#sfam

[lonelywhygirl]

[shaymiens]

vidcon pics that scratch my brain😵‍💫

[myfandomlikesandstories]

Moving

Jonathan Levi x gn!reader

Genre: angst, comfort

Summary: Jonathan brings up moving to a smaller house. Eva doesn't like it at all, and for you it hits close to home.

Warnings: references to divorce.

Word count: 932

A/N: this is genuinely just me processing my own trauma. Made a fic of it, have fun!

Jonathan and you were at your apartment, drinking in your kitchen. Eva was with Mira for the weekend, so you decided to talk about the events of a few days past.

It was a regular Tuesday, really. Jonathan invited you over for lunch, an invitation you happily took on, being his best friend and the godparent of his daughter. You've always been close, since you met at college. Your bond was beyond anything - always there for each other, always the first to know and last to leave. The best company.

When Eva was born, Jonathan and Mira decided to make you her godparent, "officiating your third wheeling", as you sometimes joked. It had a seed of truth, since you were practically Eva's third parent. It was a good position to be in, as it made you "the cool one".

So that Tuesday, the three of you sat at the table for lunch, when Jonathan brought up the fact he's been looking at houses. Smaller ones. To move into.

Eva didn't take lightly to that. Once she understood what it meant, leaving her home, she voiced her disagreement by bursting into tears. The little girl was screaming that she doesn't want to leave, and pushed Jonathan away when he tried to hug her. Eventually she ran to her room and slammed the door.

Jonathan was rather shocked, he didn't imagine it would go this way. "She's always so excited when she sleeps away from home, I thought she'd be happy! Obviously we're not going to move right now, it was just an option. I thought she doesn't really like it here anymore either." He told you. "I should go to her."

You put your hand on his shoulder for him to stay. "Give her a moment. I'll go."

A few minutes later, you knocked on her door. She told you to leave, but let you in after some conversation.

Eva let you sit on her bed after her crying died down.

"No one is going anywhere, munchkin. This is your house, and it's staying that way. You're not moving anywhere. It's okay." You told her.

"Bu - but dad said we might live somewhere else! I don't wanna go! I don't wanna go!!!" The little girl pleaded, tears filling her eyes again. She burrowed into you and you held her, petting her hair. "Shhhh... It's not happening. Everything's okay. Everything's okay."

--------------------

Jonathan leaned on the counter, swirling the wine in his glass. "I really don't understand though," he said, "she's not happy there. We both sleep in what used to be my study. The top floor is basically just storage, and she won't go there on her own. It's too big!"

"You're right. It really is too big. But so is this situation." You were a child of divorced parents, and remembered what it was like when one of them moved out.

"It's not actually about the house, Jonathan. It's about the routine, about the familiarity. It's what she knows. And kids are naturally sentimental. They're connected to their things, especially in times of crisis." You commented and took a sip from your own glass.

"Tell me more?" He inquired. "I want to understand."

You sighed. It wasn't the easiest of topics for you. "She wants things as similar to how they were, Jon. She used to have a family until a few months ago."

Jonathan looked offended. "She has a family. We didn't evaporate the second Mira left."

"I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry." You took a deep breath. "She's five, man. I was her age when my folks spilt. She feels like she doesn't have a family anymore. It doesn't matter matter how many inclusive family dynamics books you read to her, it's still a fucking earthquake. Her world doesn't look like it used to, and it never will."

Jonathan noticed your voice cracking slightly and set his wine down on the counter as he moved closer to you.

"Trust me, there's NOTHING she wants more right now than to have things back how they were. For years after they separated, I still tried to hug both my parents at once. Just grabbed them and smushed them together. Made them absolutely miserable. Eva knows, Jon. She knows she'll never get a family group hug from both her parents, ever again. Imagine that for a child, eh?"

Your throat was already closing when you said: "She wants to stay in that house because the thing she wants most in the world is for Mira to walk back through that door!" You sobbed.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Jonathan said, taking away your glass and putting his hand on your arm.

"I'm sorry," you chocked out. "Please don't hug me."

"Okay, alright," he said in a calming, quiet voice. "I'm not going to if you don't want to. Could you just look at me please?"

You signed for him to wait while you steadied yourself, and then looked into his eyes.

"I am not your father." He said. "And you're not my kid. You're a fully grown adult, with a say in this situation. You are not five again. What you say matters. I am not your father, and I'm listening to you."

That's what it took for you to dissolve in tears. He opened his arms and you fell into them, sobbing into his shoulder while he rubbed your back.

"It's okay," he reassured. "Crying doesn't make you any lesser. You're okay."

"I love you, Jonathan." You mumbled into him after a few minutes.

He squeezed you harder.

"I love you too."

Just tagging some mutuals, I'm sorry if you're not interested in scenes from a marriage, feel free to ignore:

--------------------

MASTERLIST

@ivystoryweaver @writingforcurrentobsessions2 @romanarose @eyelessfaces @spider-starry @luke-o-lophus @my-secret-shame

[chastainstuff]

like or c bradleyjckson

[roanniom]

Woke up on the wrong side of horny today for this man and his mouth and his hands.

[betweenthescarletmoon]

The Hollywood Reporter Roundtable Analysis

It was very intriguing for me how Oscar carefully delved into the question he was given by the host Lacey in 38:45, but in a slight surface-level way. Some information he's given in other times filled up a lot of the blanks he left behind in his answer.

First let's go over what they said.

Lacey: Your co-star from Scenes From a Marriage, Jessica Chastain, talked about [how] she had to go to a place that was so dark, and she's not sure she can sort of ever go to these places as an actress again. And I'm curious if you've felt any of that and how your individual, personal sort of boundaries shift with time, with experience, with success.

Oscar: You know, before I'd be like: "what limb do I have to take—cut off to make this scene three percent better?" But I think that it's about inspiration. [...] The whole reason process exists is to inspire, right? And sometimes you don't need a wild process to be inspired by something. Sometimes the words themselves will do it, um, sometimes the character is enough. Sometimes the situation is so harrowing that that's enough to inspire a whole history of a character. And sometimes you gotta: "what did he eat for breakfast? why did he do this?" In order to try, y'know, to inspire some imagination and some sense of truth, right, or some sense of—some emotional, interesting thing.

Oscar [continued]: But boundaries, I think, are becoming more important to me now. And then you have kids. Time is the most valuable commodity. And I think with Scenes From a Marriage, the scenes themselves—that [was what was] so harrowing, not so much the character. But also it mirrored a lot of things in my own life. [...] I'd be reading a bed time story to the young actress that's a five-year-old with a little bunny lamp, and then go home, arrive just in time to sit in the bed with the same exact bunny lamp, somehow, and read a story to my five-year-old— You know, it just starts to fuck with your head, because we're just a human being, so that's a weird situation! [...]

Oscar [yeah he makes up for not talking for almost the entire hour with this question]: After a while, I think it was just all the nature of it, you know? It was right in the height of the pandemic. It was in this factory in the Bronx that had been turned into a studio. It was only like sixty people. And these were very long—almost every shot was like a thirty-minute take. It felt like a weird hybrid between theatre and TV and film. And with someone that I've known for twenty years as well—so all those things created a very uncanny situation, that I think, going back, I probably would have been a little more mindful about. Like, y'know, a little clearer boundaries— And the truth is, even if it wouldn't have been quite as real or good (you know?), I'm okay with—I'm getting better with that idea that—I don't have to cut off a limb just to make it slightly better. It's okay. It's okay.

First off, i just wanna gush over his speech patterns bc I am that all over the place when I try to communicate my thoughts (i actually skipped a lot of his endearing stutters, pet phrases, and filler things he said to grasp at his next message). It's so relatable especially in a group full of people (not to mention legendary actors), because even a guy who looks as confident as him can still sound like he's making a discovery as he speaks and takes you along.

Now on to my analysis of what he said because at first I didn't completely get what he meant!

I have a feeling he's very perfectionistic, and from how he speaks about work in other articles as well as here, he also seems a workaholic. I believe in here he's trying to say that there should be different levels of immersion and hard work to connect with or explore the character instead of always bringing his all and beyond to the job.

Also, scenes from a marriage was as traumatic an experience to film as it was for us to watch (his words after 1:56 on this vid), and Jessica admitted to crying every day for four months during filming. It was a very intimate and emotionally intense series to film especially with such a close friend from Juilliard. So i believe both Oscar and Jessica gave everything they had to make this already overwhelming series feel as real and painful as possible. And since it's a hard setting to feel far removed from (both are married, have kids, have a sex life, could be facing divorce in the future bc of its high rates), it must have hit them even harder. I believe it's not truly an experience to watch sfam without you screaming at, insulting, or feeling immensely sorrowful for the characters because THAT is the reaction they fought hard to get from you. That pain, that anxiety, that tension, that rage, that pity, every emotion you felt that you could barely cope with? All crafted thanks to their extremely immersive and talented performance coupled with their flawless chemistry. But if it feels real to us, through a screen…for them it must've felt even more so. Unbearably more so.

So i believe these experiences, as well as having a family to take care of, and other priorities like time and mental health, have recently made it more important for him to strike a balance in his life. To stop obsessing over creating the perfect role or immersion, or to use these roles to cope with and process real life struggles (as he's admitted to do). I think it's important for him to now connect with real life more, like being a father and a husband, as well as just a human being. Not just an actor or a character.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Important Excerpts from Articles about escapism and coping through acting (in case you don't feel like reading the last references):

New York Times: After His Mother’s Death, Oscar Isaac Turns to Shakespeare for Solace

“I didn’t know how to process any of this, but this [performing as Hamlet] I knew how to do.”

But [Hamlet is] also a tragedy that asks Mr. Isaac to relive the anguished death of a parent at every performance. In Sam Gold’s rowdy, deconstructionist staging, every time Mr. Isaac mud-wrestles, or lofts a prop skull or performs a mad scene in just a T-shirt and briefs, he seems to be working through his own loss, transforming raw private grief into riveting public performance.

As Mr. Isaac explained, performing has always helped him come to terms with his emotions. “This is how I’m able to function,” he said. “The only way that I’m really able to process stuff is through reflecting it.”

Esquire: The Dream of Oscar Isaac

To be in conversation with Oscar Isaac, who is forty-three, is to talk with someone who has thought deeply about the course of his life—not out of narcissism or vanity but by necessity, a desperate desire to find what feels like solid ground. For him. For his family. For us, whom his art reaches. He has worked to wrest meaning out of his confusions and fears. His effort is ongoing, and his audiences have the privilege of following him in his relentless and shattering performances, in search of the firm footing he lost every time another of his dreams was interrupted.

If superheroes have their capes and their flamethrowers to help them survive, we ordinary humans have our imagination. It has been our shelter for millennia, a way to express and to understand what feels incomprehensible. When it all gets too heavy, sometimes the fragile rope tethering us to solid ground snaps clean, and there is often no refuge sturdy enough to put us back together except in the intimate, private shelter of our minds.

NPR: For Oscar Isaac, life — and acting — is all about impermanence

“It [acting] is a funnel, and it's always been where I go to understand things about life and things that are happening to me. But it's one thing to grieve as a character and one thing to grieve as an actual person. And I think that there's still quite a lot of unresolved stuff there.”

I hope you enjoyed this post! I had to organize all my thoughts in one place because it's so fascinating and complex

[hq-screencaps]

Scenes From A Marriage Season 1 ↳ 11,272 1080p logofree screencaps

[aellynera]

The Saga of May 19, 2022 - Part Two

(aka Operation Oscar Strikes Back)

In which I got to NYC early with a smooth flight and no weird issues, acquired one @damerondjarin, taxied to our hotel and checked in, and have been rightly amused by the fact that it looks more like an apartment Llewyn would crash on than your standard hotel.

Now for a little rest and plotting and planning and then off to the screening.

[thatredheadwriter]

Started (re)watching SFAM Ep.4 for Oscar Isaac’s dick (it’s been a day and I needed a little pick me up), stayed for the incredible acting, film quality (I know it’s a series, shut up), and overall commentary on relationships as they exist in the real world.

[celliastjms]

Post ep4: Mira realizes that she is pregnant and just like that their already disastrous divorce, their clean and brutal break turns messy and complicated. 

“I just found out.” Panic not just forces her to breathe, it loosens her tongue too. “I—- I know since last week, I meant to tell you earlier but I— I was—“ she still is scared. “I don’t know if you have moved forward with Celia or anyone else with that whole idea of co-parenting,” or perhaps he was dating or had a girlfriend, that thought scared her even more because if, then where would she fit in? “But I know you want another child, and you’re right. You’re good at it, you are a great Dad,” he was far better at that, than she was at being a mother “And— and I know why you didn’t consider me, it was ridiculous to ask.” She is babbling, talking herself into a frenzy, “I was just—- I was—“ she can’t even put into words what went through her head when she found out. “But now—- I am pregnant and we, you, need to decide what to do,” she hiccups “What you want to do. And I know I should have told you right away but—“ it put her at an advantage because she had had more time to think about it all.

“I know it’s, it’s not ideal,” it’s everything but “With the divorce, with how we ended things,” with how this came to be “But it—- happened and now we have to decide what we will do, how we handle all this. “ she stops her rambling only long enough to inhale, panic still constricting her chest “We—- you need to figure out how you want to be involved.” “How I want to be involved?” He echoes and Mira nods.

“Yeah, If you—- want to be at all,” the thought of doing this without him terrifies her but she would do it on her own if she needed to. “And if you do, in which way.”

“Why would I be—-“ she doesn’t like his tone, doesn’t like the implication that lingers in his words “Involved?”

Read It’s Painful Wanting Something And Not Wanting It At The Same Time on AO3!

[bammtoris]

this lying around in my camera roll is what will give me JAIL SENTENCE

[profilingdestiel]

.

[shaymiens]

yo im dead

[zie-ro]

Meyers-Briggs is out, early 2000s pop-punk is in

(S)imple Plan vs (G)ood Charlotte

(P)aramore vs (F)OB

(A)ll-American Rejects vs (Y)ellowcard

(G)reen Day vs (M)CR

-

Blink-(182) vs Sum (41)

SFAM-182 🫡

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Thinking about your levy x reader kinktober and Jonathan trying to figure out dirty talk. Is he one of those ppl without an inner monologue or is he just shy about it?

I think Jonathan definitely has an inner monologue, but he's shy about it. In episode 1, Innocence and Panic, Jonathan tells Peter about his upbringing and says, "In...the first 20 years of your life, you're taught to conquer your desires, not surrender to them."

Mira also says that she felt "...depraved every time I wanted to fuck you because for you it was 'complicated'" in episode 4, The Illiterates, but at this point, we have also seen Jonathan act sexually toward her and initiate sex after they split up.

Jonathan can be a sexual person, but he's spent so much time quieting that part of himself that I think he struggles to voice it, and may not know where to start. He's fascinated by the way Reader just lets it all out, in a way that he's never either been able to or has simply never tried. Her own comfort with it leads him to explore, and he trips over his words a couple of times, but he gets there.

[aellynera]

The Saga of May 19, 2022 - Part One

(aka Operation Oscar Strikes Back)

In which they tell me there's going to be a special screening of Scenes from a Marriage at the 92nd Street Y and both Oscar and Jessica will be part of a conversation afterwards.

And Allison's brain immediately goes, "Well... YOLO!"

And here she is again, waiting at an airport gate to fly 900 miles just to lay eyes on the man in person.

And this time she's dragging @damerondjarin with her.

NYC (and Taylor!!) I'm coming for you!!