#if only Marvel took more time to produce them

[oldtvandcomics]

I felt like it, so I rewatched two Phase 1 Marvel movies I haven’t seen in like two years (First Avenger and The Avengers), and like, they are actually very good?? Like obviously not the height of cinema, but very fun, well-made movies.

It’s just so sad, because in the past few years, the MCU has become synonymous with mediocrity, and it would be so easy to think that maybe we had it wrong all along and were just young and naive during the older stuff, but no.

We really had this nice thing and now it’s ruined.

[supercalifragipopculturevomit]

THE BEST OF DANIEL BRÜHL

It’s dumb, honestly.

You get this seemingly brilliant idea of turning to foreign films so you’re forced to read subtitles and focus—a problem you’ve been noticing of late—but in doing so, you end up with a more destructive distraction.

“Who’s that guy, again? The one in all those international productions?” That’s how I found myself on my Daniel Brühl marathon-turned-obsession.

It was his role as the cute Nazi in Inglorious Basterds that first put him on my radar. Over the years, I would see him in The Fifth Estate, Burnt, Woman in Gold, The Zookeeper’s Wife, and The King’s Man. Midway through All Quiet on the Western Front, I was like, “All this needs is that German actor…” and I had to chuckle when he later appeared on screen. I also checked out the first season of The Alienist because I was intrigued by what he and Dakota Fanning as leads would do with such a spooky-looking show.

Adorable as he was in his breakout role in Good Bye, Lenin!, it was his performance in the critically-acclaimed Rush that caused me to spiral. Similar to when Benedict Cumberbatch took on the modern version of Sherlock, it was like seeing Brühl with new eyes. His playful take on Helmut Zemo in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was the final nail in the coffin. I don’t imagine it’s all too different from what Tom Hiddleston did to fans of Marvel as Loki.

I’m actually at the tail-end of this obsession now that I’ve seen everything I can get a hold of—around 39 films, two TV shows, a documentary, a music video, countless interviews, a bunch of ads, and a handful of fan cuts—but he has a lot of works worth recommending so I thought I would share them on here. This will mostly be a subjective list with priority on projects I found most interesting which showcase his range best. Like, I enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum but he was on screen for a total of 2 minutes so I wouldn’t include that here.

RUSH (2013) This biographical sports film written by Peter Morgan—the man behind The Crown—centers on the rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 70s. Not a fan of F1 or sports in general. I have nothing against either, just zero interest. But this character-driven film, much like Ford vs Ferrari, had me at the edge of my seat the entire ride. And it surprisingly has one of the best meet-cutes—and accidental wingmen—I’ve seen yet.

Brühl delivers an Oscar-worthy performance in this role. For someone who needed a lot of convincing he could do the character justice, he truly went above and beyond. For one, he befriended and studied Lauda, the iconic F1 figure he was portraying. No easy feat considering Lauda being, well… Lauda. In interviews, Brühl recounts the story of the memorable invite he got from Lauda to meet in Vienna. This would be their first meeting and Lauda told Brühl outright that he should only bring hand luggage so he can piss off if they don’t like each other.

He would end up staying a few days and buying additional clothes.

He also spent a month in Vienna to nail the accent, making sure to capture the arrogance and irony innate to it. And although he got driver training for the role, he also considered the tiniest details like which went on first: helmet or gloves? There was also the tricky business of looking graceful entering a tiny F1 car—a bigger challenge for Chris Hemsworth who plays Hunt—but an obstacle all the same.

All the hard work paid off. It was well-received by audiences, critics, and the F1 world. The first time Lauda saw the film he went, “Holy shit, that’s really me”. Lauda’s friends thought he did voiceover work for it. Director Ron Howard was so pleased with Brühl’s performance that he went out of his way to show an unfinished cut of the movie to the producers of The Fifth Estate (2013). This gracious act would land Brühl the co-lead role opposite Benedict Cumberbatch.

GOOD BYE, LENIN! (2003) Can't tell if it's just because the two films have the same composer and were created around the same time, but this tragicomedy set in East Germany reminded me so much of my beloved Amélie. This is definitely more dramatic and political but it has that same mix of whimsy, heart, and charm. With its budget, it was meant to be an indie film, but the story of a son who would recreate a faux-socialist world to keep his mother alive captured the heartstrings of audiences, not just in Germany but also worldwide. Brühl plays the son and his success with this film was a double-edged sword: although it would open doors for him internationally, he would also be typecast as the “nice guy” in his home country.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (2009) This has one of the best, most intense opening sequences in all of cinema… and one of the greatest villains. In this wild alternate universe from Quentin Tarantino, he rewrites the ending of World War II. It’s the right balance of dark, hilarious, and entertaining—my favorite from the auteur’s works. Here Brühl plays a cute and charming Nazi, which is very confusing to the senses.

Aside from Brühl, it was also my first introduction to Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, and Melanie Laurent—all fantastic European actors who’ve crossed over to Hollywood after the success of this movie. “Crossing over” seems ubiquitous now but, at that time, giving most of the lead roles to then relatively unknown actors must have been a risk. But for this, it was necessary. Language plays a huge part in this trilingual film and casting native speakers grounded it in authenticity. Tarantino originally had Leonardo di Caprio in mind to play Hans Landa. Whether he meant for him to learn German or to speak English with a German accent, who knows. Either way, it’s safe to say that would have been a different film.

THE EDUKATORS / DIE FETTEN JAHRE SIND VORBEI (2004) This anti-capitalist film, which has become a cult classic, captures the spirit, idealism, recklessness, and angst of young revolutionaries who just want a better world. Where one stands on the measures taken, or even their sentiment, can be considered a litmus test. With or without reference to this quote from the movie—“Under 30 and not liberal, no heart. Over 30 and still liberal, no brain.”—is up to the viewer.

There needs to be a suspension of disbelief for the series of events that takes place but the setting is necessary for the clash of worlds to happen. It’s not a perfect movie but the issues they debate about in length… they’re still discussions we’re having nearly 20 years later.

p.s. this has my favorite behind-the-scenes of all of Brühl’s projects. Though he hasn’t lost his sense of humor, he seems to have become more reserved as he got older. HERE, at this period in his life, he’s a total goofball bordering on loose cannon.

THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER (2021) Though I’ve enjoyed quite a few MCU movies, I’m not invested in the universe at all, so watching this wasn’t a priority. In fact, I was ready to settle on YouTube compilations made by devoted fans of all the scenes Brühl was in. Upon seeing clips, however, I got intrigued by his character so I still ended up watching the miniseries and also Captain America: Civil War (2016).

Both were better than I expected. Civil War is more serious, while TFATWS is more playful, but both face relevant issues along with formidable foes. Brühl’s villain in Helmut Zemo is fascinating because he tears the mighty Avengers apart with mere patience, fury, and intelligence… and his motivations are understandable. He lets his character loose in TFATWS—at one point, on the dance floor—and it’s magnificent. His mission is still the same, but this time he does it with a lot of charm, humor, and fabulous Sokovian style. A Turkish delight, personified.

ME AND KAMINSKI / ICH UND KAMINSKI (2015) Brühl’s Sebastian Zöllner is a repulsive and sleazy journalist who has greasy hair and wears too much cologne but I can’t get enough of his chaotic energy. His magnum opus is hitched on a legendary artist dying and his fantasy is to turn the orphaned daughter into a sugar mommy. It’s all kinds of messed up but he plays the hell out of the smarmy dirtbag so it’s a lot of fun. This is Brühl’s second collaboration with Wolfgang Becker, who directed Good Bye, Lenin! Daniel Kehlmann, the writer whose eponymous book this film was based on, would later write Brühl’s directorial debut, Nebenan.

NO REGRETS / NICHTS BEUREUEN (2001) This is reminiscent of the slightly problematic but highly enjoyable teen comedies and coming-of-age films of the 90s. It’s like an edgier Can’t Hardly Wait: boy goes through cringe-worthy measures to get the girl he’s long been pining for, his two closest pals have nothing but dumb advice to offer, yet he still ends up on the path to self-discovery. It’s awkward, chaotic, frustrating, and beautiful—but such is adolescence.

Brühl and his co-star Jessica Schwarz fall in love on the set of this film. And although they would break up years later, the tenderness between their scenes together is palpable and there’s something rather bittersweet about seeing that captured in perpetuity.

For a more straightforward rom-com, he has Lila, Lila (2009). It’s about a guy who passes off a manuscript as his own to impress a girl and the hilarity that follows. It’s on YouTube for those who need a fun and light watch.

THE ALIENIST (2018 – 2020) Based on the novel of the same name, this moody psychological thriller set in late 19th century New York follows a psychiatrist—then called an Alienist—who investigates a series of grisly murders with methods still considered new and controversial at that time, such as psychology and fingerprinting. He gets by with a little help from his friends, John Moore, an illustrator for the New York Times, and Sara Howard, a society woman who works in the NYPD.

In the lead role of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, Brühl plays the dark, complex, and mysterious Alienist whose study of mental pathologies and deviant behaviors reveals much of himself and his past.

LESSONS OF A DREAM / DER GANZ GROßE TRAUM (2011) This film is loosely based on Konrad Koch, an educator and pioneer who brought football to Germany in the late 19th century. In the movie, the sport is used as a means to pique students’ interest in the English language and culture—both considered barbaric by the Germans at that time. A heartwarming tale of a teacher who overcomes insurmountable odds and inspires students along the way, it’s the German equivalent of Dead Poet’s Society.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (2022) This story, the third adaptation of the 1929 novel, “Im Westen nichts Neues”, conveys the futility of war like no other. There aren't as many films on World War I as there are on World War II, fewer ones that tell it from a German perspective, so this is doubly unique in that regard. Powerful watch but 10/10 not like to relive it again. Apart from producing it with his company, Amusement Park, Brühl plays Matthias Erzberger, the German State Secretary who pushes for armistice talks with the Allied forces.

An ideal companion watch to this would be Joyeux Noël / Merry Christmas (2005), another WWI movie Brühl stars in, which depicts the unbelievable Christmas truce between French, German, and Scottish soldiers in 1914. His linguistic ability shines here as he shifts between German, French, and English effortlessly. (Half German, half Spanish, Brühl speaks a total of five languages: those three plus Spanish and Catalan.)

The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017) and Alone in Berlin (2016) also recognize the bravery of defiance at the height of tyrannical regimes. Although between the two, I would skip the latter.

JOHN RABE (2009) This biographical film set in China tells the incredible true story of a German businessman who uses his Nazi Party membership to create an International Safety Zone in Nanking. This was in the late 1930s, during the Rape of Nanjing. In this six-week carnage by the Imperial Japanese Army—which includes sexual assault, mutilations, and killing contests—upwards of 200,000 Chinese are brutally murdered. The protective zone manages to save around the same number of civilians.

Brühl doesn’t play the titular Rabe, but his character, Dr. Georg Rosen, is one of few Westerners who decides to remain and protect Nanking even as conflict escalates. Dr. Rosen was a German Diplomat instrumental in the creation of the safety zone.

p.s. with all these heroic roles in his catalog, I’m convinced Brühl would be a frontrunner to play President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should a movie be made about him and Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. You heard it here first.

NEXT DOOR / NEBENAN (2021) This is Brühl’s directorial debut. Here he plays a darker, fictionalized version of himself. Definitely not for everyone but quite enjoyable if you’re familiar with his major works and public persona, appreciate the ingenuity of one-location movies, and delight in British-style meta humor.

Pre-requisite viewing for maximum enjoyment: Good Bye, Lenin!, Captain America: Civil War, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

[billiedeansbitch]

𝐀 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐧

(𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)

note: just a little jealous fic with ms weems <3

warning/s: light smut

The day started out with a little bit of fun that was quite predictable from your eyes when Larissa emerged from the en-suit bathroom of your shared bedroom. You were already looking at her when she found you sitting on the love seat couch in front of the tall victorian windows with a neglected newspaper in hand.

From the typical robe, you noticed her only wrapped in a white cotton towel. Its length barely reaching her mid-thighs, and you gawked, pretty fucking bad.

Her hair was damp, appearing more blonde than silvery white, you knew her hair smelt sweet with a tinge of lavender and then your eyes descended, inch by inch. The piece of cloth flaunted her skin beautifully, bringing some justice to those legs she was so eager to hide through her choice of dress and skirts. It was criminal to conceal them.

She was so pale that her cheeks down to her chest, elbows and knees were always flushed after taking steaming showers and damn it never ceased to make you drool over her. Actually, you were foaming in the mouth right now. Kidding.

“I’m flattered to know you’d rather stare at me than read those boring newspapers.” She had a whimsical grin on her pink lips while gazing at you from the vanity mirror. She then collected her expensive smelling lotion, the one that had you so addicted and began with her legs.

There was a faint blush creeping on your cheeks, by the time she was finished, “You know it’s so rude of you to shower without me.” You put the newspaper down and sauntered toward the woman’s direction.

“Oh, honey. You slept like a log. I tried waking you up.” When you reached her, her body jolted at the surprised touch when you groped her firm ass. Your arms then automatically crawl around her waist, pulling her flushed against your body.

“Mmm, you should’ve tried harder.” On the last part your tone dropped, your lips pressed on her shoulder igniting a small whimper from her own lips.

Her skin was soft and cool, contrasting your slightly calloused fingers from teaching archery but she didn’t mind. She inexplicably adored them especially when they were doing a certain task that produced the most lustful sounds from her mouth.

Larissa watched your reflection in the mirror, the way your fingers danced to unwrap the towel to your lips as they moved from her shoulder to nape, placing hot and open-mouthed kisses to her other shoulder.

Whatever products she lathered herself with, you swore there was something magical in them, something that had you going nuts about, almost obsessed. “We’re going to be late. You still have to shower and get ready.” Her head was already swimming in guilt but her body kept encouraging your touch.

Your lips never left the smooth and flushed surface of her skin, “Don’t worry, pretty. I will be quick.” You said in between kisses.

And then the towel dropped on the floor, Larissa observed the way your eyes feasted on her nude form with your lips gaping, absolutely engrossed. Her body grew hotter, she didn’t know if it was the close proximity of your bodies or the way your breath seemed to caress over her shoulder, either way, it had her squirming.

You shamelessly marvelled each slope and curve, took in the delicious sight of her protruded clavicles, the shallow bend of her waist, those breasts, those hips…You planted a sweet kiss on her neck before you turned her around and brutally kissed her lips, your hands roaming up and down her body.

Consequently, you were an hour late to this gathering that was organized in Jericho. You were compelled to go by Larissa, not leaving you with so much choice, because she claimed she would get bored out of her mind without you and honestly it made your heart flutter.

Upon entering, everyone was quick to gather around Larissa and she embarrassingly had to make up a whole excuse and constantly apologizing for tardiness. You stood behind her while holding her hands the whole time, enjoying the lies and the apparent guilt on her face with a smirk on your face.

From the corners of your eyes you caught a sight of this man, tall and broad with dark hair and cleanly shaven face, stalking around for quite some time now. You didn’t think much of it, not until Larissa excused herself to go to the restroom and found him trudging her way. He stopped her and later they hugged.

You knew it was awkward. Unpleasant as it was to the blonde, she kept a sweet charming smile on her lips and before you knew it they were walking back to your direction.

“I thought you were going to the restroom?” you whispered, eyes scanning him up and down.

Discreetly she leaned to your ear, “Well, not anymore.” While she eyed him. You nodded.

Then she stood in her full height to introduce him. “Honey, this is Victor. We were in a fencing team together and our host for today.”

“Nice to meet you, Victor.” He offered a hand, you looked down, it seemed cleaned enough.

“Victor Brush, delighted to meet you.”

“That’s quite a handsome name for a gentleman.” You said fighting the snort from coming out. A soft jab on your side made you eye the woman, “Behave.” She reprimanded.

Thank God, he was too self-absorbed to notice the little interaction. He smiled, shying his eyes away, tint of red shading his cheeks. He thought it was a compliment. Idiot, you thought.

“This might come out as rude but do you mind if I steal Larissa for a while?”

“No, no, not at all, please.” you responded through gritted teeth, again, he didn’t think of it as anything.

And he was already pulling her away from you, “I’ll be right by the bar, darling!”

For about half an hour, you walked around, hid behind people’s backs, and kept a safe distance from your woman, happy to just observe how people swoon over her and smirking as you sip your cocktail knowing they stood zero chance against you, that you knew with your whole heart, hence jealousy was a rare thing in your relationship.

But this, this Victor was testing you, getting into your nerves and it was befit to say jealousy was the root of your impending tantrum.

When Larissa turned, what she saw was exactly what she had expected to see. Larissa could differ even from a great distance if the red on your cheeks was a harmless blush or from grave annoyance, unfortunately she knew it was the latter. The frown sitting on your face merely strengthened her belief.

Bored and vexed, you unclasped your bracelet, a minimal jewelry that diminish your gifts and ability when worn. The scales from your skin glistened like glitters and you felt relief rush through your body. You hastily pocketed the precious amulet, eyes too focused on the events unfolding before you to notice it slipped from your pocket.

With a tilt of your head, the water in his hand started to swirl and then with a brief whisper to the wind, the liquid in his glass spilled to his dress shirt. It all seemed like a little mishap. But then when your eyes averted from his damp chest to find those fiery blues, they were already looking at you. You bit the grin on your lip and mouthed an apology.

When he excused himself, Larissa could only sigh, the tight smile that made her cheeks hurt finally relaxed. With a few long strides, she crossed the room, bending down quickly and stood in front of you but you didn’t notice until she spoke, “Hey, darling.” Her voice was gentle, so sweet that if you could taste it, it would be just like honey.

She offered the two of you to move by the bar, by no means to oppose her, you took her hand in yours and walked side by side. You scooted closer to her, and cautiously placed a hand on her bare thigh a little too possessively but she made no effort to remove it. As a matter of fact, she welcomed it by uncrossing her legs and spreading them apart. Thank God for the skirts.

Then you started to talk as if your hand wasn’t wandering dangerously up her thigh, “He’s a normie.” It wasn’t a question, nor an accusation. It was the truth.

“Excellent observation.”

“But how? How did he get into nevermore? Daddy’s money?” Because it was written on the invite that this gathering was exclusive only for outcasts.

“Yes, his family was well recognized and considered as the most influential at that time,” she paused, licking her plump lower lips and your gaze were quick to follow.

“His father was the mayor and he threatened the school to shut down unless the school took his son. He believed it would be good for the school’s image. That his son was in fact helping the school to gain people’s trust. Truth was, little Victor badly wanted to be an outcast, he thought by attending nevermore he would harness some sort of ability.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. He had changed to another fine cotton dress shirt, tucked neatly into his trousers and sauntering toward your wife’s direction. Oh fuck me. Quick, you saw the fish tank and well, the unimaginable happened. The water leaped from the edge of the tank, partially soaking the left side of his body, he groaned and ran his hand down his face.

“Oops.” You murmured, giggling behind your hand. The commotion earned collective gasps followed by a series of “Are you okay?” in which he only responded with a glare and stomped away, furious and embarrassed.

You had enough of your fun, concerned that if you kept doing it you might actually unleash some real troubles. When you palmed your pocket to feel the bracelet and felt it empty, panic paled your face, and your heart instantly leapt to your throat.

Larissa was amused, watched you hop off the stool and searched the floor without leaving your spot. The game would have prolonged but Larissa didn't exactly have the heart to watch your panic increase. But then she thought it might teach you a thing or two about misplacing valuable items.

Alas, she pulled the jewelry out of her purse, "Looking for this?" your head whipped to her and found the pearls in your partner's hand. Relief kicked the panic in your chest.

Your lips curved to a coy smile, mirth glistening in your eyes. "It must have slipped or something." you deadpanned, wedging yourself between her legs, "Help me put it back on, pretty?" and her cheeks were dusted off with pink blush, still ever so shy when you call her names.

Once it was secured again around your wrist, you framed her face with your hands, “Thank you." and you kissed her full red lips.

Seeing the charm return to your eyes Larissa couldn’t help but make a comment, “Done with your tantrum?”

“Honey, it was barely an outburst. I only had a little bit of fun.” You justified yourself and nonchalantly shrugged your shoulders.

When your wife’s eyes shifted down your lips, and her breath kissed your reddening ears, it tempted you to moan, “I have another idea of fun but I don’t think this is the proper place for it.” The ending of this day was already decided with the mischievous gleam in her eyes.

“Wife, are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?”

“Yes.” And so, you grabbed her hand, eagerly dragged her across with a silly grin patched on your face before she could change her mind. Behind you, Larissa couldn’t contain the giggles as you led her out of the crowd.

This was going to be so much fun.

[joezy27]

"How To Write HAWKEYE" by Matt Fraction

My process for Hawkeye isn’t like anything else I’ve ever used for writing, and it’s sort of involved. For a lot of reasons—none of which have to do with the how of anything, let alone the how of writing comics—my approach with this book, I decided early on, would be completely different than anything I’d ever done before. I’ll get into some of the why and how here, but, from that decision, everything about writing Hawkeye kept getting weirder.

About a year before I started on Hawkeye, I started to experiment with writing in a method called Marvel Style or Plot Style. It’s called Marvel Style because Stan Lee came up with it when he was the only writer at Marvel and had to produce eight books a month. Stan started to write in a way that leaned very heavily on his artists rather than requiring him to produce the screenplaylike scripts most of us think of as full scripts or just, y’know, scripts.

Art by David Aja

Here’s an example of a full script I gave to my dad:

PAGE ONE 1.1 A SWEATY GUY gets out of a car. GUY We’re here. 1.2 The guy walks to a house, nervous, peering over his shoulder as he goes. GUY Ha ha. 1.3 He walks up to the front porch almost on tiptoes. GUY ha. 1.4 CLOSE: Still nervous, still on edge, he adjusts his tie. Blood under his fingernails. Uh-oh. NO DIALOGUE 1.5 FROM BEHIND: As he pokes his finger into the doorbell, we see, with his other hand, he’s got a gun held behind his back. SFX Ding dong

Note: SFX means Sound Effects

And so on. Now that took me as long to type as it took you to read, but you get the gist: dramatic beats and certain visual moments are isolated and chosen because they transmit the narrative and dramatic story flow to an artist who chooses his shots (or might take my suggestions if there are any) accordingly and crafts a sequence of images, keeping in mind moment, frame, image, flow. Isolated dialogue runs below to allow the artist to understand how much space to allot for words, and that’s it. McCloud-101 stuff, right?

But Marvel Style for David [Aja, the artist on Hawkeye] looks something more like this:

PAGE ONE Okay, David, on this page, a little car pulls up to a little suburban house and NERVOUS MAN gets out half-laughing to himself. He skulks to the front door, maybe adjusts his tie. He’ll have, like, blood under his fingernails. He looks over his shoulder, knocks. Then the last image on the page needs to be: we see he’s got a GUN BEHIND HIS BACK. “We’re here,” he’ll say, at some point, to no one in particular. And maybe giggle on his way to the door. NERVOUS KILLER CREEP here to WREAK HAVOC, David. Okay.

And I’ll move on to page two. My scripts are super informal. Nobody, but your artist and letterer are gonna read it, so why not make it fun for them to read?

I chose to write Hawkeye for David like this for several reasons. First, my favorite pages from our time on Iron Fist, which was written Full Script-style, always came when he’d politely and respectfully diverge from what was scripted for him, make something magical, then find his way back to where he was expected to be. So I’d start writing more and more vaguely for him, to give him more and more freedom, and he always crushed it. By “crushed it,” I mean he made a great page that made me look smarter than I am. Second, and I mean no disrespect to any of David’s other collaborators, many of whom I’m a fan, but I never liked David’s work more than I did on Iron Fist. And they were all doing full script for him. So, y’know—maybe a lightbulb went off. Third, writing Marvel Style scares the living crap out of me. It is the antithesis of what we teach ourselves as writers. It requires trust and sharing and believing in your partner—and he’s a partner, not an artist here, just check the credits page—and trusting in the collaboration above all else. And it’s easy to see how slippery a slope Marvel Style can be to get to “PAGES SEVEN THROUGH NINE: They fight.”

Art by David Aja

I started experimenting with Marvel Style because it scared me, and when I get scared, I get exhilarated. These things, this job, it’s the best, but it can grind you down. It crushes your wrists and warps your spine and dries your eyes and smooths down your teeth and grows your gut. Excitement and danger, though meager compared to what, say, a firefighter might encounter, is important in your work.

Also, I thought it could save me time. I thought I could do half my work on layaway, basically; that I could crank out a plot in three or four days and script a few weeks later, in one or two days. I mean, it worked for Stan, right? And he and his partners—partners—only created the dang Marvel Universe. Lastly, it’s [Marvel Comics’s former editor-in-chief and current chief creative officer] Joe Quesada’s fault.

Let me digress here for a second: Joe da Q is a great guy. Great artist, great boss, great dad, great guy. And I love talking to him about the art of the art, because he’s been around and has some stories and a head full of great thoughts about it all and … and you do it for about a minute and a half and you realize exactly how Joe earned everything he earned and you couldn’t be happier. Anyway, one night Joe is winding Mr. Brian Michael Bendis up at BarCon. BarCon is the “con” that happens in the bar of the guest hotel of whatever con you’re at, literally, every single night, of every single convention, ever. Anyway, so Joe is claiming much of Marvel’s now-decades-long dominance over comics came from the inescapable visual firepower of our founding fathers, that Marvel’s visual style is as much a key to its successes as the radioactive spider. And if you doubt it, just look at how the key moments in the company’s history were written: Marvel Style. Brian howled in outrage, “That’s not writing, that’s cheap, that’s lazy. When you cede control of choice of moment to someone else, you’re just mad-libbing …” It went on and on. Joe poking, Brian exploding, and Joe giggling with glee.

Joe Quesada loves his family, the Mets, the Beatles, Marvel, and winding Bendis up, in that order.

I realized though, as I listened to them play-fight, that it was making me nervous. Just to think about Marvel Style. Just to pretend I’d even try it, even on a short story made me, sweartagod, nervous. So many of my favorite comics were done by singular cartoonists—Eisner, Hernandez, Brown, Clowes, Chaykin. And the more I thought about it, how could I ever hope to write the thing those guys did for themselves? You can’t. A writer could never coax American Flagg! out of Chaykin—unless they gave him a Marvel Style script and treated him like a partner as invested in the storytelling as the writer.

So I knew I had to try it.

This comic has been written in a giant scramble. All out of order. Not by design but … but because Team Hawkeye does nothing the easy way.

I know a big part of Brian’s lessons here is that the only way you need to find is your way. That your way is the right way and anything else is an obstacle but … but please, god, don’t do it like this. This is how I know how to do Hawkeye.

My initial pitch for Hawkeye ended up being published as issues 4 and 5. It’s our first two-part storyline and is very different than the issues on either side; international travel, glamorous and exotic casinos, international cabals of evil. Clint-as-Bond, where he’s in a tux more than a supersuit. Marvel said okay—remember, we just needed like nine of these—but I pulled out because it wasn’t right. When I sat down to write it, it wasn’t right, and I had to leave. I had a story, not a book, and so I stopped.

Then one night I thought about Jim Rockford and The Avengers—the UK ones I mean—for whatever reason, and found my book.

So I had to repitch. I got it, luckily, but everyone thought I was nuts. Anyway.

I was going to write Marvel Style for David. It was going to be all done-in-one, or sometimes two, issue stories. It was going to be about what Hawkeye did when he wasn’t being an Avenger because, when I got the book, Clint Barton was everywhere and I didn’t want to step on toes. Give me him on his day off, I figured. It was going to be street-level, real-world kind of stories, in, of course, the Mighty Marvel Manner. I would try to counteract the banal everyday stuff with a complicated structure that would reward close-reads. So yeah, there might be an issue that’s about Clint trying to buy tape, but it’s going to start with a car chase, cut back two days, then cut forward again, and on and on. And he would have a kind of mentee/partner in a young girl named Kate. It’s a double act.

So then I wrote the first issue. And I sent it in, and my editor said what I felt and suspected: “This is a second issue.” And he was right. It was as much about Kate as Clint, and it’s Clint’s book, so back to the drawing board.

Then I wrote what became issue 1. So, psychically, the order of Hawkeye to me goes 4, 5, 2, 1. Physically, in terms of what was actually typed and invoiced, Hawkeye was 2, 1, then 4 and 5—because those were for a guest artist—then 3, then 6. It can wreck your head if you have more than just that to do, let me tell you.

Art by David Aja

HAWKEYE ISSUE 6

Issue 6 was a breakthrough for a lot of reasons. First off, though, at this point, there were five other issues and they were all written out of order and it was hard for me to keep track of what was happening when and where.

I knew 6 was our December issue, and I always wanted to write a story with Christmas as a backdrop, so I locked in to making it a holiday issue. And I wanted to do a story about Clint wanting to hook up his DVR, but things kept getting in his way. Somehow those two strands tied together in my head.

I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said this job kills your hands and your wrists. Add to that I’m an art school dropout who misses his sketchbooks and I’ve, from the start, always started my comics writing in cheap little notebooks. Partly to get away from typing, partly because I love the feeling of graphite dragging across the page, partly because I’ve thought out and problem-solved in sketchbooks my whole life.

I wish I knew how I made the following intuitive leap, but I think that’s just it—like so much about my writing, Hawkeye especially, is all intuitive. I took pieces of paper and folded them in half. Across the top, I wrote the issue number and title. Down the left, I numbered 1 through 20 to represent each of the twenty pages of the first five issues, and then I wrote in a short sentence or phrase about what happened on each of those pages. I needed to, at a glance, be able to see how I was pacing things. And if I want to check, oh, how many pages that fight scene was on page 3, I could just consult my mockups and move on. I could just carry them around in the back of the notebook, lay ’em all out in front of me, and see six months at once. Perfect.

For whatever reason, I have continued to write like this for Hawkeye. I’ll lay out the last few issues and the next few issues, even if all I have is the cover idea and title (if I’ve got the title I have a vague sense of what the story will be), and look at how they all flow in and out of one another. Here’s the mockup for issue 6.

I randomly gave myself six days to tell this story in. (There’s a DJ Shadow track called “Six Days” that director Wong Kar Wai shot a video for, and I like the song and the video and I like the sound of “six days” as an increment of time. It comes up in my work a lot I’ve noticed.) Now, at some point in the writing, I realized everybody in the real world has to endure the holidays together, so I thought, “Great, we’ll find out what day our book comes out and make that the day the book starts on, and then bip and bop around the real days of the month.” But at that point, it had started on a Thursday or whatever, so I had to rework it all, and I kept getting confused.

As I pecked through the list, things got complicated. Look in those margins and you can see me losing the real time aspect of it, the actual days and how they all fit. So I had to get linear for my own sanity, if nothing else.

Here’s me boiling down the six days just so I could keep track—but once you tie a comic down like that with a nonlinear chronology, suddenly this all gets important. Well, was the fight at night? Okay, so then the next morning he has to be here, and beat up. But if … well, wait, he needs to be there, too. So maybe the fight was really the night previous, like, at 12:01 a.m., and it’s really been closer to forty-eight hours since, and…

Anyway, it was weirdly algebraic. You’ll see, in the script, how I added time even to help David and Matt Hollingsworth, our genius colorist, in their staging.

With my little half-sheet done, it was time for me to write my take on Marvel Style for David.

My Marvel Style scripts are really, if I’m being honest, about 15 percent less full than a typical full script. There’s dialogue sometimes. And if there’s, say, six little paragraphs on a page, you can tell how many panels a page I’m thinking about. But it’s as Marvel Style as I get. It works for us, though. For example, using the page as a kind of Advent calendar—to use an Advent calendar as a design device, came entirely from David. As I said—I trust in him to be as invested in storytelling as I am, and he produces things I’d never think of, let alone know how to explain in a script for someone to draw.

Notes for Haweye #6

ART PROCESS From my script, David produces thumbnails—and they are the most laborious thumbnails you can imagine. All of David’s heavy lifting is done here. These things are tiny little bursts of science. Not that his mark making isn’t important, but his thinking is paramount to all of it and you can see it all in the layouts. It’s his half-sheet, if you will. Hardest work goes there.

Art by David Aja

So I take the layouts and do a dialogue pass the best I can. Scenes can grow or change or transmute from what I’d written, or I can give notes and add things or take away. It’s great—as long as I can tell what’s happening, I mean. Which isn’t always.

So then David enlarges the pages with his own dummy lettering pass. By “dummy lettering pass,” I mean he actually letters the book roughly, but completely, so I can see where things need trimming and he can see how the words work in the frame. He sends this back and I tighten up my script accordingly.

Once David’s art gets the editorial okay from editor Steve Wacker, it goes back to David and colorist Matt Hollingsworth who have been, in the background, talking about the color schema for the issue. In a book where time shifts so hard and weird, color is one of the primary keys to helping orient the reader. Our readers are smart; they always get it. A big part of the why is Matt, doing subtle, almost invisible little things to keep you going with us. I could talk about this more at length, but it’s not my place to; let me just say, there is tremendous storytelling happening with our book’s colors.

Art by David Aja

Then I adjust the lettering until poor Chris Eliopoulos (letterer on Hawkeye) wants to murder me and the book has to be sent to press. Wait two weeks and, voilà!

We must be doing something right.

Hawkeye script by Matt Fraction, art by David Aja

Hawkeye script by Matt Fraction, art by David Aja

HAWKEYE - The Fraction & Aja Creative Process

Words for Pictures - The Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels (2014)

[brumeraven]

🦋: Tombstone Keys || dolls, commoditization, abandonment, conformity, mutilation, transformations, violence, gods?, angels?, curious to know if anyone gets the title since it's fairly obscure and opaque

It's funny, isn't it? What is and isn't fashionable. Changes with the weather sometimes, others times things stick like glue.

There aren't many dolls left anymore. Not much use for them since the gig economy took over.

The doll aesthetic, though?

So hot right now.

Can't go a minute in a sleepy village without seeing a girl with porcelain mask or clockwork gloves or something else "dollcore."

Sometimes a literal doll core, showing oh-so-coyly from a provocatively low neckline, elegant crystal facets nestled in between so much garish flesh.

I grimaced as just such a number went mincing by, sundress all embroidered with primroses, hair coiffed and topped with a canted, raffish arrangement neither quite fascinator nor derby hat. All that kept it from being chintzy was the price tag with more zeros than class.

It might have been a convincing display, if not for her airs.

While a doll might once have been bedecked so by its owner, any would have done all it could to avoid notice, even in such an getup. Certainly, none would have walked with so much...heaving and jiggling of flesh.

I brushed the thoughts away as I followed the girl down the street. There is, of course, no accounting for taste, and yet that saying is so rarely afforded to the more daring of us, those who actually broke norms.

Like it or not, dolls were "in." Or at least their aesthetic was.

Only problem is they weren't made anymore. Hadn't been for decades. On the other hand, given the number produced, it was easy to find old stock to break down for parts.

First, it was just the broken and worthless, of course, but then, well, fashion demands nothing but the best.

Flesh might decay, but dolls never did.

The thought brought with it bitter awareness of the once-taught skin that now sagged and slumped tiredly about my face.

Dolls just...went on existing, no matter what changed, untouched by the passing of the years.

Buyers started scouting estate sales and secondhand stores, desperate to find anywhere a well-maintained family heirloom might have been carelessly tossed out, hungry for the payday such a find could bring, like so many vultures...no, vultures ate carrion; these were predators.

Then, of course, the market caught on, as it always does, and deals became rare as the pickings became slim. There's only so long you can drain an irreplaceable resource before prices skyrocket.

The cheap knock-offs from overseas were simply no match for the real, vintage item.

This girl, well, she clearly had the means to afford it. The parts she wore were pristine, or had been before they'd been scalped. My fingers clenched, not as smoothly as they once had, true, but still with a force than belied their gnarled form.

It was revolting. Sacrilegious. Dolls had been marvels of engineering, masterpieces of ingenuity. Beautiful, yes, but not for porcelain shells and glittering cores. Beautiful because they were a thing made for a purpose, made to last, effective and graceful no matter the task.

The beauty lay in how they'd been made with such care by human hands, the ineffable meeting of the mundane and the sacred.

No, not the mundane...for dolls were not mortal, purposeless things, cursed with free-will and the capacity for sin. Dolls were created, yes, but divine.

Dolls were as angels, wheeled, mechanical things of inerrant purpose and inscrutable construction.

Angels on whom God had turned His back.

Angels now cast from heaven for the sin of having shining wings that pleased the eye, no matter they'd once been used to fly.

She turned to face me, eye vacant, smile vacuous, devoid of everything but life.

I shut my eyes, trying to forgive her sins. It had been her hunger that destroyed, if not her hands.

I didn't fear death as she did. Nonexistence was simply that. This fate, though, how much worse?

That a thing once given purpose might be hacked apart and used as but aesthetic trappings?

I could think of no worse fate.

A pity I couldn't inflict it on her. She'd been made for no reason but a grunting, sweaty collision of flesh, some tepid spurts of what passed for passion.

If anything, well, I'd done her a favor.

The thought amused me as I made the switch, peeled the near-putrid skin off my frame and replaced it with her face and hands.

Some creators found meaning in their creations, whether they wanted to or not.

~🦋

[allegraforchrist]

Can I enjoy movies, tv shows and certain characters while living for Christ?

I’ve been thinking about this since Saturday evening. I was watching the first two Deadpool movies, and just saw Deadpool and Wolverine yesterday, and something in my Spirit became upset. Even though I like Marvel, and I appreciate the comedy and action of Deadpool, it doesn’t mean I agree with his character and his morals. I don’t appreciate his profanity, or using God’s name in vain, and most of the grotesque sexual undertones of his jokes. Even though I like his character and storyline, I don’t like him. I don’t deny I am a fan of the films because it’s a break from what the Marvel universe is, but I try not to idolize him over my love for God. I appreciate the creativity of his character, and even the effort put into the franchise by the directors, producers and writers, but it shouldn’t desensitize me from the reality that it’s still vulgar and profane.

I like Deadpool, but I don’t like Deadpool. If you understand what I mean.

I found that, even though you may like something, you must not like it more than the Holy Spirit’s discipline. You can appreciate something, without agreeing with it. You can watch things by your own volition, but don’t watch it if it desensitizes your Spirit and obedience to God. Remember your eyes are the lamp into your Spirit, this goes for your ears as well.

I also want to make mention that a lot of Christians watched the Deadpool and Wolverine movie and said it blasphemes against Christ. Kind reminder that, Deadpool on multiple occasions has used God’s name in vain, so if you didn’t pick it up then that he has little regard to respecting Christ and God, you’re taking offense - at first- in the wrong film. Second, when he referred to himself as “Marvel Jesus”, I was uncomfortable too at first, but then I realized that while it may come across as a joke, the writer’s inadvertently admitted that only Jesus has the power to save anyone, and this case, Wade Wilson needed that kind of power to save his universe and the people he loved. So by my understanding it wasn’t an offense meant to be taken, it was an off-putting compliment essentially. Next, Wolverine wasn’t crucified the way Christ was, he was nailed to an X as a form of torture to the defeat of the X-men in the Apocalyptic time, with the sea of skulls being the millions of deaths of people and mutants. Christ saved us, by punishment and humiliation. Wolverine was tortured because he couldn’t save anyone.

I’m not making excuses as a Christian, I saw these images at first and also took offense, even anxiety, towards them. But once I let myself calm down and actually evaluate the intention and purpose of those images, I realized that I’m taking offense to the wrong things. As Christians, we are so eager and busy to defend Christ, and even get angry toward persons and things that do blaspheme Christ, that we misdirect the same offense towards other things that we completely miss the true message or intention of. We live in an insensitive sinful world, that’s sensitive to the Holy things of God. If we can practice catching ourselves out, as quickly as we are to catch others out in their wrong, I think we’d be a lot more disciplined and obedient to God. But we’re not. That’s why we need God and His son to guide us. To teach us. To call us out on our poor offenses against the Holy Spirit. To make the tough choices and reflections on what we desire and enjoy. Yes, we have a choice everyday, to live and Glorify God, and to do what we like. But it doesn’t work that way, you can’t drink from the cup of demons and the cup of Christ. You can’t say you love God but then hate people when they make characters or movies swear against Him. You can’t love God and be eager to love the world and its temporary pleasures. You can’t love God and hate correction. You can’t love God and ignore only the minor things that build you closer to Him, or tear you away from Him.

I can feel in my Spirit, yes I do like Deadpool but I know I can’t love it and physically I can’t because there’s just as much sin in it as there is entertainment in it. Just like Spider-man, I like Spider-man, but I can’t love it more than I love God. More than I love Jesus. And I need to honor that because my life and love is for God, and God only. I can’t compromise my purpose in God, for my pleasure in the creative.

[felassan]

David Gaider on Twitter: "Going through my old DAI files and came across the original plan for a playable post-credits Epilogue... which, due to time constraints, eventually got down-scaled to the post-credits cutscene you saw on release. A lot of the meat here was, I believe, resurrected for Trespasser." [source] "At the time, I was pushing hard for an actual denouement - as opposed to always ending the story so abruptly after the climax. Considering how few players ever get that far, I suppose I can see the argument that it's not exactly a great place to focus resources. I did like where the cutscene ended up, mind you. A nice, Marvel-esque stinger that hinted at story to come. Took the sting out of having yet another story plan go awry... which is simply par for the course for game dev. Writing can always imagine more than we can produce. ;) And in case anyone wonders: no actual work was done on that playable section prior to the cut. You can imagine it being this fully-fleshed out, glorious thing, if you like... but it could just as easily have been half-baked and terrible. The team was fully stretched as it was." [source, two, three]

Some further info from follow-up tweets -

User: "It's a bummer, though I understand the logic. A proper end to cap off the experience can make or break your enjoyment of the full game though, imo" DG: "That was indeed my argument. There's a point where we have to draw the line and finish the story, however, and I'm afraid the original plan was... mmm a mite too big. This was far from the only cut."

User: "WAIT. Am I reading this right… Solas drains Flemeth and then COMMANDS the Well of Sorrows drinker to kill Flemeth?" DG: "I think it was Flemeth who commanded it. I'd have to look through the whole document. It's complicated. Part of why it was eventually cut, probably."

User: "Hold on. We were to kill Flemeth on Flemeth’s command to, possibly, prevent Solas from taking everything? Was passing whatever energy she did to the Eluvian her way of preparing for survival ?" DG: "I don't think it was going to be explained any more than it was in the cutscene you got, tbh."

User: "My WoS Lavellan is SCREAMING rn god please help her in the next game" DG: "Keep in mind that none of this *actually* happened. ;)"

User: "Interesting to see this was envisioned as having adversarial encounters between Solas & Flemeth with the well-drinker being ping-pawned between them. I noticed the Inquisitor lurking off-camera in that cutscene and wondered if they were originally meant to be part of it." DG: "Heh. I'm pretty sure the Inquisitor being placed there in the actual cutscene's level was because a player had to be present *somewhere*. Might be wrong, though." John Epler: "the way the cinematics worked, if you had them firing too far from the player character the engine would try to optimize and cutscenes would start jittering" DG: "Yeah, I thought it was something like that! Thanks, John."

User: "Does this have any link to the fact that there are dialogue audios of Morrigan reacting to solas “absorbing” Mythal in the game files?" DG: "Possibly? I finished writing the epilogue, so it's possible some of it got recorded prior to the cut."

User: "So Morrigan would've finally gotten to kill Flemeth herself, and nobody had to turn into a dragon this time? Also, this clears up what even happened to Flemeth at the end. She's definitely dead. Presumably, the spirit or essence of Mythal and possibly Urthemiel are inside Solas?" User 2: "does it? it can be theorized that flemeth commands the inquisitor/morrigan to kill her so solas wouldn't be able to take all her essence. regardless, in the ending we did get it's not entirely clear what happened. but i doubt she's truly gone. she cheated death before." DG: "And remember that what this stuff points at never actually happened. Whatever becomes of Flemeth in the future is up to the current writing team, and is based only on the cutscene you saw."

Summerfall Studios: "Our creative director davidgaider shares some insight into how Dragon Age: Inquisition's epilogue evolved over production" DG: "You want "evolved over production"? *cracks knuckles* Lemme tell you how we cut Corypheus attacking Skyhold. Now *that's* evolution."

[yesbutmakeitgay]

Worth The Risk

GIF by oliveoomph

Carol Danvers x Reader

We’ve Loved A Thousand Lives

Same beginning, different story every time.

Part 12

Fluff.

Beta'd by @cordeliasdarling 💜

Word count: 817

Masterlist | This collection | AO3

Captain Marvel walks crestfallen back to her ship after an unsuccessful mission. She becomes alarmed when she notices the ship's door open before she can command it, until she sees you on the gate's panel. She steps into her home, vanquished.

"Good mission?" you ask, already knowing the answer.

"No," Carol's tone is dry, once she fully enters the ship you close the door, "how long have you been here?" she questions while taking her boots off and angrily throwing them to the side.

"A few hours, heard you were struggling, so I was sent as backup."

She stops in the middle of unzipping her suit, "And?" There's a mixture of expectation and disbelief in her voice.

"I decided it would be more entertaining to let you fail and then help you regroup in the morning," you grin.

"You watched me get my ass kicked and did nothing?"

"I didn't do nothing, I took notes on what not to do."

She rolls her eyes, "You're the worst."

"It's just your luck I was the only available agent," you shrug.

"Whatever." She pushes past you.

You turn around to face her again, "By all means, continue to undress in front of me."

"Enjoying the show?"

"You know I am, Captain." A smirk forms on your face as you grab her by the waist and place a chaste kiss on her lips, "Are you okay?" you whisper when you pull back.

She feigns offense, "Now you care?"

"I always care." You kiss her again, a little hungrier this time.

"So much that you just sat there and watched me get my ass handed to me." She tries and fails to appear angry.

"It's not often I get the opportunity to tease you, I had to take it, don’t be a sore loser."

"I am literally a sore loser right now," she giggles.

"You're my sore loser." You lean in again, she deepens the kiss and you squeeze her hip in response causing her to wince in pain. "Ah, shit, sorry."

"You're okay," she reassures you.

"But you're not, let me fix you up."

"Later," she mumbles into your lips as she pulls you back in. You continue to make out for a while in an attempt to make up for all the time you spend apart and when the pain becomes too uncomfortable to bear, she allows you to take her to the couch to patch her up like you've done so many times before.

"How've you been, other than a sore loser?" you ask as you clean some blood off her shoulder.

"I’ve been okay, lonely, but I can manage, you?"

"Same, except I have to deal with idiots all day." You place the first aid kit on the coffee table once you’re satisfied with your work.

"So the moment you to got out of there, you came here to be an idiot yourself."

You try your best to look insulted, "Excuse you?"

"I could have been seriously injured, or taken, or killed!"

"You know I would have stepped in if I thought you were in any real danger, right?" you reply in a softer voice.

"If you had stepped in we would be on our way home now, relaxing, celebrating, maybe with a bubble bath, candles, and rose petals, but you went and acted like an idiot." Her tone is taunting, she knows exactly how to play you.

You look around intrigued, "You have rose pedals here?"

"I have a stash for emergencies." She brushes it off like it’s nothing.

"What kind of emergencies require a stash of rose pedals?" A feeling of jealousy starts to bubble inside you.

"When I call for back up and it's you, and you do your job properly." You drop your playfully insulted ruse and gasp in real indignation.

"That is rich, Danvers!" She gives you a big smile signifying she’s winning this battle, but before you give up, you pull out your big guns, "I have something to celebrate," she responds with a skeptical look as you reach into your pocket and produce a folded up piece of paper, "I’ve been pestering Fury again," you say as you hand it to her. Carol takes it and skims it over becoming speechless, "It's official, we're mission partners, indefinitely." There's a pleased look on your face, if you were still playing, you would say you won the fight, but this is more than that.

Carol’s eyes begin to swell with tears, "I can't believe it, thank you," she chokes.

"It's my pleasure, angel, I love you." You lean in to plant a soft kiss on her lips.

"I love you more," she pulls away completely, "but we still can't celebrate until we deal with the mess you let happen out there."

"Oh, I’m sure we can make an exception." You push her to lay on the couch and continue to make out again.

Next Carol update will be part 7.5, I promise!

[janesociety]

the interviews

marvel cast x teen!reader

summary: you and the cast have a day full of interviews for Infinity War and you spend the day worried about one in particular

notes: like the other one, kinda cringy and a few years old. also this is based off how i expirience dyslexia and may be different than your experience!

masterlist

✩ ✩ ✩

The whole cast knew you were dyslexic. It was hard to not notice sometimes. It had first been brought up in one of your first Marvel movies a few years ago. It was when you were quite a bit younger and not as good at reading allowed and connecting words to objects.

It was your first read through and you kept mispronouncing “Fury” as “Furry” and were confused as to why the Avengers were fighting a furry. Eventually, Scarlett had leaned over and corrected you. You were embarrassed, but the cast found it endearing, if anything.

It was now time for the Infinity War press tour and you were nervous. You and the cast had just finished up the small LA portion of the tour and were now off to New York for the first full week. The New York portion was always the hardest for you- mostly because of the chaos of it all.

The New York portion was where all the late night show or morning news appearances happened and the “major” interviews such as Buzzfeed and Wired. And there lied your problem.

Your day started bright and early at 6:00 in the morning so that you and the cast could be ready to go on Good Morning America.

“Hey, kid,” Robert said, walking up behind where you were sitting and placing both of his hands on your shoulders. “You ready?”

“For this? Yeah,” you laughed. “Everything else? Not so sure." He shook your shoulders.

"You'll do great, kiddo, I promise," he said, giving each shoulder a squeeze before walking off again into the chaos.

It was only a few more minutes before you and the rest of the cast were sitting down in two rows in facing an interviewer. The crowd of people watching the show clapped as you all walked out and took your seats.

"And we're back in..." a producer held up three fingers, then two, then one, signalling the end of the commercial break.

"Alright, we're back now with our special guests: the cast of Avengers Infinity War!" the interviewer said. "Hello, guys, it's great to see all of you!" There was a chorus of greetings from you all. "Okay, so let's get started...."

The interview went without a hiccup and you and the cast were off to your next set of interviews- which happened to include the ones you were worried about.

Your agent handed you your time table for the interviews you were going to be doing and your heart started to pound. The Buzzfeed interview you had been warned about was on there, first, however, you had to sit through nearly three hours of other interviews. Interviews normally put you on edge, but knowing what was coming after just made it worse.

You found the room that your morning block of interviews was in and sat to wait for the other two people you'd be with. When Sebastian and Anthony walked in, your face lit up, knowing the interview would be 10x less stressful with them there to entertain/distract the interviewers.

And so your long morning started, the three of you bounced off each others energy and jokes. Most of the interviews went well, although there were ones here and there very obviously spoiler fishing.

"I take about what 60% of what he says is true," Sebastian told the interviewer, making you laugh.

"60% of the time, I am right 5% of the time," Anthony said, confusing the interviewer and making you laugh harder.

"What he's saying is that he is only right 5% of the time, over half the time, which is generous, in my opinion," you said upon seeing the confusion on the interviewers face that did not clear up after your comment.

"So, Y/N, we know this movie is a big game changer for Marvel, and people have been wondering what your, as the youngest cast member, future looks like in the MCU?" they asked, trying to move on from the previous conversation.

"I don't even know what my present in the MCU looks like," you answered. "Am I even in this movie? I don't even know- I just show up where they tell me to."

"Same, I don't get scripts until the week after we film the scenes," Sebastian said.

"A week? Damn, I still haven't gotten mine," Anthony laughed.

"I think that's all I have for you guys today," the interviewer said, obviously somewhat disappointed that they couldn't drag any spoilers out of you. "Thank you!" he said, his voice sincere but his expression sarcastic.

Anthony clapped as they left the room, jumping up out of his chair excitedly. "Alright, lunch time," he said, turning to smile at both of you. While you were grateful for the break, it only meant you were closer to the interviews where you had to read on camera.

"Gotta eat something, kid, gotta long day still," Anthony said, watching you stare at your sandwich. You looked up, nodding and then taking a bite. Just focus, you'll be fine.

"You okay?" Sebastian asked from next to Anthony. You forced a weak smile as you finished chewing.

"Just nervous," you answered, wiping your hands on a napkin near you.

"Why? You're great at interviews," Anthony said.

"I have to read in the next few and I'm worried I'll mess it up," you said, playing with the sleeve of your shirt. "I know it's dumb- I just get nervous about it."

"You got nothing to worry about, kid," Sebastian said. "If you mess up, just play it off as a joke- people will love it it'll end up in one of those 'Y/N being the best MCU cast member' compilations."

"Thanks," you said with your mouth full.

"Chew your food," Anthony said, throwing a napkin at you.

~~~

"I'm Tom Holland," Tom said from beside you.

"And I'm Y/N L/N, and we're going to be taking a quiz to see how easily we can identify Marvel movies-" you cut off, waiting for Tom to finish.

"That had been terribly described," he said.

"Alright, first one," you said, pushing your nerves out of your mind. "A boy destroys his planet because he doesn't want to share it with his sister who broke his favorite toy." You read slowly as to not mess up, and it worked.

"Is that the one Guardians of the Galaxy movie?" Tom asked, thinking out loud. You hummed in thought, trying to figure out what it was.

"None of them have sisters though- except for Gamora but it says him," you said.

"It's Thor!" Tom shouted. "Thor: Ragnarok." You smiled, looking back at your computer, realizing you had to type your answer. Great.

"How do you spell Ragnarok?" you asked, raising your eyebrows.

"It's exactly how it sounds," Tom said, already moving on to the next question. You raised an eyebrow at him.

"Tom, I'm dyslexic, I don't know how to sound things out," you said, him going red remembering it.

"R-a-g-n-a-r-o-k," he spelled out for you and you laughed as you typed it.

"'A boy solved daddy issues with the power of friendship'," Tom read. You both looked stumped.

"Tony had daddy issues," you thought out loud. "So does Loki- maybe it's one of the other Thor ones."

"Would they put two Thor ones in a row?" Tom asked.

"Maybe it's to trick us?" you offered. You both shrugged and started typing.

"Ah! This one is Guardians of the Galaxy," Tom groaned.

"'A dude made a wormhole to seek attention'," he read, moving on to the next one.

"I have no clue," you laughed, leaning back in your seat.

"I don't either," he laughed. "Give up?" he asked, cursor hovering over the button. You nodded doing the same.

"Avengers?" you read out, confused. "Did Loki make a wormhole in that or something?"

"Maybe? God, we're such bad Marvel fans," Tom laughed.

"'Small guy who likes committing international war crimes becomes a him- a himbo who still likes committing international war crimes'," you read aloud.

"Ant-Man," you and Tom say at the same time, laughing as you type the answer in.

"What?" you yelled as it the screen reads Wrong!

"Captain America?" Tom asked, confused.

"We were so confident!" you said, smacking the table.

"'Someone just got out of prison commits more crimes, but now with inces- insects'," you read.

"Did you almost say incest?" Tom laughed/yelled. You burst out laughing too, covering your face.

"Oh my god," you wheezed with laughter. "Can we both agree it's Ant-Man?" you asked, both of you still recovering from laughing, the question only sending you into more fits of laughter.

"'A surgeon gets operated on by his ex-girlfriend'," Tom read. "See, I think this one is Dr. Strange, but that's not actually the plot, so I don't know."

"Want to guess it?" you asked. He nodded, both of you typing it in and getting it right.

"'Man had to face his consequences after ignoring a- a weird guy 2- years before, while adopting a kid who owned the garage he broke in?'" you read, not so sure of the ending. "Was that it?"

"Yeah, that's it," Tom nodded, his brows furrowed. "'Garage he broke in,'" he repeated.

"Oh, Iron Man... 2? Maybe 3?" you said.

"I think 2?" Tom said. "Let's go with that.

"Goddammit, 3!" you groaned.

"Okay, last one," Tom said. "'An orphan fought his teammate (who tired to run away because he hated the American government) with his best friend who murdered the orphan's parents when he was younger.'"

"Okay, I'm almost positive this is Civil War, but we've gotten a lot wrong that I've been sure of, so I don't know," you laughed.

"I think it's Civil War- orphan Tony, teammate Steve, killer Bucky," Tom said, explaining his thought process.

"Alright..." you said typing it in.

"Yep!" Tom yelled but you looked up at him confused.

"I got it wrong?" you said, showing him your laptop. He read what you typed and tried to hide his laughter.

"Y/N.... it's c-i-v-i-l, not c-i-v-a-l," he said chuckling. You turned a bit red and glared at him.

"I hate you," you mumbled, closing your laptop and rolling your eyes.

"We're terrible Marvel Fans," Tom said, looking at his 38% and your 25%.

"Wanna go binge watch every single movie now and redeem ourselves?" you joked. He smiled.

"Sure why not," he chuckled.

[lokiondisneyplus]

The good news is that Loki has been able to find some familiar faces at the Time Variance Authority — and they recognize him, too! The bad news? He can’t stay in one place for very long because his entire body is constantly being sucked through time and space across The Multiverse due to a pretty painful-looking phenomenon called “Time Slipping.” Didn’t think it could happen in the walls of the TVA? Well, think again, because it’s happening to Loki.

The second season of Marvel Studios’ Loki kicks off with the God of Mischief trying to get a grip, literally, on the timeline as he struggles to stay in one place long enough to have an actual conversation with Mobius. Unfortunately, because Loki has been thrust across The Multiverse timelines repeatedly, he keeps popping in and out of places, both past, present, and future as he races to not only steady himself but also keep the TVA from imploding from an overloading Temporal Loom, too. Just another day at the office, huh?

“Loki is having a problem which is that he’s in space, but he’s not rooted in time. He’s essentially glitching and being involuntarily molecularly disassembled between different points,” Returning star Tom Hiddleston explains. “It’s incredibly disorienting because he doesn’t know where he is or which time he’s in and it becomes like a mystery or a riddle that he’s got to solve. Why is this happening to me?”

Essentially, as Hiddleston jokes, Loki’s “had a really, really bad day and the day is getting worse.”

Though it looks scary on-screen, don’t worry, Hiddleston isn’t really getting torn apart molecule by molecule. As he explains, “This is where I’m embarrassed to say that in my limited carpet bag of physical abilities, I can’t in fact Time Slip.” However, the actor did commit to making Time Slipping look as painful as possible for the camera, constantly contorting his body to create uncomfortable situations, at one point considering using actual ropes and cables on wires to move his body in different ways.

“Tom is one of the most, if not the most, dedicated performer I've ever seen” Executive Producer Kevin Wright explains. “It wasn't that it wasn't painful in the script. We knew what, functionally, it was doing in the story. As everybody starts to get in the room, you have to start having those conversations of what is this? How do we see it on screen? What does it become? It kind of came about just through Tom's process.”

Hiddleston got maybe a little too into the process of Time Slipping. “I’ll do different variations of being spun into or spun out or ripped away from or pulled into reality.” He continues. “I’ve found that trying to put my own body under tension is strange to do. Your body doesn’t want to be under stress, it wants to be comfortable but that feeling of as if you’re being twisted out of alignment like a piece of elastic tor tearing and ripping, that’s the hard thing.”

All of this would eventually be sent to VFX to mesh it all together, and as Wright explains, Hiddleston, “Took it upon himself to be like, I want to be every single element in that VFX. So, if he's slipping, it’s the character conceptually being in six different places at once. He wanted to play all six of those performances, and then VFX will stitch them together.”

The countless takes of Time Slipping were worth it, though, because “It gave VFX and sound and everybody stuff to work with, where it's just making it even more gruesome and pulling tendons.” Wright adds. “You have all these elements of vocals, the stretching, bones cracking. We'd turn them up and turn them down, depending on the slip. But it was more about making it a bespoke performance, each one of those slips.”

Hiddleston praises VFX crew working behind-the-scenes on Loki who made the Time Slipping look seamless, removing certain frames, and adding them in a quick succession so it really looks like his body is being ripped apart. “A kind of very intense visual effects sandwich,” he jokes, “I take my hat off to the visual effects team for helping me out because it’s been a more physical [process] than I thought it was going to be.” 

Editor’s note: The following interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, 2023.

[mrs-stans]

Meet the makeup wizard who transformed Sebastian Stan into ‘A Different Man’

By Josh Rottenberg

At the tender age of 5, Mike Marino saw “The Elephant Man” for the first time and his life was forever changed. When David Lynch’s haunting and heartbreaking story of the disfigured John Merrick would air on HBO in the early 1980s, Marino found himself horrified but unable to look away, sparking a fascination with prosthetics that would eventually lead him to becoming one of Hollywood’s top makeup artists.

“I was so afraid of it, but little did I know how beautiful that story was and how much of an imprint it would leave on my brain and soul,” says Marino, 47, who earned consecutive Oscar nominations in 2022 and 2023 for his makeup work on “Coming 2 America” and “The Batman,” the latter starring a totally transformed Colin Farrell. “If it wasn’t for that film, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”

But for actor, TV presenter and disability rights advocate Adam Pearson, Lynch’s film took on a more painful role in his life. Growing up in England with neurofibromatosis type 1, a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on his face, Pearson was often taunted by classmates who cruelly called him “Elephant Man” and other names. As he got older, he saw how movies routinely depicted people with disfigurements as freaks, villains or victims, stripping away their humanity. “There’s an element of laziness to it,” says Pearson, 39. “How do we show this character is evil? Let’s slap a scar on them.”

Now, through a twist of fate, the lives of Marino and Pearson have intersected on a very different project: the darkly funny, mind-bending psychological thriller “A Different Man.” Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the A24 film stars Sebastian Stan as Edward, a shy, disfigured actor working in New York City who undergoes an experimental procedure to transform his appearance, only to find himself losing the role he was born to play — himself — to a cheerful, outgoing man named Oswald with his same facial deformity, played by Pearson. Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) co-stars as a playwright whose latest work brings Edward’s identity crisis to a head.

“A Different Man,” which The Times called “a self-deconstructing meta-pretzel of a dark comedy” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackles complex themes of identity, beauty and disability with a blend of Charlie Kaufman-esque surrealism and David Cronenbergian body horror. Along with Stan’s performance, Marino’s meticulously crafted prosthetics are key to bringing Edward and his inner agonies to life, reflecting the deeper emotional anguish of a man trying to escape his own skin.

“The movie portrays how the shell of who we are should not dictate our spirit and our personality,” Marino says. “I think it’s a very important film, much like ‘The Elephant Man’ was.”

When Schimberg first wrote the script, inspired by his own struggles with a cleft palate and his experience working with Pearson on his 2019 satire “Chained for Life,” he initially had no idea how he would actually pull off the film’s demanding prosthetics work. “I was sort of blissfully ignorant,” says Schimberg. “After Sebastian came aboard, we started cobbling the film together very quickly. It was only about a month before shooting that I realized this film was going to completely fall apart if we didn’t get this right. It was very down to the wire.”

Signing on as an executive producer for the film, Stan asked around about makeup artists in the New York area who could handle such a difficult job under that kind of time pressure. One answer consistently came back: “Literally everyone, hands down, was like, ‘You’ve got to get Marino,’ ” the actor recalls.

Though he was already busy with a job on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Marino, who has done his share of more fantastical creatures, leapt at the challenge of re-creating a real-life disfigurement like Pearson’s. “I’m fascinated with people that have something going on with their skin because it’s just the most interesting, artistic, natural thing,” Marino says. “For me, there’s an amazing beauty to how Adam looks. This was not about a scary face or a monstrous person. I don’t like to do things like that with no soul or purpose.”

Marino’s passion for makeup and prosthetics took root early in life, inspired by industry legends like Dick Smith (“The Exorcist”) and Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London”). Growing up in New York, Marino started honing his skills as a preteen by practicing on his friends with latex, foam and various chemicals, destroying his bedroom rug in the process, to the chagrin of his parents. While still in high school, he mailed his portfolio to Smith and received encouragement and advice by phone from the makeup legend, who won an Oscar in 1985 for “Amadeus” and earned an honorary Academy Award for his life’s work in 2012. “Once he acknowledged me, it was like, OK, this is serious. There was no stopping me.”

After cutting his teeth on “Saturday Night Live” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Marino broke into film with the 2007 psychological thriller “Anamorph” and quickly became known for his versatility, seamlessly switching between fantasy creatures and more subtle, realistic applications. His work on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” amplified the film’s psychological horror, while on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” he enhanced the film’s digital de-aging of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino with carefully crafted prosthetics.

Outside of film, Marino created the Weeknd’s plastic-surgery-gone-wrong look for the singer’s “Save Your Tears” video. “It’s all problems to solve,” Marino says. “There is no playbook.”

Diving into “A Different Man,” Marino used photographs and 3D scans of Pearson’s face, which has undergone some 40 surgeries over the years, as the basis for a multi-piece silicone prosthetic that would work with Stan’s features. “There was no way I could completely replicate Adam’s exact proportions,” he says. “I had to make some aesthetic choices.”

While the makeup work in “The Elephant Man” benefited from that film’s grainy black-and-white cinematography, the prosthetics in “A Different Man” had to withstand more unforgiving scrutiny. To put his Edward face to the test, Stan would walk from Marino’s makeup chair to the set through the streets of New York and crowds of strangers, giving him tremendous insight into how people treat those who look different.

“I went to my old coffee shop and the same barista who’d served me for years couldn’t identify me,” Stan recalls. “I got to really feel people’s reactions in real time. There were people who couldn’t even look at me, other people were staring and sometimes you’d get a bigger reaction, like, ‘Oh s—, it’s the Elephant Man!’ As Adam puts it, you feel like public property.”

Pearson, who shares his character’s sunny gregariousness, encouraged Stan to think about it like he does with his own experience as a movie star. “I was like, ‘You don’t know the level of invasion I get with people pointing, staring and taking photos, but you do understand a very similar thing from this angle, so lean into that heavily,’ ” he says. “ ‘And if it makes you uncomfortable, lean into it further.’ ”

While wearing the prosthetics, Stan could only see out of one eye and had limited hearing in one ear, challenges that helped further inform his performance as a man who has learned to shy away from potential threats and insults. “Edward is a character that has had to endure a lot of emotional abuse and probably some physical abuse, so he is probably always on his left foot a little bit in case something happens,” Stan says.

As Edward’s face changes following his radical treatment, Marino made additional prosthetics showing the transition, including an “extremely soft, mushy version” that, in a particularly Cronenbergian scene, Stan could pull off in chunks.

Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot in “The Batman,” work for which Marino was Oscar-nominated. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Marino’s talent for transforming stars is on full display in Farrell’s hulking, thuggish look as the Penguin in 2022’s “The Batman” and the new HBO spinoff series. “When Colin saw the sculpture I made, ideas started exploding,” Marino says. “Once we did a makeup test, it was magical — he knew how to speak, how to walk and he was already the guy.”

Marino, who is preparing to make his directorial debut based on a script he wrote set in the 1980s (“It’s deliberately not effects-heavy,” he hints), has lost none of his passion for the transformative power of latex and silicone since the days he was obsessively poring through issues of Cinefex magazine as a teenager. “If you think of Michelangelo showing beauty 500 years ago in painting and sculpture, I’m still showing that same beauty but in this new hyper-realistic way, in silicone,” says Marino, who named his makeup effects studio Prosthetic Renaissance. “It’s a very unique art. It’s like moving sculptures and paintings all at once.”

As for Pearson, if he were offered an experimental treatment to change his face, like in “A Different Man,” he says he wouldn’t take it. Despite the challenges it has brought him, Pearson believes his face has shaped the life he leads today.

“I joke with my friends that my disability does a lot of heavy lifting for my appalling personality,” he says with a laugh. “Everyone thinks it’s hard to go from non-disabled to disabled but I think the other way around would be even harder. The path we walk and the struggles we go through make us who we are and they’re inseparable from one another.”

[paintbrushnebula]

Intermission (2/?)

(1/?)

Gwen’s eyes searched for Miles only for a second, and found him at the center of the room.

She gasped.

Wherever Miles went, he carried the lucid, prismic visage and bold colors of his universe with him, like he himself was a proud monument to where he came from for all to see. A brand new ocean of color erupted from his form and stained her walls with yellow that bled out like streams into the surrounding hues, creating marigold at the ends of the yellow streams. With Miles at the very center of it all, his mahogany complexion glowing from within the golden psychedelia his presence in her world produced, it looked like sunflowers.

A bouquet of sunflowers just for her. The sight had an insatiable hold on Gwen’s gaze and wouldn't let go. Not that she was pleading for it to.

Miles was marveling at the visage of Gwen’s world, his hands clutching at his temples as his breathing shallowed (Gwen was genuinely worried he might start hyperventilating), his legs going on autopilot as he took slow, hypnotic steps to explore the room, like it was the greatest art museum he'd ever been brought to.

Then Miles’ eyes found Gwen.

Now it was Miles’ turn to gasp, his hands falling from his head to go palms up like someone surrendering as he stepped away from Gwen in absolute awe. His eyes sparkled in captivated wonder as they danced up and down Gwen’s entire form, which she just remembered must’ve been enveloped from head to toe in lush, pastel flecks, as if painted on her by an artist from a higher, divine plane.

Time seemed to stop for both of them as they finally locked eyes. Miles’ full lips grew into a smile so wide the fat of his cheeks squished up into his teary eyes causing them to squint in disbelief at the saccharine visual splendor that was happening all around them.

Gwen’s lips formed a wobbly smile that broke into a still almost-quiver, her widening eyes stinging with unshed tears as she swallowed the lump in her throat. Miles had Gwen's world spinning like a ballerina in a music box dancing to the most otherworldly psychedelic music.

The pair’s shared unrelenting state of wonderment at the other had come to a screeching halt when Miles’ eyes finally fell onto the demolition that surrounded their feet. “Oh my God, did someone break into your house?!”

Gwen was touched by her dad’s haste to quit, but she really wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t prioritized it over tidying up after her departure.

Gwen waved it off. “Eh, opening a portal indoors can leave a pretty big mess behind. This was the second one today.” She sucked her teeth in self-reproach. “Shoulda opened it on the rooftop. I’m a—” Gwen tapped her finger to her temple “—forgetful spider, Miles." She trotted nonchalantly over the wreckage to her bedroom door, her excitement at seeing her room again growing with each step. Her lips were starting to curl into an unexpected smile.

It was left slightly ajar, just enough to see inside. Enough for Gwen’s eyes to immediately spot a few posters, some favored tops hanging in her dresser, and other cherished possessions that the mere sight of them again had nostalgia blossoming in her heart. After a brief hesitation, Gwen gingerly swept the door open, her palm remaining on its cracked surface a few seconds more before departing.

Her steady eyes wandered the walls of the room she grew up in, traces of her childhood days on full display like it was an exhibit on the life of Gwen Stacy.

Gwen’s hand hovered over everything that was near where she walked, ready to touch, feel and hold anything that gave her a strong recollection.

Her hand eventually landed on sheets of music layed out on her vanity. She picked up the one sitting on top and brought it to her eyes. MJ had begged Gwen for months to offer up her own songwriting talents for the band. All because her songbook just had to be left out in the open on her vanity unattended when MJ dropped by to lend her a studded blazer. And MJ just had to be completely blown away by Gwen’s work. And Gwen just had to be an insanely talented (and wildly closeted) songwriter. The song now sat there unfinished, collecting dust. Just one of many forgotten, unfulfilled promises she’d made to others.

The Mary Janes. It felt like Gwen's heart had just been stung by a bee at the mere thought of them, guilt and shame spiking within her. Just thinking about their last encounter–the afternoon before Gwen was practically banished from her dimension–it made her queasy. Now, she wanted to go back. Turn back the time and let them in. Let herself lean into their support. Friends that could've happened.

Connections that could’ve been made. Connections that could have kept her from being alone and isolated for nearly two years. And she turned her nose up at all of it.

Gwen remembered how she would always brood over how much she hated her life, how she wanted to leave it all behind the moment she hit 18. She’d grab her cassettes, her guitar, a knapsack, and just jump into some rundown van with those flaming rainbows painted on the sides, and head south. Make her living playing music to quirky, like-minded locals in Virginian hamlets.

Now, Gwen longed for all that was still here, in her possession.

[thatonebirdwrites]

Happy Birthday Korra!!

I drew this by hand and used ink and markers to do so. I then took a picture and used a deepening filter.

I included the line drawing for others to paint if they want.

Important things to remember about this series:

Korra is definitely one of my favorite characters of all time. She has marvelous complexity and nuance with her character development. The way she fights to overcome her hardships, heal from her PTSD, and learn healthier ways of coping really spoke to me deeply. Despite the show's many flaws, the depth and care showed in every scene.

At the time the show aired, the creators fought against intense censorship. They had plans from the beginning to make Korra and Asami Sato bisexual. This is why Asami is flirting so heavily with Korra in Season 1, and Korra is flustered by it. When the creators fought for more seasons, they weren't sure they'd get them, so they tried to set up Season 1 as if it was a standalone. However, when they got the news they'd get the seasons they wanted, they needed to undo the Mako and Korra relationship so they could set up Korrasami. This is why Season 2 shows how Mako and Korra don't work and are better off as friends.

Season 3 is my favorite season, and in it, Asami and Korra are almost constantly together. It's what I call the Asami-seducing-Korra season. There are so many gay moments between those girls. (There's always gay moments between them, but it was getting more frequent.) Of course, Korra only writes Asami during her healing period, while Asami, in turn, writes her weekly or bi-weekly at least.

A lot of the laying the foundation for Korrasami had to be set up indirectly. Each scene of them together was a fight against censorship. Nickelodeon (or as I call them Nickopoopeon) hated Korra and kept cutting their funds. In fact the last few seasons weren't even aired on television. It was online only (Season 4 in particular). The fact we got four seasons at all is due to the creators and the producers who loved Korra and fought to keep the show alive.

There was supposed to be more Korrasami scenes in Season 4, but again, censorship blocked the creators from airing it. They fought tooth and nail to have Korra and Asami stand in the spirit portal, holding hands and mirroring the stances of the married couple. Then once the show was over, the creators made an announcement that Korrasami is canon.

The comics then show them building a healthy relationship together. The two work so well as a romantic couple, and are absolutely adorable. They are the first fanfiction I ever wrote.

Anyway, for folks just starting to watch the show now, it may seem like queer bait, but it's really not. Korrasami was endgame, they managed to get it in there despite intense censorship.

Because of Korrasami, other queer couples got more screentime. Korrasami helped pave the way.

So this post is in honor of that legacy. Happy Birthday Korra. You deserve the world. <3

[sweetmariihs2]

Today I found and bought two new Sofia The First magazines in a magazine stand, in a town next to mine. (That's what the post is about) 🪻✨️💗

I live in a small town, I came to the neighboring city (a slightly bigger one; where there is a cinema, adequate medical care and clinics, things that are scarce in my town and everyone comes here when they need one of these things) to do an eyesight exam, because recebtly I've been feeling my vision getting worse. Going to the clinic, I found a magazine stand on the other street, and I asked my family (who were with me) if they could accompany me there later. I did the exam, and I'm still under the influence of the eye drops, so it's been torture to write this text, but I need to tell you what I found. You won't believe it: TWO DIFFERENT EDITIONS OF SOFIA THE FIRST MAGAZINES! THOSE THAT ARE NO LONGER PRODUCED! IN FACT, SEVERAL COPIES OF THEM! There were like, 7 magazines from the same edition, perfectly new, never touched, ON THE FLOOR. (And no, I'm not from Rio De Janeiro, there are a lot of sidewalks with this pattern here in Brazil)

A while ago, I think it was in January, I was wondering if I should also go to this city and look for Sofia The First merch, because in my small town I've already looked at all the stores and there's nothing left to see here (how many, about 4 ? 5? Yes, it really is a small city, I know all these places and you can visit them all in 1 or 2 hours at most, walking down the street, without a car). I found some stickers and birthday invitations, I posted them a while ago, I used them for journaling in my sketchbook.

(@shychick-52 do you see the Donald Duck magazines there?? When I saw them I immediately thought about you, they're on the bottom left of the pic and there's more in the top right. Pato Donald is Donald Duck, Tio Patinhas is Scrooge McDuck's name in Brazil. I don't know a thing about Ducktales, I'm sorry!)

I literally gasped. I was just going there for fun, as I like books, magazines and vintage products like records and CDs, so I really like physical media. Those places full of trinkets are extremely fun for me, and whenever I have the opportunity I like to look at everything, down to the smallest details. I love music and vinyl stores, stationery stores, party stores, haberdashery, so a magazine stand sounds amazing to me too! I hadn't been to one in years! (I never went thrifting in my life. It would be an amazing day to spend an evening)

There weren't only Sofia The First ones, you see, these kinds of magazines aren't produced anymore since kids don't have any interest in them. So most of the children's magazines there were dated around 2012-2016! You don't even have to look for the dates to know that, the Strawberry Shortcake ones, Frozen (FROZEN, DUDE! FROZEN!!!) (In one of my STF magazines there's even an ad of these Frozen magazines, they were produced during the same time), there were Disney Junior ones (If you look closely you can see the Lion Guard cover on that pic where I show you the pile of STF magazines, it's on top of them), Disney Princess, EVEN MONSTER HIGH. I didn't took a pic of this one, but as far as I know, you don't find these anywhere anymore. I felt like going back to 2015, when I was a kid those activity magazines and visiting the magazine stands were extremely fun, the themes on the children's magazines were exactly these, I remember the sticker albums, so many good memories. It makes sense, since they're the same ones, but they were never sold.

Besides the children magazines, they sell mangas, magazines, books, word search and activity books, cooking books, comic books/magazines (superhero themed or not- DC comics, Marvel, but also Disney and national works, for example our beloved Turma Da Mônica), and even toys and stuff.

So I figured maybe I'd find silly things here too, it's a bigger town but after all it's still small, it's just 40 mins away from mine, maybe I could find little birthday hats that I can cut out? Gift bags? Maybe stickers and coloring kits, silly things. Of course, knowing about the magazine stands there, something that my hometown NO LONGER has, inside of me had a small amount of hope that I could find something, but not much, as I live in the rural/interior part of Brazil and many products are bootleg, you know those princess books with wonky faces written "princess coloring book"? Stuff like that. But there was still a shred of hope, despite knowing that there probably wouldn't be anything interesting. I just went there because I have fun searching for little things.

AND WHEN I GOT THERE.... THE MAGAZINES WERE JUST THERE. AT THE ENTRANCE. ON THE ?!?!?!?!? FLOOR?!??!??! (You can see the pic up there) ON THE DIRTY SIDEWALK FULL OF DIRT AND DUST AND ALL KINDS OF NASTY THINGS?!??! HELL NAH

It was like they were just waiting for me to get them, they were the first things that I saw. I KNEW THAT I WOULD FIND SOMETHING. In fact, as I always hope to find cool things in these stores I frequent, I always expect something. I'm usually disappointed, but I always try to find it. AND THIS TIME I FOUND IT. NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT LIKE A DOZEN of STF magazines from the same edition, still packaged AND WITH THE GIFT. ALL OF THEM.

As my parents had work to do in our town and needed to return, I had to look at everything quickly. Luckily the magazine stand was small, so I was able to look at a few things, and while the attendant (who seemed bored (thankfully, the fact that she was very slow gave me time to look a little more)) served other customers (she was slow with them too, which gave me more time thank god), I continued looking at all sides of the stand, observing every small detail to look for treasures. If there were several copies of an issue of Sofia The First magazine still packed there, then there must have been more, hidden behind that enormous amount of information. I didn't had enough time because my parents needed to go back home, but I wish I could have saw the content from the Disney Junior magazines. I opened it and looked through the pages, only the last two pages were about Sofia The First, but I still had a lot to look so I put it back and went to search for more.

That's the one I got, the edition I mentioned

12 brazillian reais are worth around 2,50 dollars. For us, in talks about value, it would be like- 5 dollars? Not too cheap like literal 2 dollars, it's like, a cheap price, but not that much. For us, I mean. I don't know if you get what I mean, my explanation was terrible

Before, as we were late for the exam and the whole family was going (we all went to take the exam) I only took with me my cellphone and headphones, I didn't bring my money or even a purse or a backpack. My father bought me the magazine, I got so happy. Actually, he just let me have it and gave me the money, so I went to the attendant. The magazines had an elastic band around to secure them, as you can see in the pic, and I took them to the girl and asked for her help to get one out. As I'm used to being very friendly, and I was very happy, I approached the girl, asked for her help, and as she got them out of the elastic band, I kept talking "I can't believe I found this!! They are no longer produced, they are rare items, and I'm collecting them! I didn't think I would find anything like this here, it definitely made my day." I noticed that the attendant wasn't very friendly back, in fact she was very quiet and seemed a little bored, but I didn't care, I was too happy to worry about judgement looks from people I don't know, at least I was friendly and I did my part. My young brother later told me that when I turned my back she looked confused and shrugged, perhaps thinking "to each their own, right?". She went to serve the other customers and in the meantime I continued to look through the magazines, hoping to find more.

Important detail: I still had eye drops, my pupils were extremely dilated and I could see nearby objects blurred, so searching thoroughly was very difficult. Imagine looking at all that information without being able to see things closer than 1m from you. I'm still convinced I didn't manage to look at everything. I found more Disney Princess magazines (dated in 2014? 2015? somewhere around that) and that's when I saw it. I literally had to crouch down to look at the magazines in the lower sections of the shelf, they were stacked and they covered each other, and when I saw the Sofia The First logo I quickly grabbed it. IT WAS ANOTHER EDITION - A FLOATING PALACE THEMED ONE. Unfortunately this time it was out of the packaging, and I have no idea if someday there was even a gift with it, but I don't care, it was amazing to find this.

That's the Disney Princess magazines I was talking about! In that first pic I took, at the start of the post, you can see a Belle themed one. The Ariel themed magazine looks so old that the paint is stained and started to fade (it was in the front showcase while the other ones were carefully placed inside the stand), thankfully the STF ones were brand new. Well, almost.

Now that I'm home and I'm already seeing a little better, I'm gonna show you the magazines. Not all of them unfortunately, because a post only supports 10 pics and each magazine has 15/20+ pages so like... yeah. I wanna scan them and put them in a Google drive folder, or at least post a video about them in my YouTube channel, but that's more unlikely. If I had all of them, definitely, but I don't think it's worth recording a video if it's not with all the issues, don't you think? Anyway.

What's written in the first one: The Queen's Birthday Party! (This one came with the necklace)

In the second one: Sofia's vacation!

Let's take a closer look at the necklace

I'm fighting the urge to use it. I really want to use that tag in my sketchbook and the charm of the necklace in something like a keychain, but I cann'ttt bring myself to destroy something that is not produced anymoreeee😭😭😭

In the Floating Palace magazine, there is not even a single page where the sea monster is in. Not even a single one.

But in the "Queen's Birthday Party" one, there are three pages where Cedric is in! Yayy!!! They did him justice!!!

If anyone's curious about Miranda's birthday party, it's a comic and someone already posted it on Tumblr. Here is the link.

You know, that "Queen's Birthday Party" it's very exclusive, I don't remember the show having any episode like this, and the next activities in the magazine talk about the vacation they did in the comic and also the birthday party. Besides that, we have a lot of activities related to Tilly and family, and the main arts and crafts activity from this magazine is making a family tree. I believe that this magazine's topic is family.

I can't show you all the pages, but at least I can publish the pages Cedric is in and add more stuff to my Cedric merch masterlist (and personal research)

Well at least he's there. I have seen this art around like 20 times but they remembered that Cedric is a Sofia The First character so that's good I guess

They did him dirty here

AND THIS!!!! THIS ABSOLUTELY THIS!!! MY FAVORITE ONE!!!1!1!!!1!1!!1

YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW HOW LOUD I GASPED, WHEN I TELL YOU THAT I ALMOST STARTED JUMPING AND SCREAMING "YIPEE YIPEEE"

I'll translate it to you this time, so you can understand how I'm feeling right now

✨️Translation:✨️

Enchancia Castle

Title: Fraternal Bonds

Before leaving, Aunt Tilly gives her brother a big hug. Which pairs of siblings do you know from Sofia's world? Mark the correct pairs below.

THAT IS SO AAARRRGGGAGGAGAVVSGGSBBAVSGJ💖💖😭💗💞💗💞😭💞😭💗😭💞😭💖💗💖

I KNOW THAT CEDRIC AND SOFIA ARE THE WRONG OPTION, BUT I CAN'T. THAT IS SO CUTE I MIGHT EXPLODE I DON'T KNOW

that's what we had for today, I reached the 10 image per blog limit as always, no one's surprised

[soulofamy]

22 for Z.W.E.I. x Viola for the OTP Prompt!!💜

Soft OTP Prompts

22- Write about a member of your ship giving the other a special gift. 

Viola found it odd that Z.W.E.I. had been coming to sleep later and later each night as of late. Smelling of coal and iron, she could only surmise that he has been spending all his time in the forge. This worried her.

While many warriors honed their skills with their weapons to relieve stress, Z.W.E.I. preferred a more creative outlet. The forge was his escape from all the pressures of his day to day life. If he was spending so much time there now, that could only mean that there was something on his mind. But what it was, Viola was uncertain. Whenever she inquired about it, he always dismissed her concern and reassured her that everything was fine. It wasn't like Z.W.E.I. to hide things from her.

Though his eyes were tired, he seemed to be in especially high spirits one morning when he asked her to come hiking with him. The idea immediately was enticing to her. It had been a while since the two of them had been able to spend time together with no duties to their guild looming over their heads. Perhaps now she could get him to speak his mind.

The conversation they made while hiking was familiar to her. That was to say, Z.W.E.I. did most of the speaking, while Viola thoughtfully listened. His mood did not betray that there was anything he was holding back from her. For once, Viola was at a loss, unable to make sense of his recent behavior when his demeanor did not match it. Z.W.E.I. was not one for playacting either.

The two finally reached their destination. They stood on the bank of a secluded pond. The water was as clear as crystal. The waterlilies on its surface appeared to be floating on air.

"It's beautiful," Viola breathed.

"I thought you might like it," Z.W.E.I. responded with a smile. "Found it on my way back from my last assignment." He turned back to face the pond. "Just imagine what this place looks like at night."

A sly smile formed on Viola's face as she looked over at Z.W.E.I. "That sounds like an invitation to come back here with you."

Z.W.E.I. chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it is. Next time we can bring supplies and set up camp."

Viola took his hand and slipped her fingers between his. "I'd like that."

He looked down at her and smiled. "I have something for you, by the way."

Viola's eyebrows knit and she looked at him with curiosity. "For me?"

He reached into his pocket to produce a small drawstring pouch and handed it to her. It saddened her to think he would go out of his way for her. Money had always been hard to come by, even as mercenaries. The last thing she wanted was for him to struggle for her sake. Still, she was already holding the gift. She couldn't offend him now by refusing it. She delicately opened the pouch and pulled out a ring. The details were delicate and intricate, and a breathtaking pink stone sat embedded in the middle. Viola's eyes widened, then her eyebrows knit.

"Oh Zwei..." she said, her voice both thankful and apologetic.

"I saw you looking at a ring similar to that in the marketplace a while back," he began to explain. "I wanted to give you this one earlier but it turns out jewelry making takes much longer than weaponsmithing."

Viola looked up at Z.W.E.I. with raised eyebrows, inwardly relieved. "You made this?" She looked back down at it and marveled at its craftmenship. Is this why he spent so much time in the forge? Her heart fluttered when she pictured him concentrating as he carved out the designs. She splayed out her fingers and admired how effortlessly it fit her.

Z.W.E.I. looked down at her with anticipation. "Yeah. Do you...like it...?"

She looked up at him with a smile and stood on her toes to press a kiss to his jaw, then wrapped her arms around his middle. "I love it. Thank you. I will treasure it always."

Z.W.E.I.'s posture relaxed with her words and he kissed the top of her head before reciprocating her embrace. "Of course."

[stealanity]

hey guys, let's go for a big announcement okay?

so, we're near my three-year anniversary on this blog. the 13th of march will mark the day i posted my first piece of writing on this platform (color palette will forever be my precious baby). and before i say anything about the negative aspects of this post, i would like to thank all the people who have supported me and my work for years / months now. every time i received a little interaction, a little message in my askbox, or feedback about one of my writings, my heart couldn't help but vibrate with happiness. so, i'd like to extend my warmest thanks to everyone who kindly took the time to express their opinions on what i've written over the past three years, these little words mean so much to me, in ways you can't imagine.

and, this is where i'm going to start talking about the negative things i have to say about this post : i'm wondering if i'm going to continue writing and posting here.

for months i've been thinking of closing this blog and stopping writing : as most of you know, tumblr writers complain a lot about the lack of feedback on what we produce. i don't mean to blame you all, but it's a real problem that never ceases to discourage every writer behind the computer. i understand that some of you are shy, and that's perfectly all right : but the askbox anonymity option doesn't exist for nothing. even if you only come to say "your last writing was great" and you think it's lame to leave a message just to say that, tell yourself that this simple little sentence can brighten a writer's day. i know you hear the same thing over and over again, but if a lot of people are talking about it, don't you think that proves that it's a real problem for us?

in other words, the lack of interaction from readers to writers is the biggest pet peeve of writers on this platform. just imagine : you walk into a store, and a writer is alone at his signing table, no one stopping to listen to him talk about the book he wrote with all his heart, sleepless nights spent writing, all so that no one would stop and take an interest in him. how would you feel about this person? you'd be sad and sorry for him, right? well then, tell yourself that, it's exactly like this writer, that we here, as tumblr writers, feel when no one gives us feedback. you feel ignored. we give our time to offer you something to read about your favs, completely free of charge. we give you the opportunity to imagine scenarios, and ask us to write down your ideas precisely, all so that, when your request is granted, we have no feedback on what you thought about it? this won't last much longer, believe me — because little by little, all the writers here are losing hope and patience, and deciding to stop doing what they love just because they're constantly ignored and not thanked for their work and efforts. yet, i know a lot of writers who deserve to be praised and complimented for their talent every second of their existence, and i feel so, so sorry for them that they have to endure such a thing. and, if you look closely, you'll see that it's only the writers themselves who leave feedback on other writers' work — because we know how important it is and how much we need it every day.

which is why i'm announcing today that i'm questioning the future of this blog. i haven't made a decision yet, maybe i'll do it tomorrow or in three months, whatever. but the problem is there, said and repeated, over and over again, and i'm more than discouraged.

nevertheless, thank you to all the writers on this platform for all you do. you sometimes make my heart skip a beat, my eyes water, laugh until i cry and smiling from ear to ear, because you're that good. you're so good at giving people chills and filling their heads with stories, with your perfectly chosen words and your marvelous ideas, each more incredible and interesting than the last. and i'll never stop complimenting the talent of the writers here, because you guys are truly amazing and tumblr wouldn't be the same without you. i know it's hard to evolve here, but know that among all those likes, there's this one reblog that makes all the difference.

you are so brave, and i thank you for always being here to share your talent.

anyway, let's end it here !

thank you for your attention, have a nice day, or night, or anything,

— xoxo, matty