snatch watchers, you've lost them instantly. In any case, overlaying words on pictures can give you the best of the two universes. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Blinkist utilizes overlays to extraordinary impact with either taking pictures of book covers or overlaying cites over stock photograph foundations. Devotees want the statements and remain for the books, or possibly the abridged key thoughts of the true to life books Blinkist shrivels down. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Pattern #2: The push towards unique, marked, niched pictures proceeds

As more advertisers get insightful to Instagram, conventional promotions are springing up. Shoppers are very much prepared to disregard these as of now. Stock photographs? Gimme a break.

The substance that Instagrammers focus on regularly aren't cleaned, proficient photographs. The pictures that get perspectives and commitment will, in general, be significantly more close to home, and to a great degree firmly niched. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

"In 2018, it's imperative for visual makers to create content custom fitted to particular groups of onlookers. Online life is getting to be noisier as stages develop. To achieve your coveted fans, you should make one of a kind plans that coordinate their interests. You may find that your devotees incline toward wild examples versus strong hues. For more knowledge, do the examination, execute, and assess your work." — Shayla Price, B2B Marketer. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Audrey Crisp Interiors has in excess of 51,000 supporters and only 926 posts on her Instagram account, however, her "advanced boho" stylish is consistent to the point, that she's turned into a go-to picture hotspot for the motivation eager, current plan darlings. The pictures she posts aren't unique - they're sourced from different originators and stores like West Elm. Yet, in light of the fact that *her* style is reflected in each post she clergymen, it works for her gathering of people. Plus, sharing other individuals' substance (and ascribing it likewise) is a noble method to construct a following (and it's unmistakably working for Crisp). Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Make your own inspirational web-based life present that is certain on the draw in wellbeing buffs to your page. Attempt this Fitness Motivational Quote Instagram layout on Canva.

8fit, a wellbeing and wellness application, has an Instagram feed that seems as though it has a place with a wellbeing sustenance blogger, or possibly a fitness coach. As a matter of fact, it's unique substance delivered by 8fit that utilizes their in-house aptitude (that's right, from their very own 8fit nutritionists and mentors). They have formulas, wellbeing tips and even short exercise recordings that supporters can utilize regardless of whether they purchase the application. In any case, see the proportion of instructive substance to content that is more centered around deals—it's under 1 of every 50. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Facebook patterns Pattern 3: Messenger bots are getting to be advertisers

Facebook as of late brought brands and Messenger bots together, however, this matching is ready to take off. Brands like LEGO and Sephora welcome Facebook clients to get in touch with them by means of bot on their page to find solutions to questions like "what LEGO set should I purchase my multi-year-old niece?" and empower quicker, more straightforward booking of makeovers, individually. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Arri Bagah, Head of Chatbots at BAMF media, says Facebook Messenger bots can be utilized to construct associations with clients with useful, supportive substance, offer client benefit investigating and FAQ-replying, and much recoup surrendered shopping baskets. Be that as it may, the key to effective Bot promoting is to make the Bot as human-like as could be allowed. Charming. Entertaining. Casual. Also, not simply message based. As Arri says, "On the off chance that you take a gander at how individuals utilize informing applications, they utilize pictures and gifs. What's more, that is the thing that you have to use with a chatbot to make it feel individual and locks in." Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Online life constructed bots are with respect to the ascent. As computerized advertising strategist Gus Younis includes, "with the achievement of FB delivery person advertisements, it's feasible that different stages may duplicate that encounter. Everyone is endeavoring to get all the more advertisement stock, and informing is the following arrangement to go for." Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Pattern 4: Facebook is including augmented reality

This pattern may not hit in full power until one year from now, but rather on the off chance that you need to arrive early-adopter status, prepare to go virtual. Facebook possesses Oculus, a computer-generated experience equipment, and programming organization, so it's nothing unexpected that the two are teaming up on a venture that unites the best of the two universes: Spaces. Spaces will utilize Facebook photographs to construct a custom symbol, players can record their VR exercises live and post them on Facebook for companions to follow continuously, and Facebook companions can make and get Messenger video calls whether they're in VR or not. Facebook declared plans to scale Spaces in 2018 and keeping in mind that advertising openings presumably won't be taken off ahead of schedule, you can wager they're soon. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Pattern 5: Facebook bunches are the place the activity is

That most recent calculation change organizing companions, live video and gathering posts overwhelmed most brands—yet not the individuals who as of now vigorously utilize their very own Facebook gatherings. Developing people group around your image has turned out to be a fantastically ground-breaking approach to associate—and remain associated with—a center gathering of people of clients who are locked in and willing to enable each other to out. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

The Copywriter Club 'The Copywriter Club' Facebook gathering

Take this Canva-made structure and tweak it to mirror your own locale: Breathe Facebook Cover.

Inhale Facebook Cover

As advanced advertising strategist, speaker, and business person Ross Simmonds says, "Facebook Groups outperform pages just like the most critical natural instrument in the Facebook showcasing toolbox." Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

"Facebook has discussed their duty to make the world more associated for quite a long time and at present Groups is the most ideal route for outsiders to meet outsiders. The most recent declaration from Zuckerberg expressing that they need Facebook to be more social and less need around media and brand content demonstrates to me that the composing is on the divider. In 2017, 1B individuals were getting to Groups in a solitary month. I anticipate that that number will keep on ascending in the months ahead." Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

The Copywriter Club web recording website The Copywriter Club web recording webpage

In only one year, the expert gathering The Copywriter Club has developed into a 7,000 part solid system of very drew in, commonly strong publicists. There's likewise a webcast, however rather than the network supporting the digital broadcast, it's entirely another route around, as prime supporter Kira Hug clarifies. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

"We began the Facebook aggregate a year prior, and the technique promptly was simply to get the correct marketing specialists in the room. I sent individual solicitations to every one of the marketing specialists I knew; I was stalking other Facebook gatherings to discover authors I didn't have the foggiest idea; I was taking a gander at various online catalogs with publicists abroad—anything I could discover. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

The digital broadcast caused also to help the development. The digital recording gets all of us talking a similar dialect. We can allude to various visitors and shows, we realize the general subjects we're discussing. That is the means by which we began. Furthermore, I think the Facebook calculation has helped us incredibly over the previous year. I feel like we've sprung up in many individuals encourages." Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Does it fill in as an advertising apparatus? You wager. Organizers Kira Hug and Rob Marsh simply sold out their first individuals just meeting in New York.

Live spilling video (all channels)

Live gushing video (all channels)

Pattern 6: Forget evergreen substance - attempt Instagram stories

Instagram stories don't need to be video - they can likewise be pictures or even GIFs (made with Boomerang), with included channels, stickers, drawing, content and different capacities that are always being included. The key resembles Snapchat, they keep going for 24 hours. No doubt, not actually evergreen substance. So why contribute? Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

"2018 will be where we'll observe a flood in live spilling and recordings as a substance conveyance channel. With decreasing capacities to focus and the requirement for chomp measure content in a hurry, the above channels would make brands utilize them in imaginative new ways. A report by Statista states that there are more than 300 million every day dynamic Stories clients around the world plainly, early adopters on stages like this will appreciate an edge." — Taru Bhargava, content advertiser and strategist. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

There are many individuals watching stories! Stories are credible, fun and connecting with,

and almost easy to make. Since they don't keep going forever, organizations can utilize Stories to try out thoughts on their crowd and check responses, and, since Instagram gives makers a chance to add connects to Stories (generally illegal on customary Instagram posts), brands can utilize them to drive movement. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Visit organization Pride of Maui posts stories much of the time, exploiting their wonderful surroundings to take recordings of swimming turtles or simply waving palm trees. Notice the content overlay with the palm tree sticker - little contacts that send a perfectly clear message that it's the ideal opportunity for a get-away. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Fun actuality: photographs will in general drive more 'likes' per post, yet recordings drive more remarks - and video commitment details are becoming quicker than those for photographs. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Pattern 7: For Facebook Live, make recordings pragmatic and additionally rousing

The most shared sort of substance on Facebook in 2017, as per Buzzsumo, was video. Extraordinary recordings,, however. Live recordings posted from Facebook bunches do especially well in news channel arrangement. Be that as it may, recordings that are rousing, inspiring, and contain commonsense tips are the ones that get shared the most. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Pattern 8: Snapchat - go local or go home

To comprehend Snapchat advertising, you need to comprehend this: Snapchat is the place you go when your intended interest group is Generation Z. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Presently in their tweens, adolescents, and mid-twenties, Gen Z is coming into some genuine spending power. Indeed, an ongoing report from Goldman Sachs discovered that Generation Z is more important to most associations than the decade-more established recent college grads. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

Snapchat

However, here's the kicker: they demonstrate zero enthusiasm for promotions that show up in Snapchat stories. They're on Snapchat (and Instagram as well) to keep in contact with companions, not to interface with brands (or be barraged with promotions). Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar

In any case, that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity here. Conventional advertisements don't work, yet day-in-the-existence recordings, off camera recordings and how-to recordings can. Consider it a type of local publicizing, yet the article content you're attempting to fit in with is the client produced content youngsters are thinking of themselves. Social Media Marketing Services in Laxmi Nagar