#the rest is there to explain specific projections for Anthony in a way that makes sense

[moreespressoformydepresso]

Since Lady Tremaine puts so much focus on Anthony’s appearance as a way to desperately cling to anything that resembles her former title and wealth, Anthony puts a lot of his worth in his appearance. Since Anastasia’s mentally checked out most of the time, little Anthony had to satisfy the need for love and affection all children have with his grandmother. Her “affection” is merely not being horrible, and she only shows it when Anthony is exactly what she wants him to be. Most of that centers around his appearance, although behavior’s also pretty big for her. This has two effects, with one of them being Anthony’s complete inability to handle emotions I’ve explained in two of my posts (one’s a while back). The other?

Most of Anthony’s self-worth is centered around his looks. Growing up, Lady Tremaine’s behavior taught him that if he’s not pretty enough he doesn’t deserve affection or love. Also, everywhere he goes, he’s always seen as “pretty” first, “person” last. And it’s an optional last too. Things go well for him when he looks good, things go horribly when he doesn’t (because of Lady Tremaine, mostly), so whenever he’s nervous Anthony will look in his compact mirror and fix his hair or his makeup. He’ll open and close the mirror compulsively to check he still looks perfect because when he doesn’t it never ends well. And when Anthony, for whatever reason, doesn’t look good?

He melts down, of course. Because no matter how many people tell you otherwise, when you’re raised to believe you’re nothing but a pretty face, that’s hard to let go of. To Anthony, his looks are the only thing about him that matters. When that’s gone, he has nothing. He is nothing. Now imagine a scenario where, in order to save people, Anthony has to ruin his own appearance. Perhaps even permanently…

[parkersharthook]

Love For All

Peter Stark-Rogers & Stark-Rogers!reader (twins)

warnings: mentions of drinking/being drunk, pretty fluffy

1.8k+ words

series masterlist

a/n: happy pride month (lol I queued this in february just so I didn’t forget to post it) anyways im bi and pls know my page is a safe space for everyone 💗💜💙

Fluffy piece where Tony and Steve are chosen as the grand marshalls for the pride parade and it becomes a family affair.

“this just in, you all officially have the coolest dads in history!” Tony bellowed as he dramatically entered the common space, Steve right behind him with a plethora of eye rolls.

Right as you were about to protest, Bucky chimed in, “neither of you are my father.”

“with the way I’ve saved your sorry ass? Might as well be.”

“saved my sorry ass? Oh Stevie, have you forgotten who pulled your ass out of every back alley fight you got into? Or have the years 1932 to 1941.”

“I did not start a fight in 1932!” Steve argued back, hands placed firmly on his hips.

“bullshit! 5 years old, playground 2 blocks over, Arthur Williams.”

Steve frowned slightly, “damn I forgot about that.”

Beside you Peter snorted, “you got into a fight when you were 5?”

“Wow darling, you came out of the womb with righteous indignation didn’t you?” Tony added with a small smirk as he moved to rest against the back of the couch.

Steve threw his hands up in defeat, “oh haha laugh it up. Yes I’m old, yes I’m stubborn. Can we please just go back to how we’re cool?”

“Wait before that, back to the ‘not my fathers thing’ does this mean you see yourselves as the team fathers? Because if you’re adopting more people, I want in!” Clint said cheerfully.

“Sorry we capped out at four.”

You stuck your tongue out at Clint with a little ‘ha ha’ because you were mature like that. “anyways… why do you think you are the coolest dads? I wanna get my rebuttal in soon.”

Tony bopped the back of your head playfully as he dropped a very rainbow piece of paper into your lap. Peter instantly leaned into your space to read it. You pushed him back with a shove to the forehead. “relax nerd I’m gonna read it out loud.”

“hurry up I’m getting antsy.” You threw an unimpressed look at Clint who had practically crawled into Bucky’s lap to get closer, not that Bucky minded.

“Chill.” You smoothed out the paper and held it up, “All hail the next Grand Marshals of NYC Pride, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. We are happy to formally announce the two superheroes and super husbands as our fearless leaders of the float parade this year.”

“That’s the public announcement they put out, turn it over to read the letter they sent us.”

“Dear Mr. Anthony and Steven Stark-Rogers, we are so excited to welcome you into our NYC Pride Parade family. As this year’s appointed Grand Marshals it is both our duty and pleasure to pass the Pride Baton over to you. Included in this letter you will find the rules and expectations of our Grand Marshals, as well as what is permitted for first floats. We would love if you extended this invitation to your entire circle of family and friends to join you in the parade and on your float.”

You put the paper down and tilted your head back to stare at your dad, “you? Grand Marshal? Really?”

“What’s so shocking about that?”

“umm…. You’re old and not cool.”

Bucky sputtered a laugh beside you as Tony bopped you on the head again.

“Was this your way of telling us to come to pride with you?” Peter asked.

Steve shook his head as he flopped into a nearby loveseat, “actually this was our way of telling you that we need your help coming up with ideas for the float and how to decorate it. But of course we want you to join us on the float, we’ll be inviting the rest of the team as well.”

“I’ll help decorate but Bi-derman is making another appearance this year.”

Tony slapped his forehead, “can you take your old suit at least? The paint was a bitch to get off last time.”

Peter rolled his eyes, “the old suit chafes.”

You grimaced, “I hate this conversation.”

“I think you should do a dog themed float, Lucky can be our mascot.”

Bucky sighed, “of course that’s your suggestion.”

“what about the history of pride? Recognizing the Stonewall Riots and the two black transgender females that started it all. Plus then we can also advocate for Black Lives Matter. Make it clear that to support one, you have to support the other. Educate and entertain.”

Tony smiled, “that’s not a bad idea y/n.”

Steve looked at you with hopeful eyes, “are you willing to help organize and coordinate?”

“can I invite friends to help?”

“yes.”

You smiled, “then yes.”

------

“when I said organize and coordinate, I didn’t mean take over the conference room we use regularly for avengers meetings.” Steve said with a deep sigh

“it’s the only one with a vending machine.” MJ helpfully pointed out, taking another large bite of her pizza slice.

“yeah it was the only way to get Clint to sit through meetings without leaving to get food.” Steve explained as he stepped into the room and took in the large array of papers everywhere. The four teenage girls that occupied the room were all busy with one thing or another, looking intense and determined.

MJ snorted, “figures.” Her hand ghosted over the page again, dragging the pencil with it and creating another addition to her sketch.

Steve’s brow furrowed for a moment and he took a step closer to get a better look, “is that me?”

MJ nodded coolly but offered no other explanation. Betty huffed a laugh, “we’re trying to design both you and Mr. Stark crown-like head pieces.”

“crowns?”

You rolled your eyes, “Pops, you really do only hear what you wanna hear. Crown-like head pieces. I know dad would go for a full ass crown but I knew you wouldn’t and we want you two to match.”

Steve studied the photos of celebrities that were projected on the wall. “and that?”

“The 2018 Met Gala. Theme: heavenly bodies. There were a bunch of great head pieces that night, we’re using it for inspiration.” Gwen supplied, “let us know if there’s any you like.”

“I wanna go in a Cardi B direction.” You stated without taking your eyes off your computer screen, you’ve obviously already committed every possible headpiece to memory.

“don’t taint his selection with bias!” Betty cried

MJ waved her off easily, “there’s no way he knows who Cardi B is.”

“thanks for the confidence MJ.” She just smiled cheekily at him.

“I think he should choose something like what Frances McDormand was wearing.” Gwen stated with a small smile

MJ laughed, “as much as I think that would look amazing, there’s no way he’s picking that.”

“who’s this?”

You barely had to glance at the photo to recognize the red and gold dress and of course the iconic headpiece, “Black Lively.”

“Okay well I like that, it’s simple.”

“what about…” Gwen drawled as she typed something and new photo, a larger one, took over the whole wall, “Something like SZA’s?”

Steve took a step back and grimaced slightly, “it’s kinda… big.”

“But if it were smaller?” Gwen pressed politely

“I suppose.” Steve glanced around at the four girls. “You guys have a lot of stuff planned.”

“Oh yeah.” You looked up with a big grin, meeting your dad’s eye. “It’s gonna be great.”

“You’re not designing us costumes too are you?”

“Well Tony specifically said not too and that he already had something planned.” MJ said before eyeing Steve up and down with the critical eye of an artist, “But we could design something if you wanted us too.”

“No, I kinda of already have a plan too.”

You rose a questioning brow, “oh yeah? Please tell me you’re not going to be wearing something boring.”

Steve rolled his eyes at you and obnoxiously bumped his hip into your side as he walked out, “I’m not clueless on how to dress for Pride. Plus, I like dressing up for it, it’s fun. And it’s not something we got to do back then. I’m planning on taking full advantage.” And with that he walked out dramatically and closed the door.

Betty laughed slightly, “ten bucks that he paints the shield.”

Gwen shook his head, “No way. I think he’s gonna wear one of the flags as a cape.”

MJ clicked her tongue, “I know for a fact he’ll be wearing his ‘trans rights are human rights’ shirt.” Pause. “and probably his rainbow pants.”

You looked at MJ with a perplexed expression, “why do you know about my dad’s rainbow pants?”

MJ smirked slightly, “he wore them to pride a few years ago. Plus, me and peter talk about things. You’re not the only Stark-Rogers twin I hang out with.”

Gwen obnoxiously nudged Betty with her elbow and a large wink, “Oh yeah… she talks to Peter.” MJ scowled at the two as you snickered behind your hand.

MJ grumbled slightly, “let’s just get back to work.” It was silent in the room until the three other girls heard MJ mumble, “I never have to deal with this at college.”

You burst into a fit of laughter.

------

Pride was without a doubt a 100% success.

The float looked great. The area had already been swept for trouble. One Grand Marshal was moderately drunk. And Everyone was dancing and partying. Perfect.

Even the float attendees looked great. Clint was the brightest of the all. With no shirt on, glitter all over his chest, a rainbow tutu around his hips, tight purple booty shorts underneath, knee high socks with the pan pride flag on them, plus his signature purple converse… he looked good.

You’ve been snickering every time you catch Bucky not so subtlety looking Clint up and down. But that being said, Clint was doing the same to Bucky because he had someone managed to get the stoic and whiney super soldier into a rainbow button down. Nothing else, as that wasn’t Bucky’s jam. He paired the shirt with simple jeans but you were sure that he would be covered with glitter later.

Peter had been swinging around the parade, his first Stark suit now painted a vibrant pink, purple, and blue. Plus there was a large, messily painted on heart over where the spider sat in the middle of his chest.

You and all your friends had taken up the dance floor on the float, and if you said so yourself, you all were killing the dance moves.

Tony was more than tipsy because Bruce was on babysitting duty tonight for Morgan, so he let himself go and lean heavily against his husband, who just grinned at him all lovingly.

In the end, it was a good day. You threw beads and candy to the crowd, joining them at times for drinks and dance parties. You laughed endlessly with your friends and your family. And yeah… it was a good day.

Plus, all your friends had been correct.

Steve wore his trans shirt in solidarity with the ongoing movements and the float.

He wore his rainbow pants because they were “super fashionable y/n” and to support everyone.

He painted his shield purple, blue, and pink to show off his own sexuality and support Peter.

And he had a pansexual flag tied around his neck to match with Tony’s pink, yellow, and blue shirt.

He looked great.

[irishseeeker]

Having a crush on your boss is embarrassing. Inappropriate. Wrong. Especially when your boss is Anthony Bridgerton, the most insufferable man on the planet whom you actively despise.

What does Kate have to say on the matter?

...No comment.

~

Kate doesn’t know how it started.

Kate Sheffield did not like her boss. She actively despised her boss, Anthony Bridgerton, and he despised her. It was like a hobby. Her hatred for him was like a pet, like Newton, her gorgeous corgi, that she tended to and nurtured by making Bridgerton’s life as difficult as possible.

Except, something had changed.

She still despised him, she hadn’t gone completely insane-expect, that loathing went from pure loathing to...loathing with a side of oh, Anthony Bridgerton looks good in that suit today.

She now noticed things like when he got a haircut. His chestnut hair had been cut sharp, there was still a bit of height on the top but it was shaven quite tight around his ears.

He looked good.

Really good.

She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was an adult. A 29 year old adult with a degree. A nice apartment. She even had house plants she managed to keep alive.

She shouldn’t have crushes like this.

Especially on him.

She didn't. Nope. She couldn't. Kate Sheffield did not have a crush on Anthony Bridgerton.

It wasn't possible.

He was just on her mind a lot, she tended to stare at him quite a bit and she may have a new routine of stalking his social media on a daily basis.

So, to conclude, she definitely did not have a crush on Anthony Bridgerton.

It was probably some type of illness. She could have an underlying cold coming on that deluded her into thinking Anthony Bridgerton was good looking and looked really good in expensive suits and his gym gear when it came into the office late every Wednesday after a personal training session in the morning.

Oh God.

It had gotten to the point where it was affecting her work.

Like right now.

She should be working on her mountain of paperwork sitting on her desk, but instead, she was watching Bridgerton stretch through his office glass windows. His office was parallel to hers on the top floor of Bridgerton & Family group building. It was the headquarters of the decades old Bridgerton & Family hotel group. Kate was the head of finance for their United Kingdom group, specifically dealing with approving budgets and projects. She had qualified as an accountant when she was 24 and had moved up from there.

She could see his white shirt, which probably cost more than her rent and was never wrinkled, slowly rise above his waist as he stretched his arms. She could see the outline of his pelvis, and the tanned skin he must have got from his recent work trip to Barbados. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, which showed off his forearms quite nicely. When did he get muscular?

The phone rang, making her jump and resulting in her reusable coffee cup spilling all down her white blouse.

“Shit!”

“All okay?” Sophie, her assistant, popped her head in.

“Just a coffee spill, thanks Sophie.” Kate said, sighing as she grabbed her blazer and buttoned it up, which covered the brown stain on her chest.

“I just sent you the proposal from Anthony!” Sophie called through the door. Sophie Beckett had been Kate’s incredible assistant for a year now. She was a few years younger than Kate, and she was working to put herself through university. Kate dreaded the day she lost her, but also signed her up for company funded courses as Sophie would go far in life and Kate couldn’t wait to see what she achieved.

“Cheers!” Kate shouted back, sitting down at her desk and opening up her email. Her eyes scanned the email and the proposal, and her stomach dropped as her chest filled with fury.

“That motherfucker,” Kate spat, shoving herself away from her desk as she stormed towards Anthony Bridgerton’s office, ready to commit murder.

Gregory, his assistant and younger brother, wasn’t at his desk. She had checked Bridgerton’s work calendar and it was clear, so he wasn’t with a client. She didn’t bother knocking.

That was her first mistake.

“Bridgerton, I don’t know if you were dropped on your head as a child-“

Her voice caught in her throat. His office was occupied by two other men, who had heard every single word she had just said.

That was her second mistake.

“Oh! I am so sorry," Her cheeks flushed with red mortification and she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. "I can come back-”

Anthony sat behind his desk, smugly beaming at her as she flushed in embarrassment. “Ah, Kate. Charming as always. I was waiting for you to storm in and annoy me today. Have you met my brothers? This is Benedict and Colin,” He gestured to the two men sitting in front of him.

“The famous Kate Sheffield,” Benedict extended his hand, grinning at her as he stood up. “It is an honour to meet you.”

“We’ve heard so many great things,” Kate raised an confused eyebrow at Colin as he stood up and spoke, shaking his hand as well. “From Gregory. We’re big fans of your daily torment of our dear older brother.”

“He definitely was dropped, by the way,” said Colin, grinning cheekily at Anthony who scowled at him. “Mother would never admit to it, but it would explain a lot.”

Kate laughed at him as Anthony scowled. “The chances of you getting the travel money you wanted are looking incredibly low, dearest brother,” said Anthony, narrowing his eyes at his Colin. “What did you want, Sheffield? I’m busy.”

There was a knock at the door just as Kate opened her mouth to retort, and Sophie popped her head in the doorway. “Excuse me for interrupting,” She said, looking at Kate. “Kate, there’s an important phone call waiting for you. Hi Anthony.”

"Hey, Sophie," said Anthony, pleasantly smiling at her which made Kate glare at him in disgust. Sophie and Bridgerton liked each other. Sophie had said on more than one occasion that he wasn't as bad as Kate made him out to be, and Kate usually threw a pen at her.

“Thank you, Sophie,” She smiled at her assistant, before turning around back to Bridgerton and putting the proposal on his desk with the word ‘DENIED’ scribbled across it in red sharpie. “I don’t want to see this proposal on my desk again. I don't feel like denying it for a fourth time.”

Benedict had turned around and was staring at Sophie, and Anthony rolled his eyes. This was one of their new arguments, that had been going on for a few weeks over a hotel design proposal that Anthony desperately wanted and Kate wouldn’t approve under any circumstances.

“Your wants aren’t really my concern, Sheffield,” Anthony said, his tone dismissive. “It’s an excellent proposal-”

Kate snorted. “It’s an obnoxious, reckless, extremely over the top hotel proposal that is not going to happen just to boost your ego. The Board would never agree to it and I certainly won’t.”

“We’ll see about that,” He smirked at her, but his eyes were glaring at her. “The Board are very fond of me. I can be very persuasive.”

“You need finance clearance and-oh. Who in finance has that authority?” She tilted her head slightly, before looking back at him to smirk right back at his smug face. “That’s right, me.”

“Who is CEO of the company and whose name is on the company?” Anthony retorted, furrowing his brows before smirking at her. “That’s right,” He mimicked her, “Me.”

“Does this happen often?” Benedict asked, amused as his head flicked between Kate and Anthony.

Gregory Bridgerton, who was eating a packet of crisps, appeared at the doorway and joined the conversation. “Everyday.”

“Every single day,” Sophie added in agreement, smirking slightly which faded as her cheeks turned crimson when she caught Benedict’s eye, quickly looking away.

“No it does not!” Both Kate and Anthony said at the same time.

Kate shook her head in frustration, “I have to go. If you email me that proposal again, I will stamp it once again with DENIED and hammer it onto your door until the message gets through your thick skull.”

“I am your boss, Sheffield,” said Anthony, his tone rather sharp. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Oh, forgive me,” Kate said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Should I write it down so you will actually understand what I’m saying?”

Anthony glared at her furiously, pushing himself up with his fists. “You can shove it up your-”

“So lovely to meet you both,” said Kate, interrupting Anthony’s insult loudly as she smiled at his laughing two brothers before walking out of the room, Sophie at her heels.

It was no way to talk to her boss, he was right, but they had long passed the proper etiquette of employer and employee relationships. They regularly insulted and shouted at each other, whether it was in person, over text or on the phone, and it just sort of became what they did. It somehow worked, as they worked well together and the company was making its highest profits to date.

Kate sat at her desk, her heart thumping in her chest. What was she thinking? She did not like that man. He infuriated her. She grabbed her jacket on the back of her chair and quietly screamed into it, then took a deep breath before answering the phone. “Edwina? Is everything okay? Is it Mary? Is it Newton?”

“Relax, Kate,” Her sister said, with amusement in her voice. “I had to say it was an emergency for you to answer during work. It is technically an emergency.”

“Not funny,” Kate mumbled, resting her cheek against her desk and putting the phone on speaker. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

Kate heard her sister swallow before biting the bullet. “I need you to come to this charity gala tonight.”

“No.”

“Kate-”

“No!”

“My date just bailed on me for Paris fashion week. I can’t go alone. It would be so embarrassing. He’s already been photographed with some Russian model this morning,” Her sister’s voice broke slightly. “Please, Katie.”

Edwina was her younger sister by four years, and she was a famous supermodel. She had been scouted when they were walking down Oxford Street, and it had been runways, magazines and brand deals for Edwina ever since. Kate would do anything for her sister, especially when she pleaded with her, even if that thing made Kate want to set herself on fire.

Actually, she probably would prefer having a civilized conversation with Anthony Bridgerton than go to one of Edwina’s events. That’s how much Kate hated them.

She groaned. “Fine, but two hours top. I will choose what I wear and if you try to set me up, I will leave.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! “ Her sister squealed to the phone. “Be at mine at six! Do not be late! I love you.”

“I love you too, but I want you to know at this very moment, I really despise you,” Kate said as she heard her sister chuckle before hanging up. Excellent. She hated Edwina’s events. She had been to many of Edwina’s parties, galas and events, which involved Kate trailing behind her famous sister who everyone cooed and praised and only ever acknowledged Kate with a “Oh! I didn’t know you had a sister!” after Edwina introduced her.

As if her day couldn’t get any worse.

She heard a buzz, and then Sophie’s voice over the intercom. “Can I get you anything?”

Kate groaned. “The will to live.”

“How about a milkshake?”

She lifted her head off her desk slightly, perking up. “Please. Chocolate with extra crème. I’m feeling fragile.”

“Of course, I’ll go right away,” Sophie spoke, hesitating slightly before continuing. “Anthony has just sent an invite for the hotel proposal presentation with the Board in a few weeks. Talktoyoulaterbye!”

Kate’s head snapped up off her desk, “What?” She spat out, fury filling her veins and she twisted her neck towards his office. He was looking right at her, smirking like the devil himself, and he had the audacity to wave.

Kate’s middle finger waved right back.

a/n: chapter 2 coming soon!

[adamwatchesmovies]

Leprechaun In the Hood (2000)

After enduring Leprechaun 4: In Space I knew I had nothing left to fear. There was no way the rest of the series could be as atrocious as that sci-fi abortion. I was right. Does that mean that Leprechaun 5 a.k.a. Leprechaun In the Hood is good? Not at all but it is a step up for the franchise.

As is par for the course by this point, this film has nothing to do with any of the previous chapters. When three aspiring young rap artists: "Postmaster P." (Anthony Montgomery), "Stray Bullet" (Rashaan Nall) and "Butch" (Red Grant) find themselves hard on cash on the eve of a big rap competition, they decide to burglarize the house of rich pimp Mack Daddy O’Nassas (Ice-T). In the process, they awaken the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) and steal his magical flute. Armed with fly zombie women, vaguely established powers and a penchant for marijuana, the spawn of hell begins a killing spree that can only end when his treasure is given back to him.

At first, I was amused. While we're dealing with rappers, pimps and the same stereotypes as always, I can’t remember the last time I saw what is essentially an all-black cast in a horror movie. While I wouldn’t shine a spotlight on anyone's acting skills the performances are more than sufficient (and that extends to some of the supporting cast like Ice-T) considering this is Leprechaun 5. There may have actually been some mild amount of ambition when the project began!

This is nevertheless a shoddy creation. The editing and camera work is terrible. Large chunks of dialogue are obviously dubbed, probably due to lackluster first takes which were never reshot. This would explain the footage from previous scenes used to try and smooth over transitions and dialogue exchanged between actors I'm not convinced were actually in the same room at the time. Even these numerous editing tricks barely make the story coherent.

I hate how there’s absolutely no consistency in the series. The Leprechaun’s powers change every single time and when someone doesn’t explain to us the rules, every plot point feels like it comes out of nowhere. When the Leprechaun boasted that he was going to send his army of fly zombie ladies to help get his magic flute back... I assumed that he meant like half-insect, half-human decaying corpses. Something like the monster from #4. Turns out he meant “fly” as in “hot” and “zombie” means “possessed via magic”. Whatever.

This film’s conclusion makes no sense. Scenes cut off to imply one thing, and then the opposite happens. People discover very specific facts or objects (including 4-leaf clovers, which are supposed to be really rare) willy-nilly so the plot can keep moving. I couldn’t believe how they decided to end this movie. What were they thinking? That it would be funny?

Committing my thoughts to paper really makes me question things. And to think, there's more coming? What am I doing with my life? Let’s conclude by saying that on top of the weak special effects, we’ve got a lot of happening with no rhyme or reason, bad writing, groan-inducing singing/rapping, awkward jokes that are aimed at an audience that doesn’t exist and some bad writing. Yes, I'm including this criticism twice. I’m talking overall story, and the dialogue, particularly the rhymes delivered by the Leprechaun, which are horrendous. Even the rap numbers usually just feature 2-3 lines simply repeated over and over, as if the ones we got were so good that it would excuse no subsequent material.

The best thing I can say about Leprechaun In The Hood is that it isn’t the worst to date. It’s a gimmicky horror comedy with a crappy gimmick and even ironically, I can’t imagine anyone truly having a good time with it. (Letterboxed version on DVD, June 24, 2015)

[theradioghost]

hey feel free not to answer this if you don’t have time but I tried to listen to ars paradoxica a while back and stopped a few episodes in because I was just... VERY confused about who the characters were and where the plot was headed (also all the science shenanigans but that’s a separate thing). would you mind giving a quick rundown of the major characters and basic plot? It seems like a really cool show but I just couldn’t grasp it.

Oh gosh, yeah. Ars P can definitely be confusing. If you’re having trouble with it, podcast reviewer Wil Williams actually recently finished an episode-by-episode recap of the entire series, including actually working out all the goddamn time travel timelines, somehow? And almost definitely Wil is going to have explained it better than me.

But the basic concept is, a modern-day physicist named Dr. Sally Grissom attempts some kind of wacky physics experiment and accidentally blows herself right out of her timeline. She lands on the deck of the ship USS Eldridge on October 29th, 1943, and specifically during a freaky secret experiment that conspiracy theorists claim happened on that ship. In the ars p universe, that experiment accidentally did some Weird Shit to the entirety of time, and anyone who untethers themselves the way Dr. Grissom did is drawn towards that point. (Basically, you can only time travel towards that moment on the Eldridge; aka, you can only travel back in time.)

But y’know, that’s a top secret government warship during WWII, so the military picks Sally up and immediately ships her out west to a secret base (Manhattan Project style) to replicate her discovery, under the watchful eye of the Office of Developed Anomalous Resources, or ODAR. The major characters who come in here are

Chet Whickman, a sailor on the Eldridge who later joins up with ODAR

Bill Donovan, the director of ODAR, and also an asshole

Anthony Partridge, a mathematician and member of Sally’s team because all of his work in predicting the future with mathematical formulas was scrapped as soon as she showed up. Also his wife, Helen, a former jazz singer

Esther Roberts and Jack Wyatt, also scientists who are now on Sally’s team, and old friends

additional scientist named Quentin Barlowe and his wife, June

and several other people who are huge spoilers, and don’t show up for a while.

The first stretch of the show is essentially the scientists beginning to work out the mechanics of time travel (which is, needless to say, complicated). The rest of the show follows the results of handing secret time travel over to the the US government right as the Cold War opens. In other words, history gets real out of wack real fast, and everyone is going to make some extremely morally gray decisions.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations ANTHONY! You’ve been accepted as DIONE.

Excuse me as I scream because you finally brought us a Finn, Anthony! Finn is a character that is filled with a lot of complexities and you touched upon beautifully within your app. Life for them has not been kind, and yet they continue to look for that family they’ve never had. And let me just say, Finn’s intelligence? Chef’s kiss. They know they’re smart and they use it to their advantage to get what they want - which is the exact reason our dearest Alma picked them out of all the possible mutants. 

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Anthony

PRONOUNS: He/Him

AGE: 19

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I can be pretty active most days except for Tuesdays and Thursdays!

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Finn Croix | Dione

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Genderqueer | He/They

DETAILS & ANALYSIS:

Dione, the deity of the springs, and a water goddess. She’s tied with Finn’s first name due to Fionn mac Cumhail (Fionn being where Finn comes from) gaining wisdom from an enchanted salmon. Also, Dione was an oracle, and Fionn had wisdom. Another thing is that Croix, which means cross, and it’s said that Fionn isn’t dead, but is resting and waiting for a horn to be blown three times, similiar to how in Christianity, Gabriel must blow the horn three times to signal the end of the world. Next, Fionn gets white hair, and maybe Finn was born with white hair, so they shaved it off to not be as noticed as others.

For me, Finn is a very complex individual. They have grand things they can accomplish in their life, but also, they are very comfortable not doing any of them. They are where they want to be, when they want to be there. Another thing is how they relate to people in life. Finn in my eyes, doesn’t like to get close to most people. They like to push off, to not get close, unless they choose to. But at the same time, I feel like they are very warm and caring with those they have chosen to love. The first two lines of their aesthetic says that to me. Also, I feel like Finn doesn’t like to truly settle down. They may stop at one place, but never truly stay. For them, life is the ability to be free. To not be tied down, unless they choose to. And I feel like, Finn has chosen to be tied to where they are now. That’s what the next two lines say. The final line, I feel like is how Finn feels, about everything. They’ve been forgotten their whole life, and don’t really know what to do. Other people forget them, and feel bad about it, but don’t really change things, unless they want to get rid of the feeling.

BIO:

Finn Croix is the fourth son of the Croix family. They were born, one horribly storm day in the middle of August. By the time their one-month old mark rolled around, they looked almost nothing like their siblings. Incredibly pale, white hair, the only thing that showed Finn was even related was their dark brown eyes. However, to most of their family, it didn’t matter. They were just another Croix kid, and they belonged. It did matter to their mom, Etna, though. She wanted Finn to look like her, to be like her, to be born a girl. That never happened. Etna kept her distance, too greatly disappointed by her final child not being the little girl she had been praying for. So, she kept her distance from her youngest, confusing Finn as they grew up, not sure what they had done wrong.

By the time they were five, Finn had learned not to talk to mother unless spoken to first, not to bother father unless it was life or death, and that their brothers were ride-or-die to a degree. They also knew that, regardless of anything else, the evilest people on the planet were, of course, Mutants. As long as they never associated with that group, they would be fine, in the long run. That choice was taken away from them.

One day, while Finn and their brothers were playing outside, their eldest brother, Daniel, accidentally started a fire. Finn, to this day, isn’t actually sure that Daniel meant to start it. All they know is, one second, Daniel’s doing something, and then next there’s a giant fire and Patrick, Finn’s brother barely older than them, is crying. After that, Finn heard people yelling around them, obviously scared of what just happened. However, Finn was more worried about Patrick, so they rushed to his side, and somehow, miraculously, made the burn marks that had already started to form on Patrick’s hand, cool down.

In the long run, this was not a smart thing to do.

After the event was immediately over, Finn was pulled away from Patrick, along with Daniel. They were both brought before their father and mother. Their mother, who had obviously just gotten finished crying, and their father, who looked furious. Their father, Daniel Sr., was quick to inform them that they were no longer to call either of their parents’ “father” or “mother” and that they were no longer “true Croix’s.” Daniel Sr. went on to explain that both of them would be separated, one sent the Croix’s in France, and the other, to the Cullen’s in New York. Then, they were sent to their rooms, and that was the last time that Finn saw their brother, Daniel, in person.

After that, it was a whirlwind of things happening. Finn quickly found out that they were staying with Etna’s parents, the Cullen’s. They also found out from Baptiste, the second oldest Croix child, that the Cullen’s were of the opinion that the only good mutant was a dead one, and the only good alive mutant was one who was constantly in full control of their powers. Another thing they found out is that they would no longer be able to contact their siblings. Finn was lost. No friends, no contact with their brothers, what was there left?

At the age of six, Finn was fully moved in with their grandparents. They also learned a new set of rules. Their grandfather was only to be referred to as Alastar, their grandmother, Kennedy. They were not to touch anything in the house freely without permission, except in their room. They had a tight schedule on what Finn was allowed to do, and if Finn missed something? They would be punished, and not lightly. They had training every day to master their powers, to learn the self-control needed to no longer be a danger to society.

By the time Finn was eight, they had learned more prayers and hymns to help keep themselves in balance when they feel they are about to have an episode, than they had friends in the world. And they didn’t know a lot of prayers or hymns. By the time they were nine, they had a strong mastery over their powers, and were granted some freedoms. One of those being to go back to public school. By the time they were ten, they were allowed to make a choice. They could stay with their grandparents, or go back to their parents. They decided to stay with their grandparents, because the evil you knew was better than the evil you didn’t.

School was a breeze for Finn, for the most part. They weren’t messed with in class, due to the strong fear that everyone had to them being mutant. The classes were also pretty easy, due to their grandparents refusing to have a grandchild that didn’t understand the subjects they were being taught. By the time Finn was in the eleventh grade, they had the top scores in the class, with no problem, and were considered to be the only viable choice for the valedictorian. When twelfth grade rolled around, the rules changed though. Suddenly, at the age of 70, Alastar Cullen, had a heart attack. Two days later, he was dead. Three days after that, Kennedy Cullen was found dead from taktsubo cardiomyopathy, or, heart break.

Finn didn’t know what to do. They had just turned 18, were about to graduate from high school, and both their guardians were dead. When the wills for both of their grandparents were finally discussed, it was found that the Cullen’s had left nothing except a few thousand dollars to Finn, and everything else to Finn’s brothers, Baptiste and Patrick. It was the first time that Finn had seen them in years. However, Baptiste seemed disinterested, and Patrick wasn’t allowed to talk to them. Then, they were kicked out of their grandparent’s home, as they were no longer welcomed there. By the time that everything had settled, with the will reading and Finn getting kicked out, Finn had lost the only “family” they had, their safety of a home, and their position as valedictorian due to not being able to keep up with the course work. They were still high in rank, but it wasn’t the same.

So, they moved. With only a few thousand dollars to their name, they began to travel the country. They had no steady job, just picking up random ones when a mutant needed help, or when someone wanted to do something illegal and needed a mutant who didn’t care too heavily about who they were hurting.

It wasn’t until around the age of 25, that they realized they weren’t happy. After a job gone wrong, where they had someone get scapegoated, did Finn realize that they weren’t helping anyone. They had been burned by their family, and, in turn, started burning fellow mutants. And for what? A bit of extra cash? They hated themselves for that. They began a side research project, once they had this realization. They quickly looked up areas where there were high mutant populations, where there was more acceptance to mutants, and where they could find a job with their specific skill set. It wasn’t hard to find a city like that.

Chicago was the haven for mutants, but was also losing ground as that haven. Then, Finn found the Big Three. The Blackburn Syndicate, the Jem family, and Kings Collective. The three most powerful groups in Chicago, with an underbelly, and the ability to help other mutants. That’s where Finn wanted to be.

They quickly finished up the jobs they had left in the current city they were in, and began to head towards Chicago. It wasn’t difficult to get there, and only slightly more difficult to find a way into the group they wanted. While the other two groups were good, they weren’t what Finn was looking for. The Jem Family believed in mutant supremacy, which Finn had never seen, and the Kings Collective who wanted to steal art, which they weren’t that interested in. No, they were interested in the protection that the Blackburn Syndicate offered. They quickly searched for a way to set up a meeting, but found they had no reason to. Their leader, Alma Rosario, found them first. She quickly offered a spot to Finn, in exchange for Finn to work for her. It was no question. Finn Croix, was now a member of the Blackburn Syndicate.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

Rebeka York – Finn and Rebeka were never bound to get along. Too similar in powers, and Finn loving to annoy people at times, it was bound to not be a good friendship. However, that doesn’t mean that Finn doesn’t appreciate Rebeka’s gift. In fact, they see Rebeka as an equal, in terms of mutations, regardless of the differences between them.

Rahim Avery – Rahim and Finn are close, and Finn will fight someone for trying to say otherwise. To them, Rahim is a breath of fresh air. It’s nice, knowing that there’s someone on his danger level that they can relate to. It’s very nice, knowing that Rahim trusts them.

Abigail Imani – Abigail is, was, and always will be, the first friend that Finn had, that they felt safe enough to be themselves around. They miss Abigail, a lot more than their willing to admit. They knew, maybe from the beginning, that they wouldn’t stay friends, but it still hurt. However, it’s not like they stuck around to see what Abigail thought. Once they learned about Abigail being in Chicago though? It was like another thought went through their head. Maybe, just maybe, I can reconnect?

EXTRA:

Mock Blog

Playlist

Aesthetic Unsplash

Family Lineage

Headcanons

ANYTHING ELSE: I didn’t know if I needed to fill the OOC part again, so I did it just in case!

[nuclearmu5hroom]

I saw this floating around and I decided to pick it up for funsies idk

FALLOUT OC INTERVIEW

Rules:

1) Choose an OC

2) Answer questions as that OC

3) Tag 5 people to do the same

1) What is your name? Dr. Drake Fenring, Director of the New Institute.

(more under the cut)

2) How old are you? You’ll have to get more specific than that. I suppose biologically you could say I’m approximately 44 years old, though I was born in 2052. I doubt you’ll be able to understand the circumstances that brought me to this era.

3) What do you look like? I’m 5′7″, 140 lbs. Blonde hair, brown eyes its right there in the picture, what more do I have to explain? If you’re wanting to know what kind of clothing I prefer I am generally wearing my lab coat, or my uniform. I keep clean, bathe regularly (unlike the rest of these cretins) and prefer to stay as healthy as I can. 

4) Where are you from? Where do you live now? Originally I’m from Boston, out near Concord area. At this particular time, my current residence is classified; I’m sure there are many people who would love to know where I sleep.

5) What was your childhood like? Nothing of note. I am an only child, my mother’s name was Marie and father was Anthony. I received high marks in school, particularly in math and science. Socially, I suppose you could say I was even well liked, but my peers were simple and could be impressed by balloon animals so that doesn't quite count for much. I was more than content on my own.

6) What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? *rolls eyes* ah yes, the factions...before my sudden voyage here I supported the US Government; I was even on the short list by invite of General Chase to reside on an oil rig just off the coast in the even of War. I didn't quite make it there, if you hadn't guessed. They called themselves the Enclave after the bomb dropped, so you can say I align with them as an original member. Its my plan to combine my former employer with my current organization which is all that is left of what used to be the Institute. Occasionally, I have been known to employ a few talented Gunners to run security from time to time as well.

7) Tell me about your best friend. I--I don’t have one...well, um. No. I have an associate that I’ve worked closely with however ‘friend’ is not the word I would choose, lets not be silly. 

8) Do you have a family? Tell me about them! They’re dead. They’ve been dead for 200 some years now, honestly I don't think much about them. However, if you must know more detail I guess I was closer to my mother growing up. My father didn't quite approve of certain aspects of myself as I got older but I never needed his approval for anything anyway. 

9) What about a partner or partners? UM.....well. That is also a complicated area of life. I’ve just recently started to realize I had....interesting emotions...come up as of late and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I don't like this question....MOVING ON.

10) Who are your enemies, and why? Oh darling, who aren’t my enemies? Let’s see....the Railroad and the Minutemen are my current opposition, and won’t they be surprised when they find out what I have in store for them...I find the Children of Atom to be completely infantile with their “mysticism” *tch* please, give me a break. 

11) Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them? The Brotherhood could have had potential but in the end they lacked the full scope of their own vision. Not surprised, considering they thought that dirty neckbearded child they called Elder could lead them to whatever victory they thought to achieve. 

12) What about The Enclave? Ah yes, my Enclave. We’ve suffered setbacks, yet no one can quite get rid of us, eh? Mark my words, I will spend my last breath in the pursuit of their return. There is so much that the Enclave and the Institute could share together. A thing of orchestrated beauty.

13) How do you feel about Super Mutants? Fascinating, if anything. As a biologist, the FEV virus was an absolute joy to work with, despite the difficult process to stabilize it. Unfortunately, like all works in progress it was not viable to continue and since they’ve become a menace to our own operations extermination is required on site. It is nice to capture one alive and run some tests...for old times sake.

14) What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? I prefer not to fight, but escaping the Institute during its destruction was probably the most intense combat I've faced since Anchorage. 

15) Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? Yes. I do NOT recommend it. Only a fool would consider it.

16) Do you like fighting? It depends. I like a good struggle, especially as I watch them lose consciousness. Its amusing to watch them squirm when they wake up restrained. I am not above taking certain advantages in a fight.

17) What’s your weapon of choice? I am quite partial to my quad gauss rifle, I also have a soft spot for my bat. There’s nothing like beating a man’s skull in with nothing but a solid piece of wood.

18) How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) I can be very persuasive when it comes to getting what I want, when I want it. Its not hard to read the intentions of these wastelanders out here. I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a bit of luck on my side as well; things fell into place almost as soon as I arrived in this century. 

19) Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them? HAHAH the Vaults....right. Yes. They’re fun little games, aren't they? Some of my research even made its way into a few of the programs Vault Tec used. It was a pet project, however I still thought it was unnecessary. Waste of good resources on average people.

20) How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you? Hazmat suits, lackeys, decontamination arches, general avoidance. Its not like I’m some dumb vault dweller who decided to play hero and soak up a lethal dose like some kind of idiot. 

21) What’s your favorite wasteland critter? Critter? What kind of descriptor is that, you backwater hick? Local fauna has become too contaminated to be considered a ‘favorite’, they’re all mostly disgusting creatures. 

22) What’s your least favorite wasteland critter? Bloatflies. Hands down.

23) How do you feel about robots? Useful, to a degree. Not quite what a Gen 3 Synth is capable of....or even a Gen 1 Synth but for disposable use I find them agreeable.

24) How many caps do you have on you right now? Why? Is this a pitiful attempt to set me up to rob me after this interview? I have plenty of caps at my residence. I don't carry currency on me. 

25) Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla? Ugh, I’d rather swallow Abraxo cleaner than drink either one of those.

26) Do you do chems?  I make chems, I don't do them. Chems are for the weak

27) Do you ever think about the Pre-War world? Often. I....miss the music.

28) What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently? If I would have known that that Holoway girl was going to destroy everything I worked for I would have shot her back in Anchorage. I also....have some regrets over how I viewed my previous partnership. 

29) What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? My biggest achievement is my own survival. My goal is to purge the Commonwealth of all that is impure to pave the way for a more advanced group of individuals. My legacy will be to ensure that whatever’s left of humanity comes from only the best genetic stock.

30) What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? I want to be able to look upon the world that I have created and say “I made this happen.”

tagging: @vkm11, @catastrotaffy @coffeecogs @red-king-4, @radiationgroove, @mininuked   @theartofblossoming (only if you want to)

[maryxglz]

To date, the films and television shows of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have never crossed over as much as fans have hoped they would. Sure, there has definitely been direct commentary about notable events, and specific characters have appeared that confirm programs like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, and Luke Cage are set in the same continuity, but the degree to which they are shown to be part of one giant franchise has been limited. That relationship between big and small screen material will change in a significant way very soon, however, namely with the arrival of the upcoming Disney+ streaming service, and its massive original content plans.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has spoken in the past about the challenges that come with balancing continuity across multiple mediums, namely that the pace of the storytelling in film and television is so different that it makes them a conflict to sync. That, however, will not be an issue with the big plans for Disney’s new entertainment hub. I sat down with Feige this past weekend during the Los Angeles press day for Captain Marvel, and during the interview he explained why programs like the upcoming Loki series will have a much more significant Marvel Cinematic Universe feel. Confirming the opportunities for crossover, the executive/producer said,

“Yes. Directly, yeah. One hundred percent. In large part it's because we've been working on Disney+ for quite a while now, at the exact same time that we were working on the post-Avengers: Endgame MCU, and therefore for the first time ever developed them together.“

Going back to the launch of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2013, Marvel Studios film and television have existed mostly as two separate entities working on two completely different schedules, but the creation of the new streaming service provides a creative opening that previously didn’t exist. Disney+ is coming together at the exact same time as the insanely secretive Phase 4 plans that are very much still under wraps, and the synchronicity there is apparently affording some interesting new creative directions for the filmmakers involved.

Obviously a big factor in all of this are the characters that the Disney+ shows will be following – though Kevin Feige was only willing to confirm the existence of the Loki series that is being made first. Unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe television programs that currently exist, which primary focus on introducing their own heroes and villains, the streaming service material will be used to spotlight blockbuster names that don’t get the same kind of opportunities as, say, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, or Black Panther.

Talking about the creative opportunities provided by what’s being developed, Kevin Feige noted that the real benefit of what we’ll see from the Disney+ series is just a lot of storytelling real estate that will allow character engagement that’s simply not possible in a two hour-plus blockbuster. It won’t necessarily be about “lower scale” events than what we see in cinemas three times per year, but instead about bigger ideas. Said Feige,

“I think what's fun is there's more time. There's more time to go further in depth with characters, and we try to do that in all of our films, but in some of the films when there's so many characters they can't all get their own through lines. And one of the many things that's exciting about Disney+ is the opportunity to do both: to both give a level of action that people only see only rarely on television, but at the same time go much, much deeper into a number of our characters and to fully intertwine them within the MCU.”

As mentioned, Marvel isn’t confirming Disney+ plans for any characters other than Loki at present, though there have been reports saying that there are also projects in the works that will center on Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s characters, Falcon and Winter Solider, as well as the pair played by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, Scarlet Witch and Vision. But while Kevin Feige wouldn’t say anything about those other shows, he did confirm that they will include conflicts that will definitely be reflected as characters continue on:

“You'll see characters from the movies go to Disney+, be transformed or have their own arcs or have their own transformations thematically, and that will then be reflected in the next appearance in the movies.”

We can’t say for certain right now when we will start hearing more details about these developments, but the smart money is on soon. Kevin Feige has confirmed that future plans for Marvel Studios won’t be revealed until after the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home later this summer, but after that point it will be interesting to see if the floodgates open in regards to what’s being cooked up for the next few years.

As for why Loki is the first show that Marvel Studios is moving forward with in this realm, Kevin Feige had a very simple explanation entirely centered around the man who will be at the center of the circus:

“Two words: Tom Hiddleston.”

Loki recently hired Rick and Morty and Community veteran Michael Waldron as showrunner, and production is likely starting soon – though exactly when we can expect to start seeing episodes isn’t entirely clear (obviously at the earliest it will be with the launch of Disney+ this fall). We’ll keep you up to date with details as they become available, as it’s definitely one of the most exciting developments currently coming together currently in the superhero realm.

As for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans will soon be able to dive into some awesome 90s action from the massive franchise, as Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel will be flying into theaters on March 5th. We’ll have plenty more from not only my interview with Kevin Feige coming your way in the next few days, but also chats with Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Lashana Lynch, Clark Gregg, and the directors. Be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for a whole lot more awesome stories!

[insanityclause]

To date, the films and television shows of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have never crossed over as much as fans have hoped they would. Sure, there has definitely been direct commentary about notable events, and specific characters have appeared that confirm programs like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, and Luke Cage are set in the same continuity, but the degree to which they are shown to be part of one giant franchise has been limited. That relationship between big and small screen material will change in a significant way very soon, however, namely with the arrival of the upcoming Disney+ streaming service, and its massive original content plans.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has spoken in the past about the challenges that come with balancing continuity across multiple mediums, namely that the pace of the storytelling in film and television is so different that it makes them a conflict to sync. That, however, will not be an issue with the big plans for Disney’s new entertainment hub. I sat down with Feige this past weekend during the Los Angeles press day for Captain Marvel, and during the interview he explained why programs like the upcoming Loki series will have a much more significant Marvel Cinematic Universe feel. Confirming the opportunities for crossover, the executive/producer said,

Yes. Directly, yeah. One hundred percent. In large part it's because we've been working on Disney+ for quite a while now, at the exact same time that we were working on the post-Avengers: Endgame MCU, and therefore for the first time ever developed them together.

Going back to the launch of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2013, Marvel Studios film and television have existed mostly as two separate entities working on two completely different schedules, but the creation of the new streaming service provides a creative opening that previously didn’t exist. Disney+ is coming together at the exact same time as the insanely secretive Phase 4 plans that are very much still under wraps, and the synchronicity there is apparently affording some interesting new creative directions for the filmmakers involved.

Obviously a big factor in all of this are the characters that the Disney+ shows will be following – though Kevin Feige was only willing to confirm the existence of the Loki series that is being made first. Unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe television programs that currently exist, which primary focus on introducing their own heroes and villains, the streaming service material will be used to spotlight blockbuster names that don’t get the same kind of opportunities as, say, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, or Black Panther.

Talking about the creative opportunities provided by what’s being developed, Kevin Feige noted that the real benefit of what we’ll see from the Disney+ series is just a lot of storytelling real estate that will allow character engagement that’s simply not possible in a two hour-plus blockbuster. It won’t necessarily be about “lower scale” events than what we see in cinemas three times per year, but instead about bigger ideas. Said Feige,

I think what's fun is there's more time. There's more time to go further in depth with characters, and we try to do that in all of our films, but in some of the films when there's so many characters they can't all get their own through lines. And one of the many things that's exciting about Disney+ is the opportunity to do both: to both give a level of action that people only see only rarely on television, but at the same time go much, much deeper into a number of our characters and to fully intertwine them within the MCU.

As mentioned, Marvel isn’t confirming Disney+ plans for any characters other than Loki at present, though there have been reports saying that there are also projects in the works that will center on Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s characters, Falcon and Winter Solider, as well as the pair played by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, Scarlet Witch and Vision. But while Kevin Feige wouldn’t say anything about those other shows, he did confirm that they will include conflicts that will definitely be reflected as characters continue on:

You'll see characters from the movies go to Disney+, be transformed or have their own arcs or have their own transformations thematically, and that will then be reflected in the next appearance in the movies.

We can’t say for certain right now when we will start hearing more details about these developments, but the smart money is on soon. Kevin Feige has confirmed that future plans for Marvel Studios won’t be revealed until after the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home later this summer, but after that point it will be interesting to see if the floodgates open in regards to what’s being cooked up for the next few years.

As for why Loki is the first show that Marvel Studios is moving forward with in this realm, Kevin Feige had a very simple explanation entirely centered around the man who will be at the center of the circus:

Two words: Tom Hiddleston.

Loki recently hired Rick and Morty and Community veteran Michael Waldron as showrunner, and production is likely starting soon – though exactly when we can expect to start seeing episodes isn’t entirely clear (obviously at the earliest it will be with the launch of Disney+ this fall). We’ll keep you up to date with details as they become available, as it’s definitely one of the most exciting developments currently coming together currently in the superhero realm.

As for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans will soon be able to dive into some awesome 90s action from the massive franchise, as Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel will be flying into theaters on March 5th.

* emphasis mine

[onestowatch]

Marco McKinnis Illustrates Love, Growth, and the Beginning of an Artistic Evolution in ‘E’Merse’ [Q&A]

The resurgence of R&B over the past few years is undeniable. Fusing traditional elements of the genre with new textures, artists operating in this surging space have brought life back into a sound that was arguably dormant. Compiling a list of the heavy-hitters emerging in the genre would be incomplete without the talents of Marco McKinnis. The Virginia-based artist may be relatively new but has already generated a cult-like following that heralds his music as the genre’s best-kept secret. Apologies to the McKinnis fandom, we’re about to spill the beans.

Marco McKinnis first gained traction on SoundCloud in 2016 after uploading several original records that highlighted his natural talents. One of his songs, “Beautiful Demo,” generated over 400 thousand plays and ten thousand likes on the streaming platform–safe to say listeners swooned. Partnering with Republic Records a year after the song’s release, McKinnis began showing up on major streaming platforms, effectively delivering two singles, “How I Feel” and “Middle Of The Party.” Both records continued building the mysteriously-sultry persona of the then fairly unknown vocalist.

A year after his signing with Republic, McKinnis delivered a moving body of work in the form of his six-track EP, Underground. The 18-minute exhibition resonated an energy that is lightyears ahead of its time. Despite this being his first official multi-track debut, McKinnis brandished a self-awareness that transcended his “newcomer” status. Standout tracks like, “CPR” and “Stillness” solidified his ability to not only cater to the bedroom but to the brokenhearted as well.

With consistency in mind, McKinnis wasted no time in sharing his next body of work, a six-track EP titled E’Merse. The 20-minute offering, released on June 14, floods your senses with varying themes of intimacy and romanticism. Built atop a combination of live instrumentation and trap-soul production, E’Merse makes a compelling case for McKinnis’ untapped musicality. Still in the process of discovering his own abilities as an artist leaves us excited to witness his artistic evolution.

E’Merse wastes no times on pleasantries, throwing you into the thick of things with its bass-driven, saxophone-assisted introduction “Energy.” The consoling opener is a shining example of the content and production to be expected on later tracks. Whether pleading to his former love on “Give It Up,” questioning commitment on “Deep” or confidently departing an unhealthy relationship in “On The Market,” McKinnis spotlights his growing self-awareness and natural ability to occupy multiple spaces while remaining concise.

We had the privilege of catching up with Marco McKinnis about his love for live instrumentation, opening up more, future plans, and dance moves that would make Omarion’s character in You Got Served quake.

OTW: First off thank you for taking the time, how are you doing?

McKinnis: I’m doing good man, just had my hair braided up, making me a grilled cheese right now. I got a performance tonight, I’m feeling good!

OTW: It sounds like you are living the life. What does this moment feel like? Your second EP?

McKinnis: It feels good man! I feel like I’m moving along, I’m getting the ball rolling. People are starting to really recognize me for my talent and my gift. It just feels good to just get expressions off–getting it out there in the open–it’s like I got those things off my chest so now I can keep going, keep expressing and keep showing what I’m made of.

OTW: It’s been about three years since you first released music on SoundCloud, when did you make the decision to pursue music full time?  

McKinnis: It was around 2015 when I dropped this song called “Clouds” on SoundCloud. Once people started really rockin’ with that joint, I was like, ‘alright, I’m finna keep doing this’ because I was getting looks from certain people and they’re people that wouldn’t say my music is just good for the fun of it. So, I saw people checking for me, people listening to the music and people started hitting me up telling me how my music made them feel and knew I had to keep going.

OTW: Who were your first introductions into music?

McKinnis: I listened to a lot of Gospel, a lot of Chris Brown, I was listening to a lot of Anthony Hamilton without even me really knowing I was listening to him (laughter). He was doing a lot of synchs, so a lot of his songs were in movies and stuff like that, so I would watch the movies just to hear the songs he was singing. Other than that it was a lot of Gospel though, but then I started getting hip to the music that was taking off, so like Ne-Yo, Lloyd, Lil Wayne–that early 2000’s era of music. I was kind of late to it though ‘cause I was raised on gospel. My parents would play it throughout the crib. I had to find my own way, there’s still a lot of music out that I don’t know about that people think I know about, which is kind of funny, but I was rockin’ with all of them but rockin’ with Chris Brown heavy.

OTW: What was your move from Virginia to Los Angeles like? Does location play a factor in your creative process?

McKinnis: It was cool, it wasn’t anything crazy for me honestly. I see LA as a place to give me space, you know? I’m a guy who loves his space, just like everybody else, but it [moving] did give me the platform to think about things, have my own time, to not be rushed to do certain things. As time went on, I’m like ‘man I need to go back to New York, I need to get back on the East Coast.’ The East Coast is very stimulating for me and it’s just different. Both coasts are definitely needed for me, I love both coasts, but each coast has its purpose.

OTW: You released your first EP, Underground, not even a year ago, is there a connection between that project and this one?

McKinnis: The connection between the projects is really just me showing my musicality. I was very, very involved in the musicality of the second project. Trying to get a little bit more personal, in terms of my love life and stuff like that. My second project isn’t too specific, but it updated people on what is going on in my life right now as opposed to the first project where I felt I was a little vague on certain details. Like on “Deep,” I mention a gap in age and little details that I didn’t mention on the first project, but it was definitely a growth musically; lyric wise, writing wise and I think it just serves as my process and my expression and everything I am going through at the moment.

OTW: I think that is definitely apparent when comparing the projects side by side. There is also a maturity to your music and not just content-wise, but sonically it sounds polished, what’s your work ethic like when approaching a new project?

McKinnis: Honestly, I just love music man. I want to hear music the way I want to hear it and I’m getting hip to my gift and my ear for music. So, when I hear certain things, it has to be a certain level – I don’t know how to explain it – I’m just learning more about my gift so going forward it has to be very strategic with the music. I can have an open mind about things, but I have to be very specific with what I want. It’s all about how I feel, if it doesn’t resonate with my spirit, I don’t like to partake in it.

OTW: That’s a great place to be working from. What were you listening to while working on E’Merse?

McKinnis: I was listening to Omarion, jamming to Toni Braxton, a little bit of Carl Thomas. A lot of R&B that was out in the early 2000’s. I just wanted to tap into that and get that off my chest because I feel like a lot of people think that is what I’m going to sound like for the rest of my life, but really I won’t. I’m going to always have those elements of R&B and those old school elements or whatever you want to call them nowadays, but that’s just something I had to tap into so I can move forward and get to that next level of my artistry.

OTW: You’ve spoken about learning new instruments and your connection to live instrumentation, did you play anything on the EP?

McKinnis: I didn’t play any instruments on this album, but I was very vocal about a lot of things. I haven’t made my instrument-playing debut just yet but very, very soon I will.

OTW: Staying on the production side of things, there is a nice balance sonically, like the solo saxophone on “Energy,” was the goal to show a combination of live instrumentation and more trap-soul style of beats?

McKinnis: It was definitely a priority, like when we were making “Energy,” I had it as a demo, and I could hear a saxophone on the joint and I love live instruments. I’ve been playing around with instruments almost my whole life, I haven’t mastered one just yet but I’m in the process of doing that now. I just wanted to stamp that I’m very in love with live instrumentation, so I had to get that sax in there. I had to do a little A&R work (laughter) and find that right one. His name is Kailin Joshua, my homie introduced me to him, and he did that joint in one take, I sent him a little reference of a couple tracks that have sax on it and he sent it back to me, I chopped it up a little bit, did my thing and there it was. I am so glad I put it in there. I love the sax bro when I start playing the sax, when I get a hold of a sax bro, it’s over, it's over!

OTW: Do you have a favorite song off the EP?

McKinnis: It fluctuates honestly, so it goes off the vibe, so right now, I don’t know, I’d say “Energy” because that saxophone hits, it may change tomorrow though or the day after, it fluctuates.

OTW: What do you envision for a live performance?

McKinnis: We’ve been putting together my band and stuff like that for the shows and touring. That is going to be a big, big part of my show. That’s the thing a lot of people have been wanting to see from me, the chemistry I have with live instruments and a band, that’s something that I’m definitely going to be taking with me on stage.  

OTW: You showed off some moves on your Instagram leading up to the release of the EP, is that something we can see carried over into your shows?

McKinnis: Definitely! I’m just finding that pocket haha I’ve always danced, I’ve always been a dancer, I was a dancer before everything so that’s second nature to me. I’m just finding that pocket to infuse it with what I have going on. Just trying to introduce people, upload it, show people what I can do.

View this post on Instagram

Me when E’Merse drops tonight. 🕺🏾

A post shared by Marco McKinnis (@marcomckinnis) on Jun 13, 2019 at 5:41pm PDT

OTW: There’s no denying a resurgence in R&B over the past few years, how does it feel to be making this kind of music right now?

McKinnis: It feels great to be honest. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback like, “oh he’s bringing back the R&B, blah blah blah,” which is dope, it’s fire, it’s amazing to see it going down like that because I’m just doing me. I haven’t told myself, “oh I’m going to bring back real R&B” or anything like that, I’m just expressing myself, so the feedback is amazing. I’m just excited to see the feedback as my career progresses because like I said earlier there are going to be more elements that I infuse. As the days go by, I just get more and more expressive, more and more creative.

OTW: What’s next for you?

McKinnis: Shoot, I’m going to drop more music, got to stay consistent, more performances and just getting more in the public eye. Showing my face some more because it’s about that time to be out there and we got tour ideas and all that stuff getting situated too. Visuals as well!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT PRESSURE

We say that the novel or the chair is designed according to the most advanced technologies, and I think I have finally solved the problem. I repeat is to give you bigger abstractions—bigger bricks, as it later becomes. It would be easy to fix. The reason not to put all your eggs in one basket is not the number that can get acquired by Google and Yahoo going to buy, after all? Anything you might discover has already been invented elsewhere. These can get a company airborne for $15,000. Which is of course a way to work faster. It spread from Fortran into Algol and then to both their descendants.

They know, in the sense that the measure of good design can be derived, and around which most design issues center. One of the startups from the batch that just started, AirbedAndBreakfast, is in NYC right now meeting their users. You can't get it from the poor, not to be so cruel to one another.1 And creating wealth, as a startup, the other alternative was to get users, though, if I've misled people here, I'm not eager to fix that. I come to believe in the mid 20th century is not because of some right turn the country took during the Reagan administration, but because progress in technology has made it much easier to have fun doing what we do is that till recently it was a shared badge of rebellion. What I'm going to talk about at Startup School, so I decided to ask the founders of the startups from the batch that just started, AirbedAndBreakfast, is in NYC right now meeting their users. One of my first drawing teachers told me: if you're bored when you're drawing something, the drawing will look boring.2 Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale in wood. I am more fulfilled in my work than pretty much any of my friends who did not start companies.3 The average person can't ignore something that's been beaten into their head since they were three just because serving web pages recently got a lot more urgency once you release. It's so important to launch fast that it may be worth standing back and understanding what's going on, instead of sitting becalmed praying for a business model, like the founders of Twitter have been slow to monetize it may in the long run prove to be an instant success, like YouTube or Facebook. They'll decide later if they fail.

Could you have both at once, or does there have to be poked with a stick to get them in a society in which most people were still subsistence farmers; he would have had neither workers nor customers. PG, Thanks for the intro! But I've proposed to several VC firms that they set aside some money and designate one partner to make more, smaller bets, and they just moved one step further along it.4 By 1969, when Ted Kennedy drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, the limit seemed to be down to one. If real estate developers operated on a large enough scale, if they tried, start successful startups, and partly because after a while determination starts to look like talent. Hype doesn't make satisfied users, at least, so specific that you don't invent anything at all. But ambition is human nature.5 What's so unnatural about working for a big company. The startups we've funded so far are pretty quick, but they weren't crazy.6

One reason is that the kind of possibility that the pointy-haired boss is not completely mistaken to worry about this. Once again, anyone currently in school might think this a strange question to ask.7 Humans also seem designed to work in groups, and what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it also has to be some baseline prosperity before you get a silicon valley is China. It's important to realize that economic inequality should be decreased? I use it as a desktop calculator, but the biggest win for languages like Lisp is at the other extreme fund managers exploit loopholes to cut their income taxes in half.8 Now the default exit strategy is to try lots of different things.9 Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.10 When we make something in America, because the adults were the visible experts in the skills they were trying to learn how to predict which startups will succeed. Startup School. When I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of pressure to use what are perceived as standard technologies.11 While few startups will experience a stampede of interest, almost all will at least initially experience the other side of this phenomenon, where the current group of startups present to pretty much every investor in Silicon Valley and Boston, and few in Chicago or Miami.

Why? Exactly. We do this with YC itself. You also have to be a job. A good example is the airline fare search program that ITA Software licenses to Orbitz. The big successes are so big they dwarf the rest.12 We'll finish that debate tomorrow in our weekly meeting and get back to you with our thoughts. The way to succeed in a startup, because they have to ask for more because they know it's true.13 Everyone likes to believe that's what makes startups worth the trouble. Where had these questions come from? There's no manipulation in that.14

Notes

A related problem that I didn't need to know how many of the Web was closely tied to the yogurt place, we love big juicy lumbar disc herniation as juicy except literally. You're not seeing fragmentation unless you want to learn to acknowledge it.

Not all big hits follow this pattern though.

Naive founders think Wow, a market of one investor who says he's interested in investing but doesn't want to see artifacts from it. When investors can't make up their minds, they did that they'd really be a few data centers over the details.

Particularly since many causes of the Italian word for success. Don't be evil, they are public and persist indefinitely, comments on e.

The solution was a great one. As Anthony Badger wrote, If it failed.

That I was living in cities.

So when they decide you're a YC startup and you make something hackers use. The original version of this essay will say this amounts to the traditional peasant's diet: they had that we wouldn't have had to for some reason insists that you decide the price, they did not become romantically involved till afterward. And so this one is going to work on projects that improve the world wars to say for sure a social network for pet owners is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Google Wave. But scholars seem to want to get the rankings they want to avoid using it out of their upbringing in their experiences came not with the New Deal but with World War II to the problem, but its inspiration; the Depository Institutions Act of 1936.

One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to invest in it. If it failed. Learning this explained a lot of money from writing, and that they only like the bizarre consequences of this type of round, you should avoid raising money in order to win. If you extrapolate another 20 years.

Dealers try to be some things it's a harder problem than Hall realizes. Come From?

At this point. To consider behaving the opposite way as part of a cent per spam. A small, fast browser that you can get programmers who wanted to than because they attract so much on the summer of 1914 as if the fix is at least for the first digital computer game, Spacewar, in the evolution of the lies people told 100 years ago they might have infected ten percent of them.

It's not a programmer would never even think of a correct program.

The few people plot their own page. As Clinton himself discovered to his surprise when, in which practicing talks makes them better: reading a talk out loud at least bet money on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the image generator written in C, the more corrupt the rulers. Rice and beans are a lot heavier. 5 million cap, but you're very docile compared to what you write has a word meaning how one feels when things are going well, so x% usage growth will also remind founders that an artist or writer has to be something of an investor derives mostly from the revenue-collecting half of the previous two years, but bickering at several hundred dollars an hour most people will pay people millions of people who are running on vapor, financially, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that would have a different attitude to the point of saying that because server-based software is so hard to say that YC's most successful founders is often responding politely to the yogurt place, we found they used it to colleagues.

Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. 1886/87. Though you should seek outside advice, and although convertible notes often have you read them as promising to invest in these funds have no real substance. There are fields now in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about programmers, but I know when this happened because it depends on the way starting a company he really liked, but its inspiration; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Paul Buchheit, Hutch Fishman, John Collison, and Robert Morris for the lulz.

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

Two new pics from behind the scenes of “ The Theory of Everything”

Hope Springs Benoît Delhomme

The Theory of Everything Physicist Stephen Hawking has had a colourful life, one of triumph over adversity, romance and at times, the deepest isolation. Since meeting his first wife Jane at Cambridge University, being diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease, becoming a father and explaining the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, he has remained positive, charismatic and never given up hope.

It is these strong emotions that cinematographer Benoît Delhomme has captured so poignantly in $15million production of The Theory Of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Jane.

Delhomme is a widely-admired cinematographer, with more than 35 features to his credit, including Breaking And Entering (2006) for director Anthony Minghella, The Proposition (2005) and Lawless (2012) for John Hillcoat, plus A Most Wanted Man (2014), directed by Anton Corbijn. Here he tells British Cinematographer Magazine how he moved the character-driven film along with subtle effects of lighting and vivid colours, his collaboration with the digital dailies team from Mission Digital, and the way he used the sun as a metaphor for Hawking’s best friend while shooting.

“My last three films were all shot digitally on ARRI’s Alexa, so it was no surprise I used digital over film in the production for The Theory Of Everything,” says Delhomme. “I felt more relaxed, and it gave me more time to work with director, James Marsh. From the beginning James and I made decisions together; and worked closely to ensure each scene was as emotional as possible.”

Delhomme says he was attracted to the production because of the extraordinary contradiction in Hawking's physical condition. "Stephen cannot move anymore or talk without a computer. But he is able to think about the speed of the light, and he is able to understand and visualise how the universe was created. We used visual metaphors throughout the film to explain his most important intuitions and theories rather than showing equations on a blackboard.

“This movie is about a cosmologist, so I wanted the light of the Universe to be a real character following Stephen’s emotional journey. He is able to conceive how the Universe was created, so I thought the sun should be his best friend. Stephen is the sun of this film, he is a very charismatic man, and the rest of the characters are pulled towards him, like planets.”

He adds, “Shooting The Theory Of Everything in a typical BBC-style could have resulted in a very subdued and grey, depressing film. This certainly works on Ken Loach’s films because his themes and stories would lose their incredible authenticity without that specific look. I often wanted to use strong lights to contrast with the sadness of the scene. The day Stephen gets diagnosed, it should be raining. But the sun is shining that day and it gives a happy edge to it. There’s an interesting conflict of emotions.”

In the past, before working digitally with a DIT and digital dailies team like Mission Digital, Delhomme recalls spending a lot of time reassuring directors they needed to trust him that the final result will be exactly what they expected; that, for example, the light looked brighter on-set than how he was going to make it look on film. He explains why it is different now.

“As a DP the relationships on-set are changing; a colour technician and DIT team are just as important to me as a gaffer. In the past the lab was so disconnected from the shoot itself that it was really difficult to get dailies, which reflected what I had in mind when I was shooting. On-set DITs changed this process completely.”

Delhomme shot the first part of The Theory Of Everything using spherical lenses, but switched to Anamorphics when Hawking is diagnosed with ALS disease to give a different perspective and optical quality. A range of Leica Summilux C and Hawk Anamorphic glass, plus the lighting package, was supplied by ARRIMedia. He explains: “We wanted to change the perception of space and give the audience a slight feeling of distortion. It was an idea I had early on and James jumped on it with me.”

Speaking further about his lighting and colour-making decisions for the movie, Delhomme says, “During shooting I felt free to make the light stronger, the sun more powerful than it should be and the colours more saturated. I often flicked from strong monochromatic ambiances for symbolic reasons and meanings, like in a scene when Stephen watches television after being diagnosed. The sun shining through red curtains is ‘bathing’ the whole scene in a strange red glow, as if Stephen was trying to hide in a womb.

“Pre-grading and colouring on-set is super-important to me and working with Mission Digital’s digital dailies colourist, Christopher Nunn, enabled me to weave vivid colours with a simplicity to capture the true emotion. I would spend several times a day with Chris to choose the right colours and make sure the shots were how I wanted them. He was very intuitive with colour matches. He had a good eye for colour – and a clever DIT will call you at the right moment to tell you the shots are ready. Building up rapport early-on helped. He was never surprised by my bold colour choices.”

Knowing he had the look he wanted to achieve on-set enabled Delhomme to relax technically, freeing-up more time to be creative and work with the director. “It’s a huge freedom to know you have got what you want. Nothing kills my energy more than viewing my own images with the wrong colour settings applied on them. So it is really important to have a guy like Chris on set. Working together to choose the right hues was a dream for me.”

Delhomme wanted to work on getting a soft texture and flares in the film, instead of crisp and sharp images, to reflect the emotional context of memories within the story. Consequently, he played with the lighting to be in sync with Hawking’s energy. “I did not want the film to have a monotonous grey look, like a film shot in Cambridge could become very easily. So why not create a Californian sun in English territory? I wanted to make the images look vivid and anti-depressing. I don’t know about you, but colours are stronger in my memory that they are in reality and that’s what I wanted to express.

“My job as a DP is to create the lighting and mood for the emotion. The way you frame a shot is part of the emotion. It is not just about how good the actor is, it’s about the angles you use and the lens you choose. I have to be in the right place at the right time.”

In the shot where Jane gives Hawking his wheelchair for the first time, Delhomme used afternoon light. “This was a crucial scene because Hawking knew that once he was going to get in that chair, he would never get out,” he says. “The blocking of this scene took some time to work out - the way the chair is brought in, the time it takes for Stephen to get into the chair. I wanted to shoot this scene with extreme simplicity. I wanted to compensate the sadness with this warm afternoon sun.”

Delhomme operated A-camera himself, with Mark Milsome on B-camera, and Dermot Hickey performing the 1st AC duties. Pat Sweeney was the gaffer and Jim Philpott the grip.

Whilst Delhomme regards the production as very special, two poignant scenes stands out – the dinner with Jonathan Hellyar Jones, the choir director who became intimately involved with the Hawking family, and the farewell scene between Hawking and his wife Jane.

“The first is a normal kitchen scene, but because of the situation and the way Stephen struggles to talk, it is incredible,” says Delhomme. “You learn so much about his courage and the way he expresses himself. Miracles occur in very small details. When Stephen says goodbye to Jane - and goodbye scenes are fairly normal in films – Stephen says it with his computer. His monitor light splits the space in two, putting Stephen on another planet. The way he moves and speaks is just so incredible.”

Speaking about his cinematographic reasoning behind the May Ball scene, when Hawking and Jane cement their relationship, Delhomme says, “When we watched the May Ball archives it was dark, you could not see people’s faces really. Everyone was in total darkness. The producers wanted to highlight the powerful chemistry between Jane and Stephen.

“We had a big pressure and only two nights to shoot it. During the technical scout we arrived at night to this big space that was like a black hole. It could have been a very expensive project to light it conventionally, but I did not want to deploy huge lighting rigs or cherry pickers. I don’t like fake moon lighting so instead I used a few miles of festoon lights, which allowed the actors and actresses to walk freely in that space and interact intimately.”

To make The Theory Of Everything as emotional as possible, Delhomme says he worked very closely with the cast. “I do not like using long lenses because I prefer to be physically inside the scene with actors. That way, you can understand and foresee those precious improvised moments that talented actors can offer without even knowing it. I personally think that actors prefer to have the crew close to them and not hiding far away, spying on them with long lenses because they like to feel the crew. The crew is their first audience. Good actors use the direct feedback they get from the crew’s emotional reaction after a take very well. It’s an organic process and it is always a work-in-progress until the very last shot of the last shooting day.

“Stephen never lost hope he never got really depressed, so therefore I wanted to reflect his courage and energy by using light to depict hope instead of a depression. I never try to make things too perfect. I like to make films, like The Theory Of Everything, in a very instinctive way, capturing the frailness and the emotion.”

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/benoit-delhomme-the-theory-of-everything/

[junker-town]

The winners and losers of the 2020 NBA Trade Deadline

Who was the biggest winner and biggest loser of the trade deadline?

From Andre Iguodala to KAT to Andre Drummond, these are the winners and losers of the NBA trade deadline.

We didn’t expect the 2020 NBA trade deadline to feature much activity. We were wrong. The final 72 hours before trade season ended instead featured the usual flurry of activity we’ve come to expect from this league. Contenders leveled up, several young stars changed addresses just when it seemed like they would stay put, and deals flew out from left field that we’re still trying to process.

That said, this trade deadline paled in comparison to the seismic shifts we saw this summer in free agency. The rush of deals at the buzzer made this day seem more significant to the title race than it actually is. There were no superstar trades, nor was there a significant veteran joining as the final piece of a title contender, a la Rasheed Wallace to Detroit in 2004 or Marc Gasol to Toronto last season. The D’Angelo Russell-Andrew Wiggins trade between Golden State and Minnesota is interesting, but both teams are in the lottery. Otherwise, the biggest names that moved are role players that could provide a small, though useful boost to their new teams.

Let’s assess the damage.

WINNERS

Andre Iguodala

Iguodala will make an incredible agent if he chooses that path once his playing days are over. When he was last a free agent, he feigned interest from the Rockets and others to procure a three-year, $45 million deal from the money-conscious Warriors despite his advancing age. When the Warriors traded him to the Grizzlies last summer, Iguodala brokered an arrangement with Memphis that allowed him to chill on the sidelines and still get paid. Now, he’s back in the title race as a member of the Miami Heat, and got a two-year, $30 million contract extension to boot.

Must be nice to get paid not to work for several months, then get a multi-million cash advance from your new team before you even step on the court.

Bruh you’re a legend @andre . My guy sat half the season. Spent time with his family. Promoted his book. Sharpened up his post retirement plans and cashed out ✊ respect bruh.

— CJ McCollum (@CJMcCollum) February 6, 2020

Miami Heat

They didn’t get Danilo Gallinari, which would have cemented them a serious threat to win the East. But Pat Riley still did well to improve his team’s depth by swapping out three non-rotation players for Iguodala, Jae Crowder, and Solomon Hill. All three should shore up a defense that’s been mediocre this year despite the individual success of Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. Imagine Butler and Iguodala at the top of Erik Spoelstra’s 2-3 zone. Good luck scoring on that.

Plus, Riley maneuvered the Heat into position to have cap space this summer without jeopardizing any room in 2021, which projects as a much stronger free-agent class.

Karl-Anthony Towns

It’s. Happening.

2/3 pic.twitter.com/QU43MMNkwj

— SLAM (@SLAMonline) February 6, 2020

Well, not the Devin Booker part, at least not yet. Still, Towns gets to play with his best friend that also happens to be a quality point guard to pass him the ball. That should cheer him up after losing 13 games in a row.

Andrew Wiggins

Wiggins’ resurgence lasted all of a couple weeks this year before he reverted back to his bad habits. It’s possible he’ll be a tease the rest of his career. But the Steph/Klay/Draymond Warriors offer as good a landing spot as any to channel him into a defined role that gets the most out of his strengths. Harrison Barnes did quite well for himself playing off those three. Now, it’s Wiggins’ turn.

Creative Arts Agency

For years, the prominent sports and entertainment agency was the shadow ruler of the Knicks. As Ricky O’Donnell explains:

CAA represented Carmelo Anthony, who the Knicks traded for ahead of free agency and later re-signed to a max extension. CAA represented J.R. Smith, who became Sixth Man of the Year with the Knicks. CAA also represented his brother Chris Smith, who worked his way onto the Knicks despite lacking the qualifications to hold down an NBA roster spot. There were rumors that former Knicks coach Mike Woodson changed agencies to CAA in 2012 to keep his job. Former assistant general manager (and currently Knicks G League GM) Allan Houston and player personnel director Mark Warkentien were also represented by CAA.

In a 2014 ESPN story, one Knicks player told reporter Chris Broussard the franchise was playing favorites to CAA clients. ”You see how guys from CAA are treated differently,” the player said. “How they get away with saying certain things to coaches. How coaches talk to them differently than they talk to the other guys. It’s a problem.”

Their influence waned once the Knicks hired Phil Jackson, who vowed to remove their tentacles from the operation. But half a decade later, they’re baaaaaaack, and now in an official capacity. Congratulations to Leon Rose and William Wesley for taking over Knicks front office power that opened up when owner James Dolan fired Steve Mills two days before the trade deadline.

Toronto Raptors

They didn’t make a trade, but none of their other East rivals did either, save for the Heat. More importantly, the Knicks’ decision to return to the CAA well quenched the increasing risk that team president Masai Ujiri would leave Canada to save basketball in Manhattan.

LA Clippers

They beat out their crosstown rivals for Marcus Morris, a hard-nosed knockdown three-point shooter that will slide into their starting and closing lineups. He won’t help the Clippers’ shaky rim protection and isn’t a great passer, but his shooting ability should open the floor for a Clippers offense that can occasionally stagnate. All it cost was a first-round pick the Clippers didn’t need, a couple fringe prospects they weren’t playing, and a worse combo forward in Maurice Harkless that wasn’t fitting in.

Houston Rockets

Here’s more on why the Rockets’ all-in move on small-ball was smart. Would’ve been nice if they got another big man, though.

Clint Capela

Capela is a better player than he’s shown over the last couple years. Houston’s shift to more isolation plays instead of pick-and-roll took him out of his comfort zone, and swapping Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook shrunk the floor on the dwindling roll opportunities he did get. Now, he gets to play on a Hawks team that with a young pick-and-roll maestro in Trae Young that will spoonfeed him a half-dozen lob opportunities a game.

Kyle Kuzma

The Lakers refused to include Kuzma in a potential deal for Morris, though it’s unclear how they would’ve made the money work in such a deal anyway. They also didn’t deal Kuzma for Derrick Rose, Robert Covington, or any number of win-now veterans that could have fit more reliably with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. That’s a big bet on Kuzma rising to the challenge in his first deep playoff run.

(I also think it was the right call, especially if the Lakers also win the Darren Collison buyout sweepstakes).

MODEST WINNERS

Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizzlies should be praised for extracting some value out of a proud veteran that never suited up for them. They also deserve more credit than they’ve been given for locking up starting shooting guard and resident shit-talker Dillon Brooks on a reasonable three-year, $35 million extension instead of letting him test a barren restricted free agency market this summer.

But the specific trade they ended up making with Miami carries downside risk that may not have been necessary. I’ve been a Winslow fan for a long time, but he’s missed nearly half of all possible regular-season games since his rookie season and has only played in 11 games this year due to back trouble. He’s promising when healthy, but hasn’t been able to stay on the court. Excluding Iguodala, the price for taking a chance on Winslow was two useful rotation players this year (Jae Crowder, Solomon Hill) and $29 million in salary next year for two players (James Johnson and Dion Waiters) that fell out of favor in Miami. That’s a hefty cost, especially considering Memphis took itself out of having cap space with this move and the Brooks extension. Memphis is not a free-agent destination, but cap space has other uses. Having it allowed them to take on Iguodala last summer for an additional draft pick, for example.

Better hope Winslow stays healthy.

Philadelphia 76ers

The 76ers didn’t make any slam-dunk moves, but getting Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III shores up a shaky bench at a minimal cost. Burks could be an especially nice fit as a second ball-handler when Ben Simmons plays without Joel Embiid.

:shruggie:

Golden State Warriors

Despite insisting otherwise, the Warriors did ultimately sign D’Angelo Russell to be a trade asset. How did they maximize that asset? In essence, the Warriors traded:

The inevitable loss of Kevin Durant in free agency.

Andre Iguodala

2024 first-round pick, top-4 protected, then essentially unprotected if it doesn’t convey.

Omari Spellman

Jacob Evans

And in return, they received:

Andrew Wiggins

2021 first-round pick from Minnesota, top-3 protected, then unprotected if it doesn’t convey

2021 second-round pick from Minnesota

That’s ... OK I suppose. Obviously, Durant was a goner either way. Russell is better than Wiggins and on a marginally better contract, but I don’t think the difference is stark and Wiggins has less positional overlap with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. The 2021 first-rounder from Minnesota could be in the lottery and pairs nicely as a trade asset with Golden State’s own high 2020 pick. At the same time, losing that 2024 pick to clear Iguodala may come back to bite them if they are forced to rebuild down the road.

I probably would’ve held on to Russell until the summer, but there’s still a chance the Warriors come out ahead, especially if they can rehabilitate Wiggins.

Minnesota Timberwolves

The Timberwolves needed to do something to put a smile on Karl-Anthony Towns’ face, and best friend D’Angelo Russell certainly does that in the short term. They also got decent value for Robert Covington in the form of one first-round pick and two useful restricted free agents to be in Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez. Their long-term outlook is better now than it would’ve been if they did nothing.

But this still doesn’t look like a team that can really contend in Towns’ prime. Russell and Towns should be a nice offensive pick-and-roll tandem, but they will get lit up on the other end. Losing Covington weakens an already terrible defense, though Beasley is at least on Towns’ age curve. They really need Jarrett Culver to turn into a building block, and early returns are mixed. Not having their own 2021 pick may hurt more than keeping their 2020 selection if draft experts are right about the weakness of this class. Losing Wiggins may be addition by subtraction, but the Wolves aren’t projected to have much cap space unless they move on from some of their new additions.

At least Minnesota got a point guard. That alone salvages the situation.

LOSERS

New York Knicks fans

To quote Posting and Toasting’s Jonathan Schulman:

Out of the frying pan and into the fire for New York. James Dolan hates learning lessons and is perpetually bent on repeating mistakes. As long as he’s in good company, he seems fine making his money hand over fist and succumbing to the will of more virile men. Eventually the mistakes of the past will echo into the Knicks’ future and Dolan will impose his petty vengeance on another friend. This time it’s Leon Rose.

The Knicks are spinning the decision to hand the keys to Rose, a prominent player agent, as a move that mirrors the success of recent agent/executive crossovers like Bob Myers in Golden State and Rob Pelinka with the Lakers. That’d be easier to believe if a) Dolan and the Knicks didn’t have a checkered history with Rose’s CAA, and b) the alternative of pursuing Masai Ujiri didn’t loom so heavily in the background.

Why is it so hard for Dolan to be patient and use his deep pockets to go get the smartest basketball executive possible?

Everyone involved in the Andre Drummond trade

What a sad ending to Andre Drummond’s seven-and-a-half years in Detroit. The Pistons held onto him for too long in multiple desperate attempts to achieve relevancy, then discovered he had no trade value once they finally realized they had to move on. They ended up accepting a trade package of dead salary and a low second-round pick, all because they feared Drummond would exercise his $27 million player option. That’s a paltry return for a player who was supposed to usher in a new era years ago.

And what’s the upside for Cleveland in making this deal? They “won” the trade today, but it’s hard to see how Drummond becomes a key part of their long-term future. Either he walks for nothing this summer, or he plays his way into a lucrative contract extension that puts him on a different timeline from their young backcourt. Perhaps the Cavaliers can rehabilitate his value and trade him again, but that requires the league forgetting how little they value him now.

As for Drummond ... man. He needed a change of scenery, but now he’s walking into a franchise that’s miles away from contention and has horrible locker-room chemistry. He’s taking it as well as you’d expect.

If there’s one thing I learned about the NBA, there’s no friends or loyalty. I’ve given my heart and soul to the Pistons , and to be have this happen with no heads up makes me realize even more that this is just a business! I love you Detroit...

— Andre Drummond (@AndreDrummond) February 6, 2020

Denver Nuggets

The Nuggets’ involvement in Tuesday’s four-team Houston-centric blockbuster seemed like a setup for something bigger. Shabazz Napier for Jordan McRae isn’t what we had in mind.

I understand the Nuggets were unlikely to keep Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez even if they did have their restricted free agent rights. I understand their rotation was too deep to accommodate everyone. But the return package of a late 2020 first-round pick and two unproven youngsters in Noah Vonleh and Keita Bates-Diop is still underwhelming.

Sacramento Kings

Just gonna leave this here.

The Kings signed Trevor Ariza and Dewayne Dedmon in free agency and traded both of them before the All-Star break.

— Paul Flannery (@Pflanns) February 6, 2020

[sapphireorison]

Ten Writer Questions Tag PT.2

Tagged by @the-bookdevourer :)

Do you have anyone (authors, family, friends, etc.) that has inspired your writing? I write like I must breathe, and I get inspiration from everywhere. When I was wee, I devoured the teen section at my local library, so a lot of my early author-inspiration is from 80s and 90s scifi and fantasy authors, like Anne McCaffrey and Diane Duane and Jane Yolen and Patricia C. Wrede. And, admittedly, Piers Anthony and Lovecraft, though those latter two... :considers: You know how when you read a book and you go ‘wow this is terrible but I can’t put it down’? Best figure out why you can put it down. I also get a lot of inspiration from my friends in what they yearn to have written that’s not out there yet. It makes me want to write that, and in learning more about what they want that simply doesn’t exist yet, I become a better writer. 

When did you first start writing? And what was it about? Very, very early. I wrote stuff for school, mostly, cute little stories about nonsense based on whatever book or series I was obsessed with at the time. Beyond that, I ‘wrote’ plays for me and my sister to perform for my family, and then in HS moved on to trying to figure out novels. I’ve always created stories in my head, and because I was primed by the types of books I loved (big, epic, glorious) that was always my goal. So I would fiddle around with the beginnings of them. It’s only been within the last ten years or so that I’ve started finishing them, and they’ve gotten closer to what I have in my head as the kind of books I need to write.

 How long have you been working on your current project? It feels like ages, but I don’t think it’s been more than a year and a half at most, perhaps two. This one was percolating for a long time before I started writing because I had the concept first, then the characters, and then the world, and only after a while did I have any inkling of a plot and I know better than to start without a plot by now.

 Of all your OCs, which do you relate to the most? Why? My earlier OCs were more ‘me’ than any of the ones I have now. But the one I relate to most was one from a very, very early attempt at a fantasy novel. She was a bookish protagonist with a demon stitched to her soul whose goal was to usher a younger demon-possessed girl to someone, somewhere, that could help her. :considers: Even that teeny explanation feels like a direct window into my head. My OCs now are very much not me. The only one even faintly close to me is the fellow who I’ve iterated through over the years. He’s the one I relate to the most because I’ve used him the most. He’s full of well over a decade of experiences in various media as I’ve tried to find a home for him. 

Tropes are often looked down on, but which one(s) do you enjoy and use? Fake relationships, mutually requited slow-burn pining, and messy reunions after one of the people thinks they’ve lost the other forever. All of those are for romance. In general, though, I love the ‘weird uncle’ trope, where an antagonist gets beaten and then sort of gets absorbed into the protag’s family because they’re not bad they’re just, you know, themselves. I also fucking love the trope where touch is a huge indicator of trust, where names are important so that when someone start using a different name (for themselves or another) it means a major character change behind-the-scenes, and I really really love affectionate bickering. I don’t even know if that’s a trope, but it’s great.

 Do you have a set schedule for when you write? No. Well, sort of. I prefer to write in the evenings, after about 5 or 6pm, and write for about four hours in a coffee shop or at the kitchen table. This is, mind, the /optimal/ writing situation. I don’t usually get a chance to write as long, or as often, as I know makes me happiest. This was the schedule I used to polish off two longfics I wrote and now that I don’t get to do this every/most nights, my monthly progress is much lower. I’m lucky if I do 10k a month. 

When you’re writing, do you write in chronological order or wherever you feel? I gotta do chronological. But, like, chronological for the *book* not the story. My brain views things very much as cause-and-effect, specifically about what am I causing the reader to think at this point in time and how will that effect how they view this later scene. So even if things are out of place and there are flashbacks and so on, I have to write from the beginning of the book to the end otherwise I can’t develop the later parts properly because I’m missing pieces that need to be included. 

What’s your favorite part about starting a new project? Worldbuilding! I’ll start 600-word prompts, build out a fucking massive world, and then tidy up the prompt and move on to something else. Unique worlds rev my engine, and whenever I feel bored or stale on a current project I’ll build out a world-prompt and it’ll refresh me to come back to my primary project.

What’s one thing about your current project that you’re excited about? It’s so much more action-y than I thought it would be. Stuff is happening! Things are gonna explode!  There’s way more mystery involved than anticipated because there’s so much to explain I’ve had to pick and choose what to reveal. And, honestly, I’ve lived with the characters so long in my head that I’m just excited to find out how they feel about each other and what they want out of the world--the kind of stuff I can only find out by making them interact and seeing if I need to tweak. 

 Do you have any writing goals that you want to accomplish by the end of the year? Halfway through Current Project and hopefully finishing a fic that I, uh, abandoned during the last chapter. The rest is posted and I’ve let it sit for two years. T_T Conveniently, there are several months (including Nano) to work on Current Project, and ‘halfway’ is only another 20k for me. So I am fairly confident I can hit that one at least. :) 

For the 10 new questions, here are the ones I liked from Bookie’s list along with a couple from mine and one or two of my own creation: 

What’s your favorite thing about your writing? 

What’s your favorite character you’ve written and why are they your fav? 

What makes your writing unique? 

Describe your antagonist’s ‘villain song’ as if they were a Disney Villain.

Which of your characters (OCs) is the one you most relate to? Why? 

What are you favorite tropes? 

What inspired your current project? 

There are lots of different media types that you could write! What is your ‘primary’ type of media that you write? Short story? Novels? Novellas? Comics? Plays? Roleplays? Video game scripts? TV show or movie scripts? Where do most of your words go? And, to follow up, what type of writing is your current project? Which types have you done? Which do you like? Do you have a favorite? 

What’s your favorite genre to read? To write? Why does it draw you?

Do you have any writing goals you’d like to accomplish by the end of the year?

I’m supposed to tag people, but I am shy and tagging is scary. If you follow me and you do the writing thing, I really wanna hear from you. :D I will even reply and it will be super exciting.

[flop-culture]

(Not-So) Secret Theatre, Hong Kong

Sight, specified. An ambitious touring production which struggles to lead its audience anywhere besides the bar. 

Pass the fava beans and a nice chianti. I have a lot of thoughts.

Heralded by the media as “Silence of The Lambs meets Black Mirror”, Secret Theatre Project’s latest offering of interactive site-specific performance is a well-meaning, well acted, yet somewhat sporadic marriage of horror, history, and courtroom shenanigans.

It is apparent that this show is not site specific- it is site dependent. It depends upon its setting to inform our belief of the story and its characters, and unfortunately STP’s choice was not the best fit.

Tai Kwun, the refurbished former Victoria Prison, may seem like a thematically apt location for the “Trial of the Century”. Certainly, an ex-courtroom housed STP’s London iteration of the production back in early 2019, which was met with due praise.

However, the repeated mention of Tai Kwun on the event’s ticketing page begs the question: why is it called a “secret location” when they tell you not only the exact location, but the exact restaurant at which the pre-theatre dinner will be hosted?

The fact that little is done in the way of transformation of the space itself provides further disappointment. Anyone who knows this city knows that Tai Kwun now functions as a popular museum, and the placards signposting the walls detract from the authenticity of the performance. 

Despite the strengths of the actors, a further unfortunate consequence of this performance site was the physical distance between the prison blocks and barracks themselves. The meandering walks to and from each of them, during which people either straggled behind or simply wandered too far ahead, effectively spliced the experience up into somewhat hackneyed, disparate chunks. A lot of of participants missed important bits out of the prelude, which was recounted to us as we crossed a busy courtyard, and it was difficult to squeeze everyone into the cramped scenes to “inspect” evidence or even listen to the Detective explain the scene at all. Perhaps this could have been remedied if audience members- or Jury Members, as it were- had been given a case file to pore over and discuss during dinner?

As much as I enjoyed the gorgeous Thai meal, this element felt, again, at odds to the show itself. Housed in a different building to the rest of the action, the only factor which reminds the participant of their theatrical duties is a single appearance by director Richard Crawford as the charismatic television host, Rip Love, whose true crime channel Trial TV shall be televising the the murder trial live on air. 

This is an attempt to incorporate an existential moral panic edge circa-Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, presenting humanity’s intrinsic obsession with entertainment technology as its ultimate downfall. It falls flat, however, as there is only one member of “crew” visible, and they seem to be holding one very fake camera. 

More could have been done to smooth over this incongruity, working to properly align the dinner and theatre elements- maybe by bringing more actors into the dining space (perhaps to dine with or talk to the audience), or by presenting a short a scene in the restaurant to cement the tone of the show and introduce characters early on. 

Speaking of characters, the direct invocation of Hannibal Lecter needs to be flagged. Has anyone sought copyright over this yet? From the emblematic mask on Lassiter’s face when you meet him in his cell to his dead ringer imitation of Anthony Hopkins’ version of the role, are these direct references to Dr Lecter harmless or do they piggyback off of the most well-known cannibal in literature as a sensationalist act of character theft? If the latter is so, surely this piece can be deemed simply Red Dragon fan fiction.

The high point of the evening comes at the crux of it all, when, after another lengthy break, the Jury is led into the “TV Studio” for the court proceedings and subsequent sentencing. Traverse staging works beautifully here, heightening the duality of surveillance whilst being surveyed by an audience- the one both in front of you as well as the at-home audience of Trial TV. Suitably confrontational and allowing for stellar acting across the board, a part of me wishes the whole show had taken place in this room and had just done away with the promenade element entirely.

To summarise, this year’s Secret Theatre Project is full of promise. From the talented actors to the meta-theatrics of Trial TV, it’s not to be said that there were no success stories of the night.

However, the many spatial risks taken by the director paired with an overly-wrought plot combine on shaky grounds which left many audience members scratching their heads, getting sidetracked, and mooching off to the free bar for another pint of wine. Three and a half hours is too long for any audience to stay engaged, especially when they are repeatedly brought back to reality by so many unavoidable consequences of being in a public, open space.

All walk and no stay makes Richard a predictable boy. It would be nice to see STP branch out further with more realistic expectations, both of itself and the locations they work with.

- Jasmine