#in an interview i saw her talking about how she delivered every line w the intention that the one unifying thing every inq has is power

[lavellane]

i know the general consensus is that the inquisitors characterization is the worst out of the games but that literally wasnt my experience At ALL considering i play ashara as 90% mean as fuck and alix wilton reagan consistently nails those lines

[wolf-stark]

You ask I deliver — both tfatws asks in one!

tfatws weekly ask 1

i finally saw ep1!! i wont be able to see ep2 until thursday at the earliest but i already have some Thots on this ep. here are the ones I remember

first is, and i'm so sorry for this, a grammar lesson. an appositive is when you stick an additional phrase in between commas, dashes, or the like. i actually just used one! the "and i'm so sorry for this" in the first sentence of this paragraph is an appositive. thing is, most english speakers don't normally use them when they speak, only in writing. so i'm always on high alert whenever i hear somebody in tv or movies use one. (it's generally a marker of bad screenwriting). anyway there was one right in the beginning of the episode. the white army guy yelling at sam wilson said "first lieutenant Torres, our intel officer, will be helping on the ground." yeah so. the writing of this series started out on the wrong foot for me. but the rest of the episode was obviously tons and tons better (every interview i see with malcolm spellman makes me love him more and more)

the contrast between the opening minutes (falcon action sequence) and the rest of the ep.... i would 100000/10 rather watch a series with just sam and bucky dealing with life. i dont give a single crap about the flag-smashers or any of that. i just want sam, sarah & fam getting their boating business back on the ground & yeeting racist dickwads, bucky going through therapy and making amends, sam and joaquin being bros, sambucky homoerotic tension, etc.

the cinnamontography! wandavision mostly used cinematography to signify era n stuff. tfatws doesn't have wv's premise to go off of, so here's some tricks i noticed:

with sam there's obviously all sorts of shots with the captain america iconography next to his face, but he hasn't totally claimed it. there's the mural of steve rogers in the background; there's sam staring into the shield like it's a spectre of steve's face; there's sam looking into the exhibit, the shield and sam separated by glass and a layer of camera focus. steve is a constant spectre, always there, an idea, a symbol himself. sam's relationship with this iconography is distanced. he is separated by glass exhibit walls. by painting canvases. he doesn't yet feel worthy to take on that iconography. this whole thing was pulled off quite well but also a bit on-the-nose if only in quantity. there's just sooooo much fancy iconography stuff

speaking of the exhibit, there's something that i get real pissy about. it's when like, there's an action going on you're supposed to be paying attention to but the cinematographer is like,,,, hey! check out this location! or this headline! or something! there was a lot of that in the exhibit. the camera was like, you could focus on sam and rhodey's convo (which was fine but could have been so much better with an extra like 10 minutes of deep character study talk) but noooo you want me to look at the symbol for the united nations and read all the text about bucky who hasn't even showed up yet. shut up i know the lore and ill watch the shot-by-shot breakdown yt vids you don't have to make the shot this long jkdsalcjklasejf

my fav trick was with bucky and the therapist. i had seen a clip of the scene with bucky and the therapist beforehand and i thought the cinnamontography was super obnoxious, but then i was like, oh duh. the shots frequently change the distance between the camera and its subject. sometimes it's uncomfortably close and sometimes it's really far. a clear allegory for the duality of therapy, esp for bucky! therapy is an invasive process wherein he is ruthlessly examined, picked apart, and berated for his trauma (this therapist is crap in every way btw, "mean therapist" works for greg house and greg house only). so the camera goes close. it makes the viewer claustrophobic like bucky. but when he's like "no i haven't had any nightmares" the camera suddenly goes really far. we see bucky as this tiny head in the center of the bottom of the frame. we are distanced from him. he has pushed us away. we cannot see him. he lies because he is vulnerable. so yeah, amazing work there. the therapy scene was hard to watch on purpose!

did bucky slip a note to yori inside the dollar bill? bucky stop making me emooooo. the suuper awkward fake smile has me 😭 (veteran trying to adjust!)

mark my worrrrds when sam asks someone y the govt picked john “white bread” walker they’re gonna say “we needed somebody everyone can get behind....someone uncontroversial, someone everyone can see themselves in” like that exact racist dog whistle

tfatws weekly ask 2

just saw ep2 so im taking advantage of the 2 seconds i can be on tumblr without worrying about tfatws spoilers before new episode drops

when isaiah said "your people put me in prison for being a hero" and bucky thought "your people" means hydra. 🤦‍♂️

speaking of racism, the interplay between sam being Black (anti-Black racism) and sam being the Falcon (negrophilia, "can i take a selfie w you as i deny you a loan?") and the intersection between the two (j*hn lichrally called sam "steve's wingman"! he takes the crypto out of crypto-racist in like 2 seconds!) !!!!!!!! a Black celebrity's Black experience, the separation of man and identity!!!! (thinking about vanessa bayer in snl in that skit "beyonce is black" telling her black friend "you're not black, you're...my girl!")

after sam gets racially profiled by cops we see j*hn standing in front of cop cars cinematic parallels turns out j*hn is racist who knew

this therapist sucks major ass but she got bucky and sam together in the same room and ready to collaborate...that's something ig. it was lichrally couple's therapy she said she used her miracle exercise with couples sambucky antis get blended

bucky says "he was wrong about you so maybe he was wrong about me"...that's not how people talk. when therapist asks bucky, the guy who doesn't talk at all about himself, "y do you hate sam", the last thing bucky's gonna do is actually connect his hatred of sam to his own self-worth issues. bucky generally refuses to talk about himself, so why would he talk about himself in the one context that nobody ever links back to their own neuroses: hatred of other people? one thing human beings hate most is admitting we're wrong. admitting you hate someone because of your own issues? that's a major therapeutic step. bucky would absolutely have to be prompted to do that. even like one or two lines of dialogue more would have set up that line better. but in terms of the actual thought? an amazing way to take the sam/bucky relationship. bucky bases his self-worth on steve believing in him, and if steve is wrong bucky has no self-worth, so 1) he has to develop self-worth disassociated from steve's assessment of him and 2) he has to love himself before he can love sam, and 3) he has to realize that sam giving up the shield is a sign of sam's humility not his unworthiness.

conversely, we don't get into why sam hates bucky? yeah sam has the right to hate a guy that has tried to kill him (albeit while brainwashed) multiple times, and now shows up in his life just to bash him but. everything happens so fast i cant follow their relationship

in fact i dont feel like i understood much of anything. like y did bucky and sam go on that mission together? how connected are sam/bucky/joaquin with the government? doesn't bucky just want to retire now? literally what is everyone doing/feeling and why???

if battlestar becomes a knowing commentary on the black best friend stereotype i'm gonna party, but i dont expect much of that

the interplay between man and symbol. captain america is obviously a symbol. the shield is obviously a symbol. but steve rogers? the. man behind the cowl? he too seems to become a symbol. a paragon of a good guy, so good he's unreachable. steve was just a guy stop idolizing him the last thing steve would want is to be idolized

as the resident musician/music nerd on mcublr, 1) that captain america rally music slaps, but 2) re: the song at the end of the ep, if you're just gonna rip off mozart's lacrymosa then at least play mozart's lacrymosa. we wont blame you the lacrymosa slaps (if you dont know what im talking about go on yt and search it up youll recognize it fo sho

look i love enfys nest as much as the next guy but if tfatws is gonna get erin kellyman to play another innocent little gurl blackmailed into the fakeout-villain position (her text seemed to suggest as such) then 😡 like why can't women just....be evil? young, freckly, innocent-looking women? girls are not untouchable pure objects but full of rage and resentment just as much as anyone can be

bonus ep1 comment: bucky says about that senator whose car he hijacked, "she continued to abuse the power i gave her." fictionaldarling on yt say that he says "i" because he can't disassociate himself from his winter soldier persona which begets endless and senseless guilt. like dude. can i not be emo for like 1 second.

OKay. First off, as much I enjoy your sending it to me, what made you decide to send me these??

-

TFATWS WA #1

Don't worry about getting this to me as early as possible. I usually don't watch the episode right away.

1. Cool writing lesson.

2. Everyone wants a comedy show [like Friends] about the MCU superheroes.

3. Cinematography is always a beautiful thing.

4. Sam definitely has to carve his own Captain America status for himself, outside of Steve's ya know everything.

5. They have to do that for people who was just now tuning in because they're in love with Sam Wilson or Sharon Carter.

6. I think the therapist was taking a 'tough love' approach for Bucky, because she likely has some very strong opinions about the literal assassin she's been assigned to give therapy too. She did not choose to talk to him, she was assigned that make that clear in the second episode.

And, Bucky isn't lying when he said it wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a nightmare, it was a resurfaced memory. So, technically he wasn't lying - and yes, the camera does move away because while he's saying he didn't have a nightmare, he's not expanding on what actually happened - so, he's still pushing the therapist/us away.

7. Bucky, and Steve, have/had a TON to adjust to.

8. Yeah, I agree that will be the bullshit line they give. If they ever actually talk about it.

TFATW WA #2

Yeah, always got to take advantage of avoiding those spoilers lmfaoo.

1. Honestly, that line was double meaning. Both about White people and Hydra [which is made up of mostly white supremacists/nazis] So, the line is gesturing to both White People in general and Hydra assholes together. I think the terminology is “double edge sword”??

2. This whole paragraph structure confused me, ngl - so I'm going to answer it the best I can. I do like that they're not ignoring the fact that Sam being Black is 1000% the reason he's not the Official Captain America - because the gov't is racist as hell.

I also like the little lines about how they point out little things about Sam's Falcon persona, like that kid calling him 'Black Falcon' specifically and Sam's response show the split between Sam and Falcon itself.

John is a dick for calling Sam the wingman of Steve Rogers. Sam was a hero all on his own before Steve asked him to join up again. [Side note, it's lichrally??]

3. Exactly, the parallel of Sam being profiled and surrounded while just on the street and John being surrounded by fans and being able to spring Bucky with apparently only a few sentences shows a Loooooot

4. Honestly, at this point I wonder if she's not actually a therapist and is just an agent assigned to assess Bucky outside of an Official Building. I do know, however, that her 'look at each other and speak' exercise is actually a real therapy practice. It's just a little slower.

5. Actually, I think he would've blurted that out. That whole line. I don't think Bucky hates Sam. I think they could've done the scene better, but I think that had Sam prodded him/the therapist been more annoying Bucky would've lost control of his emotions and blurted out the whole "If he was wrong about you, he was wrong about me" but I feel like the writing for this show is just... not there. Sometimes you blurt shit when you get overemotional and I think that was what Bucky was supposed to be like.

6. I don't think Sam hates Bucky, I think he doesn't trust him though. I do wish they'd talked about that though. The whole 'talk to each other' scene should've been a LOT longer and a LOT slower.

7. Sam and Bucky's relationship is being fast tracked because they don't really know how to work the relationship out, writers-room-wise. Bucky is technically retired, but I feel like he's trying to live up to Steve's expectations and doing what Steve would've done and we all know that if Steve was there, Steve would've jumped on that plane with Sam. It looks like Sam/Bucky/Joaquin are a side-team based from Military services but as Sam says they're all free agents so...?

8. Sadly, They seem to just be propping up to be another stereotype.

9. Captain America is a symbol. Steve Rogers is a man. But now Steve Rogers is an idol because of all the shit he's been through and honestly, it's not a bad thing he's become an idol for people - it's using Steve as a reason to make White Bread Walker the next Captain that makes Steve's idolization so fucked.

10. I don't know anything about music so I have no opinion here, sorry.

11. Enfys?? Also, I think they did the whole Innocent Girl Thing as side commentary for Bucky lowering his guard about seeing a young girl rather than a guy.

12. Bucky is the Winter Solider. The Winter Solider is Bucky. That is how Bucky will always see it because although he was brainwashed, it was still him and he remembers all of it. When you have constant memories of something 'someone else' did, you tend to not be able to pull the two personas out of each other. I want Bucky to take up the title, White Wolf instead of Winter Soldier. Honest.

This is all my opinion, I’m honestly a little disappointed with the writing of TFATWS so far so... I’m not really optimistic about this.

[francoiserenaldt]

week one

prologue | next week 

warnings: cussing (and lots of it), angst

word count: 1860

“Indefinitely? Fuck,” Desirée muttered, covering her face with a pillow. This was going to be a disaster. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Well, I guess I should call Stacy and tell her to turn around.” Andy scratched his neck. “We’re not gonna be able to leave for a while now.” 

“I can’t believe this is happening right now. This is actually the worst thing that could happen.” Desirée groans, pulling her head away from the pillow.

“Hey, I’m not that bad.” Andy teases.

“No, you’re not. It’s just...I had an interview for Vogue lined up to start on Monday. I’ve been interning and writing papers for months to get it and now…” She closes her eyes, willing the tears away. 

“Damn, I’m sorry. You would’ve killed it, I bet.”

“And now I guess we’ll never know.” Her eyes fly open as a realization hits her. “What the hell changed in less than 24 hours? They know that’s not enough time to pack anything and leave.”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure this out, okay?”

She nods and he disappears into the bedroom. When she glances back at the TV, the time reads 4:35 AM. She rolls her eyes and tries in vain to go back to sleep.

And so it begins.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2023 - Day 1 of quarantine

She eventually gets off her ass around 8 AM and finds something to wear. She settles on a pair of black Nike sweats and her shoes from yesterday. 

One look at her phone notifications shows an unethical amount of missed calls and text messages from her parents, all of which she ignores. An hour later, she gets texts from Stacy.

stacy: just touched down in boston, hope you’re safe

desirée: great! you get to the airport okay?

stacy:  hell no. the police presence at the border is insane. I saw them cornering every car that tried to leave after me! I was lucky they got distracted.

desirée: holy shit it’s even worse than i thought

stacy: how are you getting back to nyc?

desirée: i’m def not w that border thing

stacy: so you and andy are...

desirée: stuck w each other for the moment. it should be fine.

stacy: are you sure, babe? 

desirée: it’s not like i have a choice.

stacy: if you say so. stay safe!

desirée: will do!

“Hey.” 

Desirée looks up and he’s there, dressed comfortably in sweats that show off his muscular build. He looks good and, if the way her eyes linger is any indication, he knows it. She should’ve replied 5 seconds ago, but the second-best time to say something is probably now. 

Speak, dammit.

“Hey. What’s up?” Her voice, thankfully, doesn’t betray her internal monologue. Andy doesn’t seem to notice.

“Since we’re gonna be here for a while, I should probably show you how everything works around here.”

The next hour is spent learning about where the dishes go, how to properly turn on the shower and all of the boring home life things. Throughout the tour, she notices the ways he’s changed since she was last with him. For one, he cooks now, and he has a relatively organized kitchen with spices and sauces. But she still gets some glimpses of who he was before California. He still eats with plasticware because “it doesn’t make sense to have silverware in a place where you don’t live all the time”, which is incredibly moronic thinking and she tells him so, he still wears oversized shirts to bed, and he still smells like his signature spicy cologne when he gets close to her. He’s still so easy to talk to, always knows exactly what’s on her mind and when there’s more to the story than she’s letting on and-

Holy shit.

This can’t already be happening.

As her luck would have it, the apartment he normally stays in alone only has one bed and he refuses to let her sleep on the couch again, so they share the bed. 

The tears only come when she sleeps with her back turned to him, kicking herself for ever letting him go. 

Monday, August 4th, 2023 - Day 2 of quarantine

In the morning, Desirée wakes up with his warmth against her back. One look down finds his arms loosely wound around her body in a way they definitely weren’t when she fell asleep.

Once she begrudgingly gets out of bed, she makes the call to the higher-up at Vogue and tells them the news. She wants to believe that the bored tone the receptionist uses when she delivers the news is just an attempt at a brave face and they secretly are very disappointed that she couldn’t make it. 

She wants to cry. 

Instead, she goes into the bathroom and gets ready for the day. Apparently, her attempts at a facade weren’t as effective as she thought as Andy stops her in the bedroom.

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah.”

“You’re obviously not okay, Desirée.”

“So why bother asking, then?” She snaps. “It’s been a hard enough morning without you trying to psychoanalyze me, so please spare me the effort.” 

“Look,” Andy snaps, “I know you’re upset about your thing in New York, but I don’t deserve that.”

“You know what, Andy? You’re right. You don’t deserve that. So I need you just leave me alone for a second because I’m in an incredibly shitty mood and this,” she waves a hand between the two of them, “isn’t helping.”

“Do you think being an asshole is going to help?” Andy raised an eyebrow. Desirée only offered a huff in response. “So I’m going to ask you again. What’s wrong?”

“You’re clearly not letting this go, so...I had to call Vogue that I’m stuck in quarantine in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and that I won’t be there in time to start the internship,” Desirée speaks slowly, not far from tears. “The lady listening couldn’t have given less of a shit if she tried.”

“Now was that so hard?” Andy gave her a small smile and opened his arms, clearly intending for her to hug him. She holds out at first, glaring at him. He tilts his head slightly as if to say, Come on already! and she runs into his arms, finally allowing the dam to break. He strokes her back as she cries, closing his eyes to hold back his own. Once her sobs lessen, she whispers something in his ear and he almost misses it. 

“You’re the worst.” 

Tuesday, August 5th, 2023 - Day 3 of quarantine

To help her move on from her internship, Andy attempts to teach her how to play video games. 

Attempts being the operative word.

She’s admittedly stubborn and confused about everything and Andy is entirely too amused about the entire thing. This goes on for hours until eventually:

“Maybe I could just watch?” 

So that’s what they do. She sits while he plays his game, stopping every now and then to explain how to make certain moves and unlock certain weapons. She lays her head in his lap. They don’t talk about it.

Wednesday, August 6th, 2023 - Day 4 of quarantine

On Wednesday, they drink. Wine bottles were lined on the coffee table in front of the couch as Desirée’s legs rested on Andy’s lap. She feels his thumb running softly along her calves as she stares at the ceiling. 

“I’m sorry I was being a bitch on Monday.” Desirée murmured, her head hanging on the arm of the couch. “I haven’t done that in a long time. I thought I was getting better at not being so...me.”

“You wanted space and I pushed.” Andy squeezes her calf. “I’m sorry, too.”

Maybe it’s the wine or the way his hand feels on her leg, but she feels emboldened in a way she hasn’t in years. So emboldened that she finally asks:

“Why didn’t we end up working it out?” She whispers softly. 

The question lingers between them. The thought had plagued her thoughts ever since that first night, and the morning after, but she’d never dared to say it aloud before this moment. 

“We were headed in two different directions,” Andy says after a while. He turns to face her and forces a smile, which she returns. “You were going to New York City to become some big-time stylist and I was going to Los Angeles to be a basketball player. Our lives were just going to be too different.” 

She remembers what she’d told him years ago; that their lives were just beginning and their relationship had no future in them. But 4 years later, she’s finding that her heart beats just as fast when he winks at her and hugs her as it did before. And she’s not imagining the redness on his cheeks when she lets her gaze linger too long or the feeling of his arms tightening around her in the morning. 

Of course, that was never the problem, was it?

“I wish we would’ve figured it out.”

“Me too.”

He sleeps with his back to her. They don’t talk about it.

Thursday, August 7th, 2023 - Day 5 of quarantine

Thursday, and the rest of the week frankly, is spent looking at the news. The cheery news anchor, who’s broadcasting live via Skype, promises that everything will be over in a couple of weeks, but independent news outlets are projecting that citizens of Westchester County should expect to stay in their homes for the next couple of months. 

They finally name the new age plague cutis dissolutitis, but everyone sticks to calling it the Westchester Plague. Apparently, high pH bacteria erode the skin until the person has no outer layer of protection left. They have yet to figure out how the disease is transmitted. There have been 3 casualties so far, and each one has been due to suicide rather than the disease itself. 

“Holy shit,” Andy gasps as medical professionals bicker like middle schoolers on the TV screen. “Do you really think it’s only going to be a couple of weeks?”

“No,” Desirée replies. The monosyllabic response is horrifyingly final.

She wants to be wrong.

Friday, August 8th, 2023 - Day 6 of quarantine

On Friday, the first case outside of Westchester County is reported. 

“A 25-year-old woman has contracted the Westchester Plague in Big Bear, California. The patient has claimed to not have been to or from Westchester in her lifetime. The governor of Oregon has scheduled a press conference this afternoon. More at 12-”

Andy turns off the TV. 

Saturday, August 9th, 2023 - Day 7 of quarantine

On Saturday, they run out of food. 

Neither wants to leave the other alone in the house, so they tentatively head to the nearest grocery store. They grab the essentials.  In the checkout line, everyone stands 6 feet apart from each other. Every person who dares to be out, save for her and Andy, is wearing gloves and a mask. Boxes of both items are given to each shopper as they exit the store. 

Each day, life comes closer and closer to becoming a dystopian nightmare. As they return back to Andy’s apartment, she wonders if she’ll start calling it home soon.

[jupiterjunebug]

WHERE'S THE WEREWOLF ESSAY, OP??

@malaloba @bisexualducknewton You also dared me to say this so you get a tag

Okay so fun facts about Tyler Keegan Casey (I literally just wanted to make a joke about Tyler Casey abbreviating to Tyler K.C):

His parents, Edgar Casey and Rebecca Wilson, got married at 18. Their reasoning was "hey, we've been together all of high school, we still like each other, and I think our kids would be really hot." A bit of the shine wore off for Rebecca, though, when it turned out Edgar inherited a controlling streak from his parents. He got it in his head that his growth as a person required moving as far away from tiny little Casper, WV as he could. Which was fine, and would've been true if he’d put any actual EFFORT into growing up, except he made that decision without consulting his wife. Family was the most important thing in the world for her, which meant she didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, family was the most important thing in the world to her, and Edgar was technically her family.As far away as possible turned out to be Fortville, Indiana. At around 3000 people, it was certainly bigger than Casper, but much smaller than Edgar's ambitions. Unfortunately, they'd run out of gas, and got stuck in town long enough for Rebecca to work up her courage and deliver an ultimatum: they were eight hours from Casper, close enough to drive over, and she'd live no further away than that.Tyler was born a few years later and grew up the only "daughter" of the household, pretty in a generic way and polite to a fault. His homesick mama taught him that he'd know when he found his people on account of the decision to give up everything for them would only hurt a little. His pyramid-scheme chasing daddy taught him that the key to success is for people to think you're one of their people, and who gives a shit if it's true or not?Up until he was twenty he was a full-on social chameleon: he wore the closest thing he could get to the "right" clothes, he did his hair in the "right" way, he laughed at the right jokes and had a crush on all the right boys. Third runner up for prom queen, dated at least three members in the football team (the breakups were never his fault, of course. He'd take a relationship as far as the other person wanted, he only dated them because they wanted to date him after all), popular but not so popular for people to consider him a threat.Every holiday, Tyler and his mama went off to Casper to visit her family. That meant he ended up at the kids table with his two younger cousins Franc ( @keplersheetz) and Vicki. Franc and Vicki were practically sisters, Franc lived with Vicki's parents whenever her ma was off dealing with her host of mental issues, which meant that Tyler was kind of the third wheel.

Tyler ended up the responsible one, and town gossip went on about how they hoped he'd be a good influence, because wasn't he just a perfect little child? Gossip about Franc went on about how she was wild, about how she didn't follow rules, if she wasn't careful she'd end up just like her mother and didn't Vicki's parents worry about if she was a bad influence? No one gossiped about Vicki at all.

It created a weird circle of jealousy, where Tyler envied Franc for having the guts to be herself, Franc worried that Vicki would end up liking Tyler better than her, and Vicki wished somebody might talk about her instead of other people’s “influence” on her. In general, Tyler and Franc didn't get along on account of they were very different and had no interests in common, but when you spend months each year as an obligatory playmate you end up developing at least a little fondness.Tyler went to Indiana University Bloomington, close enough to home for both his parents and also in possession of a Bachelors program for early childhood education. He quickly acquired a job at the library, a reputation as "a pleasure to have in class," an overcommitment to several clubs, and a thoroughly mediocre boyfriend. He also ended up in two classes with and as a coworker to Monet, ( @pleasekalemenow). In sophomore year, the two were roommates and in three classes together, which was haha a funny coincidence. Then in Spring term Tyler had a stress breakdown and Monet was so thrown by composed, fake-ass Tyler losing his shit over something completely minor that she ended up sitting with him for four hours and now they're best friends.In the summer before Junior year he was like "hey wait a fucking second, if I'm completely changing my personality around other people so that they'll like me...do they actually like me?" and decided that fuck it, I'm going to just have my own personality and work my hardest to make it so people find that person likable. The most obvious shift - aside from him breaking up with his mediocre boyfriend and quitting half of his clubs - was coming out as, you know, a dude.

His parents didn't really...get it? His mom continues to this day to treat it as something she supports but just can't understand, and his dad kind of took it as a personal attack because his dad is a self-obsessed jackass. The rest of the family didn't really express an opinion on any of this, on account of Vicki had a baby and Franc ran away from home just a little while later. Compared to having a daughter under 18 and just straight up disappearing, being trans wasn't all that embarrassing to them.Things went pretty decent for half of Junior year. Then one day while he was watching a kindergarten class, the last kid to be picked up at the end of the day turned into an eldritch horror and ate the other student teacher. The FBI’s Paranormal Research and Investigation division showed up and was like "hey I'm pretty sure you can guess that we're going to tell you to keep this hush hush, so keep this fucking hush hush." Tyler went "wow you know I don't like being kept in the dark about all this," so he changed his major to criminal justice and worked his ass off to graduate at the same time as everyone else. Then he joined the FBI, and when they were interviewing him he dropped some line about "oh, I saw something once and the, uh, I think it was PRI? Said that it was top secret dangerous business. I'd like to solve murders like that :)" and the PRI kind of went "well...I guess? we can hire? Him? He did a god job on all of his exams...we have no reason not to."At around this time he played the love interest in Monet's breakout limited access TV show, Once Upon a Cryptid. This show eventually gained Dr. Horrible levels of cult-classic fame, and Tyler is eternally thankful that T has at this point changed his look enough that no one really recognizes him beyond people he talks to on case being like "haha isn't it funny that you look kind of like actor Tyler Casey and you're an FBI agent just like his character?" And he just says "haha yeah I get that a lot :)"The PRI was also like "hey can you keep an eye on this person who is causing trouble with conspiracy theory shit?" Tyler says "uh yeah, sure? Anything I should know?" And the PRI is like "well it's your cousin, but other than that, nah, glhf :)"Tyler found this situation Vaguely Uncomfortable, so instead of being actually good at his job he took this opportunity to leave reminders to eat and warnings to keep her head down when she overreached. They were all signed with "The FBI Agent That's Watching You Right Now" and wow isn't it fucked up that they're closer as anonymous FBI stalker and conspiracy theorist than they were as proper childhood playmates? It fucks me up sometimes.Five years before the game starts, he goes on an investigation into what may or may not be a supernatural murderer. While in the area he runs into August Caraway ( @transagentstern), who is. Super his type. He immediately starts finding excuses to spend time w/ the hot, sensitive, painter, asking August to be his guide around the area. And also if he could see that painting that August is working on because it sounds really :) great :). Eventually he comes to the conclusion that the long periods of time between attacks and the COD indicate either a werewolf attack or a very patient predator. He goes "well, it's the new moon tonight...so if I take August out on a da-I MEAN INVESTIGATION into that clearing in the woods it'll be safe."Spoilers! It isn't!They get attacked by a werewolf. Tyler says "well, I'm an FBI agent so I should be the one to sacrifice myself" and tries to shoot the werewolf. It quickly takes him to the ground, but hey! At least August has time to run! Except instead of running, August goes up to try and save Tyler. Which ends in them both getting bitten before the silver bracelets August always wears fend the thing off. August manages to drag Tyler to civilization before losing consciousness, and the two wake up in separate hospitals. August is told Tyler got sent to a special FBI hospital, but is fine. Tyler is told August got tired of waiting around for him to wake up and left. (More fun facts: this happened the day before Pigeon's birthday! Wow! Terrible)Tyler is kept under observation for the rest of the month, just to make sure he's fine. He is, of course, not fine. The PRI is super stoked to have access to someone who is fully willing to spend the rest of his month j chillin' and then come in on the full moons, on account of most of the werewolves they have access to are ones they caught and have to keep hold of all the time. Which, like, unlawfully contained civilians are a shitty baseline.So, despite having research in their name, the PRI kinda fucking sucks at research. Their methodology is to just try shit until they figure out 1. How to kill the monster and 2. How to spot the affliction/how it progresses. They are perfectly aware of how to kill werewolves, so really all they do is stage observations under different stress conditions to play “how to spot a werewolf”.

Every experiment is just put them in a cage with moonlight access, see whether the transformation is faster/slower when the person has a certain diet/fitness level/etc. Most of the subjects can’t leave bc they’d run away and are also liable to transform sometimes which is inconvenient.

The PRI isn't especially concerned about Tyler, because they know one of the conditions for a transformation is high stress and if there's one thing he's good at it's completely repressing an anxiety attack, so he's able to pretty much do his job aside from the whole "locked up under the full moon" thing. Of course, he's ostracized by his coworkers on account of he's like. Literally a monster. But that's fine! He has Monet! Who he never tells anything about all this because he doesn't want to worry her, and also because her brother (coincidentally August, though Tyler doesn't know that) died around the time of his attack and he doesn't want her to blame herself for never trying to come see him.Good things that happen in these 5 years: he has an amicable relationship with Franc. He gets good at his job. He and Monet discover that the uncanny coincidences which led to them always having classes together carry over into their adult life, and they constantly run into each other while performing their respective jobs. She sometimes invites him to parties to stop men from hitting on her, and because he looks vaguely like Jake Gyllenhaal (that's Tyler's face claim) they get to laugh about all the tabloid rumors that Monet is dating Jake.The bad news is Tyler never had access to the other werewolves prior to the attack (it wasn't his division, and he wasn't usually in a position to take anything alive) which means he's never been around to see a new one, to watch the arc of their deterioration. Usually it goes like this: they wake up, alone and naked in a room with only a bed, a desk, and an uncomfortable wooden chair. They are given clothing by an FBI agent, sometimes that agent is sympathetic, sometimes sneering, but usually expressionless. Each full moon they transform, and remember nothing of it save pain, hunger, and the feeling of their claws digging into the metal walls. Fear is a trigger for transformation, as is anger. They are always afraid, always angry. Eventually, it becomes rare to see them in their human forms.The PRI is fucking stupid. A reasonable person might say "duh, werewolves turn when they're scared, maybe if we put them someplace less scary they'll stop turning so much." Instead, they write in their notes, the notes Tyler receives, "we're fairly certain that, at some point, the humanity of a werewolf is completely lost." He only sees werewolves that have not been human in months, or even years. Or, he sees the ones who are even worse off.The worse news is that Tyler is told there's a cure. Sometimes, the PRI manages to poke and prod at a werewolf and for reasons we just don't understand they never transform again. So he doesn't argue with the tests, and even if he writes a will he doesn't tell Monet anything because he might be fine, and he doesn't want to worry her. He throws himself into his work and into making Monet happy, because he wants to make sure that if he is lost he leaves a legacy. There's something to prove that Tyler Casey's existence was justified.Then he finds out what the cure entails. It's not recovery, not at all; it's pushing someone so hard, making them so afraid, that their body can't take being afraid anymore. A person who’s too tired to feel doesn't shift, not even under the full moon, because the werewolf's state of mind is defined by the person's emotions before it happens (so if someone was actually CALM, really truly calm, then they'd manage to control it, but hunger and anger and fear can all throw that out of wack). If the person is numb, there is nothing for the curse to react to.Tyler Casey would rather die after trying his hardest than live longer but not be able to do anything. So, when he manages to find a job opening at The Askar Foundation, a secret society with more funding and more knowledge than the FBI could ever hope for, he has no qualms spilling the PRI's secrets in exchange for a position as a field agent.As you can probably guess, August, Monet, and Franc are all there as well. The circumstances of their recruitment were significantly less...consensual than his (Monet and Franc recently saw too much and got pressganged in, and after nearly killing Franc while transformed August got dragged in for Askar's own brand of tests). This leads to a veritable five layer dip of fucking drama:1. Franc and Tyler have a private conversation which leads to the revelation of several character secrets on both their parts. This ends when Tyler and Franc both insist that they saw different things during one of the scenes. Franc has always had the ability to tell when people lie to her, but she is also convinced she's right about their topic of conversation (which uh, she IS right, so). That means that, despite the fact that she can't feel him lying, he MUST be. She's convinced that he's had the supernatural ability to get around her own uncanny powers this whole time, and thus they engaged in a Comedy of Errors where instead of mistaken identities it’s Tyler saying things that further convince Franc he's trying to manipulate the entire team2. The Askar foundation would very much like to keep their shiny new field agent, and also Tyler still has connections to the FBI and him snitching to them would be.........inconvenient. So they're willing to put effort, within reason, into making sure he doesn't find out anything that might cause problems, like the fact that August is a kind of monster Tyler has a massive vendetta against. Or uh...anything else that might make him question them. This leads to3. Askar shutting down a conversation between him and Monet, leading to her concluding that talking about their past experiences with the supernatural OR the workings of Askar will never go well. (Exacerbated by the fact that Askar had already been trying to keep her from finding out shit about her brother) 4. Consequently, Monet will no longer talk to him about deep personal topics if they lead back to these things at ALL5. Franc ended up in a romantic entanglement w/ the monster of the week, who is a shapeshifter unwillingly being used to bring about...the apocalypse. He thinks the reason she doesn’t trust him is because she figured out he was a werewolf, and doesn’t trust him/is keeping an eye on him so she can put him down when he becomes dangerous. So he thinks she hates him bc he’s a shapeshifter that has no control over himself, but then she’s fine with...the OTHER shapeshifter that has no control over himself.6. August thinks Tyler hates werewolves because of the attack, and is afraid to enter a relationship with him because he wouldn't be able to keep his condition a secret7. Tyler refuses to let himself entertain notions of actually DATING August, because Tyler thinks he's going to die and doesn't want to hurt even MORE people when he goes8. Tyler and Monet platonically love each other so much and are also living together in Seinfeld's mansion that she stole the keys to, and Tyler is an idiot which means August thinks Tyler wants to date Monet (August's SISTER)So tl;dr, Tyler thinks that after Franc gained access to more Askar files she suddenly doesn't trust him (he assumes she knows he's a werewolf), he knows that Monet suddenly doesn't want to TALK to him and knows that if he discovers anything suspicious he thus cannot tell her, and he knows he......really, really, REALLY is starting to enjoy August's companyThis means that conversations oscillate between Tyler being professionally friendly with all his coworkers, Franc interpreting something random as a personal attack, Monet deeply wishing she could tell Tyler something, and then a completely stupid conversation where Tyler and August are flirting about something stupid and getting cockblocked by Tyler's hangups and August remembering that as far as he's concerned Tyler and Monet should get together.Oh and also Askar definitely is fucking with his head at least once a session.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Thumbnails 8/28/18

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts to introduce you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. We provide links to the original sources for you to read in their entirety.—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"Miranda Harcourt on 'The Changeover' and Whānau Values in New Zealand": At Indie Outlook, I interview the acclaimed actress and acting coach about her terrific new feature that she directed with her husband, Stuart McKenzie. We also discuss her ingenious coaching techniques, clients such as Melanie Lynskey and Nicole Kidman, and her daughter, "Leave No Trace" star Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie.

“I was coaching a few actors via Skype for the role that Thomasin ended up playing in ‘Consent,’ and she was reading a book while listening to our session. After I hung up, Thomasin said in her little voice, ‘I’d like to audition for that role,’ and I went, ‘What? But you hate acting.’ She replied, ‘No, it sounds like a really great story to tell,’ so we did a little read-through of the script right here, exactly where I am sitting right now. I was like, ‘Oh my god, you are amazing.’ It was a great performance, and when she went in for the audition, she got the role. The film was directed by Robert Sarkies, who also made another great New Zealand movie, ‘Out of the Blue.’ Even now, I don’t think Thomasin has seen all of ‘Consent,’ because she wasn’t even allowed to see the bits that she was in. She’s only in the first 17 minutes, but it’s a very intense journey. It took a lot of courage for her to portray a girl who is raped. Francis Biggs, one of my students I taught at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School, portrayed the rapist with whom Thomasin had to play that scene in ‘Consent.’ We’re both really grateful to Francis because he and Thomasin did ‘hug to connect’ before they played that scene. It enabled Francis and Thomasin to play quite an intense rape scene together so that they are in the flow of telling that story together. They weren’t in opposition, which would’ve been very psychologically damaging, not only to Thomasin, who was 13 at the time, but also to poor old Francis, because it was not a happy job for him. I’ve got a collection of great photographs chronicling the interactions that Thomasin and Francis had in order to build that relationship over a couple of weeks while preparing for the scene. Over the couple of weeks after they did that scene, Thomasin would consistently check in with him and say, ‘Hey Francis! I’m really proud of the work we did together, and I hope you feel good about it too. Just remember—it’s only acting!’”

2. 

"Call it a Comeback: The Inside Story of Elvis Presley's Iconic 1968 Special": As remembered by our contributor Donald Liebenson at Vanity Fair.

“Elvis looms large in the singer’s legend. The live-wire special is featured prominently in two 2018 documentaries, Eugene Jarecki’s ‘The King’ (now in theaters) and Thom Zimny’s ‘The Searcher’ (on HBO). It capped a decade in which Elvis could mostly be seen only in the movies, and, increasingly, not very good movies at that. Taped in June and broadcast on December 3, 1968, it was his first television appearance since 1960, when he guest-starred on ‘Frank Sinatra’s Welcome Home Party for Elvis.’ At the time, he hadn’t performed in front of a live audience in seven years. But Presley and Binder’s creative team delivered. [Steve] Binder, a self-professed ‘West Coast guy into surf music,’ finished the special feeling in awe of Presley. ‘For me, the ‘68 special is seeing a man re-discover himself,’ Binder said. ‘I saw it on his face and in his body language as we progressed.’ Susan Doll, author of Elvis for Dummies, agreed. ‘I think it’s the peak of his career,’ she said. Col. Tom Parker, Presley’s infamously controlling manager, had promised NBC a one-hour special if the network financed Presley’s next film—‘Change of Habit,’ Presley’s screen swan song, released in 1969. He never told Presley about the deal, with good reason: ‘Elvis didn’t want to do television,’ Binder said. ‘He felt he had been burned by it.’ Even Steve Allen, the talk-show host hip enough to give Lenny Bruce a shot on prime time, forced cheese on Presley, putting him in a tuxedo to sing ‘Hound Dog’ to an actual hound dog.”

3.

"'It Was No Gang, It Was One Guy, And He Wasn't Really a Killer': Producer and Star Edward James Olmos on 'The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez": In conversation with Jim Hemphill of Filmmaker Magazine.

“When Bob [Young] agreed to do the picture and rewrite the screenplay from scratch, he and I went to the real locations where it all happened. We went to Gonzales, Texas, where they captured and imprisoned Gregorio Cortez, and we found the exact prison. We found his cell. The jail and the courthouse were exactly how they were in 1901, it gave us an authenticity unlike anything I had ever experienced before in film. We had to talk the district court judge in Gonzales into letting us use the courthouse, and when he asked us what kind of movie we were doing, Bob kept speaking in general terms of how important our subject was to Mexican-American people and to the Latino culture, but he wouldn’t say the name because at that time no one knew who Gregorio Cortez was. The judge kept asking, ‘What’s his name?’ and finally Bob says, ‘His name is Gregorio Cortez, but he’s a really important—‘ and this guy says, ‘Stop, stop. I’ve been waiting for you guys for 35 years.’ He opens his filing cabinets, and in these cabinets is every single piece of testimony and every single newspaper article from around the country related to the trial. This judge was the foremost authority on the case in the world, bar none. He felt it was one of the most important cases in U.S. history because it was the first time a Latino had been tried in an American court of law, and with an interpreter, which was unheard of in 1901. This guy had filing cabinets filled with material, because the case was followed all over the country – it involved something like 600 Texas Rangers in hot pursuit of what they thought was a Mexican gang of killers. And it was no gang, it was one guy, and he wasn’t really a killer – it was self-defense. Anyway, discovering all that material was just unbelievable. It was magical. And it allowed us to make what the United States Historical Society claimed to be the most authentic Western ever made in American film, ever.”

4. 

"John McCain, War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender, Dies at 81": Robert D. McFadden of The New York Times reflects on the honorable legacy of the late politician.

“In a 2018 memoir, ‘The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations,’ he defended Ms. Palin’s campaign performance, but expressed regret that he had not instead chosen Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent. At some McCain rallies, vitriolic crowds disparaged black people and Muslims, and when a woman said she did not trust Mr. Obama because ‘he’s an Arab,’ Mr. McCain, in one of the most lauded moments of his campaign, replied: ‘No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.’ Analysts later said that Mr. Obama had engineered a nearly perfect campaign. And Mr. McCain confronted a hostile political environment for Republicans, who were dragged down by President George W. Bush’s dismal approval ratings amid the economic crisis and an unpopular war in Iraq. On Election Day, Mr. McCain lost most of the battleground states and some that were traditionally Republican. Mr. Obama won with 53 percent of the popular vote to Mr. McCain’s 46 percent, and 365 Electoral College votes to Mr. McCain’s 173. ‘Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did,’ Mr. Obama said Saturday. ‘But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means.’”

5. 

"Inside Patricia Clarkson's brutal 'Sharp Objects' performance: 'It's dark and nasty and twisted and beautiful'": The actress chats with The Washington Post's Jessica M. Goldstein about her role in HBO's excellent miniseries. 

“In Wind Gap, poison is poured down the throats of unsuspecting children. Baby teeth are pried from little girls’ gums, and skin is sliced until it scars. Yet the most transgressive act of violence in town is the low, almost-whispered delivery of four small words. Over a drink, by candlelight, a mother tells her daughter: ‘I never loved you.’ There’s no shortage of cruelty in ‘Sharp Objects,’ the eight-part HBO miniseries based on Gillian Flynn’s 2006 debut novel, whose women pass trauma from generation to generation like a haunted heirloom. But no one cuts quite like Adora, played by Patricia Clarkson. She’s a matriarch [...] who coolly tells her wayward eldest daughter, Camille (Amy Adams), that she feels nothing for her, save for disappointment and disgust. Clarkson, the 58-year-old New Orleanian actress who sees glimmers of her own grandmother in the best parts of Adora, knows these scenes appear brutal. ‘But I think why they have the impact they do is that I don’t think Adora ever thinks of them as brutal,’ she said by phone from her apartment in New York. ‘I think that was what was essential. When I tell her I never loved her, I think it’s just Adora feeling connected to her for a moment to be as honest as she can be. … Sometimes she was just openly cruel. But other times, I think, when she speaks, she’s actually revealing the truth.’ ‘This is the most violent line in the series,’ said director Jean-Marc Vallée. ‘It’s not something you say to your child. … You just destroyed her! And she’s not realizing that. Or maybe she does, and she’s that cruel, that evil. But we’re not sure. And that’s what’s great about the character: that you try to understand, and you’re not sure.’”

Image of the Day

Robert Redford and Jane Fonda starred in "Barefoot in the Park," the 1967 screen adaptation of the 1963 play, one of four works by the late Neil Simon selected by Vox's Aja Romano to illustrate why he was one of America's greatest playwrights.

Video of the Day

Stella McCartney's profile of David Lynch is a stirring ode to the role intuition plays in one's creative process. Look for cameos by "Moonlight"'s Ashton Sanders and "American Honey"'s Sasha Lane.

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