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winter-soldier-vibes · 4 years

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One Step at a Time (Sebastian Stan x reader)

One Step at a Time

Summary: You are filming with Russo brothers and Sebastian etc and you feel insecure because of all the other actors and work out too much and slowly stop eating; one day on set you almost pass out and they call it for the day. Sebastian gets worried because he’s a great guy and comes to help you.

Sebastian Stan x reader

Word count 2536

Warnings: eating disorder (working out too much and restriction), fainting, insecurities

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When you found out you had landed the role of Tony Stark’s daughter in the new Avenger movie, you were beyond stoked. You had been an actress since you were little, but this was your first big role. And not to mention you’d be working with some of your favorite actors and actresses.

Your first day on set, you were...overwhelmed. You were ecstatic, but it was a lot to take in. Seeing these big movie stars that you had grown up with, you felt like everyone was looking at you. You had a lot of expectations to fill.

Everyone of course was extremely nice to you. The first person to see you and introduce themselves was Sebastian Stan. He already had his ‘metal’ arm on his left arm. He gave you a warm smile and said “Hey, you’re the new kid, right?” You nodded and held out your hand. “Yes I am. Y/n.” He took it. “Sebastian.”

You laughed a little and said “Yeah, I know.” Your eyes widened and you added “I mean - not in a creepy way, just like a ‘you’re a huge movie star’ kind of way” He laughed too and said “Yeah, I know what you mean. Good to meet you.” he said as he walked away.

As soon as he was far away enough, you let out a breath and internally face-palmed. You just made a fool of yourself in front of your favorite actor. Great. This was a great start.

The first few days were a little awkward, being the new person on set. But after that you settled into a routine. You and Sebastian bonded pretty quickly, him treating you as your on-set father figure. And being so close with Sebastian came hand in hand with being close with Anthony Mackie and Chris Evans. You couldn’t complain. It was all you could hope for.

There was only one issue.

Being around all these movie stars playing all these superheroes could be tough. Everyone was ripped and in great shape, and you couldn’t help but feel like you looked soft compared to them. Anthony always talked about his obsession with leg day and his thighs, often ranting about how “You ain’t never seen a tree without a trunk,” whenever anyone would give him crap about it. This always ended in laughs, but you couldn't help but feel like you should be working out more than you were.

You started tagging along with the others to the gym, and began going for walks or jogs on lunch breaks or when you weren’t needed on set. When you didn’t see any changes, you cut out all junk food too. You still ate, just everything had to be clean. What started in good spirits ended up getting you way in over your head.

You began only eating if you were asked to tag along to eat with the others. This happened pretty often, so you started making excuses, saying you had work to catch up on or you were going to go over your lines. But most of the time you would either go for a run or be so tired that you just fell asleep before you could put on your running shoes.

You could see changes within the first few weeks. You were toning up and losing weight too. And the others noticed too, saying “Hey, lookin’ good kid.” You liked it, and if anything it made you want to keep going. Your portions got smaller and you stayed steady with the cardio. But if you were honest, you were exhausted.

All you wanted to do was sleep but you wouldn’t let yourself. You would force yourself to keep up your routine. You didn’t feel hungry anymore and couldn’t really bring yourself to eat much of anything. No one really suspected anything to begin with, but they noticed how you were lacking energy lately. They chalked it up to anxiety or just not sleeping well.

One day, you were filming a fight scene, and it was you and Sebastian fighting against a bunch of extras playing Hydra agents. The scene entailed some of the others, but for right now they just needed the two of you. There were a lot of stunts in the scene that shouldn’t have been an issue for you. You could do them in your sleep. At least, that was what was true over a few weeks ago.

You could feel the exhaustion that hadn’t left you in days putting you off your game. You kept trying to shake your head or dig your nails into your palms trying to wake up. Sebastian looked over at you as you slapped your face lightly. He gave you a puzzled look. “You okay there y/n?” You looked over at him and plastered on a smile. “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well last night I guess.” He smiled and laughed a little. “Yep. Been there more times than I’d like to admit.”

As the Russo brothers called action again, you attempted your sequence for what seemed like the 10th time. When you missed your punch you sighed, and called out “Sorry!” with frustration.

“Cut!” The Russo brothers looked at each other and said “How about everyone take 10.”

The crowd started to disperse and you walked off set to your water bottle. Sebastian followed you, and gave you a concerned look. “You sure you’re doing okay? You used to be able to do this kind of thing no problem. Seriously, what’s up?”

You shook your head and took a sip of your water. “I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know what’s going on,” you lied. You set your water back down on the ground, but when you straightened up again, a wave of dizziness hit you. You reached out for something to grab onto, but the only thing was Sebastian’s arm. He straightened up and held one hand on your arm and the other on your back to support you. “Woah, you okay there?”

You nodded, even though you couldn’t really hear what he had said. You knew what he asked. A wave of nausea hit you and you got this weird taste in your mouth. You got tunnel vision, and started seeing spots. You shook your head and your legs gave out. Sebastian caught you and helped you down to the ground.

Not knowing exactly what to do, he tried to figure out what had just happened and why. He called out for one of the set medics, and they rushed over, checking you over. You came to after a few minutes, confused as to why there were now 2 people standing over you and how you had gotten to the ground. You tried to sit up but the medic and Sebastian stopped you, gently pushing you back on the ground.

The medic packed up, saying “Your blood pressure is extremely low. I’ll tell the Russo brothers to have you sit the rest of the day out. You should get some rest, and eat a decent meal tonight.” You widen your eyes and sat up, ignoring their protests. “No, I’m fine, really. I just got up too fast. No big deal.”

Sebastian looked at you, concern and confusion on his face. “y/n, you just fainted. You need to take the day. It’s not exactly a suggestion.”

You sighed and brought a hand to your pounding head. Sebastian nodded to the medic, silently telling him that he could handle it from here, and he left, leaving the two of you.

Sebastian sighed. “Hey, since I won’t be needed for what they work on, why don’t we chill out for the rest of the day? Might be nice to have some downtime together.”

You looked at him for a few seconds, weighing your options. There was no way anyone would let you do anything but rest. Might as well not be alone. Nodding, he helped you up gently, heading to your trailer. You were grateful it was just the two of you, and no one else had seen what had just happened. It was embarrassing to say the least, and a really close call. No one knew how sick you actually were.

The two of you decided to have a movie marathon of the previous Marvel movies. Sebastian would add funny commentary or fun behind the scenes information as the two of you watched, and despite what had just happened, you were having a great time.

That is, until it was getting late enough for dinner. Sebastian paused the movie mid-credits and turned to you. “Now, what do you want? I can head down to where the caterers are and grab something while you stay here.”

You tried not to look completely panicked while also looking for a response quickly. You knew you couldn’t talk yourself out of this, but you also didn’t think you could eat something even if you wanted to. You decided to try to avoid the situation by saying “I, uh… I’m not crazy hungry. I’m just like, super nauseous from earlier.”

He gave you a strange look. “You didn’t join us for lunch earlier today though. And you heard the medic earlier today. You need to eat something.”

You looked down at your lap. Yep. That didn’t work. You cleared your throat and crossed your arms, standing up and walking around a little. “I dunno I guess.”

He shifted his weight before stepping closer. “What’s really going on here?” he asked gently, and you averted your gaze.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t know -”

“I think you do,” he said, stepping closer and making you look at him. “What am I missing here?”

You sighed and looked down at your feet which weren’t far from Sebastian’s. You tried to look for the right words to say, opening your mouth but no words coming out. You didn’t know how to tell him, but you couldn’t talk yourself around this any other way.

“I just don’t really want anything to eat right now, is that a crime?” you tried. He tilted his head and asked “When was the last time you ate something?”

You snapped your head up and gulped. You shook your head. “Seb -”

“Y/n.” he said more firmly, and you knew this was it. You looked down, not wanting to meet his gaze out of shame. “A few days ago,” you whispered.

But Sebastian heard you and took a step forward. “What - what do you mean a few days ago?” You stepped back and turned your back to him, feeling incredibly uncomfortable right now. You could feel anxiety building up inside you, “Look, I’m sorry okay? I’m - I can’t… I’m sorry, it’s just -”

He turned you around and you searched his face for anger, disappointment, disapproval, something, but all there was was genuine concern.”You don’t have to apologize, I just...Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?”

You sighed, trying to look for a better answer than the one you were about to give. When it was obvious that you couldn’t, you hang your head a little, saying “ It’s just - everyone here has their place. And everyone here is perfect. And I don’t know… Everyone’s just so ripped, Anthony being obsessed with his thighs, it’s just a lot. I don’t know… I just don’t feel like I’m worthy of being here. And I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do so I tried to fix it.”

It was then that you looked back up at Sebastian, and you didn’t know how it was possible, but now he looked even more concerned. He didn’t know what to say, but he wanted to know the right thing to say. “What made you think that?”

You shrugged. “I dunno. I just felt like I had to earn my spot here.”

He shook his head. “Y/n, listen to me. You don’t need to earn your spot here. You’re already a part of this family. You were casted for a reason and you prove that every damn day you’re here.”

You shook your head for a moment. “Also, where’d you get the idea that we’re all perfect? Because we’re not.” He laughed for a second. “We’re all far from it. And don’t mind Anthony, that’s just a thing he does. I don’t really get it either. But none of us are perfect.”

You bit your lip for a second. “I don’t know, it’s just… Like it started as a small thing but now...I’m just not even sure I could fix this if I tried. I just wanted to be better than I was I guess.” You shook your head. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“That’s okay,” he said. You looked at him with a confused expression. “It’s okay that you don’t know what to do. But it’s not okay to keep hurting yourself like this. You’ll get sick and days like today will happen more often. No one wants that. We all love you here.”

You laughed for a second, not believing him. “We do,” he said a little more firmly. “You’re a part of our team now. Our crazy, chaotic, mess of a team that we are. No escaping us now,” he said, smiling at you. You laughed a little, nodding your head. “Thank you,” you said, looking up at him.

He shrugged it off. “Nothing to thank me for. Now, how about I go down to catering, get us both something, and then we can go from there. Okay?” Sensing your hesitancy, he added, “I’ll be here to talk you through it if you need. We can watch a movie or just talk, whichever you prefer. Yeah?”

You paused, looking between the floor and Sebastian, while he looked at you hopefully. Slowly, you nodded your head. “Yeah,” you said. A little more sure of yourself, you said, “Yeah, sounds good.”

He smiled at you and gave his head a nob. “Alright, I’ll be right back then.” You gave him another smile and sat back down as he left, leaving you alone in your trailer. You let out the breath you didn’t know you had been holding and put your head between your hands. When Sebastian came back, you sat up again, trying to hide the tears in your eyes. He smiled at you and sat down next to you, handing you a container of y/f/f. You just held it, staring at it. You had no idea how you were supposed to eat that. It’s like you had forgotten how.

Sebastian sensed your building anxiety. “Hey,” he said, and you looked at him. “One step at a time, right?”

You nodded. “Yeah. One step.”

#avengers cast x reader #sebastian stan #sebastian x reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #eatingdisorder #eatingdisordercomfort #fainting #comfortforfainting #anxietycomfort #insecure #insecutiry #insecuritycomfort

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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In which I react to the trailer, bit by bit, because why not?

This post is long and image-heavy; sorry, dashboard.

So first of all, the line that keeps running through my head is a line from a fic AU - Have Tesseract, Will Travel by WinterDusk - wherein Alternate Timeline Loki catches up with Post-Endgame Thor. It’s a glorious series and everyone should go read it right now.

“The Tesseract skids to a stop at Loki’s feet. Loki, not being entirely stupid, picks it up.”

It’s such a good line that it should be, like, a narrative voiceover or something. But anyway.

I have to say, I love seeing Loki’s “old” armour again, as opposed to what he was wearing in Ragnarok/IW (and what he died in, sorry, what?). His hair is definitely doing something inconsistent, but I’m not terribly bothered by it. (I’m glad his hair looks natural and a bit chaotic, as opposed to the stiff, awkward wigs.) And he’s landed in a desert - so, where has he ended up? On Earth? On another planet? Another galaxy? I guess we’ll find out.

“You’re taking me somewhere to kill me.”

I think it’s interesting that Loki assumes that they’re going to try to kill him. He doesn’t look afraid, he doesn’t look surprised, just resigned: You’re going to kill me. I think it makes sense that this would be his reaction, in that he can’t fucking catch a break and he knows it. I’m interested to see how they managed to overpower him enough to get that collar around his neck, which I’m assuming is something that suppresses his magic. A fight scene?

Another note: the scar on his forehead has already healed up; depending on how quickly he heals, this could be a few days or a few weeks after the opening shot. Either he wasn’t captured right away, or he’s been sitting in a cell for awhile before they deign to bring him elsewhere.

Also, I didn’t recognize Owen Wilson right away. He looks like a kinda weird combination of Howard Stark and General Ross, lmao.

Idk about the “you love to talk” line bc Loki doesn’t really like to talk - but, it’s also fair to say that the assumption could be made if one was basing his understanding of Loki on what we saw in Avengers (similar to how Tony says Loki’s a “full-tilt diva,” it doesn’t make it true, just makes it someone else’s perception).

I really like Loki’s “wtf” expression when he looks at Owen Wilson, though.

Friendly reminder that Loki is the protagonist in his series, which means he’s probably going to going up against whatever big bad this is. Which means we get to see him in the context of being the one the audience is rooting for, instead of the villain.

I think Loki looks the most beautiful here. Look at that face, that tiny little smirk, that luscious hair. Aw yisss. More of this Loki please (for aesthetic purposes).

I like his expression here; reminds me a bit of when he’s brought in front of Odin in TDW, but a bit more uncertain - as if he’s thinking, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not going to let you know that I’m concerned. If that makes sense.

I also dig the music.

I wonder if they’re showing Loki possible futures (considering he’s now created a new timeline) or if it’s strictly Loki-Prime’s life, and if it’s the latter, I am super curious to see how he reacts to the loss of Asgard and the subsequent run-in with Thanos. I hope he does not get shown his death because, butter-knife-stupidity aside, it was so brutal that showing it to him would just be cruel, I would think.

This shot is interesting to me bc it’s from Loki’s POV - it’s what Loki sees when he realizes he’s surrounded. So where are these images coming from, anyway? Maybe the collar isn’t a magic thing, maybe it gives them the ability to see inside of Loki’s mind - or, to at least pull images from it. Idk. I like how Loki is still not showing much emotion, though; he’s just sitting there, arms folded, like okay, sure.

Until here. What does Loki see that makes him close his eyes and turn away? He looks annoyed, he looks exhausted, he looks fed up. My first thought was that he was turning away at the shot of the Avengers - the reminder that he lost, or that he failed. Maybe Owen Wilson was saying something taunting about it. But really, it could be anything. It’s a really interesting moment, though, because it’s a genuine reaction from Loki and I’m hoping that it implies he feels some kind of way about New York and perhaps will talk about it - like that he lost on purpose, or he’ll mention Thanos, or something. Again, Loki being the protagonist means that there’s a ton of potential for really getting Loki’s side of things, and if they’re going through his memories, then we might get to see Loki talk about those memories.

This looks like Loki’s gone from being the TVA’s prisoner to working for them, which is interesting, but not entirely unexpected, if we’re to assume that the TVA’s interests lie in defeating the hooded big bad from before and they need Loki to do it. I’m also curious if they never intended to capture him long-term at all but, in fact, sought him out because of his magic/skills/etc in order to help them. That would also make sense - that it’s more of a recruiting thing than a punishment thing - considering that Loki isn’t even the one who fucked up the timeline to begin with and that the Avengers are the ones responsible for that.

We love a flippy-knife Loki, don’t we?

Post-apocalyptic future? Potential of what could have happened if Loki (and, by extension, Thanos) had won? Or an alternate timeline altogether? I have no idea. Loki looks so smol though, all alone in the ruins.

I really hope this is a wig and Loki didn’t cut his hair, bc this just looks like Tom with short black hair, lmao. Like the Night Manager with a Loki smirk. It’s not bad, I just don’t care for it. I wonder how Asgard will react when Loki shows up looking like that.

Action shots! Loki doing stuff! Fighting! Random twirly girl! I’m here for all of the action sequences and I’m not sorry.

Imagine being that girl. Hoo.

Everyone was talking about Sam jumping out of the plane without a parachute and haha, another one like Steve, but just look at Loki’s bad ass soaring through the clouds. Also, I am a loser, but the one inconsistency in the “Loki is DB Cooper” theory - for me - is that I thought it was night time and raining when DB jumped. But, that’s just me.

Also, has Loki always pronounced Heimdall like that? HeimDAAALL, like with a hard A? Or is that also just me?

And there’s the Bifrost, pulling short-haired DB Cooper Loki to Asgard.

(That little window for the Falcon trailer came up and I couldn’t minimize it, sorry.)

I have no idea what is going on here, but I have to say, that gravelly come on! What did you expect? is all kinds of pleasing to me. I have always loved Tom’s deep Loki voice. I am assuming this is something from the comics or that it’s an alternate reality Loki or something like that, but again, context matters and this was really the only part of the trailer that (the first time) made me go, uh can we not? Who knows.

And there we are. My honest opinion is that, while some of it seems questionable, it overall seems kind of promising to me? I think that if you read between the lines, so to speak, and pick up on all of Loki’s little tells and micro-expressions, what we’ll probably end up seeing is a combination of Thor 1/TDW Loki with a side of Avengers and some Ragnarok-flavored sprinkles. I also think that the trailer has probably sliced up and served the juiciest bits to appeal not just to Loki’s core fanbase but to the Ragnarok fans and to the casual MCU fans who may want to tune in for fun.

Again, we’re getting approximately two full-length movies worth of a story in which Loki is the protagonist. And I’ll just say it: my initial overall reaction was that I liked it. I’m apprehensive, but I’m hopeful. Look at it this way: nothing in this series will be worse than what we already had to endure in Infinity War.

So, yeah. We’ll see what happens, but I think it’ll be okay and, even if it’s not? Well, on the bright side, there’s more footage and content to inspire brilliant fanworks (fics, music vids, art, etc), which is just the new life that needs to be breathed into the Loki fandom right now. In my opinion.

#plus can i just say #i am SO GLAD #there was no kiss in the trailer #if there was romance in the story - or if romance was a big part of the story - i'm sure they'd have played that up #by showing loki kissing someone in the trailer #the lack of it leaves me hopeful that a love interest #is not a priority #loki on the small screen #is my new tv show tag #i am creative #loki series positivity #loki pokey artichokey #long post #image heavy post #sorry

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sembell · 6 years

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Moving Forward - Chapter 53

Merry Christmas to all of you <3 NSFW ahead :)

“We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.“ - S. Truett Cathy

The coffee was hot and surprisingly good, even though it had come without the shot of rum she would have loved, and really needed on this particular Wednesday morning.

The entire lot of the North Shore Studios in Vancouver was exceptionally bustling this morning, and maybe she wasn’t used to it anymore or she really was that stressed out, but she was glad to sit in this quiet trailer on this comfortable couch, far, far away from any trouble. Or so it seemed.

David stepped into his trailer in full Mulder gear. She knew that they had spent the entire previous day in Mulder’s office and would be there until noon today. He’d told her that they’d move to a country club in Pitt Meadows to shoot the dancing sequence this afternoon. And with wrapping the fifth episode, Melanie hoped that the rumors and accusations, which were currently making their rounds on social media, would also come to an end. It had only been a day, but she already had enough of it for a very long time.

Especially since David still appeared to be absolutely relaxed when he closed the door of his trailer behind him and stepped up to the couch where she’d been waiting for him for at least twenty minutes now.

“Good morning!” he said cheerfully and flashed her one of those annoyingly disarming smiles of his before he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and flopped down next to her. He immediately started to loosen up his tie.

“Morning,” Melanie grumbled into her coffee and rolled her eyes. She was still fuming, and he still seemed absolutely oblivious.

When he left their little meeting last night, she’d secretly hoped that the rumors of him having an affair with his very young dancing instructor would evoke the same reaction in Gillian as it had in her, especially after learning that a stupid post on Instagram by said dancing instructor was the root of the problem.

Now, Melanie had to shake her head over her own naivety. As if Gillian, the queen of bad, insinuating social media posts, would’ve been bothered by such a thing.

Apparently, she was the only one of them realizing that David’s name attached to a slinky picture of a half-naked young woman and a suggestive offer wasn’t making that much of a good impression out there.

“And, how are things this morning?” David asked and folded his hands behind his head, looking at her with what she’d call an almost challenging expression.

Greetings from Gillian, Melanie thought and pursed her lips. It wasn’t like she wasn’t up for the challenge, but she’d rather just have a conversation with a fairly level-headed David. “Oh you know, it takes a while before such news make it around the globe, so-”

“So, everything’s fine.”

She shot him a warning look. “You know damn well how fast these things can get out of hand, so don’t you come to me with some bullshit like ‘see, Mel, everything you made me do last night wasn’t necessary’.”

He raised his hands defensively. “Wouldn’t even cross my mind. Look, I’m grateful for everything you do for me. But…” David shrugged his shoulders, “it wasn’t Dani’s intention to cause trouble. And it’s not like I have something to hide, or anything to be ashamed of.”

“I know that, David. But it’s my job to protect you from those who don’t care about you and your family. No matter if it’s a random fan who likes to accuse people of all kinds of things, someone you work with, or-” she suddenly stopped, pressing her lips together in a thin line.

“Or?” he leaned forward, searching her face.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Or my girlfriend, is that what you wanted to say?”

“I didn’t say she doesn’t care. I’m just saying that… she’s not making the best choices when it comes to her or your public image.”

David sighed and clenched his jaw, leaning back against the cushions. “I think she just doesn’t take it that seriously. As in, it doesn’t bother her what people are saying online.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear. But frankly, I don’t really care if Gillian minds or not. When I say I’m trying to protect her, I basically mean trying to protect her from herself. Because we have a plan here, David, and that goes beyond what she finds acceptable or not. My concern is how things will affect you, your public image, and your children. If Gillian doesn’t care that a young woman lets everyone know that she wants - an affair, or whatever - with you, or if Gillian herself just loves to rile people up on social media with all those innuendos-”

“Mel-” David tried to cut in.

“You know what I think about that, David. It will backfire eventually. You talk to me in a couple of years.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s just for fun…”

“Until it isn’t just fun anymore. We have next to no control over social media. I can’t stop people from talking or spreading crazy rumors, and literally everything could get viral these days, no matter if it’s true or not.”

“And what am I supposed to do? We all know what she does keeps people interested in us and the brand. They want to know and see what we’re up to, especially while we're here in Vancouver. People want the banter. And of course,” he raised his hands and gave a half shrug, “they want to know how the baby's doing.”

“She uses your relationship and plays with your privacy, and I will never be a supporter of that. We’ve been through this time and time again. How come she just doesn’t want to learn anything from the past?”

“Hey, please give her a break. She just enjoys sharing tiny bits of our lives, and she likes to tease. That’s just how she is. I might not participate all the time, but I definitely won’t take that away from her. It doesn’t harm anyone.”

Melanie sighed and shook her head. It was useless. She’d left meetings with him and Gillian feeling like life had been sucked right out of her - not just once, but multiple times over the last fifteen years. While he usually wasn’t that much of a tough case, Gillian had the ability to talk you into the ground, and everything that was left of you, in the end, could be compared to a kitten who’d just gotten run over by a bulldozer.

It had gotten worse in the last two years, and Melanie knew that this was mostly due to her own doing. While she had no idea how on earth Gillian had found out or who’d told her, she knew that ever since Gillian learned that Melanie had advised David to stay quiet about his involvement in Gillian’s pregnancy, she’d lost her.

It had been a mistake, one that had hurt Gillian very bad, and one Melanie was trying to make up for it ever since, and if it was just for Eaden - that wonderful little girl that was the best thing that could’ve happened to David and Gillian. She would do everything in her power to keep her out of the spotlight and make sure she could live a normal, happy life. Because ultimately, that’s what David and Gillian both wanted for their daughter.

Melanie just didn’t understand why Gillian was acting so carelessly these days. She clearly had fun and was receiving the attention she was looking out for. But after so many years, she had to be aware that everything came with a price - right?!

“Okay, what do you need me to do?” David offered, taking her hand.

She huffed out a laugh and shook her head.

A knock on the door made them both jump, and without waiting for an invitation, the door was being pulled open and a tall man with long brown hair stepped into the trailer. Set life had always been more convenient than polite, Melanie remembered.

“Dave?” the guy asked, and his eyes grew wide when he spotted Melanie. “Oh, sorry! I don’t wanna disturb, but we need you on set.”

David looked up and furrowed his brow. They’d been told it would take another half an hour to finish setting up Mulder’s office for the next scene. “What, why?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, but his one corner of his mouth tilted up in a lopsided grin. “Hurry up, they’re waiting!”

David groaned. “I’ll be out in a minute, Fred,” he finally replied and waited until the man had disappeared before turning back to Melanie, looking at her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. You want to come?”

With a light chuckle, she patted his hand, inhaled deeply and shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but no,” she stood up and grabbed her coat. “But don’t you worry… you did what you could do. Everything else’s my job,” Melanie winked and turned for the door.

Just when she was about to open it, he stopped her with his hand on her shoulder and smiled as he took her coat and held it up so she could slip in.

“You keep me updated?” he asked and opened the door for her.

Melanie looked up at him and managed a weak smile. The whole situation had put much more stress on him than he was willing to admit. She knew him, very well actually. His first concern was always his family, and how his actions would affect every single member of it. And while it wasn’t his doing what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, Melanie was sure that if Gillian had reacted differently, she’d have much more work to do now. In that respect, he was just a normal man deeply in love with his woman.

Mulder’s office hadn’t been used for over 13 years, and that’s exactly what it looked like in 2015. That was the weirdest part about coming back; that nothing was looking the way David was used to. It was stupid, really. The show had ended a lifetime ago, and everything had changed since then. But this modern, half furnished, too tidy and too spacious office didn’t resonate well with him, and he couldn’t really pinpoint why.

Another thing David didn’t understand right away was how his baby daughter and Piper had ended up in the middle of all of this, and it took him a few moments to take the whole scene in.

Eaden was standing by the desk, still clad in her bright pink pajamas, bedhead at its finest, holding onto one of the blue chairs for dear life. Chris was standing a few feet behind her with a full-blown grin on his face while Piper was kneeling at the other end of the table in front of Eaden, waving her little sister nearer. And Dean, their camera first assistant, was filming everything with their documentary camcorder.

“This is our little girl Eaden, who’s so close to taking her very first steps,” Dean announced proudly and panned the camera away from Eaden to Piper, who gave him the thumbs up, “and that’s her big sister Piper, who took her first steps on this very same lot twenty years ago. Isn’t that cool y’all?”

“Although I was much younger than this lazy little cub,” Piper added with a laugh and extended her arms towards Eaden. The little one was just standing there with her feet wide apart, chewing on her fingers and looking cautiously up at the tall man with the unruly gray curls. “Come on, baby! Come to me!” Piper cheered exuberantly, trying to get Eaden’s attention.

David spotted Gillian to his right standing by the room divider, all dressed up as Scully and taking pictures of her daughters with her phone, her expression a mixture of sheer pride and childish excitement. He couldn’t help but grin at that sight. She was so darn precious.

Coming up behind her, David put his hand on Gillian’s waist and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Hey, what’s happening here? Is she about to walk or are they just taking over our show?”

With a big smile sneaking up on her face, Gillian leaned back against him and shrugged her left shoulder. “Maybe both, I’m not so sure of the walking yet, though. She just woke up and Tina brought her in for her good morning kiss, but she wanted down and crawled around and all of a sudden, she pulled herself up and attempted to take her first step. She just put her foot forward, looked at it for a few seconds, and then pulled it back. She’s making it super thrilling here.”

“Hmm,” he hummed amusedly and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. “I wonder who she got that from; that streak for the dramatic.”

“Hey!” she lightly stabbed her elbow into his side, and after he winced almost dramatically, they fell into soft laughter and he pulled her closer to his chest.

“Come here, honey. You can do it! Just one step, sweetie!” Piper continued to encourage her little sister, who was now concentrating on Chris coming closer to her.

“She’s not gonna do it,” Gillian sighed, watching Chris squatting down beside Eaden and starting to rub her back.

“Nah, have some faith, Mom. She will, she will… although, can you see how she’s looking at Chris?” he nodded his head towards them, and they started to chuckle at the same time.

Eaden’s little face, the big, doubtful eyes and scrunched eyebrows were just too much. Chris and kids, that combination had always provided the best material for some good laughter. He was so, so nice and gentle with them, but unbelievably awkward at the same time. Piper had always loved him to pieces, but Eaden still wasn’t entirely convinced.

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance that in the next ten seconds, she’ll either start to cry or run away from him. My bet is on the crying, though.”

Gillian chuffed a laugh through her nose and nodded.

He crouched down a bit and rested his head against hers, his gaze shifting between her phone and her face. She was concentrating hard, tilting the device from one side to the other, then tapping on the screen repeatedly to try to get her daughters, and Chris, in focus.

It was moments like this that made him the happiest, simply because she was happy.

For a long time, David had wished he could bottle those moments and feelings up and pull them out whenever needed - whenever she was unhappy, or whenever he’d made her sad again. But over the years, he’d learned to concentrate more on the present, on what he was doing and what was happening now instead of holding too tightly onto the past. Cherishing each moment, each memory, whether they were good or bad, but trying his best to make good decisions for everybody’s happiness and joy, that’s what he was concentrating on nowadays.

“Oh!” Gillian’s eyes widened, and David looked up to watch Eaden putting her right foot forward while Chris slowly let go of her. “David!” she breathed almost inaudibly, too scared that she would break some kind of spell if she spoke any louder. He gave her an affectionate squeeze, letting her know that he was just as excited as she was.

When Eaden’s little foot hit the ground, they both gasped and held their breaths. She was standing up all by herself now without any support, and the whole room had gone completely quiet with everyone’s eyes glued to Eaden, who was cautiously putting more weight on her right leg.

And then everything happened so unbelievably fast, almost too fast for a 15-month-long wait.

She lifted the other leg, and all of a sudden, she was standing a whole step away from Chris, arms outstretched to her sides to help maintain her balance, mouth and eyes wide open in both awe and shock at what just happened.

“There you go, girl!” Piper laughed and clapped her hands.

Realizing that Gillian was just staring at the girls by now and had completely forgotten about her phone, David reached over her shoulder and took a couple of pictures for her.

She just nodded her thank you, too awestruck to say anything in that moment, and sniffled. He was sure that she was already crying, and that someone would need to redo her makeup before they could start to shoot the last scene in here. Not that it mattered; not in the slightest.

The only thing that mattered was their little girl with that huge smile taking another wobbly step and then a third, getting more and more confident with herself, and determined to reach her sister’s waiting arms. He couldn’t be any prouder.

“We have a toddler, babe,” David whispered, and Gillian took a deep, shaky breath, before answering, “We sure do.”

And what a toddler they had all of a sudden.

By the time Gillian was done for the day, Eaden was able to walk along the whole length of her mother’s trailer and was immovable of her decision to do it over and over again, much to the dismay of her nanny Tina.

The rest of the day was, to put it mildly, exhausting beyond words.

From the point Gillian had strapped her daughter into her car seat and headed off for lunch with an old friend, the little girl wouldn’t stop screaming until Gillian sat her down and let her run loose. Which had made having a decent conversation or time to eat in peace almost entirely impossible.

With her mother hot on her heels, Eaden walked to everything and everyone she found even remotely interesting, and even though she wasn’t very fast yet, she was tripping over her own feet very, very often, which lead to quite a few tears over the course of the day.

After settling the boys for the night, both tired to their bones due to an adventurous day at a children's camp out in the forest, Gillian contemplated whether she should run herself a bubble bath or simply crash on the couch to watch whatever bad soap opera she happened to come across first.

But she was restless, agitated even despite the long, draining day and the short night prior to it.

Shortly after Eaden and Felix had finally fallen asleep in her bed last night, Gillian went downstairs to give her assistant Alison a call, who’d unsuccessfully tried to reach her while she almost got knocked out by one of Eaden’s knees.

From what Alison had told her alone she wouldn’t have been able to fall back to sleep right away, but then David came home, joined her on the couch, buried his head into her lap and started to talk for the next hour.

Now that the house was quiet and she had nothing to do, Gillian was slowly starting to process everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. And all she wanted to do now was burying her own head into the warmth of his lap and let it all go.

She was sitting at the kitchen counter, chewing on the straw she’d put in her can of Red Bull when she heard someone coming in the front door at around 8 pm.

Piper was mustering her mother and that faraway look of hers suspiciously when she entered the kitchen and let her heavy backpack slide to the floor.

“Hey, baby. How are you?” Gillian asked and ran her hand over her face in an effort to pull herself out of her reverie.

“Hey, I’m good, but busted. Is everything alright?” Piper retorted and headed for the fridge. Her entire shirt was covered with splashes of red paint.

Must’ve been a busy day for her as well, Gillian determined as she watched her daughter retrieving a bottle of coke, and began to nod slowly. “Yeah, I’m just… I can’t sleep.”

“Still too excited?” Piper grinned and took a swig, but Gillian gave her a questioning look. “Because Eaden’s walking now?”

“Oh that, yes... yeah,” Gillian chuckled. “But, um…” she licked her lips. “Would you mind terribly looking after Eaden and the boys for a couple of hours? They’re already in bed.”

“Umm, no. No, I wouldn’t mind. I just wanted to watch some TV before going to bed anyway. Why? You wanna go out?”

Gillian nodded with a smirk. “I think I’d like to surprise someone.”

The parking lot of the Rooster’s Country Cabaret was filled with trucks and trailers, so Gillian parked at the nearest McDonalds, bought herself and Rob, the elder security guard standing in front at the parking lot, a coffee and walked over.

The air had cooled considerably in the last couple of hours, and Gillian was glad she’d put on her black leather jacket over her sleeveless dress and had chosen the knee boots over the heels. With this outfit, she might’ve been able to convince Chris to let Scully do a lap-dance after all, she thought and snickered to herself. Not that she was intending to go anywhere near him again tonight, or anyone on set for that matter. Except for one.

Rob had no problem to let her sneak into David’s trailer, happy with his warm beverage and the quick hug he’d been given.

They were still laughing hard when they stepped out of the stuffy, hot club and into the cool summer night, having had one of the best and most memorial shooting nights thanks to Mitch, Tom, Dean and Bruce. And, of course, the mushroom stamp.

Honky-Tonk Mulder with his eagle shirt, the cowboy hat and the girls dancing around him really was the weirdest thing David had done in a very long time. And that was pretty telling.

“Hey, some people and I will have a drink Downtown, just to unwind a bit. You wanna come?” she offered, and he stared at her for a couple of moments before he found his voice again.

“Um,” David chuckled nervously and averted his eyes to the ground. At this point in his life and at his age, he found himself actually blushing at such an offer. He cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you, Dani. Sounds fun, but I have to pass. I just want to go home to my-, to Gillian and Eaden.”

“Oh, okay. I hope I… didn’t cause you too much trouble and that’s why you can’t come? Because Gillian thinks we-”

“Oh no,” he was quick to reply. “No. Don’t worry, she had a good laugh over it,” he nodded reassuringly, knowing she was genuinely worried. “But I’m old, and I can't wait for to hit the pillow. And if I’m lucky, there might even be a massage in store for me,” he winked.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to miss that!”

They laughed and stopped, both turning to face each other.

David shook his head. “No, I really don’t.”

“So… I guess I see you tomorrow?”

“You will. I will not disappoint you, I promise!” he grinned, referring to the dance sequence they would shoot tomorrow.

“I’m sure you won’t. Good night, David.”

“Night, Daniela,” he raised his hand to wave at her and turned, heading to his trailer on the other end of the parking lot.

A change of clothing and a quick beer and he would be out of here, David thought, walking up the stairs to his trailer and opening the door while pulling his phone out of his back pocket.

He didn’t look up when he closed the door and started to text his driver when suddenly, two arms came up around his waist and pulled him backward.

David jolted and gasped, almost dropping his cell, his heart beating fast in his chest until he looked down at himself and found two small, familiar hands making their way up his torso. That’s when he finally took a deep breath, and her wonderful scent filled his nose.

“Jesus!” he exhaled, reaching up to interlace their fingers right over his heart. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Hmm?” she hummed against his back.

“You scared me.”

“A little girl like me can scare a big guy like you?”

He didn’t answer, but brought her hand up to his lips before turning around to look at her.

“Hey,” he said, the surprise evident in his face. Now that he could see her, and her radiant appearance, it was a rather good surprise. Her outfit was a dark, dangerous contrast to the blond hair spilling over her shoulders in soft waves. She wasn’t wearing any makeup except for dark mascara. “Wow, you look-” he let his eyes fell over her perfect collarbones to the soft swell of her breasts and licked his lips. “Wow.”

She pressed herself against him, her nose brushing along his neck up to his ear followed by her hot, moist breath causing goosebumps to erupt everywhere.

“I thought you had your heart set on a quiet night at home.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, starting to nibble at his earlobe. “We can do that later.”

He closed his eyes at the sensation of her wet little tongue teasing the sensitive patch of skin behind his ear, and his groin tightened.

She was on fire tonight, and he was the last one to ask more questions than necessary at this point. She was here, hands tucking impatiently at his fly and a pair of soft, full lips had just landed on his mouth. What else did he need to know?

“You’re hard,” she said matter-of-factly, but needed to squeeze him through his jeans to get his attention.

“Huh?” David stammered, fidgeting with her dress, trying to pull it over her thighs. Why was this thing so fucking long?

“You are hard, Mr. Duchovny. Are you hard for another woman?”

“What?” he cried out, his eyes big and dark. “No!”

“Hmm,” she gave him another squeeze, and he buried his head into her neck, almost as if to hide. “Are you sure that all these hot young girls dancing around you didn’t cause this? Were they touching you? I bet they were.” With his fly now open, she reached inside, finding him hot and pulsating beneath his trunks.

“Did they turn you on?” she asked, her voice incredibly sultry. When he didn’t react again, she grabbed him by the balls. “I know they’d turn me on.”

He growled into her neck, his knees weakening by the second. God, what was she doing? Trying to kill him?

“It did turn me on,” he whispered when he finally found a way inside her dress. Having her soft skin underneath his fingers made him feel much more confident to play along.

“Hmm, naughty. So, so naughty.” He felt like crying when she pulled her hand out of his pants, and he squeezed the flesh of her hips to keep her close. She peered up at him; accusingly, defiantly, playfully - he couldn’t really decide, but it made his cock surge with desire.

A goofy smile began to spread across her face. Uh-oh, David’s eyes widened.

Slowly, oh so slowly, she squatted down in front of him, taking his pants with her and letting them fall to his feet.

“I think,” she tucked her fingers into the elastic waistband of his boxers, “I need to remind you,” she pulled, and his erection sprang free, “of a thing… or two.”

David swallowed, feeling excitement ripple through him. “What do I need to be reminded of?”

She puckered her lips, tilted her head to the side and ran her fingertips over the exposed skin of her neck.

“Fuck,” he growled beyond himself. Gillian’s idea of punishment was a wicked one, but it was always working.

One of her hands landed on his upper thigh, bracing herself on it while she wrapped the other around his thick shaft, her thumb swiping over his sensitive glans. She tucked at him once, twice, and then let go, raising her hand and sticking her digit into her mouth.

And then she hummed. She hummed in pleasure and closed her eyes.

Jesus.

Yes, he remembered. He remembered very well how much she liked his taste.

“Yeah,” she nodded as if she was able to read his mind.

She released her thumb with a plop, sucked her cheeks in and ejected a gush of saliva onto her fingers before putting them back around his penis.

“Oh,” he reached behind himself for something to hold onto, anything to steady himself with. He didn’t find anything, so he tangled his fingers into her hair.

She raised her eyebrow at him. “Mr. Duchovny, are you swaying? Not because of me, right?” she asked innocently.

“Hunn,” he grunted, wondering when exactly her mouth had come so close to his erection. Did he pull her towards it? No, he didn’t, right?

Oh well, she was grinning now. He actually did pull her closer to his cock.

“Good boy,” she praised and slid her lips over the head of his penis, feeling him tighten his grip on her hair. She looked up expectantly, but he didn’t make a move, even started to tremble from the effort of holding still.

She let her tongue swirl around the underside of his head a couple of times, lubricating it before taking him in deeper and pressing him up against the roof of her mouth.

“Fuck, Gillian,” David finally found his voice again. He gently rocked his hips against her, knowing that she had everything under control thanks to that brilliant little tongue of hers. God, how lucky was he that the woman he loved enjoyed this so much?

She cupped the hand with which she’d steadied herself around the base and squeezed lightly, creating pressure to direct more blood flow to the head.

The sensation increased immediately, and he moaned out loud.

“Fuck, Gillian.” Didn’t he just say that a couple of moments ago? “Babe,” he tried again, cradling her cheek with his other hand. “I wanna…”

“Hmm?” she hummed before slowly releasing him. “You want what?”

“Touch you. I want to touch you.”

“Is that so?” she teased, licking her way along his erection and down to his balls and without warning, sucked one of them into her mouth.

“Fuuhuuck, babe, come here. Please, come here,” he begged and pulled at her jacket, needing to kiss her so, so badly.

After giving his glans a last, lingering kiss, she slowly stood up and smiled at him. God, she was beautiful.

“Oh, so compliant all of a sudden,” he said and pulled her against him with one arm around her waist while the other pushed her jacket off her shoulders. “Is this dress new?”

She shrugged her shoulders, and her jacket fell to the floor. “Maybe.”

He pushed her back and let his eyes wander over her. It was a really, really tight dress, reminding him of one she’d worn for a photoshoot a couple of years ago. Yeah, he was good at remembering these things.

She suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him down, capturing his lips with hers. She tasted of coffee and of himself. So incredibly good.

She clutched for his ass; flesh hard, skin soft. She’d never met a man with such soft skin in her entire life. How was this even possible, she wondered.

He groaned into her mouth and reached around her, finding a zipper in the middle of her back.

It would’ve required just a minimum of common sense to not be surprised that she wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath this tight little thing, but apparently, he just didn’t have it. Not at this point anyway.

“Oh fuck,” David uttered, not able to stop saying it over and over again. “You’re breathtaking, you know that, right?”

Truth was, she didn’t feel all that breathtaking the majority of the time. She knew that she was good-looking, but she’d always wondered what it was about her that was driving this man completely crazy. She could act as cool as she wanted, but the fact that he wanted her, and just her, would always bring her down to earth, and flood her with so much gratitude and joy she was barely able to breathe.

He had her in his arms before she knew it, carrying her over to the couch they’d slept countless of times on in the last couple of weeks.

And suddenly, she was lying underneath him. His head had disappeared between her legs, and she was only able to feel – his breath on her inner thighs, his mouth placing gentle kisses on her outer lips, and then, finally, his tongue diving into her slit.

“David,” she sighed, bucking her hips into his face.

She couldn’t think clearly anymore by the time one of his fingers entered her, the sensation too good, too overwhelming. This was not what she had planned, but much, much better. Sometimes, it was good to lose control and to trust someone else to take the lead.

He was moving his face from side to side, up and down. His fingers were kneading the curves of her ass, his tongue tracing her outer lips and his lips sucking on her clit.

Her legs started to quiver around his head and she was whimpering for her release. He slowly made his way up, kissing her stomach and gently biting her nipples, just how he knew she liked it, before lifting her legs onto the mattress.

He climbed over her and smiled when he came to a rest between her legs.

Her cheeks were flushed, mouth slightly open. “So beautiful,” he whispered, and this really was his most favorite sight.

“Oh god,” she mumbled as he pushed into her, sinking deep into her warmth.

David held her close for a couple of moments, enjoying to be surrounded by her tight walls before starting to rock against her.

Gillian was incredibly relaxed now, responding to every thrust he gave her with a soft moan. She wrapped her legs around his waist, dug her nails into his back and started to kiss him again.

Nothing about this was rushed anymore. It was two people savoring the sensation of being connected, making love in every conceivable way.

They came quietly with their fingers tightly interlaced beside her head, and she was still shaking even after he’d slid out of her and gathered her close to his chest.

She was still exhausted, but her body was finally calming down.

“I’m so deep into loving you as anyone could be,” he whispered, and she raised her head slightly off his shoulder, eyes sparkling with amusement. He chuckled and squeezed her affectionately. “I remember reading that in a poem when I was fourteen, thinking that if I’d ever find a girl so special, then…” he went silent, biting his lower lip.

“Then?” she prompted, her eyebrow raised high.

He shook his head. “I-, I never got that far. I guess my final conclusion was that I would either never find someone like that or never know if I actually did. Or that it was just a phrase every other overly romantic fourteen-year-old boy would dig. Nothing with actual substance.”

“Hmm,” she nodded thoughtfully. “What do you think now?”

“I think that I have never said it to anyone else. And it feels very, very good right now.”

“I love you,” she said and rested her head back on his shoulder. “And I want to tell you something, too.”

“Hmm?”

“We just got the green light for Streetcar in New York next year,” Gillian whispered, and now it was his turn to raise his head, watching her hand tracing tiny circles on his chest. She licked her lips before she continued to speak. “And, after that,” she inhaled deeply, “I really want to move in with you.”

#moving forward #au #my writing #fanfic #rpf #thexfiles rpf #gillovny #gillovny rpf #txf rpf

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Disappointed But Not Disheartened: Reflections on A Wrinkle In Time

In early 2016, when it was announced that Ava DuVernay was attached to A Wrinkle In Time, I tweeted about how excited I was for it and she favorited my tweet so I screenshotted the notification and showed it to everyone on the planet and have been anxiously awaiting this movie ever since. Jennifer Lee, one of the two screenwriters for the project, is who I aspire to be, and Ava DuVernay is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the best filmmakers of all time, and, although I honestly don’t remember much about the plot, I read at least 3 books in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet as a child and definitely really enjoyed them. (I may have read Many Waters and completely forgotten it, but I think I was just not that interested in transitioning to the next generation and so peaced out after A Swiftly Tilting Planet.) In the months before its release, I declared multiple times that A Wrinkle In Time would probably be the movie of the year for me.

Now that I’ve seen it, I can say more confidently: it’s not my movie of the year. Just to be sure, I saw it twice this weekend (and I also watched the 2003 TV Movie in between to compare – it’s not great but it’s also not, like… resoundingly worse). The second time around, I enjoyed it way more than the first, and I think it’ll only continue to grow on me with time. Visually, it’s just spectacular: Ava DuVernay and Naomi Shohan have built a gorgeous and imaginative world. Production design is maybe the only element of cinema that L’Engle’s original novel lends itself to easily, and they tapped that to its fullest potential. But something about the storytelling just didn’t quite click for me.

And before I go on, I want to be clear: no one working on this movie had anything to prove. People will frame it that way – can a black woman direct a $100 million movie? or can a little brown girl carry an action-adventure blockbuster? – but none of that is really up in the air. Black creatives have proven time and time again that they can and will carry franchises, so we can stop pretending that was ever even a question. And we all saw The Dark Knight Rises and were like, “hm, very middle of the road”, and yet no one raised an eyebrow when Christopher Nolan got a Best Director nod this year. Ava is still one of the best working visual storytellers in Hollywood (and has increasingly excellent brand recognition – any studio would be lucky to have her helm another blockbuster). Storm Reid is charming and will continue to get work. Jennifer Lee is still my hero. It is dumb that I’m nervous to admit that I was disappointed by A Wrinkle In Time, like if it wasn’t the perfect movie no one will ever try to make movies like it again. Creatives do not have to break new ground with every movie they make for their work to be considered valuable. And in a lot of ways, A Wrinkle In Time was groundbreaking.

So, bearing in mind that this movie doesn’t in anyway reflect on anyone’s capacity for great filmmaking, what made A Wrinkle In Time feel disjointed to me?

My first thought was maybe it was just a failure of casting. They apparently searched for 7 months for someone to play Charles Wallace, and as cute as he is, Deric McCabe felt awkward and stilted to me the entire movie on first watching. Levi Miller was the cutest stalk of celery I’ve ever seen but that’s kinda the most I can say for him. Everyone was charming, but no one – Storm Reid included – really had the chops to carry the weight of all the bonkers exposition this movie demanded of them.

That said, the performances felt less stilted to me when I watched it a second time – Storm Reid and Deric McCabe did have some really keen and nuanced moments, and Levi Miler, despite speaking like he’s never met another human being before, gives truly excellent face. And the adult casting was superb; Chris Pine as the affirming father of a biracial daughter seems like an obvious and sincere choice, and also ZACH GALIFIANAKIS. Clearly Aisha Coley knew what she was doing because it takes some serious insight to look at Zach Galifinakis and think, “this schlubby comedian will play the kindest, gentlest father figure in cinematic history.” No actor is actively wrong for their part, and no one is phoning it in – the younger folks are maybe just still figuring some things out.

So if the performances felt awkward but it wasn’t a failure of casting, I hate to even suggest it, but maybe then it’s a failure of direction. If these actors had the potential to perform this script well, maybe Ava just didn’t direct them appropriately. There are some moments where I think this is actually true: if you’re working with young talent struggling to create a genuine sense of chemistry, maybe don’t block things so they’re standing several yards apart as they exchange intimate dialogue. There were multiple weirdly slow, far apart exchanges between Meg and Calvin that probably would’ve felt loaded with meaning with more competent actors but just felt bizarre and confusing with these kids.

That said, I am reluctant to criticize Ava’s work here, largely because these children have spoken quite sincerely multiple times about how kind Ava was and how safe they felt working with her. When working with young actors, I think that’s the most important thing. And so if these kids felt most comfortable shouting at each other from across a football field, then fine. I’m okay with that. And also, let’s not forget: Zach. Gala-friggin-akis. Ava knows how to get what she needs.

So then perhaps there was something weird about the camera. The cinematography of this movie felt deliberate, like it was meant to create a real mood around this story. It felt like the idea was to shoot this thing in a way that was disorienting to reflect the magic and uncertainty of the world these characters occupy. But that didn’t really click for me: I mostly just felt like the camera placement was in the way. Maybe because the performances weren’t strong enough to come through, but maybe because cutting from a traditional over-the-shoulder shot to a strikingly tight 90 degree profile is always going to take you a little bit out of the moment. (There were two particularly striking moments that made me chuckle they were so disorienting: one when Ms. Whatsit and Meg’s mother talk in such a tight, shallow-focus profile shot, I could’ve sworn they were about to kiss; the other when, in the middle of a conversation between Meg and Principal Jenkins, there was a cut to a close, shallow-focus shot of his name placard, and then a very artistic but completely unnecessary tilt up as the focus racks a very tight shot of Mr. Jenkin’s face.)

Weird cinematography can interrupt the flow of even the best scenes. But maybe – and I hate to say this even more than I hate to suggest Ava’s work wasn’t as good as it could be – but maybe, I am just making excuses here for Jennifer Lee. Maybe this was a failure of script. And I do think that Jennifer Lee and her writing partner, Jeff Stockwell, made some really positive changes. I think they captured and amplified the essential relationships and motivations in this story. I think getting rid of the twins and playing around with the Murry family structure, as well as adding a lot of scenes with the dad and giving him a central character flaw, gave this story a clearer and cleaner direction than the Weinstein-produced adaptation in 2003. And I think that the whimsy of the book was captured in a way that felt visual and cinematic in this screenplay.

But it’s hard to deny that this screenplay felt a little clunky. There was a lot of exposition and no clear moment when a goal or central question was obviously stated, which probably would’ve helped me enjoy the film a bit more on my first watching. It was somewhat unclear when the acts were changing, which made it hard to be totally swept up in the beautiful and immersive imagery. The sequencing at the end is awkward – why does Calvin just watch a deeply intimate conversation between Meg and her dad? (He’s just smiling in the corner of one shot when they hug at the end and I truly burst out laughing in the theater.) What did Calvin and Mr. Murry do in the backyard for all that time when they tessered away without Meg and Charles Wallace? Why did Charles Wallace get so easily distracted by the family dog (for a seemingly very long stretch of time) when he ran into the house to get his mom? Why did Meg not laugh out loud at Calvin when he said, “Funny how it took a trip around the universe for me to have the strength to confront my crazy dad!”? And speaking of Calvin, while I think the decision to trim a lot of the fat around the Meg-Charles Wallace sibling dynamic was a good one, it sort of begged the question: why is Calvin even here? (It’s actually sort of nice bit of commentary – to help save the universe, men simply need to trust women and affirm that their ideas and instincts are correct – but it felt undeniably odd that Calvin came along when all he did was fall off Reese Witherspoon’s lettuce leaf body and then eat a bunch of sand.)

Having said that, it does seem like there were some fairly substantial reshoots or at least major cuts made after principle production, because based on the trailer, what seems like a big expositional scene got left on the chopping block. I’ve also heard in interviews that they shot and were starting to animate an Aunt Beast scene between Mr. Murry’s tesser and Meg’s final confrontation with The It. Perhaps the original script did a better job of integrating Calvin and establishing clearer act breaks and character voices. Maybe, for reasons beyond their control, this script needed to be torn up a bit and it was too late for the writers to polish the rough edges that were left behind. Or hey, maybe Jeff Stockwell took hostage of the whole thing and made a bunch of bad changes at the last minute that Jennifer Lee couldn’t talk him down from and her hands are clean! (I don’t know enough about WGA rules to totally tease out what that cowriting process looked like based on the billing – that is maybe very possible – but it’s not very kind to Jeff to just assume that about the script so I won’t.)

At the end of the day, A Wrinkle In Time did not come together for me like I hoped it would. It’s not easy to tell why major sequences got cut pretty late in the game or why the cinematography decisions and acting decisions came together as awkwardly as they did. Whatever the reason, this movie just didn’t do it for me. But even as I left the theater feeling a little disappointed, I was not disheartened. This movie wasn’t anything like, say, Suicide Squad, which feels like a project that was fought over, a project where everyone involved seemingly knew the movie was a train-wreck but also “knew” it wasn’t their fault. It’s hard to point the finger at anyone here; everyone has something to be proud of (and something to be less proud of). No sequence feels pulled because the studio didn’t trust its creatives or because the director didn’t trust her actors. It feels like a product that was made by a whole, a whole who struggled with this beast together. A Wrinkle In Time feels delightfully collaborative, a movie made by committee in the best possible way.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway, then, is that adapting L’Engle’s bonkers novel is a hard thing to do. To no one’s fault, the stakes of her story are simultaneously impossibly large and surprisingly small. Her characters speak with a rhythm that is odd even when done well, and the world she built evokes more the concept of beauty than actual images of it. (And let’s not even begin to unpack cinema’s troubled troubled relationship with Christian-influenced fantasy storytelling.)

But here is a group of people who all earnestly rose to the challenge. They made the thing. And it is flawed in a lot of ways. But as Meg Murry knows better than most, its faults are not undeserving of love.

#a wrinkle in time #storm reid #ava duvernay #madeleine l'engle #jennifer lee #zach galifianakis #review #reflections #film #cinematography #a wrinkle in time review #jeff stockwell

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jonsameta · 7 years

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let’s play spot the parallels

Welcome to our second @jonsameta roundtable. Last week, our contributors argued that starkbowl was dead and starkcest was on. Stormborn proved them mostly right. Jon left his newly won kingdom in Sansa’s hands. In a show that is liberal with it’s visual and narrative parallels, 7x02 was notably heavy handed. Especially where Jon and Sansa were concerned. This week I asked @jen-snow, @goodqueenalys, @winterfellchild to weigh in on their favorite parallel.

@jen-snow: you are my weakness

My favourite parallel was that quiet, understated moment when Jon and Sansa awkwardly waved goodbye to each other. I’ll admit, at first I was disappointed that we didn’t even get a proper goodbye scene, but I’ve changed my mind.

There was something subtly yet powerfully romantic about them quietly and cautiously waving goodbye with the snow flurrying down around them, and even more importantly, this was very Jon and Sansa, unlike any overly dramatic, or alternatively, a cringe-inducingly awkward scene an actual conversation could have turned into. An exchange with physical contact would have either appeared extremely stilted or too openly romantic.

I believe we have to see this scene in the context of the entire episode.The only other goodbye scene we get is the overtly romantic one between Missandei and Grey Worm. Both women are concerned for their man’s safety. Both men seem unable to say goodbye to the woman they love and Grey Worm points out how hard this is for him, because he considers Missandei his weakness. If the crypt scene taught us anything, it’s that Sansa is Jon’s weakness. Littlefinger kept trying to push Jon’s buttons, touching all sore spots he’d been able to identify, but it was Sansa that pushed Jon over the edge.

Jon can’t help but look back at Sansa and it’s plainly written on his face that he doesn’t want to leave her, probably because he wants to protect her. But it seems as if there’s something else there. I think it’s significant that Jon’s departure is dealt with in three parts.

The short scene where he receives a letter from Daenerys, summoning him to Dragonstone.

The longer scene where he explains his motivations to treat with Daenerys so they can use her dragonglass and her armies.

The sequence with the crypt scene and the goodbye scene, where the focus is on Sansa.

We’re going into tinfoil territory here, but the way these scenes are structured seems to imply that Sansa is part of the reason why Jon is leaving. Perhaps he believes him leaving is also protecting Sansa in the long run, first of all because making an alliance enables him to defend the North against the White Walkers. But would it be too much to suspect that part of him thinks she’s better off without him, that he’s among the dangers she needs protection from?

@goodqueenalys: little goodbyes

There were so many Ned/Cat parallels in 7.02 I was LIVING FOR IT! I think the underlying Ned/Cat subtext is something that has been consistently present since Jon and Sansa got back to Winterfell, and how could it not be? Here they are, in their family’s ancestral home, ruling together as a united front, looking like Ned and Cat 2.0 in their matching outfits, and arguing about who should sleep in the master bedroom. So with the intensity of the first two episodes this season, and after watching Jon tell Sansa he trusts her to rule the North in front of everyone and their maester and then threaten to kill Littlefinger with his bare hands if he ever touched anything in proximity to Sansa’s person… The lack of a goodbye scene felt a little… anticlimactic? At least, it did initially.

Unlike many of the other “goodbyes” we have seen in the series, such as Grey Worm and Missandei’s mentioned above, or Jon and Ygrittes’, or even Daenerys and Darioo’s, there were no grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Instead we got a wave and a small head tilt; some wordless communication and reassurance, the type that Jon and Sansa have seemed to be so fond of since their reunion. At first, with Jon riding off to what could be his impending doom, it seemed almost laughably simple and unrealistic. But, there is another farewell scene that followed the exact same pattern: Jaime and Brienne’s in 6.08.

In scenes like these, the beauty is in the simplicity. It’s these soft, subtle farewells that leave us with no feelings of finality. Instead, it seems to say that these two people will see each other again, that they have unfinished business. It’s not the end of their story, just the end of this chapter. It’s not shutting a door, it’s leaving a light on. It’s not “goodbye,” it’s “I’ll see you later.”

[editor’s note: @lyannas-loves did a great gifset of this parallel here]

@winterfellchild: the importance of the crypt scene

I really agree with the previous parallels, especially the Jaime and Brienne’s parallel that @goodqueenalys mentioned. In my opinion, one more interesting facts about that parallel is that both scenes were directed by Mark Mylod.

Jamie and Brienne are a well-established couple/ship on GoT. Everyone knows there is love and undeniable tension between them, so the fact that the same director filmed the same kind of scenes for these two couples goodbyes for me it’s evidence enough that the parallel was no coincidence at all: what we thought we saw (a not-platonic goodbye) it’s what the director wanted us to see (a not-platonic goodbye).

Let me talk a little about the parallel that I think everyone immediately saw since we first saw it in the trailer: Jon choking Littlefinger.

Everyone is talking about that scene because the parallel between Ned throttling Littlefinger in King’s Landing and Jon doing the same thing in the crypt is so clear that even the casual viewers saw it immediately. And as an added cherry on top, Jon’s face when Littlefinger declared his love for Sansa was priceless… just like his words “Touch my sister, and I’ll kill you myself.”

I should like to open a short parenthesis about this quote: the use of the word “touch” is also a powerful parallel with Jon and Sansa scene in ep 6x09, when Jon said the famous line “I won’t ever let him touch you again. I’ll protect you, I promise” after one of their heated arguments. Jon was talking about another man but he felt the same way at the thought of another man touching Sansa: come what may, he won’t let anyone touch her.

But why did D&D write this scene? After I watched the whole episode again I realized that there is no apparent reason why that scene was important enough to show us, why in an episode (we can also say in a season) that it’s not going to show unnecessary scenes they still decided that we needed to see this specific parallel of Jon attacking Littlefinger. Why we needed to see Jon being Ned 2.0 right in front of Ned’s grave?

I truly believe Littlefinger will die this season so maybe there won’t be any more scenes between him and Jon and consequently, for this reason, there was really no need to see Littlefinger spilling the beans about his love for Cat with Jon or telling him about the fact that he was the one that gave Ned bones to Cat. Jon knowing these things is irrelevant to his storyline. The only thing that really captured the public’s attention is the fact that Jon went crazy when Littlefinger said that he loved Sansa.

In view of these considerations, my own personal conclusion is that the reason why D&D wrote that scene is that they wanted us to see one more time Jon furious reaction when Sansa is involved. He may have said “my sister”, but that homicidal rage doesn’t show brotherly love at all, his anger was so intense that I honestly think that, even if Jon is not aware yet, he acted like a furious lover and not like a brother. And for now I’m happy knowing that this fact is so important that D&D decided to include this scene in the episode.

[editor’s note: @ryanranalds did a great gifset of this parallel (with bonus brandon/cat) here]

@direwolfpupy: you’re abandoning your people

Ned and Cat are probably the healthiest couple we’ve seen on Game of Thrones. They built their love slowly, from the ground up. Jon is in a similar place Ned was in Winter is Coming. He doesn’t want to go south, he has an obligation to his people and family to remain in the North. As Lyanna said, “winter is here, we need the king of the north in the north.” But there are threats to the greater good which they must go south to face. Ned needed to investigate the death of Jon Arryn and the potential Lannister coup Lyssa worried about. To do that he became Bobby B’s hand, a title he did not want. Though Jon had always dreamed of being Lord of Winterfell, he himself admits that King in the North is not a title that fits him well. Jon must go south to treat with Daenerys to gain access to her mountain of dragonglass and potentially dragonfire.

There’s a reason the North chose Jon as his heir, and a reason the Jon/Ned parallels have become increasingly obvious. As somebody else has already mentioned, Ned’s legacy hangs over the entire Stark narrative:

Ned is every single king whose role in the story is to die before the story really starts, whose presence is mostly felt by its absence. Ned is the gravestone that a shadow falls across in every Disney movie, Ned is the mythical Good King, revered by all, whose heirs must save his kingdom from the wickedness that engulfs it after his death.

One of the things that made Ned great was that he took risks for the common good. GoT is not actually a love letter to machiavellianism, and if you think that you just don’t get it. The story has never been about playing “the game”, for “the game” is merely a euphemism for human suffering. Ned, and Jon, are our true heroes because they do not care for such games. Nor do they have any talent for them. Luckily, both are advised by somebody with a little more savvy. Both Cat and Sansa are more ruthless and realistic, especially when it comes to their family. But Sansa is an improvement on her mother. While Cat became consumed by revenge, Sansa is concerned most of all with the safety of their home, their family and their people. She isn’t just Cat 2.0, she is both Ned and Cat’s daughter, and has learned from her trauma. The fact that Jon, our true hero, trusts Sansa the most is telling on who she has become.

Sansa has clearly come to rely on Jon. Despite the fact that ~*~*~power hungry Sansa~*~*~ seems to be her popular characterization, she was sad to see Jon go. She didn’t look particularly thrilled that she was suddenly in charge. ldquo;You’re abandoning me,” was never said, but you could see it on Sophie’s face. Sansa once valued family the least among her siblings, but now she may value it the most. Sansa is also the one to remind Jon of their family legacy and history. She has become the Stark matriarch despite not having any children.Their fight about whether he should stay or go was very Ned/Cat and harkened back to the very first episode of the show. Not only do I think this means something romantically for a full circle “endgame”, I like the signals the showrunners are trying to send about who Jon and Sansa are as people and what the message/moral of the show will end up being. And I’m excited to see Jon and Sansa improve on Ned and Cat’s legacy for the next 11 episodes.

[check out this gifset by @baelerion]

That’s it for now!

Many thank yous to our contributors for taking their time to analyze the episode! Now, for the next few weeks we will likely not have any Jon and Sansa scenes to write about. But we still plan to put out an article every week, as I know there will be much to discuss in any case!

#jonsa #jonsameta #jonsameta roundtable #got s7e2 #jonsameta original content #jen-snow #goodqueenalys #aryasmeatpies #winterfellchild #many thanks #i'm very hypocritical because my contribution was so long and i told people they shouldn't be long lol #oh well

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mojorising74 · 6 years

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I am a Monster. Let me tell you why.

So, I have had many people really want to know why I didn’t enjoy The Last Jedi and I’ve held back answering because the film is fresh and I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s experience. I did post a four word review of the film on Facebook (”That was... not good.”) and I was stunned to discover that this opinion was not a popular one. Literally stunned. So stunned I actually began to question my own thoughts on the film.

And taking some time away from the film and considering all the moments in the film I can recall, (I’ve only seen it once) I’ve decided to alter my review.

That was... really not very good.

So, here we go. I’m gonna break this down in the order as it was experienced by me. I’m not gonna go back and edit this, so I apologize for typos. But I really don’t want to spend any more time on this then I have to. This feels like my eulogy to Star Wars. And I don’t want to linger here.

First off, the opening crawl. This is a weird one, contested by many, except those in the theater with me. The crawl was slanted, drifting slightly off to the right of the screen. It was weirdly noticeable by everyone in my group. We were slightly off to the left of center in the audience, but measuring the distance at the top of the screen to the scroll on our side vs the distance on the other side made us feel really confident that that the scroll was in fact slanted. Like, Rian Johnson was putting his own slant on things (I see what he did there). Or maybe the projector was tilted. Either way, I missed the entire opening crawl because my brain opted to obsess over this detail. I’m willing to accept most of the responsibility here, but yeah. Slanted crawl pulled me out of Star Wars and made me think about how crawls were shot on a plate and how easy it would be to tilt the camera to give it a new cinematic flavor and blah blah blah. Basically the slanted crawl had no bearing on my overall enjoyment of the film, other than I had retained nothing from the crawl going in and the movie was going to have to stand on it’s own cinematically, with no summary backstory.

Good or bad, in the interest of full disclosure, I present this fact for your judgement.

Yeah, it’s gonna be that kind of review.

Right off the bat we get the first ESB call back of an evacuation shuttle leaving a planet while the First Order looms in the background. From the trailers, I’m already expecting an AT-AT walker snow planet battle, so immediately I’m put on the defensive that the film is not gonna learn from criticisms of The Force Awakens and is going to attempt a rehash of “greatest hit” moments from the greatest Star Wars film. George Lucas referred to this as “poetry” when he recalled certain elements in the prequels, saying “They rhyme.” The new films seem to be seriously leaning in to this theory, but it feels like fan service rather than nuanced storytelling.

I’m disappointed by this but it is in no way a deal breaker. Back to the movie.

Poe, by himself with no squadron waiting, decides to face off the First Order’s new weapon (The Dreadnaught) by flying his tiny x-wing to meet them. We are then subjected to a laurel and hardy routine sponsored by Verizon Wireless, where General Hux is made out to be a total buffoon and completely incompetent. (People will remember that one of everyone’s favorite part of the prequels was how the robot army was totally incompetent and easily out smarted by our clever heroes. Or, the opposite of that.)

But this scene also made me wonder about the intelligence of our hero as well. He flies out to meet the star destroyers and only then does he decide to charge up his boosters for his daring plan? “But Carl, he was playing it by ear!” No, the generals on the resistance ship clearly know what his plan is and disapprove. So, Poe actively decides to show up for this fight completely unprepared. But whatever. That’s a nit pick. I know that, but these things start to weigh on me. See, it wasn’t a story element that he needed more time to charge the boosters, it was a purposefully extended scene to stretch out a “can you hear me now” joke at the sake of plausibility.

Disagree with me? Think of the scene like this.

Hux gives his speech about how he will not take prisoners (instead of just shooting the guy out of the sky which would have delivered that message so much more succinctly).

Poe says his first line “I’m holding for General Hux.”

Hux looks confused for a moment, but quickly realizes he’s being played. “Blow him out of the sky!”

Cut to: Poe’s ship where his engine charge is ready and he blasts off and away.

All the same story beats with a quick, satisfying laugh that doesn’t stop the story or undermine the competency of the characters involved.

Speaking of competency, that brings up my next note. Poe is a fucking Mary Sue. Holy shit. The next sequence of Poe destroying ALL but one of the cannons recalls one of my least favorite moments in Force Awakens. That one shot where Finn is watching Poe fly around bulls-eyeing something like NINE tie fighters and several ground troops without even breaking a sweat. It sets up this ridiculous expectation, that either Poe is that much better than everyone else in either the Resistance or First Order, making everyone else depressingly bad at their jobs, or him impossibly good. Either way, it’s lazy story telling.

We’ve seen good pilots in both of the previous trilogies, all of them having force powers to help them fight at elevated levels, but I’ve never felt, watching any of the other films, that one pilot was enough to single handedly sway any battle. Battles in the previous films always felt epic and sweeping. Poe feels like an OP video game character. The kind that inspires patches to reduce his power because he kills the fun of playing the game and takes away the sense of menace from the foes he faces.

So, we’ll skip the next few nit picks; (bombs “falling” in “space”; why are space bombers slow when there is no gravity or atmosphere? Why are bomb bays triggered by a single button garage door opener? Why would you waste bombers on a mission that clearly calls for a missle or.. an unmanned vehicle blasting into hyper space? We’ll get to that later cuz holy fuck.)

I want to point out that I’m getting nit picky at this point, but watching the film, I have NOT checked out. Still engaged. Still excited. There is some Star Wars shit happening and I am in for the ride! Woo hoo! Snoke is pissed and is gonna murder the fuck outa that buffoon Hux for letting the Resistance escape into hyper space.

So, the rebels come out of hyperspace and Leia casually mentions that she has a tracking device to help Rey find her way home.

LITERALLY MOMENTS LATER, the First order leaps out of hyper space and everyone starts screaming “They tracked us some how!” My brain, which has been literally processing story elements that are fed to me as they are fed to me immediately makes the connection between the First Order tracking the Resistance and the bracelet on Leia’s arm. Those mother fuckers are tracking that shit, and that means they can also find Rey, which means Rey and Luke are in danger as well. Hux even says “We have them tied to the end of the line.” And this is further cemented as what is happening when Snoke suddenly forgives Hux like he’s the best general who ever lived. Like maybe he just explained to Snoke that they found the tracking signal and he’s about to serve up Luke Motherfucking Skywalker.

Except, that’s not what happened. What actually happened is that the First order had finally perfected some 50 year old Imperial technology that was briefly mentioned in Rogue One. Hux didn’t have a clever plan that pleased Snoke. He had some technology. Technology that Snoke would have already known about. Snoke sent Hux back to work like he nailed it, when he should have been like “You fucking idiot, you are the luckiest son of a bitch in the world that you completed that technology cuz we should have finished these guys already. I’m taking a body part. Get back to work.”

And the secret space tracker that Leia had? Didn’t need it. Finn steals it briefly in a cowardly attempt to save the girl he has a crush on, But other than that, it has almost no bearing on the story. Rey uses her connection to Kylo to fly back and surrender to him. The tracker was only used as a plot device to introduce Rose, and to show Finn in a most unheroic light. Again. A familiar bell rang many times in The Force Awakens.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, because the best moment in the movie happened before this and I want to talk about it.

Kylo and the first order have caught the resistance with their pants down and they are fucking shit up. Kylo cruises in on the lead cruiser, aims at the bridge, and suddenly senses his mother standing there. Overcome with emotion, Kylo realizes that he can’t kill his mother. That doing that would mean there is no chance for his redemption. And he CHOOSES TO SPARE HER LIFE!

But oh shit, two other fighters are cruising with him and they dont hesitate to fire on the bridge. There is an explosion and Leia is sucked out into space.

Ladies and gentleman, this was possibly the greatest moment in Star Wars history. Leia was dead. Her death had powerful meaning. In the moment of Kylo’s redemption, he has it stolen away by others. His path to forgiveness destroyed. He will never be forgiven by the other characters in the film. he is doomed to fight as evil because the forces of good will give him no quarter for killing their general. He is a cursed man. His guilt will know no bounds.

I sat there in the cinema, speechless. Completely destroyed emotionally, openly weeping. Carrie Fisher leaves the film, her character arc complete, her death a meaningful and truly shocking moment in the film. Absolutely stunning.

And then she opens her eyes. And I start crying for a different reason. She holds out her hand and force pulls herself to safety, ignoring the other heroes on the bridge who were also blown out into space. She chooses to use her magic powers to save herself and let everyone else die.

Like a fucking hero.

I was stunned at how terrible this moment plays on screen. Truly stunned. Leia had literally just given a speech on how soldiers die heroes but never commanders. Her first chance to put her money where her mouth is, she ignores her own advice and saves her own skin instead.

This also gave me the stunning revelation that Leia would not be dying in this film, because as bad as Rian Johnson is at Star Wars, he’s not so bad to miraculously save a character only to kill her off later because her epic heroic death is still waiting in the wings. Knowing that Carrie Fisher had died made me feel like her character would never get the incredible exit from the saga that was just missed in the preceding opportunity. Princess Leia will die off screen between films. Or she will be digitally reincarnated. But neither of those things serve her memory or her character. The Force Awakens had a lot of missed opportunities, but none of them like this missed moment here.

Meanwhile Rey is trying to convince Luke Skywalker to come back and he insists that he has no intention of ever returning. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU MAKE A MAP TO WHERE YOU WERE HIDING? WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING? WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!

While we’re here, Chewie eating Porgs while they gather around him to ponder the deaths of their kin is nothing less than horrifying. These creatures are sentient and aware they are bing eaten, and instead of running for their lives, they stare sadly at the creature eating them. These creatures are not long for this world. This is my only note on Porgs.

They’re... fine.

Also, ghost Yoda can shoot lightning bolts? Is that something they could always do? Why the fuck are we fighting a war when theres an army of lightning powered ghost warriors wandering the cosmos. Hey Ghost Yoda why don’t you make yourself useful and ghost your way into a star destroyer and lightning the fuck out of power core?

Ghost Yoda shooting lightning fundamentally breaks Star Wars.

Moving on...

Seriously. We’re just getting started.

Back at the resistance, Finn has decided to sneak off the cruiser with Leia’s bracelet. Now, remember, at this point in the film, I’m still thinking the bracelet is the way the First Order is tracking the resistance. The whole “they must be tracking us through hyper space” plot line feels super thin and the only thing holding it to reality is a passing reference in a film that takes place roughly 50 years before this one. Remember, there is literally no reason, that I as a casual movie goer, should think that the First order has in fact figured out this new tech and are not following this bracelet instead. Nothing about Snoke’s response or Hux’s response suggest this is the case.

So, I’m thinking, fuck yeah. Finn has figured this out, and he’s gonna try and lure the First Order away by pretending he’s Princess Leia. Like a hero. This is gonna draw the First Order off the Resistance and put Finn in a lot of danger. Danger that’s gonna get super cool when Rey follows the beacon home and discovers her friend captured by storm troopers! What a crazy action packed reunion that’s gonna be!

Oh wait. Finn is sneaking off to lure Rey away from the First Order, so the two of them can be together after the resistance is destroyed, or something. Like a... hero? Is this really the conclusions a hero comes to? I mean, i get it, the movie calls him out on this, but like, didn’t we already do the “Finn is running away” plot line in the last movie? Didn’t we already resolve that he’s not a coward and willing to fight for what’s right? He knows Rey won’t be cool with this move. What the fuck is he doing? WHAT THE FUCK!

Ok, so, he tells Rose what he was really up to, and she magically understands the quantum mechanics of tracking a ship through hyper space. Finn and Rose, the janitor and the repair girl, within moments of being presented with a problem come up with the most far fetched solution that could possibly be, WHILE IGNORING THE MOST OBVIOUS PROBLEM IN THEIR HANDS (I mean honestly, even if someone had briefly looked at the tracker and said “What about this”, followed by a quick explanation and I could move on, but in the 2 1/2 hour run time there just wasn’t enough time to address this obvious plot hole).

So, Finn, Poe and Rose decide to disobey orders and embark on a mission after being told that there is only one man in the galaxy that can hack into a first order star destroyer. This man, will be identifiable by his flower pendant. That he always wears. At all times. So he can be identifiable. To people sent to him to hack secret codes. You know, just in case. Also he is always at the high stakes gambling tables. Not eating. Not reading the paper in his apartment. He exists in a constant state of high stakes gambling.

Sigh. Fine. Let’s go find this guy.

Finn and Rose leave in a shuttle and are immediately identified as a shuttle leaving the ship by the First Order but they are told to ignore the shuttle and to continue chasing the main ships. This scene is really fucking important for later on in the movie so let me reiterate on this point: A shuttle left the resistance ships and was immediately tracked and identified by the First Order. Yeah, you know where I’m going with this, but let’s just leave it here in your fucking brain for a minute, the way it sat in mine for the rest of the movie.

So, now we get a weird story arc for Rose. Rose hates everyone who lives in this city. Why? Did she live here? No. She was a slave growing up in a mine somewhere else. But rich people who live in this city built weapons from stuff the slave children mined so fuck this town and everyone in it.

This,’rich people were mean to me so I hate all rich people’ storyline feels like a super weak attempt to make a political statement about classism and suggests that future Star Wars films are going to be about the poor people rising up and defeating the elitists who are literally getting rich off of watching us kill each other. This is a clumsy metaphor for what’s happening in the world. (It also completely ignores that this city is also home to the sometimes lover of one of our main resistance heroes, so maybe not everyone is so bad?)

But fine. Clumsy metaphor. Poor people good, rich people bad. Got it.

Rose and Finn find the man they are looking for but are immediately arrested and thrown in jail. The absolute worst jail in movie history. First off, they are locked up together. But not only together, with a third person. A magic person who claims (and actually does) he has the exact skills the duo is looking for. Skills our characters have been told do not exist outside of the man with a flower on his coat.

This new man breaks them out of jail with items he snuck in (deus ex incompetence), only to discover that BB-8 has already dispatched the guards and was literally moments away from rescuing them himself. I point this out because none of the suspension of disbelief required above was necessary to get out of the situation. The movie just did it. Inexplicably. Just crammed in a moment to waste our time.

Which I suddenly realize is a recurring theme in the film. Cramming in moments that have no bearing on the story to fill time.

Fine. They escape. But they do not try to reconnect with the guy they saw at the casino. They instead decide to scrub the mission and head back. I’m weirdly on board with this because this whole plan was incredibly contrived from the beginning. Anything to get back to the story at hand.

But this new person they met in jail just keeps forcing himself on them, rescuing them at the last moment from... I’m not sure what. Going back to terrible jail? It’s not hard to break out of. They’ve already decided to leave the planet empty handed so, I’m not really sure what the stakes are for this camel cat chase scene are supposed to be. Like, it seems to be a crazy desperate escape from being temporarily hindered. Whatever. All your friends are dying in the slowest chase scene across the galaxy ever, but this action packed chase scene has almost zero stakes. Think about where you’re investing your story moments, people.

Shake it off, there is still a lot of movie to get through, but at this point, the movie is actually working against me.

Ok, so Finn and Rose escape the gambling city, leaving the slave children to be whipped and beaten for their participation in the escape, and all of the camel cats are immediately round up and returned to the stables, to be also whipped and beaten for running away. (This is proven fact when we revisit the children later on and find them still working in the stables, sweeping straw. If the camel cats were still gone, there would be no need to tend the stables and we already know the slavers are not opposed to beating the children or the camel cats.)

But hey, none of that matters cuz “Game on!” We have a hacker! Who claims he can do the thing. With zero credibility or references. But by god, this is our only hope. Cool. Lets break into a star destroyer.

I wanna pause here to point out there is a storyline happening between Kylo Ren and Rey that is STUNNINGLY good. Like it’s happening in a different movie. It’s layered and nuanced and tragic and heartfelt. Love love everything in this storyline up to the point that Kylo Ren pulls a Homer Simpson trying to murder his omnipotent son, Bart, in that one Tree House of Horror episode just before Bart turns him into a jack in the box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4T8x7T4Vao

Kylo Ren is moderately more successful then Homer and manages to kill off Snoke by cutting him in half with my favorite move from the Star Wars video game. And then comes the dance fighting ninja guards who are TERRIBLE at their jobs. Just terrible. There’s no other way to explain what happened to human resources. The outcome of what happened in that room is going to reflect very poorly on the Royal Guard.

But the movie insists I need to watch the Rose Finn stuff so it sends me back to them sneaking onto the star destroyer, where they are immediately identified by an astro mech who spots BB-8.

Moments later they are caught by the First Order, but BB-8 is not captured. Even though he is with them and was the reason they were caught in the first place. Somehow, he isn’t captured with them. the movie suggests it’s because he is hidden under a box, but the Star Mech saw him through the box and the astro mech is present for the capture, but has now apparently forgotten about BB-8.

Sure. Fine. Moving on.

Now, I forgot to mention something because during the throne room fight, the movie felt like it was winding down, but I remembered from the trailer that Captain Phasma still hadn’t shown up in the movie and was getting worried that Phasma might be under utilized in this storyline (unless there was some big reveal coming up that totally legitimized her involvement in the film. Spoiler alert: there isn’t.)

Seriously, why is Phasma in your movies? Are you trying to make a statement about Boba Fett? That the only thing a villain needs to become iconic is a cool costume? Is this a bet you guys made with the original trilogy guys?

So, Phasma shows up, escorts the prisoners to the hangar (not the brig) in order to immediately execute them. Not interrogate them. Not hold them prisoner. “But Carl, they knew Finn and Rose would never talk so no need to question them! Also, the hacker already told them everything they wanted to know.” Ok, first, hacker John only told the First order about the ships sneaking off the spaceship. Information he was only privy to because he was allowed to be a part of a top secret mission briefing by Poe leading a mutiny against Laura Dern. And also, master interrogator Kylo Ren is on this ship. He can mind rape these kids and get all their secrets. There is NO WAY execution is the next step in the plan. Zero chance.

Hang on. Hold up. Let’s talk about Laura Dern who has picked the absolute worst teaching moment that any officer could choose. The resistance is in tatters. The main general is in a coma. Your captains are going down with their ships one at a time. DON’T BE COY WITH THE DETAILS WHEN DEALING WITH YOUR BEST PILOT!

Also, what the fuck is up with your hair and wardrobe? Purple hair? That’s it? You were like “Space movie lady? Purple hair, right?” and everyone was like “Sure. That sounds right.” Lazy lazy lazy.....

Whatever.

So, Phasma is gonna execute these fools but KABOOM! and Phasma and her troops disappear. Finn is surprised by this and decides to make his escape. But then suddenly out of the smoke comes (wait for it) CAPTAIN PHASMA!

Wha...? Where did she go? Did they all run off for a second and then suddenly go “Wait. Did we kill those guys? Do you guys remember why we came in here? Fuck. Lets go back and kill those guys before we leave. We got the order all mixed up again.” Just... baffling. They jettisoned her out of the scene, just so she could reenter the scene dramatically. Just because the shot of her coming out of the smoke looked cool. That’s it.

So, now Finn and Phasma fight. And the backstory between these two characters is thick, and by thick I mean, non-existent. Nothing feels earned in this battle, including Phasma’s incredibly lack luster “death”. So, Finn the janitor lucks into victory against the hardened warrior... again.

Man, have we ever seen Finn win a fight in these movies? Have they been trying to sell us an incompetent hero? What exactly has Finn done to help the resistance in either of these films? Is Finn the worst character in Star Wars? Talk amongst yourself.

But before you do, I want you to consider one thing. After watching the film, I was pretty vocal about how Finn, Rose and Poe’s plan did absolutely nothing to affect the outcome of the film. Their adventure was completely pointless.

But I was wrong. They did cause one thing.

On the Resistance ships, 30 evacuation shuttles are slipping away, under the assumption that the First Order won’t be able to see the shuttles. This is a stupid plan, especially since the movie goes out of it’s way to explain that the First Order can ABSOLUTELY track shuttles flying away. (Editor’s note: its been pointed out to me that the shuttles were using cloaking technology, cloaking technology that the First Order had no problem seeing past, simply by possessing the knowledge that it existed. Lazy lazy lazy...)

But let’s buy into this. The resistance is escaping, and Finn, Poe and Rose have handed a traitor over to the First Order and directly caused the deaths of 23 of the 30 ships flying away. Two thirds of the survivors were killed because Finn, Poe and Rose didn’t follow orders.

Now, this is fucking dark. Holy shit, hubris killed the resistance.

But in the next scene, Poe is leading the goddamn charge against the walkers.

YOU DON’T GET TO DO THAT. You disobeyed orders that killed off almost 300 of the remaining 400 soldiers. You are summarily executed. Not the hero of the final battle. After Poe and Finn’s bullshit, the entire resistance can fit in the goddamn Millenium Falcon.

These characters are not heroes.

So, lets skip over the nit picky shit (Finn can suddenly fly a ship? When did he learn? He’s been in a coma since the last movie and one of the main plotlines of the last movie circled around Finn not being able to fly a ship. Why drop a battering ram so far away from it’s target? Why not blast the base from space?)

So, then Luke Skywalker shows up and fools everyone into believing he’s actually there, when he isn’t. It’s magic and shit. No one can touch him. (Except we’ve already established that you can indeed touch him through the void, but Nvmnd).

This scene is annoying for two reasons. One, it’s lame. Two, the director went through so many lengths to set this up. He showed a shot of Rey looking at a drowned x wing, so when Luke shows up magically at the end of the movie, folks are like, “He must’ve force lifted the x-wing out of the water and flown it here.” It was such an easy head fake explanation that utilized information the audience knew from past movies along with necessary story elements to make something believable.

There are so many head scratchingly stupid moments in this film, that it absolutely stuns me this much thought went into this sequence. To maintain my suspension of disbelief in this moment, the director offered a single well thought out visual to sell Luke’s silly plan to the audience.

So that tells me that the filmmakers were perfectly capable of taking moments established in previous films and building on them smartly. They just... didn’t.

It’s like when my teacher would give me lower marks then the rest of the class, not because my paper was worse, but because I was capable of so much more. Yeah, it seems unfair, but fuck you. Life isn’t fair. You get to direct endless Star Wars movies for the rest of your life. Try not to piss in my mouth while you do it,

Which brings me to my final example of why this movie completely fails. Laura Dern decides to save the resistance by launching a ship into hyper space directly into the main star destroyer.

Are you serious? Has this always been an option? It literally destroyed the ship with the hyper space tracker. All of the other ships could have escaped if that first bastard who went down with his ship would have done this. Every death star could have been destroyed with a single freighter. Holy shit, we could build a canon that shoots things at light speed and destroy everything.

If this has always been an option, it’s ridiculous that it is only thought of now.

Also, if the First order only has one ship that cant track the resistance ships, why not just everybody scatter into hyper space in every direction? They can’t follow everybody. if 10 ships are left, 9 get away. there are literally dozens of different ways to get out of this situation that even the most inexperienced leader could have sussed out, other than abandoning ship to everyone’s immediate execution.

Heroes are supposed to be great. There are no great heroes in The Last Jedi.

So that’s it. Not a good movie. Soup to nuts an utter failure. On par with the worst of the prequels. And once everybody has had a little time away from the film, you’ll all agree with me. Just like you all loved the prequels for a little while, until some sober son of a bitch walked up and pointed out a few failings.

And then the whole goddamn thing comes tumbling down.

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