#st is an ensemble cast without a doubt

[dungeon-master-mike]

the more i think about it, the more i realize how weird mike's role in the story is

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

Smart premises, atmospheric horror and ancient myths: Cat People and Isle of the Dead

By Jack Muscatello

Following immersion into two of RKO Radio Pictures’ more well-known horror projects of the early 1940s, Val Lewton’s stylistic endeavor becomes all the more apparent. In an era when horror became largely one-note, studio driven monster stories, the small RKO establishment presented a different idea. By the mind of Lewton and the skill of Mark Robson, who graduated to director on the second picture of this week, these two films – Cat People and Isle of the Dead – set the tone for what RKO sought to accomplish with small budgets and big aspirations. Though the films cover very separate storylines, histories and ensembles, their structure and style are very much indicative of Lewton and Robson’s influence.

Deciphering the similarities between Cat People and Isle of the Dead begins with their narrative structures. Opening with respective “legends” of old, one a Serbian legend of witchcraft and cat magic and the other a Greek tragedy of karma and suffering, both films follow modern collections of people grasping with the resurgence of these classic stories. And at first, they ignore it. In Cat People, Oliver laughs off Irena’s retelling of the legend, falling quickly in love with her and seeing past the ruminations on her Serbian tradition. In Isle of the Dead, Pherides laughs at warnings of the “vorvolaka”, asserting his power as General and taking the opportunity to gain acquaintances with Aubrecht and the other people on the island. He believes he knows better, much like Oliver does over Irena. But for the pair, the end of their story provides a tragic conclusion, arriving by their inaction, disrespect and eventual paranoid madness. Though Oliver escapes the mess surrounding Irena, and Pherides is not so lucky for his own plotline, the two stories dissect the paranoid tensions of group settings with delicate interest and precision. Robson’s style seems interested in the moments of though for the characters, allowing each scene to build in an ever-faster rise to complete madness. The atmosphere of the horrific situations is presented as more interesting than the horror itself, which as stated above is owed to Lewton and Robson’s desire to break the status-quo. Cat People began this trend, and Isle of the Dead is among many cinematic works to refine it. Even down the eulogy-like nature of both films’ conclusions.

However, the pair of films is not without differences. Primarily, Isle of the Dead applies much of the same thematic intentions from Cat People but to a larger footprint. Where Cat People concerns the interweaving of four individual lives, Isle of the Dead expands to a main lead and an entire group. This allows Lewton to expand on the narrative possibilities of his paranoia-based storytelling, pulling on each character to contribute some flaw or doubt to add to the mounting chaos. In Cat People, it’s just Irena’s personal history that breaks out and ultimately destroys her. In Isle of the Dead, an ancient history and a much more modern plague infect the group one-by-one, promising the demise of several characters in the midst of their growing distrust of each other. Irena becomes Pherides’ and Mary St. Aubyn’s, among several others. In addition, the setting for Isle of the Dead leans more into the historical angle of the Balkan War and the ancient vorvolaka. The film presents the group as almost destined to arrive in this place, to fall in the hands of the vorvolaka’s reputation for malevolence. While Cat People approaches from a more accidental framework, with Oliver being just the man to find Irena in Central Park that night – Isle of the Dead presents an almost fate-like intentionality to the cast of characters assembled on the island, lending to its more detailed setup. For as much trouble as the production went through to get off the ground, the limitations presented to the film almost benefited its artistic merit. In particular, the sequence involving Mary St. Aubyn’s premature burial applies Lewton and Robson’s desired exaggeration of dread and despair when “the camera coldly, tenderly approaches the coffin in a silence so intense as to be almost unbearable. When the shriek of the prematurely buried woman finally comes, it releases the rest of the show into a free-for-all masterpiece of increasing terror” (Siegel). While Cat People kept its focus small, peering more into the personal mentalities of the three main players in its story, Isle of the Dead’s detail-focused plot allows for more moments to shock-induced horror, which expands the signature anxiety storytelling of Lewton, Robson and RKO.

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

[xerxia31]

the Big Bang - an Everlark ficlet

Inspired by a story I read on CNN, that I couldn’t get out of my head. A warning - there are shades of dub-con here that may be disturbing to some readers. Rated M.

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

Peeta Mellark was fit to be tied.

“I don’t know what you want me to say here, boy,” Haymitch drawled. “You knew where these characters were heading when you signed on.”

“Come on, Haymitch,” Peeta growled. He was standing in Haymitch Abernathy’s office, holding the week’s script while Haymitch, head writer and executive producer of the hit series The Arena, in which Peeta starred, stared at him from under a mop of greasy, overlong hair. Until now, Peeta had loved working on the show, loved the ensemble cast, loved the interesting storylines and well-written scripts.

But not today.

“They’ve been growing together slowly for three damned seasons and now, this week, bam!” Peeta clapped his hands for emphasis, “out of nowhere you have three fucking sex scenes in the script.” For three seasons the show had been teasing a relationship between the character Peeta played, macho FBI agent Barley St James, and his shy, brainy colleague, Allium Winterland. It was a fantastic story, well paced, the dialogue between them always fun. Nearly three years they’d been teasing the audience with it.

And now this week’s script turned everything on it’s head. “You’re just screwing with us.” There was no way the timing was coincidental. Because the actress who played Allium, the actress he’d be stripping down to his skivvies and dry-humping with on national television? She was none other than his now-ex-girlfriend.

Haymitch glanced away. Peeta thought it was in shame until Haymitch spoke.

“You might as well come in, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said, and Peeta spun to look behind him. “We were talking about you.”

Katniss Everdeen was standing just outside Haymitch’s open door. It was the first time Peeta had laid eyes on her in the flesh in two weeks. Two fucking weeks! He hadn’t seen her since the night she walked out of their house.

He knew where she’d gone though, the whole fucking world did. All of the gossip rags, and even the more reputable news sites, were reporting how her on again off again affair with one Gale Hawthorne, star of multiple movie franchises and People magazine’s sexiest man alive 2018, was definitely on again. 

“Story of my life,” Katniss muttered as she walked the rest of the way through the door, schooling her expression into a dispassionate scowl as she did. Peeta had no idea why she went into acting, he could read her every emotion through the impassive mask. He always could. Today was no exception, her mask might be in place, but her eyes were flashing with fury, and something that looked suspiciously like hurt.

She didn’t acknowledge Peeta at all, striding into the room on silent feet and stopping a solid six feet away. Her arms were crossed protectively over her chest, but her copy of the script was clenched in one fist. No doubt she’d been planning on storming in here to blast Haymitch. But Peeta beat her to it.

“Save your breath, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said. “Like I told the boy, you knew this was coming.”

“It’s fine,” she said, shooting a cool look in Peeta’s direction. “I’m a professional.” Then she turned, and strutted back out the door, back straight, long, black braid swinging. He could only watch, jaw clenched.

“Brrr,” Haymitch said. “You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime.” He was right, of course, and Peeta knew it. The audience would be expecting a pair of lovebirds. Not two people who could barely look each other in the eye.

“Whatever,” Peeta grunted. She wanted to play it that way? He could be cold too.

o-o-o

The table read went smooth as silk. Katniss sat on one side of the room, chatting lightly with their costar Delly Cartwright between scenes, Peeta sat on the other, joking with Cressida Faulkner, who was directing that week’s episode. Most of the cast had no clue Peeta and Katniss had broken up, because most of them never knew they’d been an item at all. Haymitch had figured it out somehow, clearly, but none of the other cast noticed anything was amiss. 

The following day’s rehearsal, not so much. Rehearsals were always in costume and filmed, so that the production team could splice in any good bits that came out of them. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in TV, especially in a weekly series where time was tight. Peeta was used to it.

His first few scenes were fine, his lines came easily, he hit every mark. Then came the first scene he and Katniss shared that week, the one that led up to the first of the three fucking sex scenes. 

She walked onto the set, and Peeta’s heart did a slow tumble in his chest. She was utterly beautiful, her hair loose and flowing, and wearing a dress patterned with autumn leaves. Soft orange, his favourite colour.

The colour of heartbreak.

They both stumbled through their lines, avoiding each other's eyes, interacting stiffing and unnaturally. Cressida halted the scene over and over again. It was a huge drag on the rest of the cast, slowing down everything.

Peeta’s only solace was that Katniss looked as miserable as he felt.

Peeta left as soon as rehearsal ended and headed for the gym. The call sheet had them both in an evening meeting at the studio, and he was going to need to work off some steam before he faced her again.

He should have asked, though, what the meeting was about. Because when he got back to the studio he found Katniss, dressed in leggings and a tiny little tank top, her face bare and so pretty, sitting cross-legged on a gym mat and chatting with a willowy brunette who gave off crunchy granola vibes. “Did I miss the memo about mandatory yoga?” he drawled. 

Katniss scowled, but the brunette smiled beatifically. “Hello Mr. Mellark,” she said softly, her voice like windchimes, musical and irritating. “I’m Annie Cresta, your intimacy coordinator.”

Peeta was too confused to make a joke. “My what now?”

Annie laughed. “Intimacy coordinator,” she repeated. “It’s my job to choreograph simulated sex scenes for actors.”

“I think we know how sex works,” Peeta grumbled, and Katniss flushed, obvious without the stage makeup caked on her skin, then looked down at her lap. But Annie was undeterred.

“Of course,” she said gently. “But it’s about more than just choreography. It’s about helping you both to be comfortable, about navigating respect and consent and keeping the set safe.”

Peeta had heard about this, once before maybe, in the wake of the #metoo movement. But he’d never worked with one before. Katniss must have requested it. Figured she couldn’t even trust him to be a professional on the set. “With all due respect, Ms. Cresta,” Peeta said. “I don’t think we need this. We’ve both filmed scenes like this before.” Not with each other, but that was a minor point.

Katniss, to his surprise, looked inclined to agree. Annie just smiled.

“Not negotiable, I’m afraid,” she said. “All of Panem Entertainment’s productions must have an intimacy coordinator on set.” Peeta frowned, they were in the third season of filming, he’d never seen Annie before. As if reading his mind, she nodded. “I worked with Thresh Watts and Rue Lamonte last year.” That scene had been filmed on a closed set, Peeta had seen the finished product, but not any of the lead-up, and it hadn’t occurred to him at the time to ask about it.

Peeta sighed, and resigned himself to having a stranger teach him how to have fake sex with his real ex-girlfriend.

“Have a seat,” Annie said, indicating the mat beside Katniss. Peeta gritted his teeth, but he sat, his knee brushing hers.

She didn’t react.

“Now,” Annie said. “Communication is key.” Peeta snorted, and Katniss scowled at him. Communication. With the woman who had spoken a single word to him in the past 15 days. Sure. "The most important thing is that the people involved feel safe.”

“Why would we feel unsafe?” Peeta interrupted. There was a Cubs game on TV tonight, he’d rather be watching that.

Annie was unperturbed. “You're revealing a lot in a scene, you're going to places where you're vulnerable, and that requires an awful lot of trust," she said, looking pointedly between Peeta and Katniss. He wondered with some annoyance just how much Katniss had revealed to Annie about their situation before he’d walked in. “I have the script, and an outline of how your director wants it to look. But you two will need to talk with each other and with me and say, 'What are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with?'”

“I don’t want kissing,” Katniss blurted, then flushed again. “I mean,” she amended, “I’m not sure I can concentrate on both that and lines and choreography.” Peeta knew that was bullshit, in three seasons he could count on one hand the number of times Katniss had forgotten a line or missed a mark. 

She just didn’t want to kiss him. And it stung. 

Annie nodded. “We can work around that,” she said. “There will need to be some close up shots of you kissing, but they can be filmed separately from the simulated sex.”

Great, Peeta thought. Their characters had kissed a lot over the past three seasons, but that had been easy. They were both professionals, and kissing Katniss for the camera had been no big deal. Fun, even, in a comfortable, familiar way. Never sexual, there was always too much lipstick and stage makeup to worry about for there ever to be more than a peck. But steady, and comforting.

He doubted it’d be like that now. Or ever again.

“Let’s start with directorial expectations,” Annie began. “I’ve been given a timeline for the scenes and an outline of the specific angles that are expected. The most challenging part, from an intimacy perspective, is likely to be the third, which will be shot side angle with you, Peeta, on top of Katniss and no sheets to shield anything. We’ll have to block arms and leg placements carefully, and it’s likely you’ll both feel very vulnerable.”

Peeta didn’t see how that would be difficult, yet when Annie positioned him kneeling between Katniss’s thighs, a ridiculous little brocade cushion between their bodies, it was incredibly awkward. Katniss couldn’t hide in this position, with their faces only inches apart, and he couldn’t ignore, looking into her silver eyes, just how much he’d lost.

Two hours of rolling around on the floor, blocking arm and hand and leg movements sucked any sexy out of the scene. It felt robotic and contrived and awkward as hell. Katniss, for her part, looked fucking miserable. “Well,” Annie said finally. “I’m sensing some discomfort, so I think we should close for the evening.”

Peeta rolled onto his back on the mat and stared at the ceiling. Why was this so fucking hard? He was an actor, for god’s sake. He’d filmed sex scenes before, and none of them felt this shitty.

“I think we could do with a couple more rehearsals,” Annie said. “I’ll ask Cressida to schedule some.” Just fucking great, Peeta thought.

Annie floated away like an ethereal being. Katniss hung back, maybe to talk with him, maybe just to avoid Annie. But he wasn’t in the mood. He’d been subjected to her stony silences for two days, his heart hurt and his pride was dented and he just needed to get out and lick his wounds.

“Peeta,” Katniss said softly. Peeta held up his hand.

“Not now,” was all he said.

She scowled. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Peeta almost leapt to his feet, his exhaustion morphing into rage. “Look, you haven’t said a damned word to me in weeks, you haven’t even come home for your things, and now you want to talk?” Peeta spat, cringing internally at his use of the word home to describe the house where they’d been living together until two weeks ago.

Katniss looked puzzled, under all of that anger. “Jo said you threw everything away.” Johanna Mason was a mutual… well... not quite friend. Peeta had often accompanied her to awards shows, in the early days of her career when she was concerned that if it got out that she preferred women, it would stop her from getting leading lady roles. She didn’t need to worry about that anymore, she was a bonafide A-lister these days, and her relationship with an adorably bubbly talk show host was in every magazine. But Jo generally had her own unknowable agenda and sometimes she liked to stir up shit just for fun. 

“You think I’d do that?” he asked, voice deceptively soft. He might have thought about it, fantasized about it really, when he found out who she was staying with. But he had more dignity than that, and she damned well should know it.

In fact, everything was exactly as she’d left it when she stomped out of their home, out of his life, 15 days ago. Her toothbrush was beside the bathroom sink, her favourite sweater on her favourite chair. A shabby silver-framed picture of her parents nestled between their awards. All of the homey pieces of her life, all of her simple treasures, abandoned. 

Katniss shrugged, like she didn’t care, like his worth, his honour, the life they’d built together, was inconsequential, and it just pissed Peeta off more. He hated her ice princess routine, hated how fucking above it all she was. She’d always been good at freezing him out, at making him chase her, but no more. He didn’t have to put up with her stone cold shit.

“Get you crap or I will toss it,” he seethed, walking away. She didn’t call after him, but then she never did.

o-o-o

Haymitch dropped two of the three sex scenes from the script. Peeta should have been relieved, he was relieved. But he also felt sick about it. Like he was destroying his career.

The tension on set was obvious and palpable now, and he knew it looked like he was the cause. Katniss, always quiet, remained quiet. But Peeta couldn’t fake it, once the cameras stopped. Cold didn’t come naturally to him, and too often he veered into mean and snappish. 

He had to figure out a way to get past this, to get past his anger, his hurt, and work with Katniss again. But he had no idea how.

Peeta leaned back in his favourite club chair, in the cozy den at the back of his house, and allowed himself to relive that day, the day it had all come crashing down. Until then, he’d thought he had it all, had the world in the palm of his hand. A great job, a comfortable home and the most radiant woman in the world in his bed every night. 

Katniss Everdeen had been a child star on a hugely popular sitcom. He knew her only by name when she showed up to screen test with him. He’d been expecting a cute little moppet. Instead, she was a silver-eyed stunner. And right off the bat, he was a goner.

They clicked, in almost every way. Working together was a joy, chatting together between takes a delight. He loved her intelligence and wry sense of humour. They moved from friends to more at breakneck speed, but it never felt too fast.

She was insistent that they keep a lid on their relationship, even when they eventually moved in together. He understood it, her previous relationship, also with a costar, had been documented to death, she’d been hounded and harassed by the paparazzi constantly, even now they followed her everywhere. He didn’t love keeping them a secret, but he loved Katniss, so he acquiesced. 

And that day, the day it all fell apart? It was supposed to be a good day, a great day. The first day of their two-week mid-season filming break. They had grand plans to do nothing but each other. Peeta had run a few errands, then stopped by his agent’s office to sign a couple of endorsement contracts.

That’s when the shit started.

“I figured you’d want to hear it from me first,” Finnick Odair, the best agent in the business, said with a grimace. He handed Peeta a tablet. Loaded up was the National Enquirer, his mother’s smirking face beside a promotional shot of Peeta and Katniss, and the headline, ‘It’s Real’. His fucking mother had struck again. It wasn’t the first time she’d sold Peeta out to the tabloids.

“Shit,” Peeta murmured. Not because the headline wasn’t true, it was. But Katniss guarded her privacy with clenched fists, and for two years, they’d barely let anyone in on their secret. Finn knew, but he was very discreet and like he’d said when Peeta had first hired him, he couldn’t protect Peeta unless he knew all of his secrets.

“She’s going to be pissed, huh?” Finn said sympathetically.

He didn’t know the half of it.

Peeta was in a foul temper and all he wanted was his quiet house and a couple of fingers of scotch before he had to deal with Katniss, who was sure to be furious. But no, he wouldn’t even get that. Because Rye was standing at his front door when he arrived home. Peeta groaned, and parked in front of the house, instead of pulling into the garage, where the door he generally entered by was. They’d chosen this place because the gated community was supposed to offer them more privacy and security. He was going to have to talk with the guard at the gate again. Just because Rye looked like his brother didn’t mean Peeta wanted him here. 

“Peet,” Rye said genially as Peeta unlocked the seldom-used front door. 

“What do you want, Rye?” Peeta really had no time for his brother’s bullshit, not that day of all days, and he hadn’t bothered hiding his annoyance.

“I can’t just pop by to see my little brother?” Rye never came by unless he wanted something. Often it was money. Rye seldom worked, preferring to live off his association with Peeta There were a lot of people in LA who would wine and dine the families of celebrities, looking for an in. Rye had brought him a few abominable scripts over the years from people who’d promised him a big finders fee if he could get Peeta to sign on.

“Cut to the chase, Rye,” Peeta said impatiently. There was a small liquor cabinet in the living room closest to the front door. Not that they ever lived in this room. It was only for show, the place where outsiders were held, away from the parts of the house where they actually did their living.

“Fine,” Rye laughed. “Tell me it isn’t true, little brother,” he said. There was no point pretending Peeta didn’t know what he was talking about. Rye was a terrible gossip hound. Peeta shook his head. “Thank god,” Rye said. “You can do so much better than that. She’s not very big, and definitely not hot.” 

Peeta sighed. Rye’s taste in women only included girls who fawned all over him. Katniss would never make that list. 

“Where did Mom come up with that idea anyway?” Rye asked, eyeing the single glass Peeta poured with interest. Peeta was not going to offer him a drink. He wasn’t going to do anything that suggested Rye was welcome to stay. “It’s pretty fucking crazy, even for her.”

“I don’t know,” Peeta grumbled. He knew exactly where. She must have listened in on one of Peeta’s calls with his father. His dad was his best friend, Peeta just couldn’t keep secrets from him. But the old man wasn’t always careful when he talked to Peeta.

“Katniss Everdeen. As fucking if. You have much better taste than that,” Rye laughed. “Remember that chick you were with a couple of years ago? The one who was in Playboy?”

“Cashmere Solomon,” Peeta muttered half under his breath. He’s gone out with her twice, and she’d been a nightmare, only interested in what he could do for her celebrity.

“She was hot,” Rye nodded. “I hooked up with her, after.” That was more than Peeta needed to know.

“Look,” Peeta started, an attempt to get rid of Rye, to get back to his plans for a few quiet minutes before Katniss got home and he’d have to have another, very different conversation on this topic.

“Mom’s a mental case,” Rye interrupted. “Like you’d ever stoop low enough to fuck that Everdeen chick. Stuck up little bitch like that? You’ve got more pride.”

“Are we done?” Peeta was bone weary, and not at all in the mood to listen to one of his brother’s diatribes. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tonight.”

“Right, right,” Rye said. Peeta didn’t give a damn whether his brother believed him or not. He started to guide Rye back to the entryway. “I don’t know how Hawthorne puts up with her, “ Rye said. “Rumour has it she’s completely frigid.”

Peeta laughed, he couldn’t help it. Katniss was the furthest thing in the world from frigid, she was a live wire in bed, far and away the best sex of his life. And she had broken up with Gale Hawthorne some four years earlier, but the media still wrote about them as if they were just taking a break.

“Listen,” Rye said, though Peeta was already shepherding him towards the door. “I know this girl, Glimmer her name is. Tits for miles! She’s working on a pilot.” Working on a pilot was LA code for unemployed. “She’s so hot,” Rye continued, oblivious to Peeta’s irritation, “spend a little time with her, I’ll get my pap friend to follow you. That’ll make the Enquirer story go away. Kill any hint of association with that little piece of work.”

“Bye, Rye, Peeta said, pushing his brother through the door.

“Call me,” Rye said, and Peeta slammed the door in his face, flipping the bolt. Idiot. He exhaled slowly, then turned.

Katniss was standing behind him. Shit. How much of Rye’s crap had she heard?

“How could you let him talk about me that way,” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Peeta cringed. Evidently most of it. “What was I supposed to say? You don’t want him to know we’re together.”

“We have to be together for you to defend me?” Katniss asked, incredulous. “Women are only worth defending if you’re fucking them?”

Peeta rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that bullshit,” he said. “You know I’m not like that.”

“Do I?” Katniss was pacing, little mincing steps that would fit on a pie plate. “Sure as hell didn’t sound like it.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Peeta was yelling. He flung his arms wide, expensive scotch sloshed over the edge of his glass, splashed his watch. Just great.

“How about ‘Katniss isn’t a stuck up little bitch’ for starters?”

“Jesus, Katniss, why do you even care? You know he’s an asshole.”

“He said awful things about me, in my own home, and you just stood there and nodded, like you agreed,” Katniss snapped. “That was a total dick move.”

“Well excuse-fucking-me,” Peeta said, “but it’s not even your house.” She lived there, but the lease was in his name. Her official address was an empty condo in Van Nuys, so that people wouldn’t figure out they were shacked up together. He hated the cloak and dagger bullshit, but she’d insisted.

Katniss froze, face twisted in disgust. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “It’s not.”

Before Peeta even had a chance to respond, the door was slamming behind her.

Peeta knew, even before she’d gotten to her car, that he was wrong. But he was angry, angry with his mother, angry with his brother, and pissed as hell that Katniss insisted on hiding, like he was some dirty secret instead of the man she’d been dating for two years.

She didn’t come home that evening. Peeta wasn’t completely surprised. It wasn’t the first time she’d frozen him out. He’d give her the night, then apologize in the morning.

But when morning came, his phone had blown up with texts. TMZ was running a spread of pictures, grainy and obviously through a long lens. Katniss, standing on a balcony, and not alone. With her was Gale-fucking-Hawthorne, her ex. She was locked in his embrace wearing only a robe, while he was in boxers. The gossip sites were having a field day, former lovers reunited.

Peeta, still in bed, dialed his phone. She answered on the second ring, voice hoarse. “Are you with Gale?” Peeta asked with no preamble.

There was the slightest of pauses. “Yes,” Katniss said.

“You couldn’t fucking wait to go rushing back to his bed?” Peeta yelled. “Or maybe you never really left?”

The line died in his hand. It was the last time they’d spoken, until now.

o-o-o

Katniss made no further attempt to talk to Peeta, outside of what they said on the soundstage. She’d doubled down on the ice princess routine, speaking to him in cold, overly formal tones when the cameras weren’t rolling.

 Working with Annie Cresta hadn’t gotten any better either, but at least they’d managed to memorise a routine—hand here, thigh there, twist this way, arch like that. Annie insisted it would look a lot more natural than it felt. Peeta wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t care. He just wanted the thing done.

The scene was set for late afternoon, after the rest of principal photography was done for the episode and the lion’s share of cast and crew had left. “Saving the best for last,” Cressida chirped, but no one really believed that.

Katniss had a rider in her contract specifying no nudity, Peeta knew that. He hadn’t bothered with one himself, he didn’t care who saw him, but Katniss had always been uncomfortable baring everything. In other scenes, the production sometimes used a body double for Katniss. But this scene, the scene, would be her and him, on a bed, doing choreographed dry humping. It had to be her, there wasn’t any other choice.

Haymitch wasn’t on set, something Peeta suspected was Katniss’s doing, but he appreciated it. The crew was at a bare minimum, to make it easier for the actors, but it was still a lot of people. Cressida was directing, busily setting up the scene. Two female grips he’d never met before were behind the stationary cameras, two of his favourite camera guys—Castor and Pollox—had the handhelds. Two more grips had the boom mics, a gaffer adjusted the lights, and a set designer, Octavia, was fussing over the bedding, rumpling it in an artistic way that Peeta knew from rehearsal would last about twelve seconds before they destroyed it. Annie, strangely, was nowhere to be seen. He’d thought that, as their intimacy coordinator, she’d be there to coach when they actually filmed. Apparently not.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Cressida called out, affecting a carefree tone. Peeta knew it was an act, an attempt to get all of them to relax. The antagonism and animosity between the two leads wasn’t exactly a secret, not anymore, and the mood on the small soundstage was tense. No one was looking forward to this.

Katniss had seen him naked a thousand times, had touched and stroked and tasted every inch of his body. Still, it was strange, even on a closed set, to be standing in front of her wearing nothing but a sock tied to his dick. She was clutching the edges of her pink silk robe so tightly her knuckles were white, and looking everywhere but at him.

Cinna approached and helped Katniss out of her robe, careful not to disrupt the cascade of windblown curls Peeta knew had likely taken an hour and several cans of product to achieve. Katniss’s hair was naturally pin straight, yet they were always curling it in the show, and she hated it. So focussed was Peeta on her hair that he didn’t notice what she was wearing until Cinna stepped away, leaving Katniss standing beside the bed in a pair of pasties and an adhesive pad that covered her pubic hair and not much else. Peeta couldn’t help but stare. It was far less than he was expecting, Annie had told him Katniss would be wearing a pair of flesh coloured panties and a little tube top over her boobs. “The sides of her underwear showed in the test shots,” Castor muttered in his ear. “Haymitch insisted on that instead.”

For half a minute, Peeta felt really bad for Katniss, knowing her discomfort, knowing what it was costing her to stand under the lights and in front of so many people wearing little more than three bandaids. But then she sighed, and barked, “can we just get this over with?” and any sympathy Peeta felt for her evaporated like spring snow.

The scene opened with them both on the bed. They’d practiced the routine, both on floor mats and on a set bed. But in rehearsal, they’d been clothed, pillows between them to minimise contact.

No longer.

Now, they were essentially naked, skin pressed to skin, staring wide-eyed at each other. She was so soft under him, fit him so perfectly. Her breath—sharp, nervous little pants—caressed his jaw, his throat. Her hands, small but so much stronger than they looked, clutched at this back.

His dick twitched and hardened, he couldn’t fucking help it. They’d fucked a thousand times over the previous two years, he’d always been insanely attracted to her. His dick didn’t know that this time it wasn’t real. He clenched his teeth and kept going. There was no way, positioned as they were, to prevent her from feeling it. 

Katniss smirked at him, just a fleeting little hint of amusement, but coupled with his embarrassment at getting turned on when the ice fucking queen clearly felt nothing it was too much. Rage flooded his veins like venom. He sneered down at Katniss, uncaring if the handycam caught his expression. Then he deliberately rocked against her, rubbing his hard cock against her core, only a little strip of fabric and a glorified sock between them. 

Her breath caught, a choked little sound. 

“Like that, princess?” he spat, lowering his mouth to her ear. “You like knowing that you can still get me hot?”

She moaned softly. It just made him angrier. Was she acting, or actually responding? Was she thinking about Gale while he was grinding against her? Had she always been thinking about him?

The few lines he was supposed to say flew out of his head. “Does your boyfriend get you hot like this?” he groaned instead, anger and lust combining. “Do you moan for him like you did for me?” Her hands, which had been moving through the choreography much more fluidly than in rehearsal suddenly froze. “Does he fill you up as good as I did?”

“Peeta,” Katniss whispered, a hint of warning in her tone. But he was too mad. Mad and heartsick and wildly turned on, it was a potent brew. He couldn’t stop. He ground harder against her, his chest rasping against her breasts, bare but for a pair of stickers. He nipped at her earlobe with sharp teeth, and her gasp was loud over his harsh breaths.

“Do you melt for him, ice princess?” She said nothing, but he didn’t care. He angled his hips and thrust hard, the way he knew she liked. He rocked over and over again, forgetting about the others in the room, lost in Katniss, however fake it might be.

“Do you want to give them a show,” he growled against her throat. “Take off the guard? One last fuck, for old times sake?”

“Stop,” she said, so faintly it was barely a breath. “Please.” Peeta pulled back. Beneath him, Katniss’s eyes were screwed tightly shut, tears leaking from the corners. The anger rushed away, leaving him horrified and utterly ashamed. 

He rolled away and climbed off the bed. “Need a break,” he grunted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Katniss had curled onto her side, facing away, naked and vulnerable. The need to comfort her battled with the sick feeling in his gut over how cruel he’d been. How completely unlike himself.

Cressida called out to him, but he didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say. Couldn’t stay another minute on that set.

He pushed past Castor who was staring open-mouthed, the camera on his shoulder still blinking as it ran, and stomped to his dressing room. There, he sank into a chair, the leather sticking to his bare ass. He pulled the modesty bag off his now-deflated cock and dropped his head into his hands.

How had it gotten to this?

How had he gotten to the point where he was tormenting the woman he loved more than life with fake sex on their job site? Bullying her to tears in front of their crew. 

He was disgusted with himself. That wasn’t who he was.

He needed to go to Katniss and apologise, for more than just the scene. 

Fifteen minutes later, he’d calmed down and thrown on sweats. Katniss’s dressing room door was closed, but he knew she wasn’t in there. He walked past the small set and the little office Annie had used, but he knew she wouldn’t be there either.

Down the hall, past craft services stood the door to the electrical room. It was never locked. Peeta pushed inside. Past all of the clutter and detritus of broken light stands and boxes of cables was another door, narrow and unmarked. A steep set of metal stairs lay beyond it, and at the top a door he had to duck to walk through.

Then he was standing on the roof, a soft Burbank breeze ruffling his hair.

It wasn’t anything special, this part of the roof, gravel-topped and housing the building’s HVAC system. But it was their spot, a place no one else ever went. A place they could find some measure of solitude in the midst of a busy studio. No one ever disturbed them up here.

Katniss was sitting on the low ledge that bisected the roof, wrapped in a robe, her pink silk clad back to him. He knew she must have heard his approach, the gravel beneath him crunched with every step. But she didn’t move, didn’t react as he straddled the cement to lower himself beside her.

She didn’t turn towards him, but she didn’t need to. Her profile said everything: smudged makeup, red nose, puffy eyes. The breeze caught loose tendrils of her hair, blowing them around her face but she was still and silent save for her uneven breaths. An island in a tempest. Her eyes remained fixed on the horizon, past the endless parking lots and low studio buildings to where the sun was sinking low, bathing the sky in soft orange. Her silence wasn’t icy tonight. Pain radiated from every line, every curve.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta started. Katniss nodded, her posture otherwise unchanged. “I was a complete dick in there, and you didn’t deserve any of that. It was inexcusable.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself. “I don’t want to go on like this. Making out for the cameras, then ignoring each other when they’re off. I was hoping that if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at being friends?” It would certainly make their jobs a lot easier.

“I’ve never slept with Gale,” she said softly, and Peeta startled. That wasn’t even possible. She’d run right back to him, was living with him again.

As if reading his mind, Katniss continued. “He’s been a good friend to me, a brother in some ways. But we’ve never had a physical relationship.”

“Bullshit,” Peeta sputtered, conciliatory tone gone. “You were with him for years.”

Katniss glanced at him then, a half smirk twisting her lips. “You were with Johanna for years too,” she said.

“You know that wasn’t real. And Gale isn’t gay.”

Katniss shrugged, and turned back to the horizon. 

Peeta continued to watch her. He knew all of her expressions, her every tell. She wasn’t lying.

“Why,” he started, then stopped. That wasn’t the question he really needed an answer to. “You let me think you were together.”

“Maybe I wanted to hurt you,” she whispered. “Like you hurt me.”

Mission accomplished, he thought. He’d been in fucking agony since he saw the TMZ pictures, and the ones that followed; Katniss and Gale riding in his convertible, Katniss and Gale leaving a trendy LA cafe, Katniss and Gale sipping wine on the balcony of his oceanfront estate. It had been a form of masochism, adding her name to his news alerts and reading the day's gossip about her blossoming relationship with Gale Hawthorne.

Could it really have all been fake?

Katniss and Gale had been on the same sitcom as children, had played cousins. So when, years later, they moved in together, of course everyone assumed they were together. They’d certainly never done anything to contradict it.

“You never mentioned that before,” Peeta said quietly. Not that Gale’s name had come up often in their time together, but they’d talked about past relationships, and she’d never said that Gale had been nothing more than a friend. She’d really never said anything about her years with Gale, and that had always made Peeta insecure, wondering if she’d still harboured feelings for him. If she kept their relationship a secret not from the world, but from Gale Hawthorne. Katniss shrugged.

“I didn’t think it would matter. You’re in the business, you know how often dating is just for show.”

He did. But he’d been upfront with Katniss about Jo, he’d never let her think there was anything there. That she hadn’t given him the same respect, hadn’t trusted him, was gutting.

“He kissed me, once,” Katniss said, and Peeta’s stomach clenched in inappropriate jealousy. “I was seventeen. It was the summer after we’d both finished filming Seam Street, but before he got his big break on that superhero movie. Back when we thought we might still be normal.” She was smiling sadly, lost in the moment. “We both gagged,” she continued, and Peeta’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Katniss laughed softly, but it wasn’t at Peeta. It was at whatever she was remembering. “All of those childhood friends to lovers tropes, it definitely wasn’t like that for me and Gale. Kissing him was…” Katniss trailed off, shuddering. “I love Gale, he’s mine, I’m his. But not like that.

“But it didn’t matter. Once the media decided we were together, they invented stories. Every time we went anywhere together, they took pictures and manipulated them to fit whatever story they’d decided to write about us that week.” Katniss sighed, and rubbed her eyes. “We couldn’t have a life, outside of each other. Anytime either of us was seen with another person, the tabloids went crazy. I got my own place, tried to put some distance there. But it didn’t stop.

“And after he started dating Claudia, it all got worse,” she said. “The media, and fans who decided that he and I belonged together, they couldn’t let it go. They hounded her incessantly, called her a homewrecker and things far worse. Trolled her on social media, harassed her family, and anything either of us tried to get them to back off only made things worse. When she finally broke things off with him, he blamed me, at least a bit.” She paused, and sniffled. “It’s why we’ve barely talked over the past few years. First because it bothered Claudia, and then because Gale was so pissed off. It came close to destroying our friendship.”

Peeta sat in stunned silence as realisation washed over him. “That’s why you wanted to keep us a secret,” he said. “You were protecting me.” 

“Private,” she said. “Not secret. And that’s what you and I do, protect each other. Or did,” she added softly. 

But he hadn’t protected her. Not on the set, and not from his brother’s vitriol.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta said. “I shouldn’t have let Rye talk shit about you. And I shouldn’t have been all defensive when you rightly called me on it.”

She nodded again, but didn’t turn towards him. And he didn’t know how to bridge the gulf. He’d been wrong, on so many levels. But she hadn’t trusted him, and still didn’t. She could have eased so many of his insecurities just by being honest. But she hadn’t.

He wanted to fix things. He wanted to be with her again, this time with more openness and honesty. To build a better relationship, one they both deserved. He wasn’t sure if it was possible with so much hurt between them. But he wanted to try. He just needed to get Katniss on the same page, and he knew from experience that wasn’t likely to be easy. 

“We should go back,” Peeta said what felt like an hour later. The sun was almost gone, and though the air still held the perpetual California heat, Katniss was shivering in the breeze. “I’m done being a wounded prick, I promise.”

Katniss turned to him, finally. She still looked so sad, with her red eyes and ruined makeup. His heart clenched. “Cressida called shooting for the day,” she said. “Didn’t think either of us was in a good place to continue.” Haymitch would doubtless be pissed, any disruption in the schedule was tens of thousands of dollars wasted. Peeta sighed, but he knew it was the right call. 

“Probably for the best,” Peeta said. “We’re a mess.”

Katniss laughed, just slightly, and Peeta grinned at her. When he extended his hand to help her up, she took it, and it felt so good to feel her fingers entwined with his again, not for show but in actual friendship.

They walked back to the dressing rooms together. “Do you maybe want to get dinner together?” Peeta asked, and he knew he sounded small and uncertain. But to his surprise, Katniss nodded.

“I’d like that,” she said.

They walked out to the lot thirty minutes later, and Peeta led her to his car. She was wearing jeans and a little tank top, her hair pulled back in a no-fuss braid and a pair of sunglasses shielding eyes that still bore traces of the evening’s emotions. She was in every way Katniss, the woman he loved. But he could feel her holding back, feel the stiffness and uncertainty in the way she looked at him, spoke to him. Not intentional, simply reflexive, like she was trying to keep her heart safe. From him. The wall between them loomed large. It was going to take a Herculean effort to break it down.

There was a restaurant, Sae’s, not too far from the house they’d shared. It catered to people like them. The front was nothing so much as a shabby little diner, but in the back were private, windowless rooms where they could have a meal without prying eyes.

Peeta ordered pasta and Katniss got her favourite goat cheese and apple panini. But the way she pushed the food around on her plate spoke to how distressed she still was. Katniss typically ate with gusto, like she was afraid she’d never see food again. 

He left her be, keeping conversation light, trying to ease her back into being comfortable with him. Joking with her, the way he always had. She smiled, but it felt hollow. If anything, she seemed to get more sad as the meal wore on. Peeta’s spirits flagged.

He paid the bill, and they headed out the back door. There, he stopped, and pulled Katniss to stand in front of him. 

“Talk to me,” Peeta said, voice gruff with guilt.

“About what?” She wasn’t being flippant, if anything, she sounded defeated.

“Katniss,” he sighed. She looked up at him, eyes unfathomable, dark pools in the lamplight. He could tell she was trying to psych herself up to talk. So he leaned against the restaurant wall and waited.

“I’m sorry, okay,” she said finally, and it wasn’t what he was expecting. “I’m sorry that keeping us a secret hurt you. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

Peeta opened his mouth, to say he understood better now, but she pushed on.

“And it didn’t mean I loved you any less.”

“Loved?” Her use of past tense gutted him. “Not anymore?”

In the deep shadows of the single street light, he could see her face crumple. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if shielding herself from another blow. “Does it matter?” Her words were choked, he could hear she was fighting tears again. “I know what you think of me.”

“Katniss,” he said, the word regret-soaked. 

“Frigid little ice princess,” she parroted, but there was no anger. Only pain. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Peeta said. “I know that’s not you.” She played at being cold sometimes. But underneath, she was a flame, burning bright.

“Everyone thinks that about me. They always have.”

“I don’t,” Peeta said, and he let the pleading come through in his voice, let her hear his own pain. “I know you’re not cold. You’re the girl on fire.” Katniss’s lips twitched at the old nickname, one she’d gotten as a teenager in an action movie. But her heartbroken expression didn’t change. “I was angry, and wounded, and I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said, then she was wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. Peeta pulled her in close and buried his face in her hair. It was the first time he’d felt whole in more than two weeks, like the broken piece of his soul had returned. 

Her little body shook against him, he knew she was crying. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her back. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.” It was. He’d make sure of it.

“Just missed you so much,” she muttered. His heart soared.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Please come home.” 

She didn’t say anything. But he felt her nod against his chest. And it was enough.

He took her back to his place, to their place. They were both exhausted, emotions raw, and had an early morning call, to redo the evening’s ruined scene. But she climbed into bed beside him, and he held her all night.

They were quiet the next morning, tentative and uncertain around each other, but they were together, and Peeta was committed to making things better, for both of them. He’d be patient. He’d communicate better. He’d lost the love of his life once, he wouldn’t let it happen again. 

They climbed back into his car, since hers was at the studio, but as soon as the garage door opened Peeta saw Rye there, waving his phone. Beside him, Katniss tensed, and shrank down into her seat. He could almost smell her pain. Just fucking great. The moron had to show up now, when they had barely started patching things together. 

“I’ve been calling you all morning,” Rye said as soon as Peeta stepped out of the car. It was just past eight, Rye didn’t typically get up before noon. Peeta suspected he hadn’t yet been to bed.

“Go home, Rye,” Peeta said. “This isn’t the time.”

“They’re saying this is you and that Everdeen chick,” Rye insisted, shaking his phone in Peeta’s face. Sure enough, on the screen was a dark and blurry shot of him, holding Katniss in his arms. Her face wasn’t visible, but her long black braid and sweet little ass were perfectly recognisable. Fuck. He thought they’d be safe at Sae’s. But he’d been wrong. Again. “I already told the Hollywood Reporter it was fake, that you wouldn’t slum with the likes of that—”

“Shut up!” Peeta roared, and for once, Rye stopped talking. “Katniss is the woman I love, and I won’t listen to you disparage her anymore,” Peeta said. “Now get the fuck out of here and stop fucking talking to the media about me.” Peeta was seething. He was going to make sure that security guard was fired. Maybe his boss too. And his boss’s boss.

Rye backed away, hands held up in supplication. “Sure, yeah,” he said quickly. “I’ll just get out of your hair. We’ll talk more later, yeah?”

Peeta didn’t dignify that with an answer. He spun on his heel, to head back to the car. But Katniss was there already, standing just behind him. She must have heard everything they’d said, and worse, Rye would have seen her there. He flinched, but she just smiled at him, then walked straight into his arms.

“Thank you,” she said. 

Fuck. She didn’t need to thank him for defending her, it’s what any decent person would do. “I should have said that last time,” he admitted, tightening his hold on her.

“You said it this time,” she said. Then she stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him.

Relief and disbelief and so much love flooded Peeta. He cupped her ass in his hands and hoisted her into his arms, his lips never leaving hers.

He knew Rye was watching. Knew that some of their neighbours could see them too. “We should go back to the garage,” he whispered between kisses that were growing too hot for the street. “People are watching.”

“Let them,” she gasped. “I don't want to hide how I feel about you. Not anymore.”

He laughed against her lips, and kissed her more.

o-o-o

She was sitting in her favourite chair, a mug of camomile tea forgotten beside her, when Peeta got home. He glanced at the television glowing on the wall and groaned. “Access Hollywood? Really?” Katniss, his Katniss, was watching the creme de la creme of shitty tabloid TV. 

Their relationship had been dissected endlessly by the gossip shows in the four months since they’d been outed, first by his attention-seeking mother, then by a slightly risqué public display of affection in front of their house that had been captured on cellphone video by multiple sources. Peeta understood so much better now why Katniss had tried so hard to avoid unwanted exposure. He was sick to death of the coverage.

But they were handling it together. 

“Shhh,” she said, grinning. “They’re discussing whether we really did the deed while shooting Allium and Barley’s big scene.” Peeta glanced back at the television. The banner read 15 Times 'Love' Scenes On Screen Were Real.

“Oh my god,” Peeta groaned, and sank into the chair beside Katniss’s, covering his face with his hands.

The day after their disastrous first attempt at filming, they’d gone back to the set and found Haymitch waiting for them. The crusty old bastard had actually apologised for putting them in such a shitty position, and told them he’d take the scene out, make it a fade to black.

“No,” Katniss had said, silver eyes brighter than they’d been all week. “The script needs the scene. Our fans need it. And we’re ready this time.”

The second attempt had been so much better. It was still awkward, the choreography still felt strange. One of her pasties came unstuck and ended up caught in his chest hair. Twice they had to cut filming when Katniss started giggling. 

Peeta had been loath to watch it, once it’d been edited. Afraid to reopen the barely healing wounds. But the end result, just as Annie promised, looked real. The cameras caught their very real joy at being reunited, their very real love for one another. And those things made the very fake sex look like something more.

They’d filmed several more sex scenes over the course of finishing the season, each easier than the last. Communication, it turned out, did make the scenes less awkward. And it helped with their real relationship too.

But the first scene, the one that Peeta still cringed thinking about, that episode had aired just days ago.

The television sound cut off abruptly and Katniss burst into laughter. Peeta peeked out from between his fingers. Frozen on the big screen was a shot of Peeta’s ass in all of its hi-def glory, and Mario Lopez was pointing to a spot just between his thighs where apparently a hint of nutsack had been caught by the camera. 

Well that brought unwanted exposure to a whole new level. 

Peeta groaned. “I’m putting a nudity rider in my next contract,” he mumbled.

[circlique]

I love brotherly/ mentor mongolia and south korea! Can you that same platonic pairing for 38 or 10 (preferably 10)? Thank you!

10. “I think I twisted my ankle...”

38. “Let's take a deep breath..."

——

The last few decades had been...interesting...to say the least.

Yong Soo, of course, was not thrilled to be conquered by a foreign power. After all the bloodshed and destruction that the Mongols had cast upon his kingdom, there had been no choice but to submit or be destroyed.

Unlike the invasions, however, Mongol rule was not nearly so crushing. Nowadays, it was looking a lot less like a conquest and more like an annoying bureaucracy. The Mongol “takeover” in practice was a lot more lenient than he had imagined. Yong Soo’s sovereignty was mostly respected. His royalty still got to rule—they just had to intermarry with the Mongolian royalty and keep on their good sides—a comparatively easy concession.

It was almost like a complicated game of house. Korean princes putting on their best Mongol garmets and charming Mongol princesses with their best renditions of old Mongol stories. Even Khan seemed fond of some of the princes.

Likewise, Mongolia—Batukhan—reflected this firm, but fair rulership. Loyalty was prized above all else, and dissent was dealt with swiftly—but for the most part, he treated the young Korean representations as if they were his own.

Recently, Batukhan had been agreed to teach Yong Soo the art of horseback archery, after the boy’s incessant begging. Mongolia’s mounted archers were no doubt responsible for his Empire’s vast land holdings and conquests. They had range, speed, and flexibility, and were able to run circles around any unprepared opposition. It had been terrifying to face them, so of course Yong Soo held a healthy respect for their art. Part of him was eager to learn it for himself, if only so his own armies could one day use the Mongols’ strategies against them.

Batukhan did not seem concerned that his young pupil may one day use the art to try and drive him out and taught him just as he would have for any other soldier. Perhaps it was the fact that Yong Soo’s legs were still not quite long enough for his feet to sit comfortably in the stirrups that led Batukhan to offer up the knowledge so freely...

“You do well with a bow on the ground,” Batukhan stated, directing his horse to walk in pace next to Yong Soo’s. He had left all the body armor and extra equipment at home today and was wearing only a simple, white tunic. His hair was drawn into a loose braid, which swung lightly against his back with the horse’s steps. Without the full ensemble of his usual uniform, Batukhan seemed suddenly less scary and much more approachable.

“But that’s because you’re stable and only need to focus on the movement of your target,” he continued. “On horseback, you need to track your target’s movement as well as your own.”

Batukhan had set up a line of makeshift targets in front of them, old rice sacks stuffed with grass and twigs and painted with a target. He raised his bow, a sleek, curved composite of leather and horn, notched an arrow, and let it sail effortlessly into its target a few yards away. He urged his horse into a quick trot and fired arrows into the centers of the remaining targets in rapid succession.

“You must be strong in your core,” he said, gesturing to his abdomen as he lowered his bow and turned his horse around to face Yong Soo. “On the horse, that’s where your stability comes from. Don’t squeeze too hard with your legs.”

By now, Yong Soo’s horse had caught up, but Batukhan was already taking the horse’s reins and forcing him to turn back around.

“Now, you try,” he said, helping Yong Soo to direct his horse back in the other direction. He let go of the reins, and Yong Soo’s horse proceeded at a steady pace.

Yong Soo, eager to prove himself, raised his bow. He was quite proficient at it, on the ground at least. How different could it be?

He discovered very quickly that yes, it was quite different. Turning his upper body 90 degrees to face the targets immediately had him feeling off balance. Still, he was determined to at least look confident, so he bit his lip and let the arrow loose. As soon as he did, the force cause his upper body to rotate, his legs splaying out to his sides in an effort to keep his balance, and the arrow flew wildly off to the side.

“Strong core, Yong Soo,” Batukhan reminded him firmly.

Yong Soo bit his lip and readied the next arrow. Strong core. He tried clenching his abdomen, but it still did not feel right. It felt like his lower body was ungrounded. His feet, though they could reach the stirrups, did not quite settle into them firmly. Yong Soo rocked side to side, stretching his legs to try and make them go further, but it didn’t seem to help much. He flexed his core again, trying to keep from also squeezing his legs, and let the second arrow fly.

This time it at least landed close to the target, and Yong Soo spotted it sticking up from the ground near the target he’d intended to hit.

“Better,” Batukhan said from some distance away. “But you’re still not stable. You need to be rooted in your core.”

Third time’s the charm, right? Yong Soo thought to himself. Stability, stability. It was so easy on the ground. He shifted in the saddle again, stretching his legs down as far as they would go, until the foot on the same side as the targets settled more comfortably into the stirrup. Now Yong Soo felt he could settle his weight into it and—yes! Much more stable now. His confidence returned, and he readied another arrow, drew it back, flexed his core—and let it go.

At first, it seemed that Yong Soo had finally figured it out. The arrow embedded itself in the target, not in the center but at least not in the ground, but the backwards force of the bow on his arm knocked him off balance. He felt his weight shift first towards the horse and then overcorrected. He was leaning too far forward, all his weight pressed onto his forward foot as the foot on the side opposite completely lifted out of the stirrup. He felt himself slipping from the saddle and dropped his bow, his hands scrambling for a hold, body twisting back towards the horse—but it was too late. His stomach turned as gravity betrayed him, arms flailing out to his sides as they searched for the ground to break his fall. He held his breath waiting for impact and—something cracked.

The impact knocked the breath out of him, but the pain in his ankle, tangled in the stirrup and twisted unnaturally—would have done just the same.

“Yong Soo!” came Batukhan’s cry of concern, and he quickly dismounted his own horse to run to the boy’s aid.

Yong Soo’s horse—a well-trained, obedient creature, thankfully—had stopped and turned its head to nudge at the panicking Korean curiously with its nose. Yong Soo clawed at his leg, trying to free his twisted ankle from the stirrup and gasping as the movement only elicited more pain.

“Yong Soo!” Batukhan said, kneeling down and taking Yong Soo by the shoulders.

“I—I think I twisted my ankle,” Yong Soo panted, his voice shaking as he looked up at his leg, his stomach turning at the sight of his toes facing the wrong direction.

“Yes, yes you did,” Batukhan said matter-of-factly, wisely positioning himself so that his body blocked Yong Soo’s view of his injury. He gently pushed Yong Soo’s upper body down to the ground. “Now, let’s take a deep breath.”

The Mongolian drew in an exaggerated breath, held it for a moment, and released it. At first, Yong Soo could only think of the pain in his leg, throbbing harder with every heartbeat. But Batukhan repeated his exaggerated breaths a few more times until he had Yong Soo doing it along with him.

“Right—now I want you to take the biggest breath you can, Yong Soo,” he said. “And when I count to three, force it back out as hard as you can, alright?”

Yong Soo nodded, and after a few shallower warm up breaths, he sucked in as much air as he could. His lungs burned with the pressure but he kept trying to breathe in more, even as Batukhan took Yong Soo’s injured leg in his hand, holding it in a firm grip just above the ankle. Pain shot down Yong Soo’s leg and he held the breath, grimacing.

Batukhan finally started counting.

“Let it out on three, alright? One, two—three.”

In one swift movement Batukhan popped the twisted foot out of the stirrup, and Yong Soo let out the breath with a strained cry of pain.

“Good,” Batukhan said, slowly lowering the leg down to the ground, though he had to gently push Yong Soo back when he again sat up, trying to get a look at the injury.

“Ah—no need,” Batukhan said. “How will looking at it help you? It will heal itself without the help of your eyes won’t it?”

Yong Soo frowned and laid back with a huff. His ankle throbbed, but it was slowly subsiding, no doubt as a result of the accelerated healing that beings like him were blessed with. After a few more breaths, he felt a bit stupid for being so panicked.

Batukhan sighed.

“You were cheating,” Batukhan said with a knowing tone.

“I wasn’t!” Yong Soo protested.

“You were!” Batukhan said, standing and reaching out a hand for Yong Soo to grab. Yong Soo took the hand and shifted his weight onto his good leg as Batukhan pulled him into a standing position.

“You know how I know?” Batukhan went on, letting Yong Soo lean on him for support as he walked him over to a nearby tree. “Because I left the stirrups unadjusted on purpose. You must be able to stabilize yourself without relying on your legs. If you were doing it correctly you would not need the stirrups at all.”

Yong Soo pouted, then winced as he stubbornly tried to put weight on his not-quite-healed leg.

“Sorry...” he muttered simply, the embarrassment of the whole fiasco now starting to settle in.

Batukhan let out another sigh as he helped Yong Soo sit down in the shade of the tree. Once Yong Soo was situated, Batukhan knelt next to him and began to wrap the injured (but now, thankfully, untwisted) ankle in a strip of leather for stability.

“It’s fine,” he said, his tone betraying a hint of softness. “It’s only your first day, after all.”

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: The New Mutants (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the week following the movie first airing in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen The New Mutants do not read on until you have.

General Reaction:

A three year delay for the final instalment of a twenty-year franchise, was it ultimately worth it? Well as an X-Men fanatic I am always going to say yes, it wasn’t a swan song or a wrap up to the X-Men Cinematic Universe, far from as it was originally pitched as the start of a trilogy and does sew the seeds for that. However, while Dark Phoenix did feel like a sombre instalment not only for that “First Class” timeline but also the team movies as a whole, this had an air of sadness to it because this is the last time I will see anything X-Men related on the big screen for who knows how long.

In that sense, this was an emotional movie for me, more than just the fact that the emotion of fear is a running theme through the movie. However, in terms of my actual enjoyment of the movie, it was a very good movie for what it was.

When your very final movie is effectively an origin movie then there’s always going to be that sense of incompleteness, and what this movie teases both for these characters and who is the big bad behind all of this, it’s really frustrating to know it’s over before it truly starts.

With that in mind, The New Mutants is very slow to get started as there’s a lot of exposition and because it feels like it’s own branch of the X-Men Cinematic Franchise, similar to Deadpool, there is a level of “Beginner’s Guide to Mutants 101″ at play here with the explanation of what a Mutant is and when a young or “New Mutant” first discovers their powers that, to give this movie credit, I have never truly seen explored properly outside of the comics other than a quick explanation from Storm to Jubilee in the first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series.

It’s also disappointing to know that unlike X-Men: The Last Stand or Dark Phoenix, there isn’t a sense of finality for these characters as we have just been introduced to them. Outside of Sunspot who has briefly appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, this is the first cinematic appearance for all of these characters. The X-Men are briefly mentioned and Professor X is alluded to quite cleverly but every character outside of Sunspot is debuting here and to know they’re never going to be seen in this continuity again with a chance to develop is very sad.

In terms of the “horror” aspects of this movie I have to say this is very comic-book horror as in how Blade in the late 90s was horror. If you know the jump scares in this movie are coming then there are no jump scares, so basically if you’ve seen the trailers you know the jump scares.

As a horror movie, it felt very much like It-lite in terms of the theme of bringing nightmares into reality, only without the hard R-rating of the blood and gore because outside of one maybe two scenes there is nothing truly horrific to look at here.

There’s also a great parallel to the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer shown from their episode in this movie and the Smiley Men who are Illyana’s nightmare brought to life. They’re creepy like them but they’re not as sinister as them...and that is a great choice of wording considering who the big bad behind the scenes of this movie is.

As an X-Men movie, which is what this is as the New Mutants in the comics are basically younger versions of the X-Men, as I say the first half of this movie isn’t that power heavy but is about introducing and establishing this team, the second half/last third on the other hand is power heavy. Not exactly Days of Future Past or Apocalypse heavy but still heavy for the powers this group of Mutants have.

Overall generally as both an X-Men movie and a comic-book movie, this was really a great movie particularly for the first new movie I have seen since lockdown.

Characters:

So this breakdown will be easy as there’s only really six characters to talk about but I’m going to make it a seven-character breakdown as the looming presence in the shadows of this movie deserves their own section.

Illyana Rasputin:

Alright so it is somewhat difficult to say if Illyana is my favourite or if Rahne is my favourite but I ultimately landed on Illyana for first as Anya Taylor-Joy is really in the spotlight the entire way through this movie. Every time she’s in a scene she commands the attention, and all five of the New Mutants have solo scenes so for Illyana to stand out the most, this is why she is #1 for me.

I’m not entirely sure where this movie takes place in terms of the overall X-Men timeline...but considering it’s supposedly in the revised timeline and Colossus is a member of the X-Men in the late noughties/early 2010s, I imagine this is either around the same time or can even be modern day (2017 or 2020).

Anya Taylor-Joy is as suited to the role of Magik as Channing Tatum would have been as Gambit in my opinion. Not only does she have a reasonable Russian accent but she just simply looks like how Magik looks in the comics.

I loved the rebel teen angst she had all the way through from when we first meet her to the very end, not only is it fitting for the movie but in my opinion it’s fitting for the character. This is a girl that literally goes through some resemblance of hell and is effectively a serial killer so of course she is going to have this icy dark exterior.

In terms of powers, I am slightly disappointed she never fully armoured up, it was always just her left arm that she had armoured complete with Soulsword, whereas in the comics her main look is her entire body. I guess the argument could be made the majority of it is simply a uniform and her arm is the only part armoured but I would have liked to have at least seen her crown.

But Magik’s powers for me here are an interesting combination of Zatanna and Nightcrawler which is a very good combination. The scene where she first appears through limbo fighting the Smiley Men was very impressive.

I would have also enjoyed it if we had spent more time in Limbo, given that we always saw cameo flashes of it whenever she manifested a portal, but we never actually had a full scene of her in her “special place”.

Not being too familiar with the comics however, I am almost completely unaware of Lockheed as a character. My only prior knowledge is his appearance in Pryde of the X-Men as a pest and I have to say I much prefer him here. The animation of both Lockheed and the Demon Bear were stellar.

As I say, I feel we have only just scratched the surface with where this version of Magik could go. I doubt very much Kevin Feige would bring Anya Taylor-Joy back if/when he does bring the character into the MCU because he doesn’t like playing with used toys but if ever there was an exception I would hope it would be her.

Rahne Sinclair:

It is slightly obvious to think of when Maisie Williams was filming for this movie as her hair, unless it’s a wig, is in that “Arry” phase of her Game of Thrones tenure.

Because of the current entertainment climate and the non-starting stance this movie finds itself released in, I think the lesbian romance between Rahne and Dani is going to go unnoticed. But considering this is the first major LGBT romance in a comic-book property I feel this movie will be cheated out of that representation in favour of what is to eventually come from Marvel.

Outside of the romance, I feel Rahne’s story rooted in her religion and mutation was fantastic. I love me some werewolf action and I feel I saw enough actual wolf to satisfy Rahne spending most of her time in “halfway form” as the character has been known to do in the comics.

The fact her nightmare was that religious leader branding her as a werewolf and thereby a monster, not only was it believable given her character but also the parallels to devout religious views on homosexuality were subtle but there.

I do feel the character spent way too much time screaming towards the end of the movie. This girl is a werewolf but spent most of the final battle as the screaming protector of her unconscious lover, I mean she was I guess helpful in waking Dani back up but never truly let rip like I feel the character could have.

I’m not entirely sure if Williams has any Scottish heritage about her but the slipping in and out of the accent was slightly distracting at times. When she was able to be loud the accent was often broken but in her quieter moments or longer dialogue scenes you could hear it.

I do appreciate keeping the nationality of the character from the comics, considering the mess they made of Banshee and Moira MacTaggert, and I do understand having an at the time name talent like Maisie Williams in the role, but there are surely Scottish actresses out there and the casting pool wasn’t exactly high for this movie.

Dani:

The main character in this movie, or focal character I guess as it’s an ensemble movie, is either Illyana or Dani, but because we start with Dani and are introduced to the other characters through Dani I guess she is the focal character.

Again, I give credit to the movie for keeping the nationality of the characters from the comics, but while Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams border on appropriation as they are not Russian or Scottish themselves, although Anya is of Scottish Argentine descent, Blu Hunt is at least Native-American as Dani is. I think they come from different tribes but I don’t think people are going to focus too much on that technicality.

Similarly to all these characters I don’t really know much about Dani so have no frame of reference to compare her to. I remember she appeared in one episode of X-Men: Evolution and I know her powers involve dreams, which similarly to the majority of the characters in this movie lends itself beautifully to a horror movie, but that’s about it.

I felt her relationship with Rahne was genuine and her own “survivors guilt” over being the only member of her family still alive after the Demon Bear attack was well explained.

I just didn’t understand why it was decided that Reyes had to kill Dani because of the severity of her powers, maybe it was the unpredictability of her powers because their limitations are literally the power of imagination, but I thought Reyes was responsible for sorting out those capable of being killers...surely the power to bring nightmares to life as many times as it takes to kill the person qualifies?

With the Demon Bear being tamed at the end of the movie, I kind of don’t see anywhere for Dani to go if they did continue, she still has the power to solidify nightmares, and I guess she can always call on the Demon Bear, but unlike Rahne or Magik I do not see any further development for her.

Sam:

Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball was an interesting one for me as I knew the character and I knew the actor, but hadn’t properly seen either one fully explored before. I have not watched Stranger Things so do not really know Charlie Heaton’s acting potential...but what I do know is he is from Yorkshire and cannot really do a Kentucky accent.

As for the character of Cannonball, I thought that early scene of him strapping himself to that weight while zooming through the air to either test himself or hurt himself was really well realised. There wasn’t enough of him going full cannonball throughout the movie, mostly it just came across as a sort of super speed which in a way I guess it is but projecting that force-field while he is zooming about is what makes the power set unique.

Similarly to Dani he had guilt over his nightmare which was him causing a mining accident which killed his co-workers and dad, but unlike Dani who never really developed the thought of it being her fault for her family’s death because of her conjuring the Demon Bear, Sam did at least hold a lot of guilt over what had happened...despite his nightmare being probably the weakest as the main effect it had was totalling a washing machine.

I also didn’t understand the back-to-back scenes of Sam suggesting he was meant to be in the hospital and felt he had to be there, but then in the next scene him trying to walk out saying he doesn’t belong there. Maybe it was the editing but it just seemed like a complete 180 from scenes that were literally back-to-back.

Roberto:

As I said this is Sunspot’s second cinematic appearance and I guess in the revised timeline he has gone from being portrayed by Mexican actor Adan Canto to now Brazilian actor Henry Zaga.

I didn’t feel the boys in this movie had that much to do, with both Sam and Berto it did feel like them simply coming to terms with their powers. I did like how both had that fear of hurting people and both had to learn I guess to push past that fear.

With Berto’s fear though, I do feel his power first manifesting in conjunction to him reaching sexual maturity was very well explored, because of course the combination of testosterone and becoming a living solar flare are not exactly two things anyone wants to mix. So when the result is burning your girlfriend to a crisp it is going to shake you.

Outside of his powers though there wasn’t a lot to the character and it is hard to remember a good line that he or Sam had that weren’t douchey, but for what we got he was a good character.

Reyes:

Wow this woman deserved to be eaten by the Demon Bear, which by the way I found almost as humorous as Katie McGrath being carried away by a pterodactyl in Jurassic World.

But yes, this doctor was the “villain” of the movie as she was the agent of the big bad Essex Corporation in charge of determining the new mutants’ powers and whether or not they’re worth progressing to their facility.

Outside of that I didn’t really think much of her as a character, she wasn’t a sympathetic character, she wasn’t believing to be doing this for the benefit of these young mutants, she was simply following orders.

It’s a deviance from the comics where Reyes is a hero and member of the X-Men, whereas here she is far from it.

Alice Braga is also regionally appropriately cast as she is Brazilian whereas the character is Puerto Rican, although whenever she spoke I kept thinking about Gal Gadot a lot, even looks wise there are similarities.

Sinister:

Now let’s talk about the looming big bad who I imagine would have been the major big bad of this supposed trilogy. Despite the new mutants believing the facility to be owned and run by the X-Men, it is in fact run by the Essex Corporation...Essex as in Dr. Nathaniel Essex, a biologist obsessed with evolution who became the Mutate supervillain Mister Sinister.

I want to see Mister Sinister in a live-action movie so badly it’s unreal, they’ve done Apocalypse so why they can’t do Sinister I don’t know.

This isn’t the first time Sinister has been alluded to as the Essex Corporation was in an end credits scene of X-Men: Apocalypse that acquired samples of Wolverine’s blood presumably to create X-23, but because those events took place in the 80s and these events take place in somewhat modern day it’s hard to correlate the two.

Obviously we are no longer going to get X-Men movies in this universe and continuity, but with the seeds being sown for Sinister more than once now, the baton has been laid down for Feige to finally bring this villain to life.

Reccomendation:

If like me you are more or less interested in just completing the twenty-year franchise because you love these characters and any interpretation of them then this is the movie for you. However, don’t expect wall to wall action, and I would recommend not getting too attached to these characters. It’s too late for me with Illyana I already love her and already feel Anya Taylor-Joy has set a high bar for whoever plays Magik next.

But for me personally, this franchise has been my favourite movie franchise and my favourite property. Even the bad movies I can at least find something good about them regardless of if the overall movies have been good or not. But just to reiterate, I do feel this is one of the good movies.

In a ranking of the 13 movies (not counting Once Upon a Deadpool), this ranks somewhere between #6-8 for me.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 8/10, by no means the best or a perfect X-Men movie but by no means one of the worst. The movie benefits from new characters (aside from Sunspot) but suffers due to the inevitability of this being the definitive end for the current franchise.

So what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[calliecat93]

Star Trek Beyond. Since it looks like a fourth will will forever be stuck in Developmental Hell, this is currently the final part of the Kelvin Timeline. So far, haven’t been a fan. The Timeline has potential, but the character decisions must... fail. So dod Beyond manage to salvage anything?

In my opinion... yes. 100% yes. This film was great and I loved it~!!!

It DOES feel a little too late for me, but not too little. It’s still action heavy, but it’s still very good action. All the pros pf the first two films are still there. Effects, cinematography, acting, diversity in casting, and I failed to mention how all three have fantastic music. All of these continue to be highs, but the lows for me have been their lack of understanding the characters and TOS’ philosophy. This film had a new director and writers, which included Simon Pegg (Scotty) and while IDK how much into ST J.J. Abrams was (or I see conflicting accounts), it’s clear that the filmmakers this time DID understand and care for the original spur e material.

Kirk is FINALLY Kirk. There’s no womanizing. No cockiness, or at least not the same level as last time. He’s got the experience. He’s got the level-head. He’s got the strong will that made him such a great captain in TOS. It was good to place him during the Five Year Mission since that gives justification for his newfound maturity, though it means we don’t get to see it. But still, Kirk is so much more likable and competent. His crisis about his place as captain after going through the same thing over and over is a little out of place, it helps keep him differentiated from TOS Kirk while still honoring that incarnation and showing what was so great about him. They FINALLY got it right. Them also allowing him to reminisce about not getting to know his father also added so,e emotional depth that the first was lacking for his arc. It’s very much correction that may be too late, but is appreciated and finally I can call this man Captain James T. Kirk.

Spock and Bones are together for most of the film, and they’re both great! Spock was the one I was the most fine with and that continues here. Prime Spock’s death of course was sad, but with Nimoy’s passing it was inevitable and best not ignored. They used this to have Spock question his path and wanting to follow his predecessor and his legacy, which both in the films and in RL is VERY understandable. In the end, this isn’t Prime Spock. This Spock is his own being and needs to chart his own course. Which I’m glad that he decided to do in the end. Also t he ‘tracking device joke had me laughing SO hard XD Uhura relationships still unnecessary, but I’ve just accepted it at this point and it didn’t irk me the same way here as before.

Bones, compared to the last two films got it SO much better. He doesn’t really have an arc, but his character is allowed things to so. They pair him with Spock, allowing THAT dynamic to finally shine. While it’s not as emphasized as int he series, it feels like Bones is back in his proper place: the heart to Kirk’s body and Spock’s mind. He’s completely sympathetic to Spock’s loss and is supportive for Kirk, understanding how much his dad’s death and in turn his birthday affects him and being that emotional support that he needs. He is that emotional support that the two need and he is the one who keeps them alive, saving Spock’s life with his medical skill and limited resources. I still wish we had more but he didn’t feel left out and he feels like he freakin’ mattered.

Hell all the main crew felt like they mattered. Scotty got such great material and his friendship with Jaylah was really nice. Which I LOVE Jaylah BYW, a badass character who is smart, competent, and adorable without may unnecessary sexualization. Uhura was also a badass. I mean she ALWAYS has been but she got to kick ass here and was just fantastic. Chekov and Sulu were great as always, and of course it’s only appropriate to mention that this would be Anton Yelchin’s final performance as Chekov due to his passing. It’s sad especially because he was doing so well as the character and had so much ahead of him. But for the work he did in bringing this incarnation of Chekov alive, he did it beautifully and I thank him for it. The whole film felt like an ensemble piece, not just ‘Kirk and Spock and those other guys’ which even TOS was guilty of. I really love these characters and I enjoyed seeing them all be such a fantastic team.

The story is basic, but it didn’t need to be this complex piece about say... Starfleet turning into a military organization. Another major issue with the other two cause GDI just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Villain is fine enough for this film, though so far I feel like the films REALLY need to work on improving that part. But I also forgive it because they keep the focus on our heroes. This is a character driven film. The only real complaint is The Triumvirate still feels non-existent, but it IS greatly improved especially since we flesh out Spock and Bones’ dynamic. We now have the pieces and can imagine things for this incarnation and whenever the three were together, it just felt right. The three of them in the transporter room with Bones hating them all so much is PERFECT. It may not have been fully showcased, but they understood it. I don’t doubt that at all. The ending also had me smiling big and felt deserved. It marks that optimism for the future and for whatever awaits in the universe. Just as Star Trek was meant to mean.

So yeah, Beyond was a major improvement. This is what you get when you care less about getting those summer blockbuster box office numbers (IDK when this came out outside the year but still) and care about your characters and plot. What you get with people who care about the property you are rebooting, retaining the spirit but doing something new and more inclined to today’s values. I still like The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country more and still haven’t seen the TNG films, but this is a good film that deserves to stand along those three. It’s the best reboot film for sure. If we get a fourth film, I truly hope that they keep the same care that went into this one. You don’t need flashy effects and action or plot complexity for a good film, you just need good characters, a good story, and people who care for and know what they are doing. This one honored TOS while being it’s own thing, as any good reboot should, and I respect that greatly.

So for rankings... I’ll give 2009 a 2/5 for good cinema elements, but otherwise an only okay plot and the characterizations/relationship establishments being poor. Into Darkness is a 2.5/5 for being better in the latter case, but still not great and for trying to cash in on elements and developments of the past without putting int he work that made the, great then. Beyond? 4/5. It’s not the best ST film (though again gotta do TNG), but a marked improvement over the other two with characterization, plot, and just felt like something made bu fans for fans. May be too little, too late but I am still happy that it happened a d was so welcomed after how I felt about the other two. The Kelvin Timeline has potential and this showed it, but whether it’ll have the chance to continue it remains to be seen. But the fans have something that they can get creative with. I want it to continue to end on a better note and see these characters more, but if it ends here, it’s not a bad place at all.

[ohscorbus]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Wednesday 22nd May, 2019 [Pt. 1]

First impressions are important and if this cast means to go on as they’ve started then we’re all in for a treat! There’s honestly so much to write about and changes we need to discuss but I’m on a time limit so... let’s do this!

ACT ONE, SCENE FOUR: TRANSITION SCENE

I knew the rose was coming over from Broadway so I wasn’t surprised when Scorpius pulled it out and tried to give it to Rose on the train. I love how pleased Scorpius is with himself. A rose for Rose! Plus I know how much Jonathan really wanted it last year so I’m glad to see he’s finally succeeded. 

The instant change between the concentration on Albus’s face as he stared down the crumpled letter in his hand to the look of pure shock and overwhelming happiness as he successfully vanished it melted me. I love that he was genuinely pleased with himself, that he was excited to have gotten it right. It also highlighted the difference between him and Joe’s Albus. Joe’s Albus was quite obviously depressed. He struggled and he expected himself to. He barely trusted himself, let alone these pockets of happiness. That line, “in every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again”, sums him up perfectly to me. Whereas Dominic has no problem finding and embracing joy in his life. He has struggles, but he’s too headstrong to deny himself.

So we have a new wand dance! There are elements of the last one in it so it’s not entirely new, but this one is without a doubt visually more pleasing. More fire, more dancing. It definitely looks more ‘magically’ and impressive. Although the line at the end after Albus’s wand fails to produce fire and instead shoots out a red/pink powder really doesn’t work for me. I know the ensemble do add lines here so I’m not sure if that’s from them or whether it’s an actual officially added line, but “even his wand wants to be in Gryffindor” just didn’t seem right. I get that it’s referring to the fact that everyone expected him to be a Gryffindor and that it’s implying even his wand thinks he’s wrong, but Albus has literally just stated very plainly that he belongs in Slytherin. Or maybe that’s the point? But like I said, I don’t know if that line is here to stay so I’ll look back at it next time.

ACT ONE, SCENE SEVEN: THE BLANKET SCENE

My favourite sibling interaction was with Lily. When she came in asking about her potions book, Albus instantly threw his hands up in surrender. He is innocent of this particular crime apparently. I love it though because it implies the Potter siblings are like every other family. Teasing and constantly ‘borrowing’ each other’s things.

If I hadn’t already been completely won over by Dominic already, he would have done it in this scene. Jamie’s Harry is quick to shout and this Albus isn’t afraid to give it right back. The two of them work brilliantly together in that sense. It felt like an argument, not an attack or retaliation. 

I also love the fact that Albus fully opens the blanket and holds it up between him and Harry so it acts like a barrier. Which is exactly what it is in a way. Harry’s history keeps getting in the way their relationship and by holding it between them like that it’s almost like he’s telling him so. Plus it’s interesting because Albus’s message is technically already written on the blanket at this point. It’s still invisible but we know it’s there. Watching him look at this clean blanket and not know yet that his future has already been literally written out and intertwined with Harry’s past was great.

Dominic’s Albus also does this thing a lot where he holds his hands out with his arms open wide in a ‘see?!’ kind of gesture. (If that makes sense? I’m terrible at descriptions.) It’s low key dramatic and I love it because I do it all the time haha. It’s like pointing out your injustice in a point proven to the universe kind of way. One of my favourite times he did that was when the love potion spilled on the blanket. He just stopped and looked at it and then held his arms out and looked pointedly at his dad and didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to, his action said it all. Of course this happened to him.

Also! New hoodie! It’s still the same Slytherin shade of green, but this one doesn’t have the white strings or zip. They’re both green now. I shall be shopping...

ACT ONE, SCENE THIRTEEN: ST. OSWALD’S

You know how the script says St. Oswald’s is chaos? Well now it actually is. They went full Broadway on us. I’m indifferent to it? On one hand I love how wild it is. I didn’t know where to look. It was utter madness everywhere which is cool, and totally what I’d expect from a wizarding retirement home. My only issue with it is the guy who works there. So before it’s him who the older wizards and witches gang up on. Now it’s him who torments the residents. Visually it’s fun and exciting, but there’s an underlining abuse of power and the vulnerable vibe there that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I mean, they give as good as they can get and ‘win’ in the end but still... This happens enough in real life for this to make me feel a little uneasy. But on a lighter note, the biscuit palace is epic and I demand they start selling them at the bar.

ACT TWO, SCENE ONE: HARRY’S PRIVET DRIVE NIGHTMARE

There was some really small changes to this scene but I love them. Firstly, there was an extra Voldemort hand so at one point during his nightmare, little Harry’s head was surrounded by these skeletal hands and visually it was so fantastic. Harry appears trapped and it’s all focused on his head. Which is exactly where he always was and still is.

Also! A weird observation, but they have finally added an actual wet patch to his PJ bottoms so it looks like he’s literally wet himself. I’m surprised it took them so long.

ACT TWO, SCENE THREE: MCGONAGALL’S OFFICE

The new McGonagall clicked with me straight away. She’s fantastic and has this natural sort of humour to her that seems to underline everything and I love that. Especially because while you may laugh at her tone in some of these lines, she still has this aura about her that demands your utmost respect and she gets it. But then there’s this lot. I mean, she’s dealt with these as kids and now here they are again. Her tone is totally understandable. I love her. Like, you know when Ron runs in with his napkin still tucked into his jumper after accidentally flooing into the kitchens? Well no one said or did anything about it so at the very end of the scene, McGonagall reached over and pulled it off him and while she said nothing, her face said everything. They may be adults but they’re still her kids.

ACT TWO, SCENE FOUR: PRACTISING WITH DELPHI

This Albus is a little ball of determination and it’s never more obvious than it was in this scene. The pause before each Expelliarmus was so long I actually started to get concerned Dom was nervous or struggling with the wand trick. But no. One look at his face and you’ll see nothing but concentration. You just know he’s giving himself the most epic pep talk in his head as you can see the physical change in his stance once he’s mentally ready. I’m here for that.

ACT TWO, SCENE SIX: HOGWARTS THROUGH THE TREES

I just wanted to enjoy this moment so I didn’t make many mental notes. But I will say Albus’s face when Scorpius says he wanted someone like Harry Potter was actually the most tragic thing. While it obviously wasn’t expected, he also wasn’t surprised. Of course he wants a Harry Potter. Everyone does. He’s just Albus. How could he ever live up to that? It made him a little sad, and me, a lot sad. His face when Scorpius clarified he was better though was worth it all.

ACT TWO, SCENE SEVEN: NEW TIMELINE

Bless Dominic for actually collapsing in pain from his arm. I’ve missed an Albus doing this! Plus it really scares the adults (and Scorpius) and as horrible as that is, their reactions are always great to watch.

ACT TWO, SCENE EIGHT: HOSPITAL WING

We finally have an Albus and a Harry who both eat the chocolate again! I love it for many reasons but particularly with this Albus as it almost confirms what I said about him accepting happiness. Will it fix everything? No. But it may help in this moment so he’ll take it. It’s also interesting to see him happily take Harry’s advice just to then reject it later on in the conversation. He’s not deliberately difficult or stubborn or always against his dad just because he can. This one just stands his ground, without hesitation, whenever he disagrees with something. There’s a point to it. A reason. It’s so very Albus-y.

ACT TWO, SCENE NINE: HOGWARTS STAIRCASE

That very last ‘okay’ from Albus after he cuts ties with Scorpius on the staircase under Harry’s watch was most excellent. So instead of saying it to Scorpius, he turned to face Harry and blatantly said it to him in the most bitter and aggressive tone. I loooove when an Albus does this. It’s just so Albus, this one in particular too. Because he’d never say that to Scorpius because this is not okay. But this is Harry’s fault so Harry needs to know. He needs to see the consequences of breaking these two. They’re both hurt and confused and lost. Albus would absolutely throw that in Harry’s face.

ACT TWO, SCENE SIXTEEN: THE LIBRARY SCENE

So, the library scene. This is what got me really excited about the next years worth of Jonathan and Dominic shows because as focused as I was on Albus last night, I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off Scorpius here. Dominic’s Albus is small but powerful, and that seems to have brought out a little more focused anger in Jon. Like I said before, I want him to explode after years of imploding. But his Scorpius’s usual stammer and frustration always seems to stop him from fully letting go. But last night I really felt that pure, unfiltered anger and I could not have been happier. If Albus raised his voice then Scorpius didn’t hesitate to do it back. He will have his voice heard.

Albus making a little vomiting noise and face after he said James used the date he got his first broom as his trunk combination was golden. I love Albus judging his own brother. You have to really, as a sibling. It’s part of our DNA. It also lighten the mood of this scene for a second which I think was Albus’s way of letting Scorpius know they’re still friends. It was really sweet. It was like he just wanted to make him smile which, given that Scorpius was crying, is totally understandable. It was a really touching moment and said so much about Albus.

The hug is exactly what we wanted with this height difference. It’s glorious. So Albus grabbed him and then rested his cheek below Scorpius’s shoulder, all tucked in and quite happily settled into this hug. Sweet, right? Well poor Scorpius was left with both of his arms over the top of Albus’s shoulders. He looked like a puppet the way he sort of just dangled over him. Arms out and awkward. It was everything.

After he’d said he was saving that as a ‘sparkly surprise’, Albus made these firework noises and gestures up in the air with his hands. Scorpius’s ‘mildly confused but excited to find out’ reaction was perfect, as is Albus’s energy and continued enjoyment of making Scorpius smile and knowing exactly how to do it.

ACT TWO, SCENE TWENTY: SWIMMING UNDER THE LAKE

So I guess to give the appearance of these boys being underwater they’ve decided to make their hair all big and messy, like it would be if they were actually under the water. But honestly, it just looks like Scorpius has stuck his finger in a live plug socket. Or he’s been attacked by a thousand balloons. (I wouldn’t be surprised by either scenario if I’m honest.) Albus’s hair isn’t as noticeable given the fact it’s dark but his is just the same. I get what they were going for, but hair doesn’t stand up on end perfectly like that in water. So it just looks like it’s really bad static. Surely a well placed fan would do the trick? Also, I was left feeling bad for poor Dominic having to brush that out afterwards. It was wild.

I can’t give everyone else the praise they truly deserve because otherwise I’ll be writing forever, but just quickly: 

Ryan as James Potter is already A+ for his ‘daaaaad’ alone. Plus on stage he and Dominic look like brothers.

Rayxia is brilliant as I remembered. I’m so glad she’s back.

Michelle makes for a familiar and friendly but very ‘know it all’ kind of Hermione. Oh and I love her friendship with Ginny!

The Slytherin boys in the ensemble in the first task had a lot to live up to and didn’t disappoint. I’m already a fan.

Lucy as Moaning Myrtle was also familiar but fresh and she had the audience laughing.

I love Madeleine as Delphi. She’s friendly and dorky and by the end of her first scene I wanted to be friends with her too. Her reveal is going to be really interesting.

My main note on the new Polly was ‘plastic’. She’s that perfect, posh, pretty, popular blonde girl everyone had to deal with at school. You’ll either instantly dislike her or want to be her. She’s going to be fun.

Aaaaand to summarise Dominic... he’s lovely. He’s the most precious, sparkly eyed, baby faced, awkward, and determined Albus we’ve ever had and none of you are ready for him. He knows what he wants and he’ll go for it because he’s young enough to believe he knows best. He’s the most fourteen year old Albus we’ve had in that sense. He’s sweet and caring and there’s an innocent kind of joy to him but how quick that anger surfaces tells us all is not okay. The only difference is this one refuses to drown in it. What he lacks in maturity he makes up for in spirit and heart. It makes for a good year ahead!

[The part two recap is coming Friday and I’m setting myself that deadline because I’m actually seeing it again on Saturday... *whispers* I just love them all already, okay?]

[austincitylimitlessworld]

Party Monster: Seth Green’s Best Performance Ever?

Ah, Seth Green. He won us over in Woody Allen’s and as part of the ensemble cast of young actors in part one of 1990s Stephen King’s IT. He followed that up as the voice of Chris Griffin in Family Guy, and maintains a cult audience in his own created Robot Chicken. However, the role that stands out most for me is that of real-life celebutante turned author James Clark, more commonly known by his club kids name James St. James.

As any consumer of good camp film knows, the art is in the performance. Since the Renaissance’s Commedia del’Arte, character driven stories are vital to farce. The situation holds second place. This is particularly true when the events of a camp movie are derived from real life events. And in this particular piece of farcical comedy, the actor who holds the attention of the camera by his beauty, his timing, and his clear glee in portraying one of the first people ever known to be famous simply for being famous is Green.

Our first evidence of this is showcased in a scene which takes place in such a mundane backdrop as a donut shop. Of course, for those of us who lived through the 80s know, nothing was never “mundane” in a world filled with neon colors, pop-culture references, and for some, designer drugs.

In this scene St. James meets the now infamous Michael Alig, and the differences in their backgrounds are immediately transparent. St. James comes from money. He is a trust fund baby. He displays a haughty attitude and has grown up learning what any socially upward child would. In contrast, Alig comes from a single-parent lower-middle-class household. Upon arriving in New York, he craves acceptance and knowledge of things only a trust fund baby can impart to him. Alig has been observing St. James from afar and in this scene boldly approaches him. At first St.

James is put-off by this “wannabe” and tries to dismiss him. But Alig's pleading eventually causes him to haughtily stop him by putting his well-manicured, ringed hand in Alig’s face and proclaiming:

“’The Road of excess leads to the place of wisdom’ William Blake.”

Here he shows how St. James’s arrogance and smugness is sought after by a fresh-faced newbie like Alig. Yet somehow he makes his churlness charming. I found myself almost wanting to know St. James through Green’s performance—at least on some ultimate plane of reality where in real life I would have been put off by his attitude as my upbringing was closer to Alig’s than St. James’s. That is a performance.

As the scene continues, and St. James is marginally won over by Alig’s hunger and flattery, he teaches Alig the art of working a room. This is told as a sort of “time-lapse”; a sped up version on what would require an hour and a half to two hours. Here Green’s flamboyance is revved up as he escorts Alig around the room, tutoring him on glib greetings to the other diners as if the donut shop has become a swank soirée and the patrons themselves fabulous party guests of the upper echelon variety. While Culkin does a competent job of portraying Alig, the focus is clearly on Green as St. James. This is not surprising as the film is based on St. James’s book and indeed no doubt St. James’s view of himself as the center—or should be rightful center—of this tell-all. The film is, after all, based on St. James’s own sensationalistic memoir “Disco Bloodbath” which came out in 1999. Credit also goes surely in no small part to the two lead actors’ careers up to this point. While Culkin had taken a nine year break from acting for personal and professional reasons, Green had been working steadily, slowly introducing himself into more adult roles over the course of those same nine years.

Green also portrays St. James as the sort of Yoda of the club kid set. He dispenses advice to newcomers throughout the film. In the donut shop he counsels Alig not to take heroin and to avoid Peter Gatien (played here by a somber Dylan McDermott). By the time a Christmastime in Brooklyn scene rolls around, we see that Alig has ignored him on both counts. Not only is he working for Gatien as a club promoter, but he has become a heroin addict.

Feeling ignored by his protégé, and infatuated with Alig’s D.J. junkie boyfriend Keoke, he rises from a tense conversation between himself, Alig, and Gatien at the kitchen table and seductively saunters into the bedroom where Keoke sits on the bed, feverishly sifting through his vinyl records in an effort to come up with the perfect playlist for Alig’s upcoming event. His countenance is both obscenely open and inscrutable as he leers at a hapless Keoke, guiding him on “How to be a D.J. Superstar”. He is at once coy, sly, and coquettish. All his jealousy lies just below the surface, but we are never sure if it is actually based on an infatuation with Keoke, envy over being usurped by this start-up neophyte, or both. Whatever it is, we get the sense that St. James is biding his time, poised like a cobra, until he can strike Alig at the first serious opportunity.

His disdain for Culkin’s Alig continues to be illustrated when the group starts guest starring on the talk show circuit. In front of other club kids in the Manhattan audience, Green takes the lead answering John Stamos’s Phil Donahue-like local talk show host “What is a club kid?”

Here he is dressed as a troll, which is 21st century ironic as from St. James’s point of view; the real “troll” in this story is Alig. After St. James gives an artificially nearly life-affirming answer: “It’s all about self-expression…it doesn’t’ matter what you look like. If you have a hunchback, just throw a little glitter on it honey and go dancing.” When Culkin’s Alig crowds in on his answer, venom dripping from his every word and proclaiming that St. James is indeed a troll and exposes St. James’s long history of drug abuse, St. James contemptuously asserts that “I am the original!” He is clearly butt-hurt and you know that the “sins” of his rival are mounting. When the talk show host then turns the tables on Alig by revealing Alig introducing his own mother to E (ecstasy), we know that Alig’s downfall is coming, even though the actual comeuppance is still a ways away within the world of the movie.

Soon enough, the group travels from New York to Dallas, promoting their lifestyle. What grabs the attention in this scene perhaps more than any other is Green’s costume design. It can only be described as a cross between an extraterrestrial and a sea squid. On a lesser talented actor, this ensemble would merely be laughable, but because Green has chiseled out a character we can against our better judgment if not love, at least be captivated by, we go with it. Here we meet the drug salad making Brooke and her giggly friend Gitsy. Culkin invites them to come to New York, which they seem thrilled with, but Green intervenes, admonishing Alig for luring kids from the middle of the country into New York City  and then abandoning them to their own hideous fates. What he says reads on paper as altruistic, but Green’s line-reading is dripping with disdain for Culkin’s character:

“Oh honey, he says that to everyone. Some of them actually do move to New York, the poor things. No job, nowhere to stay. Then in the twink of an eye, they are homeless crack addicts prostituting themselves on the streets for a buffalo nickel.”

We continue to feel the tension build to the climax, which we know the outcome of whether we’ve been a party to events as they happened or only been brought to its knowledge later.

The film ends where it began, on a close-up of Green being interviewed at his new home in Los Angeles. The culmination of the love/hate relationship between St. James and Align is about to come to its jagged end. As the camera pans back from St. James plugging his new book, the phone suddenly rings. It’s Michael. And here in Green’s delivery we see all the envy and hatred St. James has been carrying for years against Alig. With prickly near-glee, Green informs Culkin that not only was he the one who got Michael arrested, but then twists the knife of betrayal further as he lets it drop that Gitsy—Michael’s beard/girlfriend has died of a drug overdose.

It is a tribute to Green’s acting that even though we are meant to identify with him throughout the course of the movie, we somehow don’t feel some sort of elation at the bomb he drops on Alig. Instead we feel disdain for both the protagonists so that even though we were lured into their world for a little while we are ripped back into reality that in this playing field there really is no one to root for.

Instead the rivalry goes meta as Alig says to St. James “you saved my life” and St. James shoots back without missing a beat that he’s going to have to hang up because Alig is trying to turn this into an after-school special and get the last word in with everyone ending up liking him. “And it’s my movie!”

And with that he does hang up on Alig, proving to us that it is indeed his movie, as the film begins and ends on Green’s face. Because of this, it is Green’s image we are left with, and he stands out in a way he hasn’t in any of his ensemble work. In both the story of the movie and the story within the story as promoter of the book promotion, he is the narrator. Because of this, and his almost silent-era movie physicality, I will remember him from this film longer than in anything else I’ve seen him in.

[coffee-and-tea-v]

Some things I want for the American Idiot movie

So, based off of other musical film adaptations, as well as the nature of American Idiot, this is how I’d advise they made the film. Okay so firstly I think because there’s meant to be even less dialogue, a lot of the ensemble parts should be cut and given to the important characters. LA American Idiot did this with Will (he has a part in She’s a Rebel/Last of the American Girls) and other little ensemble bits like that from Johnny’s story could come from the perspective of drugged-up hallucinations of Will, Tunny or Whatsername, depending on context. I think all the Tunny related ensemble should stay though, however I’m torn on Too Much, Too Soon. Onstage, Too Much Too Soon works a treat, seeing as it’s sung by two ensemble members and allows Will and Heather to do physical things, however I doubt that’d work as well on screen. The only ways I can see around this issue would to be to give those ensemble members some kind of character arc and presence without adding anything or to just let Will and Heather insult each other. I’m excited to see Tunny onscreen tbh because moments like Extraordibary Girl could be beautiful in film, and I think a surreal film like what they’re intending could portray war and patriotism in a unique way. If the ensemble were given a smaller role in film-Idiot, I hope the stories are fleshed out upon. I also hope they find a way to be representative (Johnny and Will’s sexualities are possibly the best ways to do that). Will, in particular, would be easy to play gay as it makes sense given his plot, and that’s a way you can include the too much too soon guy. I think Green Day stand for diversity so some LGBT+ rep would be nice. I also hope they don’t screw up anyone’s mental health and I especially hope they don’t undercut Will, cause I think his depression speaks to a large amount of this generation. And finally, casting. Now obviously we know Billie Joe’s playing St Jimmy, but I sincerely hope they keep a youngish cast aside from him. Though the OBC were wonderful, they’re all older now, and like with Rent, youthful spirit is something needed in this show. But this show needs actors, not stars, so I might suggest they cast relatively unknown 20-somethings with talent and not a lot of mainstream experience to give them the break they deserve. Well, these are my thoughts, I hope everyone else feels like sharing theres too, and I invite you all to. Bye!

[avinrydarchive]

Continuo

Author: AvinRyd Fandom: Seraphina Duology Rating: G Pairing: Seraphina/Glisselda Side Pairings: Seraphina/Lucian Kiggs, Lars/Viridius Word Count: ~1900

con·tin·u·o

/kənˈtinyəˌwō/ noun noun: continuo; plural noun: continuos; noun: basso continuo; plural noun: basso continuos

(in baroque music) an accompanying part that includes a bass line and harmonies, typically played on a keyboard instrument and with other instruments such as cello or bass viol.

Read on AO3: link

Without Seraphina, Castle Orison seemed to lose a dimension. Queen Glisselda couldn’t quite put her finger on what, exactly, was the difference, but something was off. She considered asking her dear fiancee and cousin, but Lucian would no doubt pull it into philosophical metaphors and probably quote scripture, because that’s what Lucian did. She didn’t have the patience for that, not today. No, maybe to put in terms more similar to the Second Court Composer herself? The object of such contemplation?

It was, Glisselda decided, like there was an instrument missing in the ensemble that was the castle; or more accurately, the ensemble that was her life. With Phina gone, there was no continuo to hers and Lucian’s duet. Dutifully, they played their parts, melodies intertwining with intervals and movements perfectly synchronized, but without the harmony beneath, it all seemed thin and paltry.

Some days, when she could get away from politics and propriety and war, she would sit at her harpsichord and dither. Seraphina had never taught her the finer points of the continuo part. She’d reasoned, when would Glisselda be called upon to play in an ensemble that required it? The numbers beneath a flute solo meant nothing to the young queen, but with a discerning ear and a book she may have stolen from her erstwhile music teacher’s rooms, she tried. Similarly, she tried to fill the void scarcely a month had made apparent. She made little progress in either arena.

One mid-afternoon, in a fit of frustration at both draconic ideas of ruling and musical rules of harmony, Glisselda swept herself off towards Viridius’s suite. The festival of St. Ida, with its celebrations within Castle Orison and without, was fast approaching; Viridius would be up to his eyeballs in preparations, she knew, but perhaps Lars could find some time in his schedule to indulge a Queen’s fancies. Holding queries about progress of the war machines before her like a shield, Glisselda inquired Lars’s location and tried not to scurry out of the gout-plagued composer’s presence after. A Queen does not “scurry,” she told herself. At best, she “hastens,” even when fleeing the presence of her grouchy ex-music teacher.

As Viridius had snapped, Glisselda found Lars atop the castle’s eastern wall. It did take a moment to find him, considering he was ten feet in the air straddling a support of his latest—what had he called it? Trebuchet?—and it took a moment longer for Glisselda to snag his attention.

“Lars!” she called above a sudden rush of wind, “Lars! I wondered if I might-” another gust caught at her voluminous cloud of skirts and buffeted her back a step. “-might have a word with you!”

With a grace no one ever expected from the large Samsamese man, Lars swung down from his creation to land nimbly at Glisselda’s feet. He sank into a low bow, giving full courtesy in the style of his homeland. “Your Mejesty, your presence is an honor,” he greeted in heavily-accented Goreddi, “how mey I help you?”

“I came to assess your progress on these-” she gestured at the construction behind him, “-war machines you’ve been building. Can you give me an appraisal?”

Lars seemed to light up from the inside. Eagerly, he extended an arm to usher the Queen along the castle battlements. Two points of gold made their way down the line of machines, Lars explaining the mathematics of his improved pyria sling, Glisselda casting a critical eye on wooden elements of construction; Lars extrapolating on saar-provided methods of fireproofing even the driest wood, Glisselda cataloguing the names of said dragons to reach out to in a more formal capacity later. Eventually, they reached the northeastern tower, where the castle walls fell away and opened to the city of Lavondaville proper.

“I hev actually been meaning to speak to Your Mejesty about the city’s defences,” Lars said, moving to climb the tower stairs, “If I mey, it is easier to show this from above.”

Glisselda nodded her assent and together they ascended to the tower’s top. The wind had died down considerably, to Glisselda’s great relief; she no longer had to cling to the battlements for fear of blowing away. The city sprawled beneath them, visibly teeming with life even from this distance. Open-air markets milled with shoppers, people scurried in little lines along streets like ants, Quighole seemed to pulse with the movements of too-crowded saar going about their business. The sheer enormity of what they were going to war to defend built pressure behind Glisselda’s breast, and apparently had affected Lars in some way as well, for he said,

“In an addition to our castle defences, I am meaning to ask about setting some sort of protection at the north border of the city. If the fighting comes south and the Old Ard cannot be stoppedt by our Loyalists, thet will be the first to be hit. So many homes mey be destroyed, so...” He trailed off.

Glisselda was quiet a long moment, then, “Yes, that seems wise. What do you have in mind?”

Apparently prepared for this question—had he planned on seeking audience with her soon?—he produced a parchment, neatly rolled and tied with twine, and unfurled it. Drawn on it in charcoal was a detailed sketch of Lavondaville’s northern perimeter and the lands just beyond. Small ‘x’s and circles were placed where trebuchets and ballistae might be placed, and Lars lowered the parchment to point out the locations more exactly. He’d obviously put a great deal of thought into this plan and it touched Glisselda more than she could say. Goredd was not his home, after all. That seemed insensitive to say, though, so aloud she said,

“I approve of the idea, certainly. Tomorrow, I will call together Lucian and our other defence councilors to discuss the logistics and such for the project.” At Lars’s move to hand her the parchment, she stopped him, “You will, of course, be present to explain your plan in full and be party to all of the preparations.”

He looked ready to protest, but then seemed to remember exactly who she was and bowed. No words passed his lips and Glisselda didn’t press. Lars was, as she understood it, often a man of few words even in his native tongue. In companionable silence then, they watched the city below breathe. Faintly, cathedral bells tolling the hour reached their ears and two pairs of pale eyes fixed on the spires of St. Gobnait’s. Lars’s megaharmonium lived in that church, Glisselda knew, but her most musical memory of that place was of Seraphina and her flute sending off Uncle Rufus in a fashion more beautiful and intimate than the princess had believed possible.

Still caught up in that vein of thought, she asked, “Lars, how long have you known Seraphina?”

“Thet depends,” he replied, “I only met her, in person, just before midwinter. But she has been in my mindt, her music I’m meaning, for many years.” He seemed to listen to the wind for a moment, then continued, “Do you know her well, Mejesty?”

When Glisselda laughed, the sound wasn’t quite merry. “I don’t know. I’ve known her not even a month more than you, by your first criteria. And please, Glisselda is fine.” Despite their height and the dizziness it caused, she closed her eyes to better encapsulate the feelings she wanted to put into words. “You say her music has always been in your head, due to some quirk of your ityasaari connection? Regardless. Has she always played with such a...captivating quality? Like you can’t bear to stop listening, like it might break you to try?”

With her eyes closed, Glisselda didn’t see the understanding, almost fond expression that overtook Lars’s face. She heard the softness, though, when he replied simply, “Yes, always.”

The spring chill began to creep its way into her bones. Still, it was peaceful up here and she was loath to return to being Queen Glisselda once more. Perhaps sensing her resolution starting to form, Lars spoke as if to continue her first line of questioning. “And how long hev you been lov- Neyt, in Gorshya it would be: how long hev you been in love with her?”

Air turned to ice in her lungs even as heat trickled from the back of her neck into her face and down her spine. A stunningly dissonant sensation she had no ability to process because Lars had just- He’d said-

“H-how did you know?” she choked out, “Does everyone know?” Am I so obvious with my heart that any can see? Her hands clutched the stone of the battlements once more, needing balance for an entirely different reason now. Violet-blue eyes were open now, wide and horrified, staring up at the piper next to her, almost pleading.

He met her gaze with a gentle serenity that was perfectly matched to the soft grey of his own eyes. Mouth still curved in that soft expression, he turned to stare out at the city once more, bracing strong arms on the stone before them to lean just the slightest bit forward, as if he might fly.

“People look a certain way when they want somethingk, or someone, they think they cannot hev.” he said, the wind stealing much of the sound and leaving Glisselda straining to catch his words. “I used to see thet look every time I looked in a mirror. I saw it in Viridius’s eyes for weeks before we began speaking of what our hearts were truly feeling.”

He left the examples there, possibly out of respect for her feelings, but she knew what would come next; they’d both seen that look on the face of Prince Lucian Kiggs before Seraphina’s departure. Between that fact and the shock of her secret being so brought to light, a light she herself hadn’t dared face yet, Glisselda hadn’t the words to reply. In his turn, Lars didn’t press for one. After a moment—a minute, an hour?—her overwhelmed fog was broken by the warmth of his hand atop her own.

“In my country,” he began, turning so his words were aimed toward her once more, “Saint Dann is condemned as a heretic. When I came to Goredd, I found readingk his untainted scriptures to be a comfort. Another comfort was in finding friends who feldt the same.” The pressure on her hand increased, then disappeared. He turned to leave, but said over his shoulder,

“Even as you are my Queen, I like to be thinking we are friends as well, Glisselda.”

And he was gone. The spring wind still brought a chill, but from her hand and heart warmth began to spread. She stared at the trapdoor he’d disappeared through, then at the castle proper where politics and propriety and war awaited. From the square below, a troubadour plied the city with his songs, and in a flurry of dazed irritation Glisselda realized she’d never asked Lars about how to read a continuo part.

She’d just have to seek him out and ask later. That’s what friends did, right? Feeling suddenly lighter, she made her way down the tower stairs and across the walls, slowly replacing layers of “Queen” as she went. Later, when Goredd could spare her for a few minutes, she would remove the layers once more and confront that newly-shed light, but for now she was Queen Glisselda of Goredd and she had a part to play; and even without the full realization beneath, play she would.

[yeslabyrinth]

Not So Humble Beginnings

I’ve been thinking for awhile about what I want to do with this blog, and what my first improv post should be about. The aim is to help students of mine understand my  personal improv beliefs, but also, I think having to type these beliefs out helps adds both a healthy amount of doubt, and personal understanding to my own thoughts. After mulling over the many things I'd like to discuss, I finally decided I'll just do an ode to my five years of doing improv here in Kansas City, and how doing improv in not Chicago/LA/NYC has been for me(although I have been lucky enough to play in festivals in these larger cities). Be warned, this is probably longer than it need be.

When I first arrived in Kansas City, a transport from St. Louis, I had recently gotten into improv through seeing shows at the Improv Shop, a wonderful, close knit family that was just  developing at the time http://theimprovshop.com/  I was caught in between moving from STL to KC, and so I never took any classes, but for six months, I went to shows religiously. When students ask me how they can get better outside of class, I always say SEE IMPROV! Good shows, bad shows, any shows! Seeing the mechanics at work, trying to understand them without knowing the "rules", and developing my own tastes for forms, and styles was so vital to me as a performer. In hindsight, some of the things I liked, I know find cheap, and some of the things I found boring, I now find breathtaking, but never the less, I got to see what improv is. I got to know the art form before I knew how to create the art form, and I think that's how you get good at any skill. It starts with a passion, and not technical skill.

So, I end up moving to Kansas City, and the first thing I do is try to find improv I like. I see a group called After School Special play at the Kick Comedy Theater, and they are unlike any other group I had seen at the time. They played super fast, had this group mind like the teams in STL I loved, but also explored jokes in ways I hadn't seen before. I would go on to find out they were playing "game", a style popularized by the UCB theater out of New York, which makes sense, because they were coached by Kevin Mullaney, an amazing improviser/instructor, and former artistic director of the UCB Theater. I found out pretty much all of the members were part of the KC Improv Company, an ensemble cast of about 20-30 folks, and so I started taking classes there, hoping to learn from these people, and I did. After graduating through the classes over the course of a year, I was asked to join a team with some of the members of After School Special, (a team called Babies, that I am still with today), and I was through the moon! They liked me! I was validated in thinking I was funny!

This reminds me of another wonderful tip I have for new improvisers, USE THE INTERNET! Babies were taught(and still are) by improvisers throughout the country like Kevin Mullaney in Chicago, James Mastraieni of UCB LA, Rick Andrews of the Magnet in NYC, and on, and on. For small fees, we were able to learn from different schools of improv, from instructors who had decades of experience, all though our computer in the middle of the country. You too can do this! Go online, find reputable instructors, and learn from them. Any great improviser has their own philosophy towards improv, and it's probably an amalgamation of various philosophies.

Now, here is where I will go over a little bit of improv drama that happened, and yes, improv drama happens in the middle of the map as well. To make a long story short, most of After School Special left the KC Improv Company for artistic differences, and the members I was closest with started our own improv company called Midcoast. We were basically anti-everything going on in KC. We didn't like all the short form that was going on, we didn't like how little people focused on game style play, we didn't like how jokey jokey a lot of stuff was, and, we thought, we'd change the scene by disassociating from it, and doing our own thing(great game plan, right? Oh, and not a bit of pretension there either, huh?). We taught classes for less than the other places, we charged less than the other places, we did more experimental stuff than the other places. We had a small, but mighty cult following, and unsurprising due to the things I just listed, over the course of another year, things fell apart. The other members were doing most the work, I felt like I was still too new at this improv thing to do all this, the bar we did everything out of broke ties with us, and I also felt like I was fighting a fight I didn't want to fight. Why not embrace the scene? A rising tide lifts all boats, right? I'd hope so.

I ended up parting ways from some of the Midcoast people, though I still think they are some of the best improvisers I've ever worked with, and I owe almost all my improv chops to them, and auditioned for the KC Improv Company, and got on! While I was so busy being anti-KCIC, I don't think I took the time to realize what all they did for the community. They put on the yearly festival, brought in some great acts every year, they had a professionalism about their institution,  marketed it as such, and they did the unthinkable. They paid improvisers to do improv, something 95% of people in big cities doing improv have probably never experienced. Also, while I was so busy being in this "us vs them" phase, I neglected to see that the game style play Midcoast was pushing had permeated into KCIC, and was commonplace. I don't take much credit for this, and think the release of the UCB Manual, as well as some of Babies members already being in KCIC helped this trend, but it was nice to see game wasn't still viewed as this hipster thing that older improvisers had to rebel against. 

When I was younger, I was upset that NYC, Chicago, and LA didn't know much about KC. Yeah, an instructor here or there may come in, and teach, or come to a festival, but we weren't known for being a mecca of improv. This upset me. Probably because of my pride in being a Midwesterner, and my arrogance that anything involving me needs to be as important as everything else, even if those other places had hundreds of improvisers, working countless hours perfecting their craft over decades. As I've matured, I realize that the only thing I can do is help educate, and show the love I have for improv to others, and maybe they'll discover that love, and pass it on, like some kind of Amish bread. 

So, that’s my KC history, and these are the things I want to explore in this blog, and pass onto others. Like the beginning of an improv scene,  I expect nothing, but I will find joy in everything. To quote Tina Fey, "improv is a cult, but it's my cult", and all I want to do is spread the good word. Last year I became the Director of the Kc Improv Company's Training Center, and I will use this blog to filter some of my thoughts to students, and whoever else stumbles upon this.

[50thirdand3rd]

Grand Mal formed in New York City in 1995 and released a self-titled EP and an album; ‘Pleasure is No Fun‘ on № 6 Records. On the strength of that output, they were picked up by Slash/London Records for their 1999 release, ‘Maledictions‘ but were dropped from the label shortly thereafter. In 2003 they regrouped and released the aptly titled ‘Bad Timing‘, on Arenarock Records, an album guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Bill Whitten calls: ‘the defining statement of its career‘.

Out of options and money, the album and the band quietly faded away. However, thanks to the world wide web, ‘Bad Timing‘ has lived on among diehards and now the Norwegian label Asura Revolver has reissued the album.

In 2019 ‘Bad Timing‘ sounds timeless. A combination of 70s power pop, glam, bluesy rock and roll, and pub rock, ‘Bad Timing‘ is a step away from the dirty garage rock of ‘Maledictions‘ and a few steps away from the melodic slacker punk of Whitten’s previous outfit St. Johnny.

In 2003 when ‘Bad Timing‘, was first released, the musical landscape was convoluted, to say the least. The CD was dead or dying, Napster had changed everything, and iTunes was thriving. The garage rock revival led by the White Stripes was in full force but Grand Mal had already released the glammed-up garage rock album ‘Malediction‘ in 1999. It was a record that fit more in line with the revival and in 2003 ‘Bad Timing‘ could hardly be categorized as garage rock as the White Stripes would have it. The record raises a toast and slides in comfortably beside other 2003 releases from ‘revival’ bands like The Exploding Hearts, Ted Leo, and The Strokes.

Writing and recording ‘Bad timing‘ was about survival. They all had day jobs — drug deliveryman, shipping and receiving clerk, furniture mover, waiter and “immersion in rock and roll was the only escape, the only solace from the absurd calamity of life“.

‘Bad Timing‘ is released as a deluxe set which includes never before seen photos, extensive liner notes and a remix of ‘Disaster Film‘ by KWKA aka Mike Fridmann.

  Bill Whitten was kind enough to answer some questions for us about ‘Bad Timing’.

You’ve stated that ‘Bad Timing’ is “the defining statement of its (Grand Mal’s) career.” Why is that?

B. Whitten: After the wild years of drug addiction, depravity, extreme alienation – the 1990s – Grand Mal found itself without a record label, without much in the way of opportunity. The band was desperately searching for a strategy to avoid at all costs returning to the fate that rock and roll had saved us from — manual labor, petty crime, oblivion. It was then – the Fall of 2001, right after the Twin Towers fell – that Dave Fridmann called and said we could make another album with him. So Grand Mal – Steve Borgerding on lead guitar, Parker Kindred on drums, Jonathan Toubin on bass, and myself on rhythm guitar and vocals – began to work on the songs that would make up Bad Timing – demoing them, playing them live, laboring over them in a way that I haven’t done before or since. We assumed it would be our last chance. When we showed up to Tarbox Road Studios to work with one of the most visionary producers of the 20th and 21st centuries, we were prepared and (for the most part) of sound mind and body…

How did this reissue with Asura Revolver come about?

B. Whitten: Totally by chance. Rozet, who runs Asura Revolver is a fan of both St. Johnny and Grand Mal. Rozet exchanged some tweets with Ilya, who runs the cassette label that put out my last album – William Carlos Whitten’s Burn My Letters – and it was decided Bad Timing would be reissued. Rozet described it as ‘a lost classic from the turn of the century. A nice stroke of luck. And now it’s been reissued on vinyl, and the package includes never before seen photos, extensive liner notes etc.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The track order is different on this reissue. Why is that?

B. Whitten: After Patrick Klem remastered Bad Timing, to my ears, at least, it sounded like a different version of the album. And along with the fact that a couple of alternate edits had been used (for example on Black Aura), it seemed like a change to the track order would be a way to make the album sound even more unfamiliar and…fresh. What we are familiar with we cease to see or hear. If we shake up a familiar scene, we see a new meaning in it. And it also made more sense to me to begin the album with Duty-Free, a song that was pretty much the signature tune for the band back in those long-ago days of 2001-2003. And, last but not least, Quicksilver, my least favorite song on the album, was, in my opinion, better off banished to the B side, instead of on the A side where it was originally …

What was the effect of being dropped by Slash/London on the writing, recording etc. of Bad Timing?

B. Whitten: A certain band member who will remain nameless and will be referred to hereafter as H.A. had departed the band during the period following the release of Grand Mal’s album Maledictions. He was caught in the spiral of addiction and we, his band-mates were forced into the role of the audience, or chorus, or witnesses. In a collective of would-be poète maudits, H. A. was the exemplar – he outdid us all. Admittedly, we each had problems. Like our music, we could be unbearable. When we drank, it was if animals or children were drinking. His plight – he was our friend after all – cast a pall over the band that literally took years to wear off. The elegiac tone of certain songs that I wrote for Bad Timing can no doubt be attributed to this. And then, not long after H. A.’s exit, Slash/London/Polygram dropped the band. We were once more out on the street, hats in hand. Desperation and ambition are closely related. We wanted a new start, our only concern was: who would give us money to record another album? Perhaps, we felt free as well; we’d given a chance to begin again. So we – to resort to cliché – we put our hearts and souls into the album. Unfortunately, Bad Timing disappeared – it got great press, but there was no money to tour. It has since lived a second life as musicphile contraband, e-mailed back and forth across the globe by a secret society of exegetes and devotees hoping to spread the word. It would be nice if this reissue would bring the album to a new audience…

When you listen to the record now, what would you change? Are there songs you’d leave out, rewrite…..?

B. Whitten: As I said, Quicksilver was my least favorite song, so I could imagine leaving that off. But, on the other hand the album is a snapshot of a time, a milieu, an ensemble of people, so it’s for the best to leave it as is. On the other hand, the past has been, in a way, altered – KWKA aka Mike Fridmann did an incredible remix of Disaster Film. His mix bursts the seams of historicity and takes the listener both backward and forward in time. In a perfect world, he’d remix all the songs…

Bad Timing by Grand Mal

Everything about St. Johnny, Grand Mal and William Carlos Whitten

William Carlos Whitten – Bandcamp

ASURA REVOLVER

Spotlight Feature: GRAND MAL – ‘Bad Timing’ w/Interview Grand Mal formed in New York City in 1995 and released a self-titled EP and an album; '

[londontheatre]

Lazarus Theatre’s Edward II

Edward II is a wonderful example of the exquisite sixteenth-century theatre craft of its writer, Christopher Marlowe. It explores, in depth, power, kingship, class, lineage and, yes, the close, divisive relationship of Edward and his lover Piers Gaveston. To describe it, as the press release does, as “the first gay play” is historically inaccurate (if it means the first play to deal with love between two people of the same sex) and, I believe, entirely misses the point by putting a twenty-first century construct on a masterpiece written during the reign of Elizabeth I: it’s a bit like saying the horse was the original driverless vehicle.

That is a shame because here we have an explosive and riveting production, directed by Ricky Dukes, that does full justice to the poetry and power of Marlowe’s original – despite some quirky aspects to Dukes’s adaptation. It gets going with a mesmeric opening salvo by Bradley Frith as Gaveston, which not only sets the scene for us but establishes the tone of the production and puts down markers for the mayhem that is to come. Frith is brilliant throughout, tough but flippant and dismissive of the barons whilst appropriately fawning with the king, his pliant and doting meal-ticket, whilst maintaining an underlying sense that this whole escapade is just one long opportunistic blag (yeah, that’s a 21st century construct – I learn fast). Frith returns at the denouement as Lightborn and has the transfixing gaze of a cobra as he goes about his deadly business.

Counterpoint to Frith’s strong and unsettling performance comes from Luke Ward-Wilkinson as Edward. Lurching from frail and fidgety to feisty and frighteningly unhinged, Ward-Wilkinson perfectly portrays how feeble Edward is and how unsuited to the office of a king. Besotted, consumed by lust and gooey-eyed love-angst, living off the adoration of shallow, make-weight acolytes, frankly he’s a bit of a nut-job and Ward-Wilkinson gives us the full gamut of child-like tantrum and unconfined self-interest until, coffined in the dungeon-sewer of his castle prison, he is pushed over the edge into full madness. Ward-Wilkinson’s eyes flare wide, his arms flail uncontrollably and his whole body becomes a repository for self-inflicted grief and despair. A consummate performance by Ward-Wilkinson that keeps us on the edge of our seats. As with Frith, these guys get Marlowe’s language to a T, revel in the poetry and play out the undercurrents with knowing glances and subtly expressive gestures.

Strong, stentorian, scheming Mortimer is played with exponential relish by Jamie O’Neil. He’s not very nice: the archetypal playground bully who gets everyone on his side, by fair means or foul, so as to persecute the flimsy Edward and make him suffer. It’s more than just a power-grab with Mortimer: there’s a real distaste for lifestyle and values and O’Neil brings this off with powerful and disturbing accuracy. With an eye for the main chance he teams up with Edward’s spurned queen, Isabella, played with muscular intensity by Lakesha Cammock, who reveals an iron fist inside the lady’s frills. Cammock flutters her eyelids or puts the boot in hard as occasion demands and adds in some unexpected humour keeping the audience engaged and gripped throughout her authoritative performance.

Lazarus Theatre’s Edward II

Alex Zur as Edward’s brother, Andrew Gallo as Mortimer Senior, John Slade as Warrick, Stephen Emery as Lancaster and David Clayton as Canterbury all play their part in a strident ensemble that creates an atmosphere of intimidating ferocity, never more so than in the final dramatic execution of the beleaguered Edward. Though here I do take issue with the adaptation.

The play is re-imagined in a quasily-vague twentieth century England. No problem with that – Marlowe – and Shakespeare – lend themselves well to “modern dress” scenarios. The show’s featured prop is a sixties-style red BT telephone use at the beginning to reveal the death of Edward I and at the end for the future Edward III to castigate Mortimer. Here we get into “how technology would have altered history/literature territory”. If they had ’phones then Gaveston’s banishment would have been less drastic – they would have been on the ’phone to each other every day. It makes the first stage direction – enter Gaveston reading a letter – completely redundant. (A similar problem occurred in a recent modern-dress production of Richard II).

Christiano Casimiro’s costume design is excellent: grey shirts, formal grey trousers, some ties for the assembled barons, a gold suit for Edward with an assortment of catch-me cloaks: but I spent much of the play wondering why no-one wore shoes or socks with these smart clothes. The answer came at the death scene where everyone had to strip to their underpants. So – ease of undressing seemed to be the answer: rather a case of the tail wagging the dog, I feel.

But it’s the death scene itself where I really part company with Duke’s “re-imagining”. Spectacularly gory and extremely effectively done, it once again misses the point and veers violently away from Marlowe’s original. Lightborn, the murderer, is a wonderful Marlow creation. Almost a bit-part player – we don’t see him until the end – he is the original hit-man. Master of his craft, he revels in the pain of others and the ability to get the job done in the most effective and imaginative way possible. In the original, Lightborn tells his accomplices to prepare a hot-spit and have a table and a feather-down mattress available. The table is to be placed on the victims chest with the mattress between table and skin so no bruising occurs and one of the accomplices stands on the chest to expel the air and hold the victim’s legs.

Edward thus lies on his back – not on his front as here. Lightborn then applies the red hot spit. The whole point of this is so that Edward, the king, can be despatched without visible wounds – which are inside him – and without anyone knowing how he died. “Was it not bravely done?” asks Lightborn afterwards. Here with copious torrents of blood gushing down from the ceiling, plastic sheeting employed by the murderers in their underpants and Edward left in a blood-stained heap on the table after a bulkily decorative candlestick is used, there’s no doubt how he died.

Also eschewed is Mortimer’s connivingly cynical despatch-letter – unpunctuated so that it can be read two ways. All this, I believe diminishes the power of Marlowe’s play the full title of which is The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of ‘Edward the second, king of England: with the tragicall fall of proud Mortimer‘.

Yes, Edward II is a tragedy: and it’s as much the tragedy of Mortimer as it is of Edward. Here, the final scene where Mortimer is sent to his death by the new young king Edward (over the ’phone), everyone is still standing around in their kecks: that’s not tragic – that’s just bizarre.

Despite these reservations this is a superlative show, powerfully performed by all. Marlowe, like Shakespeare, is obviously ripe for “re-imagining” (Samuel Beckett, for example, isn’t, and won’t ever be allowed to be). But for me, changing the text so that it fits into a twenty-first century idealogical construct is going a little bit too far: let the play speak for itself.

Review by Peter Yates

The King is dead. His son, Edward II, is crowned King. His first act: to call home from banishment his lover, Gaveston.

“Why would you love him who the world hates so? Because he loves me more than all the world.”

Marlowe’s homoerotic epic comes to the stage in this all-new, all-male ensemble production. Marking 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, this production investigates, celebrates and explores identity and sexuality.

Edward II sees our return to The Tristan Bates Theatre and The Camden Fringe after our smash hit productions of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Coriolanus and Tamburlaine.

CAST Edward II Luke Ward-Wilkinson Queen Isabella Lakesha Cammock Gaveston Bradley Frith Kent Alex Zur Mortimer Jamie O’Neill Mortimer Senior Andrew Gallo Warwick John Slade Lancaster Stephen Emery Pembroke David Clayton

All other roles played by the company

CREATIVE TEAM Writer Christopher Marlowe Director Ricky Dukes Designer Sorcha Corcoran Costume Designer Cristiano Casimiro Lighting Designer Ben Jacobs Sound Designer Jack Barton Dramaturge Sara Reimers Stage Manager Charlotte R L Cooper Assistant Director Dinos Psychogios Company Photographer Adam Trigg Production Graphic Designer Will Beeston Associate Producer Gavin Harrington-Odedra

EDWARD II Lazarus Theatre presents Christopher Marlowe’s classic. Adapted & Directed by Ricky Dukes Tue 22 August – Sat 9 September

Tristan Bates Theatre 1A Tower St, Covent Garden WC2H 9NP http://ift.tt/23UW86S

http://ift.tt/2wY3cFo LondonTheatre1.com