#they really need to hire creative directors they really like

[tame-a-messenger]

It might be because I’m a Starkid/TCB fan and they do kickstarters all the time (side note: there’s actually one going on right now that is on its last day so go back tinlightenment bc Chanse Arasha and Angela are gonna be in one of the projects so if you want to see them in more stuff go back it ANYWAYS back to the purpose of this post sorry lmao) but I don’t understand why they don’t just do a kickstarter for smosh summer games or anything else they want to do that’s too expensive for them to be able to just do. I mean I KNOW that if they do a kickstarter they’d be able to raise so much money. TCB has raised $200,000 in two weeks already and Smosh has a wayyyy bigger fan base who would probably be willing to fund bigger projects especially if there’s other little rewards for backing like most kickstarters have. I feel like they don’t have an excuse not to do bigger projects when they could easily kickstart stuff and make a shit ton of money. This fan base is loyal and clearly has money they are willing to give so why not take advantage of that so you can make big projects everyone can enjoy?

THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING

WTF

ARE

THEY 

DOING.

They have the reach, they have the opportunity, YET THEY COMPLAIN ABOUT “We thought we might not be able to keep Smosh afloat” “we didn’t know where Smosh was going” “It’s really expensive” LOSER MENTALITY!!!! YOU HAVE A HUGE FUCKING COMMUNITY WILLING TO HELP WITH MONEY OR OTHERWISE. USE IT. lame excuse. 

We have PROVEN time and time again that we’ll give them money to do cool shit, idk why they refuse to catch on… (they literally were making $262 a minute on the last fundraising livestream, they KNOW we will donate money) especially if they advertise it! and give incentives! LIKE THE DOG CONE THING THEYVE BEEN DOING! (I fucking LOVE ANGELA! she knows how this SHIT WORKS. And she always is so so so appreciative of any/all the money donated !!!<3) like I get it if they give us a days notice (like they have in the past) they aren’t going to get as much as they could.… this is giving me a headache how BAD THEY FUMBLE SIMPLE SHIT LIKE THIS, there HAS to be a reason they are so fucking bad at this stuff!

Let me in there!! I don’t know anything about running a company, but SURELY I could do better than whatever tf they’ve been doing!

Please if you take anything from this, BE HARSH ON SMOSH about why they don’t do community fundraisers for stuff!! it does not. make. any. sense. why they wouldn’t.

[thursdayg1rl]

didn't realise that the summer I turned pretty season 2 was still going lmaoo. I finished episode 6 and was like well damn I guess this is it. here we go again ig

[sanstropfremir]

I listened to n//mi//xx pre release bc I thought maybe their songs would be more appealing to me now that they're doing a mini album and so far I'm just confused with jyp A&R team. Like who signed off on the song??? I think it's great to sample things and try stuff but like... other kpop groups have sampled nursery rhymes and made them fun and interesting! but this felt too on the nose and just uninspired almost. Like I can see what they may be trying to do but??? It didn't land for me personally.

Like there is a way to experiment with thought and care you know?? I'll still check on their mini bc they may have a song like cool your rainbow which I loved!! But oh well.

I did finally check out x///g shooting star and found it super fun! And cupid by 50/50 is great! I prefer the twin version shockingly lol.

i........................................

man i don't even know on this one. i'm not even sure i can see what they were trying to do here, this is all just so......weird. i know often melodies and songs that are associated with specific things in the west don't always have their connotations transferred over when used in other countries (ex on douyin christmas music often gets used as bg music for random vids bc its usually royalty free + is just random music to most ppl in china), so i'm not expecting koreans to be familiar + have the same nursery rhymes......but still. i agree there are intelligent and thoughtful ways to experiment with sampling and musical structure and the connotations of different melodies but personally i don't really consider anything nmixx has done to have actually been that thoughtful or coherent.

[inkabelledesigns]

It's incredibly frustrating and exhausting to have to question every piece of media that passes your screen as to whether or not it was made with generative ai. I don't like that I can't trust people not to use the literal theft machine for their projects. Especially when it comes to indies.

Like, so there's a new indie horror game called Zoochosis, right? I have no stakes in Zoochosis, a game about a zookeeper that's trying to stop the spread of a mutation with the animals isn't really my speed. But I'd heard of the people who made it before, and I wanted to see if they'd grown. The devs behind it are also responsible for another game, Sparky Marky, which used ai voices, much to my frustration. I tuned into a stream today where someone was playing it, and after hearing a little bit of the dialogue from Doc, I asked if they'd hired actual voice actors. The streamer seemed unconvinced that they had. So I immediately turned it off and decided to go hunting instead, because I needed to know if real people voiced in Zoochosis. I needed to know if this dev team learned anything from their last experience.

Thankfully, there are credits for the voice actors of this game, but they're very far down, which is a little disappointing. The common threads between them is that most of them have a Fiverr page, so I imagine they were hired through there, but I can't confirm that. Frankly I don't love Fiverr given they are also run rampant with generative ai right now, it's not inspiring confidence. But a number of these voice actors have full on websites for their voice work that seem pretty legit to me. In the case of Doc's voice, Tim Stephenson, most of his work is in commercial voice over, not character voice acting, so that explains some of what I was hearing. Commercial VO and character acting for games, shows, etc. are different skills with different needs. Just because someone can do one very well doesn't necessarily mean they're perfectly equipped to do both, especially when I didn't see credits for a voice director here. Without a director, you're recording remotely and going off of your instincts, and while many actors can have great instinct for performing, getting a performance that fits the vision of the project still requires some communication.

I think it's too soon to tell if these actors were actually paid for voice acting, of if these are ai voices synthesized from their likeness. The game is so new that it hasn't shown up on their imdb credits or personal website credits yet, and until it does, I'm gonna be a little skeptical. At the same time, there are many explanations for why the voice acting sounded off. The dev team behind Zoochosis has a lot of names that lead me to believe they may not be native English speakers (and I'm fairly certain I've heard that from others too). Writing and editing dialogue for a game in a language you don't speak is NOT EASY! That's a big ask, and if that's what's happening here, then I'd actually be very impressed by the quality of what I'd heard. It's just...frustrating. I expect this from big corporations and companies, but Zoochosis is an indie game. The folks over at Clapperheads are a small team making this thing real. And I'm troubled by the idea of an indie team, something built on passion and a desire for creative freedom, using generative ai. They're not the only ones to do so. Pastra, a YouTuber who loves indie horror, has started a series of videos that play into this found footage/news broadcast horror story, and for part of it, they used ai generated images of photographs of children to represent the victims of the monster. And they defended this by saying that it was better to use these generated images of children than actual real children. And I'm just sitting here confused by that. Because like, the model that that generative ai is trained on is using stolen images of real children to make those fake photos. So not only does it fall under using a child's image without consent, but you don't even know what children you've stolen the visage from. That is not a good look. The same goes for Indigo Park. AI was used for the opening footage of Issac Indigo introducing the park, and that's part of why his facial movements are so janky. Mason from UniqueGeese at least apologized and said he'd do better next time, but like...the chapter 1 revamp came out and that wasn't changed.

It's small stuff and big stuff, but either way, it's not okay. Until generative ai is trained only on data that is given to its developers consensually, it is not a viable tool for creation. It's not ready to be tested until the ethics part is worked out, and even then, I don't think I'd ever want to touch it. Like I get it, game development is hard, and in the indie scene, it's hard to make it all come together. But also, I expect a project built on passion to at least TRY to be creative in its solutions, and for the people making it to know better than to use stolen content. I expect better. Maybe I'm wrong for expecting better. But I expect better.

I'm just...disappointed. It makes me feel like I can't touch anything in modern media. Like I may as well go back and only play games, watch shows/movies, and explore stories made before 2023. At least then I can trust that it was probably done without the use of the theft machine. That's such a hopeless thing, giving up on modern art and all the potential it comes with. I don't want to give up on art. I don't want to give up on people telling meaningful stories in modern times. Please, humans, keep making art with your own two hands. Please give me something to be hopeful for.

[rhaegang]

Felix is the first male Victoria Secret angel and he still models the girls underwear. I like the idea of Ollie being a full nerd for this one, awkward and awfully dressed and nobody understands how he pulled this iconic gorgeous model. Maybe their relationship gets revealed in one of those "what I eat in a day as a Victoria Secret angel" bc Oliver is the one that lovingly prepares everything Felix eats.

HMMMMMMM

I feel like Felix is far too large to model anything VS has ever made — they notoriously run small.

But maybe they’ve decided to get progressive & try to capture a new market segment with high-femme notions & lingerie for the masculine frame. And of course since that’s such a bold business move, they can’t afford to let it flop, so they sign *the* hottest new thing in male modeling — a nepo baby whose mother used to be a VS Angel, in fact, which is the only reason Felix Catton agreed to the contract…

At first, he thinks it’s career suicide, but Elspeth doesn’t let him turn it down. She sees the VISION.

And damn it, but after his first runway in those angel wings and strappy, greecian wrap sandals, Felix does too. He’s never felt hotter than when he was hearing all those shocked gasps and clicking camera shutters. He knows all eyes were on his miles of tanned legs below the lacy, cheeks-out shorts. He knows his broad shoulders look even more delicious when decorated with the satin ribbony straps on a babydoll negligée.

At the recommendation of the creative director, he lets his hair grow out a little longer until it floats around his face in beachy waves just like the women he walks the runway alongside. He starts wearing makeup and earrings in his day to day life, but it’s all rather tasteful. Just some brow pomade and BB cream and pearly highlight, maybe mascara on his lower lashes to really knock people over with his big brown doll eyes. Maybe an adhesive gem beauty mark under one eye. Nothing ostentatious.

His social media was already popular but it has EXPLODED. He’s had to hire someone to manage it all for him. Finding someone was too difficult to do himself, he got overwhelmed by all the options and the resumes and that, so he asked Venetia to do it.

She told him she found someone perfect for the job of not just running his socials but of being his 24/7 personal assistant. A photographer with graphic design experience who has been unemployed for ten months, so he’s desperate enough to deal with all Felix’s wild demands and harebrained ideas.

When Felix meets Oliver, he thinks the guy looks more like a software engineer than a photographer, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize the waxy Nerd coating is thin and what’s underneath is bitter and rich and sweet like dark chocolate and espresso powder.

The photos and videos Oliver snaps, edits, and posts to his socials are absolutely tip fucking top, too. View counts are through the fucking roof. Felix’s agent is SWAMPED with offers for booking him.

Oliver hates writing blurbs and captions though, so Felix takes to tiktok and reels to record short form content where he answers questions, rambles, and otherwise charms the hell out of all his followers.

It’s been about six months since Oliver was hired, and he moved into the guest room of Felix’s flat after the first month when he was insistent he needed more access to Felix’s “real life” to create the type of content his ‘roadmap’ required. (They started sleeping together like. A week after he moved in.)

That’s why Oliver is visible now and then in the background of Felix’s videos. It doesn’t take long for his followers to take note that this severe-looking, conservatively dressed nerd is a recurring presence. It’s confusing, and there are tons of questions in the comments, because Felix’s persona is entirely the opposite — spontaneous, progressive, boundary pushing, whimsical, coquette.

So Felix, still in his short, floral silk kimono robe and retro briefs with PINK branding across the ass, ambushes Ollie one morning. Oliver’s still got his chunky glasses on as he scowls at his giant 4k monitor while editing some photos. Felix gets his phone camera right up in there, saying cheerily, “Morning mate! You up for some Q&A with breakfast?”

And that’s how it comes out that they’re officially seeing each other: via livestream, over croissants and greek yogurt parfaits with green smoothie on the side (because Felix won’t eat his veg regularly unless Oliver puts them in a blender with pineapple and fresh coconut for him).

Followers still have questions. Too many questions. Because like, uh, how? How is THAT guy the one that Felix picked?

(They start to get it once Felix interrupts Oliver’s afternoon yoga for another stream, because holy shit, the sleeveless top and clingy yoga pants would be enough on their own, but that nerd is doing all kinds of intense upside down poses or holding himself up off the floor with just one palm, etc.)

[novelmonger]

I'm continuing on to the next LotR audio commentary. This one is with the design team, and there's a lot more people talking in this one! Including:

Grant Major (production designer), Ngila Dickson (costume designer), Richard Taylor (Weta Workshop creative supervisor), Alan Lee (conceptual designer), John Howe (conceptual designer), Dan Hennah (supervising art director/set decorator), Chris Hennah (art department manager), and Tania Rodger (Weta Workshop manager)

So here are some highlights of things that are new to me (after avidly watching all the BTS documentaries multiple times over the years) from FotR:

The guy who made the One Ring originally didn't want to do it because he didn't like fantasy, but then his sons badgered him until he agreed to do it - kind of a similar story to Viggo Mortensen, I think. He ended up contracting cancer and dying during the production of the first movie.

Alan Lee storyboarded a potential sequence for showing how Bilbo got the Ring. They would show Gollum grabbing a fish, taking off the Ring while he ate, and then it would roll away until Bilbo found it.

Some of Ngila Dickson's phrases and diction are pinging really loudly in my sense of deja vu - like, I remember hearing those exact phrases before. But I even went and watched the costume design portion of the Appendices, and none of it was a repeat. Have I actually heard this commentary before and then forgot all about it? @_@

The guy (the primary guy? I can't imagine it was only one person) they put writing on all the scrolls and things worked in a bank and had a hobby doing calligraphy. They hired him to do just a few things at first, putting writing on some props, but then it got to the point where he actually had to quit his job at the bank and start working full-time for LotR, and then continued to do stuff for merchandise for New Line. I do wonder what he did once the movies were all made and over with....

I always forget how they had to have two scales of everything. Not just stuff like Gandalf's staff or the sets, but they had to have two scales of all the props like cups and books and things. They even had to have two different sizes of horses, depending on the scene!

Lawrence Makoare, who played Lurtz, would have to start getting into makeup at 10 p.m. the night before he had a scene, so that he would be ready at 8 a.m. the next day @_@

Most of the horses used in the movies were Andalusian horses imported from Australia.

When they would film outside in nature, like in the forest where they shot on-location scenes for Rivendell, they would have to remove the native plants that were there, keep them in a greenhouse, plant whatever plants and other things they needed for the movie, then take them out again and put the original plants back. This would actually leave the area better than the way they found it, because they would remove weeds and things like that.

John Howe commented on how difficult it is to do hair in something like this that's meant to be kind of "historical," even though it's fantasy. Hairstyle is one of the things that is quickly outdated, so if you do it wrong, it can be jarring to watch the movie in later decades. He said, "I wonder how it will look 20 years from now." It's twenty years later, John. It looks every bit as good as it did in 2001 :')

Okay, I feel like this had to have been in the BTS documentary, but I don't remember it. For the moment where Bilbo goes Gollum-esque for a second when Frodo puts the Ring away, they morphed between his face and a puppet they made of Ian Holm looking deranged. Ian Holm was thrilled with the puppet and had several photos taken of himself with it, and then when it was time for him to leave New Zealand, they made a bronze version of the puppet and gave it to him as a memento! XD

For the shots of the Fellowship bursting out of the snow after the avalanche, they went to the Mt. Hart ski field, which was closed because of a blizzard. They were allowed to go out on the ski field, make snow caves, and film the actors bursting out into the open. The Hobbits wore Ugg boots over their hobbit feet in the snow when their feet wouldn't be in the shot XD Apparently, Richard Taylor actually asked Peter Jackson if there could be a scene of the Hobbits wrapping their feet in bandages or something, just so the actors could protect their feet a bit more in harsh terrain like that, but PJ said no, because the Hobbits' feet would be tough enough to be able to withstand all of that. Poor guys! x.x

Huh. I always assumed that they made the effect of ithildin by putting little glowing lights on the doors of Moria, or else maybe added it in post. But actually, they put some kind of reflective material on the design, and then shone a light from behind the camera, so it would reflect on the design and make it look like it was glowing! I feel like, if this movie were made today, they would totally have just done it with CG, but this makes it so much more realistic. Also, they had to paint the doors, but obviously couldn't paint over the reflective material, so they put plasticine over the design, then painted it, then took the doors to the site. They were still taking the plasticine off the doors when the whole crew and the actors turned up and started rehearsing the scene! So apparently, if you look hard enough, you can actually see a few small parts of the design on the door that are missing, because they accidentally left some of the plasticine on!

Okay, we all know about the crazy amount of attention to detail in these movies, but this story just takes the cake. In the room with Balin's tomb, there's all this Khuzdul writing on the walls. Someone wrote out all the text and had their in-house translator translate it into Dwarvish runes that they then carved into the walls. During one of the days they were shooting the cave troll battle, they had invited a Tolkien language scholar to visit the set, and he stormed out in an outrage, saying that someone had written something like "Joe was here" on the walls, which was disrespectful to Tolkien's legacy, etc. etc. Horrified to hear this, the art department got their translator to go over the set with a fine-tooth comb, trying to find the "graffiti" this guy had seen, because they'd already filmed a lot of shots of this scene, and they knew that there would be fans who would freeze-frame the scene and translate what's written on the walls. But they couldn't find it anywhere! So eventually they cornered the Tolkien scholar and asked him where he'd seen it, and it turned out that it was just some guy on the crew who'd told him that. Apparently, the Tolkien scholar was so uptight and serious about everything, this guy was just poking fun at him, and it snowballed from there. So they ended up wasting a lot of time looking for a mistake that wasn't even there, because that's how dedicated everyone was to getting every detail of this movie right.

The Moria orcs were originally designed to have pale, almost translucent skin (inspired by an axolotl! O.O), but when they saw footage of it on the first day, they realized the contrast with all the darkness in Moria was too much, and it made the orcs look like they were glowing, so they had to make them darker.

The eyes of the Moria orcs were enlarged after the fact, so when they made the prosthetics, they had to make the eyeholes extra big so the eyes would look like they fit after they were enlarged.

Originally, there was an idea that the Balrog would burst out from a wall somewhere while they're trying to jump across the gap in the stairs, and just generally make that scene even more tense and exciting, but then they realized that to do so would basically eat up half their budget, so they decided to do it the way it is in the final version XD

The boats' design was based on a leaf of a lemon tree. If you drop a lemon leaf in the water, it will look like a tiny version of the Elven boats! 8D

Ohhhh, so the scene where the Fellowship gets attacked by Orcs along the way down the Anduin was going to be a sequence at Sarn Gebir, where there are dangerous rapids, so the Fellowship has to land on the shore and carry their boats past. But then Orcs attack, there's a whole action scene, and they have to hurry back onto the water and navigate the rapids. But they never shot it, because right after they'd built the set and got all ready, they were hit with a lot of rain and flooding, and the water level in the lake where they were filming rose five meters and completely washed away the set. So that whole sequence got permanently canceled.

While working on Amon Hen, Alan Lee fell off the stone seat (kind of like Frodo!) and broke his wrist. Thankfully, it was his left wrist, so he could keep drawing.

The Uruk-Hai's hair was horsehair that they had to import because they needed it in such large quantities. In the location where they shot the battle at Amon Hen, the ground was covered with prickly bracken of some kind, so every time an Uruk fell on the ground and then got up for the next take, they would have to carefully pluck all the bits of bracken out of their hair @_@

The fletching on the Uruk arrows is supposed to be, not feathers, but Warg hair O.O

Okay, I knew they made a silicone dummy of Boromir for when his body goes over the falls, but they only had four days to make it?! :O

In the final scene, where Frodo and Sam are looking out over Mordor, what Sean and Elijah were actually looking at was a ski resort with cabins and a ski lift. "The one place in all Middle-Earth we don't want to see," indeed! XD

[thislovintime]

Photo by Matthew Asner:

“First day of school in 9th grade. I am nervous as hell because it is my first day of high school and it’s all new. I walk into my Social Studies Class and am greeted by the teacher who just happens to be Peter Tork of The Monkees. A guy I watched goofing around on TV religiously as a child was teaching me about the world. He was a tough teacher. We had a thing in his class where he would always think that I wasn’t paying attention. He would always make a point of stopping what he was teaching and say to me, ‘What did I just say`’ I would always answer him correctly and it always seemed to frustrate him. He was very smart and loved to read from Mao’s Little Red Book. I was truly happy for him when The Monkees started touring and he found success again. I took this picture in our schoolyard at New Dimensions High School.” - Matthew Asner (Ed Asner’s son), Facebook, July 1, 2023

“Since September he has been teaching English, math, drama, Eastern philosophy and ‘Rock Band Class’ at Pacific Hills, a private secondary school in Santa Monica, Calif. A college dropout, Peter got the job on the strength of his interview with Dr. Penrod Moss, the school’s director. ‘I like to hire people who are independent and creative,’ Moss said. ‘I was impressed by his personality and his ability to speak.’ […] While Tork the musician still has dreams of one day returning to the rock circuit, Thorkelson the teacher is happily planning his next course, ‘Mao, Marx and Mama.’ ‘I’m doing something important,’ he says. ‘I never do anything less than important.’” - People magazine, April 5, 1976

“For some time, [Tork] said, the students in his high school classes had trouble forgetting their teacher was once a teen idol. ‘Until I gave out a few F’s,’ he added, grinning.” - The Clarion Ledger, November 1, 1979 (x)

“I was a schoolteacher in Southern California, and I taught music as well as academics, and I really very much love to teach, and, and I think that if circumstances show me that I am not to entertain anymore or my entertaining career per se winds down, I would very, very much love to coach young entertainers.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, September 1989

“[A]s a teacher, I realized that in order to teach something well you need to understand what your student is going through as they try to learn.” - Peter Tork, The Journal Times Online, August 12, 2005

On a 2018 blog post at the Monkees Live Almanac, one former student, Mark, commented: “Best high school teacher I ever had […]. Tremendous empathy.” (x)

“I taught English and social studies. And sure, the kids probably saw me as a Monkee, but they got over that in a hurry. Once I lost my temper at the kids, they’d see I was just like all the others — and I probably lost my temper too many times, since I was in an angry state back then. I have a life now, that’s the difference. I have a spiritual core. I’m not Shirley MacLaine but I believe in greater or lesser worlds and consciousness. Most people think of themselves as cut off from each other; others know there’s a connectedness that can be tapped into.” - Peter Tork, The Boston Globe, August 10, 1989

“In the mid-’70s, Tork got jobs teaching English, social studies and music at two private schools in the Los Angeles area. The first job, which he enjoyed, was at ‘a radical progressive school in Santa Monica.’ The second was at a school he describes as ‘a holding tank for budding fascists. I couldn’t hack it. I found more integrity in being a singing waiter’ — his next job.” - Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1992 (x)

More about that next job here.

[b-skarsgard]

–How involved were you with casting, and what led to Bill Skarsgård getting the lead?

FITZJOHN: We were completely hands-on on all things, including casting. The usual suspects were thrown around by the sales agent saying, “We need to look at…” I won’t mention any names, but we did talk to some of the big A-league boys. I think it was Roy Lee who suggested, “What about Bill Skarsgård?” and when we first heard that, to be honest, that didn’t really strike us. You know, he’s not exactly a boy, he’s 6-foot-4–a pretty significant man. And then the irony of that was it got us talking about, “This kind of reminds me of that story about the baby elephant that’s tied to the stake and pulls and pulls and pulls and can’t get away. And then by the time it’s a big bull elephant, it doesn’t even try to pull the stake, which it could probably do in no time.” And that’s essentially Boy’s story, the way he’s been so programmed by Shaman. He should be the champion, but he cedes the king role to Shaman, who’s about half his size by the time he’s grown up. So it just felt right.

SWART: When we spoke to Bill, he was so excited about playing a true action role. He’s a massive martial arts fan, and so capable. He was like, “Yeah, I want to do the training, and as many of my own stunts as you guys will let me.” We said, “Well, that’s great, Bill, but remember, your character has no lines, you have no dialogue.” And he said, “Yeah, that’s what really gets me about this role.” He studied the old Charlie Chaplin silent movies; he not only prepared his body and learned the martial arts part, but if you look at the range of emotion on his face, there are some little homages to classic Chaplin as well.

The rest of the ensemble was very much the same, finding the right people to bring these wacky characters to life. When we interviewed the actors, as well as our heads of department, we told them, “Wave your crazy flag! However you bring these characters to life, just lean into your creative inspiration.”

FITZJOHN: Getting back to Bill, if you see what he does under all the prosthetics in IT, you still know what he’s thinking and feeling. He’s one of a kind, and if Hollywood hasn’t recognized that he’s a big star yet, I believe they’re going to after this movie.

What went into getting Skarsgård in shape and choreographing his fight scenes?

FITZJOHN: That was a pretty significant task. Our stunt coordinator, Dawid Szatarski, is incredible in terms of how he thinks. He thinks in movement. Dawid basically invented a fighting style for Bill, given his lankiness; he wanted him to move with big sweeping motions, and they spent quite a bit of time in Berlin doing the training. We also hired a really good fitness/strength coach, a nutritionist, who basically lived with Bill for about nine months getting him ready. I didn’t stay too far from Bill during production, and I would watch him do a 12-hour shoot and then go and do a two-hour calisthenics workout on the roof. I mean, the guy would work out during lunch breaks. He never stopped; I’d never seen anything like that commitment. He became Boy.

SWART: Dawid was also our 2nd unit director. I think he has three or four credits on the movie; he actually has a great cameo as VDK Dawe, the one soldier who just won’t go down. Bill’s relationship with Dawid was very special, and there were times when Dawid would go to Bill saying, “So, do you think you can do this stunt?” and Bill would go, “Of course I can do this stunt,” and we were like, “No, you can’t do this stunt!” There were many moments when I would have to tell Bill, “No, no, you’ve got to use a double for this, because if you twist your ankle or something at this stage of the shoot…” But Bill was up for anything; he was like, “Well, then don’t challenge me,” you know? “Don’t dare me.” And we were like, “We’re not daring you!”

FITZJOHN: If we’re honest, Bill did the bulk of it; it’s not a battle we won in the end. Outside of the stupid, crazy stuff, like when we were throwing Boy down from a double-story balcony, he pretty much did everything.

I’ve heard that Skarsgård originally did Boy’s voiceovers himself, before H. Jon Benjamin came in and took over. Can you talk about the reasons and that process?

FITZJOHN: It was always going to be H. Jon Benjamin. I mean, Moritz called it at the same time, when we were casting. The short had this Marlboro Man voiceover that just doesn’t match with Boy. And even with Bill’s versatility, we needed to explore something like that. He did an amazing job, but the audiences wanted the almost bipolar nature of it.

SWART: It’s the absurdity of his inner voice, right? So in the short it’s the Marlboro Man, and Boy gets his voice from an old cigarette commercial. For the feature, we recorded Bill, which did give us a great connection to his character, but we found that we lost the absurdity of where his inner voice comes from. It took something away from the physical performance and the storytelling.

FITZJOHN: And also, given the nature of the story, the humor of H. Jon Benjamin gives us a reprieve, in a good way, from a pretty dark, dramatic and violent story.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

5 Years Ago, 'Black Panther' Changed the World — But Marvel Failed to Change With It (msn.com)

what do think of this I think it does bring up some fair points

I agree, it brings up some really good points.

We have to be careful though not to fall for the belief that L&T or The Marvels are being criticized because the directors are not white. There is a part of that, racists everywhere unfortunately, but we need to analyse the product like we would with any other director. L&T is just not a good movie and The Marvels is not bad but it's not good either and it's certainly not a sequel for Captain Marvel.

So while Da Costa surely will be getting a lot of hate directed at her for being a POC woman, when it comes to discussing her work I have also seen a lot of people claim if you don't like what she does that means you're racist. So there's a fine line there.

With that said, they get scrutinized a lot more, the demands they have to face are much stricter and when their work is subpar we have to hear the "Women can't direct" which is something you never hear when the bad director is a man (I heard many critics of L&T and Quantumania but none of them said men can't direct).

Da Costa is probably facing the same fate as Brie Larson. When Chris Pratt got a lot of hate a few years ago, everyone jumped in to defend him. But Brie was mostly left alone and now it seems Da Costa is going through the same thing. If the studio can't be arsed to take a stand and defend them, are we really surprised the MCU fanboys feel free to hate on them?

There's also the fact that as per Da Costa's own words, she had no full creative control of The Marvels and the movie is pretty much a Feige movie. Where's the criticism aimed at him? 🤔

One thing from the article I agree with is how fake this "diversity" from Disney/Marvel truly is. The critics love to claim Phase 4+5 are not good because the MCU is focused on diversity but... is that diversity being used well?

Is it really representation when Loki says "a bit of both"? When Sam is Cap but we haven't heard from him since his series (but we get Captain Brexit bullshit every other week)? When some female characters might be taking the spotlight but their stories are not written well and their characterization is all over the place?

Black Panther works (and Wakanda Forever too, that movie is so good) because it's a well-crafted story that is not patting itself on the back every two minutes for how "woke" it is. It's quite simply a good movie done well that focuses on POC. And it works, of course it works!

The way Marvel/Disney approach diversity and representation nowadays is as follows: They do the bare minimum for clout, enough to anger the bigots and keep the rest of the audience happy. They have the best of both worlds: The bigots complain (thus fooling the audience into believing what the MCU does is actual rep), and when we complain that it's not enough, we're paired with the bigots and told we're racist, sexist, etc. It's a vicious circle and Disney loves it.

I really like this part of the article:

“There is a symbiotic relationship between studio and fandom but at the end of the day, the studio sets the tone. Trust that the people you’ve tasked with telling that story can do it to the best of their ability. Stick behind your actors, directors and screenwriters because filmmaking is a collective thing. You have to work as a team.”

That includes sharing the scripts with them in their entirety, being there for them when unfair criticism and hate are thrown their way, hiring more diverse people behind the scenes so we can get richer stories, delivering when providing representation... This is all something they are NOT currently doing.

[lokiondisneyplus]

For 30 years, Dan Deleeuw has worked in visual effects, from “The Mask” to “Armageddon” to “Night at the Museum” — but he always had a dream that one day, he might get to direct. That opportunity finally arrived in 2019, when “Avengers: Endgame” directors Joe and Anthony Russo — who’d worked with Deleeuw on VFX for their three previous Marvel Studios productions — hired him to shoot some additional photography for the behemoth production. That gig led to second unit directing jobs on 2021’s “Eternals” and 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” and then, finally, to the main directors chair for the second episode of Season 2 of “Loki.”

Deleeuw, who oversaw visual effects on Season 1 of the show, presumed that he was hired because of his proficiency handling the action beats of the episode, in which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his TVA compatriot Mobius (Owen Wilson) pursue a rogue TVA trooper (Rafael Casal) to 1970s London, and then later reunite with Loki’s variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) at a McDonald’s in 1980s Oklahoma. But Deleeuw says that executive producer Kevin Wright told him he was hired as a director because, even when working on visual effects, he “always talks about story.”

Deleeuw also discussed how both he and Ke Huy Quan — who joined the show for Season 2 — were surprised by how Hiddleston approached rehearsing the show, why the production decided to have Sylvie working at McDonald’s — and his reaction to the recent decision by Marvel’s VFX artists to unionize.

Since Sylvie is living in a branched timeline, did you ever discuss having an alternative version of McDonald’s, rather than the actual McDonald’s?

We started saying, OK, she’s gonna settle down on a timeline, what restaurant do we use? At that point, there was a pitch for RoxBurger — you know, the evil corporation in the Marvel Universe, Roxxon. But it didn’t tell a story other than it was like this faux-restaurant. And so McDonald’s came up as a suggestion. And McDonald’s is timeless, in a way — it crosses countries and borders. Everyone started talking about this nostalgic moment they had with McDonald’s. So quickly getting the audience cued into what Sylvie’s feeling — being on the run so long and seeing normal people, and just wanting to have that and leave everything else behind — we’re using McDonald’s to set the audience in a place where they can pick up on that pretty quickly. That’s what kind of sealed the deal on using McDonald’s.

Rafael Casal in Episode 2 of “Loki.” Courtesy of Marvel Studios

What was one of the biggest surprises about the experience of directing this episode?

Something I’ll always try to do on any other show that I direct: It was the openness to collaboration that Kevin Wright had, particularly encouraged by Tom Hiddleston and his experience in the theater. As the scripts were getting closer to being done, we would invite all the directors to come in for their different episodes. All the actors would come in. The writers are there. And we had a week-and-a-half, two weeks where we went through every single script, and just rehearsed them and played with them and made them better. It was just this wonderfully creative moment on the show. Once we got shooting, we had a really good idea of what we wanted to do. Ke [Huy Quan] sat next to me. He saw it all happening, Owen and Tom playing with lines. He leaned over and he’s like, “Is this normal?” I’m like, “It’s normal for them!”

You’ve been working with Marvel for over 10 years now, largely in visual effects. Did you always have an ambition to direct as well?

Yeah. In high school, in college, we did small films — public access, back when there was public access. It was something I always wanted to do. Even from the visual effects standpoint — designing the sequences and doing animatics — telling the story was something I gravitated to. When I got to work with the Russos, they definitely were encouraging of that and gave me the opportunity to shoot additional photography on “Endgame” that led to me doing second unit directing. I just always approach something from a story standpoint. So Kevin Wright saw that I had that kind of brain, and invited me back for Season 2 to direct.

How did he pitch that to you?

Being at Marvel for 10 years, there’s a little bit of a rumor mill going around. So I knew that they had hired Justin and Aaron, and then heard that Kasra [Farahani], the production designer, had gotten an episode. I was like, “Ah, there’s one left!” And then Kevin called me one day and he’s like, “Yeah, so, how’d you like to direct a ‘Loki.'” “Yes!” It was as simple as that.

Last year, several VFX artists who’ve worked on Marvel projects expressed pretty deep frustration with their working conditions, which contributed to the recent decision to vote to unionize. What has your experience been with those issues?

I support everything they’re doing. I’ve been in it for a long time. The number of hours in visual effects have been ingrained in the system for years. From the very beginning, we always had that crunch time. We take a couple months off, and we come back to it again. What you’re seeing now is, the shows are so much bigger, and you’ve got so many shows. A lot of the artists on set, and especially in the visual effects houses, are going from one big show to the next big show to the next big show. 

There has to be something that makes a better work-life balance, for the artists’ sanity and for their families and just their creativity. Otherwise, you’re getting diminishing returns. It’s your crew. You have to take care of them. That is something I think we have to think about and work out.

How did your experience in visual effects have influenced your approach to directing this episode, especially with regard to the VFX?

I can tell a story with something that isn’t there. In the original draft, there was a car chase. It didn’t make a lot of sense why Loki would be in a car chase. We decided we wanted to go a little bit more towards the dark Loki side and move away from a traditional chase. I was imagining one day, “What could Loki do?” and came up with the shadow gags with the horns and things like that. 

Was anything you did that a director who hadn’t worked in visual effects might not know to do?

You already know what it costs in terms of time and difficulty, and when you’re trying to get through your day, what you’re going do to [VFX artists] if you try to shoot without getting the blue screen just right Because I know the consequences, I’ll fight harder for getting it right, so the artists don’t have to deal with it. Getting into post-production, you know how much you can use an effect to help with storytelling, in terms of if you need to change the set a little bit, just to make it make sense for where Loki is. There’s an editor we have at Marvel, Jeff Ford, who’s cut a lot of the films. Jeff is a master. He doesn’t change his cut to fit the footage, he changes the footage to match his cut. I think that’s an insightful way of knowing how to use  some visual effects in post, without getting get too carried away with it. 

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log: The Last Dam Job

"all a man has in this world is three things: His business, his posessions and his name". Well thanks for telling Nate exactly what to take away from you. I'll admit the name might be most difficult but should be doable. "They're my team..." "I certainly know them better then you"... Ok so that explains why we had the cocoa futures con. Because they were trying to seed the idea of a con-by-proxy. But that con relied in it being a mere distraction, which is why they could afford amateurs. Having the professional con-artist see through the con was part of the con. It wont be here.

Which means Nate's gonna outsource this con. Now im putting in the exact time in the episode where im analysing this. Its currently 1:49 in the episode. And im gonna make some guesses as to whom we're getting this episode.

Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, Thief.

I think Nate might still be the mastermind, because he doesnt have to be up front in the con for that. I mean there is

Grifter is gonna be Tara.

Hitter... I dont think we have much for that, there arent a lot of Back-up Elliots around in this show. There's his friend from the Boys Night Out, and there's his distaff counterpart from the Van Gogh Job. (by which i mean the first Van Gogh job, where everyone was up against their equivalents. The woman who was former Mossad or something?) Im betting on her,

Hacker: We literally only have Chaos, if there is a second hacker im forgetting then im blanking entirely. So i think we're going for "tell everyone Chaos will betray them. But we do with what we must" situation.

Thief: Its strange how Parker has three counterparts and everyone else has only 1 or 2 up for grabs. But Thief could be Archie, Himbo-lupin or Apollo. Now i've already bet on at least 2 members of that crew so its not gonna be Apollo, and i dont think Himbo is as likely as Archie is. (especially with last episodes plot being thematically linked to his debut episode, and this being a two-parter that is verry much about family and parental relationships) So my prediction: Nate is still mastermind, but he probably has a decoy. Tara Chaos and Archie are locked in. And I dont think that Distaff Elliot whose name isnt coming to mind RN would willingly work with Chaos again, so probably pull his friend back?

Those are my predictions. Time to let time resume ---" "welcome to the next time". Congrats on the directors and actor for selling a line that stupid. Its not a good line but they somehow made it work. (8/10)

"Dubenich is already in jail what's left to do to him" Sophie, you know Nate. There is so much left to do to him. --- Ok yeah, its a proxy-job like the Futures Con. Also shout out to last episodes creative use for duct-tape as an improv weapon, it was awesome but i didnt feel like stopping to write it. But combined with this seasons use of the Wurlitzer pipe and now the fire extinguishers for a blinding chemical excellerant gun that serves as a bludgeon i want to compliment the fight choreographer or whatever position is in charge of that decision. You did good work this season.

---

So to see if my predictions are right: Quinn. I have to admit i dont know who you are. I think you might've been a hired goon from an earlier episode but I did not remember you. Archie! I almost feel like I shouldn't score you. But also, Parker has the most non-imprisoned foils in the show so you actually had the most competetion for the thief slot. I wonder what is going through Bio-daughter's mind. "Dad has a second family?" Chaos. Because every episode needs a designated moment where the plan seems to get fucked, and a designated traitor was the simplest call.

Im counting three not five. Thats suspicious. Now Tara famously got introduced by being in disguise for an entire episode so she might be a man on the inside when our heists get called. But so far im gonna call it as 2/3, with a possible "nate is still mastermind" for 3/4 ---

Cant really read the glass-board. But also, every bone in my body says this episode could've ended right this moment as Dubenich looks at the glass board. I think it was the Season 1 finale where Hardison blew up HQ? Using Dubenich own signature move against him, in a way that directly parallels the S1 finale? That would've been the move. --- Hardison and Chaos in total agreement for the one time in their life. (they are right, this is legally a batcave)

Archie straight for the jugular. (also tasers, good to see where Parker gets it from) --- "How many fingers do you need to type? round down!" Im sorry for not remembering you existed allright. --- Ooh i love the invasive species ploy. Its simple yet genius. --- Double-heist! Stealing the sword and destroying the entire vault! Dubenich realises he fucked up in his conversation with Nate. (always love it when the mark is just smart enough to realise how he fucked up). --- Elliot almost shooting Dubenich... Quinn and him are bros. --- and that is Maggie! I'll admit, i expected Tara. But i guess she meets the "someone who is not in the game" requirement. Shows got one over on me twice. 2/4.

"if temptation counted as cheating no marriage would last for a year", and going straight for the jugular with Jim. --- Chemical Warfare! Drug a guy and smuggle him off to the fucking Cayman Islands. With all the goods you stole from him. (remember, if Nate has a "signature move" its framing them for Insurance Fraud.) --- -"I do care" -"how does that feel" -"getting used to it" --- "my son would be ashamed of me if I was a murderer... My father on the other hand, he's buy me an ice-cream". good line. 9/10. Ah, Now i understand the importance of the experimental job. Seeding Prisoners Dilemma in the audience awareness so Nate can play them against eachother in the finale. Good one. --- BIG KISS! --- I like how they ask nate if they can keep the cave, like little kids asking their parents about a stray dog that has been following them around.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

I’ve said a lot that productions can find Jewish actors by looking for them and hiring authentically Jewish performers and not continuing the centuries old trend of Jew-face. So something that a lot of people have asked me about is the legalities of searching for actors of one ethnicity over another.

The short answer is that it’s done all the time. Movies and TV shows look for certain types of actors all the time. I’ve posted before about how a movie was looking for an actor with a prosthetic limb and was searching for actors with prosthetic limbs. It wasn’t rude of them to “exclude” all actors without prosthetic limbs. It was who the character is and it needed to be shown accurately.

But here is an old casting notice from Instagram for a Marvel thing (I omitted all other details because it’s months old and I don’t want anyone to think I’m sharing a current audition)

Notice how it says who they’re looking for in huge letters.

Then notice how the legal stuff is on the bottom of the page where it says they are committed to diverse casting of performers of all ages, sex, ethnicity, race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender orientation, or any other thing protected by law.

They have to say this legally. It doesn’t really mean anything during the casting process like this.

People have said “Rachel was cast because she auditioned and they can’t discriminate against her because she’s not Jewish.”

That’s not discriminating, that would’ve just been finding someone for the role.

The same way that if an 8 year old, British girl submitted for the audition above, it wouldn’t matter how talented she is. She could be the most talented little baby actress ever, but she’s not Indigenous or a veteran so she wouldn’t fit the character. That’s not discrimination, that’s casting.

What is discrimination is authentically casting all other minority, and hell, even nationality, roles except for the only Jewish character, a character who is a minority ethnicity and religion. And then getting mad that people called you out on it (director, executive producer, creative consultant, actor). That’s discrimination.

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Big Corps, Again

Dear gods, every time I turn around, one of these big corporate jackasses is saying or doing something trying to force "generative AI" into the public consciousness as something positive ... and failing ... and doing it anyway.

The best one so far was Chris Corps, of Amazon, who actually straight-up said that there's not really any acting in video games. Yeah, tell that to Neil Newbon - the guy who did that scene (you know the one, after a very character-defining stabfest moment?) in one take, unscripted. Yeah, tell me AI's going to do something so glorious that the director's going to go, "No, we are not trying this again, we're just getting this lightning in the proverbial bottle and running with it!" I will laugh so hard.

(See also - one of the biggest reasons that SAG-AFTRA is currently on strike.)

Then we had EA at this big investor's conference, talking about how "We already use it, we're going to use more of it, this is what it looks like in use, it's great! It's a tool for our creatives!" ...And then they had someone basically pretending to have AI generate architecture. Which ... feels more like putting a pink slip in the hands of "their creatives" instead of a tool. I know people who do that kind of work and it's a lot more than slapping together a few bits of skyscraper and coming out with something that not even London would allow in its skyline. I may have a thing about the Lloyds Building being the ugliest bit of modern architecture in the world. Not to mention this one building that's largely glass and somewhat curved and they had to stop people parking in certain places on the street outside because on sunny days, the light reflecting off that fucking building would set people's cars on fire. And yeah, I don't think even London's whole avant-garde architecture bullshit of the Gherkin and the Onion and the Shard (... well, okay, the Shard's pretty cool) would have some of the shit AI generates in its skyline. Seeing the "AI assistance" Google puts on search results if you don't take some very specific steps to not have it there (which I have on my PC but not on my phone, so...), I feel like AI would design a building like Tesla designed the cybertruck. It's like ... some games are only really as memorable as they are because of their skybox, and you want to outsource that to a machine? Really?

I cannot begin to express how tired I am of this whole AI thing. Video game companies are just the loudest motherfuckers about the whole thing, same as they seem to have been with NFTs and all that shit. The entire industry is going, "How can we get more money?" So they went to "live services" and subscription services and "recurrent user spending", and that wasn't enough. So they laid a whole bunch of people off (and are still doing so, I am aware) in the usual boom-and-bust cycle that Chris Deering was talking about awhile back when he was whingeing about how no, really, layoffs aren't about corporate greed! The cycle we're talking about is how they lay off a bunch of people to look their quarterly earnings sheets look good, and then have to hire them back to get anything done. Thing is, they always hire fewer than they need and then they get a reputation for crunch and "stress casualties" and all the rest of it. And now they seem to be pushing AI as The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread in the hopes that people will leave them alone and let them replace all those people they don't want to have to pay wages for with a plagiarism-and-climate-crisis machine.

I think they know there'll be a loss of quality. Thing is, I don't think they care. See, they don't really want us to love games. Or movies, come to that. It's what Matt Damon said awhile back - they don't want entertainment to be loved, because things that are loved, we watch (or play, or read, or listen to etc) again and again and again. They want us to consume it and then throw it away to leave our metaphorical decks clear for the next thing they want us to buy.

It's the meme, isn't it. "NO WAGE! ONLY BUY!" This is not sustainable. This kind of thing is entirely terrifying in the context of Texas, where a judge appointed by Trump ruled a labour board as "unconstitutional". We're expected to tolerate any kind of abuse - being overworked, being underpaid, being treated like shit, the whole nine yards - and we're increasingly not being paid enough to live, let alone spend the kind of money these CEOs want us to spend on what they seem to be deliberately making into homogenous forgettable crap so we'll have room in our hearts and minds (and wallets) for The Next Big Thing. It's supposed to be bread and circuses, but both are increasingly too expensive for what we're getting.

Honestly, I don't know what happens next. This will get increasingly unsustainable, because these jackasses in the money seats are convinced that unlimited exponential growth is possible and nothing but the loss of their fortunes will convince them otherwise. But before they lose theirs ... well, they won't lose theirs because a lot of it is probably in an offshore bank account somewhere ... anyway, the people who work to make them their money will suffer long, long before they get so much as inconvenienced. So Chris Deering can bite me about how hard layoffs are for managers.

All that to say that AI is just highlighting the absolute worst of corporate policy, and I hate it. But I point you to an interesting article titled "Challenging the Myths of Generative AI", which might help if you're anything like me and end up in arguments about things like, "using someone's AI voice after their death is ghoulish and gross and I don't care how much you want George Carlin to read you your homework".

[blood-and-pizza]

Time for Fazbear Estate lore!

Melissa Pomene has a very important reason for wanting to work at Fazbear Estate. It's not the money, though it's definitely a bonus. It was actually her dream to work there since she was a child, because she wanted to reunite with an old friend.

When Melissa was nine years old, she had a birthday party at the original Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Her mother made her invite her entire school class as guests, even the students who bullied her regularly. Her father was picking fights with her class crush and his mom. Also, her parents were divorced at the time, and things had ended quite badly between them, Melissa having gotten caught in the fallout. Needless to say, it was almost a disaster of a birthday. If it hadn't been for Classic Freddy consoling her while he directed his bandmates to do damage control, Melissa could have easily had the worst day of her young life.

Instead, it was the best birthday she ever had. And it left a huge impression on her young mind. Unfortunately, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed later that year, and Classic Freddy and his band were shipped off to Fazbear Estate for their second retirement. Melissa got wind of Fazbear Estate through a surprising source... her grandmother, Francine Cantor, who used to work for William Afton and Henry when she was younger, as a song writer and creative consultant, but now holds a bitter attitude against Fazbear Entertainment as a corporate entity. She's tried to keep her family away from Fazbear Entertainment and its characters, but after learning how happy Freddy had made her granddaughter, she knew she'd lost that battle.

So, in order to reunite with Classic Freddy, young Melissa began studying robotics and artificial intelligence in the hopes that one day, she would be allowed to see him again. In the meantime, her mother Dorothy bought her a Lonely Freddy, who quickly became Melissa's new best friend, and the key to her understanding (at least at a basic level) what kind of goofy-ass coding language Henry concocted to make the animatronics as lifelike as they are.

When Melissa was thirty years old, she began programming a singing AI named Melody. She was eventually joined by Harmony, a harmonizing AI. She treated both of them like her daughters, with as much kindness and love as she would have given a human child. As their awareness increased, Melissa watched them grow and learn, and took careful yet eager notes.

Eight years later, Melissa applied for an interview at Fazbear Entertainment. She introduced Michael Afton (Creative Director at Fazbear Entertainment as well as the current owner of Fazbear Estate) to Melody and Harmony - stored on one of Melissa's laptops - and explained that she wants to build bodies for them, and knows that Fazbear Entertainment's robotics are the the best in the business. If she had a chance to learn about Fazbear tech up close and learn how to perform proper maintenance, she could give her daughters the bodies they deserve, and she could keep them in good shape for as long as she was alive. She also told Michael about her ninth birthday party, and how she really missed Classic Freddy.

Michael honestly thought Melissa was a little kooky... but you honestly NEEDED to be a bit kooky to work at Fazbear Estate. Plus, he really liked Melody and Harmony. Maybe they were a little on the cutesy side for his tastes, but he was genuinely interested in helping Melissa give them proper bodies. And so, Melissa was hired.

Seeing Classic Freddy again the day she arrived at the Estate put Melissa through a whirlwind of emotions. She was pretty sure he wouldn't remember her after all these years... but apparently she had nothing to worry about. Not only did Classic Freddy remember her, he remembers every single birthday kid he's ever met, something that was carried on in every generation of Freddy's.

Melissa may have sobbed like a baby upon learning this and needed Classic Freddy to give her a warm bear hug to help her calm down. She's very sensitive...

[0nlythrowharrybeaux]

pic 7 w angstttt

Warnings: Description of police raid, mentions of firearms, descriptions of arrest tactics, use of law enforcement force/violence, law enforcement in general

You were livid when your father forcibly tore you away from life in Paris where you were studying to be a fashion designer. All to be locked you up in an ivory tower he made for you until the apparent threats against your life subsided. Your father was this filthy rich industry tycoon who dabbled in shady things and so he was constantly concerned with your wellbeing. But after a deal with some partners had gone south he started to receiving threats against your life. So he decided that you'd have to stay at home until he was able to fix the situation.

The first month was the worst; it was really lonely and uneventful. Your phone had been taken and your communication with the outside world cut off. But things started to get worse in your dad's realm and that's when he decided to move your family to an estate you had outside of the city. You visited it a lot as a child and when you got back there after more than a decade everything was exactly as it had been. The mansion was enormous, and there were acres of land to roam, even a river about a ten minute walk into the forest behind the stables. You had spent the first few days re-exploring everything to kill some time. But there was a lot to keep up with in such a big place so when things started to pile up he started hiring outside help. There were day staff from the nearby towns, but then there were a couple live in people he hired. Harry was one of the few live-in staffers. He was actually hired on as a private chef.

He had been working there for a few weeks already when you met him in person for the first time. Your dad was kind of a prick about "the service staff" interacting with the family. But he and your mother had been gone on business and you had wandered down to the kitchen to let him know that you were in the mood for a burger and would order it in, so there was no need for him to cook for you. You were pleasantly surprised when you met him. He was almost too handsome to be real, a bit serious, and far too formal with you (that was probably because of your dad), but you helped soften him up over the 10 days they were gone. After about two months of secretly sneaking out to ride horses, go swim at the river, or get drunk in the stables during the night, you two started to hookup. You were absolutely smitten on Harry. And now you'd been together & sneaking around for about 6 months and the summer was imminent and you knew it was going to be a summer of love. You couldn't wait for all of this to be over so that you guys could finally be together out in the open like a normal couple. That’s all you wanted and looked forward to. You knew your parents would come around.

Harry knew he had fucked up when he started to spend time with you in secret. You were so nice, gentle, and caring - very opposite your parents. You had fun together and you were smart and creative and he had very quickly fallen for you. He knew you were being kept here for your protection; your father had many dark secrets, but they were all catching up to him. And well, Harry also had a dark secret. He was actually an undercover informant and he was about to ruin your lives. Like the fool he is, he had told you that he loved you about a month ago and you said it back. But time was running out and he knew that he would end up hurting you, but he didn't want to lie to you anymore.

"Harry?" he heard you call his name as you snuck into the stable.

"Yeah, m'here, darlin'." he hummed as he stepped out of the shadowy spot he was hiding in and you smiled and immediately tiptoed to attach your lips to his in a warm and affectionate kiss.

"Mmmm, missed you today. Been avoiding me?" you asked him playfully.

"Course not, was just busy. Had to go into town to do the shopping for the month." he said. And to report to the director of the FBI on the status of my mission and plan the tactics for the raid.

"Right...that was today." you said and he hummed and nodded. He kind of seemed like himself before you'd gotten to know him. Quiet, a bit awkward, and stoic...something was wrong, "H, what's wrong?" you asked him, giving in to your instinct to make sure he was alright.

"What do you mean, darling? I'm fine." he assured you.

"You're acting weird..." you said and he sighed.

"I am, but not because there's something wrong with me. It's just...I need to tell you something." you smiled as he said this, "It's not good." he added and your expression morphed into a concerned one.

"Did someone find out about us? Are you getting fired?" you asked immediately and he shook his head.

"No it's nothing like that. But ummm...it will definitely change things between us and I just think you deserve to know."

"Harry, just tell me! You're making me nervous!" you groaned and he sighed.

"Fine. Fine." he mumbled as he exhaled loudly. He was struggling to look into your eyes as he shared this with you, but lying to you felt much, much worse and it was weighing so heavily on his heart, "I ummm...m'not just a chef." he explained, "I was hired by the FBI to infiltrate your dad's operation and..." you could see that he was still talking but you couldn't hear past him saying he was an FBI agent.

Your hands immediately let go of him as you took a few steps back. You saw him frowning at your reaction, but the betrayal you felt was even greater than whatever he was feeling right now. What did this mean? Had he just gotten with you to have more access to things? Had you helped him get your dad into trouble? You knew he wasn't a good man, but he was your dad and you loved him.

"Y/N, love-" he reached for you and you stepped back.

"Don't touch me." you said to him and he frowned, "You've used me to get information on my dad. To gain access to the parts of the house that you're not allowed in!" you accused him with tears welling up in your eyes and he frowned.

"I did, but I didn't start to hang out with you for that purpose!" He said to you quickly and you shook your head, "That literally didn't cross my mind until we snuck into his study that one time we heard Mary coming down the hall. I didn't start doing that until after that time." still, that had been at least 3 months ago, "I love you, Y/N." he said and it didn't sound the same as before. You didn't believe it even as he looked you straight in the eyes, "My feelings for you are real and they've always been. That's why I had to come clean. It doesn't feel right to keep lying to you and I didn't want you to find out when they come raid the place-"

"They're raiding us?" you asked and he sighed and nodded.

"Yeah. In two days." he said softly and you shook your head at him in disbelief and in disappointment.

"I need to warn my dad." you whispered as you turned around and started walking to the stable door. You started running when you heard him calling after you and your tears fell even harder and before you could slip out the door he pulled you back inside and held you down against the wall looking into your eyes and before you could even scream he placed his hand over your mouth to mute down any sounds you made.

"I can't let you do that, Y/N." he said as you sobbed, "I know you might be angry at me and you have every right to, but your dad is a sick and bad man. You have no idea the kinds of things he's involved in. The trades he participates in." he said to you as you cried even harder. He removed his hand from over your mouth when you started to struggle to breathe and you pushed him off of your body and started to pace around as you tried to process this information, "And...your mom is involved too." he said quietly and you whipped around.

"So you're telling me that in two days I'm losing both of my parents?" you asked him through your tears and he nodded in confirmation.

"I'm so sorry. I'm just doing my job! I didn't mean t-"

"Ruin my life?" you asked angrily, "You're ruining everything." you seethed and he sighed.

"They're bad people! They deserve to be brought to justice. Do you know how many people will be better off with them gone? Do you know how many lives will be spared with them gone?" he asked and it made you sick to even think that your parents could be the reason others suffered. That they could be the reason someone lost their life. Yes, bad people deserved to be brought to justice, you couldn't argue with that. But a person never thinks that their loved on could be capable of cruelty worthy of an FBI raid. And why did it have to be Harry who did this to you? To your family? You loved him but you also hated him, you hated ever meeting him and you wished that you had just stayed oblivious to everything.

"I will never forgive you for this." you sniffled as you brushed past him and headed to the door again.

"You'll be thanking me for this when you see what they've been doing in the trial." he said to you and you kept walking. "Y/N!" He called after you because he had one last thing to say to you. He felt like it was the nail in the coffin as you sighed and turned around.

"What!?" you shouted in aggravation.

"No one can know about us. It'll ruin me." he said and you were shocked he was asking that of you, "And if you say anything to your parents or try to help them escape I'll have t-"

"I don't care, Harry. You do what you need to do, like you've done this whole time." you said softly and left.

The next two days were absolute torture. Harry had tried to come talk to you but you avoided him at every cost. And your parents too. You couldn't even look at them the same. You felt like the ground had fallen away from under you and you had nothing left but yourself to rely on. Your heart was absolutely broken at the lies and manipulation...you had told him things about your parents. Secrets that you knew he'd use against them. He had said you weren't part of the job, but you felt like part of the job and nothing would ever change that.

When the police came it was barely past 2am. Harry obviously knew that there were weapons in the home. So when they came the tactical teams just launched smoke and tear gas bombs through your windows and when you rushed out of your room, desperate for air, you were met by another tactical team with a flashlight and fire arm pointed to your face. They were shouting for you to get on the ground, but you couldn't breathe properly and could hardly see through the stinging in your eyes. You could hear your mother shouting and your father cursing up a storm as they arrested him.

You were facedown on the ground, crying as they twisted your arms into hand cuffs as well. You were hyperventilating, trying to tell them that you had done nothing wrong but no one was listening to you. You could feel them patting you down even though you were just wearing a big t-shirt, searching for any weapons on your person. They would grow angry when you would take more than a second to answer a question they'd ask you. And it was 15 minutes of hell like that as they searched your bedroom before they finally got you up and started to escort you down the stairs.

"Where are my parents? Where are you taking them?" you asked and you got no response from the two men holding each of your arms. "I'm talking to you, assholes!" you huffed through your tears.

As you got to the first landing you saw Harry at the very bottom of the stairs shaking hands with whoever was in charge of the raid, you assumed. It made you sick to your stomach and your legs started to give out, but the men holding you were dragging you down the stairs whether you were taking the steps properly or not. They didn't care that you were getting rug burn. They didn't care that they were holding you so tight that you'd probably bruise. They didn't care that it still hurt to take a proper breath or that your eyes were stinging. They didn't care that the cuffs were too tight and digging into your skin. You felt dehumanized and humiliated and you couldn't believe that the man you loved had played a part in this.

"Jesus, you didn't even get her any proper clothes?" the man beside Harry said which caused him to glance over to you as you got to the main floor. He looked disappointed, sorry, heartbroken, guilty... you couldn't stand to look at him for more than two seconds before you looked away as you cried quietly

"Why is she even in cuffs, she's the daughter." Harry said.

"She came out into the hallway so we just-"

"Un-cuff her! Now!" the other man ordered and they quickly got you out of the cuffs and you immediately brought your hands forward to inspect them. Seeing the red marks from the tightness of them made you so angry you wanted to scream and wreck something.

"Miss, we're so sorry for the misunderstanding. Are you alright? Is there anything we can get you?" he asked and you glanced up to him with so much anger simmering inside of you.

"Misunderstanding?" you asked him incredulously, "Fuck you." you seethed and he frowned. And then you turned to Harry who was sure you'd at the very least spit in his face. But you needed to be smart; even if your parents were awful people, they’d never done anything hurtful or bad to you, you couldn’t testify. And well, what Harry had learned from you also didn’t seem like fair information to have. He only had it because he had used you and you also didn’t want him to be able to testify, at least not credibly.

"Miss-"

"H, I love you," you said to him softly through your tears and though he kept his composure, you could see in his eyes that it was hurting him and you were glad, you wanted it to hurt him. You tiptoed and you kissed his cheek but were immediately apprehended by one of the men who had brought you down the stairs, "but you used me and you're dead to me." you seethed before they dragged you away. He felt the lump in his throat grown uncomfortably large and it felt like his heart had just been ripped out of his chest. He couldn't look away as you were harshly dragged away. He loved you so fucking much, but clearly, it just wasn't mean to be.

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‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’: Kid dentures, prison buff Iroh and more during PaleyFest

The animated fantasy action series Avatar: The Last Airbender has a passionate fanbase that can be very protective of the franchise. After a failed movie adaptation over a decade ago, some approached the most recent live-action television show with skepticism. However, this version was better received. At PaleyFest 2024, the cast and creatives came together to discuss the first season and their expectations for the future. 

Showrunner Albert Kim, executive producer and director Jabbar Raisani, and actors Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio, Ian Ousley, Dallas Liu, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Arden Cho, and Elizabeth You all took to the stage.

During the panel portion of the evening’s events, the audience heard some behind the scenes stories during filming. For example, Kim did not realize how young his lead actor was until he received a call from the production office about an accident on set. There was no fight or stunt accident, but Cormier did lose one of his baby teeth. A week later he lost another. Kim hired a denturist on staff to create dentures for the star. Imagine, a twelve-year-old with dentures.

Lee was the oldest cast member on stage, and he reflected on how when he was growing up, he never saw himself in the shows he watched on television. He felt blessed to be part of Avatar: The Last Airbender with such a diverse cast. He was especially excited to work with Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Fire Lord Ozai, and Ken Leung, who plays Commander Zhao. Lee loved Leung’s character on Lost so much, that he named his son Miles.

Near the end of the discussion, the actors were asked what they were excited to explore about their characters in seasons two and three. 

Kiawentiio touched upon how Katara has gained a new confidence over the course of the first season earlier in the night. She would like to see more of that confidence, and just more of the main trio. Ousley spoke how Sokka experienced his first catastrophic emotional situation with a love interest in the season one finale. Now there is a lot that he’s going to have to work through emotionally.

One of the most engaging pairs in Avatar: The Last Airbender is the uncle and nephew duo of Prince Zuko and Iroh. Liu is anxious for fans to see more their relationship.

“You get to really see how close Uncle Iroh and Zuko really are compared to the animated series. Carrying that over to the future seasons of our show, if you’ve watched the original, you know how big some of those moments are in the ending and at the beginning of season three,” Liu said.  “I’m really stoked for Uncle Iroh and Zuko’s moments in those seasons because I think they’ll hit that much harder because of what we built in season one.”

Lee felt that his TV nephew stole his original answer. He then jokingly responded with Prison Buff Iroh to be aided with the use of CGI. 

Yu is looking forward to playing a bigger role in Avatar: The Last Airbender. “Towards the end of season one, I think Azulah gains her freedom from the Fire Nation when she’s able to reign terror on the rest of the world.” With that new sense of freedom, Yu is hoping to finally be able to interact more with the other characters.  

For Gordon, his thoughts came back to his character’s flying bison. He shared, “In episode one we get to see Aang’s relationship  with Appah a little bit, and if we did get to dive into that more in season two and three, that would be so amazing. That would be awesomeness.”

The final words of the night came from Kim. He will be stepping away as showrunner of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Raisani and Christine Boylan will be filling in moving forward. But fans don’t need to worry about the change in creative leadership. 

“Both of them were so involved in the first season. They were so vital in making the season what it was so I have utter confidence in what they are going to do,” Kim told the audience. “I know that Christine, who is here today with a bunch of our writers who are all here, they are hard at work on the scripts for season two. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do as much as anyone. I’m very very confident and happy of the hands the show is in and where it’s going to go.”

Check out the rest of the programming schedule of PaleyFest 2024.