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airiat · 4 years ago

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Boy with the Sun Song (VI.)

iorveth/f!oc | m | friends to lovers, tooth-rotting fluff, hurt/comfort | no warnings apply

vesta aep maghenn knows iorveth (iorveth aep mirbrach, to her) in a way that no one else can claim: they grew up together in the blue mountains and have been the closest of friends ever since. when iorveth’s unit is wiped out in an ambush by a powerful but unknown adversary, he seeks shelter with vesta until it’s safe for him to rebuild.

[read on ao3]

VI.

The days passed slowly and lazily like fog that rolls down a mountainside. Iorveth seemed to struggle with the transition from his fast-paced, unpredictable rebel lifestyle to my calm, steady world of caretaking and creating. It was almost too hard for me to be around him, the way his energy buzzed frantically and restlessly, threatening to crumble the walls of my home. We were fortunate that the enchantment extended beyond the physical house to a line around my property, which meant he was able to spend most of his days outdoors.

That time was spent fletching an absurd stockpile of arrows and shooting them with his bow at the trunks of poor, hapless trees in the vicinity. To me, this seemed like a futile endeavor, but every time he did it, I could feel his energy streamline and settle, honing in on that singular task. But it also became a vicious energy, one that thirsted to see death and destruction. I could begin to imagine the fear his victims felt when they found themselves at the other end of his arrow or with his blade cutting into their skin. This was a part of him I had always avoided thinking about, but to see it take shape before my eyes made the thought unavoidable.

There were two sides of the coin. When I heard the name Iorveth, I thought of my best friend and protector, someone who had, despite all his life has asked of him, managed to stay by my side for most of it. A man whose pride was both his greatest strength and his deepest wound. A man who loved summer sunshine and played sweet music so that the birds sang back to him. But when most others thought of Iorveth, dh’oine and nonhumans alike, their minds became clouded with hatred, with cold-blooded fear.

He was a criminal, a terrorist, a bloodthirsty villain who ought to have hanged for his misdeeds long ago. I knew this, and yet, I still forgave him for all of it. Even if I wasn’t Aen Seidhe, even if I didn’t understand the reasons for why he did what he did, I would have still loved him.

What did that make me, then, if I could still love him in spite of what he’d done? Did it make me a monster the same as him?

The loud squawk of a bird pulled me out of my thoughts from where I stood leaning against the doorframe watching him shoot. When I refocused, I was met with the sight of Iorveth holding up a shot pheasant by the neck.

“Dinner,” he announced, a triumphant look in his eye, like this bird had been his white whale, like he’d not faced and cut down bigger, more fearsome foes before.

When was the last time he killed somebody, I wondered.

I smiled at him. “I have a soup recipe that’ll go really well with that.”

“Sounds good.”

I watched as he left for the side of the house where he hung the bird for one of us to clean later. But my eyes didn’t follow his actions, they settled on the bow slung across his back, on the quiver full of arrows hanging from his waist. How they might feel in my hands, what it would have been like to do what he does.

“Do you think you can teach me that?” I asked when he returned, pointing to his bow.

His face lit up as I’d never seen it before. “How to shoot?”

I nodded. “Well, I mean, re-teach me how to shoot.”

He graced me with one of his rare, hard-won smiles. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long.”

I couldn’t help but return his smile--it warmed me from within like I was standing in a patch of sunlight. “Well, here it’s arrived.”

“About time,” he replied, reaching behind him and pulling his bow out of its holster.

Iorveth approached me and presented the bow balanced on the palms of his hands like a knight would to his queen--all that was missing was him getting down on one knee. I saw a sparkle in his eye at this performance, so I played along with it, taking the weapon into my hands with gentle reverence, as though it was made of the most fragile glass.

How many had he killed with this bow?

Then, he unbuckled the quiver from around his waist and fastened it around mine. The two objects felt so foreign to me, so cumbersome and awkward on my body. The quiver was heavy and knocked against my hip, the bow large and unwieldy. I looked down at the state of myself, feeling much like a child playing dress-up in her parent’s clothes. The feeling of this shouldn’t have been unfamiliar to me, but it still was. How did anyone fight like that? Much less with the unearthly grace Aen Seidhe are meant to possess?

“None of this is suitable for you,” Iorveth said when he saw the apprehension that was surely written on my face. “I’ll make sure you get all your own equipment, but in the meantime, we can start here.”

“Alright…” I said slowly. “What do I do now, then?”

“What is it you think you should do?” he countered, going to lean against a nearby tree.

“...nock an arrow?”

He inclined his head towards me. “So you do remember.”

I had, of course, been taught archery as a young Aen Seidhe--right alongside Iorveth, in fact--such a rite of passage it was. But it was never something that I latched on to, preferring instead the lessons in creative arts and literature. And so, while Iorveth flew ahead in his archer’s training, in anything pertaining to combat, actually, I laid down my weapons as soon as I was possibly allowed to. Thus, it had been many, many years since I had last gone through these motions.

I reached for an arrow, fumbling around with the bow in my sudden bout of nervousness under his assessing, waiting eye. Eventually, I managed to get one in my hand and held it up to him victoriously, but he hardly looked impressed. Rolling my eyes, I slid the arrow into place and raised the bow, one eye squinted closed and my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth. I spent so much time aligning myself with a tree trunk in the distance that the veins of the wood began to blur with the brush behind it.

When I loosed the arrow, it missed spectacularly, going wide and sailing into the forest beyond.

Iorveth pushed himself off the tree with a shake of his head.

“You must not overthink it, Vesta,” he chided. “It should be effortless, without any thought.”

I shook my head, furrowing my brow. “I’ve never been able to do that. It never worked for me.”

“Then that’s exactly what I’m going to teach you how to do,” he responded as he came to stand behind me.

Iorveth’s hands settled lightly on my waist in a way that was very distinctly unlike how I’d been taught as a child. There was a very brief flash in my mind of something heady, like candlelight and dark wine, but I pushed the thought away, startled by its appearance. He removed a hand to give me another arrow, and I nocked it, raising the bow back to the tree.

“Your enemy won’t stand there stock-still as you take your aim. There’s no time to think, only to feel and then to shoot.”

His last word came as a command and I obeyed instantly, without thought, but the arrow still swung wide, disappearing into the brush. I exhaled sharply, with frustration, and lowered the bow.

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “Try again.”

I did as he said, but fell short of my target once more.

“What am I doing wrong, Iorveth?” I asked.

Another arrow passed to me. I nocked it and took aim, drawing back the string.

“You’re not breathing,” he said softly, and when he returned his hand to me, it slid down my back, over my waist, settled on my hip. ”Your core is too tight.”

In my surprise over the heat of his words, in the boldness of his touch, my fingers released the string and the arrow flew forward in a blink, embedding itself firmly in the trunk of the tree. The tree was wide, and my arrow hit far, far off to the right of center, but it was still there as plain as day.

Immediately, Iorveth took his hands off me and stepped back, but I remained standing there bewildered by what he had just done and what it had made me do.

“Look at you,” he said from behind me. “Just like a real Aen Seidhe.”

I turned around to face him. “But I missed my mark.”

“Between missing your mark and missing entirely in the heat of battle, which would you prefer?”

“...I suppose.”

“An arrow wound is still a wound no matter where it hits,” he said. “And believe me, that shit ploughing hurts.”

I pulled a face, imagining what exactly that must feel like.

“We’ll end here for today,” he said. “Better if you didn’t overdo it on a bow that isn’t right for you.”

I nodded, almost relieved at this out. I didn’t know if I’d have been able to handle another maneuver like the one he’d just pulled. Iorveth took his bow and quiver back from me, and we walked to the house.

I felt much lighter, better, without them in my possession. I realized then that I’d been feeling the death emanating from them. The strain hadn’t come entirely from the fact that they were too big for me.

“I’ll make the proper bow for you,” he said. “Then we can try again.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Of course I do,” he answered, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “I made mine.”

“You did?” I asked, glancing at the bow on his back. “It’s beautiful. I mean, it fucking reeks of death, but beautiful, nonetheless.”

He chuckled. “A lot of dh’oine blood on it.”

We arrived in the house and he pulled it off, leaning it against the wall near the door.

Iorveth continued. “You’ve always been perceptive to things like that, haven’t you?”

I nodded. “The things I could say about the way your energy manifests.”

He looked at me curiously, but didn’t ask me to elaborate. “If that’s the case, surely you can feel the danger you’re in here. You’d honestly be safer in Vengerberg itself.”

“The enchantment protects me.”

He shook his head. “Magic is fallible. Very much so.”

“I’d know if it fell.”

“Maybe so, but then what? You’d be defenseless.”

I shrugged. “It hasn’t yet.”

Iorveth made a sound that sounded almost like a growl. “I’ll make you the bow, you’ll master that, and then we’ll move on to the blade.”

His angry panic rolled off of him in waves. I stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. Instantly, he stilled and we stood there, me waiting, and him trying to calm himself down.

“If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself,” he said simply, in a low voice.

“You won’t need to. Nothing will happen.”

He let out a long, slow exhale. “Let me teach you how to protect yourself.”

“I will. Anything for you, remember?”

“It’s not for me, it’s for you.”

“I know, Iorveth. I hear you. Show me everything you know.”

“Thank you, beag’aine.”

Then, I released him and we set about the house, settling in for the evening. When I read him again, there was a different sort of feeling lingering in the fringes of his usual pain-anger-desperation. And when I took it inside myself, separated the layers, all I could think of was my writing, the purple-pink-wine red hues of an emotion I’d only ever known in fiction. I knew exactly what it was, but I didn't dare attach its name. Not now. Not yet.

#this was a fun chapter to write #iorveth #iorweth #iorveth/oc #the witcher #my posts #my writing #bwtss #tag: iorveth

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force-dyad · 6 years ago

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“Try for Some Remorse” A Look At Palpatine’s Role In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

It has been said by many, including the creator: George Lucas that Star Wars is a children’s story. Star Wars largely encompasses themes of forgiveness, redemption, compassion, and hope. Dave Filoni himself has stated that “There’s a redemption for most characters– if not all characters– in Star Wars films and there’s an arc and a path to when they let go and stop being selfish.” This is an important read to have on the Star Wars franchise when going into The Rise of Skywalker because we can assume that Kylo Ren, the wayward son of Han and Leia, is on a path towards redemption. He and Rey are set to right the wrongs of the generations that came before them. My personal read of the story makes me think that we will get a happy ending where Ben Solo comes back to the light and his family. I believe he will be forgiven and given a chance at his new life, a life that Anakin was never able to live. So where does Palpatine’s ending fall in all of this?

Palpatine. Sheev Palpatine (as was revealed in the 2014 novel, Tarkin by James Luceno) is not a sympathetic character. He is probably one of the only characters that the majority of the fandom agrees will need to go in order for the Skywalker family (and the galaxy alike) to live in peace. His selfishness and need for power is Voldemort like in that actual human life is expendable to him. He only cares about one thing: gaining the most power. In the Rebels episode, “A World Between Worlds” it is revealed that whoever controls the world between worlds will control the very universe. In that same episode, our heroes, Ezra and Ahsoka, just nearly escape Palpatine in his quest to access the portal. This episode just reinforces how knowledgeable Palpatine is in terms of the machinations of the force, and highlights what his final game plan will be. Now that we know that he is back, corporeal or not, we can assume that he will attempt to use Rey and Kylo, to access this portal, given the magnitude of importance that the portal holds.

So we can assume that Palpatine will assuredly be back to his schemes of trying to control the Skywalker (Kylo) in order to control the Universe, given his track record of controlling the Skywalker (Vader) to control the Universe (badumtss). But I think he will have a different end than the one in Return of the Jedi. Darth Vader finally “murders” his master at the end of ROTJ, but The Rise of Skywalker trailer including his laugh at the end emphasizes that whatever happened in Episode VI was not enough to truly get rid of the phantom menace. According to George Lucas, the Sith cannot come back as force ghosts, so I don’t think that is how Palpatine will return. I can’t pretend to know how he’ll return, but I’m just crossing the force ghost option out due to the rules imposed by Lucas (though I realize that they can change at any time, but since a lot of the current Lucasfilm team worked under Lucas, I believe they’ll want to respect his vision). Whatever form of Palpatine that Kylo, Rey, and the resistance go up against will have to be defeated in a way that has not been attempted before. The traditional “final battle” will have to be subverted in order for Palpatine’s destruction to feel believable. If a murder is the simple solution to destroying Palpatine, the ultimate villain, then why was the sequel trilogy even made? According to Kathleen Kennedy, Palpatine was always a part of the plan, and I believe her, but like I’ve said, they’ll have to do something different. Before The Force Awakens came out, Kathleen Kennedy gave a quote “I think we can’t explore in quite as much detail issues of compassion, the way [Lucas] did in terms of the values of the Jedi. But we’re going to get there, let’s put it that way. In the arc of all three movies, that will increase.”

In Return of the Jedi, we see Darth Sidious egging Luke on as he fights his father, Darth Vader. Darth Sidious encourages Luke to embrace the anger inside of his heart, “Your hate has made you powerful, let the hate flow through you, and your transformation to the dark side will be complete” he goads Luke on to embrace his feelings of hatred, and anger to embrace the power of the dark side so that Luke could defeat Vader, but the true lesson that one must learn is that fighting is not the way to defeat your enemy. Rose Tico sums up all of Star Wars in The Last Jedi when she tells Finn: “That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.” Luke proves to be the walking embodiment of that quote once again when he faces off against his nephew, Kylo Ren. Luke has blame to share with regards to Ben’s fall, and though he knows that he can not save him, he still goes to confront him to help save his family and the resistance. Since he is a force projection, he cannot use any offensive tactics against Kylo, nor can Kylo hurt him in any way. He bides time for the resistance to escape, while ensuring that his nephew does not kill off the resistance. Ultimately, Luke chose not to fight two times: against his father, and against his nephew. I think letting go of negative emotions and doing anything possible to protect people is the true way towards balance. Kylo Ren is not at that part of his journey (yet), but I think he is on his journey towards letting go. While Luke and Kylo’s confrontation on Crait was about saving the resistance on the surface level, I believe that the color of the salt going from white to red back to white during the course of their confrontation is symbolic of healing wounds, both Ben and Luke’s. While it’s not a light sided emotion to have anger, it is healthy to confront it. Maybe not in the way Kylo has done so far, but I believe that he’s on the journey towards letting go of his anger, resentment, and hatred.

This is where I believe the final confrontation comes in. Like I said, I think it would be too much of a retread if Kylo and Rey confronted Palpatine and it ended in Palpatine getting the chop via Lightsaber. The Last Jedi already showed us this through Snoke. Snoke tried to have Kylo kill Rey, but Kylo, in a grab for power and to save Rey alike, killed him with the Skywalker saber. Now will The Rise of Skywalker give us the same ending for the biggest bad of them all? I don’t think so because murder is inherently evil. In an interview with Bill Moyers, George Lucas said “…everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives. And you can either help somebody, you can be compassionate toward people, or you can treat some people with dignity or not. And one way you become a hero, and the other way, you’re part of the problem.”

And the other way, you’re part of the problem. I believe that redemption for Ben Solo is inevitable, and I believe he will live and strive towards being a balanced individual for the rest of his life. That being said, I think that when he and Rey finally confront Palpatine, it’ll take a different route than Vader pushing Sidious down the reactor shaft. I do believe that Ben Solo will definitely resent Palpatine for all that has happened to his family because of his influence, but I think that it will end differently. Vader had to deal with years of Palpatine belittling him. From what we know, Kylo already had that type of relationship with a “master” aka Snoke and he already murdered him.

One of the reasons why murdering Palpatine will not work is because we have seen skilled force users such as Yoda, Mace Windu, and Anakin fight him (or throw him down a shaft), but he has gotten away each time. (I mean, maybe he won’t be in his old body in TROS, but I believe he, or maybe his soul, must have escaped somehow.) An ending where Palpatine is destroyed in the same way as ROTJ will lead to many questions for Disney like “So this is not the end of the timeline for the Skywalkers since Palpatine will probably be able to come back, right?” They have to figure out a way where the death of Palpatine will be believable and true to the message of hope and choosing the light, so that people don’t question it. (Remember: If you don’t see what happens to the body, anything is possible.)

This leads me into talking about how I think he will be defeated… Through compassion. Now you may be asking yourself: what? And trust me, I understand the hesitation…Sheev “Darth Sidious” Palpatine is probably the closest thing we get to the devil in the story. J.J. Abrams referred to him as the ultimate evil. But there are many examples in children’s media that help inform how the end of the Skywalker Saga could go. Children’s media tries to teach us that murder is not the way to finish the evil. Specifically I want to talk about Voldermort and Lord Ozai from Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender, respectively.

In Harry Potter, Voldemort is the ultimate evil. He is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He’s someone that does not care about the humanity around him. He kills Harry Potter’s parents and attempts to murder Harry Potter, which is his ultimate downfall. In Harry Potter, there is a prophecy that says that someone will kill Voldemort but that “neither could live while the other survives,” but like all great stories, prophecies are not truly activated until someone seeks to prevent their fate. This ultimately leads to his defeat; but his defeat wasn’t as simple as Harry shooting the killing curse at him. During the final confrontation, Harry uses a disarming spell (basically a defensive mechanism). Harry tries to appeal to Voldemort’s humanity.“It’s your one last chance,” said Harry, “and it’s all you’ve got left… I’ve seen what you’ll be otherwise… Be a man… try… Try for some remorse…” Even through all the pain and horror and destruction that Voldemort has caused Harry Potter’s life, he still tries to appeal to Voldemort / Tom Riddle’s humanity, much like Dumbledore, who always called Voldemort by his given name. Appealing to his humanity is appealing to what Voldemort hates the most, as his number one fear is mortality and losing his power. Sound familiar? A Sith lives without love because they reject any emotion that will bring them closer to the light. A famous Dumbledore quote is: “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.” Pity: “the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.” Voldemort’s end is ultimately due to his own hubris and misunderstanding of wand lore. His own hubris brought him down, not Harry.

Another similar scenario is Avatar Aang in the series Avatar: The Last Airbender In this story, Aang must defeat the evil Fire Lord who has seeks to conquer through destruction. The previous Avatars all tell him that he must kill Ozai to bring an end to the war, but still Aang cannot. Avatar Aang is an air nomad who has been taught to respect all life, so the act of murder is something that he cannot come to terms with. When Aang finally confronts Ozai, he reiterates that they do not have to fight and goes on to use defensive moves against Ozai, avoiding the fire bender. It isn’t until he reaches his Avatar State (aka all the avatars join forces and he becomes all powerful) that he starts using brute force, but before he strikes the killing blow, Aang returns to his own body and stops it. In order to stop Ozai, Aang takes away his bending power, leaving him powerless.

Both of these methods have brought in complaints from fans. Why wasn’t this ultimate evil power attacked by the main protagonist? People found the final battle in Harry Potter to be anti-climactic since Harry uses his signature spell of expelliarmus, something that everyone from his peers to the Death Eaters (Voldemort’s followers) criticize and call him weak for using. With Avatar, it’s the same argument: where’s the death? But I put forth that these people should not be looking for destructive mechanisms in a children’s story. Those methods are always painted in bad light. We might think that that will be the true way to get rid of evil in the world, but as adults, we see things differently than children. One of the reasons why evil prevails is because of lack of empathy and compassion. It is foolish to say that evil will be defeated completely through showing those things towards evil people, but that’s the only way to defend the light.

I think Ben Solo showing compassion towards Palpatine is not at all about Palpatine getting a redemption arc. I think the only way for Kylo to truly heal is to let go of any and all anger. I would even go as far as saying that he will forgive Palpatine. Not because he deserves forgiveness or because of any true feelings of fondness towards him, but because letting go of the resentment and anger and grief that Palpatine has caused is the only way to truly move on. Kylo holding a grudge or attacking Palpatine in anger will not fix the force. I believe that through showing Palpatine some kind of compassion, Palpatine will go on a self-destructive path. This way, we’ll have a different way of defeating evil that ultimately shows us the reason why the sequel trilogy had to exist to fix the Skywalker story. It also shows us that we must choose the light in as many situations as possible and let go. The key to a happy life is being able to let go: of fear, of anger, and the negative emotions that led to two Skywalkers falling to the dark side.

Thanks for reading! And of course, thanks to BlindManBaldwin for posting the original post about Sheev’s role in IX + Compassion and for talking through this with me! Check out my podcast on it on Soundcloud, or wherever you find podcasts!

#sheev palpatine #kylo ren #star wars #is this meta?#meta #the rise of skywalker #bendemption #darth sidious #i edited this on mobile and it ate the text!!!!! good thing i saved this somewhere else

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kyloren · 7 years ago

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Mileven post-S2 fanfiction recommendation list: PART V

For past rec lists please see instalments I, II, III, and IV. If your fanfic isn’t featured, apologies. Message me and we’ll amend that grievance in the next rec list instalment.

* marks the ongoing stories.

canon:

for laughs, for luck, for the unknown by ArtemisRae: “Mike goes away to college. El goes with him. Within a year she gains a new set of grandparents, a pet, a job, and enforces party rules.”

+ its sequel the monkey in the wrench by ArtemisRae: “Mike ends up in the hospital, El has to face her insecurities, and they turn the corner with Mike’s parents.” [ArtemisRae’s works are so beautiful, I can’t breathe.]

a wonderful awful idea by ArtemisRae: “Mike wants to recapture the Christmas magic of his childhood, but mostly he accidentally makes his girlfriend cry.”

the last picture show by ArtemisRae: “Hopper catches Mike and El at the local drive in after being led to think that they were at the Hawk with their friends.”

six weeks* by bananannabeth: “There are six weeks between the night El comes home and the night of the Snow Ball, which leaves not a lot of time to deal with a whole lot of shit. Somehow, she and Mike ride it out.”

can’t argue with that by bananannabeth: “Karen is well aware of how stubborn her only son can be, but as much as he tries to pretend he has to do everything on his own, Mike isn’t alone anymore. So if he’s insisting on running to El’s rescue at the cabin in the middle of the woods at two in the morning, you can bet his mom is not letting him go alone.”

+ its prequel with background Mileven: alone by bananannabeth: “Karen left Joyce alone when she so obviously needed support, and now she’s trying to make amends. Casserole and coffee seems as good a place as any to start.” God, I love bananannabeth’s You Can Talk To Me (aka. Karen Wheeler is a Good Mom™) series so, so much.

just another sleepy sunday by suchastart: “Game night, a few years into the future.”

promises by blacktreeswhitesky: “For Jane Ives, it’s always been like this. She was always searching for something, for someone.” [I’M NOT CRYING. YOU ARE CRYING.]

how we sleep by zombiecupcake: “The gate is closed, and the gang finds themselves getting the much deserved rest they all needed.”

love you like that* by ohanae: “Snippets out of Mike and El’s life after she closed the gate to the Upside Down. They learn things together, go to school together, grow up together.”

operation christmas for el* by Booklover1217: “When the party discovers that El has never experienced a Christmas before they are horrified. That is until Mike comes up with the plan to give El the most amazing first Christmas imaginable and so Operation Christmas for El is born. The next days that follow are filled with gingerbread, mistletoe, snow, and the magic of Christmas which just may change El’s life forever.”

home by lesbeatlesbunch: “Mike gets his license.”

pretty by hma1313: “Sometimes he thinks he sees her standing at the end of the street in that ratty dress of his sister’s, the fabric torn and stained, but he’ll blink and then she’s gone and he’s half convinced he imagined it all.”

scrap my knees, whatever; i’m gonna let them bleed by ceruleanstorm: “How many compliments can Mike and El yell at each other over a card game?”

close the door by g00denough: “Because we are just waiting for when someone walks in on El and Mike kissing.”

things you said* by Brown Eyes Parker: “a collection of one-shots revolving around Mike & Eleven and things they say to each other.”

+ its sort of sequel, sort of outtakes things you said, alternate stories* by Brown Eyes Parker: “Original and alternate or continuations of stories in my “things you said” series.”

heartbeats in the quiet by screamingintosilence: “It was usually just a cold, but this felt like the flu.”

perfect summer day by AR357: “It was a sunny summer day in 1984. Mike had been looking forward to this day for a while. With each breath of crisp summer air, he felt more and more invigorated. With each hill he crested, he felt his heart thumping away. But then again, maybe he was just thinking about what the day’s events would hold.”

flutterby, butterfly* by foreverinthe_eighties: “What would happen if, years after the events that took place in 1984, Kali seeks Eleven out herself. And gives her the opportunity to change her mind.”

the name game by Strange_Archivist: “El and Mike have their first real fight, and it’s a doozy.”

eleven things* by Socalledfriend: “Eleven returns, but things don’t just go back to the way they were. It’s not clear how she managed to get home, and meanwhile Will’s sickness is only getting worse. Some things never change though, and while she’s back, Mike manages to teach her at least eleven things about the outside world.”

raspberry breeze by urdearestmom: “Sometimes she stays up with him, and she calls him ridiculous. How don't you fall over when you get up in the morning? She asks. Pfft, I don’t need sleep! Who do you think I am? He says, but then he smiles and her heart melts, she's never been able to be angry at this boy for more than a few minutes.”

promises* by Vontar: “Sometimes, it’s the little things in life that matter. Scenes of life from Eleven and Mike, as they face the future together.”

stranger things holiday extravaganza* by Commernator: “Mike, Hopper, and the rest of the party help Eleven experience holidays for the first time.”

alternative universe:

the boy with freckles like constellations in the night sky* by got credits (Poly_Grumps): “It had been a quiet night in the town of Hawkins Indiana when Will Byers disappeared seemingly out of thin air. Jane Ellie Ives could still recall her last moments with him, the last words she had spoken with him before she watched him bike off into the night. It had started like any other day in fact, with the curly-haired girl and her gang of friends all sitting around in her basement gathered around a rather intense game of dungeons and dragons!” Reverse AU. [guys, guys, guys. I’m screaming. It’s so good.]

(all i wanna be is) somebody to you* by sinclairsmax: “Elle Hopper never thought that she’d win American Idol. Then again, she also never thought Mike Wheeler would fall in love with her. Behind the cameras, everything is turned upside down.” YouTube AU. [this is everything I didn’t know I wanted.]

we could be heroes* by ValBirch: “A series of connected vignettes about our favourite characters—but with superpowers.” Superhuman AU. I repeat, SUPERHUMAN AU. [Plus, the author has a whole set of moodboards/aesthetics for characters and I’m dying.]

the artist & the dancer* by JavaCat26: “Her warm honey-brown eyes were fixated on him. Emotion washed over him like warm bath water. He wouldn’t let her down. Ever. He took a deep breath, steadied his hand, and pressed his pencil to the canvas. “I can do this…”” College AU.

upside down and back again* by Crataeis: “When a new threat begins to emerge from the ashes of the Upside Down, an unlikely group of four of our six main protagonists band together to try and stop it.” Alternative Reality? Time Travel AU? I can’t quite tell, but although this fic is in its early stages, it’s really good and worth a look.

a rose by any other name by serendipitous_rambles: “The Montague and Capulet high schools never got along. There was bitter rivalry between the two schools, nothing good could come from associating with each other. But what happens when two fall in love?” Romeo & Juliet-style High-School AU.

+ bonus: wherein The Party is featured prominently…again:

in a dream where the air is soft by a simple space nerd: “El has hair slicked back behind her ears, darkly ringed eyes, and somewhat bedraggled clothes, and Max would normally steer clear of people looking like her, but she’s heard so much about El, and God, why is this group of friends so unlike everyone else Max has ever met? Max never used to care about what random people thought of her. “Curse you, stalker,” she mutters half-heartedly.” [I love Mike and Max in this one. This has to be my favourite interpretation of both characters, hands down. This fic is so in tune with characterisation, it can be considered canon.]

more than one best friend by topangamatthews: “El’s first best friend is Mike, but he’s not her last.”

after the gate closed* by insomniacwriter17: “Just one shots about all the little head canons I have.”

el’s word book* by Noth_lit_9: “El is frustrated that her vocabulary lags behind those of her friends, so Hopper wants to provide her with a way to see her growth.”

it’s okay to not be okay by talesfromthesnogbox: “Jim Hopper knew it was a real emergency when he was woken in the night by a phone call from his son-in-law Mike from the hospital. All was not well, but Jim reminds Mike that sometimes it’s okay to not be okay.”

teenage girls by EvieSmallwood: “El & Max hang out at the arcade. They talk about the present and the future.”

a is for alphabet* by urdearestmom: “Each chapter is a letter of the alphabet, lots of fluff and laughs ensue.”

so i could kill them for you by valancysnaith: “Max deserves so much better. The party is there for her.”

okay, so I had a lot more, but my Cloud messed the fuck up and deleted half of the bookmarks I made. now, I gotta go and track down the fics I lost…

UPDATE: part VI is out.

#mileven #mileven fanfiction #mileven fanfiction recommendation list #mileven fanfiction recommendation #character: mike wheeler #character: eleven #pairing: mike x eleven #tv: stranger things #fanfiction recommendations #in this tag resides fanfiction #♔: victrix #*

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arcane-ish · 3 years ago

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Okay, here's my personal theory, and I admit that this might be my Vander bias talking.

I think a big reason why Vi is so upset, a big reason why Silco and Jinx would likely be considered an oddity is the death of Vander.

I don't think that Vi is upset about the explosion at all anymore either. I think that the thing she has to justify to herself is not just that Jinx is violent, but that she is close with Silco.

Like, I theorized, what if rather than Silco, Jinx had been found by Urgot. Or Camille. And either of them had trained her to be a killer. I think Vi's reaction would still be anger because of the whole "good heart" thing. But surely somebody teaching their children to be violent is fairly normal. I mean Vander also taught Vi to fight. Similarly, Vi clearly looks down on children being put to work, but again, it seems like Vi would at least understand why some people would consider that normal behavior.

Like on gotta wonder, if it was any other evil crimeboss, would Vi at least have tried "Hey, crime boss, thank you for feeding her and training her, I'm gonna to and take her off your hands now"? But she can't, because it's Silco. And Silco is THE ENEMY, the one who tried to kill her, the one who killed Vander, so of course it's going to seem obvious to ascribe malice to him taking Powder.

When Vi and Jinx meet again and Jinx has accepted that Vi is real, Jinx immediately shifts to apologetic mode. She has done things that she knows Vi would disapprove of ("Things changed. I changed"). (and yes, part of why this feels so apologetic because of Vi's line "did what you had to do to survive", but I don't think it's too off base of Jinx's mood in this moment, especially based on Jinx's facial expression, crying looking to the side/avoiding eye contact.

)

And again I think the "crime" that Vi has to get over is "Why would you side with Silco after what he did" and not "why are you violent", but "why are you violent with/for Silco".

We know there are two components likely for this:

1.) Powder's self-hate after causing the death of Mylo and Claggor

2.) Sympathy for Silco who thinks his killing of Vander is justified because after all Vander hurt him first

It's going to be interesting whether Vi's position will change if Warwick reveals any new information to her about point 2. But point 1 she would know. Granted point 1 will to her still look like "he took advantage of Powder's guilt and vulnerability".

But the fact that she still sees what happens as monstrous, as Powder having no agency to me suggests that she isn't thinking about it yet. It's easier for her to think of the whole thing as something monstrous because to her the "crime" is that monstrous. And the crime is "making nice with the evil person who you know is evil because he hurt your family and most notably killed Vander".

Now if Jinx continues being violent and continues being monstrous even after Silco is dead, that should be an interesting challenge for Vi to face. Like I guess it's a chance that she will stay in denial about "oh, he manipulated her so much", but I think the moment has to come where you have to question how much posthumous influence Silco can really have. Especially if you don't want to believe that Jinx loved Silco.

But yeah, Caitlyn is gonna be the really interesting role because so far she has been cast I feel slightly in the role of the one who is more unyielding and unforgiving both in the show ("too far gone", the games and the supplementary material like the council archives). From her position and characterization, she would make sense as the character who has the smarts and the necessary distance to figure it out. So it's a question whether they want to go there or keep her up as the more unyielding one.

Basically, who is gonna be the hardliner and who is gonna be the one who empathizes with Jinx's motivation out of Cait and Vi (of course they might alternate or both be empathizers or both be hardliners, or empathize on some parts and draw the line on others).

Thought of the day: I wonder to what extent it is actually public knowledge that Jinx/Powder killed Mylo and Claggor.

The people who definitely know are Silco, Jinx, Vi and probably Sevika. (there are also Silco's other goons from back in the day, but on the other hand, would they necessarily know that the random bomb thrown into their place was really made/set off by the crying little girl they found? they might not know where it came from either?)

But does Ekko know? Is it common knowledge? If Ekko knows, did Jinx tell him or did he hear it through rumor?

I could definitely picture Sevika running her mouth and it being part of Jinx's myth within the Undercity that she killed her own brothers before becoming Silco's daughter.

But I could also picture it not being a talked-about topic and Silco being fine with the kill being attributed to him.

(backstory: me thinking it would actually be an interesting dynamic if Ekko thought Silco killed Mylo and Claggor and not understanding why Jinx would ever associate with him, but then Vi enters the picture and she knows Powder killed Mylo and Claggor and arguably should have a better understanding of Powder's self loathing that might cause her to associate with Silco even though Silco killed Vander)

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bensoloredemptiontrain · 6 years ago

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The Rise of Skywalker Teaser Trailer & Defense of Bendemption / Reylo

I was emailing with a friend and fellow Reylo, and she was concerned that Reylo might not happen and Ben might not be redeemed, based on the new trailer. I wrote a lengthy response, and am posting a slightly edited version here:

These are my thoughts, in outline format:

The title, "The Rise of Skywalker" - does this mean Rey is related to Luke, and therefore to Kylo?

There are various possible other meanings. It could mean that Rey is a symbolic Skywalker. It could mean that Ben carries on the Skywalker legacy. It could mean that the "Skywalker" rises in Ben, that he returns to the light and carries on Luke's legacy. It could mean that Rey and Ben get together and carry on the Skywalker legacy together by teaching a new generation and making Skywalker babies. It could mean that Luke's influence increases after his death.

There is no way Rey is a Skywalker by blood. They've said that she's never seen Han or Leia or Luke or Kylo in person before The Force Awakens (TFA). That rules out her being Leia's kid. They could still theoretically have her be Luke or Han's kid (with an "unknown" mother), but remember this is Disney we're talking about. Sexual purity and sex only in the context of marriage is a big thing. This is a movie marketed for twelve-year-olds, and sex outside of marriage is NOT a kid-friendly topic. I can't imagine Disney going that route. Also, you think people were upset because The Last Jedi (TLJ) wasn't what people expected? Imagine the backlash if they make it canon that Han cheated on Leia. No. Just... no.

They're not going to go the incest route again, or else they risk being labeled as the franchise that promotes romantic attraction between relatives. (Again. This is Disney.) The attraction between Luke and Leia was mostly an accident; George Lucas did not plan on having them be related when he wrote IV; then during V he wasn't sure if Harrison Ford would sign for another movie (so Leia needed to have another option besides Han), so he kept the Luke/Leia option open until VI, when he could go full steam ahead with Han/Leia. The overall arc of this series (VII-IX) was planned beforehand; you'd think that if Rian wrote the "smut hut" scene and they were related, someone would have gone, "NO NO NO NO NO, THEY'RE RELATED YOU CAN'T DO THAT."

Many Star Wars movie titles really only make sense after the movie, in the context of the movie.

Regarding the title, Kathleen Kennedy said, "It could mean a lot of different things. And I think that’s what was important to us. We didn’t want to have a title that felt like it was telling you the story." i.e. the interpretation is not meant to be obvious, and the title is not meant to imply that Rey is related to Luke.

Is there still hope for Reylo? The teaser looks like JJ might be pandering to the antis/fanboys.

YOU BET THERE'S STILL HOPE FOR REYLO!

The trailer needs to bring the fandom back together. TLJ was really divisive. If they make a Reylo teaser trailer, the antis won't even think about watching the movie. They've had the whole basic story arc planned out even before TFA was released, and I believe JJ started writing The Rise of Skywalker (TROS) before TLJ came out. They are NOT going to change the whole direction of the series because a few people are stupid and loud. But they likely WILL make a trailer that appeals to everyone, so everyone will want to see the move.

The trailer for Return of the Jedi (ROTJ) focuses on Luke, Leia, and Han, so it makes sense (from a "throwback" perspective) to make this trailer focus on Rey, Finn, and Poe.

JJ Abrams liked TLJ.

There ABSOLUTELY is a romantic/sexual subplot between Ben and Rey - the bridal carry, "I can take whatever I want," "I can show you the ways of the Force," "you're not alone" / "neither are you," the hand-holding scene, the elevator scene, THE ENTIRE THRONE ROOM SCENE WHICH WAS BASICALLY A SEX SCENE FROM THE MOMENT BEN SUMMONS ANAKIN'S LIGHTSABER AND MAYBE EVEN BEFORE THAT, "please," etc., etc. Rian says that the two fingers touching is "the closest thing to a sex scene that Star Wars will ever have." Mark Hamill refers to the "romantic tension" between Rey and Ben (he starts to say "sexual tension" and then stops himself) and adds, "they never let ME touch a finger!"

The principle of "Chekhov's gun" - you only put something in a story if it's relevant. (The Luke/Leia subplot doesn't count, see discussion above.) Therefore, from a narrative perspective, the romance between Rey and Ben must be relevant to the story in some way. It's not imagined or made up by fans.

Rey's story arc - the thing Rey wants most is belonging and a family. Doesn't she deserve to get this? Therefore for her to get HER happy ending, she needs to have a family. The Resistance is a symbolic family, but I'm talking about more than that. You could pair her with Poe or Finn, but that doesn't work as well. Poe doesn't have the emotional depth that Rey does, and Finn has Rose. I have a theory that one of the main reasons Rose was introduced was so that Finn would have somebody to love, because he's not getting Rey. What would happen to Rose if Finn and Rey got together? (We're sure Poe will be fine if he doesn't get Rey, the guy has chemistry with anything that stands still long enough.)

Again, heroine's journey. Cue Beauty and the Beast, Tangled, etc. The heroine of the "heroine's journey" story line ALWAYS falls in love and lives happily ever after (after her lover nearly dies). The heroine ALWAYS falls in love with someone that is different from her in some way and who helps her grow as a person. You CANNOT say this about Finn or Poe; you can ONLY say it about Kylo.

JJ was the one who STARTED Reylo. TFA looks so much like a fairy tale, it's not even funny. Rey's dressed in white, Ben looks like a dark prince (and his lightsaber looks like a knight's sword), their first and last meetings in the movie take place in FORESTS, the scene where Rey runs out of Maz's castle looks like the scene where Cinderella runs out of the king's castle, the scene where Ben says "I can show you the ways of the Force" sounds like the scene where Aladdin sings to Jasmine "I can show you the world," and the whole idea of a beautiful girl meeting a guy who seems and looks inhuman at first sounds an awful lot like Beauty and the Beast. JJ's not stupid. He knows how this comes across; he knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Also, who carries someone bridal-style across a battlefield?! That's literally the most romantic but also dumbest way to carry someone - he can't reach his lightsaber! (Contrast this with when he captured Poe, he just had the stormtroopers drag him onto the ship.)

Kylo is repairing his mask, is fighting together with stormtroopers, and may be the one who attacks her in the beginning. / Is this a waste of Adam Driver's talent?

Take a good look at the hands repairing the mask. They do NOT look like Kylo's hands. They look kind of furry or hairy, so either this is a humanoid alien, or it's a human wearing some really hairy coat. Also, look at the bracelets on the wrists. I am almost 100% positive that this isn't Adam Driver.

He's fighting with stormtroopers. Yes, it appears that way. This could either take place before his redemption, OR there is a theory that either Hux will try to overthrow Kylo and the First Order will split into factions (so this could be Kylo's men against Hux's) OR there is another theory that Finn will help the stormtroopers rebel (so this could be Kylo on the light side leading the stormtroopers who are in rebellion).

When he strikes down the guy in the forest, his fighting style looks more sexy and assured, as opposed to the vicious and unstable fighting style that we've come to expect from TFA and TLJ, which might imply that his "soul" is healing.

Adam Driver knew where this was going from the beginning. They told him his character's whole arc before he signed, because he didn't just want to play the token bad guy. He wanted to play someone with emotional depth and challenges, so we can expect to see that continued in TROS. When Adam is asked about Kylo's story arc, he ALWAYS gets this little secret smile on his face, even though he's trying to keep his face neutral. It's adorable. When he was asked what he liked best about his character's story arc in TROS, Adam said that he couldn't say, but that "we're working toward something in particular with that character" (and he followed this with another one of those secret, adorable smiles).

NO ONE INVOLVED WITH STAR WARS CALLS KYLO THE VILLAIN. NO ONE. Contrast this with Vader (who was redeemed) who was blatantly called the villain in the teaser trailer for ROTJ. And, the teaser trailer for ROTJ had NO hint whatsoever that Vader was redeemable. No one guessed it. There weren't really hints elsewhere in A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back that Vader was redeemable, either. (Contrast this with Ben.)

Maybe Kylo is the one who attacks her in the beginning. Sure, maybe. It looks like his gloves (although you don't see his face, so it might not be him). But if this is a fight between them, it could easily be at the beginning of the movie, before he gets redeemed and before they fall in love. Also, what if the trailer makes it look like he's attacking her, but really this takes place after he's redeemed and she's jumping into the cockpit to JOIN him? We don't know.

She's not being shot at. She's being chased, but we don't see her being shot at, which is interesting. You could make the argument that maybe the guns on the TIE Silencer have jammed, but that doesn't seem likely, given that the ship looks pretty sleek and new and intact.

You don't make a legitimate villain this sexy. You just don't. (JJ has even gone on record saying that Ben looks like a "dark prince" when he removes his helmet during TFA.)

Rey seems to hang around just with Finn, Poe, etc. / Kylo does not seem to play a major part in all this.

Kylo has NEVER played a big role in the TEASER trailers... they've always focused mainly on Rey (and Finn and Poe). In TFA teaser, we just see him from the back igniting his lightsaber in the forest. In TLJ teaser, we just see a close-up shot of Kylo holding his lightsaber. Kylo has NEVER had more than a brief cameo in a teaser trailer, but he's always had a bigger part in the regular trailer. Actually, his role in this teaser trailer is bigger than in the other teaser trailers!

They could intentionally be cutting down his screen time in the trailers if he doesn't really have any "villain" scenes in the movie, to keep that a surprise for when people actually see the movie.

Trailers are great at leaving out important details. The teaser trailer for TFA leaves out the fact that Rey has the Force. The teaser trailer for TLJ trailer leaves out the Force bond between Rey and Ben. (etc.)

Trailers are great at being misleading. The regular trailer for TFA trailer implies that Luke would actually have a role in the movie. The regular trailer for TLJ implies that Rey was talking to Ben when she says, "I need someone to show me my place in all of this."

Also, check out this picture of Ben in TROS! That look on his face totally screams tall-dark-and-broody-guy-redeemed-from-the-dark-and-reuniting-with-his-true-love ;) I don't think I've ever actually seen him look this at peace.

AND check out Daisy's reaction when asked about Rey and Kylo this weekend - the secret smile / trying-not-to-smile expression and the "we'll have to wait and see."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0diw4fAisQ (3:30-4:00)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5E6EbcAMRE (0:00-0:10)

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #episode ix #ben solo #reylo

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jgoodlifemajorproject2018 · 7 years ago

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Meeting with Microbiologist

Below is a transcript from a meeting I had with a scientist in Brighton. It was quite an interesting experience really.

-It illuminated the nature of scientists going deep into a specialism and therefore perhaps finding it easier to discuss ideas with experts in that specialism rather than responding to slightly less accurate jumps and connections made by artists for example. Or perhaps hesitation to discuss related topics outside that specialism. -This perhaps enlarged the gap between ideas, concept building and scientific measuring, testing, hypothesising. -It reinforced the dominating emphasis on contamination, disease and infection within microbiology (or perhaps that was their specialism). This was interesting as I tried to direct the conversation in the more ‘positive’ aspects of microbes. -Didn’t quite get an enthused response in terms of future collaboration or access to resources but considering emailing again with more specific requests.

I have highlighted interesting moments in bold.

I: what can I do for you, how can I help?

J: I’ve become interested in microbes through an interest in gardening and ecology and am currently developing a project that draws a parallel between the microbes in the body and the microbial ecologies in the soil/ rhizosophere. This is intended to be a kind of direct response to Descartes and enlightenment scientists who vied humans and the natural world as radically separate.

I thought it would be interesting to talk to someone within the scientific field because I guess the interesting thing about microorganisms is that they’re everywhere yet you can’t see them and I’m finding that quite disorientating. However, to someone who is trained in science are far more familiar with the concept so I feel like there is this massive divide between humans who do and don’t understand.

I: Yes we focus in very different directions don’t we.

J: I feel like it’s a shame that so many humans are going unaware of these really fundamental life forms so it seems a shame that science is so kind of divided off and separated between people who understand and people who don’t.

I: So what do you want to do, you want to talk about why people might think about microbes?

J: I guess right now in my project I’m trying to find ways to explore these parallels and how people can understand the parallel [between body and soil micro-ecologies] in a non-scientific field.

I: What you could tell people is.. have you ever seen when someone’s just done a finger print of a handprint on a surface and you see the ridges come up? Well what you’re actually doing is transferring bacteria. The skin is covered in bacteria and fungi. You can get dyes where you can spray your hands and it will attach to different microbes. The best one I’ve got is called glitterbug. If you rub it onto your hands and shine them under a UV light, then it shows where the bacteria have got and they’re all in little things like little grooves. You know all the grooves like the knuckle bits? And then you can wash your hands and see how effective you are at removing it. [shows image] You see there – you can see really high levels of contamination on the skin and in the nails. It’s really quite effective and illuminating. Shows show effective you are at washing your hands.

In the human stomach there more microbial cells than there are human cells in your body.

J: yes I’m definitely very interested in the intestine.

I: One estimate puts it at 1kg of microbes per the average person.

J: That’s what’s so interesting – I feel like I’ve gone 22 years of my life thinking of myself as an individual and now I’m realising..

I:... how there’s quite a few others in there.

J: exactly. And how we’ve co-evolved with them and are dependent on them.

I: Yes, it’s like the immune system. If you imagine you get tonsilitus.. when you get the colours, that’s where the bacteria have got into the skin so the colour is the human body fighting back. They’re all around us and all over us.

J: I was just wondering... having been trained in this field, how this effects your every day life. Do you sometimes zone in and imagine this layer of life forms covering everything?

I: Yes you can’t stop thinking about it. You know they’re there. But it does feed into different impressions of daily life. For example one of the things we talked about with a class last week was contamination. If you imagine washing hands.. but imagine you do in a public toilet but the person before you hasn’t and then you push on the door. So when you think about it from a public health point of view… I think it’s one of those things that sort of stays with you in the sense that if you think about everything from food poisoning like an undercooked beef burger… or whether a surface is really decontaminated properly… so I suppose yeah it does stay with you.

J: Yeah but then I guess there’s also this thing where the majority of the general public only think about microbes is in the pathogen/ contamination/ infection kind of way when looking at the impact they can have on soil fertility and our immune system… Like I read recently that 95% of bacteria are harmless to humans.

I: yes the majority do nothing like soil and water organisms.

J: Yeah so it seems like a shame that our perception on them is so negative. Of course you and others know how dangerous they can be and how important antibiotics have been but it’s a shame that there’s not so much emphasis on how critical they are to all of life I guess.

I: It’s true but if you think about something like Actimel, they’re supposedly full of ‘good bacteria’ and that’s a terrible phrase good bacteria. But they’re the bacteria that line your guts anyway so you’re just replenishing numbers of gut microbes. And the idea is that you line the mucus in your gut with bacteria that won’t cause problems and they prevent ones that will pushing through and getting into the body. I really hate the phrase good any bad bacteria but its been effective from a marketing perspective. I think those drinks work but they don’t do everything that they claim.

J: How do you feel about research on the intestine and psychological states? I’ve been reading a book that talks about how the microbes living in our intestine can influence what we would traditionally consider ‘states of mind’.

I: There are more nerves in the intestine than there are in the brain and spinal cord and with that in mind, it’s not really surprising that if you’re feeling ill that your whole body feels ill – that transmission from the gut to the rest of your body happens. The bacteria and fungi in your gut are living off the same food that you eat. And their waste products will come out into the gut as well. And those chemicals, those signals are what influence our body. Anything you ingest can affect the PH of your body and different microbes will live in different conditions so you can train your body’s system to be more or less acidic, affecting the gut population.

J: So is that something that you think about a lot in your eating decisions and life?

I: I tend to think about it when thinking about disease and thinking, how did that bacterium take hold of that person? Have they ingested something that hasn’t been cooked properly? But it’s true, any microbe can produce a chemical in the body that might produce a signal down the line. And in the gastrointestinal tract, the mucus layers are full of things like immune cells which give out their own set of signals. Any bacteria or fungus or whatever can influence human cells either by the chemicals they produce or the way the body responds to those chemicals and you can end up with human behaviour which is a little different just by what the bacteria and fungi in your body are doing.

It is a bit weird to think about. You can have so many species of bacteria or fungi in the gut and you can think… most of the time we’re alright and we don’t feel sick of have diarrhoea and we’re not stressed because of that so that body adapts. But every now and again, one will get through which either produces a very dangerous chemical like a toxin or it effects the gut in some other way.

J: So what’s your method of teaching? I imagine that it’s pretty different to the arts courses but is it very practically based like using microscopes a lot?

I: I suppose so yeah. It’s funny you say that, this afternoon I’m doing a lab class with a collegue of mine … antibiotics… and we’re looking at cases of infectious disease. And what we’re doing is we’re giving people different plates of bacteria – have you seen those petri dishes? – We’re giving a series of petri dishes and we’re asking them to identify what’s caused the disease and one of the things we’re doing is microscopy. And to look at them, is quite weird actually. Because you see say a picture of somebody with a disease and you don’t necessarily relate that to the organism that’s causing it. So it should be interesting. Quite good fun.

J: In the petri dish, is it contained within like a liquid or anything?

I: They’re on a semi-soli surface which is like a jelly like surface called agar and the cells reproduce on that. So they produce something that’s just about visible to the eye with that a lot of the time. But if you can see it with the eye, it means there are several million of them altogether. And we take a tiny bit of that and look at that under a microscope.

J: And is it moving?

I: Not on a plate, no. They do wiggle around under the microscope a bit but not on the plate no. Some species do move on solid surfaces, others don’t. It depends on the organism. In the body, some will reproduce in one place and others will migrate into the bladder for example it depends on the species.

J: Is there a difficulty within classification in microorganisms? Because I read something about horizontal gene transfer which seems slightly against Darwinian ideas?

I: it’s not necessarily against Darwinian ideas but what it means is that… unlike in sexually reproductive organisms like animals, they have to have two and mix their genes to produce another one… Bacteria copy themselves. They make a copy of the same cell. So in theory, if you had two cells from the same species and kept them completely separate and allowed them to reproduce, eventually by random mutation in their genome, you’d end up with different organisms. But they’re still going to be the same species just different subtypes. And sometimes... because they’re generally the same, just a little bit mutated then they can sometimes swap genes yeah. And that happens in the gut. As we speak, that’s happening in the gut.

J: I read something kind of ridiculous about how some microbe had taken some genetic information from a woolly mammoth’s bone?

I: Ooh I don’t know about that I’m afraid. That’s a bit out of my specialism. But it’s true between some of the same species. It happens in the soil. It happens in our guts. In the mucus membranes in our noses.

J: And do you know anything about fossils?

I: Not really no. Sorry.

J: That’s okay! Or like stramatolites… is that like a biofilm?

I: That’s not really my thing I’m afraid.

J: No that’s okay, no worries. I was wondering if there would ever be a situation where it would be un-intrusive for me to sit in on a class or watch something.

I: It depends what sort of class. I mean, a lot of the microbiology lectures have finished except for the third years but I think they’d be a bit hard to follow. In the first year there’s nothing on microbes at the moment.

J: Or lab sessions?

I: There are but unfortunately most of them have finished now. I’m really sorry there’s not much I can do about that.

J: I see and I suppose it might not seem like an equal exchange but would there ever be any opportunity to perhaps look through a microscope or gain any kind of supervised access to that?

I: I would suggest… Again, not with microbes because that’s all finished now.

J: Okay. I’m trying to think of a way to gain… instead of going on youtube and finding footage, actually having some real microscopic imagery of microorganisms.

I: If you go to the library. If you look up a book called… Broches biology of microorganisms… that’s a nice place to start because it gives you a nice look at what a bacterial cell looks like. It’s a really nice well written book. You might be alright with that.

J: Okay, nice one. Thank you so much for meeting up, it’s really kind of you.

I: No problem.

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lorrainecparker · 7 years ago

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ART OF THE CUT with Oscar-winner Conrad Buff, ACE

Conrad Buff, ACE started his career as a VFX supervisor and editor at ILM on iconic movies like Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars,: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi and Ghostbusters. He made his transition to the editor’s seat in 1985 and edited such films as Spaceballs, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, and Titanic, for which he won an Oscar for Best Editing with James Cameron and Richard Harris. Art of the Cut last interviewed him for The Huntsman: Winter’s War. We spoke to him about his most recent film, American Assassin.

HULLFISH: You’ve edited for a bunch of huge directors and you’ve edited for Antoine Fuqua several times – and, as a matter of fact, you’re cutting for him as we record this interview. What’s the advantage to working with somebody that you’ve done a bunch of films with?

BUFF: I think number one there’s just a comfortableness with having experienced each other before and then chemically clicking in a positive way and having on my end, freedom to sink or swim and try things. It’s a very comfortable natural communication. The first film I did with Antoine was Training Day and it was a pretty subjective process because it was reams of material. The actors spent a good amount of time in a tow car driving through the streets of L.A. So their energy would ebb and flow and there would be a good amount of experimentation on Denzel’s part particularly. So anyway that became successful and the experience was great. We just hit it off. I think that’s the same with any of the people I’ve had repeat business with.

HULLFISH: American Assassin’s a new director for you, right?

BUFF: Yes. Correct.

HULLFISH: What were some of the parts of trying to get in sync with him or to figure out how he likes to work or explain to him how you like to work. How did some of that relationship develop as that movie started?

BUFF: Well Michael Cuesta, the director in question, was pretty busy every day. Very rarely had time to come to the cutting room. There were many distractions on the weekends. So the way we ended up communicating basically other than a phone call or me running over to the set to say hi but he rarely had the time to come over to editorial. But using PIX I could post cuts for him so he would be appraised of progress and performances. And if I had any issues communicating through his assistants or email or phone call if there was time, but there was also a reasonably busy second unit, that Vic Armstrong was directing. So it was great being on location being able to coordinate between the two units. Additionally, I had producers requesting things and popping into editorial maybe even more than the director while we were shooting.

HULLFISH: Is there a danger of having producers pop in? Do you feel like you need to protect the director in those instances in some way?

BUFF: I certainly want the director to be aware that somebody is popping in and what they’re going to see. And I would certainly want the director to see it first so he or she could put a disclaimer on it, that it’s the first draft on my part and has no input from the director. But I worked with the producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventura before, in fact, it was on Training Day that we first met. And so I knew Lorenzo and I knew that he would respect the relationship between director and editor. And he did, so he didn’t see things that Michael didn’t see first. But it was good periodically to have them come in and get enthused by what they saw. There were times also where main unit would shoot something and second unit was on the heels wanting to know what they needed to cover and in that case, I would have to produce a cut that probably quite a few people saw beyond the director so everybody was in sync and knew what they were getting. In fact one of the clips you sent me, the training sequence when Michael Keaton is teaching the boys with the knives in the forest, that was one of those instances I had to work on a weekend because main unit finished on a Friday and second unit were shooting on a Monday and everybody needed to know what they needed and the producers were concerned that it was properly covered etc. etc..

HULLFISH: And so in the instance of that one particular scene the main unit I’m assuming is shooting the Michael Keaton stuff, the stuff that’s more dramatic and then the second unit comes into maybe get some fight footage and stunt players?

BUFF: Yes exactly. Although remarkably the two leads in that, Dylan O’Brien and Scott were both pretty darn good at delivering remarkable looking stunts. So it’s definitely a marriage of first and second unit that’s pretty seamless. Second unit did a lot of the detail work and some of the wider shots where they were doubled.

HULLFISH: Can you talk to me a little bit about that scene specifically about either what some of the challenges were or what your considerations were while you’re editing it?

BUFF: I was actually impressed that the real actors were amazingly adept at doing things that you wouldn’t expect them to do.

HULLFISH: That’s a big help to an editor, right?

BUFF: Right. you don’t have to be concerned about masking or digitally replacing, covering up something, cutting away before you want to, that kind of thing. And that applied to that final fight in the boat sequence at the very end. Taylor Kitsch and Dylan O’Brien did almost everything in that sequence. There’s only an extremely limited number of shots that were stunt people. All the more remarkable to me because Dylan O’Brien had had a bad experience where he had been injured terribly on a previous film and the fact that he was willing to be so physical in this one was an interesting surprise to me.

HULLFISH: Talk to me a little bit about that stunt work. It’s one of the things that I just talked to Elizabeth Ronaldsdottir about who cut Atomic Blonde. She was really very forward about how much she discussed the scenes with the stunt choreographers.

BUFF: The blocking on this film, I really didn’t participate in the design of the fight sequences. There was basically a fight coordinator and then there was a second unit director and main unit, So all three were contributing. I was not involved in any preplanning other than receiving some sort of sketches from the fight coordinator that he had shot on video that indicated the blocking and the general idea where he was going to go, shot on an empty stage. So there was some sort of a template but it wasn’t something that I would follow. It only allowed me to see what the blocking was because the shots themselves and the action within the frame are going to dictate a completely different pattern and different requirements.

Dylan O’Brien as Mitch Rapp in AMERICAN ASSASSIN to be released by CBS Films and Lionsgate.

HULLFISH: I’ve only done one big action sequence like that, and the first cut was incredibly long.

BUFF: (Laughs) That happens.

HULLFISH: My question is that action sequences are not like a scripted dialogue scene where you say, “OK this person says this and this person says this and this person says this and they finish their conversation.” With a fight or action sequence, you get footage in and it doesn’t say “right hook then left hook then something else.” So how much are you being driven by either that template that you said you got earlier on, or just throwing it all out the window and looking at the dailies and just saying, “It doesn’t even matter as long as they start here and here?”

BUFF: Well there is a pattern to the coverage at least most of the time. There is a pattern to it. There’s a blocking that is set and rehearsed, practiced and how it’s covered varies frequently. It’s covered to death, all sizes, angles. Punches always need to be sold with the recipient of the punch is usually facing away from camera or blocked if you’re facing someone’s face and they’re receiving that punch the proximity of the fist to the face photographically looks like it’s connecting. Sound effects go a long way to selling things that wouldn’t necessarily be accepted visually when they’re silent.

HULLFISH: When you’re cutting, especially an action sequence or fight sequence, how much do you feel like you need to put sound effects in right then and there to maintain not just whether you can sell it properly but even the rhythm of it?

BUFF: I don’t worry about putting sound effects in right away. I cut it for visual impact. I want to make it as strong as possible and interesting and varied as possible. What I do find is that once I’ve established a cut, and if I have time to put the sound effects in, or if I don’t and I have to pass them on to the assistant to do it, frequently there are adjustments required because the sound does impact the visual considerably and it needs some slight modification to really make it work properly with the sound.

HULLFISH: When you’re cutting those do you bother with production sound at all, or is it distracting?

BUFF: Usually it’s a lot of grunts and a lot of vocalizations, very little impact of people hitting the ground or any kind of chest punch or leg kicks or anything like that. It’s a tough thing to get recorded. All of it requires audio sweetening.

HULLFISH: There were at least two places where I noticed pacing changes between very fast edited sequences going directly to slower edited sequences. One of them was between the fight scene in the forest and the following scene of the CIA talking in the embassy about nukes. And the other one was another fight sequence followed by the female agent gently cleaning Mitch’s wounds in a hotel room.

BUFF: Well, in the first case, the fight scene with the knife, the training sequence, that originally lived in a different position that was later in the film. But quite late in the game after a preview or two we realized that the training sequences were well liked by the audience. So structurally it was advanced just to get the ball rolling sooner. Script-wise, it was not written that way, but I think the latter scenes you’re referring to were structured on the page the way they are in the film. The way Michael shot that nursing — tending to Mitch’s wounds — was very simple.

HULLFISH: Did you find that you tried to create these tempo changes or that that’s some way satisfying to you to have these kinds of musical ebbs and flows.

BUFF: I think it’s a function of writing more than anything really. It depends on the structure of the script.

HULLFISH: Do you want to talk about temp music?

BUFF: I told Michael that I had my hands full on this all in terms of the volume of material and the two units, main and second. I told him that I didn’t really want to put time in putting in temp music, in order to sell scenes. I wanted the scenes to stand on their own. And he was delighted to hear that. In a previous experience, he watched the editor’s cuts and there was a lot of music that he didn’t care for. I think that just clouds perception. I would rather keep things as straightforward as possible unless the director has something specific he wants to try. These days I’m just really shying away from throwing that stuff in because to me the final structure is so far away. I can put in something that will help sell a scene but it’s too seductive. You can make anything work if you add score. But structurally it may not ultimately want score. It may work better in context as a dry scene. But if you’re so used to hearing a certain cue for having music at all you find it odd when you’re not watching it with it. I just think it’s too seductive. There are times where if you are doing a montage or something you might need something to drive it. But more and more I just shy away from it. I have ideas and I listen to things that I think might be appropriate but unless it’s demanded or if I have to show some scenes to the studio then I might reconsider and put something in. But most of the American Assassin was dry. Once the shooting finished we brought a music editor in. I gave her reels and I gave her some instructions. Michael talked to her and she just ran with the ball. I just would rather spend time on performance structure.

HULLFISH: Speaking of structure, let’s talk about transitions. There are a couple of places where you’re dealing with intercutting an A, B and a C story. What were some of the considerations when you were going through those sections about where to come back and forth or did they stick really close to the script?

BUFF: I think there was some experimentation early on of restructuring either scenes or parts of scenes. My first cut was obviously honoring the script but I think ultimately we found that for the most part, the script structure worked. We actually undid some of the experiments of breaking up scenes and intercutting. A much more linear approach ultimately.

HULLFISH: What about the intercutting from the various A and B stories at the end of the film?

BUFF: There were a lot of parallel scenes and all of that was broken up a little differently than what was originally written. And then the whole last part of the third act with the Navy, there was a late shooting requirement in order to get the Navy’s cooperation. They had to write a new draft for the part that contained their story and their participation on the show. And it turned out to be a real mess. It was so lethargic, trying to be so technically correct in honoring the accuracy of how the Navy would handle things. Dramatically, it just put you to sleep. So there was a lot of reconstruction in that area.

HULLFISH: What were you dealing with to be able to try to get the pacing of the editing in that very effects-heavy section?

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BUFF: Storyboards originally, then pre-viz was made. We all participated in that but then the pre-viz itself needed to be opened up. Basically, the pre-viz didn’t incorporate the reactions of the Navy or Mitch… the helicopter, the pilots, all that sort of thing. So I used storyboards initially and then pre-viz once they got it. The pre-viz gave us the shots that we needed to commit to financially. So we knew what the duration of them would be. It was up to me to place them.

HULLFISH: I’m assuming that VFX have changed significantly from back when you worked on Star Wars.

BUFF: (laughs) Yeah!

HULLFISH: Does that experience of working as a VFX editor on films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. and Ghostbusters – does that help you as the picture editor on a film like American Assassin?

BUFF: I do have a very good understanding of how things work and what the requirements are and what the timetable is and what the demands are and the accuracy of what you need to turn over and honoring the shots and sequences in an economic sense. And I know what to expect and how to interpret things when they come in. I can pre-visualize things pretty well and get a good sense of timing even with just a storyboard. So having that background was helpful. That was kind of my detour to get into feature film editing. I’d worked in commercials for quite a few years before ILM.

HULLFISH: What kind of discussions between you and Michael Cuesta went on before he got involved in the shoot, in other words, what did he tell you he was after or what kind of discussions led you to know you were making the right choices or that you two were on the same page?

BUFF: He and I had a very long Skype call, that was our introduction to each other. He was in New York and I was in California and we talked for an hour and a half. But when I got to London it was right before they began shooting. So there was no real time to have much of a discussion. We had dinner together one night. I could really tell what he wanted just when I received dailies and I’d listen to him talk with the actors between takes I mean there’s a certain osmosis to all of this. You react to what you like and you hope that the director is going to like what you like. I find that the most freeing thing is to stop worrying about what you think a director’s going to like and just worry about what you like and what you react to. You glean so much from just watching the material of tone, color and what their taste is and the developments from take to take.

HULLFISH: Many people have talked about that approach to a scene. For some people, they like to watch the set-ups and takes of a scene backward. But many people like you have said there’s so much to be derived from seeing the progression of takes.

BUFF: Yeah, the evolution, and what changes and notes there are from shot to shot even if you don’t have the opportunity to hear anybody discussing between set-ups, you can see the subtleties and differences from take to take.

HULLFISH: Conrad, thank you so much for your time today. Good luck to you and Antoine on your current film.

BUFF: Alright man, thanks. Take care. Bye

This interview was transcribed using SpeedScriber. (Transcribed in under 10 minutes with no wait for a transcriptionist.)

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 interviews in the series provided the material for the book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV Editors.” This is a unique book that breaks down interviews with many of the world’s best editors and organizes it into a virtual roundtable discussion centering on the topics editors care about. It is a powerful tool for experienced and aspiring editors alike. Cinemontage and CinemaEditor magazine both gave it rave reviews. No other book provides the breadth of opinion and experience. Combined, the editors featured in the book have edited for over 1,000 years on many of the most iconic, critically acclaimed and biggest box office hits in the history of cinema.

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