#marber

[myinterestsvary-writes]

eve talks, thinks, and acts too much like a psychology major. thanks, britta perry.

beware: rant below

the teenaged romantic relationships are not messy enough to be interesting. there’s a fine line among annoyingly boring - messy - and annoyingly messy. invincible, write your characters like fucking humans. they talk way too much with each other in a healthy way, there’s a lack of emotion that makes it feel bland. sure, we didn’t need cheating but i need more of an actual portrayal of complicated feelings among the cast. not just telling us, the audience, that it’s complicated. maybe it’s nice to the writers in contrast to amber and mark’s relationship to have a relationship without true obstacles to overcome, who just fit perfectly together. however, mark and amber were compelling with chemistry because their interactions related to one of the central themes and was tense because of external conflicts they had to face head on, and not just talk through. plus, they had chemistry because they got along among other reasons, so you get the sense in another life they’d still be together which hits harder and sits with you better.

another thing, mark and eve don’t just work as a couple because they’re superheroes. this was the perfect time to demonstrate the dynamic the two will have, to sell them as a couple worth screentime and ultimately endgame. it’s obvious as fuck the show is written around the two to be together from eve’s special, to their parallels, similar values and goals, and the fact that the audience could catch onto their chemistry that was apparent from the first season (and shockingly lacking later). mark and amber never felt like endgame to me yet them having more chemistry, tension, and intrigue so far is frustrating. (yes, I know their story is complete but imagine if mark and eve weren’t portrayed as teens just casually trying to date each other like they are in the third season. their feelings for each other do not feel profound at all as i feel it should be and like they’re truly destined and that a force they can’t truly comprehend brings them together blah blah blah. like they’re truly birds of a feather who understands one another on a whole other level. it’s so fucking wack.)

explore more of mark’s melancholy that his last relationship ended because he didn’t want his gf to get hurt. show more of mark’s avoidance of eve and him being nervous and reserved around her but also evidently contemplative and wistful. show more of their attraction to each other.

show more of eve’s reasonable understanding of healthy boundaries but also her disappointment in mark avoiding her, feeling insecure about it (because the one who should be insecure about stuff like this should be eve, who has dated a serial cheater as her first love). have eve be wary of mark not only because of the future eve dilemma that wasn’t even that big a deal unfortunately, so wack, such a missed opportunity but also because she’s been cheated on before, and that her dad does not like her so she’s insecure about her taste in men and doesn’t know why mark would like her. have them tiptoe around the other but make the tension palpable, not played almost entirely for comedy and quickly resolved with barely a microcosm of interpersonal conflict. have eve feel guilt when she confronts her feelings for mark, mainly because she’s friends with amber and mark too! show eve is way too healthy of a communicator and it freaks me out. she doesn’t even have to be completely like her comic counterpart, just make her feel young and human like they all were in the first and second season, making mistakes and acting on impulses.

build up the emotion to where when important beats happen, it feels significant and satisfying. like them getting together for the first time, or kissing, dating, making love etc. that way we as an audience connect with them more on an emotional level when something bad happens hint hint and it won’t feel like you’re trying to force it out of me. make us want to root for them and not lazily put them together based on a history the two share that wasn’t even mainly focused on in favour of another love interest. make us understand truly why they want and love each other instead of making it feel as casual as it does.

i would’ve loved a semi-love triangle/square/pentagon with mark, amber, eve, rex, and/or rae. anything to spice things up!

[papillon-de-mai]

— Patrick Marber, from "Closer" (1997)

[myinterestsvary-writes]

So I remember making a post about who would initiate the breakup and I was right that Amber would’ve. Their relationship ended up as equal as it could’ve been and sure, I was with those heartless bastards at first when I breathed a sigh of relief because with every great scene between them, the same old issues kept coming up, but this was and still is genuinely so sad. I felt the heartbreak. Neither of them wanted this. Why did I watch this again?! Oh, right. Their relationship reminded me of my own.

While the breakup was inevitable (especially if you read the comics), I think the show handled it phenomenally with it being even better than how it was done in the comics. Steven Yeun and Zazie Beetz absolutely killed it in this scene with you really being able to hear the heartbreak in both of their voices as Mark and Amber realize that for as much as they love each other, they can't make this relationship work. Then you have the "I can't live in your world, I want to, but I can't." which👏👏👏. That is some absolute peak writing. I haven't consumed many stories that actually treat the breakup as a heartbreaking moment for both characters involved since it's usually just treated as a minor obstacle to prevent the main romance from happening sooner. While I'm fine with that in some cases, I feel like it's a disservice when the main character's temporary love interest is a genuinely interesting and fun character who has a good rapport with them. In that same regard, it has been a nice change of pace to see characters who do care for each other attempt to make things work and talk about the issues before accepting that what they have just isn't going to work.

It's also a good commentary on the nature of superhero/civilian relationships since while someone like Debbie was able to handle the stress of it, Amber isn't able to do so. And that doesn't make her weak or a pushover, it makes her human because not everyone is built to handle that kind of life and it's totally understandable.

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[veravictorialee]

Closer (2004)

[aq2003]

don juan in soho is so compelling to me as political/social commentary re: the trump mentions especially because it's like. yes, dj isn't nearly as bad as him, but his takeaway from this is "oh, that gives me the justification to do whatever the fuck i want and however the fuck i please" when he still treats the people around him like objects and can get away with it for the same reasons the people in power he hates can do it (i.e. systemic privilege as a rich white man). he can recognize that there is a rot permeating the world and he's decided that it's not his job to fix it because why does it matter. when very clearly it does matter bc ironically it's individualistic ideology and lack of compassion for others that continues the rot. 'where is the poetry where is the soul' dj bestie the inauthenticity and performativity of the modern world is still rooted in the human desire to be seen and understood <3 art comes from genuine human connection which you constantly deny yourself and treat as beneath you <3 this is why your individualistic nihilistic worldview is unfulfilling and unsustainable and downright miserable <3 lol

[myinterestsvary-writes]

I don’t mind Mark and Amber’s writing. There’s no need to weaken their relationship to make Mark and Eve better. I would’ve respected it more if they made us truly root for and appreciate their dynamic before putting them together or shortly after, like they fought hard to be together like they did with Mark and Amber but also making them distinct from those two on more than the basis of Eve having superpowers and Amber doesn’t (they’re clearly much more different characters than that).

What I find frustrating is the lack of capitalizing on what happened last season with both Mark and Eve to prove to us why they’re perfect for each other through conflict resolution after reasonable disagreements break out due to external and internal elements involving the characters. More than just the underbaked Future Eve dilemma blurring the agency of the characters.

I do like how they hot together initially in theory but I really would love to see this couple’s own unique challenges and the way they navigate them. There is no reason for them to be so boring when they’re good characters on their lonesome with complementary traits. They’re very healthy and cute together on multiple rewatches of this season but they’re still underdeveloped and non-special feeling. To me, that’s unacceptable for an endgame ship (and I am willing to see what they do and hopefully be proven wrong, unlike during my first time experiencing this - forgive me for I was suffering from whiplash with the break-neck speed which made me irritable).

Mark saying he’s always had feelings for Eve feels like a retcon rather than recontextualization. Also, very lazy. So much talking. There didn’t have to be cheating but more effort could’ve been put in to make them a bit more messy and entertaining.

actually *puts on thinking cap* i am not a huge fan of how markeve was handled in the show. the show really wants us to believe that these two were mutually pinning for each other the whole time but besides three specific instances (eve leaving mark's house disappointed when she sees him with amber, mark getting flustered around eve in early s1, and eve's expression softening when mark hugs her) i cannot for the life me think of any reason why eve would say "everyone thought it was obvious except us"

i know the show fans hate the teenage melodrama but there's a part of me that wishes they kept the markeve slow burn of the comics. mark and amber first visit eve in africa in issue 31, but the we don't see the first cracks in their relationship until issue 37, which is one issue before mark and eve have their first kiss. mark and amber don't break up until four issues later in issue 41, after the sequids fight. eve has her iconic "so, are we dating or what?" moment in issue 43, but they don't even get together until the end of issue 50...a whole 9 issues after mark initially broke up with amber. this brings the total length of this love triangle to 19 issues, which is hell of a lot longer than mark breaking up with amber at the end of season 2 episode 7 and shooting his shot at eve two episodes later in season 3 episode 1.

MAYBE you could make the argument that it's ooc for mark and amber cheat on each other in the show, but i would've at least like some semblance of conflict in their relationship besides amber being frustrated with mark bc he can ever seem to make time for her.

[myinterestsvary-writes]

I gotta stop talking about ships but last chapter on Amber at least in Invincible:

Issue #117

This dude is about to move to a new planet, has basically a new wife and a newborn, and has so much things going on in his adult life. And yet, he still makes the time to check up on his first love who won’t anymore have bad, abusive men who’ll habitually keep her waiting too long for often times sketchy reasons. This is one of the sweetest things I’ve seen from this comic.

[papillon-de-mai]

Closer was one of the most exciting, visceral pieces of writing I’d read. I really wanted to play Larry, but Patrick thought I was too young. Ciarán Hinds was cast in that role but I got a message from my agent: would I like to play Dan instead? Yes, I would.

My strongest memory is Dan’s softness. Larry rips him apart and he is really exposed. He is in love with the idea of being in love and just has a brutal awakening. Closer is such an honest examination of the pain from relationships and what it feels like to be bereft.

— Clive Owen, from "How we made Closer", Guardian (July 2019)

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Notes on a Scandal (2006, Richard Eyre)

18/08/2024

[myinterestsvary-writes]

Everything! 🤌

Amber was so cool and had like actual opinions and personal goals and beliefs, which was not a universal thing for side characters in Invincible. I think she and Mark should have broken up, but mostly because they were both kind of shitty for eachother. A better show would have made her and Eve's friendship front and center (and also made them gay?), considering their worldviews! I'm sorry for rambling, I have complex opinions on Invincible because I think its good and bad in complex ways.

I don't mind, as long as it's not disrespectful. 😁

I don't know that I agree that Mark and Amber were shitty for each other. I think they're both kids with very difficult situations and neither has been able to navigate those situations or their emotions very well.

I'd say that Mark could have been straight up with Amber that he couldn't be in a relationship whenever things got serious. His inability hurt her a lot and whenever she initially wanted to dump him, she overturned that decision because he was hurt.

In the same vein, I think that if Amber wanted Mark to trust her, she could have told him she figured out that he was a superhero when she figured it out and see where that led them.

BUT - That wasn't her responsibility. They seemed to care about each other genuinely, but with the circumstances, there was a lot of expectations they each set for each other and didn't meet. I don't think they're things that call for a break up necessarily, because they apparently needed to be faced with the potential to lose the other to recognize that they were willing to put in more.

Mark wasn't willing to put in more until he realized that Amber was hurting because of his secrets (which was ultimately why she blew up on him). And then Amber wasn't willing to move beyond those emotions until she was in a position to realize that Mark very well could die doing what he does. She was definitely upset when he was hurt.

So, I think that they're NOW in the position to work towards the type of relationship that they wanted, since they both were able to move past certain things that prevented them from being there for each other when needed. In the span of their relationship, Mark definitely was there for her less than she was for him, but each of them quickly turned over to come back and now there's not that mess between them.

I don't think they will ultimately work out, and that's okay too. They're not even out of high school. These are still kids. So, it's not like I believe the road ahead is smooth sailing now that everybody knows everything, but I think that they still have potential and problems don't have to mean that they're shitty. Because of their age, I would chalk their shitty ways up to youth, hormones, inexperience, and misunderstanding.

I also would and will take Amber x Eve. That's not off the table. Eve's been the most straight up with everybody about everything and I think her and Amber would make an awesome team. I don't see it for Mark and Eve, which I'm told is canon, but maybe they'll be able to write something to change my mind on that. So far, they've been on a platonic vibe to me, with Eve being wingwoman. So... Idk. They'd have a lot to unpack for me to see the romance between those two. Could EASILY see one between Amber and Eve though.

This went on long. But I wanted to be very clear.

[shelikesthosefunnypeople]

Happy 30th to The Day Today!

[troquets]

Romek Marber, 1962.

[ladyinrosso]

Part of what I find fascinating of Jacob Marber surely lies in the fact that he falls in that circle of characters those plans backfire so badly that in the end they reach the polar opposite effect of what they were hoping for.

spoilers under the cut, if you haven't reached Ordinary Monster's last page read at your own risk

or when you will do literally everything like turning your best friend into an undead monster so that your abusers can't put their hands on this kid that is very likely your own child only for said kid to end up imprisoned in another dimension with them

[myinterestsvary-writes]

THATS WHAT IM FUCKING SAYING 😭

ouuuuhg okay this cutting between mark and amber saying the exact same thoughtful things about how each of them deserve a better life and how they feel like they're failing each other is actually so sweet..............

[screenzealots]

"The Critic"

The film is slowed down by a darker, more lurid focus to its storytelling rather than one with any sort of sophisticated narrative or character development.

Based on Anthony Quinn’s novel “Curtain Call,” director Anand Tucker’s “The Critic” fully embraces the darker aspects of the story. This tale of deception and murder in pre-World War II London makes for an engaging story, but the film is draggy and feels too slow despite excellent work from the talented cast. Deceit, manipulation, blackmail: it’s all in a day’s work for Jimmy Erskine (Ian…