#v; innocence lost (pre mcu)

[ircnwrought]

__________✦      SHE DOESN'T THINK SHE'D RECOGNIZE THE GIRL WHO VOLUNTEERED FOR THESE EXPERIMENTS. an orphan with not a penny to her name && no one to call her own except a twin brother who was off somewhere in this facility to conduct his own training ( her chest tightens with mild panic to be out of sight for so long, somehow still believing they'll be separated even after all this time ) now, she has the power to do something good, to help the people who can't help themselves. ❛   i hope it's enough improvement that they'll say we're ready to go out into the world. they can't keep us here much longer, can they ?? we have more control over the magic than we've ever had.  ❜

a wry little grin tugs at the blonde's lips as she shakes her head. ❛ hey , if they gave me some basic soldier around here , i'd take him down. MAGIC POWERS MAKE IT SO MUCH HARDER. ❜ there's a half whine to her tone , but no real depth. in truth , she was a powerful asset -- wanda just happened to be an equal instead of her usual sparring partners. she takes a few sips of her water before sighing &* popping her spine with a stretch of arms over head. ❛ YOU'VE GOTTEN REALLY GOOD. i remember when you first got here. it's a crazy improvement. ❜

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Female Artists Fighting For Their Due Are Not Being Greedy; They’re Defending the Futures of Their Industries

Both Swift and Johansson have incited high profile disputes, and both have been called by critics the “wrong person” to serve as the figurehead for the big picture arguments based on how much money they make... Actually, it makes them the best voices for their causes.

"Scarlett Johansson" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (left). "File:191125 Taylor Swift at the 2019 American Music Awards (cropped).png" by Cosmopolitan UK is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (right)

In May of 2010, Iron Man 2 introduced Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A few months later, Netflix—whose subscribers were, in majority, still receiving DVDs—began offering a standalone streaming subscription independent from its DVD rentals. It wasn’t until nearly ten years later that Disney, parent company of Marvel Entertainment, would launch its own streaming service, Disney+. And in 2021, after three pandemic-related delays, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff’s solo film which fans had been demanding for 11 years, was finally released.

The long-awaited film garnered $80 million in North American theaters during its opening weekend, more than any other film released during the pandemic era. (In comparison, MCU’s last pre-pandemic release, Spider-Man: Far From Home, made $185 million). Because of the somewhat mercurial state of indoor gatherings around the world, Disney chose to make Black Widow available simultaneously in theaters and for an additional $30 fee for Disney+ subscribers. After opening weekend, in an unprecedented move in streaming service transparency, Disney revealed the film had grossed $60 million through Disney+’s Premier Access feature.

The next weekend, the film suffered a 67% drop in box office sales. Disney has not since released streaming numbers.

Within a month, news broke that Johansson was suing Disney over the film’s hybrid release. Her suit claims that her contract for the film guaranteed an exclusively theatrical release and that her compensation was largely tied to box office revenue, which was impacted by the film’s simultaneous availability on Disney+. The breach of contract is a serious allegation against the company, and it comes from the embodiment of one of the longest-standing pillars of its most successful franchise.

Disney’s response? Make her the bad guy. Paint her as the greedy, insensitive Hollywood prima donna. Publish her salary to prove it, despite a policy of “never publicly disclos[ing] salaries or deal terms.” And blame the pandemic.

In a statement, the company claimed Johansson’s suit had “no merit whatsoever” and called it “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Their argument here is twofold: 1) the pandemic prevented them from releasing the movie in theaters, and 2) she should be happy with the millions she has already gotten.

We have all had to make concessions due to the pandemic, albeit most of us on a smaller scale. But Disney’s sudden overwhelming concern for public health and safety is less than convincing. Their claim that they couldn’t have released the film in theaters proves baseless on account of it, well, being released in theaters. What they seemingly meant was that the pandemic meant a smaller payday from movie theaters, so they found an additional method of distributing the film that just so happened to free them of the obligation of splitting its revenue with the star, not to mention movie theater companies.

Appealing to the sympathies of the billions of people in the world who can’t even fathom the amount of money Johansson and her movie star peers earn for each film they make is a slightly smarter move. After all, a jury who decides whether she wins her case will likely consist of non-millionaires who may be biased against a woman who out-earns them by two or three digits. Regardless of the amount of money in question or the wealth of the individual, a deal is a deal, and a written contract is legally binding. The bottom line is that Disney failed to honor the agreed-upon contingencies (ie. a theatrical release). Not to mention, this argument expects us to forget that Disney itself is a conglomerate worth hundreds of billions of dollars, hardly a poor, innocent victim of a rich woman’s greed.

In fact, Disney’s mentioning of “the $20 million she has received to date” only broadens the scope in Johansson’s favor. She is a Tony winner, two-time Oscar nominee, and one of the highest-grossing actors in box office history. If she retired today, her entire family would be able to live a life of luxury for generations to come without having to work a day. So why nitpick over the extra $50 million or so she could have earned with a theaters-only release, cause a Hollywood-sized fuss, and risk the company dragging her name through the mud, as they so predictably did?

Let’s ask Taylor Swift. The singer-songwriter shot to international superstardom in 2008, making her the face of pop music. In recent years, she has fiercely advocated for artists’ rights after experiencing her own long and ultimately failed attempt to buy back her master recordings from Big Machine Label Group, which was acquired by music manager Scooter Braun in 2019.

Similarly, Johansson’s representatives attempted to reach out to Disney after the announcement of Black Widow’s hybrid release, which could possibly have amended their agreement and avoided the lawsuit altogether. But, like Swift, she was ignored.

Swift famously writes her own music, often from her own experiences. Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine, claims that she had the opportunity to own her masters, but, from both his account and Swift’s, the offer was contingent upon her staying with the company. Seeing as doing business with his company was what landed her in this situation, she was not willing to accept this condition, nor did she later accept Braun’s offer to buy back her music, a deal from which Braun would have profited and which came with its own condition: an NDA.

Her claim that Braun’s deal “stripped [her] of [her] life’s work” ignited a highly publicized feud not just between Swift and Braun but between their friends, loyalists, and supporters. Swift’s team shared her stance on artists’ rights while Braun’s defended his nice guy image. Braun himself didn’t comment, instead allowing his allies to take shots at the singer. His wife, Yael Cohen Braun, in an Instagram post referred to Swift as a “bully” and to her claim as a “temper tantrum,” telling her, “the world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers.” Justin Bieber, a client of Braun’s, suggested Swift's intention when expressing her disgust over the deal was “to get sympathy.”

Even after selling her masters to a private equity firm for $300 million in November 2020, Braun continues to profit off every CD and every stream of every song from every one of the six studio albums Swift recorded while she was signed with Big Machine, an agreement she first entered into at age 15.

Where Johansson is clearly in the right legally, Swift is morally right. Borshetta and Braun were under no legal obligation to sell her the rights to the songs she wrote and created, but they should have.

Both Swift and Johansson have incited high profile disputes, and both have been called by critics the “wrong person” to serve as the figurehead for the big picture arguments based on how much money they make. Two multi-millionaires are hardly the best representatives of the little guy trying to make it in the entertainment industry. It’s no skin off either of their noses if they don’t revolutionize the way artists and actors are paid.

Actually, it makes them the best voices for their causes. The millions of dollars at stake in each of their deals, while massive amounts to the average onlooker, would be a drop in the bucket of their wealth. Yes, they both have huge platforms and established fanbases they can use to garner support, but the fact that they have no skin in the game is their real strength. They don’t need the money, which proves they’re not doing it for themselves.

Disney is trying to hide behind the pandemic to defend its decision to release Black Widow on Disney+, but the issue was present even before the pandemic started, evident in Johansson’s agreement that the film have an exclusively theatrical release. Her suit claims she insisted upon this contingency when the streaming service was launched.

Streaming changed the game. Johansson is likely not the only one to have lost out on media companies’ failure to compensate talent fairly in the wake of the streaming evolution, but she is the first to draw the amount of attention to it that she has. Her claim opens the eyes of fellow actors, film distributors, and the public to an issue that extends beyond her: if the film industry is capable of adapting their content to this new source of distribution, then they can accommodate the role of actors into the changing environment and pay them, and other individuals who make their films possible, what they’re owed.

Record companies can stand to shake things up, too. Contracts that grant an artist’s masters to the labels that produce their music, such as the one Swift signed with Big Machine in 2004, are the norm in the music industry. Hers is far from the first battle to be fought by artists over the rights to their own music. There was the famous Paul McCartney v. Prince debacle in the 1980s, for example. In most cases, revenue is doled out to the label, the producers, the managers, and, last and least, the artists. It’s a system that assumes the performers are just lucky to be there, to have the opportunity to become the next Taylor Swift.

But streaming isn’t just for the movies—it’s changing the music game, too. Artists used to be entirely dependent on record companies to promote their music and get it into the hands of radio stations, but streaming sites and social media have allowed artists to release music independently. Working with a record company is still highly advantageous to an up-and-coming artist, but the other options available to them leave some breathing room for an artist to negotiate and retain the rights to their own music.

So, will wins for Swift and Johansson mean making two rich people richer? Yes. But it also starts a conversation. It gets the word out to young artists and actors that they should expect more from the publishers and executives they work with. And it sends a message to CEOs and big corporations: change with the times.

Since leaving Big Machine, Swift has signed with Universal Music Publishing Group in an agreement that guarantees her the rights to the music she creates with them, from Lover on. She is also in the process of re-recording her first six albums, an endeavor that began with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April and will continue with the scheduled release of Red (Taylor’s Version) in November.

“Hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation,” Swift wrote in a post. “You deserve to own the art you make.”

[ircnwrought]

__________✦      A WILD POWER IS DIFFICULT TO CONTAIN, DIFFICULT TO CONTROL. she feels the magic lurk beneath her skin, begging for release. it is easy to call, harder to put away. she has barely scratched the surface of her ability && yet she knows it will grow in its might. for now, she trains in the hope that she may leash it to her will, not the other way around. ❛   no matter what they call it, it is rather beautiful. there is much you can do with something like that. hopefully you'll make ending up on your ass less of an occurence.  ❜ the teasing comes easily, a stark contrast to the soldiers they are shaping to be.

❛ I WAS ALWAYS BETTER AT RUNNING AWAY. usually ended up on my ass when i tried to fight my way out of things. ❜ a thankful smile is given as she takes the bottle. emma takes a moment , drinking some of the water as she works on catching her breath. ❛ your power is wilder than mine. it reminds me of fire. mine is more like [...] sunlight ? ❜

she straightens up &* looks down to her own hand , conjuring up the glowing white &* gold light that spreads across her palm &* fingers , gleaming up like pure sunlight. ❛ which makes sense , i guess , since they're calling it light magic. ❜

[ircnwrought]

__________✦      A SOFT SMILE TUGS AT PALED LIPS AS SHE APPROACHES. water bottle in hand, she offers it to the other in a peace offering. she's filled out a bit since volunteering, food more plentiful than stealing for scraps on the street. yet with each experiment, each new power unlocked by the stones, she focuses on where she came from. the gaunt nobody who moved from foster to foster ( until finally running away from the system after being separated from the only family she has left in her brother ) still dreams of a better future for her people, her country. this job, this organization, promises her the tools to protect those who can't. it promises her power to change the world for the better.

✦__________      DESPITE HER INITIAL NERVOUSNESS IN LEAVING THE ONE HOME SHE'S EVER KNOWN, she's glad she's found a sort of kinship with the other witch. growing in their abilities with an acknowledgement that they were not alone. it is more than she's ever had before. ❛   sorry. pietro taught me how to fight growing up, so i could take care of myself if we were ever separated.   ❜ a red glow dances between her fingers as she watches the graceful moment closely. ❛   i'm still getting used to the extra strength all this brings.  ❜

❛ YOU REALLY DIDN'T HOLD BACK. ❜ turns out , there was no one better to train alongside than a fellow witch. in some ways , she found @ircnwrought a counter to herself. light magic versus chaos magic. the two girls weren't so different in age , &* their powers weren't so dissimilar. they were a good match for training. of course , emma's been here nearly a decade , since she was just eighteen. experiments &* training were her daily --- gave her a sense of purpose , one she'd never had prior to taking the opportunity of joining s.h.i.e.l.d. she's found she actually enjoys sparring --- certainly more so than having to actually put lives on the line out in the field. wanda &* pietro were steadily becoming a new part of her daily.

❛ i know i said don't hold back , but jesus ------ ❜ a tired laugh escapes the blonde as she bends over , hands gripping thighs while lungs try &* catch up. ❛     just  give  me  a  minute  to  recover.    ❜