#it worked. he subverted her from saying i told you so but now he's gotta deal with this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ridetherain · 2 years ago

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Courage At the Front Part 1/2

Hi. I have Zelda fanfic for reading. It's been mostly finished for like, a year? I had a lot of fun with it and I learned a lot about WWII warfare. Thanks to the hubby for pretending his expertise in pre-industrial arms and armor also includes early 20th century tanks.

Summary: Zelda is a mechanic and Link is a tank operator in Hyrule's WWII equivalent. And our two heros get trapped together behind enemy lines.

Warnings: This is a WWII fic. It has crude language, descriptions of frontline warfare and it's aftermath, slight gore and major character injury. And gallows humor, cause they're soldiers in war and they gotta live through it somehow.

Part 1 | Part 2 | AO3

Part 1

Zelda

"I want to do something real!"

Zelda was screaming at her father over the phone. She was breaking every one of her rules. No using royal privilege; how else was she going to get access to a phone? No subverting the chain of command; well, she had gone directly to the King. That might have skipped a few rungs on the ladder. Act like any other enlisted man; and screaming at the King is unlikely to be the standard operating procedure. Zero for three.

"I've been trained to fix anything! I was best in my class! Jeeps for the brass are not a priority. I should be with the troops and I should be serving my country in the best way that I can. Isn't that why I'm here?"

All the wind had blown out of Zelda's sails by the end of her argument. She was getting nowhere with the King. He wasn't going to lift his order to keep her safe and he certainly wasn't going to send her to the frontlines himself. She'd trained to fix the heavy infantry tanks that were stationed all over the eastern front. She was the best. No one was faster or understood more intuitively what needed to be done. But, instead, she was fixing jeeps that the Generals treated like pleasure vehicles. They'd come in with no gas and tell her it was broken or they'd need their goddamn wipers replaced. It was insulting.

"Nevermind, father. I'm going to get back to work."

She hung up and went back to her command. Which was a small motor pool with a squad of mechanics. Technically she was due a larger command, but no mechanic this far from the fighting should have her rank. The boys didn't really need her there at all, truth be told. General Impa was a micromanager and their shop ran like a civilian auto repair anyway.

Link

Link huddled into his small corner of home in the trench. He'd cleaned it up nice so there was a small divot dug into the wall so rain wouldn't ruin his small collection of keepsakes. Right now he had a little journal to write in, some playing cards, and a letter from some school kid who informed him "Mr. Owlen says I have to tell you that you're brave" which was charming enough to keep. He'd smoothed the ground beneath his feet so that he had comfortable dirt to sleep on and his trusty rifle settled over his shoulder digging into yet another dug-in divot in the wall. All-in-all he'd dressed it up to be the nicest spot in the line.

His squad had been stationed here for two weeks so far with very little else to do. At some point they would probably jump up and storm the enemy, but he tried not to think about that. He was too young to die. He tried to keep some dirt on his face at any moment. He wasn't technically old enough to enlist and anything that kept people from really looking at his face was a plus. It was easier before. He was the loader on a medium tank with only four other men for company. But then the gunner got his points and was sent home leaving the rest of them a man down. He'd gotten orders an hour ago to report to the depot to be assigned to a new crew in the morning. Until then, he'd be hunkered down here in this cesspit trying to get some shuteye and stock up on "supplies" that weren't part of the standard kit. Dirty pictures, booze, and hopefully some real food.

Zelda

"Lieutenant! Call for you, ma'am!"

"Thank you, Private."

Zelda took up the office phone and snapped out a greeting. She was losing another man. Pretty soon she was going to be running this place alone. Apparently heavy fire was anticipated and they needed another mechanic on hand familiar with the newest combat vehicles. She took up her roster to see who had the best qualifications for the job. If they were calling up someone from here it would be a rough job. She ran her finger down the list and stopped at a name. Could she do that? There was an obvious implicit order, but it wasn't actually said. She had free reign to send whoever she chose. Who could stop her decision? They were leaving soon.

She scribbled out the order, updated the roster list, filled out the daily report, and marked the next in command. She would leave immediately. Her duffle was already supplied for departure and she grabbed a go-kit with essential tools. The truck was already nearly loaded up with supplies and her driver was climbing in.

"Ready?" She called to the back when she was settled.

"Ready!" the loaders confirmed.

"Move out!"

The driver pulled out of the compound and they were on their way to the front. He glanced at her, but clearly eyed her epaulettes before deciding to keep his mouth shut.

Link

Link settled into his position in the turret. They were buttoned up and already getting ready for a fight.

"Load up, gimme seven five!" The new commander Burlon called from his spot above him in the radio seat. Link slithered down to the floor and started pulling up the armored cover and pulled out the smooth munitions. Burlon was calling out directions to Dalt to position the gun. The ammo was loaded and the gun was ready in seconds.

"Up!"

Burlon called out the fire and Link pulled up the next load. He was fast and being small made it easier for him to get into all the little hideaways where any spare air was filled with ammo. The place stank up quickly with the sweat of five men in tight quarters. It was hot as ever and beads of sweat ran freely down his back. Only his hands were kept dry with any spec of spare cloth to be found. He couldn't afford to drop something. One store empty, Link closed it up and moved to the next in an awkward spot beneath his gunner's butt.

"Move your ass, Dalt. I can't get in."

Not quite a well oiled machine just yet, this new crew.

"Fuck you. I gotta aim."

"Quiet. All of you," The commander was looking through his scope, "HEAT! Take us back!"

Burlon's frantic calls on the radio blurred into the background. Anti-tank guns. Link scrambled to lock away all the mortars. Easiest way to kill a crew was to blow them up with their own gun. The tank rocked roughly in the retreat and Link banged his jaw against the bottom of his seat. He let out a slew of curses and braced against the top cage.

"Back in your seat, soldier!" Burlon ordered.

Still cursing, Link threw himself into his seat and threw a hand up to check his face. It came away bloody.

"Incoming!" As one, the team bent and braced for impact.

Zelda

"Okay team, the enemy is retreating. We need to get out and salvage what we can. Level one and two damaged vehicles will be handled by the first division. Level three damage is us. We'll work from near to far."

Zelda nodded to her partner and began running to her assigned vehicle. A Farore Mk IV about a mile away that's likely still in good enough condition to at least drive. The field was a mess of tracks and mud and empty casings. Burn marks scorched across huge stretches of land where shells exploded. Zelda tried not to see the remains left behind. The wounded and dead were attended already, but sometimes things were left behind. A half burned boot was stuck in the mud and Zelda pretended it's because the soldier decided to take off his shoe. She knew these soldiers were fighting for their homes and their families, but it felt like they were fighting for her as the Princess. She would face the cost when she wasn't working. When she had time to process.

She stopped with her partner, a big Private who could do some of the heavy lifting, when they reached a potential salvage.

"What do you think, ma'am?" He circled and shook his head.

"I don't think so, let's keep going. We can't drive with the track looking like this." It was mangled. "Avoid that next one, it's still smoking."

"It should be alright, let's look real quick. See? The smoke is coming from the front. Probably just overheated." Zelda wavered and the Private took his chance.

"It'll take less than a minute to check and then we can move on."

Zelda sighed and gave a nod. He was older and more experienced for all the rank difference. They crept to the tank and began an exterior inspection. Smoke was lightly billowing from the front so Zelda moved around to the back to ensure that whatever was smoking wasn't coming out another side.

Everything looked fine in the back except another pair of boots under the chasis. This time, the boots still had feet in them.

"Hey! Wounded!"

Zelda pulled on the boots and a soldier slid free with a squelch. She yanked his shirt out of the way and thrust her hand to his throat for a pulse. It was strong and steady. The Private was working the portable radio frantically.

"Lieutenant! Incoming troops! We have to find shelter!"

"What?!"

"I'm going in!"

"What?! NO! It might not be-"

An explosion cut her off. The opened hatch let in a rush of oxygen and ignited the dying fire within the tank body. Zelda threw herself over the unconscious man. She held on for dear life and clamped her eyes shut. Her ears rang and her head blurred, the heavy armored vehicle rocked ominously in her direction. The enemy was coming. She never learned her partner’s name. The man below her would die if she didn't recover quickly enough. What next? She could hear them coming. A dull rumble turning to a roar. Men shouting.

She shoved the wounded man back under the chassis where she had found him and squirmed into the mud beside him. She prayed to all the goddesses that they would take the smoking remains of this tank as reason to pass it by. Prayed that it wouldn't continue to explode above her. Prayed the man next to her didn't die while she laid in a grave next to him. Just in case, she kept her hand on his throat to feel his pulse throb in a steady, comforting rhythm.

Link

His head ached. A terrible ringing grayed out his vision. His body was hot and cold and hot and cold. His throat was full of smoke and death and weight. And damp. A wet, hot, muddy hand was pressed against his throat. He breathed in quickly then was cut off from shouting when the dirty hand shot up to his mouth.

"Shh!" He couldn't see the shusher, "They'll hear you."

It was a woman's voice. Link tried to take stock of the situation, but there wasn't much to go on. He was lying in a drying puddle of mud under what was likely his tank with a woman. If it weren't for the mud it might have been on purpose. And if his head didn't feel like it had been split open by a hatchet.

"What happened?" His words were slurred.

She didn't answer immediately. "We were overtaken."

Enemy territory. Okay. There was a process for this. Hide. Get somewhere safe. Take stock. Gather supplies. Make your way back. Don't get caught.

"Did you work on this hunk of garbage, Sargent?"

"Yes, ma'am. Loader in the hole."

"Okay. Then here's what we're going to do. The M4A2 at two o'clock looks in alright condition from here. We'll take shelter inside until we can come up with a better plan or until we can get it running and make a break for it."

"That's a Zora tank. I've never-"

"Me, either. Can you walk? You hit your head, I think."

"I think so. It's not far."

He really wasn't sure. The woman, a Lieutenant, seemed to have a plan which is a sight better than he had so he would just have to make it. The mud squelched and slurped noisily with every extracted limb. A cool breeze nearly froze him to the bone after so long in the damp. The Lieutenant steadied him with one hand and kept a grip on a metal box with the other. He thanked the Goddesses when he realized it was a mechanic's toolbox. She carefully picked her way through the supplies they had strapped to the back of the vehicle and grabbed the med kit and a small bag of foodstuffs. Link grabbed his personal pack and slung it over his shoulder with his rifle.

They set out across the field with furtive glances in the direction their camp used to be back when it wasn't completely deserted. The ground was rough and packed hard from the heavy machinery driving over the ground. A faint smell of dead hung suffocating in the air and kept Link light-headed the entire journey. He hung his head to the ground and followed the woman blindly into danger. They stuck together from one safe cover to the next. She stepped carefully around any unknown piece of metal on the ground and avoided bloodstained dirt like it was contagious. She was basically unarmed and unfamiliar with a battlefield and squeamish on top of it all.

"You green?" he asked.

"No" was the clipped reply. He reached out to her anyway and pulled her up short.

"Listen, Lieutenant Bospho-" He squinted at her name patch. "Bosphor--... Lt. Bosso. Listen Bosso, I've been active for a while and I'm the one with a rifle. I'll take point."

She looked very upset. Either she wanted to lead the way because of her greater rank or she disagreed with his butchering of her name. It's not his fault her name didn't fit with standard sized lettering. He let his grip on her sleeve tighten and pulled her behind him before striding forward carefully and tugging gently at her sleeve in a silent command to follow. She didn't think of an objection before they were moving, but Link heard her mouth click shut. It hardly mattered, superior officer or not she was a mechanic and likely didn't carry anything more than a pistol if she had any weapon at all. He was trained and was at least used to the leftovers in a field. His hands were already bloodied.

Their pace picked up with him in the lead. He marched confidently through the mud, avoiding bloodstains for his delicate companion, and arrived at the Lanayru tank shortly. He circled the machine once to look for smoke. The turret hatch was open so there was unlikely to be anything smoldering inside. Lt. Bosso hauled herself up to the top and flashed a torch into the hole. As it happened, she did carry a pistol, and was comfortable enough with it to wield it alongside the torch.

"No one's home. Let's get in and rest for a bit. I wonder if they've got a decent map in here."

Link pulled himself up and slid in after her. She shuffled her way into the driver seat and he slid neatly into the gunner's . This thing had elbow room. Maybe he should have lied about his age and his home province. This would have been nice. It gave him the room to eye the Lieutenant's shapely behind from several excellent angles while she found her seat. He was still considering his luck when she finally put her butt down in a chair.

"So, Sargent Forrester. Let's figure out what's next."

Zelda

Sargent Forrester was rude and brash but kindly enough. His stumbling over her name was fairly rude and Zelda wasn't sure how he didn't recognize it. His behavior bordered on insubordination, but she was grateful that one of them knew what to do at least. She could plan all she wanted, but none of this was like boot camp and certainly unlike anything she had seen in her year of service. She ignored him as best she could when they got in the Lanayru M4A2 and immersed herself in the parts she could see from the driver's seat. The most obvious problem was a misaligned periscope, but there was likely something more wrong with it or it wouldn't have been abandoned like this.

She opened her baggage to see what they had to work with. Extra rations would have been nice, but instead there were perishable goods that had the faint smell of smoke wafting out of the first bag. Probably three or four meals worth for each of them. A field medical kit with little more than trauma bandages and some morphine. If things got that bad they were dead for sure. Her kit was undamaged but was designed to repair Hylian machines. The small kit from under the co-driver's seat would be more useful. Her own pack had some rations and a similar first aid kit supplemented with alcohol.

"What's in your bag, Forrester?" she asked. Maybe he had something of use.

He settled further into the gunner seat and closed his eyes.

"Standard pack. Rifle. Canteen. First Aid. Shovel. Ammo. Pistol. Rations. Blanket. Cigarettes. Ma'am."

Technically not insubordinate. The lists soothed her frazzled nerves. When in doubt, make a list. When the air smells of death and sweat and burning rubber, make a list. When you've seen bloody spots on the ground where your subjects lay dying, make a list. When you're locked in a tank with a stranger with a gun, make a list.

To be fair to Sgt. Forrester, he seemed trustworthy. He was rude and gruff, but followed her where she wanted to go and was clever enough to inspect the machine before he just climbed in like her dead partner. She just left his body there. She didn't even look to see if there was anything she could salvage for his family. Self-recrimination ate her from mind to heart.

"Are you alright?" Sgt. Forrester had come up to her from behind without her noticing. His eyes were soft and concerned and scanned her head to toe. He seemed to be assessing her physical and mental condition with one efficient glance. He didn't seem satisfied with the results when he was done. His hand hovered over her shoulder for a moment before retracting back to his knee. "Is this your first time out? There's no shame in snapping your cap looking at all this. I wouldn't judge you for crying even, the Goddess knows I've wanted to more than once."

Zelda didn't want to feel better. She wanted to curl up and wallow in self-pity. But he was kind and she couldn't help but be comforted by his words. She gave him a wan smile and gave herself a little shake.

"I'm fine. Thank you," she said a little more prim than she had planned, "This is my first day out, but I've been in the service for almost a year. I didn't expect... Well I thought it would be different. I've never been to the front before."

"Little more than the front, I reckon. We seem to have wandered past the front and into the back again. This hunk of metal gonna get us back? I've never been in a tube so roomy. We could..." he glanced at her and changed what he was going to say, "We could throw a party in here."

"Yes, well. There's definitely a few things that need fixing. We'll be here overnight at least. Might need to look for some replacement parts. I'll know more when I open her up." Zelda replied. She thought for a moment then thrust her hand in his direction. "I'm Zelda. What's your name?" She wasn't going to miss another name.

"Link, ma'am."

They shook. Link's hand was warm.

Link

Zelda was a surprisingly good mechanic. She pulled apart the busted periscope and spilled metal innards across the ground like the first slice into a pot pie. It didn't seem like a complicated piece of equipment until he saw all the pieces dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the otherwise pristine cabin. She poked at one of the mirrors with a wrench she pulled from her bag until she was satisfied. Link thought it looked exactly the same as when she started poking at it, but she's the expert.

She bent over nicely to see the track the periscope swivelled on to view side to side. Since her back was turned, Link let his eyes wander over the view she provided. So it was a surprise when a loud clang echoed through the still cabin. It rang like a bell for a moment before Zelda reeled back and whacked the track again with a hammer that had appeared in her hand while he was distracted.

"What are you doing?!" Link asked incredulously, "You're gonna break it!"

She ignored him and reeled back where he caught her hand before she could thrust forward and hit the track again.

"Hey!" She screeched, "Let go! It's almost fixed!"

She yanked against his hold and he tightened his grip.

"You can't do that! What if it breaks? We need that periscope so I can see while I drive this thing back."

She stopped flailing against him for a moment and he suddenly noticed their position. He was holding her arm over her head and had pulled her by the waist to press her back flush against him. There was very little space between them and it was completely inappropriate, but if he loosened his grip she might hit the hull with her hammer again. Or him. Either way, he kept his grip tight and imagined she didn't feel soft and plump and warm. She didn't seem to be having the same problem.

"You drive?! I'll be driving."

"You? I know how to drive these things. You're just a mechanic. You'll be on the radio."

"No, I'll be driving. No one is going to be on the radio. You will be sitting in the back and manning the gun. I can't shoot that thing and there's no way we're getting back without alerting the enemy. When we've crossed the lines then I'll man the radio."

Right. That made sense. He released her body and immediately used his hand to push the hair out of his face. He needed to find out how to fire this thing quickly. She used his lapse to throw her whole body forward and hit the periscope track one more time with all her body weight. She inspected her hack-job and seemed satisfied with the level of damage inflicted. The periscope was reassembled in minutes and she gave him a smug look when it swivelled from side to side smoothly. Minx.

"How do you boys sleep in this heat? I know sometimes you're in here for days. It's suffocating." She asked while sitting down delicately in the drivers seat. It was strangely feminine compared to the way she trudged around while working. She clasped her hands and draped her legs elegantly to the side as if they were sitting in a nice restaurant instead of huddled in a tank beyond the front.

He shook himself. "We don't. I usually sleep on the ground outside. But, we'll have to keep buttoned and tough it out in here. "

Link tried to seem nonchalant as he unbuttoned the first few buttons on his uniform and removed his boots. Every movement felt unrefined compared to her effortless presence. It was going to be a long, hot, uncomfortable night. The width of the cabin wasn't wide enough to lay completely flat, but it was close. He couldn't remember a time that he wished he was shorter. Zelda wasn't faring much better. She was a little taller than him and seemed reluctant to sleep sitting against the wall as he was preparing to do. He mostly didn't watch as she pulled off her shirt to reveal a white undershirt and remarkably toned arms. Link suppressed a smile when she bundled it into a cushion for her distracting bottom. Zelda's shoulder brushed his before he realised that the only place for her to sit was squished next to him, jammed into the console and with her feet pressed against the small step on the other side into the turret. She was soft and warm against his side. He pulled his bandana off his head and offered it to her. Anything to keep her soft hair from brushing him all night long and shifting his dreams to images of her.

Part 2

#rainworks #loz #legend of zelda #zelink #zelda

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mittensmorgul · 4 years ago

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As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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lily-orchard-gossip-blog · 3 years ago

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Asking Why is Important

The problem with many attempts to be subversive is that many writers think "The audience won't expect this." but not "Why doesn't the audience expect this?".

Why do people assume Holdo is a villain? Because she acts like your typical pencil pushing non-action politican character who'd usually be an atagonist in military film.

She wears a fucking ball gown, dolled up with pristine haircut and make up that stands out from everybody else being in uniforms. Makes her immediately give the audience an impression of cluessness. Leia wore stuff like that when she was playing a diplomat hoping to stay under Vader's radar while trying to secure the Death Star plans, but her uniform was like everyone else in the other two movies where she started commanding the action. Even Mon Mothma's, again a politician, robes look more fitting with the military than Holdo's gown and make up. And yes, I know that some backstory material reveals that Holdo is actually from a utopia planet where these gowns and 'expressive outfits' are common for her military and such. Nothing about the movie will make an audience member assume any of that.

Every shot of her is filmed in a way to make her stand above everybody else and usually she appears right after something's gone wrong and the situation is becomming more desperate, where she responds to the situation with empty platitudes ("Hope is like the sun, so my fortune cookie says; does this help boost moral at all?") and no actual assurance or plan of action; just repeatedly "Keep on keeping on.". This further makes her look like a slimey politician who has no actual solution and is biding their time to look for an escape.

I don't know if the director told the actress to do this, but every god damn line delivery makes the character look like the pettiest little brat. Like, she doesn't just tell Poe that she's not at liberty to give someone of Poe's rank the information he wants. No, she has to taunt and dress him down about him disobeying Leia and getting demoted in a tone that just reeks of 'popular girl gotta remind the bitches who's Queen Bee because she's scared someone's becomming more popular than her'. Doesn't help that the movie fails to show that Poe disobeying Leia was a bad thing, by this point the audience only really see's Poe being jabbed by a sneering asshole for actions that, as far as the audience can tell, saved the damn ship.

Now, this is how many subversions are carried out. They show you a trope, have you make assumptions based on your meta knowledge of that trope. Then they pull the rug out. Thing is, usually with that method, it works because the trope they're subverting is already illogical and is solely working on the basis that the audience, knowing it's a trope, is just accepting it. For example: Rush Hour is actually a pretty subversive film at points, like how we're introduced to Christ Tucker's character doing typical action cop shenanigans where he gets two police officers shot and recklessly shoots (and blows up) at a car in the middle of a busy street that's holding explosives. And he's not treated as a badass for it. The cops at the station think he's a joke, his friend chews him out for being an idiot and his lacklusture reputation is the basis for why he's tricked by the chief and the FBI into the humiliating job of baby sitting Jackie Chan's character because the FBI don't want to deal with it.

Spoiler for Jade Empire: One of my favoraite games is Bioware's Jade Empire and the big twist of the game's story is that your mentor is the bad guy. I think this was before the 'Quest giver is the villain' became more prevalent. And if you play the game knowing the guy is the villain, you suddenly notice a lot of big obvious holes in his dialogue and actions that show you he's hiding his true intentions; but it's easy to miss because they're fantasy game tropes. The bully character complains that your mentor gives you obvious special treatment? That's what all bully characters say. The Mentor keeps going on about your great destiny and the plans he has for you and somehow none of teh other students he trains seem to become as strong as you are? You're an RPG player avatar, of course he's going to build up how awesome you are. The guy with the title 'Master Strategist' makes a lot of dumb mistakes that conviently cause the destruction of your villiage, motivating you to follow his plan and forces you to use the help of his agents so you can kill the one person standing in his way? That's just him being dumb for the sake of the plot, writers do it all the time. The Mentor being strict with everyone else, but tolerating the bullshit of the bully character who he knows has a father who works for the Mentor's brother and could blow his cover? He's just confident, of course. The Mentor is weirdly upset that you finished your trial early conviently just before the armies show up to torch your village? He's just a traditional master who's annoyed you didn't get your full days worth of training. He seems almost happy that one of your friends got kidnapped, thus giving you a reason to not be in the village when the attack starts? That... That has to just be a voice acting flub.

It's a bunch of hints that a really easy to dismiss as destiny and writing shortcuts until the twist is revealed with your Master literally putting his fist through your heart and reveals that he trained your fighting style to have one specific weakness that only he knew how to exploit (it's mentioned by companions multiple times throughout the story that the way you fight seems to present an obvious weakness, yet none of them are able to figure out what it is).

*Spoilers end*

But in Holdo's case, we don't have that. This isn't a situation where we assume the worst JUST because we're expecting a trope. Holdo isn't seen as villainous because we assume anyone going against the main character is villainous, it's because the movie takes every oppertunity to make her act villainous. And the twist? She had a plan the whole time... And that's it. Nothing that explains her villainous demenour, ineffectivness or slimey presentation; apparently the reveal that she actually did have a plan and just didn't plan on telling anybody about it in any capacity for some reason. Like, people can say "No, no, she doesn't HAVE to tell them the plan, they should just follow orders" if they want, but it makes no sense not to, at the very least,give everyone the clear impression that you don't know what you're doing.

It's a desperate situation where they're being slowly picked off one-by-one, they're running out of resources, Rose is in the escape pod room assaulting and imprisoning anyone who tries to abandon ship, their leader is in a coma and their replacement leader is doing nothing to assure them except generic 'don't give up because there's always a way' speeches. No fucking wonder the entire ship went along with the mutiny, you dip shit. Murdock from Rambo 2 was better at keeping people motivated and he was a lazy fucktard who was agressivly abandoning Rambo and a camp of POWs because he didn't want to deal with the paperwork.

I think that also highlights another thing people to remember: even if something makes sense on paper, it still needs to have all those details clearly communicated to the audience. The direction and tone of a scene can heavily communicate the story being told to you, and that communication is going to stick with you and even override what your told sometimes. If you have a scene where someone gets bonked on the head and dramatic music starts playing as the surrounding characters gather around to cradle the injured character as the camera pans upwards towards the sky; I'm going to assume the character fucking died. So, when you then have that character suddenly bust in during the climax with no explanation or aknoledgement, you can insist that 'yeah, that blow to the head can easily be non-fatal, no one said that the dude was dead and one guy had healing powers' all you want because the scene very clearly made it out like this fucker was dead and that I should be mourning him.

Luke's character shift in Last Jedi can make sense. It been a long time since we last saw him, shit went down, I can accept that him doing a complete 180 is possiable. But I'm gonna need more than a tiny flashback coupled with barely any exploration of Luke's character shift to buy it.

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popculty · 4 years ago

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52 Films by Women: 2020 Edition

Another annual challenge complete!

Last year, I focused on diversifying my list. This year I kept that intention but focused on watching more non-American films and films from the 20th century. Specifically, I sought out Agnès Varda’s entire filmography, after her death in 2019. (I was not disappointed - What a filmmaking legend we lost.)

I also kept a film log for the first time and have included some of my thoughts on several films from that log. I made a point of including reviews both positive and negative, because I think it’s important to acknowledge the variability and breadth of the canon, so as not to put every film directed by a woman on a pedestal. (Although movies directed by women must clear a much higher bar to be greenlit, meaning generally higher quality...But that’s an essay for another day :)

* = directed by a woman of color

bold = fave

1. The Rhythm Section (2020) dir. Reed Morano - Not as good as it could have been, given Morano’s proven skill behind the camera, but also not nearly as bad as the critics made it out to be. And unbelievably refreshing to see a female revenge story not driven by sexual assault or the loss of a husband/child.

2. Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) dir. Agnès Varda - If you ever wanted to take a real-time tour of Paris circa 1960, this is the film for you.

3. Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig - Still my favorite Little Women adaptation. I will re-watch it every year and cry.

4. Varda by Agnès (2019) dir. Agnès Varda & Didier Rouget

5. Booksmart (2019) dir. Olivia Wilde - An instant classic high school comedy romp that subverts all the gross tropes of its 1980s predecessors.

6. Girls of the Sun (2018) dir. Eva Husson

7. Blue My Mind (2017) dir. Lisa Brühlmann

8. Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) dir. Céline Sciamma - Believe the hype. This film is a master thesis on the female gaze, and also just really effing gorgeous.

9. Belle Epine (2010) dir. Rebecca Zlotowski

10. Vamps (2012) dir. Amy Heckerling - With Krysten Ritter and Alicia Silverstone as modern-day vampires, I was so ready for this movie. But it feels like a bad stage play or a sit-com that’s missing a laugh-track. Bummer.

11. *Birds of Prey (2020) dir. Cathy Yan - Where has this movie been all our lives?? Skip the next onslaught of Snyder-verse grim-darkery and give me two more of these STAT!

12. She’s Missing (2019) dir. Alexandra McGuinness

13. The Mustang (2019) dir. Laure de Clermont-Tonnere - Trigger warning for the “protagonist” repeatedly punching a horse in the chest. I noped right out of there.

14. Monster (2003) dir. Patty Jenkins – I first watched this movie when I was probably too young and haven’t revisited it since. The rape scene traumatized me as a kid, but as an adult I appreciate how that trauma is not the center of the movie, or even of Aileen’s life. Everyone still talks about how Charlize “went ugly” for this role, but the biggest transformation here isn’t aesthetic, it’s physical – the way Theron replicates Wuernos’ mannerisms, way of speaking, and physicality. That’s why she won the Oscar. I also love that Jenkins calls the film “Monster” (which everyone labels Aileen), but then actually uses it to tell the story of how she fell in love with a woman when she was at her lowest, and that saved her. That’s kind of beautiful, and I’m glad I re-watched it so that I could see the story in that light, instead of the general memory I had of it being a good, feel-bad movie. It’s so much more than that.

15. Water Lilies (2007) dir. Céline Sciamma – Sciamma’s screenwriting and directorial debut, the first in her trilogy on youth, is as painfully beautiful as its sequels (Tomboy and Girlhood). It’s also one of the rare films that explores the overlap of queerness and girl friendships.

16. The Trouble with Angels (1966) dir. Ida Lupino – Movies about shenanigan-based female friendships are such rare delights. Rosalind Russel is divine as Mother Superior, and Hayley Mills as “scathingly brilliant” as the pranks she plays on her. Ida Lupino’s skill as an editor only enhances her directing, providing some truly iconic visual gags to complement dialogue snappy enough for Gilmore Girls.

17. Vagabond (1985) dir. Agnès Varda – Shot with a haunting realism, this film has no qualms about its heroine’s inevitable, unceremonious death, which it opens with, matter-of-factly, before retracing her final (literal) steps to the road-side ditch she ends up in. (I’m partly convinced said heroine was the inspiration for Sarah Manning in Orphan Black.)

18. One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (1977) dir. Agnès Varda – Probably my favorite classic Varda, this film feels incredibly personal. It’s essentially a love story about two best friends with very different lives. For an indie made in the ‘70s, the diversity, scope, and themes of the film are impressive. Even if the second half a drags a bit, the first half is absolute perfection, engaging the viewer immediately, and clipping along, sprinkling in some great original songs that were way progressive for their time (about abortion, female bodily autonomy, etc) and could still be considered “bangers” today.

19. Emma (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde

20. Black Panthers (1969) dir. Agnès Varda

21. Into the Forest (2016) dir. Patricia Rozema - When the world was ending (i.e. the pandemic hit) this was the first movie I turned to - a quiet, meditative story of two sisters (Elliot Page and Evan Rachel Wood) surviving off the land after a sudden global blackout. Four years later, it’s still one of my favorite book-to-screen adaptations. I fondly remember speaking with director Patricia Rozema at the 2016 Chicago Critics Film Festival after a screening, her love for the source material and desire to “get it right” so apparent. I assured her then, and reaffirm now, that she really did.

22. City of Trees (2019) dir. Alexandra Swarens

23. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) dir. Eliza Hittmann - To call this a harrowing and deeply personal journey of a sixteen-year-old who must cross state lines to get an abortion would be accurate, but incomplete. It is a story so much bigger than that, about the myriad ways women’s bodies and boundaries are constantly violated.

24. Paradise Hills (2019) dir. Alice Waddington

25. *Eve’s Bayou (1996) dir. Kasi Lemmons – I’ve been meaning to watch Kasi Lemmons’ directorial debut for many years now, and I’m so glad I finally have, because it fully deserves its icon status, beyond being one of the first major films directed by a black woman. Baby Jurnee Smollett's talent was immediately recognizable, and she has reminded us of it in Birds of Prey and Lovecraft Country this year. If merit was genuinely a factor for Oscar contenders, she would have taken home gold at eleven years old. Beasts of the Southern Wild has been one of my all-time favorites, but now I realize that most of my appreciation for that movie actually goes to Lemmons for blazing the trail with her story of a young black girl from the bayou first. It’s also a surprisingly dark story about memory and abuse and familial relationships that cross lines - really gutsy and surprising themes, especially for the ‘90s.

26. Blow the Man Down (2019) dir. Bridget Savage Cole & Danielle Krudy - Come and get your sea shanty fix!

27. Touchy Feely (2013) dir. Lynn Shelton - R.I.P. :(

28. Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (2020) dir. Madeleine Parry - If you thought Gadsby couldn’t follow up 2018′s sensational Nanette with a comedy special just as sharp and hilarious, you would have been sorely mistaken.

29. Girlhood (2013) dir. Céline Sciamma

30. Breathe (2014) dir. Mélanie Laurent

31. *A Dry White Season (1989) dir. Euzhan Palcy

32. Laggies (2014) dir. Lynn Shelton

33. *The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood – Everything I’ve ever wanted in an action movie: Immortal gays, Charlize Theron wielding a labrys (battle axe), kinetic fight choreography I haven’t seen since the last Bond movie…Watched it twice, then devoured the comics it was adapted from, and I gotta say: in the hands of black women, it eclipses the source material. Cannot wait for the just-announced sequel.

34. Morvern Callar (2002) dir. Lynn Ramsay

35. Shirley (2020) dir. Josephine Decker

36. *Radioactive (2019) dir. Marjane Satrapi – The story is obviously well worth telling and the narrative structure – weaving in the future consequences of Curie’s discoveries – is clever, but a bit awkwardly executed and overly manipulative. There are glimpses of real brilliance throughout, but it feels as if the director’s vision was not fully realized, to my great disappointment. Nonetheless, I appreciated seeing Marie Curie's story being told by a female director and embodied by the always wonderful Rosamund Pike.

37. *The Half of It (2020) dir. Alice Wu - I feel like a real scrooge for saying this, but this movie did nothing for me. Nothing about it felt fresh, authentic or relatable. A real disappointment from the filmmaker behind the wlw classic Saving Face.

38. Mouthpiece (2018) dir. Patricia Rozema - I am absolutely floored. One of those films that makes you fall in love with the art form all over again. Patricia Rozema continues to prove herself one of the most creatively ambitious and insightful directors of our time, with this melancholic meditation on maternal grief and a woman’s duality.

39. Summerland (2020) dir. Jessica Swale - The rare period wlw love story that is not a) all-white or b) tragedy porn. Just lovely.

40. *The Last Thing He Wanted (2020) dir. Dee Rees – As rumored, a mess. Even by the end, I still couldn’t tell you who any of the characters are. Dee, we know you’re so much better than this! (see: Mudbound, Pariah)

41. *Cuties (2020) dir. Maïmouna Doucouré – I watched this film to 1) support a black woman director who has been getting death threats for her work and 2) see what all the fuss is about. While I do think there were possibly some directorial choices that could have saved quite a bit of the pearl-clutching, overall, I didn’t find it overly-exploitative or gross, as many (who obviously haven’t actually watched the film) have labeled it. It certainly does give me pause, though, and makes me wonder whether children can ever be put in front of a camera without it exploiting or causing harm to them in some way. It also makes one consider the blurry line between being a critique versus being an example. File this one under complicated, for sure.

42. A Call to Spy (2019) Lydia Dean Pilcher – An incredible true story of female spies during WWII that perfectly satisfied my itch for British period drama/spy thriller and taught me so much herstory I didn’t know.

43. Kajillionaire (2020) dir. Miranda July - I was lucky enough to attend the (virtual) premiere of this film, followed by an insightful cast/director Q&A, which only made me appreciate it more. July's offbeat dark comedy about a family of con artists is queerer and more heartfelt than it has any right to be, and a needed reprieve in a year of almost entirely white wlw stories. The family's shenanigans are the hook, but it's the budding relationship between Old Dolio (an almost unrecognizable Evan Rachel Wood) and aspiring grifter Melanie (the luminous Gina Rodriguez) that is the heart of the story.

44. Misbehaviour (2020) dir. Philippa Lowthorpe – Again, teaching me herstory I didn’t know, about how the Women’s Liberation Movement stormed the 1970 Miss World Pageant. Keira Knightley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s characters have a conversation in a bathroom at the end of the film that perfectly eviscerates well-meaning yet ignorant white feminism, without ever pitting women against each other - a feat I didn’t think was possible. I also didn’t think it was possible to critique the male gaze without showing it (*ahem Cuties, Bombshell, etc*), but this again, invents a way to do it. Bless women directors.

45. *All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020) dir. Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortes – 2020’s 13th. Thank god for Stacey Abrams, that is all.

46. *The 40-Year-Old Version (2020) dir. Radha Blank – This scene right here? I felt that in my soul. This whole film is so good and funny and heartfelt and relatable to any artist trying to walk that tightrope of “making it” while not selling their soul to make it. My only initial semi-note was that it’s a little long, but after hearing Radha Blank talk about how she fought for the two-hour run-time as a way of reclaiming space for older black women, I take it back. She’s right: Let black women take up space. Let her movie be as long as she wants it to be. GOOD FOR HER.

47. Happiest Season (2020) dir. Clea Duvall - Hoooo boy. What was marketed as the first lesbian Christmas rom-com is actually a horror movie for anyone who’s ever had to come out. Throw in casual racism and a toxic relationship treated as otp, and it’s YIKES on so many levels. Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, and an autistic-coded Jane are the only (underused) highlights.

48. *Monkey Beach (2020) dir. Loretta Todd

49. *Little Chief (2020) dir. Erica Tremblay – A short film part of the 2020 Red Nation Film Festival, it’s a perfect eleven minutes that I wish had gone on longer, if only to bask in Lily Gladstone in a leading role.

50. First Cow (2019) dir. Kelly Reichardt – I know Kelly Reichardt’s style, so I’ll admit-- even as I was preparing for an excellent film, I was also reaching for my phone, planning on only half paying attention during all the inevitable 30-second shots of grass blowing in the wind. (And yes, there are plenty of those.) But twenty minutes in, my phone was set aside and forgotten, as I am getting sucked into this beautiful story about two frontiersman trying to live their best domestic life.There is only one word to describe this film and that is: PURE. I’ve never seen such a tender platonic relationship between men on screen before, and it’s not lost on me that it took a woman to show us that tenderness. Reichardt gives us two men brought together by fate, and kept together by a shared dream and the simple pleasure of not being alone in such a hard world; two men who spend their days cooking, trapping, baking, and dreaming of a better life; two men who don’t say much, but feel everything for each other. The world would be a much better place if men showed us this kind of vulnerability and friendship toward each other. Oh, and it’s also a brutal take-down of capitalism and the myth of the American Dream!

51. Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) dir. Patty Jenkins - My most-anticipated film for the past two years was...well, a mixed bag, to say the least. Too many thoughts on it for a blog post, so stay tuned for the upcoming podcast ep where we go all in ;)

52. *Selah and the Spades (2019) dir. Tayarisha Poe

I hope this gives you some ideas to kick off your new year with a resolution to support more female directors!

What were your favorite women-directed movies of last year? Let me know in the tags, comments, or asks!

#finally finished this #52 films by women #2020 #writing #movies #movie reviews #orig

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Marvel’s What If…? Episode 1 Review: Peggy Carter Changes MCU History

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This review contains spoilers for What If…? episode 1.

What If…? is the latest Marvel Studios small screen project to arrive on Disney+ after much fanfare. The animated anthology show, created by Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia writer A.C. Bradley and Marvel storyboard vet Bryan Andrews, aims to explore alternate timelines in the MCU multiverse. In order to fully grasp the basic premise of What If…? as a whole it helps to have watched Marvel’s Loki, which recently introduced the multiverse to the MCU.

What If…? episode 1, “What If… Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?,” focuses on a (mainly) WWII-era version of Peggy Carter who made a key alternate choice that affected the creation of Captain America in a major way.

It’s a fun episode! Your mileage may vary depending on how much you love Peggy Carter, but since I love her a whole lot I had a good time watching this. The main downside, I suspect, to any of these installments, is that they’re inherently redundant. As far as we know, none of the fantastical concepts here will bleed into the live-action MCU. But if you’re here for a good time and not a long time, What If…? should make for a neat weekly diversion.

Our What If…? reviews are going to adopt a different format. More of a “breakdown” that we hope will still satisfy regular readers but also help younger viewers and those less familiar with the MCU keep up.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at “What If… Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?”

Required viewing

In terms of understanding the central characters and how things changed inside the branch timeline featured in this first episode, we would recommend revisiting Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter, and the opening act of The Avengers. If you’re on a full Peggy Carter binge, why not add both seasons of ABC’s live-action Agent Carter series to your watchlist, too?

What’s different?

This episode explored what would have happened if Steve Rogers was unable to take the super soldier serum during World War II and Peggy Carter volunteered to become Dr. Abraham Erskine’s lab rat instead.

Peggy’s “what if…?” was deciding to stand her ground and stay in the room while the serum was administered during the iconic transformation sequence featured in Captain America: The First Avenger. She then had a chance to intervene in the Hydra bombing, but Steve got caught up in the action and was subsequently shot.

With time running out to perform the super soldier process, Peggy jumped into the machine and went on to become Captain Carter, having all the physical powers of Captain America along with a different costume and an altered shield with a Union Jack at its center.

Steve was badly injured and had to undergo intense physiotherapy while Peggy trained to be the best she could be. Their relationship blossomed and, thanks to Howard Stark, Steve took on the role of her sidekick in a Tesseract-powered Hydra Stomper – basically an early version of the Iron Man suit. Meanwhile, Peggy faced interference from Colonel John Flynn, who was regularly on hand to pour out a stream of misogyny regarding her place in the fight.

In a familiar First Avenger train sequence, Peggy went on an altered mission with Steve, Bucky Barnes and the Howling Commandos to take out the Red Skull, however it was Steve who ended up falling from the train in this timeline and not Bucky, so it stands to reason that Bucky wouldn’t then go on to become the Winter Soldier.

Other more minor changes include Peggy probably not making out with her own niece during any Civil War shenanigans in the future – and please do not direct me to any fan art depicting that scenario in the comments, I beg you.

In the end, the Red Skull used the Tesseract to summon a tentacled “champion of Hydra” and Peggy had to sacrifice herself to push it back back into the space portal from whence it came. She emerged from the portal pre-The Avengers’ Battle of New York.

Who are the voices?

Jeffrey Wright plays the show’s narrator, Uatu The Watcher, and he’ll be here for every episode.

Returning to voice their characters from Captain America: The First Avenger were Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine. Other MCU actors joining in were Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Ross Marquand as the Red Skull, reprising his role from Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame.

Bradley Whitford may seem like a new addition as the arrogant Colonel John Flynn, but he previously portrayed the character in the live-action Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter released back in 2013, so even in the Sacred Timeline Flynn continued to be a thorn in Peggy’s side for quite a while.

The elephant in the room here is Steve Rogers. Chris Evans did not add his voice to the What If…? mix, so it was up to Marvel animation alum Josh Keaton to stand in for Evans, and he honestly did a really good job of it all things considered.

Standout moments

I gotta say it was truly wild for me to witness Captain Carter have adventures onscreen at all! It was obviously great to see Peggy kicking ass with her enhanced strength – the serum only beefed up her already brave and competent nature – but this version of the character has something of a unique origin, having been concocted as a kind of throwaway addition to the match-3 game Marvel Puzzle Quest in 2016. A couple of years later, Saladin Ahmed added her to the pages of Marvel Comics in Exiles #3, and it clearly didn’t take Marvel Studios long to figure out how to apply the enthusiastic Captain Carter fan response to an MCU project.

Peggy riding Steve’s Iron Man-esque Hydra Stomper into a dogfight during the WWII montage sequence was a delight, frankly. The animation in most of the fighting sequences was terrific and really took golden opportunities to reach for the kind of punching, kicking, shield-throwing ballet that the live-action format could never quite achieve with its restrictions of reality.

I found myself slowly warming to What If…?’s animation style, which I probably still wouldn’t describe as my favorite if I’m honest. I love the What If? comics, and this series felt like an opportunity to really push the weirdness envelope a little more. You only have to look at what Netflix accomplished with its anthology series Love, Death & Robots to see how differently a What If? series that embraced other styles and voices could have gone, but I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, stop motion, Fantastic Planet, and Heavy Metal, so forgive me for briefly imagining the possibilities of this project in a wilder sense.

One of the oddest standout moments for me was when the episode subverted my expectations somewhat. After Steve was seemingly killed during the train heist, I thought the creators of the show were all set to explore him becoming the Winter Soldier, and I have to admit the idea intrigued me a little! However, it didn’t go down like that, and I was left to mentally wander down a different “what if…?” rabbit hole alone.

How does it work out?

In the future, Nick Fury used the Tesseract to transport Peggy back from wherever she ended up after she entered the portal, and it looks like she joined the Infinity Saga-era Avengers Initiative in Steve’s place. Whether it all worked out well for this episode’s specific MCU timeline remains to be seen, but it would be really fun to see if Agent Coulson had a pack of Captain Carter trading cards!

More to come

Episode 1 played like a pilot for an ongoing Captain Carter series for good reason: What If…? has been confirmed to include at least one Peggy Carter installment in every season going forwards.

“A lot of the season one episodes are riffing off certain points in the cinematic universe and maybe even delving in a certain phase, but we need to expand and explore more things, so we had to come up with other ideas that were a little further down the timeline,” director Bryan Andrews told us, later adding “Peggy Carter is pretty awesome; Captain Carter is pretty awesome, we’d love to see more of her.”

Marvel’s What If…? is now streaming weekly on Disney+ every Wednesday.

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The post Marvel’s What If…? Episode 1 Review: Peggy Carter Changes MCU History appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY doesn’t follow the fairytale characters to a T: Emerald is evil when Aladdin wasn’t, and the point of Oz's inner circle is to SUBVERT their original counterparts, Oz is a wizard pretending to be a regular guy, Leo gave in to his cowardliness, Ironwood lost his heart (tho very poorly), and Qrow lost his brain (joining with Tyrian was ALLEGEDLY supposed to be dumb on his end, not that that stops the FNDM from victim blaming)

RWBY definitely doesn’t follow the inspirations to a T, however, I don’t think I agree that the big three here are subversions. Rather, up until Ironwood shot Oscar they seemed to be following the arcs of their counterparts rather closely (or at least, the arcs as laid out in the film. I admittedly can’t speak to the original novels):

Ozpin - Yes, he’s technically a real wizard here, but he still follows the same path as the Wizard character. That is, moving from someone who is perceived as nearly all powerful, all knowing, all important to someone who is just as flawed and scared as the rest of us. Like pulling back the curtain, Volume 6 reveals Ozpin to be just another fallible man. He is a regular guy. He might have actual power - like the Wizard has actual influence - but that doesn’t make him the omnipotent being people chose to see him as. Both were normal men who stepped up to help: the Wizard a mere carnival worker who tried to give the Emerald City the symbol they wanted; Ozpin a mere fighter, with magic like many others in a Humanity 1.0 world (that power doesn’t appear to have originally been unique) who agreed to become the defender of Remnant. Both try to help their Dorothy character and fail: the Wizard with his balloon and Ozpin with his schools, leaving both girls to find another solution. Personally, I think there’s far more parallels between their stories than subversions. A subversion would have been actually making Ozpin as wise and all knowing as the Wizard initially appeared. Instead, this is revealed to be this:

Ironwood - Same here. Ironwood is meant to appear like he’s heartless to the audience (and those of Remnant) at first glance. Here comes this man made of metal, with his stern looks and military persona, making calls that a lot of people don’t agree with. However, the story quickly reveals - to us if not the entire world - that the Tinman always had a heart. That’s the lesson of the film. You never needed someone to teach you how to care, or supply some magical means of achieving that. You’ve done it all along. Even if others - and at times you yourself - can’t see it. A subversion would have been to make Ironwood an actually heartless character, or at least someone who has to learn how to care like his counterpart assumed he had to. Instead, Ironwood is merely perceived as this, but is shown to actually be this:

Qrow - Finally, like Ironwood Qrow is introduced as the brainless fool but, like his Scarecrow counterpart, is shown to have always had a brain. We’re introduced to him getting drunk in a bar and picking an idiotic fight with Winter. He reveals sensitive info to a group of students, destroys the courtyard, is revealed to have not kept in contact with his team, and then continues drinking. It’s easy to write him off as the brainless troublemaker of the group but, again, as we get to know him it’s revealed that Qrow is actually a genius spy. He’s thoughtful and strategic - never dumb to begin with. This is revealed to be this:

(Sorry it’s hard to find a picture of Qrow being smart. Not because that intelligence doesn’t exist, but because it’s not easily reduced to a single image. So I just went with him being badass instead lol.)

So I’d argue that RWBY was keeping very closely the moral messages of the Wizard of Oz, rather than subverting them: the man you see as an all powerful savior is human too and cannot fix all your problems, the man who appears cold and heartless has always cared about others, the man who appears brainless at first glance is actually quite astute. Even Emerald follows her Aladdin pattern by being the one person in Salem’s inner circle who we’re supposed to sympathize with. Emerald is the one who gets long close ups to show how uncomfortable she is with things. She’s the one questioning if this is the right course to stay on. Like Aladdin, she’s technically a villain (thief) but is primed to leave that life once better prospects are presented to her (I found a genie/I’m given a way out of Salem’s employment). From Dorothy/Little Red Riding Hood still being an innocent hero in Ruby, to the Good Witch still being a good “witch” (her semblance might as well be magic) in Glynda, to Pinocchio having always been a real person in Penny... I’d say RWBY follows the lessons attached to their allusions far more than they subvert them. Which isn’t to say there’s no subversion at all. I think having Adam really be a beast rather than someone whose “curse” is broken by Blake is one. Yang presented as the dumb, reckless blonde who is actually a brilliant and caring big sister is another (even if RWBY has messed this subversion up in more recent volumes). As is Lionheart. He is indeed a previously loyal lion who was revealed to be cowardly... but he’s also notably barely a character. We know almost nothing about him. He existed to give the heroes something to work towards - gotta get to Haven to talk to the headmaster - and then as a means by which all the other, important villains engage with the cast. Then he dies. It’s much easier to subvert (or accidentally write something that looks like subversion) when the character barely exists on screen. Lionheart has no character to complicate. Ozpin, Ironwood, and Qrow though? Their stories have all been (very basically) following the path of their inspirations. Until Volume 7.

I don’t agree that Qrow is now subverted due to teaming up with Tyrian. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely a stupid move. Arguably the stupidest I’ve seen in RWBY to date, but the story doesn’t seem to realize that. That decision isn’t treated like the Scarecrow has now lost his brain. Rather, it’s treated like a good decision that then led to ~totally unexpected~ consequences. If the story thought Qrow had made a dumb call we could have gotten any number of details to imply that, including but not limited to him regretting the choice he just made while Clover dies, rather than blaming Ironwood for it. So we as the audience might recognize that it’s dumb, but that doesn’t mean the story does, which undermines any argument that it’s a deliberate subversion. Though this may change depending on how Qrow views his actions in Volume 8 and/or if others call him out on it.

Which finally leaves us with Ironwood. Yeah, it could be a subversion to give the Tinman a heart and then have him lose it... but why now? If you’re going to do that work then do it from the beginning, not only so that there’s proper setup for it - as you say, very poorly done - but also so that the audience doesn’t devote nearly six years of emotional energy into a characterization only to be told that we’re reversing course now. A character’s downfall takes time. A character’s reveal that they were secretly bad/evil/whatever all along takes planning. As @leonhaxor points out, you can also introduce an influence like the lamp. How and why did these characters suddenly become their opposites? Because an outside force is influencing them, but even then you have to plan for and think through the complexities of that situation. What happens when the lamp is removed? What happens when the characters actually talk about these problems and realize they simplified things horribly (i.e. Qrow’s belief that everything he’s done is meaningless)? How are you going to maintain that new characterization if the reason for its existence is so flimsy? When you spend years developing characters, it’s no easy feat to chuck that characterization out on a whim.

RWBY did none of these things though and thus Ironwood’s sudden shift is neither believable nor satisfying. It’s not a subversion to write a classic Tinman for six years and then suddenly, in literally a few minutes, insist that he’s evil!Tinman instead. Imagine you read about a detective for six books who appears cold and unyielding, but is actually revealed to be a vulnerable hero doing his best to solve these cases. And he does. Not perfectly, but he does solve them, helping people in the process, and you adore his flawed-but-ultimately-very-good person. Then suddenly, in the last few pages of the most recent novel, the detective attempts to murder his assistant out of the blue and you’re left gapping at where the previous six volumes of characterization went. Other readers go, “Well, he and the assistant once got into a fight so it’s totally believable that he’d shoot him" and the author goes, “You never expected the detective to be the criminal, huh? See, it’s a subversion.” Except it’s not. Is the concept of a detective who is actually the criminal a cool subversion? Absolutely. Dexter is right there showing us that. But you have to introduce that from the start, plan for it, and develop it in a believable way. Writing a good guy for almost the entirety of the story’s run (Ironwood didn’t arrive until Volume 2) only to turn around and change your mind about them - without proper setup - is just bad writing. We could have gotten a persuasive and compelling fall from grace that culminates in Ironwood shooting Oscar... but that would require really basic things like him not losing his arm/making hard calls in the name of helping others just a few minutes before.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #Anonymous

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trickkombowerskru · 5 years ago

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A Father’s Worst Nightmare-Henry Bowers X Daughter!Reader Imagine

Request: Anonymous: Can you do an imagine where henry didn't kill anyone and had a family and his daughter (who would be like 16) is getting terrorized by it and something happens similar to beverly and henry comes to see what's wrong and is like really confused why shes talking about blood and a clown and then remembers what happened to him the reader would be his daughter btw if you don't want to do this that's completely fine with me or if you don't understand what I'm saying

A/N: Thank you for being so patient with me anon, I know you sent his in before the Christmas event, but now it is here! Also yes it is still not new year’s for me on the west coast so I succeed in getting all the prompts done, but word of advice whatever you do don;t do a writing sprint of 30+ prompts in 2 and half days it will drive you a little crazy

Warnings: None

It wasn't easy being the daughter of a single parent in Derry, especially when you were the daughter of Henry Bowers. It wasn't like he didn't work his ass off to support both of you or that he wasn't a good dad. It's just being his kid for some years of your life and still to this day people expect you to act a certain way because of your dad's reputation around town as a kid.

That being said he was a lot better now your mom had even him out a lot, so while his rage was still caged inside of him it wasn't nearly as much because of her and the fact that his own father was dead. You were thankful however that most people after meeting you and getting to know you quickly picked up you were nothing like him as a kid, sure you were tough and all, but you didn't go around making other kids lives a living hell.

This could be said for any of the adults still here who were once his peers or victims when they were young they all expected you to go off, but soon enough you subverted that. It had been a long day you and your best friend Amy were getting some books for school, waiting to get all of them checked out.

"Okay girls remember your due date and good luck on your project."

"We will thanks Mr.Hanlon," you tell him before you leave and you two make your way back to your places.

You wanted to find some good points separately before meeting up to compare notes.

"Hey Dad," you greet seeing your father sitting at the table doing some kind of paperwork.

"Hey kiddo. What's with all the books?"

"Project for school, we have to do this presentation that needs like seven sources and only two of them can be digital, so Amy and I figured to find stuff first and then we dive into it."

"Well before you get too deep into those books what do you want for dinner?"

"Pizza?"

"Sounds good. Let me know when you start gettin' hungry."

You tell him you will and head to your room, putting the books on your small desk, and changing out of your school clothes. After a bit of researching you needed a bit of a pick me up, cold water always did the trick so you made your way to the bathroom.

Once you dry off your face you hear voices.

"H-Hello?"It sounded like they were coming from the sinking

"Y/N come float with us. We all float down here."

"Who are you?"

You get an array of names before a decaying hand comes out of sink, it starts pulling you near the drain and a large burst of blood covers you and the entire bathroom.

You take the hand and shove your nails into it making disappear down the drain. Your scream alerts your dad and he comes rushing in.

"Y/N what's wrong!?"

"You don't see it?"

"See what?"

"All the blood."

"Blood!? Did you hurt yourself or something?"

"This is gonna sound insane, but I need you to promise you'll hear me out."

"Okay what happened."

"I was splashing some cold water on my face to wake me up a bit, and then I heard these voices"

"Voices?"

"They came from the sink and they said something about floating and then this nasty looking hand was trying to pull me into the drain and then this large burst of blood just came out and covered everything."

"Floating?'" when he asks this you can see shock and realization hit his face like he knew what was going on.

"Did they uh say anything else? Or did you see something? Like a clown or uh a red balloon?"

"Why would I see a red balloon?"

He shakes his head and leans down, kneeling and cups your face.

"We'll clean this up later okay, just take a shower,I gotta make a call real quick alright."

You just nod. You scrub the blood off of yourself once you're changed you hear your dad in a panic on the phone.

"Listen Eric I don't give a shit if it’s closing time,I just need to Hanlon okay!"

You wondered what he needed to talk about with Mr.Hanlon.

"I think that fucking thing is back!....what do mean you know?....That thing nearly ruined my god damn life and now it just attacked my fucking kid I am not gonna let IT touch her......you called em?....later tonight?.....the Jade of Orient?.....Got it....yeah yeah I'll be there.....bye."

"Dad?"

He turns back to look at you, digging in one of the miscellaneous drawers in the kitchen.

"Listen Bud the plan changed, I'll leave some money so you can order pizza, but I need to go to dinner tonight it's important. You can invite Amy over so you won't be by yourself, and if you see anything weird look it in the eye and I want you to say "Screw you I'm not afraid." Here's my old knife in case you need it, I"ll be back later. Love you be careful."

"Love you."

He practically runs out the door and you immediately call up Amy before ordering a pizza.Your dad comes home much later and thankfully it was a weekend so it didn't matter how long you were up and also you didn't see anything else.

You both had started to fall asleep when the door opened you heard other voices with your dad's along including Mr.Hanlon's and another one that was familiar, but you couldn't quite place.

"No no way we should get the hell out of here before we become IT's next meal. Also what are we doing. Working with Bowers? After all he did to us? Come on guys let's ."

"You got a kid Trashmouth?" you hear your dad's voice go almost dark.

"No."

"Well I do she’s my entire god damn life and that fucking thing attacked her. I ain't gonna let it get her. So shut the fuck up for once and let's kill IT.,"he threatens.

"Wait you actually managed to find a wife?"

You hear you dad sigh not wanting to talk about your mother's death since it was only just a few years ago. You decide to break up the tension and then go out there.

"Dad?"

"What're you still doin' up?"

"Well we were starting to fall asleep and then we heard the door."

Then your eyes widen as you see the rest of the group.

"Holy shit," you say when they land on Richie Tozier.

"Hi I'm Y/N I'm a big fan."

"Thanks. See Bowers you may never have liked my jokes, but your kid has taste."

"Shut up," he mutters.

As you scan the rest of the group you are also in awe of Beverly Marsh and Bill Denbrough

."I totally love you guys too, Beverly you and Tom's lines are amazing, and Bill aside from the endings I really love your books."

"How the hell is your daughter so nice?," a shorter man in a hoodie asks.

"Can it Wheezy," your dad chimes in.

"Okay what the hell is going on?," you ask.

Once they all explain the situation you are in utter shock.

"So....so that thing wanted to eat me......and IT likes it's when you're scared...so that's why you told me to tell IT I wasn't afraid."

"Exactly," your dad confirms.

After a few days of the group finding "tokens" for some weird ritual you go with them to defeat IT despite your dads protests. Everyone gets split off at one point, you getting flung with Richie and Eddie before getting completely split up.

You're in a white room and you see a bunch of what look like people suddenly combust into blood and guts, IT takes the form of the clown and inches slowly towards you. You feel terrified, but try to remember what your dad said.You stop looking IT dead in the eye.

"Screw you I'm not afraid."

You kick IT in the face and keep fighting IT until it turns onto a pile of mush. You find the way out, then run through the rickety house trying to find your dad.

"Dad? DAD?"

You frantically fling open doors until find him. You see your dad along with a younger version of him getting talked down to and beaten by his father. It kills you to see him in that much pain, feeling inside your pocket you grin. Your fingers curl around the blade,you sneak behind the "man" and jump on his back.

"Leave him alone you fucker!"

you stab him in the back and then get blood spurted onto your face when you get him in the neck a few times. Your dad stands up and punches IT in the face he punches and punches until it fades away.

"Thanks Sweeheart," he says hugging you.

Once you get back with the group defeat the clown, but not before your dad gets hurt in the process. He was trying to get you out of the way and one of IT's claws went right into his side. Thankfully if wasn't all the way through, like Eddie's wound, but it was bad.

As the house crumbles down you try to run out, Richie and Mr.Hanlon carrying the very injured Eddie, while Ben and Bill helped your dad. Once you were out of the house, you all went to the quarry, to take care of the wounds, although shortly after that they had began to disappear along with scars on the group's hands.

You run and hug your dad, you thought for sure things were going to go south before you could save him.

"I thought I was gonna loose you," you cry.

"I'm right here Babygirl, I'm never leavin'." he tells you, pulling you closer.

After that you head home and to your surprise before you go, your dad actually apologizes to all he put them through as kids.

"It may be safe now, but I'm getting out of this town soon. I suggest you two do the same," Mr. Hanlon advises.

"We might, " your dad replies.

Later that night you sound cleaning up the bathroom finally, along with any little wounds you got from the rubble in the house. While the entire experience was terrifying, it brought you even closer to your dad. So in a very weird way, it was a good thing, and the strangest bonding exercise you could find.

#it chapter 2 #henry bowers #henry bowers imagine #teach grant

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oveliagirlhaditright · 5 years ago

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So... since a lot of videos that are being recommended to me lately, are about people’s ten most hated tropes and it’s on my mind... I’ve decided to do my own list. For no reason whatsoever.

1. Fridging... do I even need to explain why I hate female characters being killed off, just to cause a man pain or further his arc? No. It can happen with guys--think Sydney Bristow’s fiancé, Danny, from Alias, who died and set her whole story into motion--and sometimes it can even be done “right” (like with Aerith Gainsborough from FFVII, or something, where she was maybe slightly fridged... in that she somewhat died to bring Cloud pain. But more than that, she died to save the world--and actually had agency with that--and knew she was going to die, and bravely went through with it, anyway)... as “right” as this annoying trope can be done. But for the most part, I hate it and get so mad when authors use it.

2. Lack of Communication Kills... There is no more annoying plot in the world, then when all the drama and your entire goddamn story happens because people can’t open their damn mouths and have an actual conversation with each other. -sigh-

2.5 And with the above one... though not as bad for me: when a character is saying all these glowing things about another one--and maybe says one bad thing about them--and of course the other character only hears the bad stuff. Or when a character gets there at the wrong time: like, someone is kissing their significant other... and their significant other clearly didn’t want it, and told them no, and isn’t even kissing them back... but the main character is going to miss all of this and think they cheated when they didn’t. We’re just going to call these two together “plot convenience”.

3. The “Can’t Ever Have Sex” trope... I hate this one so much. And not even because I care about sex. I really don’t. It’s just annoying and unbelievable. A lot of the time, it was done in the late 90′s to early 2000′s, where networks thought if they let their two main love interests have sex, the audience would lose interest in the rest of the thing and stop watching there (and look, I feel if you think your fans are only watching your movie or show, just to see their two favorite characters have sex, that’s kind of your problem right there). But I just find this a cop-out, and am glad most writers have moved away from this--because if you’re a good writer--you can keep your audience invested and let your characters have sex, dangit. But Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) not being able to have sex with Angel, because he’ll turn into serial killer vampire Angelus is dumb. Max and Logan (Dark Angel) not being able to sleep together, because Manticore put a deadly virus inside of Max that only targets Logan’s DNA is stupid. Jace and Clary (The Mortal Instruments) not getting it on until the last book, because first Jace was her “brother”, and then because he was possessed, and then because he had heavenly fire inside of him, etc.... why? Just why? And a lot of these are in danger of getting into “sex is evil” and/or “sexuality in women is a bad thing” categories.

4. Love triangles. I get why people love love triangles. I do. And I can sometimes even enjoy them myself... but I’ve just seen them too many times now to really care about them. More often than not, they annoy me... especially if people are being abysmal to each other--so you’d wonder why Person A loves Person B at all, if they treat them like that--and there’s cheating involved. I also... just don’t believe that it happens so often in life, that right when Character A and Character B realize they’re in love with each other... A Character C just happens to be in love with one of them, too, and chooses then to let them known. Edit: Also, when the author clearly has a choice of who they want the person to end up with... so they make that person wonderful and the other one terrible, so you’ll hopefully choose what they want, which sort of defeats the whole point of the love triangle to begin with. Have both choices be great, so you struggle with the character and get why they’re struggling.

5. The “I’m leaving you/breaking up with you to protect you” trope, that’s usually coupled with “And of course, I’m not going to tell you this is the reason I’m doing this--I’m just going to break your heart, for no good reason--instead of actually treating you like an equal and giving you a choice about how you want to live your own life.”

6. I don’t hate this one as much--in fact, I might not even hate it... but I still don’t like it--but whatever trope it is, that has one girl and two boys in a group of three, and two girls and three boys in a group of five: where the girl always has to be the gender that’s outnumbered for some weird reason.

7. Villain monologues... though to be fair, I also do this a lot in my own writing. And I get why it’s easy to do... Because most of the time, you don’t unmask the killer--or whatever--until the end of the story, and you also don’t get all the clues to tie it together until then, either, so the only one who knows everything has to fill you in on it... but it’s just so unbelievable. And even moreso, if a murderer is confessing to a cop, or whatever, knowing full-well that this will throw them into prison for life or even give them the death penalty... when anyone else in this situation would say nothing.. or ask for a lawyer. Or even still say nothing with said lawyer. And with this one... when a villain would have actually killed their enemy, if they’d actually shut up and done it instead of gloating.

8. Chosen one storylines... just chosen one storylines. For one thing, I think they’re overdone and kind of lazy. They can also make your character seem like a Mary-Sue... because what are the chances that they, of all people, are the only one in the world who can do this thing? And it just annoys me, that in a lot of “chosen one” stories/prophecies or what have you, someone else could do all the work in defeating the Big Bad or whatever... but because there’s a prophecy, they can’t kill them no matter how hard they try! And then the chosen one can just come in and bonk the Big Bad on the head--dealing the final blow that they couldn’t have even inflicted on the bad guy, if the other person hadn’t done all their work for them--and then they get the credit for it. Like, it must suck to be the supporting character in a chosen one story. Surely they should all hate the chosen one, right? Especially since chosen one stories are also often “new to the world” stories, where everyone else has been fighting the Big Bad for years... but now out of nowhere, a chosen one can get introduced to the problem and in one second do what they in years were unable to do. I do, however, love love love stories that subvert the chosen one narrative.

9.Rape as a way to make a story “gruesome” and “gritty”. Rape in general, actually.

10. I’m someone who always wants and prefers a happy ending... but to be honest, some people in your narrative probably should die--and there probably should be some consequences to whatever happened--otherwise it feels too perfect. But on the flip-side of that, I hate stories with the most bleak endings ever... and when authors refuse to give you even a hint of a happy ending whatsoever--because “that’s life, bitches”--and even seem to want to shame people for wanting/expecting happy endings.

Edit: Honorary mention, that maybe somewhat goes with the “Can’t Ever Have Sex One”: senseless relationship drama in a ship--all the time--because for some reason, the author(s) think you can’t invested in a relationship that’s actually happy and healthy together. This can also be a “we fight, we break up. We kiss, we make up” one. There is a difference between relationship drama that’s needed for the plot, and relationship drama that’s just there because the writers think you’ll lose interest, otherwise, and because we gotta be “dark, gritty, and realistic. Because clearly there aren’t happy relationships in the real world. Clearly.”

Edit 2: The next honorary mention. The Damsel in Distress trope. I have no problem with girls needing to be saved in a story--I have less problems with this than most people do, probably--or a guy, if it’s the “Dude in Distress” trope. But if you refuse to give such a character any agency whatsoever, there’s a problem.

Edit 3: The “Girls Hating Each Other” trope.

Edit 4: A girl’s entire character being all about the boy that she likes... with literally nothing else, and really no other relationships, to her. I feel this is usually the fault of male authors who don’t know how to write girls at all.

Edit 5: When a story goes on much longer than it should (after its story has really come to a close)--and becomes the worst thing ever for this reason--and just refuses to end.

Edit 6: When love interests put their love interest before the fate of the world--refusing to make the tough choice they really probably should--that the author thinks is romantic... but really isn’t. And kind of says bad things about the characters and their love... like that they’re and it are selfish.

These are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There may be more. And I may edit this list, if I think of honorary mentions... or things that I think should have been on here more than the ones that I listed. But for now... this is good, I think.

#tw #rape mention #other honorary mention: abusive relationships. but I don't think I'm going to include it because it kind of goes without saying #and maybe teen pregnancy. maybe. though it might just be because my blood is boiling in thinking that James Patterson did that to maximum #ride of all people

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talpup · 5 years ago

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Light In the Darkness: 20

Please remember this fic is rated mature and has warnings of violence, abuse, sexual tension, eventual sexual behavior, and other possible triggers.

***If you prefer reading off AO3 here’s the link for that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20887595/chapters/55300054

Sorry about the delay, life and writing Erase the Shadow got a hold of me and I completely forgot about updating. Thanks to @captncappuccino for reminding me.

Thank you to those who have left hearts. And a special THANK YOU to those who have recently left comments or re-blogged. They really mean a lot.

Taglist: @captncappuccino

20.1

It had been a little less then a week since the attacks on the four Magic Knights bases. The day following the attack Jax had informed them that the Green Mantis, Coral Peacocks, and Purple Orcas had also been attacked at the same time their base had been. By the attackers dress and what those at Magic Investigations had learned the reason given for the attacks had been surmised as a gathering of outlaw gangs and other nefarious criminals attempting to appear as Spade Kingdom Sorcery Lances in the hopes of war between the Clover and Spade kingdoms thus allowing them to freely do as they pleased. Beneath their robes the attackers had worn the usual dusty, tattered garb one would expect a member of an illegal gang to wear. There had been other such evidence that supported the conclusion by Magic Investigations but Teris refused to listen to it. She knew the truth. Or at least some of it. Why Alowishus Spade had given up so many of his followers lives for such a ruse was beyond her. If he truly was a Zealot surely the Spade Kingdom couldn’t be blamed for his actions even if, as his name suggested, he was a descendant of the kingdoms first ruler. That was unless the current King of the Spade Kingdom or some other high ranking official had sanctioned Spades actions. The possibility gave her a chill but no worse then what possible reason the Wizard King had for keeping the truth silent.

Despite all that had happened things at the Black Bulls base had returned to normal, that was other then the fact that Bronn, Olsen, Iban, and Yami were still away on mission. Even the great room looked as if nothing had happened. As did Teris’ bedroom which she wasn’t sure how she felt about. It wasn’t that she had trouble being comfortable in the room or getting to sleep. It just seemed that something visible should have changed; kind of as a marker or symbol for the change that had happened inside her.

“Teris.” Venice called as Teris exited the bedroom. “You sure that’s all you need?”

Teris came back to herself and turned to her friend. “Yes,” she nodded.

“I know you’re not the typical girl. Neither am I. But I gotta say, that’s not much. I came up here with you to help you take your bags down and find I’m not needed,” Venice said.

“You’re always needed.” Teris said only half teasing. “Besides, whatever I forgot or need that isn’t at Nova House I’ll buy in town.”

“Right.” Venice rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I forget you’re a rich royal.”

“A greater complement could not be given.” Teris said her tone joking but feelings serious. “I won’t be long. Three days at most. Hopefully.”

“Home that bad, huh?”

Teris looked around. “This is home.”

“And don’t forget it. I’d be lost without you. Having Abril as the only girl again would be awful.”

“I heard that.” Abril called from her bedroom.

“Get over here and tell Teris bye.”

“Bye.” Abril shouted.

“Bye.” Teris called back laughing. To Venice she said. “Let’s not make a big deal out of this. It’s not like I’m going on a dangerous mission.” She stopped and looked out the window that had a clear view of the wooded path that lead up to the main house.

“It’s alright.” Venice said stepping behind and bumping her with a shoulder. “Yami will be back soon. Probably before you return even.”

“I hope so,” Teris said. “Still--”

“Still, it would’ve been nice if he got back before you had to leave.” Venice went on when Teris had fallen silent. “Yeah, I know. I’ll tell him you miss him and dreamt of his return though.”

“You wouldn’t.” Teris told eyes widening.

“Then hurry up and get going,” Venice smiled. “The sooner you leave. The sooner you’ll get back.” She wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. “Oh! Yami! How I missed you.” She furrowed her brow and deepened her voice, “I missed you too. How about a kiss?” She puckered her lips and made kissing noises.

“Gross.” Abril yelled from her room. “Be gone already.”

20.2

The Black Bulls had rushing out of the dining hall to greet Bronn, Olsen, Iban, and Yami upon their return during dinner the same day Teris had left. Venice had already made the others swear not to tell Yami where Teris was till he had asked and now waited for his query.

When didn’t come Venice demanded. “When are you going to ask about Teris?”

Yami turned to her and blinked. “She’s not here?” He asked despite having noticed her absence immediately and made a show of looking about the great room. “I guess she’s not.” He shrugged.

“Enough teasing Yami.” Venice ordered. “She��s not hiding somewhere. She’s really not here.”

“Okay.” He said and turned to Gendry to ask about Pilfer and Mooshu.

“She’s away visiting family.” Venice told harshly.

“Something about the annual Nova, Silva family meeting.” Tobin added.

At that Yami visibly tensed. He wanted to yelled at Venice and Tobin to shut up. He wanted to shout back that he hoped she and Nozel had a good time. He wanted to forget that he had every heard Nozel say the word Intended. Instead he asked Gendry. “Pilfer or Mooshu give you any trouble?”

Gendry could barely look at Yami while Bran ran out of the room. “Was it something I said?” Yami asked looking at the others.

Hands on hips Venice asked. “You really don’t care?”

“No.” Yami growled turning and stepping to her, Venice being forced back a step by the waves of angry irritation coming off him. “I really don’t. And, I really wish you’d quit yapping about her.”

Venice looked at him deflating. “Yami. What happened?”

Yami turned away but Venice could have sworn she heard him mutter, I grew up, under his breath.

20.3

Dinner at the Nova House was it’s usual quiet, emotionally strenuous affair. Lord Jaxon Nova had not been well enough to join his children at the dinner table but Fyntch had assured Julius and Teris that he would be well enough to receive and welcome the Silva’s when they arrived on October first.

As they retired to the parlor for tea and sweet cakes Fyntch commented to his sister. “You’ve grown. Are you sure the gowns you left in your wardrobe still fit?”

“Don’t know.” Teris said taking a seat by the window, away from the fire.

“Well you certainly didn’t bring enough luggage to have packed proper clothes.” Fyntch said taking the seat their father usually sat in by the fireplace.

“Don’t sit there.” Teris told shaking her head.

“Why not?” Fitch asked. “It’s not as if he’s using it this evening. I often sit here while the two of you are off following your dreams and I’m suck here caring for father alone.”

“No one asked you to take over that role.” Teris said thinking her brother was far from alone in a house full of servants who likely tended to their father while Fyntch did as he pleased. “I would have--”

“What?” Fyntch asked turning to her. “Given up the only chance you have at becoming useful to the kingdom so you can subvert my authority and not see yourself banished for it?”

“You have no authority over me.” Teris said uncomfortably.

“I have the right of heir.” Fyntch said lifting his chin. “Don’t I Julius.”

“Don’t involve me in your argument.” Julius said staring dully at the fire from his seat on the sofa.

“I wasn’t involving you in anything. I was simply asking you to tell the child that--”

“I’m not a child,” Teris snapped.

“With that temper you sure sound like one.” Fyntch tossed back.

“Leave her alone,” Julius moaned.

“You’re such the hero Julius. Your little sister faces three days with the family she is bound to join; and the thought over the remaining three years she has left before that happens is distressing her and all you can muster is a simple irritated plea. That’s more for yourself than her benefit. Tell me, Julius, do you care for the people you hope to lead the way you do our sister? If so you’re bound to make a wonderful Wizard King. Though, if I’m honest, anything you do has to be better then the first son you made. Giving up your heir-ship. Leaving your family in it’s greatest hour of need.”

“Stop it!”

Julius stood he could barely look at Teris who had pleaded on his behave, crying out for Fyntch to cease. “I’m not in the mood for dessert.” He said and quit the room.

Teris stood as well and made to follow.

“Wait.” Fyntch called.

She stopped but didn’t turn back.

“I’ll be sending in one of the maids first thing tomorrow to see you measured for proper outfits,” Fyntch said. “Can’t have you looking like the mess you are now when your future family arrives.”

Teris turned. “You can’t wait to be rid of me. Can you?”

“No,” Fyntch said. “I cannot.”

“And what did I ever do to you to make you hate me so?”

Fyntch thought of the love and favor their mother had shown her. The attention and help Julius had given her. Of their father asking for her and calling her name during his unaided lucid moments. “Exist.

20.4

Yami couldn’t sleep. He knew it would be difficult once they returned and he was faced with Teris but he never imagined just being in the place they had inhabited and shared so time together much would bring it’s own difficulties. Every room he walked in, every seat, every corner, everywhere brought to mind some image of her. Whether it was them talking, or him having watched her play around with another Black Bull, or simply her passing through. Every place in the house seemed to carry a bittersweet memory for him.

He had thought once he had gotten upstairs to the boys wing and the sanctuary of his own room he would be free from her ghost but it followed him in there with the thoughts and dreams he had had of her. Restless, he got up and made his way downstairs thinking some fresh air would do him good. He found himself jealousy grateful for Teris absence, telling himself that by the time she returned he had to have himself under control.

“Gendry? What are you doing here?” Yami asked seeing the man at Pilfer’s kennel petting the Saber Wolf.

Gendry smiled weakly. “He howls at night if I don’t come see him,” he told. “He misses her. We all do.”

Yami sucked in a breath thinking for a moment that he was referring to Teris and could hardly disagree, he hadn’t stop howling on the inside since his talk on the mountain with Bronn and Olsen. But he quickly realized that Gendry was speaking of Mooshu.

“Yami, I’m sorry--”

Yami held up a hand. “The base was attacked. From the sound of it we’re lucky all we lost was Mooshu.” Yami thought of his friends retelling of the events and how Bran had possessed Pilfer and Mooshu to wreck havoc outside and save Teris. He was proud of the boy and his two beasts. He would have gladly given both creatures lives for Teris’ well being. Having only lost Mooshu was a sad but an easy exchange to know that Teris had been saved.

Yami shook his head thinking of the attack on the roadside almost a year ago. “After all my promises that I’d find and kill them they attack here and it’s Teris who saw them dead.”

“While Bran and Pilfer killed the groups leader, Teris killed more then most of us put together,” Gendry said. “And all without her grimoire. If you ask me, that’s more than just royalty being more powerful then the rest of us. That’s her being--”

“Something special,” Yami interrupted.

“I don’t know what happened but it’s obvious you still love her,” Gendry said.

Yami glowered at him. “I’m working on it.”

“On not loving her or not having it written on your face?”

“Both,” Yami growled.

“How’s that going for you?”

“Obviously not very well.”

“Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do whatever it is you’re trying and failing to do?” Gendry asked. “You love her. She loves you. At least Venice says she does and it’s obvious, even to me, that Teris does like you. Why pull away all of a sudden? You said you were going to marry her. You said you knew you would marry her the day you two met.”

Yami squeezed his eyes shut and turned away lowering his head. “I was a fool.”

“You’re not a fool. You do and say some really stupid things quite often but you’re no fool.”

“In this I was.” Yami said forcefully. “She lied to me. Deceived me.”

Gendry shrugged. “You did the same to her about your injuries from Nozel.”

Yami rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is different.”

“How so?”

“I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work. You think I didn’t argue myself in circles when I found out she’s intended to marry Nozel?”

That brought Gendry up short. “She’s his Intended?”

“And he’s hers cause apparently that’s how it works,” Yami snapped.

Mouth hanging open Gendry slowly shook his head. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Yami said bitterly feeling worse when Gendry didn’t continue to try and bring him back around. As if in learning that Teris was Nozel’s Intended was the end of it.

After a few moments Gendry asked. “What are you going to do?”

Yami slapped the side of his thigh. “Try to survive living here with her. Avoid her at all costs. Learn to hide how I truly feel until I don’t feel any more. I don’t know Gendry. Got any good ideas?”

#black clover #yami sukehiro #julius novachrono #fanfic #light in the darkness

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letterboxd · 5 years ago

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Run, Brittany, Run.

“It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me.” We talk to stars Jillian Bell and Lil Rel Howery, and playwright-turned-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, about his debut feature film Brittany Runs a Marathon.

Transformation stories, makeover movies, ugly duckling tales: Hollywood has long been awash in them, but usually they’re steeped in fantasy (average girl discovers she is princess! Princess reveals she is ogre!). Brittany Runs a Marathon is the very real story of a woman who is transformed not by any magic spell or deus-ex-machina, but by the words of her doctor, warning her to follow a healthier diet, get some exercise and lose some pounds.

The real-life Brittany ended up running the New York Marathon, inspiring her friend, playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo, to write and direct a feature film about her journey. It’s a great vehicle for Jillian Bell, who racked up her own running miles to prepare for the title role. Playing Brittany’s wonderfully supportive brother-in-law Demetrius, lending moral support via video-chats, is Lil Rel Howery (Get Out TSA agent Rod Williams).

While Brittany Runs a Marathon is being heavily marketed as a comedy, “there’s something deeper, more serious and heart-wrenching lying at the heart of this film” observes Letterboxd member Nina. “Sticking to regimens and coming off of setbacks is hard,” writes Michael. “It was refreshing to see growth portrayed in all its fits and starts.” “A really beautiful story of someone trying to better themselves and how that doesn’t mean you have to do so alone,” Claire agrees. “Jillian Bell is excellent and really raw as Brittany.”

We spoke to Jillian Bell, Paul Downs Colaizzo and Lil Rel Howery ahead of the film’s US theatrical opening.

Jillian Bell (Brittany)

What was the first thing in the script that you related to and made you feel that you could be Brittany? Jillian Bell: I got the script from my manager and I was very nervous [laughs]. She said, “You’re going to be a little scared while you’re reading this because I think you’re going to relate to the character and then you gotta keep reading because the script is really beautiful and powerful.” I read it and I remember thinking the exact same thoughts: ‘This is going to be very different to take on than most things I’ve done’. It was different in a good way. Something I wanted to try and go out of my comfort zone. I just related to the characters so whole-heartedly. There were moments where I thought ‘someone is taping me right now’ because I’ve thought the exact things and now they’re in a script I’m reading.

What were some of the conversations you had with the real Brittany? How did meeting her affect your approach? The script is inspired by her story but there were a lot of other characters in the film that were not in her actual life story. Paul and I decided to create a character together and Paul had sent me early on a video of the real Brittany when she was making a tape to raise money for the marathon. I completely got her essence from that. She is so inspiring, smart, and funny, sometimes very silly.

Paul and I worked together on creating a character based off all these other characters and it informed us about X, Y and Z. But the first time I met the real Brittany O’Neal was when we were shooting a super emotional scene. I was concerned about making sure she was okay. It’s one thing to know that your life story was about to be told; it’s another thing to see an actor trying to portray all of these things you really went through in your real life.

What were the other types of preparations you did for the role? I decided I was going to do the actual physical journey of the character. I decided to lose 40 pounds for the shoot, 29 pounds before we shot and eleven while we were filming. I just thought it would inform me on certain approaches the script took that I didn’t quite connect to emotionally. There was so much that I did connect to with Brittany, and then there were moments in certain scenes where I thought ‘why is she acting that way? Why is that her response?’ Once I had done the physical journey I completely understood. I had never experienced what it was like to plateau, for example, and focus on a number so intensely. That was part of the script that I didn’t really understand.

You’re known more as a comedic actress and this was a fantastic opportunity to show off your dramatic talent. How did you want to subvert expectations of yourself coming into the more dramatic scenes? I think there’s always a lot of pressure when you try something that is different than people expect to see when they come to see a movie that you’re in. I was just so drawn to the script and I wanted to protect the character. I know I told Paul that I didn’t want anyone else playing her, not that anyone else couldn’t do it, but I wanted to make sure that the way I read it was the way he was going to shoot it, and he was so on the same page.

I felt like I was in really good hands. We were both taking a chance on each other. He was a first-time writer/director and this was my first time doing something that had dramatic elements, and I was playing the title character which I’d never done before. This is the first time where I was in a movie where I was in every single scene. I had no idea if I was going to enjoy doing something that was such a departure of things I had done in the past, but I truly loved it and I hope I get to do it again.

There’s a fine balance between the need for people to live healthily in order to avoid lifestyle-related illnesses, versus the need for society to accept everyone for who they are, no matter their appearance. What conversations did you, Paul, and other creatives have about this line? We had several conversations and talked basically every day for seven months before we started shooting. We wanted to make sure that we were being honest about these conversations: what it’s like going to the doctor and have them say to you: “You need to lose weight to be healthier” because of some health concerns; and the difference between that and the friendship that you have where somebody is saying: “You’d look better if you drop a few pounds” and how unhealthy that is. And how you can have self-hate and lack of self-worth and [how some of that] is society-ingrained ideas and some of that is of your own making. I think Paul did such a beautiful job with the script. We hit on everything without being too political or too shy.

We just covered Sword of Trust and had the delight of chatting with its director, Lynn Shelton. That’s another fantastic, funny movie you’re in. Can you talk about the different pleasures you get from working from a script versus the type of freedom you have in improvisation, as you did on Sword of Trust? I’m definitely more comfortable with things like Lynn’s film, where it’s not as scripted and you get to be extremely loose and bring whatever you want to it, and Lynn was so open to any ideas we had. I remember Michaela and I, the night before we shot, we were sitting in a hotel room together talking over who our characters were and what they wanted, what their goals were. We approached Lynn saying “this is what we’re thinking” and she said “great!”. It’s very different from doing a role like Brittany, where all I got was the script and I fell in love with that. I decided to stick more to the script than I’ve done with any other film. But I definitely wanted to make sure I was telling the story that I received and was so moved by.

Jillian Bell, Micah Stock and Michaela Watkins.

It’s awesome that in both these movies you’re opposite Michaela Watkins. It’s wonderful for me. Michaela Watkins is one of my favorite actresses. I just think she’s so strong, and honest in her performances, and she also makes me laugh harder than most people in this world. I would really love to work with her again. I’ve worked with her twice in one year so I’ve felt very lucky.

Paul Thomas Anderson has said he’s gearing up for a comedy with Tiffany Haddish. He brought you onto The Master and Inherent Vice because he thinks you’re very funny. You must be on his speed-dial for this project, right? I don’t know about that. [Laughs]. I may not be on speed-dial. I’m definitely a huge fan of his and I love that him and Tiffany are working together. That’s going to be amazing. If I hear nothing more than it coming out, I’ll be very excited to go see it.

Brittany has a life-changing experience and your hard work to demonstrate that really shows. How has working on the film changed your life? It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me. It made me examine what I was putting out there and how negative that can be and I think that happens, not to all women but to some, and I’m definitely one of those women.

I feel like a movie like this really inspired me to look at that and have a deeper look at how I would talk about myself. I think this is the movie that I wanted to see when I was thirteen, about a real woman who was struggling with these things and how hard it can be to make the first step, how amazing it can be to really choose yourself first over everyone. It’s a hard thing to do, making that first step.

What was the film that made you want to be in film? Clue was the movie that made me want to be in films. I watched that when I was a young girl; it was one of the first VHS tapes we had and I watched it on repeat. It wasn’t just because I loved comedy and mystery and anything that’s a little dark and twisted; I also loved how all these funny character actors were the leads. I still love watching that movie and it’s still my favorite movie to this day.

Jillian Bell with writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Paul Downs Colaizzo (writer/director)

The film is based on your best friend and roommate Brittany. What was the moment you realized her story could be a movie, and how was she involved in shaping her own narrative and the tone of the film, if at all? Paul Downs Colaizzo: It was after a conversation she and I had after I first moved in with her, where she decided she was going to turn her life around and take control of what she could control and find some structure in her life. So she went for a run. It was when she was out for her first run that I thought this could possibly be a movie. I outlined it without telling her I was working on a movie that was inspired by her life and then a few months later I let her know. She was surprised and flattered and excited and interested and intrigued.

The character of Brittany is different than my real-life friend Brittany in a lot of ways but her DNA is all over it. She was incredibly supportive, and now she’s at a point where she’s excited that people are going to be inspired by something that was inspired by her.

Which aspects were fictionalized for the movie? I took some milestones from her journey and there were elements of her personality that I incorporated into the character of Brittany, but none of the characters is really based on anybody. The character Brittany is different from my friend and really none of the scenes from the movie is a recreation of anything that happened in real life.

What was it that convinced you Jillian was right for the lead? How did you identify the dramatic potential of the comedic actors you selected? [With] Jillian, I’d always been a fan of her comedy and her comedic acting; when she was in 22 Jump Street I fell in love with her. When I met with her about the role she really had this connection to the character. She wanted to tell the story and she wanted to protect the character in the way that I did. Her brain is naturally funny so we got the opportunity to play with the comic genius that is Jillian Bell and also expose this well of untapped emotion that most people had never seen her access. She’s never done a dramatic role before, I had never directed a film. We had to place bets on each other. That drove both of us to work as hard as possible to not let the other one down.

The idea of the film is that we’d take a character who is typically a sidekick, start with the archetype of her as someone we know how to laugh at and create actually a really deep, personal pathos-filled human that we also empathize with and relate to. We wanted to do that with Brittany but also with all the other characters in the film. Luckily we got incredibly talented comedic actors who are normally playing supporting roles and also have these other elements of their personality that we were able to expose and illuminate for the world to see.

Do you feel there are films or plays that have done justice to body image issues before? What did you want to bring to the topic you felt was lacking? I never really approached this as a body-issue film. I started working on this in 2011 and that wasn’t really part of the cultural conversation at the time, at least in the way it is now. Her relationship to her body was always a big element of the film as far as her trying to understand what her own value system was, not the value system that the world put on her. But I would consider it a story of a person coming into their own.

I think we all can relate to this idea that we’re not living the lives we want to live and that we’re maybe not taking ourselves as seriously as we could because we’re afraid that if we try we will fail. I think we’ve been ingrained to feel that failure is a bad thing. For me this was a story about a person who learns to help and dream for herself and pursue these dreams in a way that’s earnest, without losing her edge and irreverence in the process.

I like how you kind of utilized the “friend-zone” in a way most rom-coms don’t know what to do with. What were some of the genre clichés you deliberately resisted? Again, you know, I never really looked at it that way because I come from theater. I really am just looking at the characters and their journey and the story we’re telling and how it all relates back to the theme. It’s not quite how I look at the construction of a story; I’m not starting with the genre. The one thing I was starting with here is I was starting with the archetypes we were familiar with and allowing the story to decidedly go in a different direction by deepening the characters and seeing where the story would go as we deepen the characters.

How do you feel your instincts as a playwright and experience in television informed your approach in making your first feature film? What were the different satisfactions in the process? The good news about theater is that it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation. You’re making things work, you’re solving problems because there are limitations in the space in which you’re telling the story. In an indie film, there are also a lot of limitations. So getting creative with your surroundings and figuring out how to multi-purpose environments so they can be several different settings so your film can have a feeling of scope and a change of scenery, but also be filmed in a certain amount of time, was a technical thing I brought over from theater. But beyond that, it’s all storytelling and it goes back to Aristotle and the poetic and finding heroes with flaws that we can relate to. It’s just, in this movie, I’m just asking that the sidekick is the hero because she deserves to be one too.

You filmed at the New York City Marathon. That sounds very challenging. Can you talk about your experience filming there? Did it go smoothly? It was incredible. There were six of us from the crew permitted to be there. We had three units in the race. It was a monster of a day. And also, the action you see in the marathon is easily one of the most emotional days of the city in the year because everybody is so supportive and lovely and kind to their fellow man. We could feel it that day, and I think you ultimately feel that energy in the film. It’s a magical day to experience in real life and we did our best to honor that.

What was the importance for you of depicting an LGBTQIA+ family in the film? I’m a gay man. I think this story is about giving depth and relatability and asking for empathy for all of the people in the film, many of whom are “others” in our society. I wanted to subvert the idea of the gay best friend as a trope, which is usually in a lot of ways the comic relief or kind of a hot mess, sort of the character Brittany would be in a typical big comedy. I wanted him to have a full life that honored where our culture is headed and made the gay storyline as relatable as any other storyline.

What are the types of films you’d like to make moving forward? Do you see yourself making more personal projects/dramedies like this or maybe adapting your own plays? I’m gonna go wherever the inspiration takes me. One thing a friend of mine observed about my work recently: I tend to like to unfreakify people we freakify. My guess is that thread will remain in my work but I’m going to do it in a whole bunch of different ways I hope. I’m working on something right now that’s a historical thriller but I’m not done with it yet. I’ll let you know.

What was the film that made you want to be a filmmaker? The first film that made me realize that films had the amazing potential to break through to people all through the country in all sorts of situations and make them feel excited by the idea of insight was American Beauty. I grew up in Georgia in a conservative area in a religious home and the idea that my life could be subverted in a way that movie depicted made me excited to understand more about myself and the world about me and the lies we tell ourselves.

Great choice, it was formative for me too, I resent this backlash it’s been getting. American Beauty? Fuck that! It’s great!

Lil Rel Howery as TSA agent Rod Williams in ‘Get Out’.

Lil Rel Howery (Demetrius)

What did you connect with most about the script? What was it that stood out to you? Lil Rel Howery: How honest it was and how Paul did a good job of writing the human experience on an aspect of you know, “you lose weight, everything becomes peaches and cream” but you have to get your mental health together too. I thought it was dope. Brittany’s character really showed all the different processes of getting it together. She would be running and losing weight and it’s like “everything’s going great now” but then here comes an obstacle. It’s not about the weight, it’s more than that, and I thought that was very deep. I love how, also, he wrote all these stereotypical characters in such a human way without a political agenda to it. He made these beautiful families look like real people.

Most of your scenes you’re acting in front of a computer. What were the challenges of acting without your co-star present? How did your scenes work? I always joke with people, like, “I’ve done more than Get Out”, and they’re like, “Have you ever acted with people before?” I’m joking. It was acting, man. I think one of the things I love about what Paul did a good job of was each of us got our one-on-one with Jillian. And not just one-on-one, especially for us funny people, very dramatic one-on-ones. It wasn’t hard, it was a beautiful well-written movie and for me, that scene with me and Jillian was one of the coolest things I’ve ever filmed because it was filmed with honesty and emotion and I think we did a good job of filling that.

Do you feel eager to show that dramatic side of yourself? How will you reconcile that after establishing yourself as a comic relief? I’ve never put myself in that box. Unfortunately people just love to do that, I guess. With Get Out, as funny as I was in that, I was only funny to people because it was so intense. It wasn’t like I was just telling jokes. I wasn’t doing anything silly. My character Rod was just being honest: “This is what I think is going on.” It’s just funny the way I was saying it because the rest of the movie is insane. I even look at Bird Box, that character, I threw in a couple of jokes in there just because I felt like it, but that was a dramatic character.

Even the scenes in Get Out, most of those things were dramatic. Even doing Uncle Drew, I made sure they didn’t make me the funniest person in that movie, especially with a movie with everyone running around with prosthetics. I thought that was crazy. I made sure I was the one who brought the heart into the movie. I’m very specific about what I pick. So I think with my next few films, the ones coming out this year, along with Brittany Runs a Marathon and the stuff I’m filming now, I just think you’re not going to put me in a box. You’re just going to have to call me good at one point.

You are good! [Laughs, generously.]

What are the different pleasures for you working in a scripted format compared to the freedoms you might have on other projects where you can improvise jokes? The crazy thing is, when people hire you they want to hire the best of you, right? I can improv drama. When I met with Paul it was about playing a love interest. We had a conversation of how I loved the script so much and I was talking to him about how I wish the father figure would be aggressive with her and he ended up making me that character where I played the father figure. He created this character based on our conversations. This character didn’t even exist at first.

I’ve worked with directors so far that trust me, and I trust them along with the creative process. I’m one of those dudes who’s a control improv-er. Maybe some comedians go off the rails. I know what the story is, I know what the moment is, I never go off what we’re supposed to get. My only thing I like to do is make a scene real. Even if the scene is funny, I don’t like to do nothing funny if it ain’t real. If it’s too silly, I don’t want to do it. I’m very big on keeping it real.

The same goes for my standup. My standup always comes from a real place. I try to make sure, everything I do, every project, every role, even the stuff now, I’m working with some great directors and I’m like, “can we get on the phone today because some of these lines are too stupid. Let’s think of something better and dramatic and I’ll make it funny” [laughs].

Get Out is a bonafide classic. It must have been exciting two years ago when it was being lauded and discovered, but in hindsight, it’s a key part of a movement that’s defining Hollywood right now. How does that feel to be part of? It feels great, man. I feel like I’m a part of so many different versions of that. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been able to do some cool stuff, man. I think with Get Out and what that did. I think about even Bird Box, you can do whatever you want, that was a fun time and I loved the script. After that, Netflix said they were breaking all these records. “This is a record-breaking movie.” There are a lot of interesting things I’ve been able to do, which I’m not done with.

I think for me, Brittany Runs a Marathon falls under that category with Get Out where I don’t think people know what they’re about to get into. I remember telling people that about Get Out and they were like, “Oh, okay”, and I was like, “Naw, you have no idea what this is about to be”. I think Brittany Runs a Marathon is like that too, I don’t think people have any idea how special this movie really is until they see. That’s why I think it’ll do well word-of-mouth more than anything.

Did you get to keep the hoodies for your character’s birthday? That’s the best piece of costume in a film for 2019. [Laughs]. Naw, I didn’t. It’s so funny you say that. I don’t know why I didn’t keep a t-shirt. Damn, I should’ve. I’d keep anything.

What movie made you want to be in movies? Let me tell you something funny. It’s not a film that made me want to take this on at first. It was an episode of Family Ties. It’s the episode where his friend got killed by a drunk driver [season 5, episodes 23 and 24; a two-parter titled A, My Name is Alex which won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1987]. Michael J. Fox performed in a way, you know, you watch things to be entertained at first? But that was the first time I watched an actor and I was like, “Yo, this is crazy good”. Then he did like a one-man show in the second part, like a play where he was walking on different parts of the set and it was different parts of his life. Man, I thought that was brilliant. I thought, ‘Whatever job this is, this is what I want to do!’ [laughs].

‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ is in US cinemas now.

#brittany runs a marathon #jillian bell #new york marathon #comedy #indie comedy #get out #lil rel howery #paul downs colaizzo #letterboxd

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writingmessynaruto · 6 years ago

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Speaking of Angst

Let’s talk about what a *lovely* day I had today.

This seems off topic and selfish, partly because it is, but I promise it has something to do with writing/storytelling/screenwriting.

Bear with me.

So, I’m in college right now, and I’m taking an intro course for screenwriting. Fun class, we watch lots of movies, good times. Our final project is to write a screenplay for a short film. Today, we had a chance to talk about our ideas in class.

I had almost nothing. Didn’t come up with an idea until I was in class, because I’m just terrible at pulling random story ideas out of my ass. But I had something.

We talked about our ideas speed-dating style, just paired up and exchanging thoughts, no matter how partial and underdeveloped they were. It was just about throwing ideas around and getting help from our peers. Prof came over to listen in on my conversation.

So, I’m obsessed with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild right now. I’m writing fanfiction for that universe right now. I play the game constantly, almost every day after I get home. My idea for the short film (or at least the idea I said in class) is sort of Breath of the Wild from the perspective of the everyday commoner. The side characters in the game. Their daily struggles, their perception of the world, their fears and dreams in the face of these red demonic clouds in the distance. Their feelings of helplessness. The prof thought it was a cool concept, and I felt pretty good about it. Whether it ends up being my film idea or not, I was happy he approved of it, and he offered me some tips to focus it into the medium of a short film.

So, a couple speed-dates later, I’m with this one dude. I’m a little apprehensive because he’s that guy in class. He acts like he knows what he’s talking about all the time, he has this tone of voice that sounds like he thinks all his favorite movies, all his opinions are just god-tier, that he’s the best film buff in the class, better than everybody in the room, maybe even the prof. I’m not happy, but I have to. It’s only a speed date. 5 minutes, tops.

I ask who should go first, whether he’d like to go or if I should go. He lets me go first.

So, I preface my idea with the game it’s based on.

“I'm a little obsessed with Zelda Breath of Wild right now—”

"Yeah, I know what that game is, I played it."

Said like I was babying him, like I was talking down to him, like how could he not know what Zelda Breath of the Wild is, he’s played it and beat it fifty times already. But wait; there’s more.

He continues. “I didn't like that game at all. Too many side quests. Just side quest after side quest. Too open world."

Okay, I think, whatever. “I guess it’s just a preference,” I say. “It’s whatever, but I really like it, and one of the things I wanted to do...” Yadda, yadda, my little idea. I get done in under a minute.

He gives me no feedback. Instead, he jumps right into his idea, taking up the entire rest of the time, and not letting me get much of a word in edgewise. He talks about this whole specific plot he’s come up with as if it’s the best thing on earth. Like, I’ll say right now: some of it was alright. It had potential in some areas. But it had a lot of weaknesses and useless shit in it. He was preening himself about this thing, like it was a master plan, like it would win the next Oscar or something just on premise alone, and it was literally just made up of overused horror tropes. He based it off Goosebumps, a series I loved growing up, but it was just completely stock horror and creepiness. Kid meets a few new friends at school, they hang out, walk past this strange old house, protagonist realizes he’s had dreams about this house before, his friends urge him to go inside by himself, he does and he gets lost, somehow gets knocked out, wakes up in his own bed, goes to school and notices his friends are missing, asks a teacher, and he is told that those kids died years ago in the house he went to. Oh, and that house was demolished years ago.

Like, there’s potential. It’s not complete garbage. There are some interesting things going on that could work with a bit of tweaking just to make it more interesting / believable. But he was selling this thing like it was already perfect. He wouldn’t let me get in a word of comments, wouldn’t let me ask questions, not to mention he seemed like the kind of person that wouldn’t appreciate any criticism about his perfect idea.

And then.

As I smiled and nodded and let him go on and on about his idea, only giving nice little comments about the things I thought were good and had potential, he goes,

“That’s not even the best part. Here’s the best part:”

And he proceeds to tell me about a seemingly useless jump-scare scene that has no real plot pertinence, no real reason for being in his story about four ghost kids and an old house. Like, Goosebumps did way better than this. Goosebumps succeeded because the events were connected, strange but sensible, and they took tropes and subverted them with something completely new and exciting. All this dude is doing is taking every trope ever and putting it in a film, and then acting like his idea is so good, and if one person, even the prof, suggests that it could use some tweaking, he gets defensive and doesn’t want to hear it.

Oh, and he told me that there’s a romantic subplot between one of the ghost children and the protagonist, and she puts a note in his pocket at one point in the story. And at the end, guess what? The note is mYsTerIOuSLY iN hiS POckEt!!! OOoooooOOOOOooo!!

I’ll go through this plot and say what I didn’t get to say to him because he wouldn’t let me and even if he did, he probably didn’t want to hear anything bad about his “amazing story.”

It’s got some potential, but like any story, especially any first draft, it has to be worked on and revised. The premise is cool, but you can’t base an entire story on tropes and expect it to function. That’s not good storywriting, that’s just laziness, expecting tropes to do the work for you. You must tell the story, you must tell the trope what to do. Tropes don’t do the work for you, you do the work for the tropes.

Let’s talk about those:

It was all a dream. Please don’t do this. Like, I hate it when profs tell writers what they should and shouldn’t do, so I’ll reword it a little: Please try to avoid this, unless you’re doing it for a reason OTHER than shock value. It’s cheap. It doesn’t sit well with audiences. We aren’t surprised in a good way; we just feel cheated and lied to. We don’t trust the author/movie anymore.

The creepy piano ghost. Alright. I’m not much of a horror junkie, but I know this is just overused constantly. For effect. If you’re just using something for effect that has little to nothing to do with your actual plot, and you’re just using a creepy ghost girl at a piano to scare the audience because your scene isn’t creepy enough, DON’T USE THIS. A better use of this trope would be to have your story revolve around a house that actually is haunted by the ghost of a girl who actually played piano. Don’t just have a random thing like this show up and excuse you of actually having to write something creepy.

Jumpscares. Going off the piano ghost, the dude said at the end of the scene, the girl’s neck would turn around, her body would contort Exorcist style, and she would release an inhuman scream that would cause the protagonist to run out of the room full speed. Jumpscares like this offer no actual scare value. She doesn’t chase him out into the hall. She doesn’t have any reason to be there in the first place. She’s just a random scare. Jumpscares rely on startling audiences with sudden images, accompanied by loud noises. These are just plays on our bodies’ natural instincts when suddenly and unexpectedly confronted. It’s not actually scary in the context of the film. It’s a cheap trick (yes, it’s a trick), and most of the time it’s only used to inject horror in a scene that lacks that element, rather than creating a plot element that is actually effective. Please, consider doing something else. There are plenty of scary movies that don’t utilize jumpscares just for spooks. The movies that do well have scary moments, even jumpscares, that are plot pertinent and affect something. Don’t just have a jumpscare to have a jumpscare because “OH, that’ll get em real good!” It’s shitty writing. It’s a trope. You have to work for the trope to be effective.

So-and-so died 30 years ago. In this context, the reason this trope doesn’t really work is that the protagonist meets these kids and interacts with them at school. During school. They were in class with him. They occupied seats in class. They were in class. So for them to just suddenly disappear from reality (for no discernible or logical reason) just seems like a cheating mechanism, similar to “this was all just a dream!” You can’t have ghosts talking to you in school in public, interacting with you in class, and then have them disappear with no explanation and have a teacher tell you they died years ago. You can’t do that and have no reason as to why nobody remembers them, why nobody saw our main character talking to thin air. Logistically, you have to work out a reason for these things to work in the universe of your creation. Otherwise, you end up with your audience asking how things even happened. It has to make sense, even if it’s all magic. There’s gotta be some logic to what’s going on.

The note from the ghost is still in my pocket. This piggybacks off the previous one. If the ghost friends weren’t real, then how did this actually happen? You can’t say it did happen in real life because how would the teacher and all the kids at school forget that MC (main character) was talking to 4 people? How would a ghost hand him a note? I thought it was all supposed to be a dream, but now you’re telling me it’s not? You’re lying to me again? What’s real? When you have the audience confusedly asking “What’s real? What’s going on?” that isn’t the same as a psychological mystery/thriller/fantasy. It’s not some existential commentary. Your story is confusing and inconsistent. Stop relying on tropes to make things creepy. Write a story that has a logical progression of events, a reason for characters to show up and then disappear. You’re allowed to have all of these things happen, but there has to be a reason to it. Things can’t just happen willy-nilly. If it doesn’t make sense, your audience will be confused, and in a bad way.

Ugh. Thanks for reading my rant. I’m gonna go take a nap now, enjoy my spring break. Good night.

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

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I have big problems with the last ep. First angels do not have hearts. Their hearts belong to the vessels they’re inhabiting. So Jack is actually eating (innocent) human hearts. And Sam, Cas, and Dean are apparently absolutely fine with that. Somehow. And last time I checked there were few angels left according to Naomi. Did Jack cause their extinction by killing them for their poor vessels' heart who might have been still there begging to be saved?

Okay wow. We really gotta dig deep to have problems nowadays... I’m... gonna share how I have always seen all of this...

You seem to be thinking about “regular angels,” like the ones we’ve dealt with the most during the course of the show. The angels Jack was killing were very specifically NOT those angels. They were kicked out of Heaven millennia ago, and are NOT like other angels. They were created specifically to watch over humanity on Earth, but instead began to prey upon humanity. They were thought to have been exterminated, until Tamiel showed up in 10.20 Angel Heart, having lived on Earth under various aliases, eating people’s souls to maintain his power. Like... they weren’t possessing innocent human vessels...

And there ARE very few angels left, but the Grigori haven’t truly been angels for millennia... they made themselves monsters. And they weren’t counted among Naomi’s total of living angels. Heck, Heaven didn’t even know they were still alive at all. They operated on an entirely different frequency of angel radio, undetected by Heaven for thousands of years, going about their business of devouring human souls. I mean... why bother manufacturing outrage for this?

Are we happy that Jack was told he needed to eat Grigori Hearts to prepare himself for some Larger Awful Purpose? Well, yeah, of course not. I don’t think Sam, Cas, and Dean are “absolutely fine” with that. None of them-- including Jack-- seemed fine at all with that... more, resigned to it.

And yes, it was implied that Jack had caused their extinction. The final Grigori captured Jack, and Cas delivered the killing blow while rescuing Jack.

It was incredibly interesting to me, though, how Jack calmly sat there, in front of the security camera, devouring a heart. Like he knew it would alert the Winchesters of his location, since he couldn’t contact them directly. Just like Jack used the same ploy Lily Sunder did to draw Ishim’s entire flight of angels to her by pushing Benjamin to send out an emergency broadcast on Angel Radio, Jack did the same exact thing with the next-to-last Grigori, knowing that he might never be able to track down the final one if he had no more reason to use angel radio ever again if he were the only one left.

Are we sad that the Grigori angels are dead? Good grief, why would we? They’ve spent the last several thousand years actively EATING HUMANS who came to them to be healed. Like... these are the worst of the worst. I don’t know how the show could’ve been any clearer about that than depicting a doctor who consumed the souls of his patients, and confirming that the final Grigori exclusively preyed on children. I mean... good job watching over humanity there, abominations who specifically chose corruption and evil over protection and guidance. They were supposed to be shepherds of humanity, and instead revealed themselves to be wolves. Like... they were pretty damn clear about this.

(in our-world-lore, but what the show has never said about them, was that the Grigori were cast out of Heaven and chained to the earth for lusting after human women and creating the original nephilim... this was why The Flood supposedly needed to happen, to wipe them and the nephilim out and make the world safe for humanity... they are explicitly not good guys, even in our world)

SAM: You must be Holloway.HOLLOWAY: For the last 50 years or so, yes. Before that, I was a Jenkins. And before that, a Miller. My real name is Tamiel. I'm a Grigori. A watcher angel.SAM: Since when do angels feed on humans?|HOLLOWAY: Since the dawn of man.SAM: What are you talking about?HOLLOWAY: Your souls... Are little slices of heaven that are, if properly kept, delicious meals that can last for years, decades even.SAM: You're not an angel. You're a monster.(Holloway laughs and reaches out to lightly punch Sam on the shoulder)HOLLOWAY: Ahh. I prefer to think of myself as a gourmand. I make heaven a place on earth. Keeps me alive and hidden from the rest of the failures that call themselves angels.SAM: Oh, they are failures? Yeah, 'cause you're living so large in your own life.HOLLOWAY: There were hundreds of us, but now... (Holloway raises the sword up to show an inscription on the blade) Each of our names inscribed on our swords. A brotherhood of perfectly crafted, engineered beings sent to protect you pathetic, bottom-feeding disasters.

It was heavily implied that they are not “angels in vessels,” but embodied as those vessels. Even if they did have to take vessels, these are angels WHO EAT HUMAN SOULS, so what’s the likelihood that they didn’t eat the soul that had once occupied their vessels? I mean, that would be sad for those people, but I can’t think of any circumstance in which they were still in there...

Which leaves us with the ~actual~ dilemma instead of what this means FOR JACK. We don’t know what Billie’s plan for him is yet. We don’t know if it’s as terrible as “lock yourself in a ma’lak box for all eternity or else michael will burn down the world, there is no other option.” We don’t know if Jack is working toward a plan that must be subverted by the end, and another, better way found. We just don’t have enough information to know yet.

I’ve heard it suggested that this is to be a sort of “dark arc” for Jack as a parallel to Sam’s demon blood drinking arc, but... there are no more Grigori for him to hunt now. So what is the NEXT step in Billie’s plan for him? What terrible thing will Jack feel compelled to do next, and how long will it take for the rest of TFW before they say hey, no, this is really not okay... That remains to be seen...

#spn 15.11 #angels and souls #grigori #Anonymous

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softshouyous-archive · 6 years ago

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wait, maybe mp100 if u dont watch/read jojo

!!! hello kc!!! i’ll do mp100 bc i don’t watch jojo 0:

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing | 5 star recommendation

fav characters: mob, reigen, teru, shou, seri, and ritsu!!!! least fav characters: i don’t think any come to mind??? OH WAIT FUCK SHOU’S DAD . I LOVE SHOU’S MOM okay i’ll talk more about her later actually jgkfhgffav relationship: (platonic) -ritsu and shou: i don’t know much about their friendship (i’m assuming there’s a lot more in the manga, which i haven’t read) but from what i’ve seen on here and twt, they look really fun!!!

-mob and reigen: i really . love that reigen didn’t dismiss mob when he first went to him for help. like others have mentioned, i feel like it’s typical for adults to be dismissive of kids when they say anything that sounds ridiculous or impossible. and even if reigen thought mob wasn’t serious, he still gave mob his time and listened to him! i think that’s so so important and can really help in shaping a person?? (lack of better phrasing??) like had reigen turned mob away, it’s possible that it would have been less likely for him to reach out to someone for help, and maybe he wouldn’t have learned all those helpful things, you know?? i’m just really glad reigen has helped in mob in such important moments (((’‘‘:

-omg also teru and mob ))): i love love LOVE them !!!!!!!!!!!1 i really love how teru changed after meeting mob!!! he went from incredibly . being super focused on his powers and i think he was a perfect example of what could have happened to mob if he didn’t remind himself that powers weren’t everything and that your personality and chara are vvv important. but yeah i just love that teru recognized what was wrong and was even shown telling an enemy that being too absorbed in your powers is not everything. i feel like that was a display of growth in how he views himself now and what he values. i also ))): really love how fond he gets when it comes to mob..... like when you see his face soften and just how he talks about mob . wuv fav moment:oh my god i think unless i watch something 8857 times i totally forget everything ;___; i know that there were a number of moments that i liked but i currently cannot remember anything,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Sad . OH jk two moments i can think of are

-god okay thinking about this one makes me zo upset,,,, i watched this part TWICE with two different friends and it was so heartbreaking i (((’’’: i think it was the 3rd??? episode of season 2 after reigen had made his website LOL when those Teens wanted to go to that House and take pics and stuff and they encountered the spirit family ))): that shit was so sad,,,, the father spirit was literally like ‘if you’re going to exorcise us please take all of us so we can be together as a family’ like stop i’m going to cry . that wasn’t my favorite part at all though GDFJGLK it was when reigen was like ok fuck and just threw salt around gkjdfhghgf and was like ok exorcism over and i really liked that part because i think he noticed how uncomfortable it was making mob, and that mob did not want to harm the spirit family. it made me really glad to see that he didn’t pressure mob into doing anything he didn’t want to just for the sake of making customers happy. and i think ??? that was a subversion?? of the typical trope where charas would usually, in that situation, have to Tough It Up and suppress their feelings and go through with it. i feel like that’s a common thing and it ignores the chara’s feelings completely but in this case it was totally diff. reigen acknowledged mob’s feelings of discomfort and ended the situation once he realized it. i’m like . really glad he did that

-sort of similar, the last ? episode of season 1 where mob thought he was going to have to fight that person in claw (forgot their name zorry gjdfghf) but reigen told him that it’s okay to run when things get tough. i’m getting EMOTIONAL thinking about it right now hgkdjflghf like. once again i feel like it subverts the common trope of charas, esp young ones, ‘having’ to place themselves in danger and overexert themselves for the sake of Defeating Evil. but instead of having mob do that, reigen steps in and tells mob that it’s definitely totally okay to recognize his own feelings (of things being scari or too much) and run away if he feels safer doing so. people have pointed it out and i agree in that reigen is great in the sense that he’s the person who doesn’t enable or encourage dangerous behavior, but instead he’s kinda like hey wtf why are Kids being put in dangerous situations and being expected to fight??? love him

headcanons/theories: i don’t remember if it was mentioned anywhere about what happened to teru’s wig (which i miss) but i imagine that ritsu thought it was terrible and cut it up or something ljkgfgfunpopular opinion: none ? 0: oh no what just kidding i remember something i don’t know if it’s unpopular but here it is oki so i remember after the episode where shou set mob’s house on fire (like before we got an explanation), people apparently (i didn’t see any of this firsthand, i just heard that a number of people were saying this apparently) were PISSED at shou, saying rude things about him and about how he deserves to d*e etc and part of me was just like,,,,,,,, zude,,,,, like i was a bit upset that happened of course but i don’t think it’s ??? gr8 to jump to conclusions and immediately assume that shou’s a terrible chara just from that. i feel like it’s reasonable to expect an explanation in the following episode so like,,, why not wait for that first before jumping to conclusions about shou’s chara??? i don’t know, i personally feel like when something Big or Surprising like that happens, there’s usually a reason behind it or an explanation that goes against an initial thought (in this case, the thought being that shou’s bad). it was upsetting to learn that people really thought those things about him instead of waiting to see what the next episode would entail about that,,,,,,, how’d you find it: i remember seeing a lottttt of people talking about it on here and twt when season 2 was approaching so i think i mentioned it to miss high (or the opposite) and when i said i hadn’t watched it she was like YOU GOTTA!!!! so i was like okay why not and i’m SO GLAD I DID random thoughts: okay okay i know we only saw her for like two minutes but i LOVE shou’s mom and what she did!!! i feel really bad that she experienced what she did, but i’m so happy that she made the decision for herself to leave shou’s dad after realizing that it wasn’t working for her. she left like That without hearing any of his excuses or anything like that and i think that was v neat of her, love that

send me an anime??

#thank you for sending this in kc!!! hope you're doing well!! <33 #aaa i wish i had more Solid thoughts but i'm not v good at analyzing things rip but i hope this made sense!!#these are vv fun thank you #long post #sestet #lovemail

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flydotnet · 6 years ago

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The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018-2019: Day 13: First Date/Wedding

Summary: He's getting married and yet he still doesn't know if the end result will be Mrs Zaizen or Mr Bessho. (also includes Shoichi as a wingman)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Ships: Hireshipping (Ema/Akira), backgroud Zinnia, mentioned Entrust

Wordcount: 3K words

Notes: To be honest this was the perfect excuse to shove all my ships in one fic and get away with it. In a parallel universe where card games in cyberspace aren't the focus of the show and where the Hanoi Incident hasn't happened (but the kids still met anyway), everyone is happy and I can write countless amounts of unneeded fluff. I'm a simple dude: when I can be sappy as balls, I'm sappy as balls. It's been a while since I felt this cliché, but y'know what they say, you can't always subvert tropes all the time. I also hope I got Ema not too OOC for this, woosh.

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks

AO3 version available here.

Knotting a tie properly isn’t that difficult, usually. It’s a part of his daily routine, of what he does every day before work. Tie the knot, untie it once the day is gone, tie it back again on the day after. It’s just something he’s too used to not to be unable to do it on a fateful day where he needs to be at his best.

But alas, his dry hands are sweaty and shaking too much to properly tie that stupid knot.

“Brother,” he hears his sister’s voice call for him outside the room. “Are you ready yet? Ceremony’s starting soon!”

“Ah, huh,” he panics internally as he tries to compose a satisfying answer, “soon!”

“Psh, we all know that’s a lie,” a masculine voice makes itself heard. “Lemme see what’s wrong, go check up on the guests and the bride instead, Aoi.”

Before he can properly react, he’s faced with the purple-haired Shoichi Kusanagi himself, “hotdog seller extraordinaire” as he calls himself. Everyone, including the groom himself, expected him to come to this wedding dressed in any context-inappropriate attire tailor-made for hotdog making and selling instead of any reception of any kind. Instead, Shoichi surprised everyone and here he is, standing before the groom, in a suit.

As said before, Akira himself didn’t think he’d go as far as dress in a suit for this wedding. Oh well, it hasn’t been the first time he was mistaken on someone and it clearly won’t be the last. He’s not a good person-reader.

“Lemme guess,” Shoichi looks at him with a “shit-eating smirk” (Shoichi’s description, not his) as he moves his eyes up and down, “you can’t tie that damn tie properly and that’s why you’ve been taking ages.”

It’s kind of ashamed that he does admit that, yes, he cannot tie that tie properly.

“You’re a lucky dude, y’know? Contrary to popular belief, I can knot ties like a boss.”

“You do? That seems unlikely, coming from you.”

“Don’t sass me like that, Ema’s already enough for that.”

They both snicker at the remark. Accurate, but not mean-spirited. It’s all in a good war, Akira realized the last of their unlikely trio.

Working for SOL would usually mean that an employee-of-the-month-tier guy like him wouldn’t meet with more lawless and underground hackers like Shoichi or the aforementioned Ema. Truth be told, they met in college: Shoichi happened to be the guy selling hotdogs on the campus on his free time, Ema was in a similar course to his, and he never really knew why he added business to his courses. They’d meet after classes in front of the hotdog truck, and that’s how they became friends.

At first, Akira didn’t really want to befriend other people during college. He didn’t have time for that: it was either lose time around the campus doing friend things or work to support Aoi and himself financially. If not for Aoi, he wouldn’t have spent so much time near the truck. And if not for Aoi getting lost on the campus when she once searched for him, neither Shoichi nor Ema would have guessed why he was never buying anything from the former. That day was the day where Aoi told him, frankly with her eight years of age, to make friends because he looked sad and lonely. That day was also the first time she ate a hotdog, courtesy of Shoichi and half-paid by Ema.

An unlikely friendship that explains why this hotdog-selling hacker is tying his tie’s knot right as he thinks so.

“Here ya go buddy!” Shoichi proudly tells him as he sets a foot backwards. “All ready for the greatest day of your life yet!”

“Thank you,” Akira doesn’t find a better way to answer than this. The fault to his nervousness.

Shoichi rolls his eyes before giving him another smirk, this time sarcastic in tone. They know themselves too much for him not to guess.

“Akira, my dude, calm down, it’ll be fine. She won’t leave you at the altar y’know? All you gotta do is say “yes” at the right time to the right question. No big deal.”

He tries to breathe in, breathe out to prove he can, in fact, not be a bundle of nerves twenty-four-seven, but it doesn’t work to his advantage.

Shoichi looks on the side before giving his friend a strong slap on the shoulder, shaking the latter almost out of his skin. A violent way to revitalize him for sure.

“Okay, look at it this way. You survived being in the streets after losing your parents and your inheritance while attending school and college. You made it big at SOL before leaving them for a company with better morals and for a better pay check. You reconnected with your sis. And now there’s even people here to see you get married, honestly, what could possinly wrong?”

Ignoring the fact “what could possibly go wrong?” has always been Shoichi’s catchphrase for whenever something would in fact go wrong, Akira shakes his head as a resolve.

“Plus, it’s not like she ever broke up with you, no? Considering the dating record she had before meeting you, that’s a good sign!”

He thanks Shoichi again.

“Okay, gotta leave you now, I’ve got a wedding to attend. See ya when you’ll be married!”

With his tie all done, Akira can officially say he’s ready to go out there and, huh… get married. It sounds more epic and action-packed when someone else sums it for him, but he’s never been very imaginative with words, so it’ll suffice. A last look in the mirror to admire one last time Miyu’s great work with makeup and he’s finally on the go.

Technically, his wedding isn’t very traditional. His late parents, would they have been able to give their input on their son’s marriage, would have surely told him it was too “undistinguished”. However, a wedding is two people’s business (or more, but that’s not his case), and his spouse would have refused the overly outdated themes, the drawn-out and crudely inaccurate monologues from an old man dressed in a robe and other things he hasn’t even bothered researching. He let her do most of the planning: spouses need to fully trust in each other.

Their guest list reflects their peculiar situation. He doesn’t have much a family left: Aoi, his younger sister, is all he has left, and he instantly refused searching for other relatives who stole their inheritance more than a decade ago, sending a six-year-old in the streets and forcing him to grow up too fast. Now twenty-eight, he realizes every time he thinks of his college classmates who are still partying out there. At least, her fiancée isn’t bothered by how old-fashioned he is: she has allowed him to regain some of his youth once they started frequenting each other.

On her side, the family has been reduced too: her father having died, her mother is bringing her to the altar (she still insisted on this to happen). Her half-brother has accepted coming, at first to his surprise, but after remembering how he was behind his cold façade, it was more obvious. Instead of the father, she invited her theoretical mother-in-law. Their own family business is tense and tough to follow, but at least, they’re all fine now.

As he makes his way to the altar, to where everything will happen, he thinks of all their guests as a way to keep the crippling stress at bay.

The most important guest to him is, of course, Aoi. She’s his witness too, almost by default in a way: seeing her smile when he entrusted her with this task was more than worth the shot. He couldn’t see anyone else taking care of this too. As such, and considering how little family they had, he allowed her to invite a few friends of hers from high school. One of them, Yusaku as he’s called, turns out to be a close friend of Shoichi too. The world is such a small place.

With Aoi came her girlfriend, Miyu. They met during elementary school but lost each other’s tracks when he had to move places to afford for them to live. That was before they ended up in Den City. They reunited in middle school and dated shortly after beginning high school, much to his surprise but absolutely not to Shoichi and Ema’s. Even if he was surprised, she quickly grew on him with her cheerfulness, her kindness and her wish to ensure Aoi’s happiness. It’s what made them bond with each other over time, after all.

He doesn’t know much about Aoi’s other friends. There is Yusaku, Shoichi’s best friend, but he’s not the only one. There is this young man named Takeru too, a very nice boy as far as he knows, and the childhood-friend-turned-girlfriend of the latter, Kiku. They all met through each other and he has to admit: he felt honoured when he learnt that Takeru and Kiku were coming back from their hometown specifically for the wedding. It probably serves as a perfect occasion for them to gather around, though.

The last, but not least, from their friend group is Jin, Shoichi’s little brother. Akira has known him for longer than his sister’s friends, exception made for Miyu, for this reason. A joyful boy with a smile to give to most people and a passion for video games he openly shares with Yusaku who has this best friendship going with both of the Kusanagi siblings.

Well, time to stop overthinking. The door right in front of him is where it all begins.

His anxiety hasn’t let go of him, but he tries to look presentable anyway. It’s almost like being on a stage: there is an audience sitting in front of you, albeit more to your ground level, presumably watching your every move or chatting with their neighbours and, even then, it could be about you. Shoichi, his best man, waves him a thumbs up and Aoi smiles to him. On the other hand, his future brother-in-law seems as impassable as ever, despite a slight smile drawing near. The chatting subdues more and more as a not-so-familiar music resonates through the building, a reception venue to be exact. They didn’t want anything too public and especially not retrograde.

“Oh, it’s starting,” Aoi makes a last little comment before they all look in the same direction.

And there arrives the bride in a black dress reaching her knees with pink highlights, mostly present in the lace on the elbow-length sleeves and hem of the skirt part. They agreed on him wearing white and her wearing black, after all, based on personal preferences. Someone tried to make it poetic, Miyu if he’s not wrong, but Ema simply told her it was only because he looked better in white and she looked better in black. Her opinions, not his, even if she looks gorgeous in black.

Even if he has seen countless times, from the very first time they saw each other in college to this morning when he waited for her to wake up before getting up, he has seen her in countless outfits: casual class-attending attire, biker suit, winter coats they had bought together, and the most intimate kinds of little-dressed. And even then, even after all these years of dating and months of engagement, he’s still mesmerized by her pristine hairdo with flowers amongst her pink locks, her makeup, the dress she kept secret from him (with Aoi’s obvious involvement in said secret, but he didn’t actively try to ruin the surprise for their sake and his while he was at it), her everything.

And to think he gets to be the one who spends the rest of their days with her.

Some of the things that he got told when announcing their engagement ring back inside his mind.

“You better take care of her, if you don’t want to be shot on sight,” from her older brother, Kengo, who is smiling now because his sister is here and she’s beautiful.

“I bet she’s the one who asked you to marry her,” from Shoichi, before he got proven wrong. “But, like, on the other hand, you’re the old-fashioned of the two.”

“Brother, I’m so glad for you! I’d be glad to help with the preparations,” from Aoi.

“And how did it go?! Where did you do so?! I’m sure it was romantic!” from Hayami, or should he say Kairi, who, after accepting they were never dating years ago, still gracefully accepted the invitation before slipping into gossip mode. He can see her sobbing in the audience, and he’s not sure if she’s crying of heartbreak or happiness.

“Took you long enough,” from another workmate.

At least, Ema arrives to face him, and he’s not sure how he’s still keeping it together despite the acute taste of his heartbeats in his mouth. She has a bouquet, a little coquetry she allowed herself, of flowers she picked with Aoi and Miyu’s help for their meaning. His sister explained him what they all meant, yesterday, but he’s kind of forgotten because it’s a detail. He’ll be very glad to know all about these flowers when the main ceremony will be over.

She puts her hand in his, the one who doesn’t hold the bouquet, and an official they don’t know much about is reciting what seems to be a glorified protocol. The symbolic value of the event is more important than some words read aloud from a deeply impersonal text anyway. The fact that someone wanted him enough to spend their days with him and officially only with him romantically-speaking is still over his mind, blowing his imaginary every time he remembers that Ema, of all the women he has known, has accepted this. On her own terms, of course, so she’s not his prisoner. He has even insisted for it not to be the case.

He manages to look directly into her eyes despite how nervous he is. His hand is trembling in hers, and yet hers is so stable and so assured, just she has always been: bold, daring, alluring and adventurous. Nothing scares her, everything stresses him out. They counterbalance each other perfectly: he needs someone to awaken a wilder part of himself, she perhaps needs someone to anchor back into reality would she get too deep into virtual worlds and treasure-hunting. Or maybe it’s just his reverie. It could very well be this cheesy romantic side of him who never got to fully express itself until he was financially stable.

“Don’t be so anxious, hubbie-to-be,” she whispers to him with a wink and this familiar flirtatious tone.

He didn’t think he could get redder than he already was until this moment.

The monologue is a bit more personal when it starts speaking about Ema, from her infancy to her current years, to the end of her twenties, from fond childhood memories (her quirking eyebrows indicate she’s embarrassed by these) to how they met. They both entrusted Aoi and Miyu, aspiring writer, to write it for them instead of the officials, Kengo who would have certainly pointed out all of his flaws in great detail one by one as part of their brotherly feud or, well, each other. They wanted the surprise to be full for the both of them and slightly more objective judges.

He does remember some of these stories. Their meeting has been a bit romanced: they didn’t meet in a classroom and spoke about informatics. No, they met in front of a hotdog truck on the college campus because he got lost while trying to find the offices to regularize his administrative situation and had to ask her for directions. He can still remember her and Shoichi’s laugh. Good times.

Akira’s heart almost skips a beat when the official stops his monotonous reading and asks the fateful question: “Would you take Ms Bessho Ema as your wife?”, with all that implies getting brushed under the rug. But for once, he doesn’t need to think seven times before speaking:

“I do.”

He’s not even sure if the man was actually finished speaking, but it doesn’t matter. His delivery wasn’t shaking either, that’s a plus.

The official resumes his protocol, goes on a paragraph about him this time. It’s more or less the same record, but his life is far less interesting to him than hers: he remembers what he’s lived through, and he had to tell Aoi and Miyu about his first sixteen years or so, so he knows what to expect. His childhood and adolescence are glossed over, his homeless time with Aoi either romanticized (courtesy of Aoi who got scared and scarred by the time he caught a dangerous case of pneumonia) or skipped over, much to his relief. It’s fairly accurate for the parts he had no control over.

The man asks her if she wants to take him as her husband, spend the remainder of her days with him, and be there for him because he’ll be there for her.

“Of course I do,” she tells him while not breaking eye contact with her fiancé.

In traditional Ema fashion, he doesn’t get to hear the command for them to kiss than she has already pressed her lips against his. He has learnt not to be a clumsy idiot at kissing and returns it just fine as everyone claps. He can almost hear Aoi retain herself from crying. It’s like he’s in a movie, but he’s too optimistic and delighted to think anything will go wrong in a subverting fashion.

This is real life, not some movie, and sometimes, life happens to be generous and fine with people.

Once they break away from their kiss if not just to breathe, her hand still on the back of his head and his heart still beating too quickly, Shoichi drops the question they have never resolved beforehand.

“So, is it Mrs Zaizen or Mr Bessho now?”

He panics on the inside again for a couple moments, as he never wanted to force her into tradition, but as always, Ema is the active one of their relationship, their tandem, and responds for the both of them.

“Call me Mrs Zaizen.”

And she kisses him again before he can respond with something ridiculous.

End Notes

Shoichi is best VRAINS character and that's why the series had to nerf his screentime for us not to notice he was the perfect protagonist. I also don't like to antagonize Hayami despite her... recent character "development", and also I gave her a name because why not.

Some say Miyu got the bouquet tho

#vrains #vrainsrarepairweeks #hireshipping #zinniashipping #my writing

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