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aoitrinity · 5 years ago

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Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it.

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in.

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length.

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages.

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money.

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments.

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve.

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

#supernatural season 15 #spn finale #speculation #destiel #destielgate #the ending was not the ending #fuck the cw #trust the story #we were robbed

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stagemanagerssaygo · 5 years ago

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Heaven and Hell: or my experience being a person of color in Disney’s Hyperion Theater

by Cooper Howell

Heaven and Hell: or my experience being a person of color in Disney's Hyperion Theater. #holdingtheateraccountable Im just gonna go ahead and be straight up. This is pretty scary to share. HEAVEN: Once upon a time Liesl Tommy cast me as Prince Hans in Frozen: Live at the Hyperion. And I was gooped. GOOPED. There was nothing in my prior history that gave any indication this was possible. Up until then every role I played had to do with my race. Every. Single. One. And even ones where it didn’t (Shakespeare or classical pieces mostly) I was always made aware that the novelty of me being a poc in that role that gave me the part. So much did I not expect to get this part that when I got the callback I rolled my eyes and didn’t take the actual callback seriously. I mean, there was a zero percent chance that Disney would ever let me play a Prince, especially when the dude in the movie is a ginger. But then I got it. And immediately everything I thought was possible about my career changed. My whole life I’ve never inwardly felt black. I’ve never inwardly felt white. I’ve always felt like I was Cooper, you know, on the inside. But whether it was every single white human in Utah reminding me that I was “the whitest person they ever knew/saw” (which DIDNT mean how white my skin was. It was how white I ACTED) or Mr. Johnson, my 7th grade drama teacher, telling me that he “wanted to put Velcro on the ceiling to see if I’d stick” or Mr. Smith, my high school drama teacher, saying “finally we can do black shows” as soon as I entered high school and then not casting me in roles because of the "optics" of it, or even my best friend in high school Tanner Harmon who called me "blackie", I was always reminded that I was an other. So imagine getting paid good money to put on that $10,000 costume and waltzing out to 4000 people a day to play a really amazing part. A fantastic, evil, complicated, person who sings a killer duet and then grabs the show by the throat with a vicious about-face monologue... and not once was my race ever mentioned cuz it didnt matter. What was being prized was Cooper, my talent, not my skin color that I never asked for. Heaven. Liesl MADE SURE, almost overly sure, that the poc’s in the cast felt equal. The kingdom of Arendelle, after all, is a make believe place. It can be whatever. From having Disney executives come and tell us that they were happy to have us there, to side conversations with John Lasseter, we were made to feel overly welcome playing the parts we were playing. She encouraged us to dive deeper into the script of a cartoon that I didnt really think much of until I was in it. We were encouraged to ask why. We felt seen as talent and not commodities. There were, of course, detractors. Gosh, I remember people at a party of cast members from "Mickey and the Magical Map" another show at Disneyland which features a princess and the frog number and many of those casts mates angrily claiming that “if that black girl Tiana Okoye can play Elsa than I should be able to play Princess Tiana” and then looking at me to confirm that was okay to say, not realizing that a) she’s one of my best friends, b) that I’m in the show with her also playing a role that wasn't created to be a poc, c) how racist that sounded, and d) why there's a difference there and why that wouldn't make sense. On Liesls final night I came up to her and said “I don’t know why you did it but thank you so much for casting ME in this part” to which she replied “you mean why would I cast a handsome, talented person in this role?” And I stuttered something like “well, I mean, I’m black. You know...” to which she tilted her head to her side and said “no. I don’t know why. Tell me why that matters.” And I had no answer. Seeing that I had no answer she smiled. That was the answer. There was no reason. On the spot my outlook about myself changed. Windows into what I thought was possible for me opened. -------------------------------------- HELL: And then Liesl went back to NYC and she was replaced by a man named Roger Castellano as show director. Rogers task, he told us on the first day, was to "change the show". We were not told what needed to be changed or even why, but that changes were on the horizon. You've got to understand: to a full cast of actors who had just spent more than three months dissecting a 60 page Disney script with a Tony nominated director like it was Shakespeare, we were initially emotionally/mentally/spiritually resistant to changes. But then it became clear that the spirit of collaboration was over, and the show changes were to be given without the same care, consideration, and thematic explanation of why they were being made. Everyones initial reaction was to push back, but when people who questioned their notes or their changes started getting days removed their schedule or being replaced entirely by a new actor, the Hyperion theater became a place where no one was allowed to speak out. Injustices were happening left and right and no one felt they could do anything for fear of losing their livelihood. And that's when the Frozen: Live at the Hyperion became a living hell. In my first note session with Roger he pulled me into a room with Domonique Paton, my best friend and incredible costar who played princess Anna in the show I was in. She just so happens to also be black. Almost all of Prince Hans’s scenes in the show are with her character and so most of my notes would be primarily based on those interactions with her. Earlier in the day I performed with a different (white) actress but it was the show with Domonique that I had a note session about. Imagine my surprise and dismay when, with how Liesl set up the show experience, we were told this: “WHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER ITS TOO… URBAN.” Urban. What else could that have meant, do you think? He could have said maybe “too contemporary” emphasizing that we were maybe too modern in our speech patterns or movements. We weren’t. He could have said “too lax” or “too loose” meaning that maybe we were being unprofessional and goofy up there because we’re really good friends. We were not. The best me and Ms. Paton could think of was a 8 count moment of improv dance that me and Domonique decided to use as a synchronized moment of unity. It happened to fall on the line “our mental synchronization can have but one explanation” and thought, with the freedom that Christopher (the original choreographer) had given us, was appropriate, especially considering everyone behind us was doing the robot. As in the 80s robot. But he didnt clarify. He just said “WHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER IT’S TOO… URBAN” And when asked what he meant he smiled with a little shrug and said "you can figure that out. You're smart." And thats how I became Black Hans and Domonique became Black Anna. My every moment onstage afterwards became about the optics of being a poc in that show. It was if I was suddenly made aware that I was LUCKY enough to be there and under any normal circumstances, or this new directors circumstances, me getting this part would have never happened. But the message was clear. It was especially clear when me and Domonique Paton shows together durastically decreased and made even more clear when the vast majority of the new hires were not people of color. But no one said anything. And made even MORE clear when, over the next few weeks, both Domonique and I got COPIOUS notes, ten times that of our coworkers that played the same parts. It was almost a game. In fact we did turn it into a game, seeing who would get the least amount of notes from him in a day. Our costars would even joke about it onstage with us, during the ballroom scene, and jokingly whisper "The shows been up 15 minutes. How many do you think you got today?" But no one said anything. And the notes were about all kinds of things. How we held our hand. If our inflections went up or down on a word. Which side of a couch we leaned on… which was fine! When you're an actor, thats the gig... until we started comparing our notes with the actors that played our same parts and none of them, NONE, would get the same notes. Our notes would be outrageously longer, the note sessions sometimes lasting 10/15 minutes. Others would get the “Oh hey, try doing this or that next time, okay bye” walk-by notes. Sometimes I would sneak into the audience and watch as some of the other Han's, some of whom changed lines, changed entire intentions of scenes, some of whom adding in all types of vocalizations and cackles and dance moves and what have you, and would receive ZERO notes. But I was watching them to see what was wrong with me. What was my performance missing? What am I actually doing to feel this singled out. And then I realized that the thing that was wrong with me was that I was a different color than the 5 other white Hans's they cast. And then I started getting notes about my penis. Most of the time these “penis sessions”, as I called them, were given in private rooms without another stage manager present. It was incredibly unpleasant and unprofessional. In fairness, those Prince Hans pants are TIGHT! And yes, Mr. Howell is indeed a party in the front and a party in the back, but so were a lot of those fellas. And thats where I put my foot down. If Disney was going to provide me with a costume it is not my responsibility to fix their problem, especially when other of my (white) costars had been given a dance belt for the same thing. But they never got penis notes. Private session notes about what their penis looked like in that show. Over and over again I was told to fix it, to not make it (my dick) so apparent, and that “if my daughter were younger I wouldn’t want her to come to a show you were performing at" all the more insulting considering his daughter, a cast member in the show, was a friend of mine and the loveliest person. He started demanding that I buy a dance belt. It was “my fault”, “my responsibility” …and thats where I took my stand. And then it really became hell. Penis sessions were now done out in the open. Once, he screamed at me, in the green room in front of all of my costars during lunch, about how incredible unprofessional I was, about how he was tired of seeing my dick, and that if I didnt go buy myself one I didnt deserve to be there anymore. Followed by a huge litany of notes. That doesnt compare to some of what Domonique went through and I invite her to share them if she’s willing. During this time I went to every stage manager in the building and told them about being singling out and about my penis. They all told me to write a complaint report and it would go to some place called "HR". Which I did. Numerously. More months passed. Nothing from "HR". Multiple cast members who witnessed my note sessions encouraged me to go to the HR themselves. I didnt honestly know what an HR was. As soon as it was explained to me by my allies even what an HR was I went to the head of HR at Disneyland herself and waited outside of her door. I asked her if she got any of my HR reports and she told me that she had received no HR reports from the Hyperion. Ever. And then asked me to fill out a HR form. As we went over it, she asked me some questions, and then set up a second meeting. On the second meeting she said that in order for my report to be given credence I would need witnesses to give their testimony. The witnesses, in fact the very people that told me to go to HR in the first place, said no. They didnt want to lose their jobs. In retrospect that might be the thing that hurt the most but, whatever... anyway, I was told "“well… without testimonies we’ll do an investigation and we’ll call you when we’ve completed it.” I never received a phone call. With absolutely zero protection from the stage managers from both the sexual harassment or my obvious racial targeting I (and others) were experiencing, not to mention that HR reports were doing nothing, aka not being forwarded, I thought about quitting. And when a white stage manager made a show mistake and laughed it off to the cast by saying an entirely offensive lynching joke, I quit. I didnt matter to Disney. How I felt and what I was being put through didnt matter. I was a commodity. My departure was unceremonious. Bizarre. 100% un-magical. I hung up my costume one last time and it was given to a new Hans, one who looked very much like me oddly, and stepped out of the theater. The park was playing “every wish your heart desires will come to you” and I remember laughing at how dead that song felt. The director has since moved on but still works as a musical theater director in Southern California. This one time 4 years ago I got to feel something other than my color for the first and only time in my professional career. It lasted from about March 2016 to July 2016 and never again since. I will never forget in those early days looking at all the beautiful princesses I got to woo and thinking “wow. I’m a prince right now.” Im sure that sounds stupid. But it didn't feel stupid. And a Disney prince! Yeah, a shitty prince kinda... I mean, he's a sociopath... BUT still a Prince! Especially special was being able to look in Dominique’s eyes and I could see the same glimmer of “can you believe we get to do this right now” reflected back. We never knew it was in the cards for us. My race always has and will always be part of my career equation and a determining factor of its projection. It will always be a determining factor in how im treated, by creatives, by people, by the those in authority over me, including the government and the police. #wasitmyskin

Copied in its entirety here from Cooper Howell’s public Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10163696376095054&set=a.10151302685610054&type=3&theater

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lawbreaker13 · 3 years ago

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Elation Exaggeration

OOPS I DRABBLED AGAIN.

No, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing to “fix,” I loved every single moment of this episode and it was PERFECT. And this fic is NOT Marinette salt in any way. She recated just like anyone else in her position would have. Girl is stressed, it’s fine. However, I am and have always been a sucker for Marichat, and as much as I respect Adrien’s acknowledgement that his romantic endeavors as Chat Noir will always be somewhat of a parasocial relationship because he can’t ever delve any further into who he really is, I do think that there was potential for the rest of the season to have a whole lot more Marichat rather than what it’s so obviously about to do, lean entirely into Adrinette. Again, I AGREE WITH THIS EPISODE. And I am not mad at the direction that the show will take from this point forward. Marichat was officially executed for one episode and one episode only, and it did so perfectly, and ended with good reason. But like…indulge me for a moment, won’t you?

Anyway, this is my (less climactic) version of that scene that basically answers the question, “What if Marinette was like. A year older and had the wherewithal to think for like. A second?”

Be warned, there is much, disgusting, sappy fluff. Read and vomit at your own risk.

Note: I do not speak French and will be updating all the canon dialogue once the English dub is released, but this is my understanding (and slight interpretation) of what the true English script will be based on transcriptions, subtitles, and honestly, the way I think things should probably be best worded.

_____________________

Read it on AO3 or FF.net

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They were kissing. They were kissing. Her hand was on his face and his mouth was on hers and they were kissing. Man, if you’d have told Adrien this morning that he’d be kissing Marinette on the beach that very night, he might’ve had a heart attack right there on the spot. BUT THEY WERE REALLY KISSING. Sure, he wasn’t Adrien right now, he was Chat Noir but—

Oh shoot. He was Chat Noir.

Chat Noir opened his eyes and pulled away quickly. “Wait, what are we doing?” he exclaimed. “I can’t do this.”

Marinette was vaguely surprised as his sudden lack of confidence. “No, no, you were great!”

“No,” Chat began to explain, “I know who you are, but you don’t know who I am. I’m taking advantage of the fact that you’re a fan.”

Marinette almost laughed at the idea of her being just another fan. He had no idea.

“No, not at all!” she replied. Chat sighed.

“But you are,” he resigned. “And that’s wrong.”

Marinette closed her eyes and growled under her breath. Then she sighed. Of course he thought she was just another fan. And he was right after all, Ladybug was the one who had told him exactly this. This is exactly what she and Alya had been arguing about earlier, too. Their identities would always get in the way, no matter how they swung it. She opened her eyes and looked at him solemnly.

“Chat Noir, listen to me.” Marinette reached for his hands, but he pulled away. She felt her a pang in her heart, but swallowed it. She pulled back. “Of course I’m a fan. No one in their right mind—and Monarch certainly isn’t in his—no one in their right mind would be anything but a fan of the guy who saves Paris from evil ten times a week.” Chat Noir let out a small chuckle and smiled just a bit. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’m ‘just a fan.’ I mean, how many other fans have you gone to the movies with?” Marinette swallowed as she asked it. The thought that there were other girls in his life hadn’t really crossed her mind until this moment. What if she was just another fan?

Chat Noir shook his head. “None.” She felt the weight lift off her chest. Thank goodness. “But Marinette—”

“How many fans have you tried to get ice cream with?” she asked, this time much more confident in her point. Chat looked down.

“None.”

Marinette smiled softly. “How many fans…have you kissed?”

Chat Noir swallowed and looked back up at her. “Just you,” he said. She tilted her head and looked at him sweetly. “But Marinette, it’s just too complicated.”

“Life is complicated!” she laughed.

“I have too many secrets,” he tried rebutting. “I have a whole identity you know nothing about, and I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to tell you. It’s too dangerous for you to know, and it’s not fair to you that I know you and…” Chat thought about trying to get ahold of Marinette this morning as Adrien. She clearly didn’t want to spend time with him anymore. She didn’t like him anymore. She’d just said so herself. “…and you may never truly know me,” he said. “I can’t use you like that.”

“You’re not using me, Chat. And I don’t think that…I don’t think either of us think that I’m just a fan.” Marinette hesitated for a moment, but reached out for his hand again. This time, he let her take it. She placed her other hand on top. “Look, we all have secrets. I have secrets. I have big secrets. Ones that I don’t know who I’ll ever be able to tell…or when. You may think I don’t get it, but I do.” She pulled her clasped hands closer to her chest, and Chat Noir put his other hand on top. Marinette let her gentle smile return as she continued. “Life is complicated. Everything you do is dangerous and complicated. But my life…it’s a lot less complicated when you’re around. I don’t think about my secrets. I don’t think about danger. All I can think about is you.”

Chat Noir’s face softened, now looking some mix of love and concern. “I feel the same way, Marinette. But it just feels so manipulative a-and wrong! You may never know who I am—at least not until Monarch is defeated—and you are a fan. It doesn’t matter what I feel. I just cannot take advantage of your feelings like that. I can’t take advantage of you.”

Marinette was about to cry. Yes, of course his insistence was heartbreaking. But this was also why she liked him so much. He was just so sincere. So caring, genuine, sweet. She held back her tears and tried one more time.

“You could never take advantage of me, Chat Noir.” She removed her hands from their intertwinement and gently curled her left hand up against his cheek. He leaned into it ever so slightly and she ran her thumb along the bottom edge of his mask. “I may not know who you are here,” she said, lifting her other hand and placing her open palm over his heart. “But I know who you are here.” Chat Noir closed his eyes, and nuzzled up against the hand on his face a bit more. He placed his right hand over her fist and looked back at her. She had never looked so radiant. “You’re a good guy, Chat. I know there’s someone under that mask who is, too.”

Marinette removed her right hand from his chest and pushed his bangs back. She stood on her tiptoes for a moment and kissed him on the forehead as he locked their fingers in the hand he was still holding, pulling their grasp down in between them again. As she pulled away from the kiss and placed her feet back on the ground, he leaned down and rested their foreheads together. They both closed their eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. It almost sounded like he might cry, too. Marinette was worried. “But we still can’t be together. It’s too dangerous. Monarch can and will hurt you if he finds out. It’s just…the casualties of the job I guess. I’m really sorry…” His voice was shaking. Marinette kissed him on the cheek, then pulled away and looked back up at him.

“It doesn’t have to be now,” she sighed. “Although I don’t know how he’d find out, ‘hopelessly in love’ doesn’t seem to be the strong emotion that Monarch’s looking to exploit.” They both laughed.

“Thank you, Marinette.” Chat Noir said sweetly. The sadness seemed to pass, at least on the surface. “I had a great time tonight, really. And I would love to do it again sometime…eventually.”

“Me too.” Marinette grinned.

“Come on. Let me take you home.” Chat Noir grabbed Marinette by the waist again and she put her hands around his neck. He extended his baton, pushing against the sand, and leapt off toward the bakery.

As they landed on her balcony, there was a commotion in the distance. They both turned to see a familiar ice cream monster rising up from the very area that they had just come from. They both rolled their eyes. Chat Noir sighed and looked back to Marinette. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“This isn’t goodbye forever,” he promised her. “Just for now.”

And with that, he jumped back off in the opposite direction to take down the man who’d made them have a stupid “heart-to-heart talk.” How dare he.

Marinette watched him leap off to battle and swooned. She then shook her head, realizing there were more important matters at hand. She jumped back down into her bedroom.

“Thank goodness!” Alya shouted. “WHERE in the world did you get off to??” Just then, Alya’s Alliance ring piped up with a Megakuma Alert.

“As always, I’ll explain later. Timing just sucks. But right now, timing couldn’t be more perfect. Tikki, spots on!”

A flash of light and Ladybug went right back out the way she had just come in. Alya ran downstairs to try and get some footage of the battle, and maybe try to help out in any way that she could. As she ran across town, she thought about Marinette’s supposed crush.

Eh, Alya thought to herself, at least ‘Marichat’ has a nice ring to it.

_____________________

And thus begins two seasons of Marichat secret flirtationship antics.

I’M JUST SAYING.

_____________________

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wenellyb · 4 years ago

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Anthony Mackie is homophobic

There’s no way around it, Anthony Mackie is homophobic and here’s why.

This is how you make a headline..! You make a shocking title and then a catchphrase and the job is done.

You want it to be provocative, intriguing and you want people to click on read more, you want to catch everyone's attention.

Who cares if it's misleading or not accurate, right? People will get the rest of the idea/article when they read the whole article.

But what about those who don't click on the link and read the article? Who see the headline and then their idea is set.

Most people don't have the time to read the full article for further explanation. Some people will read the headline, take the information and move on. Sometimes they will even share that headline... without even reading the article. And I won't pretend I haven't done it too... I have done it and still do it. I've read headlines, retweeted them and shared it without reading the content because the headline was enough information for me.

And a lot of people on the Internet do this...and I think that it's part of the game. But, if you're going to use those headlines to throw accusations at someone and then share those accustions with people, the bare minimum is to read the article first.

And I feel like there has been 3 types of people in the Anthony Mackie story:

Those who read only the headlines and tweets but didn't read the article

Those who read the FULL article but didn't listen to the podcast ( This is much much better than the first one btw)

Those who read the article and listened to the audio.

And I also feel like people making the most noise are part of the 1st category.

I keep receiving some asks that I feel that some of them are missing the point so I'm going to write what I think about all of this and hopefully I can just link this post whenever I get a question.

And I am also disturbed by the fact that this is the 3rd option I get when I type Anthony Mackie on Twitter.

Now that the situation is calmer and the story died down a little, I wanted tovshare my thoughts. And of course you don’t have to read this, but I had to write this down, at least for myself.

I will be exploring 3 angles, so feel free to skip the ones you are not interested in.

It should have never been about the ship

If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

Part 1: It should have never been about the ship.

For the people who read only the headlines... It's a shame because the headlines made the interview all about “Anthony not liking Sam and Bucky's relationship as romantic”. '

A lot of the people based their opinion on the articles and didn't even look further... it was set that Anthony didn't like Sambucky as a couple.

It was revealed with the audio of the podcqst that it wasn’t what Anthony said at all, and he wasn't talking about Sam ans Bucky's relationship but was answering another question that the interviewer had asked about male friendships. And in fact, and it was the interviewer who said that male friendships were rare in the superhero context... He set up the question that way.

But that is the not the point, the point is that EVEN IF Anthony had said he didn't see Sam and Bucky as romantic... that is not enough to say he is problematic or homophobic.

And the intensity of the backlash he received is because he is a Black man, sure... but the accusations of being homophobic would have been there anyway.

Because fandoms are not rational.

When Sebastian Stan said he didn't play Bucky as in love with Steve in 2016, he also received backlash from the fandom and got accusations of being homophobic, even though he had said people were free to interpret it as they wanted. And guess what he still got the accusations lesser level than Anthony, but still...

Anthony and Sebastian have both played gay characters in the past, more than once. And I repeat this so you understand, they have played gay characters more than once. So maybe, MAYBE if they say their character isn't gay or bi, maybe it isn't because they're homophobic, or because they don't want their characters to be ....but because that is how their character is written in the script?

Again, Anthony didn't say any of this about Sambucky but even if he had, it would certainly be because he played the part they were supposed to play.

Some people want to make Anthony this big bad guy who "killed the ship" but I'm sorry, Anthony doesn't own the production company, he isn't the writer or the executive producers.... The actors who be the last in line to blame for this.

And I don't want to make it seem like it's only the general public doing this...Because even some journalists have been writing articles about how Anthony shouldn't be "shutting down ships or dismissing Sambucky" because there is so little representation in the MCU... I'm sorry but what??? WHAT???

I understand the sentiment and I know that a lot of ships are there to compensate the lack of representation on screen...but how is it Anthony's responsibility or his fault?

It’s great when actors go along with the ship, do not invalidate it and leave the doors open, but it is not their fault or their responsibility if they don't, especially actors who have no clue about how shipping or fandoms work.

If it's written in the script that the charcter is straight and the actor says the character is straight you shouldn't be lashing out at the actors for "killing the ship"...Do you want him to change the script? Go blame the production company instead.

I know actors are an easy target because it is much more easier to tweet about them than look up the names of Executive Producers or CEOs and write them letters to ask for more representation. Actors are an easy target but it is literally not their call.

Some of these articles making headlines blaming Anthony because he shut down the idea of romantic Sambucky when there is so little represenration and not making headlines blaming the multibillion dollar company that refuse to have decent representation!

Sure, let's blame the Black actor who said that Sam and Bucky are just friends for the decades of nothing expect a total of 10 seconds screentime for a character nobody remembers and just calls the “Russo cameo”.

And again, Anthony Mackie didn't even say anything against a romantic reading of Sambucky, nothing! But it shouldn't matter, even if he had said they were just friends... it wouldn't justify any backlash at all... if it is about the ship.

Him shipping Sambucky or not should be the last point the fandom is focusing on.

An actor doesn't ship your ship and it bothers you? Move on, ship another couple if you want to... Don't start calling him names because of the ship.

When you make the debate about the ship, it kills the discussion before the discussion can even start because how can you have a constructive discussion if the debate has no foundations?

For instance, if Anthony made hurtful or problematic comments, the right way to deal with this, would be to ask for apologies or for a better explanation of his words .... But since a lot of people, and even news outlet made this story about the ship, what do you want to do?

Ask Anthony to apologize for thinking/saying Sambucky is platonic? We do realize how insane this would sound right? Or are there people who really want Anthony to come out and make a public statement about how he apologizes and supports romantic Sambucky? Is this were we want to go?

People made it about the ship, so he will also think the problem is that he doesn't "ship" Sambucky... but that wasn't the problem right? At least I hope it wasn't.

All of this should have never been about the shipping...If you are bothered by an actor not liking your ship ...it's ok. Stop shipping it if you want to and move on, but don't act like they're the worst human being on the planet because of it.

When I first read the article I was surprised by Anthony's comments about Sambucky because he had never talked like that about the relationship before... but the first thinf I said ia that he is an actor... he reads and interprets the script he has... he doesn't make the decisions...

But when I listened to the audio... I was even more horrified by the way the whole story was handled.

Part 2. If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

This might be an unpopular opinion but I don't mind people saying that Anthony Mackie is homophobic. I don't know him, so I won't pretend to know what he is or isn't. What I do mind is people saying he's homophobic but not giving any explanation or evidence.

And I have seen people do that. A lot... And I have receiced asks like that.... "Have you seen those articles? Anthony is homophobic," “He dug his own grave”

But all of the articles and headline are talking about the ship...is that your evidence?

If your opinion is based on a headline or some tweets, I don't know how you expect people to believe you.

I have seen people calling Anthony homophobic because of his comments on the explotation of homosexuality. But to me it was clear that he wasn't talking about the Queer fans, even though I could be wrong... (I talk abour this more in the part 3)

The part where Anthony Mackie has made comments that could be dubious are the comments about how he is bothered that he can't go to bars with his friends anymore.

No matter how you turn it, making it seem like it's a problem that people think you're gay when you're with your friends, has homophobic undertones.

That is the part that really bothered me personally... It really made me feel uncomfortable.

But is it enough to say he is homophobic? I don't think so, but if I'm wrong and it means he is, in what way? You need to give an explanation. Even a short one.

And even with that comment about the bars, if you add the context, you could imagine that maybe he's not talking about the characters but about his real life experience because we know that some people ship him and Sebastian romantically, and if he was talking about that... It could be understandable that he is bothered by that because he's a celebrity and when people make assumptions about celebrity love lifes they can become annoying or even toxic sometimes.

People shipping the two of them romantically makes me unconfortable so I can't imagine how it would make HIM feel.

But anyway, that part of the interview bothered some people and I personally don't think it's enough to call him homophobic but I do think it is worth a discussion.

Unfortunately, most people didn't focus on that... they focused on the shipping or other words that were taken out of context... By mixing everything with the shipping, the battle for a legitmate discussion was already lost before it even started.

Part 3: Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

I think that what bothers me the most were that some people were waiting for this moment... They were holding their breath until the moment he would finally slip up so they can be hateful in peace.

This is a screenshot of a post from April 2021, way way before this whole story.... Some people already had in their mind that him being a Black masculine man, he was homophobic... and were just waiting for a confirmation it seems.

( I cropped the OP’s blog name to avoid any problems going their way)

I have said this before... But I don’t follow celebrities foolishly. If you think Anthony Mackie gives off homophibic vibes or could be homophobic... you may be right.... but I would need evidence, or an explanation, not just a “vibe”... I asked evidence to that OP or at least an example of an homophobic joke he had made and they blocked me...

I have watched a lot of Anthony Mackie interviews and never got that "vibe" so I really wanted to know. Later, I asked one of my mutual to reach out to ask them about it and the OP finally answered to my mutual and said that an example of a moment they could tell he was homophobic was the interview were Anthony talks about his soft spot.

So that person based their impression of Anthony being homophobic on the fact that Anthony doesn't like to be touched in the back by strangers...Imagine me staring at the camera like I’m in The Office

And this isn't about racism because that person who wrote the post is Black apparently. But it is about how Black men are perceived and stereotypes that are often attached to them.. People make all of these asaumptions on then wait for the moment they can be proven right.

For this OP, a masculine Black man from the south =homophobic ...

And I don't think they are the only one.

What's worse is that they make it sound like all of this is on Anthony:

"Sambucky won't happen because Anthony gives off homophobic vibes"

Not only are they sharing accusations without even a small proof... they are the acting like he would be the only one to blame if Sambucky doesn't happen... Let me tell you that sometimes when I come to Tumblr I want to scream at how irrational people are... Disney has a history of being homophobic and never having any kind of representation, but if Sambucky doesn’t happen, it would be because of Anthony Mackie.

Please, PLEASE!

Anthony Mackie isn't writing the scenarios, he isn’t a Disney Exec.... Does anyone really belive he would walk away from the movie and the contract just because his character is gay, bi or pan? When he has played gay characters in the past??? Why are people trying so so hard to put all the blame on Anthony? I don't understand....

I have also seen "Sambucky won't happen now that Anthony made that interview and said he didn't like it...." How??? How does that even make sense????

What I believe is that a lot of people already had their minds made up about him and were holding their breath until they could finally throw accusations at Anthony because the minute there was a potential scandal... they didn’t try to look for more or try to dig deeper...their mind was already set.

And from then on... their idea were already set on how they were going to interprets the things he said.

For instance, When I first read the article without the context of the audio... I thought a lot of the things Anthony said weren't contreversial because those are ideas expressed on Tumblr every day...the fetishization of some MM ships etc,... But I thought he had expressed it in the worst possible way because he seemed like he was mixing a lot of stuff.... well, I found out later that it was because it was taken out of context.

But even in the context of the article, it was clear to me that Anthony was talking about anybody BUT the Queer fans when talking about the exploitation of homosexuality etc,...

We talk about the fetishization of MM ships by straight women on a weekly basis on Tumblr etc.... What would make anybody think that when Anthony was talking about the some things being “twisted” explotation of homosexuality he was talking about the Queer shippers???

I have joined and left BL fandoms after 2 weeks because of the problems exposed by Anthony. I have seen people who shipped real life actors to the point where it affected the actors's lives. I have seen an actor from a popular M/M ship make a dramatic public statement explaining that nothing will change for his fans that he still loved them and still loved his costars... and made it seem like he had a terminal illness or something....It turned out he had just gotten a girlfriend......?????

And these examples are specific to the BL genre but I have seen similar behavior with some MCU stans.... look at how some (I insist on some) Seb stans react to Seb having a girlfriend (I have seen things).

What made people think Anthony was talking about the queers fans if not the fact that you already had your mind set on the fact a Black man talking about a topic like this was homophobic in some way or the other and some people were just waiting for a confirmation?.

I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t confused by some parts of the interview. What is “There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up” even supposed to mean? And it wasn’t the only sentence. But I don’t think any part of his interview deserved the backlash he received.

A discussion? Yes. Remarks? Yes. Blacklash and hate? No.

TL:DR: If you're going to call out Anthony for what he said.... you better be ready to give a few arguments other than.... "bohoo he doesn't ship Sambucky" or “have you seen the headlines?” and you should probably check your own pre-conceived ideas first..

If you come in my asks to tell me I write too much I will save you the trip and tell you... I already know that😂

#anthony mackie #sam wilson #sebastian stan #tfatws #sorry for the long post again #And some words I didn't know how to write but was too tired to look them up #long post

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thesecondpossum · 3 years ago

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Tumblr's Goncharov (1973) DOES NOT EXIST

Hi. So, if you’re new to Tumblr or you haven’t been around for a while, you might have seen some discourse about the hidden Scorsese-masterpiece Goncharov (1973). I’m sorry to tell you that that film just DOES NOT exists. I REPEAT. DO NOT GO AROUND SEARCHING FOR 1973’s GONCHAROV. It’s just another example of Tumblr over-analysing something and tripping over itself.

I can’t believe I have to be the one to say it, but the actual 1973 film Goncharov isn’t actually that good. In fact, I’d say that at-best it’s a poorly executed mess of interesting ideas and at worst a full-on 3-hour snoose-fest. The fact that anyone could think that this is one of Scorsese’s or DeNiro’s greatest films is honestly astounding to me. Don’t get me wrong, I see that a lot of good ideas were brought into this film, and I’m sure that everyone involved gave it their best shot, but good intentions don’t make up for bad execution, and I have some grievances I’d like to address:

This is probably one of DeNiro’s worst performances, period (and I’m counting all those movies where he plays a raunchy grandpa). I know that his god-awful Russian accent has been talked to death, but honestly, even without it, his performance is all over the place. The man clearly can’t decide if he wants to play the titular Goncharov as a greater-than-life character or as a subdued, meekly man moved by his circumstances. The result is two conflicting performances that might’ve worked on their own, but make absolutely no sense in the same film. And before you start, I know about the grandfather clock scene. I agree that it might have been one of his best performances ever put to film. But ONE masterful scene does not make up for a full three hours of poor acting.

Tumblr is reading waaaaaay too much into Katya’s arc. I get that we all want her to succeed, but unfortunately, everything about her, from the homo-erotic subtext to her independence arc is handled so poorly. This isn’t a dig at the actress. In fact, if any of us were able to get anything from the movie it’s 100% due to her masterful performance, but if you actually look at the text of the film, you’ll see that Katya’s character is awfully underwritten.

Sorry, I’m not done talking about Katya because WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THE HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT IN THE MOVIE. I get that it was the early seventies and Scorsese would probably risk full-on career suicide by putting an explicitly queer woman in his film. Once again, I’m not blaming him or the mesmerising Cybill Shepherd. I get that this was probably the closest we could get to seeing Katya’s inner struggle without the film getting banned, but it’s still such a missed opportunity. As it stands, the film falls into the “evil lesbian that plots against our hero” trope, and despite being a supposed morality tale, we’re still supposed to root against Katya for not being 100% on Goncharov’s side at all times.

Also, how anyone can miss the fact that Katya’s ending is completely tragic is beyond me. Like, DID WE EVEN SEE THE SAME FILM? Katya’s ending might be one of the most heart-wrenching things I could possibly THINK of.

Al Pacino. I rest my case.

Once again, what the fuck are the Russian accents in this movie????

I don’t know if a lot got lost in the editing room floor or if the script is just clunky, but there’s so much about the film that just doesn’t make sense. The movie is OVER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MINUTES LONG you should be able to tie up at least one (1) single narrative thread. The film is ambitious; I give it that, but it’s such a mangled web of themes that whenever someone asks me what it was about, I can’t say anything beyond hehe funny mafia movie.

You don’t even have to believe me, Sheperd and DeNiro THEMSELVES have said that the film was “a lost opportunity” and that “it had a lot of potential […] but unfortunately, it just didn’t work.”

Now, I don’t enjoy being a negative-stu all the time, so here are a couple of good things I’ll say about the movie:

You’re all right about the soundtrack, I mean holy shit. I still can’t listen to “Katya’s main theme” or “farewell to Berlin” without getting teary-eyed.

The cinematography is gorgeous. The film is absolutely a visual delight, especially in every scene that Katya and Sofia share together.

Wanna know why I haven’t talked about Sofia? Because I have no notes. Magnificent performance, brilliant characterisation, everything about her is just perfect. If you can find it, the “and yet it sparkles” deleted-scene is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I cry like a baby every time I watch it.

The film at least attempts to show themes of queer romance in a nuanced light. And as much as it often fails to do so, I still appreciate the effort.

So yeah, I’m sorry, all-in-all Goncharov (1973) isn’t that great a film. It has tons of good ideas but the execution just falls flat. I don’t mean to be a hater, but this really isn’t a hidden-gem from Scorsese’s early career. It’s a so-so film that got forgotten to time for a reason, and all the amazing music, stunning visuals, and homoerotic subtext in the world can’t fix poor execution.

#goncharov #goncharov (1973)#katya goncharov #katya #katya x sophia #film critique

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absolutebl · 4 years ago

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This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 1 - living up to its name since it looks to be a series of redemption arcs. Launched with a college confession and a broken friendship, then a flash back to them as seniors in high school. Pairings include friends to lovers, nerd/jock, and maybe cafe boss/employee. There’s a lot going on, but it’s still... quiet and sweet. The script is pretty pat but it’s still WAY more watchable than Cupid Coach or Brothers and most of the acting is solid. Ep 1 tropes included: he’s in engineering, wound tending, fast & bicurious. This could turn into what I wanted My Gear & Your Gown to be. Fingers crossed.

Love Poison 2 Ep 1 & 2 turns out I did watch and report on season 1 (8 eps), season 2 seems equally unmemorable. Thai countryside setting, strong dialect, incomprehensible plot, camp side characters, and ghastly singing.

Y-Destiny Ep 1 (eng subs?) - opened with the sports romance enemies to lovers (they aren’t going in the teaser order). When the couple got over fighting, the flirting was v cute, but the flipping SPONGE BATH trope had to rear its ugly head. Still, this series is shaping up to be less coy and more frank than most BL, better than expected. It feels, I don’t know, gay-er or something? *** Sources were correct that each couple is getting (at least) 2 eps, and MDL has been updated to say this is a 15 episode series (not 7).

Cupid Coach 12 fin - The new Nite was great and should have been a main all along. It felt like we got a tiny nugget of what could have been in about 10 minutes worth of this last ep. It was way too slow with terrible editing and a criminally bad script, but at least it ended happy. Mostly, like Friend Forever, I’m just disappointed that these two actors were done dirty by the series. Bad Cupid Coach, no screen caps for you.

Lovely Writer Ep 6 - breaking news, there’s a het couple I like: toppy bi femme + soft boi = such a good pairing! I know, but this NEVER happens. Meanwhile, Sib’s secret is out, Gene is a bit of a drama queen, and the plot thickens. We half way through.

Brothers Ep 9 - Kaow had a serious moment of advice giving that was truly lovely. Lots of family dama made this a superior episode to... well... any of the others in this series. Which isn’t saying much.

1000 Stars Ep 10 fin - at the start this series didn’t grab me the way GMMTV’s last BL, Tonhon Chonlatee, did. But boy did it end 1000x better. Might have given us 2021′s best forehead kiss. I enjoyed the ultra romantic cliff-top reunion kiss, and I LOVED the stinger flirting scene. That was an absolute gift we had no right to expect. This drama is a poster child for finishing on a high note (always focus on that dessert course). Final thoughts? This was FAR more a classic romance than it was BL. There were some BL tropes used but not many and most of them originated in the romance genre not yaoi. A picture perfect ending bumped 1000 Stars much higher up my best-of list than expected. Not sure how often I’ll rewatch it as a whole, but this last episode? I’m probably rewatching it right now.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Dear Uranus (Taiwan GL) Ep 3 fin - I guess that’s it? Okaaaaay

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 3 (AKA Ep 5-6) - we got actual legit gay culture not just BL (always appreciated) from XingSi. I’m starting to find LiCheng’s “show them we fucking” hijinks hilarious rather than annoying (not sure why, maybe I just love a rubber chicken, or maybe it was the STUFFED CORN WITH THE TASSEL that did it).

-- H4 Moment of RANT --

Tropes included beach trip, there’s only one bed, cook for him, baby is a floppy drunk, carry baby to bed, and.... drunk non-con. Whoopdedoo. Here we go again. Did TharnType teach us NOTHING? (Apparently it taught us if the chemistry is good enough, I have no morals at all.) At least H4 seems to be taking us out of cheese into serious when it comes to assault. Or is it?

I take back what I said last week about XingSi & YongJie being codependency + salvation trope, that only works if YongJie is the uke. He’s NOT. So we got us an obsessive predatory villain with a possible redemption arc. That’s more common in crime dramas, mafia romance, and epic fantasy than BL. It’s real hard to redeem a sexual predator in a reality-grounded universe like contemporary romance (See Kla in LBC1&2).

Next week is gonna be a test of the whole damn franchise. Imma remind both me a you that this was ep 3 of 10 so we got a ways to go yet... but ooof, what have we wrought, BL? (I ended up doing a whole post about the stepbrother trope because of this sub plot.) Taiwan is killing me.

-- RANT ended --

Word of Honor (China) Ep 19-21 - over half way point so we got ALL the back story (in a classic 4 act story structure midway reveal). Now we know who WKX really is and his lineage. We also got some cute hugs and hand holds. Moving along at a nice clip despite being 36 eps total. Still gayest thing to come out of we-not-gay China since Advance Bravely.

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 2 - takes them a while to get eng subs together and ep 2 didn’t drop until late. So I’m putting this in a Thurs time slot going forward. Miscommunication already cleared up and a 2nd couple has been introduced. The pacing on these Vietnamese BLs is always a bit... off. But it’s still better than most of its ilk, enjoyable. I’m thinking it’s a 6 ep arc.

We Best Love 2 (Taiwan) Ep 5 - after the initial drama DRAMA of ep 2, the current external crisis at work is much quieter, giving this whole season a top heavy feel. Taken along side the first season, I think it’s fitting nicely into a 4 act structure, but that might be my bias. I hope I’m not wrong, we’ll find out next week. Shi De puttering about being domestic with Shu Yi on his back was the best execution of the piggyback trope EVER. Meanwhile, our little D/s side couple of codependency, salvation trope + mental illness is becoming weirdly appealing. I don’t know. H4 done mess with my head.

Stand Alones

Absolute BL AKA Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko (Japan) Ep 1-4 mini series. Found subs under A Man Who Defies The World of BL. IT’S HILARIOUS. It’s Japan making fun of us, but also itself for having started this whole BL nonsense - from yaoi roots to present day. It’s parody goddamn gold. Utterly cheeky unto the very last line. We are not worthy.

Apparently the most powerful tropes of all time are: baby is a floppy drunk and the piggyback fo nobility. Oh and chocolate. {Full review here.}

Honestly, this show may have been made with only @heretherebedork and I in mind. I don’t know if you’d even understand half of it if you don’t have a history with the manga source genre and an obsessive interest in underlying narrative devices. I haven’t seen much chatter in the blog’o’sphere on this one because, in the end, it’s not a romance at all, it’s social commentary.

The ending line was a masterclass in lampooning a genre. I’m going to rewatch the whole thing just to catch all the digs I missed first time around. It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Thank you Japan. I forgive you all your hair-styling sins of the last decade.

Breaking News

Spring Line Up:

Scholar Ryu’s Wedding Ceremony AKA Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korean historical BL) April 15th

Close Friend the series (Thai trailer) April 22.

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) April 22 to Thai theaters.

Nitiman (Thai) May 7 on One31.

I Told Sunset About You 2 (Thai) May 27 on LineTV

Ossan’s Love (Hong Kong) June to Viu

Gossip

Bad Buddies released its first promo op via Arm Share, which means GMMTV is at least *thinking* about filming it.

Fun behind the scenes gossip sesh with eng subs for Tell the World I Love You (that Perth Bas movie we are maybe getting someday but will likely be sad).

New Thai BL Bite Me (adapted from novel Grab a Bite) dropped a teaser. It stars Mark Siwat (Kla in LBC) as uke character Ake, a delivery boy with special foodie powers, and chef Eua (seme played by Zung Kidakorn) who discovers him. It’s from the same author as Manner of Death so we might even get some actual plot. Since it’s an established BL actor who I happen LOVE, a known author, and a plot about FOOD, I could not me more excited for this one.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed a day later than actual air date for accessibility reasons. Some are dropping multiples at a time but just started so I’m not sure on numbering.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

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andreafmn · 4 years ago

Text

Running In Circles - Chapter 2

Word Count: 2,663

Characters: Female Reader Rossi Character, Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Jennifer “JJ”Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia

Story Description: (Y/N) Rossi is following in her father’s footsteps by joining the BAU team as a profiler. The girl genius knew almost everything but she could have never predicted falling for Aaron Hotchner, her boss and her father’s friend. in their world mutual feelings are not enough to push them together. Will all the adversities and obstacles they face pull them together or push them apart forever?

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Criminal Minds, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Jeff Davis and CBS Network. The only thing I own is Arden Rossi, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ story line.

Chapter: 2/?

Chapter Description: The team goes back to work as Aaron Hotchner considers retiring from the team and spend time with his son. (Y/n) can’t help but provide emotional support for the Hotchner boys.

A/N: I enjoy angst and slow burns way too much XD. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

<- Previous | Next->

Chapter 2

Once it was over, the interviews came. We knew the story. We lived it. The case was open and shut. They could try and make us pint it all on Hotch, the easy way out, but we knew better. And we would stand next to our unit chief whatever the price.

Haley’s funeral was no easier than being at the scene. It was a somber day and the sadness was imprinted in us. We all walked with dropped shoulders and a tight chest. I stood between Derek and Reid, using Morgan as support because I felt that my legs would give out at any moment. My father stood behind me rubbing circles on my back to comfort me. As we laid the roses on top of the casket, we laid to rest the life of Haley, a woman I only knew through the loving words Hotch spoke of.

The group did not know what to do to help the heartbroken man. It would take time to heal even just the smallest bit of his heart. All we could hope for was that he would come back to the team.

At the worst possible moment, the phone rings. No other team available and someone in need, we had to go to work. We all rolled our eyes or shook our heads; this was the job. But would it be the same without him?

I went to Hotch before we left and gave him a hug.

“Call me if you guys need anything,” he said.

“Just take care of your son,” I smiled, and he softly returned one of his own. I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and left to join the team.

On the plane, we were caught up with the case. We stored all our feelings and got the machines running. We needed to finish this quickly and perfectly.

Two women, both brunettes and young, high-powered executives, murdered in their own homes, the floor around them decorated with flower petals. After Emily and Derek visited the crime scene, we had another part of the puzzle, the unsub was stalking his victims. Everything just seemed so perfect and staged, there was no way he was not prepared.

I stayed with JJ in the station working on the announcement and trying to figure something else from the details provided and the crime scene photos, but JJ could see my head wasn’t in it completely for the first time.

“Hey,” she said, taking my attention from the piece of paper I had been eyeing for the past five minutes. “What’s on your mind? Talk to me.”

“Is it wrong that I feel bad for being here?” I sighed. “Working like nothing’s happened.”

“Of course not, we all feel a bit guilty,” she smiled. “I know you most of all.”

My eyes opened in shock.

“Oh, come on, (Y/N). Everyone knows you have a not-so-secret crush on Hotch,” she laughed. “The only one that can’t see it is him. And probably your dad. Parents can be quite oblivious to their children’s feelings in this way.”

My head flew into my hands to cover the embarrassment that was flooding my cheeks. It was one thing to assume the whole team knew, another was to have it confirmed.

“It’s okay, (Y/N), we’ll see what comes of it. What I can say is that you can’t let this stop you from doing your job.”

She smiled one last time and it was all I needed to push Aaron Hotchner to the back of my mind and bring the case forward.

“Find anything?” My father asked entering the small room at the police station, Reid following behind.

“Several people had access to each home,” I said rubbing my temple. “Housekeeper, gardener, pool cleaner, dog walker…”

“Each with their own key and an alibi to match,” JJ added, an annoyed tone rolling off her tongue.

“Any crossover?”

“None. We even vetted delivery people and utility workers.” I sighed.

“Garcia, do you have anything?” Reid said, sitting down.

“There’s no hits at the prints at all. But I did what Sir Derek there asked, and I created a paper trail,” Penny explained. “There’s no cross-over between the two victims themselves in the weeks leading up to their murders, but they did run in similar circles.”

Penelope continued to explain how both victims lived quite a lavish and high-class lifestyle as Emily and Derek joined us. We figured this man would fit right in this crowd. Educated, intelligent, a gentleman. What we had yet to pinpoint was how the unsub entered the homes with no signs of forced entry. It was clear we were not going to make any headway tonight and Derek knew it too. So, he decided we should be done for the day and we would come back tomorrow well-rested and with fresh eyes.

That night I laid in the bed of my hotel room staring at the ceiling. All I could think of was Hotch and everything he was going through. I could only imagine.

And as if by fate, my phone rang. Aaron Hotchner.

“Hello?”

“Oh,” Hotch said surprised. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I haven’t been able to sleep.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I’m just worried about you.”

He chuckled softly. “You really shouldn’t.”

“But I do, Hotch.”

He stayed silent, only his slow breathing was heard through the phone.

“Did I fail her?” He asked after some minutes of comfortable silence.

“Absolutely not.”

“I promised her that I would catch Foyet and spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”

“And you still can.”

“But” he exhaled loudly. “How?”

“By being the best father you can be to Jack and continue living your life in the best way you can.”

“You know, Dave told me that I had to figure out what kind of father I wanted to be and then I’d know what to do. But I have no idea what that is.”

“Hotch…”

“I’m serious,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what kind of father I am. I catch killers. I save lives. I’m a hero until my key hits the front door, and then I’m just the father who’s never there. Haley was raising Jack all by herself and that was my support blanket. I was able to do my job because I knew he was cared for by another parent. A better parent.”

He sobbed softly as the last words escaped his mouth.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, trying my best not to sound angry. “To that little boy, you are the only real hero that exists. He knows that when you’re not home it’s because you’re out here catching the bad guys like Foyet and making the world better for his sake. He knows that everything you do is out of love for him.

You know, when I was little my dad was absent quite a lot because of this job, but there was one thing that I knew for sure, that he loved me more than anything and that he worked better and faster because he wanted to come back home to me. And never ever have I resented him for leaving and catching the bad guys. He’s the reason I became an FBI agent.

You are an amazing father and anything you choose will be the right thing for Jack.”

After a minute of sobs, Hotch started to calm down.

“Thank you, (Y/N). You have no idea how much I needed that right now,” he cleared his throat. “How’s the case going?”

“Nope,” I laughed. “Not going to talk about the case.”

“Really?” He chuckled.

“Yes, Hotch. Take a breather. You deserve it.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, and I could hear his smile through the phone.

We had been talking for about an hour when I heard him yawn.

“Seems you’re getting sleepy there, Hotchner.” I laughed. “We should both get some rest. If it’s 3 am over here it must be 2 am in Washington. So, good night and see you soon.”

“Good night, (Y/N). Again, thank you. Sweet dreams.” And he hung up.

And finally, I drifted to sleep.

The next morning, we were up and ready for business.

“We believe our unsub is already with his next victim,” my father started. “If he matches the patter, she’ll be a successful woman, probably brunette, early 30s to mid-40s. She’ll be at home in Nashville’s upper echelon.”

“This means that he fits in,” I explained. “He drives the right car, he wears the right clothes, he’s highly intelligent. He probably comes from a place of status.”

“This guy’s sociable and he’s endearing,” said Morgan. “You would never suspect that this man is capable of murder. But he will do whatever it takes to protect the fantasy that he’s trying to relive.”

“It’s this fantasy which fuels his drive. He’s reliving a romantic evening and recreating it with each of his victims.”

“He most likely had a relationship taken away from him,” Derek crossed his arms. “So, look at men who have lost loved ones or have gone through a messy divorce.”

After finishing with the profile, we set out to establishments that fit the criteria to possibly get a suspect. As we worked, we got a call. Another crime scene, but this one was different.

A male victim. Overkill on the female. Something made him change his M.O.

Out in the garage, Reid and I looked for any sort of clues and I noticed his sight direct to the car. There may be another way we could connect the victims and how the unsub made their way into their homes.

Finally, Garcia had something with the hunch Spencer had figured. She overlaid all the geographical routes the victims had taken against the geo profile to show what we were missing with any paper trail. Although it was not a clear answer, Erika Silverman was the only one that did not fit the extravagant lifestyle and she only went and came from her work or her home. Except on Tuesday, where she went to the Botanical Gardens, what was she doing there? JJ, Reid, and I left for the gardens to find out.

And just as we had suspected, there had been an event to which Erika had attended. And a puzzle piece revealed itself.

“An event up here would be a hard sell for women in heels,” JJ commented.

“Well, most of our private events hire valets to drive the cars down to the base of the park so they don’t have to hike it up the hill.”

“Who had access to your keys but goes unseen?” Reid asked.

“And to your GPS,” I added.

“Dealerships program your home address into the navigation system before your car even leaves the lot.”

“He had turn-by-turn directions straight to her front door and the keys to get him inside,” I pointed.

We now had how he got his victims and how he entered their house without force. Now, all we had to do was pinpoint his next victim and see who he was.

JJ was instructed to get dad and Prentiss to pick up the owner of the valet service used in the event, and Derek, Reid, and I stayed behind to canvass the employees. We could catch this guy in action unless he had already gotten his next victim.

Joe Belser. That was our unsub. With the profile, the owner was able to point out the suspect quickly. And off we were.

JJ, Reid, and I headed to the venue and the rest of the team went to Belser’s house. He wasn’t in the apartment, but they had found the meaning behind the roses and universal garage door openers. In the venue, Reid called Garcia to see which of the VIP guests could be the next potential victim.

Ann Herron was the next victim, and he was already at her house.

“FBI! PUT IT DOWN!” Derek screamed, blinding Joe with his flashlight. I walked in from behind Derek and kneed Belser’s stomach. He fell to the ground groaning and Emily grabbed the man by the throat to immobilize him.

“Fantasy’s over,” she spat. “Is that what you did to them? You hit them to shut them up and then forced them to play along with your sick delusion?”

“I love them,” Joe said sinisterly.

“You’re finally gonna meet your soulmate, Joe,” I added from behind Prentiss. “In prison.”

“Only you’re not gonna be able to push him around like you did those women,” Emily continued. “And when he comes for you in the middle of the night, when you’re least expecting it, you do me a favor. Play along.”

She stood the man up forcibly and put him in handcuffs and I went outside to check on the victim.

“How is she?” Derek asked walking out of the house with my father.

“She’s strong,” I said closing the ambulance door. “She’ll make it. But you don’t survive something like that without scars.”

“Scars remind us where we’ve been,” my father commented. “They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my head as we walked back to the SUVs, finally on our way home.

The next day, I called up my dad so he would accompany me to Haley’s grave. Something told me I had to go. At the cemetery, I saw what the pull was. Sitting in front of the headstone less grave was Hotch. I walked up to him first, my father close behind. Hotch lifted his head and stared into my eyes, sitting up slightly.

“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” I spoke softly. “Have you told her yet?”

“Told her what?” He mused.

“That you’re coming back to the team,” my father joined his left side. Hotch looked at him. “That fighting the bad guys is who you are.”

Hotch lowered his head and shook it. “I don’t have to tell her. She already knows.”

I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and gave him a soft smile. My father did the same and walked to my side, so we’d retreat, giving Hotch some space.

“So, do you want me to drive you back to your house?” My father asked.

“No,” I smiled. “I’m gonna stay with Hotch for a bit and then I’ll go home.”

“Okay, darling.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll pick you up on Monday then. Ciao, Mia Bella.”

“Bye, dad.”

Once my dad left, I sat down on a bench and waited for Hotch.

“(Y/N), you’re still here?” Hotch questioned with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, thought you might want some company.”

“Truthfully,” he chuckled. “I do. Thank you.”

“How about this, we pick up Jack, you guys come over and I crack open a present I had for Jack.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he motioned me to his car. “Let’s go.”

We drove quietly to his apartment, only the low volume of the radio and the sound of our breathing could be heard. It didn’t take long to arrive at the complex, where he opened the car door for me and led me upstairs. Inside apartment #121, was Jessica Brooks, Haley’s sister, and Jack playing a card game.

“(Y/N)!” Jack screamed as soon as I walked through the door, running to give me a hug.

“Hey, buddy!” I hugged back.

“Hotch, you’re back,” she exclaimed. “Good to see you again, (Y/N).”

“Good to see you, too,” I smiled. “How you holding up?”

“As good as I can be.” She answered as she began to gather her things. “Well, I’ll see you soon. Bye, little guy.”

“Bye, Aunt Jessica.”

“Bye, guys.” She said as she left.

“Hey, little man,” I directed to Jack. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“How about you to pack a go-bag and you and dad come over so we can open a present I have for you?”

“Yes!” He exclaimed as he sped off to his room to pack.

“I think you should go help him,” I smiled at Hotch. “If I have any memory of being a kid, they’re not very good at packing.”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Maybe I should.”

I waited for both father and son to pack for the night asking myself why I was putting myself in this position. Growing closer to a man I had a 0% chance with. But I couldn’t help it. All in all, he was my friend, and he needed all the support he could get.

<- Previous | Next->

A/N: if you wish to be tagged for the next parts, please let me know. I’d be happy to. <3

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lokiondisneyplus · 4 years ago

Text

Loki director Kate Herron’s heart was beating fast. She’d already had some surreal experiences during her short time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so a simple phone call shouldn’t make her nervous. But on the other end of the line was Owen Wilson, an actor and writer she admired and hoped would join her on a time-jumping journey through the MCU.

“It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him,” Herron recalls of wooing Wilson, who wasn’t too familiar with Marvel before being cast as Mobius, an agent for the mysterious Time Variance Authority central to the series.

Wilson instantly put Herron at ease with his laid-back charm as she walked the actor through 10 years of onscreen lore for Loki, the god of mischief played by Tom Hiddleston. She answered his questions about Avengers: Endgame, about time travel, about how this version of Loki was not the one fans knew from films like Thor: Ragnarok, but rather one plucked from an alternate timeline from 2012’s The Avengers.

It was all part of a whirlwind few years for Herron, who not that long ago was temping at a fire extinguisher company and struggling to land directing work even though she’d already helmed a BBC project with Idris Elba. Then Herron finally achieved breakthrough success directing episodes of the Netflix hit Sex Education and soon was hounding her agents for a Marvel meeting.

When Herron finally landed one, the Loki superfan cleared her schedule and spent two weeks putting together a 60-page document, even though her agents tempered her expectations by noting it was just a meet-and-greet.

“I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], ‘OK. I’ll just be the most passionate,'” recalls Herron.

Just a few days after officially landing the job, Herron found herself on a five-hour walk through New York with Hiddleston discussing Loki and flying to D23 in Anaheim to be greeted by thousands of screaming fans alongside Loki head writer Michael Waldron.

Herron is now working long days finishing up Loki in Marvel’s production hub in Atlanta, where the British filmmaker has largely lived since getting the job in 2019. Over Zoom from her freezing Atlanta apartment (she still hasn’t figured out the quirks of the air conditioner), Herron dives into Loki ahead of its June 9 debut on Disney+.

What was your process of sitting down with Marvel for this?

I was just so overexcited. [My agents] were like, “Look, it’s just a casual conversation, they just want to get a sense of you,” and basically I was like, “OK, I’m just going to pitch them.” Because I thought, they might not meet me again. So I got as much information as I could, and they sent me a little bit about the show. And I just prepared a massive pitch for it. I canceled everything for two weeks. I made a 60-page document full of references, story ideas, music. I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], “OK. I’ll just be the most passionate.”

Was that first meeting in Burbank?

That was in England, in southeast London on Zoom. I had a few stages where I did that. Then after a few interviews with Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, two of the Marvel executives who got me ready for the big match, I went in to pitch to Kevin Feige, Victoria [Alonso], Lou [Louis D’Esposito], the whole team there. That was very surreal because they flew me to Burbank and I pitched at Marvel Studios. I didn’t have the job, but I found out they were interested and then I remember Kevin Feige called me, and when he was in London, we had coffee. He was like, “Look, we want you to direct it.” Oh my God. They flew me to D23 and that was crazy because I think I found out I got the job 48 hours before, and then I was onstage. The Lady and the Tramp dogs were in front of me and Michael [Waldron] on the red carpet. “What is going on?” (Laughs.) I met Tom that week as well, so it was a bit of a whirlwind kind of thing.

📷Herron, Waldron and Feige at D23 in 2019.

Where did you first meet Tom?

I had a two-stop trip. I flew first to New York to meet Tom. He was in Betrayal at the time, on Broadway, so we basically went on this amazing walk around New York. I’d never met him before. We just spoke about Loki and what was really important to us about the character and where we thought it would be fun to take him, as well. It was this intense, five-hour conversation with him basically. I met him and then flew straight from meeting him to D23. So it was a lot. (Laughs.)

When did you finally get the scripts? How did that change your thoughts on what you want to do?

They sent me the outline, so I knew the overall story. I also was pitching stuff. “Oh, we could do this with this character.” The pilot was really well written by Michael and I really liked what they were doing with the character and the story. Then it was building upon that and throwing in ideas for where he could go later in the show. It reminded me a bit of improv where you’re always building, always trying to push the story to the best place. So we were always adapting and shifting the story. Our lockdown, during COVID, was a chance for us to go back in. I was cutting what we’d done, so I was like, “OK, this is tonally what is really working for the story.” Then we went back into what we hadn’t filmed and started adapting that stuff to fit more where we were heading.

The Marvel movies have a writer on set to help tweak things. Was that the case with Loki?

Michael [Waldron] was with us at the start, and then he went on to Doctor Strange [in the Multiverse of Madness]. We had a really wonderful writer called Eric Martin from our writers room, and he was our production writer on set. It was between me, him and my creative producer Kevin Wright. We would kind of brainstorm and adapt. I’ve always loved talking to the cast. We had such a smart cast. Owen is a writer as well. If you have that amazing resource, why not talk to them? We were always adapting. Obviously paying respect to the story we wanted to tell from the start, but always trying to make it better.

📷Herron on the set of ‘Loki’ with Hiddleston and Wilson.

Kevin Feige has said Owen Wilson, like his character, is nonplussed by the MCU. Since Owen isn’t necessarily dazzled by Marvel, does that make him all the more perfect for this role?

He is playing a Loki expert, so at the beginning of production, Tom and I were talking. He devised this thing called Loki School. He did a big lecture to the cast and crew. I love the character. This is a decade of fans loving this character and where that character has been. It was talking everyone through that, but through Tom and his own experiences. Stunts that Tom liked or costumes. He ended up doing that same Loki school for Owen. Owen absolutely loved it. Owen has such a writer’s brain. I remember I had to pitch him down the phone. My heart rate [was up].

Was this the pitch to get him to get Owen on board?

Yeah. I love his work. “Oh my God, I’m going to talk to Owen Wilson.” He’s so laid back and nice, it immediately puts you at ease. It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I think I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him. You can tell he’s a writer, just by the way he attacks story. His questions about the world and the structure and the arc of the character. It was really fun to work with him.

Was it the most detailed pitch you’ve ever done because you really wanted Owen, or because you knew you needed to woo him a bit to get him to sign on?

It was the questions he asked, and the way he attacked story, in that sense. And also probably because he was newer to the Marvel world, he was like, “OK, how does this work?” I also pitched him Loki’s arc over the past 10 years, where that character has gone, but also explaining our Loki and what happened in Endgame and time travel. There’s a lot to unpack in that conversation.

Sometimes Marvel will give writers or directors a supercut of all the scenes of a specific character. Did you get one of those?

They didn’t actually give me a supercut, but I’m a big Loki nerd. I think his is one of the best [arcs] in the MCU. I really wanted to make sure we were paying respect to that. At the same time, something Tom spoke about a lot was you have to go back for a reason. Let’s be united on what that reason is and feel that it’s worth it.

The reason can’t be, “Well that’s what happened in Endgame,” so the question becomes, “What is the point of revisiting him at this era of his life?”

Yeah. He’s only had — I don’t want to get this wrong — I think 112 minutes of screen time in total if you cut all his scenes together. And he steals the show. We have six hours to really delve into this character and talk about him and go on this completely new story with him. For me, it was making sure that [we’re] paying respect to what has come before — I know as a fan if there is a character I really loved and I found out they are making a show about him, I obviously would be so excited and so happy. I felt lucky to have the responsibility, and I took it very seriously.

Those who have worked with Kevin Feige say he’s someone who can stress test an idea and push things in new directions. What have you found working with him?

Something I always found was we would sometimes pitch something, and it would be at a good place, but he’d always be like, “OK, that’s great, but push it further.” Sometimes I’d pitch stuff and be like, “This is too weird,” and he’d say, “No, go weirder.” He wants to tell the best story and I found it really helpful having his eye across everything and the fact that he does challenge everything. Tom as well, on set. He brings this amazing energy and this great A-game that causes everyone to rise to the occasion.

How do you know when you’ve got the perfect Hiddleston take? Is he asking you for one more, are you pushing him to do one more take?

By the end, it was almost telepathic. We would kind of know. We would look at each other. “We could go again,” or, “We’ve got it.” It’s different with every actor. There are some actors who will come in firing and they just want to go for it. But they don’t want to do a million takes. There are other actors I work with who are very meticulous and they want quite a few to warm up and get into it. It’s actor-dependent. The way me and Tom are similar is we are both very perfectionist. We are both very studious. (Laughs.) We definitely connected in that sense. He’s a very generous actor. I remember one day, we had quite a few of our actors coming in as day players. It was really important for him to be there for them, to read lines offscreen. He would have to be 50 places at once, because he is the lead actor. The most amazing thing about him was his generosity. Not just to the other actors, but also to the crew, to be filming in a time like COVID.

When you make an Avengers movie, you get a big board with every character that’s available, and whether the actor’s deals will allow them to appear or if that would need to be renegotiated. Loki is smaller, but was there any equivalent for you? Was everything on the table? Was only some stuff on the table? I imagine if Chris Hemsworth has his own new Thor movie coming up, he’s not going to be on the table, necessarily.

I felt like everything was on the table if it meant it was good for story, and Marvel would be like, “We’ll work it out.” Me and the writers, we never felt restrained in that sense. Honestly, it always comes back to story.

What is your relationship with your editor as you finish this up?

We have three editors, Paul Zucker, Emma McCleave and Calum Ross. My relationship with all three of them is very different. Emma and me are very close because she was also in Atlanta away from home. I got to know her very well. I love working with the editors because it’s a fresh pair of eyes. You get so deep into something when you are filming, it’s almost like writing it again when you are in the edit. Stuff does change. Even some episodes, we’ve reordered the structure. Or we moved scenes from one episode to another episode. I’ve always loved the editing process. The best thing is someone honest who can be like, “Hey, this doesn’t quite make sense to me,” or, “This isn’t working.”

What are you going to do on premiere day? Will you be on the internet at all to see the reaction?

I’m actually working. I’m still finishing the show. My last day is the day the second episode airs. I’m going to be working that day. Sadly, I’ll probably check in on the internet a little bit, but I’ll probably go to bed when I finish because I think I’ll do a 12- or 13-hour day or something. I can’t remember. I’m really excited for people to see it and just to bring it out in the world, really.

Everyone wants to know about spoilers, but what’s something you wish you were asked about more when it comes to Loki?

Kevin Feige said, “We make movies. We want to run it like a movie.” So unlike a lot of television shows that are showrunner-led, this was run like a six-hour film. As a director, you don’t often get to do that in a television-structure show. I really enjoyed it, having a hand in story and just how collaborative it was. Also, just beyond that, directing the equivalent of a six-hour Marvel movie was incredible for me. That’s something I found interesting about it. Making something the Marvel way.

In terms of the themes, I love gray areas. The show is really about what makes someone truly good or what makes someone truly bad, and are we either of those things? Loki is in that gray area. It’s exciting to be able to tell a story like that. As a director and a writer, you don’t necessarily understand why you are making these stories. Something I keep getting drawn back into is identity. Sex Education, we spoke a lot about identity and feeling like an outsider but actually finding your people. I feel the same with Loki. It’s a show about identity and self-acceptance and for me, that’s also what drew me in.

Gray is a good way to describe Loki. Your version of Loki just tried to take over the Earth not long ago.

Exactly. This isn’t the Loki we’ve seen. How do we take a character that people love, but from a lot earlier, and send him on a different path? That for me was interesting, getting to unpack that. Alongside that, getting to set up a whole new corner of the MCU with TVA. That to me was so exciting.

What about the Teletubbies? You referenced that recently and it made quite a splash. Are you going to leave people in suspense on that?

I referenced the Teletubbies once and people were like, “What, Teletubbies? What does this mean?” Maybe I should leave people in the air with it. One thing I would say is the show for me, stylistically — I wanted it to be a love letter to sci-fi because I love sci-fi. Brazil, Metropolis, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Alien. If people love sci-fi, they will definitely see the little nods we’ve got across the show. People will know what it was a reference for when they see the show. It was a visual reference to something in the show.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity. Loki debuts on Disney+ on June 9.

#Kate Herron #Loki #interview #loki series

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raywritesthings · 4 years ago

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I’ve seen some discussions recently about Thirteen and her era in general in the wake of the announcement that Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall are leaving in 2022. What worked, what didn’t. More than a few people have mentioned that the “reason” some things were the way they were was because the show was trying to be for kids, or that Whittaker specifically asked for things in series 11 to be simplified in order to appeal to children, that she wanted her Doctor to be more focused on kids. Whether that’s true or not is of course not provable since it’s the internet and anyone can say anything and claim it’s fact.

In a sense, I get how it could be from her off-screen work in the costume. A lot of events she has done involve kids, and I’m sure a lot of little girls especially will happily go on dressing up as Thirteen for Halloween and so on. That’s a good thing, don’t get me wrong.

But if Whittaker truly wanted her Doctor’s narrative legacy to be that her Doctor was the Doctor for children, the writing massively let her down. Try and think of when Thirteen interacted with kids on the actual show itself. Having trouble? So was I. There was the girl in “It Takes You Away” - but the character she bonds with is Ryan, not the Doctor. There’s a girl in a series 12 episode but from the synopsis I read the Doctor helps to re-imprison her because she’s bad. I scanned the synopses for the whole of series 12 and thought back on all of series 11 that I watched looking for something indicating a scene with her and a child, and I couldn’t come up with anything else.

You know who immediately springs to mind when I think of the Doctor for children? Eleven. “The Eleventh Hour”, “The Beast Below”, “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Night Terrors”, “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardobe”, “The Rings of Ahkaten” and series 7b prominently featuring two kids as recurring characters the Doctor interacted with and nearly got taken over by the Cybermen to protect, the focus on the children of Gallifrey in “Day of the Doctor” and his decision to stay on Trenzalore to fight in “Time of the Doctor” clearly being because of the children. That’s not even every episode with kids in it; that’s just the ones where the Doctor’s decisions are hugely motivated by children or he directly interacts with and bonds with a child.

Pretty much every New Who Doctor has had more scenes with or more developed and meaningful scenes with children than Thirteen. Even Nine easily bonded with the orphans and desperately cared about finding a way to cure “The Empty Child”, and he only got a single series. Ten’s hit or miss, but you can see how any time he interacts with a child how it reminds him of the family that he lost after the Time War. Twelve dies to give a group of children and their caretakers a chance to get away from the Cybermen. Even though he struggles to bond emotionally with people, you see how he cares to preserve and to nurture the young.

It’s no real secret that Thirteen has largely failed to develop emotional connections with other characters, even her own companions. I find myself at a loss as to how or why Chibnall did not approve scripts that would realize Jodie Whittaker’s alleged vision of her Doctor being a Doctor meant for kids, why he seemed to translate that into just paring the story back and making the messages simplified and spoon-fed. Kids are not dumb.

It’s a shame that instead of creating stories that showed how Thirteen could relate to and inspire children, the writers instead had her preach at them from behind a screen. While Whittaker’s costumed work outside the show itself has been filmed at times and can probably be found with a well-worded Google search, it will never reach the volume of audience that an actual episode of Doctor Who can. It may even end up being forgotten.

The Thirteenth Doctor’s era seems destined to leave a mixed legacy behind, and this is just one aspect of that, but it highlights the gap that existed between its intention and its execution. Maybe series 13 and the specials will massively course-correct and we’ll see what we were supposed to all along. But I’m not holding my breath.

#doctor who #criticism #meta #anti chibnall #chibnall era #thirteenth doctor #i dunno if this counts as criticism of her character #when i’m really just more confused as to what her character was supposed to be #what did she stand for #guess the novels and audios will have fun untangling that #it’s not even that every property made for kids has to have kids in it #but it feels weird to want to brand your version of the character as the one for kids #and then not show your version of the character interact with kids #maybe this doesn’t make any sense #emerson rants

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rivalsforlife · 3 years ago

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people aren’t using the lotrop tag much I think so I think I can complain freely with minimal people finding it in the search stuff. I’m still sorting my thoughts out re: that show. I think it could have been a lot worse. I can respect the motivations the showrunners are giving for the choices they’ve made (most of them. still mad about mithril silmaril) but I think they are either lying to me or they fucked up severely with how they went about trying to establish galadriel being sauron’s chief enemy. like maybe I’m in the wrong circles of the internet or something but man. tolkien has been spinning in his grave for a long long time even before this I’m sure, and now I’m spinning right along with him.

It does still kinda suck that I went into this like “I’ll see through the first season and then judge since I don’t know how they’re going to execute things” and I still don’t know how they’re going to execute things. like if it was just terrible I could write it off. but it has good potential in it. and also a lot of bad potential. and a little bit of really bad potential if they decide at any point “hey we’re going to go completely off the rails here”.

I’ll have to go reread the boorman script again sometime. just to reset my expectations for how godawful an adaptation could get and particularly how awful a galadriel adaptation could get. then I’ll feel a little better about the world because at least that was never made.

#ramblings #lotrop #but seriously I still think I have the superior tag for the double meaning

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Risk”

Welcome back, everyone! I have a lot of mixed, complicated feelings about today's episode and I'm already sure this recap will miss a great deal that should be said. There's a lot to digest, we need some time to do that, so until things have settled I think that the one, entirely confident claim I can make here is that our writers weren't BSing the fandom on twitter. The last few days have seen a number of big claims made regarding "Risk" —

— and whatever else we might have to say about the episode, it certainly delivered in terms of shocking content. From confessions to reveals to a new plan in place, there's a lot to unpack.

So let's get started.

Our first shot is a problem.

I don't want it to be! But I've got to work with what I've got. We open on Salem's flying monkeys — or gorillas, if we're being technical — and my immediate thought is where in the world they came from. I mean, obviously I know where. We ended Volume 6 with the post-credit scene of Salem adding wings to an army of Beringels, Hazel commenting that she'll lead the invasion herself. When Salem arrived at the end of Volume 7 and we picked up where we'd left off in Volume 8, the fandom was obviously expecting an attack led primarily by flying, transformed grimm. That didn't happen. For ten episodes the plot forgot that the Beringels existed, focusing instead of the Hound, the grimm soup, then the Whale, then the ground grimm the Whale was producing. Months back I encountered a number of posts asking, "What happened to the resource we know Salem brought to this fight?" and those questions are partly what inspired the "Introducing new grimm that are then quickly abandoned" spot on the bingo board. Now, suddenly, the Beringels have re-appeared and that is a good thing. Though it's too little, too late, as is so often the case with RWBY. Getting something you expect has a sour taste when it arrives months past when it was needed, especially when that something only exists for a second on screen.

This is doubly true given that we saw Oscar eliminate the grimm last episode.

At least, I thought he had? Pretty much everyone I've spoken to thought he had. This last week's discussions have centered around RWBY nerfing the stakes, taking out a whole army of grimm in one, magical blast. That's far from great. Yet now we see that we were apparently wrong. Atlas remains overrun with grimm, this problem remains a problem... so, yay? But we're once left with a tradeoff. RWBY has no longer eliminated the stakes with a deus ex machina as we had originally thought, but in its place we're left with a badly executed scene last episode and an assumed problem that is "fixed" with an enemy we should have been dealing with since the start of the volume. The road to the Beringels has been messy indeed and all they've done so far is fly across the screen.

Which reminds me: if this army of grimm still exists — and absolutely existed prior to Oscar's blast — how come not a single one is attacking the Schnee manor? This opening is in Atlas, the skies are overrun, we've seen a few grimm show up to help out the Hound, yet miraculously nothing bothers the group while they freak out at the dining table, or freak out as Penny tries to leave. That's a whole lot of grimm and a whole lot of negativity... yet somehow these two things never meet in a way that would inconvenience our characters. While from a writing standpoint I can understand not wanting to interrupt all these conversations and feel good moments, the show can't simply ignore the rules of its world whenever it's convenient. If anything, given that Atlas' population is currently hidden beneath the city, Schnee manor should be even more of a hot-spot than it normally would be. There is one (1) group of people out in the open for them to target.

Yeah, we're a single shot into this episode. It's a doozy.

Moving right along, those Atlas citizens (and, let's not forget, a large number of Mantle evacuees too) are still huddled in the tunnels, listening to Ironwood's insane broadcast. They're obviously terrified, as are those down in Mantle who are staring execution in the face. Fiona bursts into tears.

It makes me wonder why we didn't get the airship subplot now. As I've mentioned extensively in the past, that decision didn't make much sense and I think the writers knew it didn't make much sense because they chose not to reveal what Ruby and co. planned to do with the citizens once they were on board. The point was never to come up with a feasible plan, something the audience would put to the test, but rather to just make it seem like the group was doing something Smart and Heroic before Ironwood inevitably derailed it. Don't look too closely at the man behind the curtain. Normally, I'd comment that yes, it's damn hard to come up with a brilliant plan to save others in a situation like this — our characters can only be as smart as our authors! — yet that sympathy dissipates when we hit this episode and are given a scenario where airships would have been great. Ironwood has threatened to nuke Mantle. Suddenly, it is imperative that the civilians leave the safety of the crater as soon as possible (whereas before it was not). So Whitley remembers that they have access to these ships and the group hatches a plan to sneak them down while Ironwood is distracted, get everyone up into Atlas so he can't use Mantle as a bargaining chip anymore. Then they're spotted, the plan revealed, and Ironwood shoots their ships down, leaving them devastated that their attempt to help the citizens has literally gone up in flames. We're still left with the problem of why Ironwood wouldn't just allow a continued evacuation now that Salem is briefly out of the mix and the Schnees have provided extra resources — the writing really took a sledgehammer to his characterization — but the group trying to get people to Atlas to avoid death by bomb at least makes more sense than them trying to move the citizens to an undisclosed location, for unestablished reasons, when they were already relatively safe. The bomb is what makes those airships a necessity.

It really makes me wonder how much editing goes on and how much time the writers have before they finalize scripts.

Regardless, we cut from terrified people to Ironwood himself, accompanied by Winter. The animation has some nice parallels going on here, what with the same black, white, and blue color scheme, hands behind their backs, the need for robotic accommodations, and steps perfectly in synch. As we're about to see though, Winter is very good at looking the part of a loyal soldier while actually bending the rules.

However, are we really going to ignore that she betrayed Ironwood last episode? Betrayal from his perspective, that is. Winter was given a direct order, disobeyed that order, pissed off Harriet in the process, and wasn't able to give a good explanation for her actions — she was too busy being creeped out by Ironwood's reaction. For all intents and purposes she should be considered disloyal right now. Or at least under suspicion, yet Ironwood acts as if everything is fine. We've skipped over any meaningful fallout between them, or a reason why Ironwood would dismiss her betrayal. This ties into something I'll bring up later in the episode: namely, that RWBY introduces too much too quickly and doesn't have time to satisfyingly tackle — or tackle at all — the plot points they've introduced, simply because there's always a new one to focus on. We dropped the "Winter went against Ironwood at great personal risk" plotline to make room for the new "Ironwood has randomly threatened Mantle" plotline, which likewise doesn't do Ironwood's characterization any favors. I don't just mean the obvious "Omg he's willing to murder a whole city now" issue. Ironwood used to be smart, yet his unfounded trust in others makes him look foolish now: first trusting Watts, now Winter. Alongside that, the story and fandom have both pushed the idea that Ironwood is paranoid, yet that "paranoia" has only ever been attached to justified threats. If he were actually paranoid then Winter's actions would have caused him to mistrust all of the Ace Ops now, labeling everyone near him a disloyal enemy, despite evidence to the contrary (especially when it comes to Harriet). Yet across two volumes Ironwood has continually been "paranoid" only in regards to things like Cinder and Salem — proven threats — while simultaneously trusting known villains and ignoring when his subordinates straight up say, "She let our enemies go free." There’s little rhyme or reason to any of his decisions here.

Still! A nice, meaningful shot lol.

As Ironwood and Winter get closer we see the Ace Ops discussing the threat. "Of course he's not going to do it," to which Marrow pushes back with, "So what? He's bluffing with a whole city?" This is a really, really important moment that I don't think the writers realize is important. See, everyone is shocked when Ironwood reveals that he intends to go through with the threat. The Ace Ops, Winter, Robyn, our heroes... everyone grapples with the idea that this is actually happening. Everyone has some moment of, "It's just a bluff, yeah?" and I don't think that's just denial. The characters' shock tells us that Ironwood normally wouldn't be a man who'd do something like this. Ever. That shock has to stem from something, such as an ingrained understanding that Ironwood is a protector, not a murderer. Note the difference between the fandom and the characters' reactions. Whereas a good chunk of the fandom went, "Of course Ironwood means it. We all saw this coming! Remember how he..." and then proceed to list various things — persuasive or otherwise — that prove he was always a bad guy in the making. Yet no one in the RWBY world is inclined to use those moments as evidence. Winter doesn't go, "He's not bluffing. I saw him shoot the councilman just for speaking up" and the Ace Ops don't go, "Oh, he'll do it. This is the man who destroyed his arm to take down Watts. He'll stop at nothing." After everything they've seen — the same things we've seen — there's still some instinctual, nebulous knowledge that goes, "No. Ironwood wouldn't. He's one of the good guys." We can certainly talk about real life people getting swept up in horrible institutions, unwilling to admit how bad things actually are until they hit a specific line they can't cross... but I think this is less a comment on some sort of bystander effect (RWBY isn't that deliberately nuanced lol) and more an unintentional acknowledgement that until the very sudden and entirely unexpected shooting of Oscar, Ironwood actually wouldn't have done this. The Ace Ops are reacting to a man who absolutely existed until the writing erased him and they believe the core of that man still exists. To my mind, he should, but because our show can't actually have Salem as the main villain right now, she's conveniently blown up and Ironwood takes her place.

So we've got some loaded implications there, as well as Vine's comment that he hopes "the kids" see sense now. I am begging RWBY to pick a lane already. Are they kids, or are they adults? Because that answer makes a big difference and we can't continue to have it both ways.

Ironwood and Winter arrive were Ironwood orders that she prep drones with the "payload." That's the moment Winter and the others realize he's serious. Cue that shock all around. The revelation is the last straw for Marrow, prompting him to start yelling some excellent points about how Ironwood is doing Salem's job for her. See, this accusation works. Telling a guy threatening to blow up a city that he's as bad as their villain is accurate. Having Oscar tell that same guy that he's as bad as their villain because he wants to save a city full of people... is ridiculous. Totally different setup here and RWBY got it right this time. The only line that didn't work for me was Marrow asking the Ace Ops if they believe in anything. Uh... yeah. They believe in saving Atlas + all the Mantle evacuees they got. That's pretty well established. I swear, most RWBY speeches are padded with generic, heroic-sounding lines that don't actually mean anything, or are outright falsehoods we’re meant to ignore.

We'll see more of that with renora.

Marrow attempts to leave and his eyes go wide as he hears the click of Ironwood's gun. Remember I said that Winter is good at playing the obedient soldier? It's after Ironwood aims that she tackles Marrow.

On the surface it looks only like she violently disarmed him, but in reality she got him out of the bullet's path and kept Ironwood from firing at all. She saved his life, choosing to play up how she'll “take this traitor to the brig” where he belongs, rather than watching him die. A really nice moment in terms of strategy and one of the few lately where I've actually felt like I'm watching smart characters.

However, I cannot deny the uncomfortable implications in this scene. Smart or not, necessary or not, it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that one of our darkest characters was a) nearly killed by a white man and b) beat up by a white woman. To say nothing of Marrow's status as a faunus. I was cringing during his line about loyalty: “I used to wear this rank with pride. Now I see it for what it really is: a collar."

Honestly, I don't have the qualifications to unpack all that, so let's just acknowledge that the scene, while good in some respects, was massively insulting in others. I’ll let others in the fandom defend or damn it as they see fit.

We get a shot of how shocked the Ace Ops are that they nearly watched their team member get executed for speaking up against a bomb threat. It once again highlight's RWBY's strange depiction of violence and when it's deemed appropriate. Harriet has threatened people a couple of times now — here telling Marrow she'll shut him up herself — yet her reaction tells us that she never would have killed him as Ironwood nearly did. Threats, then, mean little... unless Ironwood is making an exaggerated comment about shooting Qrow. Then it's evidence of evil intent that's bound to come to the surface eventually. So does that mean Harriet will be trying to bomb cities herself someday? If so, it once again leaves our heroes in an awkward position, considering that Ruby started the fight Harriet wouldn't, Weiss stuck her weapon in Whitley's face, etc. If it says something awful that Winter would punch a minority — even to save his life — what does it say about Qrow that he would punch a child in anger? Outside of the easy to label actions like Ironwood's bomb threat and shootings, there exists this gray space that asks, “When are you justified to use violence? When is a threat forgivable?” The problem is, the show keeps coming up with contradictory answers. I bring this up not because Winter's punch or Harriet's threat are the most significant examples of this that we've seen, but because the themes of forgiveness and violence take center stage at the episode's end... and RWBY completely drops the ball. Keep these complications in mind.

Before that though, the group is crowded into the dining room and no matter what else "Risk" might give us, I'm reminded that I really like the design of the Schnee manor. I'm glad the episode found an excuse to show us this room again.

My initial thought upon entering the scene was, "Are we going to talk about Penny's hack? The silver-eyed grimm? Ozpin's return?" and to RWBY's credit it touches on all of these, though I stand by my point about plotlines coming too quickly. Any one of these should have been given the space to grow, not fighting for space against the potential destruction of Mantle. If you don't acknowledge these things in "Risk" you've lost your chance (much like how "Oscar is kidnapped" replaced "Oscar has to deal with Ozpin's return," resulting in a scene where Oscar was just... randomly okay with Ozpin again. We lost the chance to deal with the first conflict introduced because we barreled into the second), yet if you do spend episode time on these issues, it feels like the characters aren't dealing with the immediate threat. Questions of silver eyes, what to do about Penny, and Ozpin's return needed to be given their due before there was an hour time limit resulting in thousands of deaths. Now, you have to wonder why Yang and Ruby are talking about their mother when a city's safety is ticking away. Where were these questions and reassurances years ago?

I think this is why this episode — maybe even this whole volume — simultaneously feels too full and too boring. We're being introduced to lots of Big Things, but then putting them off to focus on other, smaller stuff, and by the time we circle back around it's no longer the right time. We're constantly focusing on the least interesting, least important thing in the room. Why is the group sitting around with their tea when we could have moved the Hound plotline up and started this groundwork earlier? Which means we're doing that work now instead of worrying about Mantle or Penny. All of which is connected to Salem herself being here, yet Ironwood is our villain instead... We're just introducing new idea after new idea, dropping each to focus on something else when the viewer is already emotionally invested in the last conflict. It makes the show feel overly packed with problems we don't have time for while simultaneously having too much time in which the characters do nothing of importance. We're never dealing with these issues at the right time. Talking about a silver-eyed grimm while Salem is here feels like Too Much and having the girls unpack that now, with Mantle’s life on the line, feels like Too Little. Stop sitting around while you've got less than an hour to save half a kingdom! We needed this conversation in a different episode, one not already driven by a problem that’s objectively more important.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're in the dining room and the group is listing all the stuff that has gone wrong lately. Blake mentions that Qrow and Robyn are still in custody, because we definitely want Blake remembering that Qrow exists, not one of his nieces. Ruby, meanwhile, is having a meltdown. "So then it's impossible!" she yells, head in her hands.

Emerald sneaks in an insult: “See? If Ms. Hero here with all the answers doesn’t have one..." and the others, of course, jump to Ruby's aid. But Emerald is right! It's entirely Ruby's fault that Atlas didn't get the chance to escape with those they had. Her actions and lack of a plan led to where they are now. I'm not saying she's responsible for Ironwood's insane decisions — that's like saying he's responsible for Qrow's in relation to Clover — but Ruby indeed played the part of the hero who had all the answers... without actually having any answers. Now that things are worse than how they started, her only answer is to say it's all "impossible" and throw up her hands. Ruby is an absolutely terrible leader right now and someone should indeed be calling her out on that, it's just too bad it's Emerald, someone technically still presented as an untrustworthy figure for the next couple of minutes. (More on that later.) Any and every criticism of Ruby is dismissed out of hand. Don't believe Ironwood because he's crazy now. The Ace Ops? His boot lickers. Yang has things to say, but once Ren agrees with her she does a 180. Now Ren is heading towards an extra special apology for daring to doubt Ruby. May calls her out, only to also change her opinion the next episode. Now here's one more person, but she's a bad guy. The show has never once encouraged us to treat these criticisms seriously — never allowed them to stick, let alone lead to change — and at this point I'm done with everyone falling over themselves to absolve and praise Ruby. By making Emerald the criticizer and having Ruby throw herself a pity party, the writing ensures that the conversation goes from, "Yeah. You messed up big time and now have a responsibility to fix things" to "Aww, don't be so hard on yourself! We won't let mean Emerald insult you anymore."

Ruby makes herself the victim here. She gets so upset and acts so defeated that all anyone can do is reassure her. The focus turns towards her, a focus centered around hiding against the table, or cowering on a staircase, so that it feels cruel to call her out on her deadly mistakes when she's so clearly upset. But they still should have, especially since cowering and tears have never protected anyone else from the group's criticism. Ozpin is proof of that.

What I'm getting at is that Ruby runs away. She's faced with the consequences of her actions, is informed she needs to help come up with a solution, and instead of braving that decides it's "impossible" and literally runs from the room. While they're on a time limit. Keep this moment in mind for just a bit longer. These choices become doubly important later.

So Ruby can't handle the responsibility she violently ripped from others and the group goes out of their way to comfort her in this. Especially since the writing again decides to conflate Emerald and Ozpin through a comment of Oscar's, demonstrating that it still has no decent sense of what "responsibility" or "villainous acts" means. These scenes are three years in the making and every step getting here was dogged with problems, so the fact that the end result is a mess isn't exactly surprising.

We (thankfully) leave Ruby for a bit and instead turn to Jaune. He's amplifying Nora's aura, but admits that he can't get the scars to go away. That makes sense. After all, they're scars. His semblance helps people heal, but at this point Nora has already healed. Those scars are the result of that.

She says it was “Just another ditzy move from Nora” and I'm glad we're acknowledging that, even if it is all framed through the lens of Nora being incorrect in that assumption. Once again, the writing continually makes statements about characters, but fails to have their actions reflect that. Nora wanted to do more than just hit things with her hammer without thinking them through... and we showed that by having her hit a door with her hammer without thinking it through. Was it heroic? Absolutely. Did it lead to any growth? No. I'd much rather someone acknowledge that yeah, she did the same thing she always does, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nora's impulsivity is a part of her and, given the talk of teammates here, she could have gotten reassurance that she'll always have people around to help her temper those impulses. Instead, we're (again) told that she shouldn't do A anymore, watch her do A anyway, the writing presents it like it’s B, Nora admits that she did A, and everyone rushes to assure her it was actually B. Just let these characters make mistakes for once, especially mistakes made in an effort to help someone. This should be the easiest and kindest way to criticize the group and RWBY can’t even manage that.

Which brings us to Ren. Ren, I am so sorry. You deserved better than this. Nora rips into him, saying, “We were supposed to be a team, but that didn’t matter to you! You shove people out so you don’t have to feel things that are hard!" and again we have RWBY making grand statements that are meaningless. Did Ren keep things bottled up in Volume 7? Yes... and no one tried to help him with that. Instead, Nora decided to bypass his problems completely and try to kiss it better. When that (shockingly) didn't work, Ren was finally forced to open up at Yang's insistence and was abandoned for his perspective. That's what that was, literally and metaphorically: they walked away from him and made it clear that so long as he believes these things, he's not welcome. What were those things? We've made mistakes, Ruby made mistakes, we're not ready for this stuff. That's it! "We were supposed to be a team" makes it sound like Ren betrayed them in the worst possible way, when in reality all he did was acknowledge that they're imperfect and that things are a mess right now. But of course, that is the ultimate betrayal for this group: acknowledgement that they’re not perfect. Everyone can call themselves out to generate sympathy — Nora does it, Ruby does it — but as soon as someone else agrees and implies that they should make changes, they’re dismissed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the refusal to question Ruby makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Is this as bad as Ironwood shooting someone who questions him? Of course not, but that doesn't make it good. The group has made it clear from Ozpin to Ren that if you put a toe out of line, that's it. You're gone. You are not a part of the group until you are willing to back the group 100%, no matter what horrible things they might be up to. That Nora yells at Ren for questioning and Ren learns to keep his mouth shut, apologizing to both her and Jaune for speaking his mind is... well, it's horrible. That's not friendship. I know the fandom doesn't want to hear that given how much we otherwise love these relationships, but it's not. If you can't question and voice concerns without about serious topics like this without the threat of abandonment — literal or otherwise — then that's not a friend group you should be sticking with. Ren’s "biggest failing as a teammate and a partner" is that he didn't agree with the others and didn’t immediately change his mind when they demanded it. There are awful implications attached to that, especially since Ren’s perspective was a good one. He’s not out here slinging horrific views like, I don’t know, homophobia at the bee’s non-relationship. He just went “We made mistakes” and the group responded “Absolutely not. Absurd. Fuck you.” They didn’t even consider that position, which speaks to both a lack of respect for Ren and a level of arrogance that keeps getting them into trouble. But these issues are easily overlooked given everything else that surrounds them. Outside of Ren's apology, I quite liked the renora moment. We got a detail about Nora's backstory! She called Ren pretty! We got an "I love you"! He booped her nose!! It's all very cute and wholesome... and soured by the knowledge of what Ren had to do to get here.

Outside of these generalized responses, there are three other points I wanted to make about this scene:

Yes, more obligatory humor to ruin an otherwise serious moment. Jaune could have just smiled softly and slipped out. Or have him leave before the conversation started (because Ren shouldn't have been apologizing to him in the first place...) Instead, we got multiple seconds of him being awkward, including a bunch of funny sound effects.

I'm legitimately happy we got that "I love you" — outside of the problems since arriving in Atlas, I've always enjoyed the ship — but coming on the heels of last week's episode, it makes the bee's forehead touch look even worse. Renora has been confirmed multiple times at this point, but we still can't get something overt for our one, queer ship.

On the one hand, I really like that Nora set a boundary here — a surprisingly mature conversation for RWBY — but I'm confused as to what exactly the boundary is. She says she needs to figure out who she is without Ren, but what does that translate to on a practical, day-to-day basis? Normally, when a couple needs to figure out who they are they separate, but renora can't do that. They're still on the same team, stuck in the same war, presumably off to do the same things they've always done together. It sounds great on paper to say that Nora is going to discover who she is without Ren, but unless they separate again I don't see how that can happen. More likely, we'll get a volume or two of them looking and acting exactly as they always have, but when it comes time for relationship drama again, Nora will insist she's a different person who is now ready to be with him. That she's changed. But change requires, you know, making a change, so is renora actually going to look any different moving forward?

While these two confess their love but also decide to be separate (is that what happened?), Qrow and Robyn have knocked out some guards and retrieved their weapons. Robyn watches four security feeds, whispering, "He's... really gonna do it." See? Even Robyn, someone who never liked Ironwood and considered him dangerous from the start, is in shock that he would go this far. Qrow doesn't want to talk moral downfalls though, he's all action: "Not if we stop him first."

You know, at least Qrow is doing something. What he's doing is stupid, particularly given his motivations, but with the volume we've had I give him props for coming up with a plan and sticking to it. That's more than many of the others have done.

Yet then, suddenly, Robyn doesn't want to kill Ironwood. ...Since when? Robyn has been the most trigger happy of the lot while Qrow initially wanted to talk. Now they've switched places for no reason I can see, with Qrow all murder happy and Robyn cautioning restraint. Which admittedly isn't uncommon. Remember how Nora was all about protecting Mantle and then randomly decided to help with Amity instead? Remember how Yang was critical of Ruby and then decided to defend her to Ren? Remember how Hazel was pro-Salem until he saw a blue naked lady and decided to defect? At this point, characters just do things at random.

Robyn says that Qrow isn't trying to kill Ironwood because that's the right thing to do, only because he wants revenge. A true enough assessment. But then she follows it up by claiming that Qrow is a better huntsmen than Clover because he does the right thing. Without rehashing all my arguments regarding how Clover was not the devil incarnate for refusing to let two potential criminals walk free — especially after they attacked him — we're really playing the dead guy card now? Clover was murdered. Robyn and Qrow were participants in that murder. Now Robyn is making sweeping claims about who is the better person when Clover quite obviously isn't here to defend himself? That's all kinds of messed up.

Before they can bash the dead guy anymore though the elevator arrives. We see Qrow and Robyn's shocked expressions at whoever is behind the doors, presumably Winter and Marrow. It seems likely that Winter didn't really intend to take him to the brig. They're defecting and have now found two more allies to help them. Robyn wants a plan other than run upstairs and stab Ironwood? Winter will likely provide one.

We return to Ruby who, as established, is wallowing in the most dramatic position on the staircase. Obviously things are legitimately horrible right now and if Ruby had been given a storyline different from what we've seen since Volume 6, I'd feel sorry for her. As it stands, it's just frustrating to watch her look like the maiden of a Victorian novel while Mantle's time ticks away.

The conversation between her and Yang is great though. At least, it is for the first few sentences. I love that the show remembered they're sisters and have them talking again. I love that Yang tries to cheer Ruby up by saying she outshines her big sis in regards to the Hound. I love that she nevertheless acknowledges that the Schnees were a part of that defeat, giving them their due rather than putting all the praise on Ruby. We establish that Yang has learned what the Hound really was. This conversation is going strong...

...but then.

"That's what happened to mom."

Really? Really? In eight episodes we went from, "Lol just because the Hound spoke doesn't mean Summer was secretly made into a grimm. That’s a crazy theory" to "Summer was absolutely turned into a grimm. That's canon now!" Except because it was made canon by Ruby just announcing it one day, we can expect for an even bigger "twist" in the future: Summer is still alive. Why wouldn't she be? The Hound was untouchable outside of silver eyes, so we have little reason to think anyone has defeated her in the last 14 odd years.

I'll admit the timeline works out better than expected (I think) with Salem killing SEWs during Maria's time before switching to experimentation, but there's no emotional weight to this. I just don't care and frankly I don't think the fandom cares either. Oh, there's plenty of excitement over the reveal, but that's all for the version of Summer Rose people have built up in their minds for the last eight years, not anything that exists in the show. If you strip away all the headcanons and fics, Summer isn't interesting because she barely exists. We know nothing about her as a person and therefore we have no reason to care that she's likely another Hound. Worse — because maybe this could be smoothed over if we just care since Ruby cares — everything else surrounding this reveal was badly done. Summer, as said, has been a non-character for this whole series. Yang only just remembered two episodes ago that Summer is her mom too. The only evidence of experimentation we've seen is on other grimm, not people. There was more mystery surrounding why Tyrian was interested in Jaune, not why he'd kidnap Ruby (Big Bads always want to kidnap heroes). We have no idea who this silver eyed faunus was. We have no idea why Salem would randomly start experimenting when she doesn't need additional weapons. We don't know why she would keep these weapons to the sidelines when she’s apparently had them for over a decade. I don't even buy that Ruby, someone who we never see thinking about or questioning any of this, suddenly put all these pieces together to hit on the revelation.

None of this adds up because it wasn't planned. Summer was dead, added to the series purely because having a dead mom is interesting, and she was treated as dead for seven years. Not just by the characters, by the show. Then, suddenly, the narrative raced to remind everyone that she's supposedly a Very Important Character so we could get this twist. It’s awful. Not because the idea itself is horrible, but because it was shoved into a story that wasn't prepared for it and certainly doesn't need it. The group has Salem herself attacking the kingdom, Ironwood threatening destruction, three Relics still to discover, not to mention all the other personal conflicts going on — Emerald walking around the mansion, Ozpin is back, Penny is being controlled, Oscar has finite magic now, Nora is still recovering — but we're going to introduce another subplot to deal with? RWBY acts like it's terrified that if it doesn't add something new and flashy every third episode, its viewers will jump ship. Despite its hiccups, there's a reason why the arcs of Volume 4 worked well overall: characters were given the time to explore specific problems, like Yang's PTSD and the destruction of Ren's village. Now, in episode 11 of 14, RWBY reveals that two of the characters' mom was turned into a literal monster, but there's only time for a tiny bit of comfort because Penny is escaping and they have less than an hour now to save Mantle. There is way too much going on and we're not devoting enough time to any of it.

Hell, even the conversation can't afford to stay on the Summer reveal for more than a few sentences. Ruby segues back to her self-chastisement, saying that she wasted time on Amity. She did, but not because people didn't come. She never should have made that terrifying, nonsensical announcement to begin with. But just like Ruby never thought through the pros and cons of telling the world about Salem, she apparently never thought about the logistics of getting help. She's written the world off now — so you just know help will appear in the finale — yet she never considered how long all this would take. Our timeline is (supposedly) two days, so how long would it take a kingdom to digest the information she gave them, decide on a course of action, get people and resources together, then fly all the way to Atlas? After Ruby used most of the first day just to send the message? As I and others have pointed out, the answer is “way longer than the group has.” It shouldn't be possible, yet neither Ruby nor Yang realizes basic facts like, "What's the flight time between Vacuo and Atlas?" Like Qrow blaming his semblance rather than his decision to team up with Tyrian, Ruby blames the world for abandoning them rather than her terribly thought out plan. Both have reached the right emotion — regret — but not for the right reasons.

Also, Ruby says that Amity fell. Are Pietro and Maria okay??

Yang talks about blind optimism vs. no optimism at all, something I could really get behind if the group hadn't been governed by blind optimism this whole time. Also if what the rest of what Yang said made sense. She fires back with, “And in case you didn’t notice, my plan for Mantle didn’t work either." Uh... what plan? As far as I recall there was no plan. They just went down to do any tasks that needed doing: supply runs and grimm killings. What plan is Yang talking about?

This conversation is a disaster. We circle back around to Summer with Yang saying she also took a risk (the title is very obvious this episode) but "she's still my hero." Is she? Because the only thing you've ever said about Summer is that she baked great cookies. Regardless, Yang lays her head on Ruby's shoulder and they cry some more.

Then Jaune hurries down the steps because Penny has woken up and broken through a window.

Again: how were they planning to deal with this? Did anyone discuss it? Because it looks like Klein said, "Hey, that friend of yours powered up and could have hurt us," Nora said, "Hey, Penny was fighting some sort of control," and Whitely said, "Yeah, she wanted to open the vault and then self destruct" and everyone just left her alone in some room, deciding they'd worry about that later. If Penny had just snuck out a little more quietly the group would have been screwed.

What I do like though is the teamwork to keep Penny from flying off. It feels like we get so little teamwork nowadays, which makes everyone piling on others' range weapons, or Jaune boosting Weiss' glyphs, really enjoyable. Even Emerald gets in on the action because apparently they gave her her weapons back!

We're going to talk about this nonsense in a second.

For now, Ruby implores Penny to fight it, which is exactly what I said we'd get. Penny insists Ruby kill her though, saying that if she does she'll ensure that the power passes to her. I find this to be a weird priority. Does the group really care about who gets the Maiden powers right now? The threat here is that Penny will successfully open the vault — which shouldn't even be that much of a worry. Just let Ironwood leave instead of trying to destroy Mantle! Keeping him here has made things worse! — and that Penny will self-destruct. That feels like the biggest worry: that Penny will die. So they're going to prevent her death by... killing her themselves? Priorities and motivations really feel shaky this week.

Luckily, Ruby remembers that Penny is A Real Person and tells Jaune to amplify her aura. The fact that she has a soul keeps the virus from overtaking her. Hurray!

That's like saying my sense of self will beat off rabies. Just believe that you're your own person and nothing can touch you. They go so far as to say, “That’s who you are. Our friend, not a machine” and that feels like such an erasure to me. Penny is a machine. She is! And that was great back when this was accepted as a good thing, not something to ignore. Remember this?

You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?

Here, Ruby acknowledges Penny's difference and reaffirms that she still has worth. Now, the group denies Penny's difference in order to prove that she has worth. She has worth because she's supposedly not a machine and supposedly can't be controlled like one... even though she is a machine and is being controlled. It's only Jaune's semblance that keeps her from going under again. The concept of Penny's personhood is now connected to her ability to resist a machine-based virus and she has failed to do that. This doesn't confirm Penny's humanity, it tells Penny (and us) that humanity is distinct from the machine parts of her, rather than a concept that includes it, and the moment she is too influenced by that machinery she ceases to be a person. The group isn't accepting her here, they're encouraging Penny to ignore and deny the parts that make her Penny.

If you want an example of how to do an arc like this far, far better, go watch The Next Generation with Data. He's what Penny could have been.

Regardless, the virus has been held at bay, at least so long as Jaune has aura. Which seems to be endless given that he was exhausting himself in the whale, but is now boosting Nora, Weiss, and Penny without any difficulty.

At least that's a minor concern in the grand scheme of things. What we're about to get? Not so much. Honestly, I'm 7k into this recap and I just don't have the energy that these two scenes deserve. Which scenes? The one where Emerald is welcomed into the fold with laughter and Ozpin has to grovel for forgiveness.

Emerald first. Last week I said:

“However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you, [Emerald.]” That’s it then. Discussion over. We knew as soon as it started that blindly trusting her was being presented as the “right” thing to do and now here we are, deciding that conclusively, despite Jaune and Yang’s complaints. By the time the group reaches the mansion, Oscar is defending Emerald from Ruby. We’re supposed to just accept that she’s a part of the group now, only minimal pushback allowed.

and I was right. Over the course of the last week I spoke with a number of friends, many of them working under the belief that this was just the start of an arc for Emerald. Obviously the show wouldn't instantly have the group trust her after all this. They'll need to warm up to her first. She'll need to prove herself. Well, I was far more pessimistic, arguing instead that I thought this was it. She was already being presented as a perfectly trustworthy figure. I'd briefly thought I'd been mistaken when the group turned on Emerald for her comment to Ruby, but then suddenly she's been given her weapons back. It's not even a matter of "You should be able to defend yourself, but you're still not trustworthy" (which would still have problems, but). No, she makes a comment about "switching sides" and that's it, trust achieved. That's all it took — nothing at all.

Now, some shows do function on a second chance policy. We can name hundred of stories where heroes instantly forgive antagonists and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that RWBY is very much not that show. In the exact same scene Ozpin apologizes to the group and begs that they try to trust him again:

“I’ve failed all of you. I should have trusted you with the truth and I should never have run the day you discovered it."

This is complete and utter bullshit. Sorry, I'm not mincing words for this one. Two years we waiting for the group to come around, hoping that there would be apologies on both sides, but there wasn't. The group doesn't physically or verbally hurt Ozpin anymore — they do accept his request — but it's done with expressions that say this is what they are owed. You’d better apologize.

I could rehash all the arguments I've already made about how atrociously they treated him, how Ozpin had no reason to trust a bunch of teenagers, how important it was that both sides admit their mistakes, but if you're reading this recap you're likely already familiar with all that. Rather, what I want to emphasize here is that our opinions on Ozpin don't even matter here. Even those who take his apology at face value — fully believing he did fail them, he should have told them everything from the start, and that him leaving was "running away" rather than being driven off — even if we accept for just a moment that Ozpin is as guilty as the show says and heinous as the fandom claims... surely he's not as bad as Emerald? In roughly chronological order she has:

Tried to ally herself with Adam along with Cinder and Mercury

Helped to attack Amber, resulting in injuries that would have killed her if Cinder hadn't gotten to her first

Helped kill Tukson

Pretended to be a transfer student and Ruby's friend for the rest of the semester (that’s a lie that would breed mistrust)

Tricked the world into thinking that Yang had attacked Mercury unprovoked

Uses her semblance on Pyrrha, causing her to unintentionally kill Penny

All of this was in service of the Fall of Beacon, an event that destroyed a school, killed an unknown number of students, killed Pyrrha, and lost Yang her arm

Participated in the attack on Haven which, beyond the intent to further Salem's goals, nearly got Weiss killed

Came to Atlas to assist in the next attack

Went after Penny, Pietro, and Maria — two of whom might still be in trouble depending on if Amity literally fell out of the sky

Listened to Oscar being tortured, hemming and hawing for a while before realizing that, if the whole world is in danger, she's in danger too

Finally jumped ship

Emerald is one of the bad guys. All the sad looks over the years doesn't change that. Yet somehow an antagonist we've had since Volume 1 is considered more trustworthy than Ozpin, a man who hasn't intentionally helped kill their friends and who has been helping and apologizing for months now.

Yang "Aww"s when Emerald speaks. Just sit with that for a second. The woman who went through all of that horror because of Emerald, who just last episode was correctly saying they can't expect her to forget all that, is going "Aww" after... Emerald helped hold Penny for two seconds? This is ridiculous. These are the faces of the group when talking about Emerald's trust

whereas these are their expressions when talking about Ozpin's

It’s not a matter of who deserves trust or not, here it’s purely a matter of comparison. Emerald should not be more quickly forgiven than Ozpin.

Now toss in the story Ozpin tells. Unsurprisingly, it's another fairy tale — we've gotten a little heavy-handed lately — about a young girl who flees the consequences of a choice and, having never learned from her initial failure, spreads even more trouble. That's Ruby. That is Ruby to a T in this episode and the last three volumes. She is literally a young girl who has caused staggering consequences, literally ran away from the conversation about those consequences, and is now poised to continue making those mistakes because everyone keeps reinforcing her flaws. That's Ruby, yet somehow the show thinks it's Ozpin. He positions himself as the young girl here, as if he didn't face his consequences generations ago when he left the cabin, didn't learn from his mistakes by keeping Salem's secret, and hadn't been driven away by the very people he's asking for a second chance. This scene has everything backwards and while normally I'd grab hold of the possibility that maybe things will right themselves later on... we're done. This is the ending of that arc. After two years of saying, "Maybe, maybe, maybe," Ozpin has been taken back into the fold after begging his way back in. There's no more time to correct things. RWBY missed its chance. Weiss says that "Trust is a risk" and that's how Ozpin is forgiven. They have taken the risk of trusting him again after months of reflection, life-saving actions, and apologies. Emerald is granted the risk of trust in under an hour. I’ve heard so many people say they’re dropping RWBY this volume and scenes like this are precisely why.

Ugh. Heavy stuff, folks! I feel like I need to lighten the mood. Here, let's take a moment to acknowledge that the Schnees and Klein only marginally know what's happening.

Someone help them.

That is, to all intents and purposes, the end of our episode. Ruby has some sort of epiphany about actually handing Penny over — "That's actually a risk we haven't considered" — and Ironwood will no doubt fall for whatever plan they've concocted because he's stupid now. He receives a call from Ruby saying they agree to his terms, Watts is attempting to get communication of his own up and running, and Neo arrives to do... whatever she intends to do. Idk, I have assumed she wanted Ruby, but Cinder obviously doesn't have her yet for a trade off. Regardless, Neo is ready for a fight while Cinder just smiles. Team up 2.0?

As for bingo, I'm using my free space for "Worst redemption arc I've ever seen," with an honorary nod to Hazel too, and Ozpin's square gets blacked out in exes because that was just #bad.

This bingo board is a mess. Appropriate lol

Three more weeks, everyone. Hang in there! 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby risk #mymetas #rwby recaps

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angelanimedesaray · 4 years ago

Text

Wings in the Dark Chapter 1: Encounter

AN: All right...we’re flipping the script with this series, hehehe. Also, I’m doing MOSTLY similar vampire rules to the Investment series, but there’s gonna be some key differences to make things more...interesting. hehehe.

Listen, I’ve honestly had this idea for over a year, and it’s finally coming to fruition, I’m gonna be excited.

Tell me if you want tagged!

Characters: Levi, Vampire!Reader, Numerous BG Characters

Pairing: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: Language...don’t really have anything else for this chapter

Word Count: 5616

Masterlist Next Chapter---->

*Reader’s POV*

The sound of new recruits in the midst of combat training filled the air, a cacophony of moving feet, cries of attack, sounds of pain, accelerated heartbeats and the occasional shouted order from a supervisor. The wind was strong enough to blow hair about your face, but not enough to be cutting, the sun beating down from above warm enough to drive away any chill from the wind. The occasional sliding foot kicked dust up into the air, making it hard not to sneeze as your sensitive nose became agitated from all the dust in the air. Your arms were held up in an at the ready stance, but your mind wasn’t entirely on the training that was happening in front of you.

The Survey Corps. At long last, you managed to make it past your training in the Cadet Corps and choose your branch of the military to go into. Despite the high death rate and the negative publicity the Survey Corps got, it had been your clear goal since day one. It was the only place you felt you could go where you might feel useful, where these abilities of yours could finally be put to good use.

Of course, you weren’t through with the training phase quite yet. The Scouts had their own tests to put the new recruits through, unique maneuvers and combat preparation that would also help determine where you were going to go within the regiment. You still had to get past this sorting period, so you didn’t let yourself get celebratory yet.

But still, two years of hard work in the Cadet Corps, learning to readjust, learning your limits, refining mannerisms, careful planning and consideration into your every move.

Of course, that wasn’t what it looked like to your classmates. To them, you were well aware that you were the cold and aloof antisocial bitch that would knock everyone to the ground like they were nothing in the combat training, and always kept everyone at a distance.

It wasn’t that you were hateful, far from it. You just didn’t want to risk anyone getting too close to you while you were in the Cadets. And it wasn’t your fault if the training came too easily for you--you couldn’t help your nature. Hell, most of your focus had gone into holding back and restraining yourself since day one. While you wanted to make an impression and prove your skill and worth in combat, you didn’t want to stand out too much and draw unwanted attention. It had taken ridiculous amounts of concentration and effort, carefully planned throws on tests and combat evaluations, in order to purposely place at sixth in the top ten. Skilled, but not a shining star that would get full attention.

But that first place spot could have easily been yours, if you didn’t have to be so careful about how you presented yourself.

As important as it was to do well in these tests to get properly placed somewhere you and your abilities could be of use, you still had to maintain the front of someone who ranked sixth, not suddenly display all the skill and strength that belonged to someone easily top of the class. Not to mention, you were on a time limit for something far more important to your stay in the cadets for the long run.

This was your grace period to figure out what you needed to do in order to blend in with everyone else. And not just in skill. Your main concern was your food source.

Back in the cadets, in had started as a painful struggle, having to find ways to sneak out without anyone noticing so you could get a proper bite that would last you at least half a month. The cadets had also been your trial by fire to see how well you could handle freshly spilled blood in front of you, though you were painfully aware that particular test was only going to get more difficult when you went out into the field and Titans started eating people.

Right now at the Scouts, though, you didn’t even have escape routes, predetermined, best routes to sneak out and get a drink without anyone noticing. You hadn’t pinned down sleeping schedules for everyone yet, either, so you could figure out who you needed to be wary of when you were trying to sneak out. If you couldn’t find good times to sneak out and the best ways to leave and return undetected, then your time with the Scouts would prove to be painfully short, for your own safety.

And you wanted to stay here as long as possible, for reasons that had taken root deep in your heart.

Of course, you still had to worry about the training and some basic parts of being a Scout, as well. You were still frustrated with yourself for forgetting one of the simplest things--the horses. Of course, you got a painful reminder when you entered the stables and the majority of the horses got nervous and skittish while the rest went wild.

Not everything was easy to you. You now had to find and befriend a horse that you could hopefully keep with you that wouldn’t be afraid of the predator it could sense in you. It was going to take time, and you were certain this oddity about you had already been noticed, but hopefully when you befriended one of the horses, any sparked suspicions would go away.

Then there was the ODM gear. Obviously you could operate it, you wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t. The problem was that your instincts and reflexes could happen faster than the gear could operate. It made it difficult to slow down and operate it properly when you were running on instinct, and even after two years in the Cadets you were still trying to temper your natural instincts to slow down to something the gear could keep up with. Though you had managed in your personal training time to also craft some maneuvers of your own that was more forgiving to your sharp reflexes and instincts, maneuvers that actually required more physical movement and less dependability on the cables. The less you tried to do with the gear and more you did with your own body, the less of a chance you had to screw up a maneuver by going too fast for the gear to execute at a costly moment.

But out of everything in this grace period that was going to be the most difficult, it was the social aspect. You always kept everyone at a distance because you didn’t want anyone to get close enough to find out what you were, or to risk them getting hurt. As such, you usually came off as antisocial or rude, when really it was maddeningly lonely for you. But what else were you supposed to do? You didn’t even want to think of what kind of a disaster could unfold if you allowed yourself to get close to someone, they found out what you were, reacted negatively and then...and then what? What were you supposed to do with a threat to your safety when it was someone you’d grown close to?

You shuddered at the thought every time it wandered into your mind. This was one of your greatest concerns with being around people again, but now, you were in a situation where you were going to have to do the balancing act flawlessly anyway. One thing you had learned watching the Scouts so far was that there was a degree of trust and closeness in the community. Privacy was still a thing, obviously, and you didn’t have to be best friends with everyone...but people had to know you could be trusted, that you would have their backs out in the field. You had to be amicable at the very least with people--you couldn’t keep them all pushed far away or give them a reason to think you might be hiding something. You were going to have to start making friends with your comrades despite your reservations, but you couldn’t quite figure out how to start.

This was what you got for being a hermit living by herself for oh so long before coming back to the surface, back into daylight, back around people--

Your sparring partner shifted, and your eyes refocused slightly on the match in front of you. It seemed he was going to be one of the many who had seen the glazed over look in your eyes and assumed they could get the drop on you because you weren’t paying attention.

Just like everyone else, he was about to find out how wrong he was.

As he charged you, you reacted rather instinctively, grabbing at his arm and sweeping his leg out from under him before sending him to the ground on his own momentum.

“How?” he fumed. “You weren’t even paying attention!”

“You probably shouldn’t assume that of your opponent,” you returned calmly. Just because you’d been lost in your own thoughts didn’t mean you weren’t paying attention.

Your partner wilted slightly, looking dejected, and you had to stop and do some mental math to figure out how long the two of you had been sparring. It was probably best if you let him win this next one. Both so you could break this perfect streak and so he could get a bit of his pride and confidence back. Plus, you’d get to rotate to a new partner, and the cycle would start fresh. He could probably use some time matched more evenly against someone anyway. It wasn’t fair to anyone who got matched with you, even if they didn’t know it.

What were they supposed to do against someone they thought was human, that was anything but?

You fell back into your at-the-ready stance, watching him closely this time to make sure you knew exactly what he was going to do. He came at you again, his feet planted firmly, form practically perfect--

--you shifted one of your feet so that you were standing just a little too wide--

--and this time as he tackled you, he was able to easily knock you off your feet. Not too easily, you made sure there was enough resistance he found it believable, but for the most part, you let him knock you to the ground.

“Yes!” he cried successfully as he sprang back to his feet, the elation of finally receiving a victory causing his blood to rush in your ears. You closed your eyes and took your time getting calmly to your feet, brushing yourself off as you regained control of yourself.

You’d had a brief spike of hunger with his blood pumping so close to you. Thankfully, you had some practice controlling your thirst in these kinds of situations after so long in the Cadets.

While you were getting up, one of your overseers called for a switch in partners now that he had finally won a bought against you. You got to your feet as your partner scurried away in relief, brushing hair from your face as you waited expectantly to see who would be matched up with you this time.

Unfortunately, it seemed someone had caught your throw this time.

Instead of another new recruit stepping in front of you, a well maintained shock of raven hair and sharp pale blue eyes entered your vision as Captain Levi himself approached, his gaze centered solely on you.

You’d known he was helping supervise the new recruits--all the squad leaders and section commanders were rotating through so they could get a feel for the new recruits and see if there was anyone specifically they wanted with them. You hadn’t realized, however, that you’d caught his attention. But instead of looking pleased, he seemed a little irked.

Quickly, you snapped to a salute, body tense for a few moments as you waited to see what he was going to say. You already knew it wasn’t going to be praise.

“Throwing matches doesn’t help anyone,” Levi said bluntly, his sharp gaze fixated on you.

Fuck, he’d noticed that? You supposed anyone paying close enough attention could catch it, but you’d hoped you were being subtle enough your throws would go undetected.

Then again, this was an entirely different field from the Cadets. You were among the true elite, if you were going to put a bit of your bias in there, and if anyone was going to catch on…

You needed to be more careful.

“I felt he would benefit more from a different sparring partner, sir,” you said stiffly. It wasn’t a lie--hell, anyone would do better if they were paired with someone other than you. You didn’t mean for that to sound cocky, but it was the truth. You were naturally designed to outmatch humans.

“You don’t seem to be putting much effort into this training, either. Do you feel it’s beneath you, cadet?” Levi asked, his voice low. Some of your old classmates that had come to the Scouts as well were letting their eyes wander to the scene in the middle of the training field, most likely looking forward to the frigid ‘slacker’ finally get what was coming to her.

“Quite the opposite, sir. Titans aren’t the only threat in the world--you never know when you’ll need training like this,” you countered, meeting his gaze as you gave a reason that you’d once uttered to shut down the dismissal of other cadets for these person on person combat training exercises. You had your own demons these kinds of moves could be used against, but there were also plenty of...unpleasant...people in the world. You never knew when your life would be threatened by another person, and it was in those moments when you would want this kind of training.

Of course, with your reflexes and strength, it was easier to execute them. Your learning process went into learning the techniques, and once you had that down, you really didn’t have much to worry about.

There was a spark of curiosity in Captain Levi’s eyes at your answer--apparently it hadn’t been a wrong one. You recognized the training’s value instead of brushing it off like most people. And most people who did realize its value usually didn’t state it openly like you just had. Maybe you should have cut that last part out.

He still didn’t look pleased, though, which was understandable if his observations had led him to believe you weren’t taking this training as seriously as it should, that you were brushing it off.

“Then you wouldn’t mind showing me what you’ve learned. I’ll expect perfection with that attitude of yours,” Levi said in a flat voice, taking a few more steps until he was standing opposite you. There was a dangerous note in his voice, and you had the feeling he intended to make you take this sparring seriously, with full attention.

“Sir?”

Levi didn’t answer. He fell into an at the ready position across from you, and you realized he wasn’t going to give you time to ask any more questions. He was about to attack, and you had better be ready for it.

You finally dropped the salute that had loosened during your brief conversation, falling back into a similar at the ready position and feeling your attention start to sharpen. Around you, people were turning their attention away from their training to see Captain Levi give the careless newbie a lesson.

A small part of you whispered that perhaps you should let him take you down right out of the gates, have him teach you the lesson and then move on, deal with the fact you’d made a poor impression on the captain of the Elite Squad.

You let out a slow breath, the world snapping into attention as you honed in on your opponent, Humanity’s Strongest.

Something inside you refused to lay down and take it. You were going to at least show him that you had potential. This was your moment to prove that it wasn’t all bravado and charades. You had skill to back it up, you were capable, and you were not some slacker that wasn’t taking any of this seriously. You were here to fight, to help in the push against the Titans,, no matter what anyone thought from their first impression of you. You were here to stay.

Levi’s eyes flashed, and your body instinctively tensed for the oncoming attack as he darted forward with an almost inhuman speed. You clamped down on your instinct to use your truly inhuman speed to step out of the way, instead choosing to block or at least re-direct the blow with his foot with your arm as you went low, ducking under the kick and coming up on his side. Levi was already turning when you were halfway up, and his fist connected with your side, causing you to take a few steps back.

Shit, that hurt. He really was going to teach you a lesson to take this seriously, wasn’t he? If you didn’t want to end up beat to hell, you better be ready to show him you were learning.

And after the strength of that blow and the speed of his attack, you were going to have to put some actual effort into this.

Levi was already coming in again with another attack, fist cutting through the space between the two of you. You turned your body aside to avoid it, knee coming up to try and get him in the gut. He knocked it aside with his other arm as you blocked the one that had tried to punch you from coming at you again, grabbing onto his forearm and bringing yourself into his space. You threw a punch of your own, still holding back to avoid seriously hurting him, but he blocked it just as quickly, the two of you grappling up close with a series of punches, blocks, and shifted feet before you decided to break away, fists still up and ready for a pursuit. He kept using his small stature to get under your defenses and go after your weak spots, using momentum and your own weight against you. But you were able to return in kind, upping the effort you put into your offense and defense with every block or failed hit.

You could hear his heart, which had started so steady and calm, starting to pick up from effort and exertion as well--so you weren’t the only one who had started to put effort into this fight. You were both two combatants that rarely found someone on their level to fight, and now here you were.

A voice in the back of your mind screamed to stop and throw the fight before you gave away too much, but you couldn’t stop yourself, your own heart pounding with excitement. When was the last time someone could actually challenge you? Which one of you was actually capable of winning this fight?

Hell, you’d never thought someone human could stand toe to toe with you in basic hand to hand without bringing some dirty tricks to the match, but here you were. As exciting as it was, there was also something strangely...relieving, about it. Reassuring.

Levi’s knee flashed through your vision, and you had to lean back, hands coming down to meet it and stop the assault before it could connect with your chin.

Reflection could come later, right now...well, you should really be throwing this fight, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You kept meeting his attacks and coming in with your own, no matter how much reason screamed at you to stop.

Suddenly, Levi switched tactics, and instead of coming in to hit you, he grappled you to the ground, the two of you now caught in a tussle to see who could pin the other and end this fight. His arm started to snake around your throat, and you quickly placed an arm against your throat to break the incoming hold, dropping your shoulder with hands wrapped around his forearm to throw him over you. He managed to keep his grip for the most part, but he was no longer in the position to choke you out from behind.

His heartbeat, as well as your own, continued to pound in your ears, telling you just how much you both were fighting. This had rapidly changed from a lesson to be taught into a straight up match at some point, both of you fighting for dominance, with not a single peep from the onlookers as both of you started throwing in dirty tactics that looked more like skills learned on the streets than something taught in military training.

He’d landed some solid hits on you, easily bruising your body where he connected, but so had you. Of course, you were still trying to be careful and not hurt him, but the longer this fight went on, the less restraint you showed, because all the while you were testing his limits, seeing how far you could safely go, and you had yet to see a sign that it had been to far.

At this rate, I wouldn’t mind this being a regular thing. This is exhilarating.

In the scuffle, Levi ended up below you in the middle of a roll, and you took advantage of the position, leg planted firmly behind him near his head, arm grasping his and pulling it up, about to trap him in a position where he wouldn’t be able to move without breaking a limb.

You felt a tingle on the back of your neck as your eyes met.

Levi’s eyes widened in surprise.

Your ears perked at the first sign of whispers among your spectators.

“Is she...gonna beat Captain Levi?”

“I thought he was Humanity’s Strongest?”

“Some random cadet is gonna beat Levi?”

Your heart froze, even as your body kept moving.

He couldn’t hear the whispers, not that you felt he cared much about such a moniker, but you could hear, and you did care. Levi knew he was about to be beat, you could see the flicker of realization in his eyes. And right now, with both of you putting effort into this fight and no attempts to throw from you so far, he might pounce on an opening without seeing it for the throw it was.

Maybe.

Whether that was true or not, this fight had to end, and it had to end one way.

Your grip shifted slightly on his arm, your foot slid slightly to the side, and you changed your weight distribution, giving him a split second window he could still get out of this. And just as you’d hoped, he took full advantage, breaking your grip on his arm and knocking you off balance with your now unsecure stance and uneven weight distribution. As quickly as you’d started to pin him, Levi suddenly leapt on top, his arm pressed hard against your chest as you found yourself flat on your back, wind knocked out of you abruptly by the fast move.

In the brief second before Levi pulled away, you saw disappointment in his eyes.

Right.

This all started because he realized you were throwing fights. And now you’d just thrown the fight with him. Whether or not he knew why was up for debate, but what matters was he knew you threw it at the last second.

Levi got to his feet, brushing dirt off himself with distaste before he stared down at you with a face that looked perfectly controlled, though those eyes of his were gazing at you with a thousand thoughtful emotions that made you uneasy as you sat up.

“Put that effort into sparring with your comrades, and they might learn something,” he said dismissively, then turned and left the field, most likely to go clean himself up.

You got to your feet, expression hidden by hair that had fallen loose in the match. Now that it was over, you were able to think more clearly, and you were chastising yourself thoroughly on the inside for such a stupid move.

Who cared if it had felt exhilarating to spar with someone on even ground? Who cared if you hadn’t wanted to give him the wrong impression of you on what might have been his first time seeing you? Who cared if the feeling of realizing there was someone out there that wasn’t what you were, that could fight you like that, was akin to not feeling so alone for the briefest second?

You shouldn’t have done that. You weren’t supposed to be drawing that kind of attention to yourself. It was sloppy and stupid and you could only see it resulting in trouble. You should have thrown the match far earlier than when you had, you shouldn’t have given everyone the impression that you could take Levi’s title from him.

Because even if it could, even if you were able to best him in a fight, you shouldn’t. Not in public, anyway, where word could spread and people started calling you the strongest instead. It wasn’t right, and the thought made you feel dirty and ashamed.

A vampire shouldn’t have the title of Humanity’s Strongest.

*Levi’s POV*

Coming out of the bath with damp hair still hanging on his face and shirt not buttoned up yet, Levi let out a soft sigh and leaned against the wall beside his office window, hand brushing thoughtfully over a nasty bruise he’d gotten in that sparring match from the cadet, his mind lost in thought even as he started carefully buttoning up the shirt.

That...had not turned out like he’d expected it to.

When he saw her throw that match so cleverly after watching her act with such clear distance during the training, he’d been irritated at the thought that she wasn’t taking the training seriously. Or that she might think throwing the fight helped her opponent somehow by making him think they’d won on their own merit. They weren’t going to learn if they were allowed to win. If anything, such a move hurt their progress more than it helped, so he’d intended to put a stop to that thinking before it got too far. Besides, with how carefully she timed and planned that throw, she had to have some kind of real skill she was hiding.

What he couldn’t understand was why she would hold back. Especially now, at the stage where the aptitude shown decided where each recruit would be tasked.

No matter what the reason behind it all, he’d felt a push was necessary to make her step it up and start trying. Seeing her standing there appearing not to take any of it seriously had been irksome, and he wasn’t going to let it happen while he was on the training grounds.

As he’d thought, she’d sharpened up when he challenged her. There was no far away glaze in her eyes when he stepped up to spar her, just unbridled focus and determination, perhaps even a bit of excitement. For a moment, he’d despised it because he thought it was because she was one of those, so hell bent on impressing him, everything else be damned. The kind of attitude that got people killed out in the field because they were too busy trying to impress instead of actually learn, that showed people to be nothing more than squabbling children who weren’t taking any of this seriously.

As the fight progressed and she started to show her true strength, though, it started to make more sense.

He could still vividly picture the shift in her demeanor, the glint in her eyes the second before their spar began. How at that moment, he knew he was about to see if she was sitting on true potential and was paying attention, or was just blowing smoke up people’s asses and blowing it all off.

He’d been fully ready to knock her into the dirt in that first strike to knock reality back into her, but that wasn’t what happened. He’d been genuinely surprised when she managed to block and keep up with him, even more with how well she was able to return what he gave her. Quickly he’d abandoned the thoughts of teaching an arrogant cadet a lesson and instead started to prod at her capabilities, intrigued and impressed with what he found. Being able to spar with someone on such even ground was a rarity, and he’d found the experience rather...exhilarating.

She was faster and stronger than she appeared, just like him. She was also quite clever--predictably, considering the care she’d put into throwing her matches--and had clearly been paying attention to the taught techniques. However, when he’d thrown something street learned and not taught by the military, she hadn’t flinched, and pulled a few underhanded street fighting techniques of her own.

Which gave him a peek at her background, as well. If he was to look, he would bet his salary that he would find that she got into some kind of trouble in the past--the illegal kind.

Several of her blows had, clearly, hurt, which told him she wasn’t holding back anymore--at least not as much. A part of him could tell, through their whole fight, that there was still something she was holding back with, just like he was. He hadn’t tapped into that strange power of his, not fully, and she had also kept herself from using her full potential--something tipped off by the fact her attacks had been getting progressively faster and harder. Of course, in a spar, you weren’t supposed to go all out--for example, neither of them were trying to do anything lethal. But even then, she was sitting on something.

Now he was fairly confident the reason she’d been holding back on the others had been to avoid hurting a comrade by accident. That he couldn’t fault her for, but she still shouldn’t have been throwing the fights. They needed to learn, and making them think they’d won didn’t help them.

Of course, there was also the glaring fact of how she’d ended that fight.

He had definitely been shocked the moment he’d realized she was about to pin him. Of course it hadn’t been anywhere in his mind that a younger rookie would beat him in a spar--before today he would have thought that kind of suggestion was madness. But she’d done it, and for the briefest moment, just before she would have pinned him, he saw the faintest red glimmer in her eyes.

Then some kind of realization hit her, she seemed to register she was about to win as well, and she’d shifted. At first, he’d thought she’d simply hesitated, that her unbalance had come from getting inside her own head in the middle of the fight, and he had pounced on that opportunity. There was another part of that moment that was worrisome to him, though.

For some reason, he’d reacted off a survival instinct, even though he was well aware that it was a spar. It hadn’t been a mere moment of ‘I want to win this fight,’ but a split second where he felt like an eagle pinned down by a horned owl, where natural instinct told him if he didn’t break free…

But of course...it had just been a spar, no matter what the novel moment had made him feel for a split second.

Of course, once he had her pinned beneath him, he realized how easy the motion had been--to easy for someone who was a hair’s breath away from being pinned and the fight being over. And he could tell from the look in her eyes, the dulling of that sharp gaze and the distance in her posture, that she’d thrown the fight.

Again.

Of course he was disappointed. The entire spar had started because she’d been throwing matches with her fellow recruits, and at the last second, when she would have pinned even him and proven what she was capable of, she backed off. She held back.

The only two who knew she really won that fight was him, and her.

He knew she’d been holding back the whole time. That she threw at the end. That there was a dangerous edge to her. That even if he went all out, there was a chance she could take him.

Levi looked out his office window, which overlooked the training grounds that were now empty after combat training had finished. Why did she do it? Why did she throw the fight? Why was she hiding her potential instead of showing what she was truly capable of? What did she want to hide, and why was she trying to hide it?

Who was she?

Did she have a power similar to his own?

Did he want her on his squad? That question he was far more unsure about, because while her raw skill alone tempted him to recruit her to the Elite Squad, something stirred uneasily in his gut about her. From the look in her eyes, that glint, that moment of survival instincts kicking in, all the unknowns...

There were too many questions and too many unknowns about her right now. He wasn’t about to act hastily. First, he needed to learn what he could about this new recruit, ask around and keep an eye on her from a distance. Once his questions were answered…

Well, that all depended on what he would find after some digging.

Next Chapter---->

Levi Tags: @humanitys-hottestsoldier @clary-quinn @sunny-flo @whalerus

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