#it’s far from the worst creative decision she made but this is actually part of what makes snape so lame to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nicknellie · 3 years

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Anonymous requested: Could I request willex fake dating au, maybe the boys are trying to get Alex a boyfriend and so he asks Willie to fake date him to get the boys off his back or something please!

Anon, I love fake dating AUs, I’m beyond glad that you suggested this. Plus with willex I think fake dating is very in character, especially for Alex. I had a lot of fun writing this one, thank you for your request! I’m sorry it took me so long to get round to writing it, but to make up for it I’ve made it longer than most of my other fics.

A Dream Come True

Alex had to hand it to them – when Luke and Reggie wanted something, they really pushed for it. Normally it would be one of the many things he loved about the two of them. Determination, perseverance, resilience, all good qualities. And when they put their minds towards something useful like booking Julie and the Phantoms a gig or dragging Willie out of the washing machine when he got stuck in it playing hide and seek, they were definitely useful to have around. So usually, Alex loved their pushiness.

He just didn’t like it when it was aimed at him. Even less so when they were trying (for the umpteenth time that month) to get him a boyfriend.

And the worst part was that this time Alex had run out of excuses.

For reasons Alex simply couldn’t fathom, Luke and Reggie had been obsessed with the idea of finding him a boyfriend for some weeks now. Reggie had downloaded several dating apps and entered all of Alex’s information, and every time Alex saw him the first thing Reggie would do was reel off a list of several candidates he’d deemed worthy. Luke, ever the technophobe (or rather just terrible with technology), had taken a more natural approach and spent countless hours wandering the streets of Hollywood for someone who was, in his words, ‘the sort of guy who would make Alex lose his goddamn mind’.

It wasn’t that Alex didn’t appreciate them trying to make him happy – he found it sweet, if a little weird – it was just that he knew nobody they found would ever be right. He knew what he was looking for, he knew what he wanted, and he didn’t think that Luke and Reggie could get it for him.

The first time they had tried to send him on a date Alex had faked a cold and pulled out at the last minute. The second time he had “accidentally” shown up to the wrong location and missed the entire thing. The third time he simply hadn’t gone – instead, he turned off all the lights in his house, locked all the doors and windows, and hid, so when he didn’t show up and Luke and Reggie came over looking for him they assumed he was out. The fourth time and most recent time he had pretended to fall asleep when they told him about it.

Alex wasn’t the most creative of people and he had pretty much exhausted all of his go-to date-dodging tactics. So the fifth time his friends tried to set him up, he completely panicked.

“So I was doing my usual lap of Sunset Boulevard this morning,” Luke said in lieu of a greeting the moment he walked into Julie’s garage. “And Alex, dude, bro, you will not believe the guy I saw.”

“Good morning to you to,” Alex said flatly.

Luke wrinkled his nose like the greeting confused him, but then saw Julie setting up her mic in the corner. A bright smile grew on his face as he was distracted and for a moment Alex thought he might have been lucky enough to get out of the conversation. But a moment later, Reggie entered the studio and also decided that greetings weren’t a necessity.

“Luke! Did you tell Alex about the guy yet?”

Julie snickered (she found the whole thing much funnier than Alex did and he most certainly did not appreciate it) and for a moment more Luke continued to just look at her, absolutely besotted, but then he came to his senses and all of a sudden his excited smile was directed at Alex.

“Right, that. So I ran into him outside the Orpheum, so he’s probably a music guy,” Luke gushed, winking in a way that Alex supposed was meant to be suggestive. “We had a little chat and he told me he’s training as a teacher and is also looking for someone to settle down with.”

“Sometimes I worry about you,” Alex said, laying a gentle hand on Luke’s arm. “You’re getting forgetful. I’m not looking to settle down with anyone.”

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Luke shrugged Alex’s arm off and instead planted his own hands firmly on Alex’s shoulders, shaking him a little. “Maybe not, but that might change when you meet this guy.”

“I doubt it. What’s his name?”

“Oscar. Maybe Oliver. Orville? I don’t know, but it definitely began with an ‘o’.”

“He sounds memorable,” Alex deadpanned. “I’m sure we’ll have a great time together.”

Reggie gasped excitedly. “So you’ll meet up with him then?”

“No,” Alex said firmly.

Julie giggled again (and once again Luke looked at her, dazzled). “Why not, Alex? You sounded so enthusiastic about him!”

“Very funny,” he returned. “I’m not meeting him.”

“Why not?” Luke whined, dragging the words out like a frustrated toddler. “You always do this! Reg and I try to set you up with people but you always say you don’t want to. Are we missing something?”

Alex could see the cogs whirring in Reggie’s mind before his face lit up and he triumphantly guessed, “Or are we missing someone?”

If anyone had asked, Alex wouldn’t have been able to give a reason for what he said next. It was completely untrue, a wild statement made under extreme pressure in the face of an emergency. Perhaps it was a bad decision, but he had run out of excuses to not meet people and he was getting desperate. He hadn’t had time to consider it.

Alex said, “Yes.”

Reggie’s jaw dropped, Julie dropped her microphone, and Luke dropped whatever respect he had left for Alex’s personal boundaries. He launched himself at Alex, tackling him to the floor in what he assumed was supposed to be a hug, and Alex was fairly certain that Luke was crying with happiness.

“Dude!” he shouted (though it was rather muffled since he had his face buried in Alex’s shirt). “That’s awesome news! Reggie and I can stop searching! I didn’t think you’d be able to find someone yourself, bro.”

“Thanks for having so much confidence in me,” Alex said flatly as he extricated himself from Luke’s vice grip and hoisted himself to his feet.

“You’re welcome,” Luke said as he wiped his eyes (yes, he was actually crying happy tears).

Julie had her arms crossed in front of her chest, looking half-puzzled and half-affronted. “You’re seeing someone? And you didn’t tell me? The only one of your friends who is even a little bit good at keeping a secret?”

“Hey,” Reggie interrupted, “I’m good at keeping secrets!”

“Reggie, honey, I love you but at Christmas you told everyone what you’d bought them as soon as you’d bought it.”

Reggie looked like he wanted to defend himself but couldn’t. “I was excited to see everyone’s reactions…”

Rolling her eyes fondly, Julie turned back to Alex. “Anyway – why didn’t you tell me?”

While he was a terrible liar, Alex just so happened to be a very good actor. In high school he’d got the lead role in the school play two years in a row, but whenever someone asked him if he was gay (before he had come out) he would often panic and pretend to faint to get out of the situation. Though he was technically telling a lie here, he decided it would be the prime opportunity to employ some of the improvisational skills he had worked on with Carrie back in their theatre club.

“It was all very new,” he explained, “we weren’t sure if it was going to go anywhere and we didn’t want to tell everyone until we were sure.”

It was only at this point that Alex realised he was digging a very deep hole for himself and it was most certainly too late to climb out of it now.

“When do we get to meet him?” Reggie asked excitedly.

“You already have,” Alex replied.

A little voice in the back of his mind was saying, shut up, you absolute idiot, what the hell are you playing at? Perhaps stupidly, he drowned that voice out.

Looking dumbfounded, Luke clutched Alex’s shoulders again. “We have? Who is it?”

The little voice got louder – don’t say it, Alex, I’m begging you not to say it, it’s like you’re actively trying to ruin your own life, you absolute–

“Willie.”

In eery synchrony, Luke, Julie, and Reggie all looked to each other with identical expressions of shock and bewilderment and then turned back to Alex with furrowed brows.

“Willie?” they all chorused.

Alex pursed his lips and rocked on the balls of his feet, suddenly regretting every decision he’d made that had brought him to this point in his life. “Yep.”

“I thought your thing with him finished like six months ago?” Julie said.

“Well, there wasn’t really much of a thing to finish,” Reggie reasoned, “just Alex’s pining from afar that had lasted for like four years–”

“Yes, thank you, Reginald,” Alex interrupted. It wasn’t that Reggie was wrong, Alex just didn’t like how right he was. “And yeah, it did… I guess. But then we were hanging out together a few months ago and it was really nice and we started doing it more often and eventually he asked me on a date.”

Alex was overly aware that every word he had just said was an utter lie. Firstly, he had never really got over Willie – Willie wasn’t the sort of person you could just forget or move on from, even though Alex had never actually dated him. Secondly, Alex and Willie hadn’t actually hung out together alone in quite a while. Willie had been busy with their blossoming art career, going to different presentations and awards shows, trying to make a name for himself; Alex, on the other hand, had been doing his best to avoid dating anyone. And thirdly, Willie had never once asked Alex on a date.

He knew he should have backtracked, told them the truth, but he was in far too deep.

“This has been going on for a few months?” Luke said incredulously. “How have you kept it from us that long? Dude, you just let Reggie and I spend literally all our free time trying to find you a boyfriend!”

“I never asked you to do that.”

“You could have told us to stop,” Reggie said.

“I did,” Alex returned. “Several times.”

Julie raised her hands placatingly. “Okay, okay. That’s not important right now. What’s important is that Alex and Willie are finally together. Are you sure they’ll be alright with you telling us while he’s not here?”

Alex shrugged, trying to act like he wasn’t too sure (which was easy because he’d never been less sure of anything at any time in his life). “Umm… well… we haven’t really talked about it much, but… you know, I’m sure he won’t mind too much. I’ll tell them tonight.”

Julie smiled warmly. “Well, I’m happy for you in any case. It’s nice that you’ve finally got what you wanted for so long.”

“Amen to that,” Luke said, finally picking up his guitar. Alex had all but forgotten they were supposed to be practising instead of talking about his very fake relationship with Willie which Willie didn’t even know about. “And Reg and I can finally stop looking for someone.”

“Could’ve stopped before you’d even started,” Alex said, sitting down behind his drumkit, “but alright.”

He knew that sooner or later he would have to tell Willie what he’d done and he was absolutely dreading it. Willie was a very chill person and Alex knew they’d probably find it funny more than anything, but it was still a daunting prospect. But for now, he focused himself on his drums, hammering out all of that excess anxiety, and forgetting the absolute nightmare he’d created for himself just for a little bit.

It was nearing one o’clock in the morning and Alex was very much not ready to go to sleep. For one thing, he was still wearing his clothes instead of pyjamas, and for another he was pacing his room like a caged lion with anxiety and had been doing so for almost three hours. He was trying to build up the courage to call Willie and let him know what had gone on, but he was so nervous that he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to string a sentence together if Willie picked up the phone.

He knew he would just have to bite the bullet. He couldn’t put it off forever or it would end in disaster. For the thousandth time he reminded himself that Willie was the kindest, funniest, most good-natured person he knew and that he had nothing to be scared of when it came to telling them that he had made a massive, probably damning mistake. Willie would be fine with it, Alex knew.

Before he could dwell on it a second longer, Alex dialled Willie’s number and let it ring.

It only rang twice before Willie picked up. Even though it was late, Alex had known Willie would pick up (the guy hardly slept at all) and he fought the urge to tell him to go to bed.

“Morning,” Willie said chirpily.

Alex checked the time and blinked in surprise; he hadn’t realise how long he’d been pacing for.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he said. “How come you’re still awake?”

“Mario Kart,” they replied. Alex could practically hear Willie’s smile – suddenly there were butterflies in his already anxious stomach and they certainly weren’t helping. “Why are you still awake? I thought your bedtime was half nine.”

“It hasn’t been in two years and you know that,” Alex said. Willie giggled brightly which teased a smile out of Alex. “I, uh… I actually need to talk to you about something that happened today.”

Just get on with it, he told himself, don’t drag it out.

“Oh?” Willie said. “What is it? You sound nervous – do you need me to come over?”

“No,” Alex told him, “it’s late – or maybe early. Either way, you don’t need to come all the way to my place just so I can tell you this.”

“It sounds serious.”

“It might be,” Alex admitted. “It depends on how you take it.”

There was a brief silence on the other end and for a moment Alex wondered if Willie had decided to end the conversation, but then they said, “Alright, let me just pause the game.”

Another short pause as Willie stopped mid-race. Alex took the opportunity to collect himself, shake out his nerves. It would be fine. Willie would be fine with it.

“Okay,” he said a moment later. “I’m back. What’s going on, hotdog?”

Alex scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck, suddenly unsure where to start.

“Okay,” he began uncertainly. “Well… Luke and Reg have been trying to set me up with someone for a while now and I’ve been trying to avoid it as much as I can. I’ve sort of run out of excuses and you know how difficult it is for me to say no to them.”

Willie hummed knowingly. “Like with the Great Cactus Robbery of 2019.”

Alex winced at the memory – he hadn’t realised cactus spikes hurt quite that much, but he’d gone through with a lot that night for Luke and Reggie’s sake.

“Don’t remind me,” he said witheringly. “Anyway, you know what I’m talking about then. They told me about another guy earlier today and I really needed another excuse to give them. I tried just point-blank telling them no, but then they started asking questions and…”

“And?” Willie prompted.

“I told them I was seeing someone,” Alex said. There was silence on the other end. “I told them I was seeing you.”

After a moment or two (that felt like an eternity) Willie burst out laughing. Alex sighed, affronted, but he supposed it was one of the better reactions he could have got. At least Willie wasn’t angry at him.

“Why?” Willie wheezed between laughs. “Was that seriously the first thing that came to your mind?”

“Yes,” Alex grumbled. “I was under a lot of pressure. You were the obvious choice.”

They giggled happily and Alex realised just how true those words had been – whether he liked it or not, Willie would always be the obvious choice for him.

“Well, I’m flattered,” they told him, blatantly trying to contain their giggles. “Thank you for thinking of me, hotdog.”

“You’re welcome,” Alex said. “But I’m sorry about it too. I’ve created an absolute mess and dragged you into it, so I understand if you’re angry at me.”

“Does it sound like I’m angry at you?”

“No?”

“That’s because I’m not,” Willie said kindly. “I get it, man, you just panicked. No big deal. Besides, we can ride this out easily.”

Alex blinked. “We can?”

“Sure, man, it’ll be fun. We’ll pretend to date for a few weeks, have a friendly breakup, and then everything can go back to normal.”

“You’re sure?” Alex checked. This hadn’t been what he was expecting – he’d thought Willie would say it didn’t matter but he needed to come clean. He hadn’t been expecting the offer of dating.

Fake dating, said that irritating little voice in his head. It’s not real. Don’t let yourself forget that.

“Of course I’m sure,” they said. “I mean, it’s totally cool if you don’t want to, but surely it’ll be easier than backtracking completely with the others. And it’ll get Reggie and Luke off your back for a little while longer.”

He considered it, weighing up the pros and cons. On one hand, he’d get to date Willie at last, something he’d wanted to do since he met him. It would give them more of a chance to hang out together, Luke and Reggie would stop pestering him, and it was always fun to harmlessly mess with his friends. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure his sentimental little heart could stand getting to date Willie and then having him taken away even if that was the arrangement from the very start.

But it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

“Alright,” he said resolutely. “I’m in.”

“Cool,” Willie returned happily. “Shall we meet tomorrow to discuss, you know, like, boundaries and stuff like that?”

“Sounds great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He heard Willie press play on his game, the unmistakable sound of an item box being broken on Mario Kart.

“See you tomorrow, Alex,” Willie said. “Or maybe now we’re dating I should be calling you ‘babe’ or something.”

If that made Alex’s heart flutter, he wouldn’t say anything about it. “We’ll go over pet names tomorrow. Goodnight, Willie.”

“Goodnight, babe.”

As Alex put his phone down and launched himself into bed (still fully clothed but suddenly far too tired to even consider getting changed) he thought to himself that there probably couldn’t have been a better outcome.

Alex had expected the meeting with Willie to feel awkward and weirdly formal, but it was completely the opposite. Both of them were in high spirits the whole time, jokingly holding hands and making heart eyes at each other, laughing every time one of them used a particularly ridiculous pet name for the other. (When Alex had called Willie ‘sugarpoops’ he had thought they might die from laughing.)

But the meeting was productive too. They set some effective boundaries – any touching was allowed, just not too intimate; kissing was fine, but only to prove a point; and just for the fun of it they agreed they had to act like the most sickeningly in-love couple the world had ever known. Alex didn’t really care if that would give the whole thing away, it seemed like a bit of fun and it would be useful when it came to reminding himself that none of this was actually real.

That bit, he had to admit, still stung.

He and Willie had arranged to meet Luke, Reggie, and Julie at the studio that afternoon, so spent the day together beforehand. Just to try and get into the swing of things, they treated their morning together as a mini date. Alex took Willie to minigolf, then they went to an ice cream parlour, and after that Willie tried to teach Alex how to skateboard for fifteen minutes before Alex got too nervous and gave up. It was fun and Alex tried not to think about the fact that this was the reality he was missing out on – if he imagined he was just hanging out with Willie as a friend, which in a way he was, then it was just about bearable.

They arrived outside the studio together and they could hear the other band members’ voices already inside. Alex’s stomach started squirming nervously which he thought was weird. He didn’t actually have anything to be nervous about – he and Willie weren’t really dating.

But still, he was starting to feel a little bit queasy and was seriously considering just running away.

Then he felt Willie’s hand slip into his and their fingers lace together. He looked down at them and saw that he had a kind, soft smile on his face, gently encouraging.

“Ready to be my boyfriend, sweetheart?” Willie asked teasingly.

The nerves didn’t disappear, but Alex found it a lot easier to ignore them after that.

“Always,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, Alex pushed open the studio door and led Willie inside. Julie, Luke, and Reggie all hushed immediately and looked at the couple like they’d been caught red-handed. If their guilty expressions were anything to go by, they had been talking about Alex and Willie before they had walked in. He could only guess as to what they had been saying, but at that point Alex hardly thought it mattered.

It was showtime.

“Hey guys,” he said, grinning broadly. “What are you talking about?”

The three all responded at the same time but with wildly different answers.

“That gig next week,” blurted Luke.

“I lost my favourite hairclip,” Julie explained.

“I’m thinking of buying a horse,” Reggie told them.

Alex and Willie looked at each other, trying to hide their amusement.

“Anyway,” Julie said, “doesn’t matter what we were talking about! Because you’re here now, both of you! And you’re dating!”

Without warning, Willie giggled brightly and attached himself to Alex like a koala to a tree. Alex laughed and threw his arms around Willie, holding them tightly, pressing a firm kiss to the top of their head.

“I feels so good to finally have it out in the open,” Willie gushed, gazing at Alex with pure adoration in his eyes. “Right, sugarplum?”

Alex gently rubbed the tip of his nose against Willie’s, fighting the urge to laugh. “Of course, my little cheesecake.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see his friends’ expressions – he had to close his eyes so he wouldn’t be able to see them, otherwise he definitely would have broken character and started laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Luke looked utterly horrified, like the display of affection was disgusting; Julie was staring at the two of them wide-eyed, her face flushed red, looking like she would rather be anywhere else; and Reggie just looked baffled.

After a while, Julie cleared her throat and the couple turned to look at her innocently.

“So,” she said, “we’ve heard Alex’s version of the story, but Willie – how did… all this happen?”

Willie linked his arm through Alex’s marched the two of them over to the couch and sat Alex down, then sat primly on his lap, laying their head against Alex’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you asked.”

“I’m not,” Luke muttered, “this is weird.”

Julie kicked his shin and he shut his mouth.

“I had been watching Alex from afar ever since we met, but I didn’t think a cool, handsome drummer could ever care about someone like me. I was convinced we would only ever be friends. But then we hung out together and I saw all these different sides to his personality – he’s so caring and soft, you know, and he means everything he says. Alex isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met. So I decided to just go for it, ask him out, admit how I feel.”

Alex stroked a hand through Willie’s hair, eyes fixed on him. “Since then we’ve never looked back. And we never will.”

“Oh, my darling!” Willie exclaimed, throwing themself at Alex and pressing a kiss to his lips.

It certainly wasn’t how Alex had envisioned his first kiss with Willie going (and he had envisioned a great many different versions of it) but in a strange way it felt just right. Sure, they weren’t dating, but they were hanging out together, having fun, being in each other’s company and loving every second of it. Maybe the circumstances weren’t exactly what Alex wanted, but the love they held for one another was still there, nothing could take that away.

So maybe it wasn’t the best decision he’d ever made, but Alex let himself get lost in the kiss. He didn’t know how many times he’d get to do this in his life, so he figured it was better to make the most of it. He blocked out the fact that his friends were right there (a sure sign that he wasn’t thinking straight – absently he knew that he would be very embarrassed by this when it was all over) and just focused on Willie.

And he was sure he wasn’t imagining the fact that Willie seemed to be enjoying it just as much.

When Julie eventually cleared her throat again, they separated. But Alex couldn’t take his eyes off Willie. He knew he wasn’t imagining what he’d felt in that kiss – like sparks had flown between them, forcing their dynamic into something much more than friendly banter and an inside joke. Willie’s eyes were glassy and he was breathing heavily, scanning Alex’s face for something, though Alex didn’t know what. All he knew was that the kiss had pushed the boundaries they had spent all morning setting and if he wasn’t more careful he would lose himself to this silly little charade.

The five of them spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just talking to each other. Willie stayed firmly planted in Alex’s lap and they both used the occasional cutesy nickname for each other, but it seemed as if both of them had silently made the decision to tone things down a little bit. Luke seemed relieved about it at least – for all the heart eyes he made at Julie he certainly seemed uncomfortable at the affection Alex and Willie had shown. It was probably because Alex hardly ever showed love like that in front of people.

But god, he wanted to do it all again.

Luckily, it didn’t seem like any of their friends suspected Alex and Willie of lying to them. By the time they were all on their way home – Alex and Willie walking away hand in hand – nobody had brought up the fact that it could all be fake.

“That went well,” Willie said as they walked along the seafront, heading back to his place. The cold night breeze lifted their hair and Alex couldn’t keep his eyes off them, not when they were looking so beautiful.

“Yeah,” he said, watching the way the amber glow of the streetlamps danced in Willie’s eyes. “It did.”

“Have you thought about how long we’re going to do this for?” Willie asked. Alex was sure he heard nervousness in Willie’s tone, maybe mingled with hope.

He shrugged. “A few weeks maybe. Unless you had something else in mind.”

“No, no, that’s fine, man.” They had arrived at Willie’s apartment building and stopped just outside of it. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, smiling smally. “See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know what he was thinking – he had expected a goodnight kiss from Willie, but instead he was left alone in the cold as Willie let go of his hand and hurried into the building. Alex was suddenly reminded again that it was all fake, that he shouldn’t have expected kisses when they were alone.

It hurt though. He knew that kiss earlier had been more than just top-notch acting.

He fell asleep that night, still thinking about it, the memory replaying on a loop in his mind. In one way or another, Willie was going to drive him crazy.

The next two weeks flew by. Alex found himself hanging out just with Willie more and more often, playing Mario Kart together at Willie’s insistence, going on more dates that weren’t actually dates, or even just video-chatting each other while doing their own separate things to enjoy the company.

After that first day as a “couple”, Alex was sure Willie’s confidence had been knocked. For the next few days they withdrew himself from Alex and Alex didn’t know if he’d done something wrong or if it was just something on Willie’s mind. Still, he let Willie work through it, and a few days later he was back to normal, clinging to Alex like a barnacle to a ship, calling him every pet name under the sun.

And still their friends were none the wiser.

The end of their time as a couple came all too quickly. Alex walked Willie back to his apartment again, a heaviness in his heart. He didn’t know how an actual breakup felt, but he was willing to bet that a breakup would be less painful than whatever this was. No part of him wanted to give this up, whatever silly little thing was going on between him and Willie – it was fun, it was freeing, it gave Alex a light feeling in his chest and made him so happy he thought he might burst at any moment. He didn’t want to give any of it up.

But still he walked Willie to his door.

They stood facing each other, hands interlinked between them, sad smiles on each of their faces. Alex tried to memorise every detail on Willie’s face as if it was the last time he would see them.

“This has been fun,” he said eventually, his voice low, quiet in the night air.

“You can say that again,” Willie agreed. “I loved being your boyfriend.”

“I loved being your boyfriend.”

Something flickered in Willie’s eyes, an expression gone too quickly for Alex to name, but it was quickly forgotten because a moment later Willie stood up on his tiptoes and kissed Alex.

It wasn’t like any of the other kisses they had shared in the past few weeks. There was nothing over-the-top and exaggerated about it, it wasn’t just a stunt they pulled to fool their friends. It was slow and soft and Alex felt the rest of his body go fuzzy and numb as all he could concentrate on was Willie’s lips on his.

An eternity later, Willie pulled away, his eyes scanning Alex’s face.

Alex swallowed heavily and said, “I thought we could only kiss each other to prove a point.”

Willie nodded. “Did I not get my point across very well? Do I need to kiss you again?”

Alex almost laughed but something stopped him. “Just… just explain it to me first. So I don’t get the wrong idea.”

“I loved being your boyfriend,” Willie said. “You enjoyed being my boyfriend. So… why should we stop?”

Alex felt his head spin. Somehow the nightmare he’d created for himself all those weeks ago was turning into a dream come true.

“You mean that?” he asked. “Tell me you mean that, Willie, please.”

“I mean it,” Willie said resolutely. “I’ve felt this way about you for too long just to let it go. If you want me then I want you. I want to date you, Alex. For real.”

Alex kissed him again, short but sweet.

“Is that a yes?” Willie asked, giggling.

“There’s no other answer I could have ever given.”

Even though they remained boyfriends (real ones this time), Alex and Willie decided to drop the over-the-top, lovey-dovey stuff. It was fun, but it wasn’t them. Instead, they chose to fill every second together with quiet declarations of love, casual dates, soft kisses, nothing that wasn’t real.

But they never did tell Luke, Reggie, and Julie how much of it had been fake.

Taglist (if you want to be added or removed just let me know): @ace-bookworm @williexmercer @boggie-brainrot @itstiger720 @the-reckless-and-the-brave @that-one-newsie @bluedarkness @lookingthroughmirrors @tmp-jatp @salty-star @julieandthequeers @lmaohuh @sunnysbright @sylphrenas @callmeontheleyline

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kurtanaroyalty · 3 years

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ok your Halloween party episode tags has got me hyped up what do you think everyone’s costumes would be !!

Oooooh this is such a fun question!! But yes, it was a missed opportunity to not have a true Halloween episode..like in Blame It on the Alcohol, we deserved a big dumb New Directions Halloween party at Rachel’s! Now I’ll be honest, these answers are a mix of what I could see the glee kids actually wearing but some are definitely just wishful thinking on my part..(also some of these don’t fit time wise as in they didn’t exist when glee was airing but let’s ignore that!!)

-Quinn: I could see her being a big Game of Thrones fan and she would totally rock a Daenerys costume & look so gorgeous! Another option I’m feeling is Spinelli from the tv show Recess, especially skank Quinn (I’m gonna headcanon this as being a show she enjoyed watching as a child!)

-Brittana: I would love to see them dressed up as Catradora from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power!! Brittany would be Adora/She-Ra & Santana would be Catra. Their personalities & height difference fit so well for that! Another couples costume is Brittany as Harley Quinn & Santana as Poison Ivy😍

-Mercedes: I have no actual reasoning for this (other than I think she would look ridiculously hot) but I wanna see her dressed up as Maleficent! The other option I can think of for her is a very glamorous + classy angel. The only true criteria I have for Mercedes is that whatever costume she wears would be classified as stunning!✨

-Rachel: She would 100% be dressed as Fanny from Funny Girl.. and take it way too seriously and go full method.. until everyone else tells her to stop being a buzzkill and convince her that the only way that will happen is if she changes into a different costume. Some of the other girls go through her closet and are able to put together a look that resembles Minnie Mouse in a very impressive yet scary manner!

-Tike: I can see Tina & Mike wanting to go for pretty theatrical + creative costumes (something Tina could design!). I picture them going for characters from media they enjoy watching together so examples being something like Jack & Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas or Morticia & Gomez from The Addams Family! They would go the full nine yards with the costumes, makeup, & some role playing but clearly not take things too far like Rachel did (aka they are basically the most fun people there)!

-Klaine: Obviously canon gave us them as Snooki & The Situation from Jersey Shore! So if we wanna stay within that type of lane, I can totally picture them being ridiculous and going for Tiger King costumes or even Paris & Nicole from The Simple Life! I can also see something happening like Kurt losing a bet which allows Blaine to pick their costume theme. Blaine would choose something like superheroes and would go for a hero like Batman whereas Kurt being forced to choose would probably be drawn to someone like Loki (mainly for the drama he brings & cool costume - which being the Kurtcedes lover that I am would love to see them both rock costumes with horns👌)!

-Artie: Many months before Halloween..Artie, Sam, Puck & Finn were hanging out and watching Ghostbusters which got them to agree to a plan of wearing group costumes. Artie went full out and even made his own very elaborate proton pack. Of course when he shows up to the party, he is the only one out of the four to be wearing the agreed upon group costume.

-Sam: Obviously he forgot about the Ghostbusters costume.. so naturally he shows up to the party in super realistic blue face & full body paint resembling that of a creature from Avatar. Unfortunately, he didn’t set the paint properly (or make the smarter decision of wearing a blue bodysuit instead of paint) so anywhere he sits or leans against he ends up getting blue paint all over the surface.. by the end of the night most of the paint is no longer on his body...

-Puck: Days before the party, Puck & Finn decide to buy a two person horse costume because they find it absolutely hilarious (& again, they both forgot about the Ghostbusters group costume).

-Finn: Not only did Finn forget about the group Ghostbusters costume but he was also able to somehow misplace his half of the horse costume so he had to scramble to come up with something to wear. He shows up in a white fitted sheet that has jagged cut outs for his eyes, nose, mouth, & arms. It is BY FAR the worst costume of anyone there & that’s saying a lot since Puck is stuck just being half of a horse (the back end at that)!

~Even though Artie was a bit let down that no one else remembered the group costume, being able to pretend to capture Finn while everyone else roasts Finn about how awful his ghost costume is really makes up for his three friends being complete idiots!<33

#thanks for asking me this! this was super fun to come up with!!💕🥰#glee headcanons #new directions #text #ask #newrachels

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general-thinks · 3 years

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OOODAAAA WHY ARE WE ON HIATUS AGAIN AAAAAAAAHHHH

Ok, now that I took that one out the system, at least we have something Komi related for this week!

I would start talking about the recent @zer0cracy 's animation, but I want to talk about something else before that.

And I'm talking about the Komi-san Live Action adaptation.

Ok, listen, I... I don't like any type of anime live action adaptation. Like, at all.

I-I know there are people that enjoy it, and I can only respect the actors that are so passionate about the source material to do this , but... but I don't know ok? There is just something that I can't pintpoint that makes me so annoyed by them for just existing.

And so, when the news of a Komi san Live Action came, I... I honestly grimaced, and prepared myself for the worst. All I could do was hope they would find some actor similar to the cast, and be the most faithfull to the manga possible.

And so, when today on the subreddit r/Komi_san a 5 minutes teaser dropped, I was already expecting my death, unsure if ignoring it or actually acknowledging its existence.

...I sat down, taking a break every 10-30 seconds due to my visceral hate for Live Actions and my love for Komi san battling againts each other making me feel sick. I felt like Odysseus, roped to his ship to hear the siren's song, a victim to my curiosity, just to have some content to release today and now... *sigh* we need to talk.

Mind you: This is not a mindless bashing. I just want to talk about some decisions and my thought on cast members. And just something to talk about waiting for the next Komi-san chapter.

First off, let's talk about Tadano

...who is this guy? I said-

.............*sigh*...........

Ok, so, let's start with the obvious: WHERE IS THE WHITE TURF? Ok maybe this is a conscious choice, to make him even more average. I can... I can still accept it.

But... I'm sorry, I don't see Tadano at all watching him. I can see AT BEST Kometani. And another thing is that (as it can be in the actual trailer, sorry I can't share the link with you all) is... too much expressive. I know, it's a weird thing to say, but one of Tadano's charm is how easy going and calm he constantly is, despite the chaos happening around him. But this version, it's too... fidgy? He moves too much, it's like seeing a Tadano not out of his chunni fase yet. Like, as you can see here-

...ok never mind let's move on and ignore this.

...ehy, wait a minute but behind him there's... hm... maybe it's a coincidence...

In the end, I give this LiveAction!Tadano a 4/10, even below the average. I hope this one was an error in the production of the teaser and he's actually more Tadano-like in the show, but I fear this is not the case. It's not his fault, if it was, I don't know, Naruse, the characterisation would work perfectly, but... this is Tadano...

Also, as we can see here, Tadano crossing the street, I bet that there is going to be a live adaptation of Yamai's kidnapping too.

Live Action Yamai. Rejoice.

Next one is Komi, and... she kinda works?

Loyal enough to the original Komi, the haircut is almost the same, the only thing that miss and it shows is the murder gaze. I guess it's not that easy to do, or easy as I think, but maybe put a little more of spirit?

I don't know, she just looks depressed. And while that's gold for angsty fanfic writers, for an early Komi-san it's not the best. But hey, at least she is similar to Komi! So take this 7/10

Next one is Najimi, and... I don't know what to think of them.

While at first I was outraged for the missing lavander hair and antennas, watching some scenes with them there made this Live Action version grow on me. They bring a nice energy in the scenes, and it's quirky enough for Komi-san, but...

...It's not chaotic enough, and it's a really big problem for a character like Najimi! It's like a chilled Osana in this teaser, and I'm really, really conflicted about it.

So, in true Najimi's fashion, I'll give to this version a ???/10. I have high hopes for you, don't delude me.

Next one is Katai, and...

...I FUCKING LOVED HIM.

This is the only actor by far that I think nailed down the manga character perfectly, he's so over the top and failing at being a delinquent that actually makes me think "yeah, if Katai were a real guy, he would be like him." I would die for this guy. Also the homoerotic tension between him and Tadano are even stronger than the one in the manga so that's a plus too

Explain this, heteroes.

So yeah, LiveAction!Katai deserve the 9/10, get a little more buffer and you'll top the score easily.

And lastly, Naka- no? Ehm... then Yama- no again? But... who else could be here in the class-

........MANBAGI?????

Ok first thing, the actor works for her. She may be not excactly like our Manbagi, but she looks like a ray of sunshine and like Manbagi she seems like a good and lovable girl. I'm sorry that I couldn't add more photos, but trust me, even in the nurse office scene her vibes just worked. I'll give to LiveAction!Manbagi a 8/10.

But now, let's adress the elephant in the classroom.

THEY ADDED THE FIRST YEAR AND SECOND YEAR CLASSROOMS IN ONE SINGLE CLASSROOM AND CALLED IT A DAY.

This is massive!! Like... like I don't even have the wors to describe how much of a big deal this is, butchering the character arc of Komi and Manbagi, and cancelling icons such as SHINOBINO or NARUSE.

I'm still in shock. I don't understand the creative process behind this idea. "Yeah let's add Manbagi in the first year. Who cares if her struggles for being part of a new class is one of the most important step for Komi since she for the first reached out for someone else and Komi had an entire year of experience to actually talk to someone that wasn't her family or Tadano. I'm sure nothing bad can happen from this decision."

It just... baffles me. Who had the idea to do a Live Action NOW? The anime starts two month from now on, and it's not like Komi need something for build up the hype since we were waiting this anime for years, so much that it became a joke in the anime community. If they wanted to do a Live Action, make a live action of the ONE SHOT at this point! So the people get familiar with the characters and explore the strange world of the prototype Komi, not SPOILING ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER OF THE MANGA, SINCE SHE APPEAR IN THE SECOND YEAR AND IT'S A TESTAMENT TO KOMI'S GROWTH.

I... I need to lay down for a moment... no, for a whole day. I planned to do the reaction to Zer0's animation but now I'm exausted from the rant. I'll probably do it tomorrow. I'm sorry guys, and until next time

#also whERE THE FUCK IS ONEMINE #komi-san wa komyushou desu #komi san wa komyushou desu #komi san can't communicate #komi san has a communication disorder #komi san is bad at communication #komi san komyushou desu #komi-san can't communicate #komi san #general ramblings

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uomo-accattivante · 3 years

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Great comprehensive interview with Elvira on the making of The Letter Room and filmmaking, in general. One interesting tidbit mentioned: she is currently developing a podcast about sex. 👀🤔

For most of her creative life, Elvira Lind has been behind the the lens compassionately capturing true stories as a documentary filmmaker. Her debut feature, Songs for Alexis, observes two young lovebirds navigating a long distance relationship and challenging views on gender identity in the modern age. While her sophomore feature, Bobbi Jenne, explores the life of a famous dancer fighting for her own creative and personal independence.

Despite her prolific doc work, a story that couldn't simply be told in its raw form kept circulating in her head: a dark prison comedy about the secret life of a correctional officer trying to bring humanity to the prison system. When he gets transferred to a job in the letter room, he finds himself a little too involved in the private lives of the inmates.

Far along in her second pregnancy, and with the support of an incredible team of collaborators, Elvira took on the challenge of writing and directing her first narrative short, "The Letter Room." The film stars Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat, and has had an all-star festival run, screening at Telluride, Tribeca, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Here, Elvira reflects on the joys and challenges of creating your first short film—putting empathy first, reshaping the tropes around pregnancy, and screening in the COVID era.

vimeo

FTW: How did you become a filmmaker?

Elvira Lind: I’ve always loved film. I was very drawn to documentaries because it felt like you were entering something that was really happening. You opened a door and were already inside the film. You’re just trying to keep up with what’s being thrown at you. As opposed to fiction where you have to conjure it up from nowhere. I loved imagining and writing stories when I was little, but I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it.

I didn’t come from a family of filmmakers. And I came from a time when people had a little shitty camcorder that you borrowed from someone’s uncle, and buying film was expensive. Things opened up and changed a lot when cameras became more accessible.

I could only afford one year of film school in Cape Town, where I met some amazing people and learned about so many different ways of storytelling. I came back to Denmark and found myself working for free a lot for other filmmakers while doing a side job. The paid work was very hard to get, but I’d rather work for free with filmmakers that I loved and have more responsibilities than have access to nothing. It wasn’t easy to find my way in, but it’s so worth it.

And now you live in New York. How does this global background affect your general filmmaking style and approach?

I definitely bring a lot of Danish documentary traditions with me and hold it very dear. There are a lot of kick ass female documentary filmmakers in Denmark that have taught me a lot. There’s a good support system for women there. It’s an incredibly privileged place in that there’s funding from the government to make films. You can make things that, in my opinion, are often far more interesting because it’s not reliant on how it’s going to make money in the box office.

You’ve shot many of your documentaries in the past. So what was it like this time to be working with a cinematographer?

I always wanted to work with a cinematographer on my documentaries; we just couldn’t afford it. Now for “The Letter Room”, I worked with Sam Chase, who has got such a brilliant eye and it was wonderful to have someone to work with on composing the look of the film because I’m usually doing it by myself. It is kind of like a marriage. I work with the same editor on all my projects as well. You enter this symbiotic sort of dance together. For me, it also means you have to fight about things and disagree and then make up and hear each other out. My editor, Adam Nielsen, is the kind of guy who just comes up with genius ideas while in the shower or on the way home from work on his bicycle. You have to find these key people in your life where you can bounce ideas back and forth with.

Where did the idea for “The Letter Room” come from?

It was a story that was brewing in my head for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how to put a narrative film together. I just started to write it down and then it kept developing.

There was a podcast that I listened to that really inspired me. It told the story of different men who were all unknowingly writing love letters to the same woman. She started to ask for money and help with rent, but the letters she wrote were so wonderful and all these men were very in love with her. These very lonely men felt like magic had entered their lives. They all eventually found out that the woman was actually a man writing to different people trying to get their money. They were all heartbroken, but one of the men said that the worst part was losing these letters and that the fantasy was gone. He wished they could just keep writing to each other. So much of life is fantasy and trying to live through other people’s lives. I’m very drawn to stories of loneliness and bottled up feelings.

And then I am firmly against the American prison system. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, and I can’t make sense of it. How do you even begin to explain this system to a child?

It’s a society that doesn’t care about humanity. I wanted to show the monotony, the repetition, the sadness. I don’t see the bigger goal or purpose of locking people away for countless years and taking away all the things that makes you feel human, that makes life joyous. I really believe that we can all change and this system teaches people nothing. “The Letter Room'' is the combination of these two concepts that I’m very passionate about.

And then I got pregnant for the second time and I hadn’t made a film between the two. It was a crazy feeling to be taken over again by pregnancy. A wonderful friend of mine, Sofia Sondervan-Bild, came to me and said, “I think you should make this film and I’ll make it with you.” Initially, I freaked out and thought I didn’t know how to do fiction and doubted how I could make a film in a prison, but she inspired me and told me to do it. She’s just one of these incredibly powerful people that you want to go on an adventure with. She made me feel like my pregnancy wasn’t going to stand in the way of me making this film. We ended up shooting while I was far along in my pregnancy in a prison in the middle of a summer heat wave. It was crazy, but it was the best thing that I could’ve done at the time.

When you were directing on set at that stage of pregnancy, did you feel like you were reshaping tropes of what women are capable of?

It was insane. The funny thing was that the crew was like, “we can’t complain that we are tired because she is extremely pregnant and still running around.” I was so high off of that experience. When we finished, I collapsed. I fell straight onto the couch and then I have a two and a half year old screaming my name. That was more work for me than directing the short. I edited the film right before I gave birth actually, and then I gave birth and did sound right after. I was pumping breast milk in the corner in the darkness during the sound edit.

I’ve learned a lot from surpassing whatever I thought was physically possible with being pregnant. I learned that being in a creative process gives you so much energy that it allows you to be in whatever shape, size, form, mental space you can. People are ready to give you their support, if you choose the right people. I’m really grateful that I chose such wonderful collaborators who supported me through it all. Even when people were questioning my choice to direct a film while being pregnant in a prison. Why not? Women get pregnant and then we still need to be supported so that we can continue to make the things we want to do.

What was your experience with getting “The Letter Room” funded?

It’s really hard, let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of people sitting around waiting to fund a short film. We ended up working with Topic, which is a part of First Look Media. They are just incredible and really support filmmakers with whatever their vision is. I’ve had great experiences and some really bad experiences with funding, so I know this was an ideal scenario.

Having a short that is over 30 minutes long seems like a feat. At what stage in the process did you know this was going to be a longer piece? And how did that decision affect the shoot in both positive and difficult ways?

It was way too long at first, and when I shortened it, it was still 32 minutes. We could only afford five days of shooting, and a lot of it is shot on active prison grounds, which have an insane amount of protocol. We almost used everything we shot.

I’m not used to being able to have different angles to choose from in my doc work, so I think I just knew exactly what I wanted. I know that my producers were worried that I wasn’t getting enough, but to me, I was like, I’m getting double of what I usually get on a documentary! Everyone was quietly concerned, but everything worked out when we got to the edit.

The short’s length hasn’t done any favors for me so far, but you need to breathe as an audience, you need to pace it out. If I cut out certain minutes, it would’ve felt rushed and you wouldn’t have believed the arcs that the characters had.

I loved the concept of placing a very empathetic character in a setting that is contrary to that personality type. You included so many details that made the world feel so three dimensional and cared for. Can you talk about those decisions to create that feeling?

It means so much to me that it made you feel that way. What frustrates me about the prison system is that it lacks any empathy or understanding of human nature and nurture and who we are. What we need to become better people. It takes all of that away.

I spoke to people who have spent a lot of time in prison and they told me that you have to hide your feelings and that showing any signs of weakness will be a disaster. It’s the worst possible scenario you can imagine yourself in. Being robbed of every privacy, anything that makes you happy, anything that makes you feel like yourself. I imagined the character of a caregiver in this setting who wants to help and finds a silly way to do so. I was very inspired by that story of the love letters that I talked about earlier. What does it mean to lie if you’re making someone else happy?

It’s the morning of your first day of the shoot — how do you feel?

I was very nervous. I had never said ‘action’ before. I’ve been on a lot of sets, but I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what I was doing, but it’s also okay not to know. Mistakes are going to happen, and sometimes they become gifts. At the same time, I was very excited. You come in and there are all these people there with you who are there to make this thing you’ve written come to life.

What are some things you would do on set to create a safe space and vulnerable environment?

We did everything we could to make the set a safe space. It was very difficult and stressful to shoot in an active prison, but we made sure to actively ask our crew if everyone’s feeling okay and if we can do anything to make the situation better. I’m very vulnerable and encourage all of my crew to be vulnerable with me. Mistakes are welcome.

It's a short film, people come and work on this not because they’re making a million dollars, but because they want to be there and are being incredibly generous with their time and energy. It was such a good environment that even when challenging things came up, it was still a lot of fun.

What was it like working with actors for the first time?

That was one of the biggest challenges for me. I’ve heard so many different stories in passing of the least helpful note or worst thing to say to an actor. You want to be respectful and actors have their way of working. Ultimately, they are all really talented actors and all of them came with so much energy and a lot of ideas.

I spent time with each of them talking about their character. Those 1 on 1 conversations helped me a lot in the writing process as well because you’re bouncing ideas off of each other and they’re asking you questions about how they would respond to a certain situation.

I had always imagined Alia Shawkat as Rosita and she ended up wanting to do it and came from LA to film it. I had tears in my eyes when we were filming the scene of her and Oscar. They were excited to do the scene together. It was all a dream.

What was the experience of working creatively alongside your partner like?

We were joking a lot about it before because there was already the stress of being so pregnant and we have a 2 year old at home, and now I was putting us in another highly intense and demanding situation. Either it was going to be great OR we would drive each other nuts. But we had so much fun. It was wonderful to work together. I was so happy to be on set and make my film and he’s just so talented and fun to be around. Those little moments where you know each other so well—I’d give him notes and he just kept surprising me and was so respectful of my directions.

He found this photo for him to connect to the character and it became very fundamental to me. It was this incredible black and white photo from the 70s of a prison guard. I had always imagined that he would have this inner salsa soundtrack playing in his soul and we would play Rubén Blades and 70s salsa music and Oscar just morphed that into music into everything and created this unique character.

And he was wearing a fat suit the entire shoot and I was pregnant and Alia Shawkat had her pregnant belly on. The three of us—it was so funny.

It seems like the perfect first experience of going into narrative with people that you really trust and support you.

Definitely! Find the people that you can team up with that really believe in your vision and who will push you to do exactly what you had in mind. People who never try to push you into these conventional routes. Our creative voices are so fragile. You want to be on the same page so that they see what you’re trying to do and want to bring that out of you. Where they’re treating your film as a sacred thing that you’re creating together.

How do you know when a film is done?

Fiction is very different from documentaries. With documentaries, it never feels like it’s done because there are so many options. That’s also why I love fiction so much; It’s so much faster. It’s a whole different beast to tame a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage where you’re reinventing the wheel every day.

How have you built up your own confidence as a director and your unique voice?

Stubbornness. I’ve had many experiences working with people who didn’t believe in my project. You have to stick to your guns and trust your instincts. Once you find your voice, you find people that want to go on that ride with you and find your vision interesting. It’s a miracle when any of us gets a project made, so your confidence can’t come from how much money your movie made. It has to come from somewhere else. Did you do justice to the people you portrayed in your story? Did anyone walk away feeling like something had changed within them?

What is a good director to you?

Someone who is driven with passion without letting that passion take over and become any source of frustration that’s taken out on other people. It should feel like a collaborative effort. And having gratitude every day that you’re making something with other people who are donating their time. You’d be nowhere without them. One of the most important things is making sure that your crew is treating everyone equally. It depends on the size of the production, but having someone who can sense what’s happening in all different departments and having department heads that are there to protect everyone. Listen to each other, and make sure everyone feels safe and is in the best place to be creative.

With COVID, what has the adjustment been like to being in an online space for this festival run?

I’m really deeply saddened by not having the human interaction aspect of it. It feels so crucial to be in the room together, to meet and see each other's projects and share the experience, to cry and laugh next to people you don’t know. I’m grieving to be honest. We just gotta get through this time. It reminds us of how sacred it is for us to gather and how that feels, and I hope that all of that will come back after this and that cinemas will survive. We really need them.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m writing more fiction and working on a new documentary feature that I am kind of researching and shooting at the same time. I am also creating a podcast about sex, called “The List” with my friend, writer and photographer Kirra Cheers, based on a book and play she wrote. My husband and I just started a production company together, Mad Gene Media, in order to develop and produce our own material. So. lots of exciting things to continue with in the new year.

Born in 1981 in Copenhagen, Elvira Lind graduated from School of Media and Creative Arts in Cape Town in 2006 majoring in documentary film where she received two awards for her final year achievements. She has worked within that field since directing and shooting documentaries of various lengths for TV, cinema and web on 4 different continents.In 2020 she premiered her first fiction project, a 32 min short film she wrote and directed. The film was sold to Topic and was invited to various festivals including Telluride and Tribeca FF. Elvira's feature doc BOBBI JENE premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 where it won all awards in its category including Best Feature documentary, best editing and best Cinematography. The film had theatrical release in US, Spain and Scandinavia.Elvira's first documentary feature Songs for Alexis premiered at Toronto HOT DOCS in 2014 and screened and competed at a long list of international festivals. Her 8 part documentary TV series "Twiz and Tuck" was bought by VICELAND and launched in 2017. Elvira now lives and works out of New York.

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#oscar isaac #elvira lind #the letter room #mad gene media #interview

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tatyana-dreaming · 3 years

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Eugene Onegin: Finale Analysis

*apologies in advance for a LONG POST! any TYPOS! and also that the Russian has been latinized (is that what we say?)*

I have often read opinions and observations about the finale of Eugene Onegin along the lines of “there’s no new theme;” it’s “not as intense as the Letter scene;” it’s “anticlimactic...” etc. (those last two comments are found in Eugene Onegin: The Opera Lively Guide by Luiz Gazzola).

Clearly, these are just opinions and I’m not here to disprove anything... but I am here to retaliate with a whole lot of love for this particular 14 minutes of music so buckle up :) I’m going to try to mainly be objective here and just offer my observations/analysis. Maybe you’ll find some newfound appreciation along the way...and please pitch in if you have your own comments or have noticed things I haven’t necessarily picked up on!

Before we start, you may want to pull a recording of the finale (this one is my favorite of course), and potentially your favorite CD/recording of Eugene Onegin, if you want to listen along and compare. If I had more time and skills I would have done this for you in a video or added trimmed audio bits throughout this post but alas. Maybe one day! For now, enjoy these screencaps from the 2007 Carsen production at the Met with Fleming and Hvorostovsky.

1. Gazzola points this out in his book - and thank goodness, because I’m not sure I would have made the connection myself. The final scene opens with a motif that is more or less a repetition of Gremin’s theme (in rhythm, at the very least), “Lyubvi Vsye Rozrasti Pokorni/Love conquers all ages,’” foreshadowing Tatyana’s decision/steadfastness to the mature, stable love or contement, or whatever we want to call this - we can have an analysis of ‘love’ in Eugene Onegin in another post! Already I’m thinking back to the opening of the opera when Larina and Filipyevna sing in unison “Privichka svishe name dana, zamyena shchastiyu ona / Habit is sent us from above in place of happiness.” Tatyana’s mother used to read and dream like Tayana herself and was even in love, but eventually had to marry someone else and “became resigned and settled down.”

And as @lizlensky recently reminded me, of course Filipyevna did not get to marry for love either, not that Tatyana was really listening to her story. In fact, maybe I’m looking far into deeply, but it seems to me the strings underneath this “Gremin motif” at the opening of the finale and also when Tatyana eventually sings to that tune “Onegin, ya togda molozhe/Onegin, I was younger then” are also mimicking the strings underneath Filipyevna when she sings the morning after the Letter Scene, explaining how her mind is getting older and reflecting upon her youth (I’m generalizing a bit - Tatyana certainly isn’t complaining about having an old brain but she is thinking of the past). Make of that what you will! But it gave me chills.

2. Oh no, I’m already getting ahead of myself though. Before Onegin even comes on the scene, we also hear what some call the “Fate motif” but what I prefer to call the “Dream motif” (if it is fate, why does it follow Tatyana all over dreamy Act I but disappears except for this tiny reminiscence? But of course, up for discussion as it’s the prelude/introduction to the opera, and it comes back when Yevgeni does, haunting her like a ghost, which I suppose is fate-y). Here it is again when Tatyana sings “Kak budto snova dyevochkoi ya stala/It’s as if I’m a young girl again” - which is then followed by what I might personally call the fate theme, since it foreshadows the anguish Tatyana will face when she is rejected in Act I, and before she rejects Onegin in Act III.

This is where I wish I had an audio clip but I think you know what I mean; it’s the really dramatic climax that comes right when Tatyana enters the stage in Scene 3 of Act III (before “Zdyez on, zdyes on, Yevgeni!”) and right before Onegin comes onstage in Act III, Scene 2. Or ha, maybe this is just “Onegin’s Arrival Theme” since there’s a similar kind of orchestral panic before he arrives in Act I (though of course, not in Scene 1 of Act III since it is Tatyana who enters rather than Onegin who was in the room already, at least in the productions I’ve seen.)

3. Okay, so now Onegin’s here, what does he have to say for himself? We hear a bit of the Onegin aria theme - “Mechtam i godom nyet vazvrata, nye obnovlyu dushi moyei/Dreams and years cannot return, I cannot renew my soul!” as he (in some versions) falls to Tatyana’s feet, exclaiming “O, szhaltes, szhaltes nado mnoyu!/ Have mercy on me!” Clearly has some srs regerts. But also perhaps Tchaikovsky foreshadowing what is to come... not only that we shouldn’t expect Tatyana to act with any less honor (or prudence/reason) towards Onegin as he did towards her in Act I, and that indeed she sings “proshlogo nye vorotit/you cannot bring back the past.” I know I’m grinding a lot out of this particular moment, but... would you expect anything less from me? Or (thinks of Petya) HIM? :)

4. As Tatyana reminds Onegin how he rejected her and begins to question why he is suddenly in love with her now, we get to revisit some of the music from the Letter Scene - at least in the orchestra. Tatyana’s line differs slightly than her original melody in the Letter Scene when she sings “Togda, nye pravda li pustine, vdali ot suyetnoi molvi/There in that backwater, far from vain society” - and just so, as it is far from its dreamy, romantic parallel in her letter - “Y v eto samoye mgnovyenye ne ti li, miloye vidyenye/And in that very moment, wasn’t it you, beloved vision [...who whispered to me words of hope].” I find this throwback incredibly clever and gutwrenching, as I believe it’s clearly a bitter and ironic jab at the hope that Onegin crushed, even honorably as he did, and now the two of them have changed positions. Whose dreamy hopes (which are... questionable at best at the moment) are getting schooled now? Cmon’ Onegin, “learn to control yourself....”

5. Let me take a moment to admit and agree with many analyses/critics (although Tchaikovsky knows what he is doing, convince me otherwise) that Onegin is pretty fragmented and lacks a coherent theme, and certainly has no original “love theme” of his own to offer Tatyana - after all, Onegin as a character, especially in the book, is pretty hollow, someone who isn’t so much a “self’ as a person who knows how to go through the motions of life... He’s intelligent but not creative, full of potential but lacking any real direction. (Ohhh I am going to cry because that’s so sad but also so relatable, but crying is coming up next so I’ll hold off). The opposite of Lensky’s “poet spirit” that lives life romantically, and is in love with life itself, seeing the infinite everywhere rather than seeing life so pessmistically (with the mask of pragmatism/”maturity”) as Onegin does, a mask that keeps Onegin from truly engaging with life or his own sense of self.

So as Onegin sings, we hear that lack of originality, though I will pull a Valery Gergiev here and say one “cannot be impartial” to Onegin’s music here (*clutches chest - that’s Tchaikovsky, even though I think it’s clear Onegin is not his fav) - Onegin may not be original, but there is no less truth or heartfelt emotion in what comes through. Luckily, Tatyana knows that it’s still not a good choice... he’s still not very substantial, at best, and at worst truly is only infatuated with her because of her reputation. It would mean ruin for her either way so :( (read: Anna Karenina) (here are some sad Onegin pictures just for fun because it’s all been Tatyana mainly but also: sorry this is Tatyana’s big moment so)

6. Time for tears! Do you hear a familiar theme when Tatyana sings “Ya plachu/I’m weeping?” It’s Lensky’s aria theme making a comeback- what!??! And particularly, the same melody as these two phrases, when Lensky sings: “Shto dyen gradushchi mnye gotovit/What does this day hold for me?” and perhaps more salient to this moment: “Pridyosh li, dveya krasoti, slezu prolit nad rannei urmoi/ Will you come, maiden, to shed a tear over my untimely urn?” Ahhh, I see what you did there, Petya.

But wait, Onegin hates crying! This isn’t explicitly in the opera of course, but Onegin in the novel all but tells Tatyana that her tears (as he rejects her) only vex him - another reason marriage would be a torment for them (not a bad reason and look, we always respected his honesty, right?). But now? I think it’s a crucial moment; it shows there has indeed been some development on Onegin’s part and uh oh, he’s actually in love (ironically in a very Lensky - that is, poetic - way) even if it’s not for the best of reasons.

7. Fun (pain) pact: “Tak blizhko! [happiness was] so close!” is the only time Onegin and Tatyana sing together or are on the same page, so to say. Nice. (*cries*) The only other times people sing completely lined up together like this in this opera, choruses aside, are when:

Larina and Filipyevna sing “Privichka svishe name dana, zamyena shchastiyu ona /Habit is sent to us from above in place of happiness” in the opening scene

Onegin and Lensky sing “Nye zasmeyatsa l nam, poka ne obagrilasa ruka, ne razoitis li polyubovno? Nyet... /Shouldn’t we burst out laughing, rather than staining our hands with blood, shouldn’t we part as friends? No...” before the duel

Moments of truth. And mostly pain. :) Again, please chime in if there are others, I’m sure I’ve missed something.

8. Time for Tatyana to refuse! This is where I completely disagree that there is “no new major theme” in the Finale; Tatyana’s “rejection theme” holds its own in my books. Interestingly, it’s in D-flat major, just like the main themes in her Letter Scene (”Puskai pogibnu ya/Let me perish,” and “Kto ti? Moi angel/ Who are you? my [guardian] angel..” aka the descending/Russian 6th theme). Tatyana is just as earnest/decided/resigned* (yes, all three of those adjectives) in her decision in the finale as in the Letter Scene, so maybe that has something to do with it. (I always remember her words in the Letter scene: “Uvi, nye v silakh ya vladyet svoyei dushoi!/Alas, I am unable to subdue my soul!” but just like Onegin learning to be endeared by tears - she has indeed learned to subdue her soul, or perhaps she has simply matured and her priorities have changed. (And of course, who lectured her to subdue her soul in the first place, even though he meant well? Yours truly!)

*resigned might seem an interesting way to describe the Letter Scene, but don’t forget “No, tak i bit! Sudbo moyu otnine ya tebye vruchayu/So be it. Henceforth my fate belongs to you....” I tend to interpret that as Tatyana actually taking her fate into her own hands and deciding to go all in with her decision, despite the words that seem to make her position passive. In the finale, she is ‘resigned’ in a similarly active manner - this is not a passive resignation. But I still would use the term resigned, if only to draw the parallel between Tatyana and her mother.... “I became resigned and settled down.” And so she has, even if she has to struggle to push Onegin away from the settled life she has, loving him all the same.

And in comes some of my favorite music of all time - Onegin’s desperate, even malicious pleas and a good dose of mansplaining how Tatyana “can’t” abandon him, quoting back her letter. Extra ouch, because do you remember in Tatyana’s letter when she tells Onegin if he has any pity, “vi nye ostavite menya/you won’t abandon me.” And what does she have to beg him to do over and over until she finally runs offstage? “Ostav menya!/Leave me!” heheheheh *laugh-cries* everything is fine.

9. And we’ve nearly reached the very end. Almost a year into listening to this particular piece of music and I only recently realized what was going on - yeah, I know. When things get really heated at the end and pain reaches a maximum, Tatyana sings “Gluboko v syerdsta pronikayet, yevo otchayanni priziv no, pil prestupni podaviv/His anguished cries penetrate my heart, but the fire of passion has been extinguished” (well, I’m still not quite sure on the ‘correct’ English translation but it doesn’t sound good for Yevgeni regardless...)

That melody in that last line calls us back to its twin sister at the end of Scene 1 in Act I when Onegin is talking about how bored he was with his uncle, waiting for him to die. So a) I hear this as Tatyana “ending things once and for all” (parallels between the death of Onegin’s uncle, and the death of their relationship), as well as possibly (again I read 10,000% too much into things) b) Tatyana realizing that Onegin’s words to her back in the garden were true - habit [routine] would kill their love; they would become bored (or at least he would). The passion would burn out.

Which brings us back to c) heaven sends us habit in place of happiness [=passion?]- which, OH, RIGHT, OF COURSE has the same rhythm of the aforementioned “boredom” theme and “the fire of passion has been extinguished.” But you all probably already realized that because oF COURSE.. that’s how the opera OPENS... and now how it is CLOSING... AHHHH!!!

I know I’m not original or anything for realizing that parallel, but yeah. I’m pretty happy about it.

Tchaikovsky is absolutely genius. Unbelievable. And paired with Pushkin? I’m not surprised I’ve clearly lost my mind over this masterpiece.

Anyways, this was an extremely long post but I hope you enjoyed it immensely, especially if you read this far!! Please chime in with your own comments! I LOVE THIS PIECE OF MUSIC!

#wow people are gonna hate me if they track any of these tags :) at least you can push the 'this post isn't for me' button #long post #eugene onegin #tchaikovsky #opera #that was 2000 words everyone thanks for reading and no offense if you didn't #writing tag i suppose #myedits: stills

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whetstonefires · 3 years

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Since you like the Hellboy...*perks up* Can I ask what you like about it? Does this need to be part of the ask game, if so, smash it in there. But opinions! I would love!

Ooh! Hm. This is actually surprisingly hard to articulate.

I’ve been ‘into’ Hellboy for like. Half my damn life now, and while I could have gone on at length about all the things about it I found fun as a teenager it was at its core very much a ‘this makes me Feel Happy’ thing. And now that glow is less intense but it’s bolstered by that habitual sort of attachment you feel to like. Family members.

Let’s see how far I can break this down lol.

I have never been able to much like most of the BPRD tie-in type materials and I was not at all pleased with the films, so to an extent I think I can say confidently part of what I like is the way Hellboy is situated in a superhero-comic-adjacent space while being very much coordinated by one overarching creative sensibility--like, other people were brought in to work on Hellboy a lot over the course of the run, but Mignola always had a unifying voice and even when I don’t actually agree with his taste or values that level of artistic...intentionality? Judgment? Presence? Something like that. Gives the work a sense of...integrity? Maybe just unity.

Anyway makes it feel less plastic than comics often do. This is a corporate product of course but it’s also just Mike Mignola hanging out doing whatever he thinks would be cool. Drawing rocks and monsters because that’s what he wants to draw. I like that.

Some of the higher-quality webcomics you get nowadays, when they don’t take themselves too terribly seriously but aren’t outright comedic, can land similarly in terms of voice, but even just fifteen years ago webcomics weren’t really at that point yet as a medium, and even now most are still amateurish as well as amateur. Which is fine, but different.

To get slightly less meta, I love the collection of genres that are smeared together for Hellboy--we’ve got a lot of detective noir stuff cut together with cosmic horror and like...the genre where people research folklore and then mostly punch it. Does that have a name? And then there are a bunch of other influences stirred in, sometimes for only a single issue, sometimes more.

Mignola managed to be significantly less offensive than average about the way he adapted world folklore into his weird groddy kitchen-sink fantasy system, which is pretty funny because he doesn’t come across as being careful about it at all. Not that I think there was no effort made, but also he just used research as a basis for narrative much more often than he started with a story premise and stretched the creature to fit, which by default gave him less scope for dickery.

Also I think the only god he ever fights is Hecate and she’s handled from a 19th-century-occultist angle rather than a Classical angle.

Also Hellboy fights Nazis and cyborg gorillas as well as like. Baba Yaga and vampires. The balance of schlock and gonzo nonsense to pathos and sensitive emotional bits is usually about where I like it.

The episodic format is really well used. It lets the storytelling style lean heavily on the late-19th-through-mid-20th-century short story genres that it borrows a lot from, and which honestly has always worked better for comics than end-to-end long-arc serialization. I like how the anachronic order of many sections of the series allowed for a lot of ‘building outward from the middle.’

Also it means the story can stay true to its roots and kill off a lot of characters in gothic excess without constantly sloughing main cast or having to do fakeouts.

...I can’t believe that since Hellboy isn’t really emotionally involved with the issue of his birth parents except inasmuch as it explains the world-ending stone hand, the single angstiest part of his backstory is technically when he went on a drinking binge road trip around Mexico in his teens and made friends with vampire-fighting luchador triplets but then the youngest one whom he was closest to was kidnapped by the vampires and Hellboy had to kill his best friend, and this is all established in a random side story that pushes the intentional genre absurdism to its breaking point and is equal parts comedic and grotesque.

(The second angstiest is probably the bit in volume 1 when he finds his dad murdered by frogs.)

I also just love characters who wear trench coats and are actually really clever and knowledgeable and kind but tend to resort, in extremity, to just hitting problems really hard. Okay? I like that. That’s a fave.

Hellboy’s whole character design is very strong, a bunch of dramatic broad-strokes decisions that contrast interestingly against one another, and then a lot of subtler elements layered in crosswise.

The way his relationship to the narrative ‘occult-fighting antichrist figure’ could be really straightforward, but keeps stepping a little sideways off the usual shape of the tropes in a way that creates depth.

He’s a giant red demon guy who stopped aging in the 50s; he’s never going to be able to be ‘normal’ or pretend he isn’t what he is--but also he’s a dude with a government job and probably a Social Security Number who goes and interviews people about the situation and says ‘I’m Agent Hellboy’ and gets called ‘Mr. Boy’ and is just this guy who knows his shit and can take a beating.

(This was one of the major things I hated in the first movie, that they decided to make him this weird secret cryptid whose dad keeps him locked in a vault when he’s not fighting.)

The way the identity thing is never reduced to comfortable binaries with him except by enemies trying to psych him out is just really satisfying. He fights monsters not because he hates them or himself but because he was recruited into this career young and he’s really good at it, and he feels good about helping people who are being victimized.

When something occult isn’t hurting anybody he’s down to chill, and if it turns out they secretly are after all he’s always so tired and disappointed, and if they really aren’t then he has a new friend. Whom he may never see again or may hit up for a game of cards next time he’s in town.

(I also like how he combines ‘being pretty private’ ‘being very casually friendly’ and ‘being an asshole who makes a lot of enemies’; it’s not that unusual a combo for his type of main character but it’s one I enjoy.)

When he breaks off his own horns as part of his rejection of being Anung Un Rama it’s not ‘choosing humanity’ or w/e it’s choosing not to be used for this. His name is Hellboy, which is an objectively awful name but it was given to him by people he loved and who chose him, not the people who made him or brought him to this world to be used, and he chooses it.

And that has weight. That has force enough behind it to carry a world.

Just in general in spite of all the identity stuff he gets swamped with he’s really good at self-knowledge and letting other people’s ideas of who and what he’s supposed to be just wash over him. As the story goes on and shit gets weirder his sense of identity gets shaken, but he never quite loses that anchor in the knowledge that he is the ultimate arbiter of his own identity.

His exasperation on being told via stabbing that he doesn’t get to be King of England even if he is the first male descendant of King Arthur since Mordred is so funny. Why is this a thing, says Hellboy. Why am I finding out like this. Why do I always find out this shit like this. Why would anyone think I wanted to be King of England. I already punched so many skeletons about not wanting to be King of Witches.

He’s got so much righteous anger that comes out when people are treated as disposable, or as less for being not human or less human or superpowered, and of course it’s founded in his own experiences and his own fight for respect but it’s not about him. It’s about the person who’s suffering now.

One time his combat one-liner before shooting something started with ‘The Torch of Liberty said I was the worst shot he ever tried to train’ that’s so funny! I love that!

He’s my boy okay.

#have this rant lol #hellboy #my opinions #fandom recruitment pitch #i have all 12 volumes and a number of very disappointing tie-ins #i almost didn't get them all because i was collecting at a leisurely rate #and then all the bookstores stopped stocking it because it had wrapped up #and guess what???#volume 11 of 12 ain't easy to find used!#comics #writing #identity #names and naming #beastenraged #ask #hoc est meum

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stxvercgersslut · 4 years

Text

Promises 1/2

[Gif Not Mine]

Pairing: Dad! Ransom x Daughter! Reader

Description: During your sophomore year your father discovers that you are coming home with more and more bruises everyday. Once he finds out where those bruises are coming from he won’t be accountable from his actions.

Warnings: Mentions of bruises, mentione of scars,

A/n: this is my first series like this that I’ve ever made so I hope that you guys enjoy this. If you do enjoy this and it doesn’t flop then I may start a Mini series with Chris Evans characters and Daughter! Reader in different scenarios. Let me know what you think. Sorry it’s short 🥺

A/n: For this particular part the reader is 16 and in 10th Grade (year 11 in England but this is based in America) and Ransom is 37 meaning that he was 21 when y/n was born. In case anyone cares 😂 (when it’s just speech bold italics means Ransom and normal means you

Tag list: @jtargaryen18 @et-lesailes @evansxxx @stargazingfangirl18 @navybrat817 @chuckbass-love @t-stark35

When someone thinks of the perfect father they most certainly would never let the first person they think of be Hugh Ransom Drysdale. In fact no one would ever picture the trustfund Playboy to be the perfect father in anyway shape or form. Let alone love a child at all or even be a father in the first place. To many, even his family, Ransom was nothing but an arrogant prick who cared little about anyone else and more about himself. Which for the most part unfortunately had been extremely true, especially due to the god awful way that his mother and father had neglected him leaving him to be raised by his grandfather. Although, that unfortunately ended with the trustfund baby growing up to recsent every last one of his family members including his mother and father.

However, all of that changed when you, a new born baby, was left on his doorstep almost 17 years ago today. Of course at first he’d been reluctant to take care of you, thinking you were nothing other then a god awful result to a stupid one night stand that he most certainly didn’t want to look after you. Especially since you were a chubby baby who did nothing but scream, poop and cry whenever you needed something.

You weren’t his, not in his mind. You may have been made from half of him but as far as Ransom has been concerned you were nothing a pest that he wanted to get rid of. Being a father was never something that he wanted, but being a single father was even worse. After less than a week the Male had grown tired of the constant sleepless nights that you brought. Always either needing feeding , changed or plated with and Ransom just couldn’t do it. That wasn’t the life that he wanted but it was the life that he got. And no matter how many times he tried to get rid of you he just couldn’t go through with it. At one point he’d even attempted to call child services after a particular rough night where you had kept him up all night the day before a very important at meal with his family , he’d gotten so close to calling but then...oh then you did the most adorable thing. You just had to go and grab his finger whilst he was feeding you. That in itself was enough to melt the playboys usually hollow heart. From that day forward Ransom had vowed to protect you from all demons. No matter the cost.

Sadly that promise was one that he had failed to keep. For weeks now you’ve been arriving home to your fathers huge house, on the outskirts of New York, with either new bruisee or new scars covering your body and Ransom had just about had enough of seeing his teenage daughter coming home everyday in pain.Seeing you, his daughter, in pain or even just covered in bruises every single time you csme home from school was beginning to anger the Male even more then he had expected. Especially since he could hear you crying yourself to sleep each night, resulting in him practically begging you to open your door to let him. But you never did. Too afraid that he would judge you for crying so much over some stupid teenagers who had taken a joke way too far for way too long. Although Ransom adored you in every single way that one could ever love their child, he could still be quite stern when he needed to. Sometimes he didn’t no that he was being unreasonable to his own flesh and blood, but that was just unfortunately the part of Drysdale’s personality that he couldn’t change no matter how hard he tried. One particular thing Ransom couldn’t handle was tears, even when you were baby he seemed to just shut himself off when you cried. Not knowing how to deal with you. But now you were a 16 year old teenager who was crying every night and coming home covered in battle scars and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

Which was why, currently, Ransom was sitting in his Beamer, parked right outside your extremely expensive private school that Ransom had of course preferred you going to, as he waited not so patiently for you to exit the school. Yeah he hadn’t actually told you that he was coming to pick you up since it was a last minute decision but he wasn’t really expecting you to turn down a quick and easy lift home. Besides, he wasn’t just there to pick you up. No he was really there to get to the bottom of what the hell was happening and why on Earth you kept getting hurt.

Meanwhile, you were currently none the wiser about your father waiting impatiently outside the schools gates in his Beamer whilst you sat in the nurses office for the millionth time this year. Today a couple seniors had cornered you during lunch, teasing you and talking about your father as well as the rest of your family like they were a piece of meat. It wasn’t fair. But unfortunately the comment “Your dads probably disgusted by you! He’ll never be proud of you so you might as well just give up now” made by Darcy, the ‘popular girl’ had been enough to hit a nerve with you. Causing you to, for the first time, punch Darcy square in the face as an attempt to defend yourself. But, like anyone could imagine, that just didn’t end well. In fact, it ended so badly that you were currently sporting a incredibly painful black eye, a split lip and a couple scratch marks from Darcys razor sharp nails. Things like this had been happening for months, even longer then Ransom had ever known. Why was t the school doing anything? Well that was easy. Darcys father was the principle and in his eyes his daughter could do no wrong. Even if she did break your nose several times. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call your father Y/n?” The nurse spoke, pulling you out of your nightmare of a trance as she handed up a clean paper towel to wrap around the ice pack. This was by far the worst incident so far and yet no one was doing anything about it. Clearly the school wasn’t as good as Ransom thought. “N.... no...I don’t want to worry him...thank you though” you stuttered whilst wiping the stray tears from your eyes as you finally stood up on shaky legs as the bell rang, signalling the end of yet another horrific day.

Ransom was stood directly outside the school gates by the time you had finally managed to convince the school nurse that you’d be fine, of course not expected to see him there but also equally delighted that he was. Maybe with Ransom there you’d be able to escape any last minute torture from Darcy right? “Hey d—“ you began before being interrupted by your fathers worried words “Y/n what the hell happened to you? Who did this?” The anger evident in his voice no matter how hard he tried to conceal it. And believe me he really did try to conceal it. This question in itself was enough to startle you. Oh no...this wasn’t good at all. If your father found out about what Darcy and her friends had been doing to you for the last few months then it would 100% end badly. Which would most likely result in you being pulled from the school. Not that you’d mind that. But despite the bullying you did have friends here. Whom of which you did not want to leave. “N..no one I....I just fell” you lied. And not very creatively at that since Ransom seemed to pick up on your attempt to conceal the truth because without another word you were slung over your fathers shoulder and taken into the school kicking and screaming. This time Ransom wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Y/n don’t lie to me! We have rules for a reason. Come on what’s going on?! Who did this? Who hurt you? The quicker we fix this the quicker whoever did this to you gets punished and the quicker I can get you out of this school for good” Ransom explained as he finally put you down in your normal classroom. God he really did sound like a father now which was enough to make even the 37 year old himself cringe. Never had he ever sounded so weak. But at least he had a good reason.

“Dad I told you No on—“

“I know what you told me y/n but I’m not buying it! So tell me the truth!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why y/n?!?”

“Why do you want to know so bad?”

Okay now he was starting to lose his patience. Judging by your stubbornness, which you had most certainly inherited from him, this wasn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact if you had it your way you’d most likely be answering him with the same damn response of hours. “Because you’re my daughter? Believe it or not I actually care about you y/n and seeing you come home from school covered in bruises or hearing you crying every single night isn’t nice okay!?? Please just tell me who hurt you? You’re not in trouble right now but if you don’t tell me who hurt you then you will be!” Now he really did sound like a worried father, something that he’d never been shown as a child. No worry was ever emitted from either of his parents so of course he had no idea where all of this was coming from.

You froze, hearing your own father admit that he had heard you crying each night and saw the new bruises that you seemed to come home with seemed to break your heart. Which was of course when you realised just how much Ransom really did care about you. How the he’ll had you not know this all along? Were you just blind? Maybe you were. “You promise I’m not in trouble?” “I promise now who did this to you?”

It took you almost 2 whole hours to finally admit everything to your father about how Darcy had been tormenting you for months on end, even going as far as saying cruel things about him you really anger you just to get a response. You even admitted to why you’d been crying each night. Trying to keep yourself as calm as physically possible since you didn’t want to worry him too much.

But unfortunately the ship had sadly sailed since Ransom was currently seeing red. How had he been so dumb? How on earth had he not thought that you could have been getting bullied? But most importantly why wasn’t Darcy being punished if she had her. Caught several times abusing his daughter? She hose questions continued to swim in his mind as he tried to listen to you. His mind completely filled with range once you’d finally finished speaking. “You’re leaving this school! And I’m calling the police. Clearly school isn’t doing anything about this. So we’re suing!” He spoke unexpectedly. Giving you no other choice but to just go with it. And that’s exactly what he did. Yes it was extremely drastic and most certainly not the right way to go around this situation but if it meant that you would be safe and that Darcy would get fairly punished then Ransom would try anything.

Of course what he really wanted to do was kill that Bitch Darcy, or just brutally injure her for ever even laying a finger on you. But she was only a teenager. If He did that then of course he’d go to prison and you’d have no one, resulting in you either ending up with his parents or in care. Neither of which he wanted for you. So, in order to make sure that he stuck around to make up for his failed promise he just kept his word and sued the school for all it was worth.

#chris evans #chris evans cute #chris evans hot #daddy! chris evans #his laugh though 🥺#chris evans characters #chris evans x reader #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x female reader #ransom drysdale x you #Dad! Ransom Drysdale x daughter! reader #chris evans x daughter! reader #chris evans x you

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rayofspades · 3 years

Text

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad.

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on.

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem.

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point.

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure.

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it.

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right.

Ok, let’s go.

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing.

Part 1: Horror and Mystery

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner?

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together.

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways.

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin.

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line.

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.

But here’s the thing;

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information.

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two.

No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A.

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.

Part 2: Stakes

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life.

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.”

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense.

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters.

Part 3: Themes and Characters

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor.

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.”

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great.

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great.

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens.

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show.

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions.

Well, for the most part.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing.

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted.

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance.

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection. On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice.

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts!

...Let’s talk about season five!

Part 4: Season 5

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk.

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show.

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia.

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.”

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing.

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain.

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard.

Buuuuuuut...

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars.

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will.

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close.

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point.

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series.

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced. I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me.

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table—

ALEX NO.

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending.

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that.

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out...

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story.

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

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iridescentides · 3 years

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i watched the ep twice bc i didnt take notes the first time BUT. hsmtmts 2.04 thoughts under the cut

gina first. my favorite part of the episode was when she admitted that she feels out of place living in someone else’s house and that she wanted a bigger part in the play. i was SO worried they were gonna just let her happily sideline herself in a “yay she learned her lesson about not being the center of attention” kind of way bc i would not be able to handle that two seasons in a row. let her be angry!!! she has a lot to be upset about

the gina/carlos conflict was awful bc theyre making carlos unreasonably annoying this season. last season he was nice, he was enthusiastic, not competitive and just rooting for other people. idk why they needed to flip him so drastically to being spoiled, rich, selfish, pushy, and bitchy. and on top of that i have not been vibing with the pieces of dialogue theyve been giving him this season just to score woke points. its so unbearably obvious that even though hes a brown gay character, he was written by a white gay person who thought, on some level, that he was giving the gen z kids the #hashtag representation they wanted. his delivery of every line that screams “remember, im mexican” is so awkward, it doesnt land well, and im begging them to stop. they want so badly to commodify his character and parade him around as a “look how diverse our show is!” thing and im so so sick of it bc you can tell, with all the surface-level pieces of dialogue, that they dont actually care at all

(”look around, theres not a lot of me at this school” we GET it, this show wants to be glee so bad)

im honestly starting to slowly ship rina less and less. in season one i loved seeing someone make gina happy, especially since she had no friends before opening up to ricky. but now its just a whole mess and i wish she would love herself a lil more to realize that its not worth all this stress. he made a choice and no amount of conflicted moments of eye contact is going to fully take that back. im not necessarily against love triangle plots, but i HATE the whole “women wait around hopefully while male character, whose decisions have already hurt multiple people, makes up his mind” bullshit

that being said, gina handled the situation like a CHAMP, im dying over how quickly she was able to mask her pain and make the joke about the twix bar. im love her

we were absolutely ROBBED of an ej/big red performance this episode!!! i am at my LIMIT we better get gaston next week or i will riot

on the ej train, him not getting into duke was extremely predictable. we all kinda saw that coming and knew that would be his main point of growth this season. im glad they didnt wait super long to do it. now please @ writers i am BEGGING you to give my man more screen time than one scene per episode

its very odd that they keep making mr mazzara have emotionally tough conversations with the students. i will do a parallel gifset of those once the season ends. i liked his convo with ej for the most part, but he really didnt have to beat him over the head with the “youre an emotionless robot” thing again. its clear ej is gonna throw himself into av club or whatever (even though at the end of last season that was supposed to be big red?) and discover that he has a lot going for him. because he does, he literally has everything going for him, thats why they had to make his “problem” not knowing himself. bisexual ej caswell ftw

i love the parallels between ej and nini this episode? i think since the beginning ive felt that there was a lot about them under the surface that was similar. it was interesting seeing ej tell nini about duke first, instead of the obvious choice of ashlyn. i wouldve loved to see how that scene wouldve gone with ricky, gina, carlos, or big red though bc each reaction and attempt at comforting him wouldve been so different. i didnt love that nini had to be pulled away from the conversation, but im glad they can still talk to each other after everything that went down. and i love the juxtaposition of ej’s convo with mazzara directly following nini’s convo with miss jenn bc theyre essentially the same.

speaking of, i loved miss jenn in this episode. her stories are always so funny, but i loved seeing her care so much for nini and guide her, like a teacher. i loved how she pointed out that everyone who loves nini just wants her to be happy

im glad nini is leaving yac bc there was no good way to keep that up honestly. but im pretty annoyed that they were so obvious about it? like, they immediately made it the worst place in the world without exploring it very much. the place is super unrealistic, ive never been to drama school but im sure it wouldnt be like that. no creative arts place for KIDS would be so impossibly limiting. plus the weird bluish coloring in comparison to the nice warm tones of the rest of the show was, again, a dead giveaway. why send her to the school at all if it wasnt even gonna matter?

even though im glad nini left yac, im NOT looking forward to the way miss jenn is about to bend over backwards to put her in the play somehow. she plays obvious favorites and im so annoyed

(sidenote: nini just? decided to leave yac without consulting her parents??? ummm)

granted is a very good song, one of my faves so far

ricky deciding to tell nini he wants her to stay was stupid. what did he think that would accomplish? who in their right mind would drop out of a good school for you?

i loved when nini said yac was missing something, and miss jenn said “ricky” and nini said “you.” that was so so sweet and cute

i think the kourtney/howie thing is gonna grow on me. i hate amatonormativity so im not a big fan of them introducing a whole ass character exclusively so kourtney can have a love interest, but i loved the gesture he made of bringing her the pizzas and her flashcards. i feel like kourtneys love language is acts of service, and she was literally this meme when he did that for her:

i liked seeing ashlyn try to be there emotionally for gina! i want more of them together

overall this episode was okay. not enough songs, and i wish they were spreading out the emotional conversations through the season instead of packing them all into literally one episode, but what we did get was pretty good.

after watching the preview i see that next weeks episode is gonna be about carlos’s party, and i love party episodes. BUT i hope that after that ep we finally get an advancement on the north high stuff! i dont give too many fucks about lily, but i wanna see my son asher angel

#me @ myself every time i write one of these: we GET it youre a gina and ej stan #hsmtmts lb #hsmtmts spoilers #txt #waffle words of wisdom

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thewebcomicsreview · 4 years

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Seeing as I don’t have a job right now (one week furlough), I managed to get a lot of writing for Saffron and Sage done today. Now I feel good! Time to ruin that with a Homestuck 2 Liveblog! Last time: Jade kidnapped “Yiffy”, much to Jane’s distress! No time for that, though, as we’re back with the Candyland Kids.

HARRY: vrissy, i know this is a stressful predicament but i think that's going too far. HARRY: my dad believes in us. HARRY: and if he thinks there's something we can do, then there has to be a way!

Kind of interesting that Harry holds his dad’s opinion in such high esteem, considering that his dad has been AWOL pretty much his whole life.

TAVROS: Uncle john isn't to blame for this,,, HARRY: yeah, no shit tav. HARRY: this whole situation is because of YOUR insane hitlermom.

How the hell does Harry Anderson know who Hitler is? When did that conversation come up? This is a completely different universe!

TAVROS: Is less sincere,,, than it is,,, an attempt to weaponize something difficult for me, TAVROS: In order that you can win an argument,,, with harry anderson,,,,, VRISKA: GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! VRISKA: WILL YOU ALL JUST VRISKA: SHUT!!!!!!!! VRISKA: UP!!!!!!!!

A good example of why characters like John, Jade, Vriska, and sometimes Karkat are important in Homestuck or in stories generally. They actually do shit.

VRISKA: Neither you nor your friends have anything really important going on. VRISKA: Your lives and your planet are a total 8ore! VRISKA: 8ut somehow John loves you anyway. VRISKA: Try and be fucking gr8ful for that every once in a while. VRISKA: Not everyone is so lucky.

Vriska please do not be pining for middle-aged John Egbert. You have literally half a dozen semi-official love interests (John, Terezi, Eridan, Tavros, Meenah and Kanaya), please don’t pick the one old enough to be your dad. It was already weird enough when Adult John got hot and bothered by teen Roxy in the epilogues, to say nothing of you fucking a middle-aged homeless clown in a bush.

thespiansGlamor [TG] began pestering adamantGriftress [AG]

Oh, fuck you, Homestuck. It’s bad enough that Harry and Dave are both going to be referred to as “TG” in chatlogs, but now Vrissy and Vriska are both AG and have the same font color!

TG: i've allocated the strife specibus with the scissorkind abstratus? TG: hm. TG: using this weird vocab and stuff feels... well, weird. TG: i'm not sure why, but it seems as though everything that's about to happen is that much more important now. TG: or maybe it already was, but i just didn't understand just how important until this moment.

One issue with wearing your metaphor on your sleeve as much as Homestuck 2 does is that thematically important lines become really obvious.

I like how the triangle-shaped panel around Vriska escaping the crowd by simply walking into it is reminiscent of a magic 8-ball. That’s clever!

VRISKA: Your society... no, your whole planet... it deserves to 8urn str8 to MEGAhell, and I'm gonna 8e the one to fly it there! VRISKA: I'm gonna shatter your paradise into pieces with my 8are hands and SHIT IN ITS GRAVE!!!!!!!! VRISKA: HOW'S THAT FOR A FUCKING ST8MENT! VRISKA: YOU GOT ALL THAT, JANE CROCKER? VRISKA: DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S COMING FOR YOU???????? VRISKA: YOU'VE MESSED WITH VRISKA: ********VRISKA******** VRISKA: ****FUUUUUUUUCKING**** VRISKA: ********SERK8T********

There’s some extreme Dungeons and Dragons energy here, where Vriska’s plan to escape a mob of reporters working for a totalitarian dictatorship run by literal gods is to simply walk outside and publicly declare her intent to destroy the world as punishment for its sins.

And yeah, this is how that plan usually works in DnD, too.

Man, the next page is a wall of text, whereas in old Homestuck this’d be an animation. I get “fair wages” and “small budget”, but is still feels weird to see a big Strife scene merely get described with boring-ass words.

Fearing gunfire, the few paparazzi who aren't currently getting their asses handed to them by the world's angriest traffic cone start to trip over each other, diving for cover.

The world’s angriest traffic cone.

Far away, in her lair, Jane Crocker grabs the two sides of her computer monitor with enough strength to snap it in two. She can't believe what she's watching. Behind her, from a shadowy corner of the room, there is an agitated growling noise and the rattle of chains.

Is that Yiffy? Is Yiffy an animal? Please tell me Yiffy is not a person that Jade named Yiffy.

....Actually, please tell me that Yiffy isn’t an animal Jade named Yiffy that is Jade’s child via sex with another animal that might be my breaking point.

Vriska alights on the ground, rakes her throat, quietly spits out a little wad of blue, and wipes her mouth unceremoniously. Tavros pats Harry Anderson tentatively on the arm. Vrissy tries to be badass and cough up something too but she doesn't really make it work.

Vrissy::Vriska Vriska::Mindfang

It’s weird that John’s sprite is the same even though he’s middle aged now, but I like that his God Tier outfit doesn’t fit any more. Isn’t it magical? Ahh, who cares.

JOHN: this old thing is pretty uncomfortable in a lot of ways. JOHN: hm... JOHN: when we get a moment, maybe the two of us could brainstorm a redesign? JOHN: no pressure though. HARRY: !!!

Oh, that’s why! That’s cute.

JADE: theres something i need to tell you

don’thavefuckedadogdon’thavefuckedadogdon’thavefuckedadog

JADE: john... i have a daughter JADE: shes almost harry andersons age JOHN: ... JOHN: ... JOHN: you have a daughter.

Named Yiffy?

ROSE: It was at this point that Jade came to me. ROSE: I could understand her pain quite acutely, and so... ROSE: I agreed to carry a child on her behalf. KANAYA: . ROSE: ... Without telling Kanaya.

Without-

Kanaya is your WIFE. You LIVE WITH HER. Even ignoring the question of why you’d keep 9 months of pregnancy from your wife, how? Kanaya would have been living with humans for years at that point and she’s literally in charge of reproduction don’t tell me she thought Rose just got fat for a while and then lost the weight really fast.

ROSE: I'm... not sure why I made that decision. ROSE: I regret not telling Kanaya, of course. ROSE: But I can't say that I regret going through with it. ROSE: At the time, it didn't feel as though the deception was even all that prolonged. The whole affair was... short. ROSE: Purely physical, and nothing more.

ROSE: John, there isn't a father. ROSE: Jade and I are the sole parents of this child. JOHN: oh. JOHN: ... JOHN: OH. JOHN: oh i'm so sorry, i didn't th- ROSE: That's quite alright John, although you might like to direct that apology more towards your sister. ROSE: All I will say is that if you would like to take up the particulars with us, ROSE: Some *other* time,

Actually, if John doesn’t know that Jade has a male dog’s genitals due to a fusion accident, I’d love to know what that all-caps OH means. What does he think happened, that Jade and Rose managed to have a baby?

JOHN: so... how did you hide the pregnancy? ROSE: Oh, that was simple. ROSE: Jade's genes being, as they are, part canine, the gestation period was substantially reduced.

OH NO

Yiffy is literally a furry, isn’t she? Moreso that Jade, she’s a full-on “Can be naked onscreen and it’s okay because she’s covered in fur” dog girl.

JOHN: i think i understand everything so f VRISSY: WAIT!!!!!!!! VRISSY: YOU MEAN TO TELL ME VRISSY: NOT ONLY DO I H8VE A SISTER VRISSY: 8UT YOU NAMED VRISSY: YOUR ****SECRET CHILD**** VRISSY: ********YIFFY********????????

Vrissy makes an excellent point.

ROSE: We didn't call her Yiffy. ROSE: That would be a quite ridiculous thing with which to burden a child. ROSE: Her full name is Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley.

Vrissy looks as though she is about to shit the belltower they are standing in, brick by brick.

ROSE: It was, in hindsight, a monumentally terrible decision acting as the final chapter in a long series of novels, each one full of progressively more terrible decisions than the last. ROSE: But that is the name that we decided upon.

Oh, wait a second. Vriska changed Vriska Maryam-Lalonde to Vrissy, and changed Harry Anderson to just Harry. So obviously she’s going to rename Yiffy to literally anything else, then rename Tavros, and then we’ve got a new set of four kids as Vriska leaves to do something else. That’s what going to happen, right? Right? Please?

ROSE: You have to understand... this whole situation ended up playing out a bit like an ironic game of chicken between the two of us. ROSE: Something that far outstripped anything that the Strider fraternity could have produced in their wildest, most jpegged creative wet dreams. ROSE: But in the end that triumph of irony came back to bite us in the fucking ass, as irony is wont to do. ROSE: There was absolutely no possibility of us casually letting you all know that, by the way, we had had a secret daughter named Yiffany Longstocking. ROSE: At least, not right away. ROSE: But carapacian change-of-name paperwork is so complex and circuitous that, eventually, keeping quiet forever just seemed like the more reasonable option.

This is, even for Homestuck, monumentally stupid. You named your daughter Yiffany Longstocking as a joke and then kept the child secret because you were embarrassed. You two are awful fucking parents. You are the worst parents in the entire series, and that includes Bro Strider and the spider that made Vriska feed it children.

And we’re literally at the point where the writing is bad and the joke is how bad the writing is. This isn’t enjoyable to read; you can’t make a bad B-movie My Immortal fanfic on purpose.

Even now, Yiffy is likely being held at spoonpoint

I feel like “Jade and Rose have a secret daughter named Yiffany Longstocking” can be a joke or it can be drama but maybe not both at the same time.

#Homestuck 2 #Homestuck #Homestuck 2 Liveblog

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