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drkmgs · 9 months

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Promise, I'll be back part 3

Jenna Ortega x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Fluff

Summary: Part 3 of Homecoming and Promise, I'll be back.

Tbh, I wanted to write it longer but with the limited time I have, because of work... this would do for now....

When one of the survived officers showed up on Jenna's doorstep to hand your final letter, she completely broke down. Only with the help of her mother was she able to stand up and settle down on the couch. Her mother engulfed her into an embrace to comfort her mourning child.

"You don't have to read it now, but one day, you would like to know what Y/N's last words are for you. Once you read it, you will feel better and move on. Continue to live for you and for Y/N. I'm sure that's what they'll ever want." Jenna held onto the letter very tight and silently sob against her mom's shoulder.

In the following months, Jenna purposely fully booked her schedule. It has nothing to do with a certain letter, waiting for her to rip open and read it. She knew she would eventually have to open it. She knew as soon as she opened it, that would be your final goodbye to her. That she would never see you again. She would have to accept that you are gone and would never come back to her.

One day, she paces in her trailer, nibbling on her thumb, and keeps glancing at the letter that was poking out of her bag. This is the hardest decision-making that she'd ever had.

Finally, she took the letter and ripped it open.

Hello my love,

I'm sorry. I couldn't keep the promise. I only had an hour to write you this letter. I had so much in my head that I wanted to write down for you to read, and now that I'm actually doing it, I can't remember any of it.

Just remember I love you, and I always will. I'll be waiting for you. Keep achieving your goals for me and you.

yours only,

Y/N Ashford.

That's it. After several months, she accepted that you were gone. The following days are filled with grief and moving on. Fans have noticed her change of mood, and a lot of reporters have asked about you, but she managed to avoid all the questions. Because of that, a lot of people thought Jenna was just going through a breakup.

Jenna was busy filming her next movie when someone in the set let out a loud gasp, which ruined the take. Jenna watched the staff who ruined the take show something on her phone, and then everyone started to take out their phones. Jenna was confused. She only got enlightened when one of the staff showed their phone.

It's a live broadcast from looks like an abandoned building, and two people in military uniform are tied up almost slouching down with black cloths covering their heads. Two men standing behind them with guns. It's clear that they were or are being tortured. Then, a man with a skul mask appeared in front of the camera, talking in a different language, which translates to:

"Give us 10 billion US dollars, and these american soldiers are going home alive."

Then, the two men took off the black fabric from the soldiers. Jenna gasped and almost everyone at the studio, too. Captain Y/N Ashford and their sergeant are being tortured for money by this group of people.

Jenna's tears are pouring nonstop, and she's also shaking. The man with the skul mask kept talking in a different language when suddenly a bullet striked him in the head and dropped on the floor. There were bullets fired from all the directions, and the live stream ended.

The studio fell in silence as everyone was still in shock or silently crying. The director decided to stop the filming and wrapped up for today, as they were cleaning the studio, they heard a helicopter approaching. Everyone exited the studio just to see a military helicopter landing in the wide open space in front of the studio.

You climbed out of the vehicle with fresh tended wounds. Among the crowds, a small figure came out of the studio running with full speed into your arms. She almost knocked you off your feet, but you managed to keep your balance and embraced her tight.

"I don't ever leave me like that!" Jenna says and buries her head onto your chest.

"Didn't I promise you that I'll come back?" You asked, moving an inch away to see her face.

She nodded, looking straight into your eyes.

"I kept my promise." You say and lean in to kiss her on her lips.

The crowds were crying, applauding, and whistling.

[THE END]

#jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader #jenna x y/n #jenna x reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega x y/n

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musclesandhammering · 5 months

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Unpopular Phase 4 & 5 Opinions

Quantumania is the worst Phase 4/5 movie. And it wasn’t even because “kang got beat by ants.” (I liked kang in this movie). It’s just that the Spy Kids aesthetic & bad acting & overall weird vibes just weren’t for me.

Love and Thunder is no worse than Ragnarok. I would argue that it’s better in a lot of ways, actually. I really liked it.

Taika Waititi ruined thor with bad humour all the way back in Ragnarok tbh, but y’all weren’t complaining about it then 😒.

BuckySarah is better than sambucky every day of the week.

The Marvels was a good ass movie & they’re one of my favorite teams in the mcu. I’ll never forgive cbm sites & online dudebros for killing the hype from the moment the film was announced.

I adore America Chavez & Kamala Kahn and I want to see them in everything. They must be protected at all costs.

Multiverse of Madness had shitty characterisation & basically just copy-pasted the ‘grief made me go off the deep end & hurt people, then I realised and stopped myself’ storyline from Wandavision… but Wanda was extremely selfish & apathetic to other people’s suffering from the time she was introduced in the mcu. MoM didn’t make her like that.

Wanda should’ve been looking for Vision (her actual real life boyfriend whom she spent years with irl) in MoM instead of the kids that weren’t even real that she spent like a week using as characters in her sitcom.

Making everyone forget Peter Parker wasn’t profound or poetic in any way- it was just frustrating and needlessly cruel.

I’m begging marvel to understand that heroes don’t have to be in constant suffering to be heroic & villains don’t have to sacrifice themselves to achieve redemption. Let characters heal and atone, you absolute weirdos.

What If…? is the most boring show ever. I’d rather watch Secret Invasion or She-Hulk.

Season 2 of Loki is, in a cinematic & artistic sense, the best marvel project period.

Loki season 1 was meh- more of a fun au than anything because his characterisation kinda sucked. Season 2 fixed it, though, and made it way easier for me to incorporate this version of Loki back into the larger mcu.

Having Steve stay in the past with Peggy was stupid af.

I don’t hate Peggy (or Captain Carter), though. I actually think she’s pretty cool.

I don’t really love Steve. He’s arrogant & they never really let him have flaws & something about him being a perfect metaphor for the American military industrial complex (and marvel painting that as a good thing) doesn’t sit right with me.

The Illuminati got done dirty and the only reason they went down so fast was because Wanda had all that plot armor.

I thought the retcon of having Wanda be “destined” to become the Scarlet Witch since birth was an annoying cop-out. Her powers originating from being experimented on with an infinity stone was way more interesting.

Loki & Wanda have almost the exact same powers.

Nebula deserved a bigger rule in killing Thanos & everything else moving forward.

I love Kathryn Newton but her acting as Cassie Lang was the worst acting I’ve ever seen in the mcu, like it was outrageously bad.

I’m glad Sam is the new Captain America and not Bucky.

The fact that Bucky probably isn’t gonna be one of Thee lead characters in the upcoming avengers movies feels sick and twisted.

Secret Invasion was actually passable until the G’iah scene at the end. That ruined it. And Nick Fury deserved way better for his solo series.

Kang is so much more interesting than Doctor Doom. I really hope they just recast him.

Carol Danvers does NOT deserve the hate she gets.

I actually disliked Carol until The Marvels. That movie made me a stan.

The way people treat Monica as Wanda’s little inferior pet creation or smth & then brag about it is uhh very sus.

I don’t like sylvie (bc she’s an amalgamation of 3 different comic characters- which killed any hopes of them appearing individually in the mcu, the creators used her existence to butcher Loki’s genderfluid rep, & she was written poorly) & I HATE sylki (bc it’s weird & unnecessary).

Marvel isn’t dead. I actually love where they’re taking things. But that’s just me.

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fuckyeahisawthat · 23 days

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Hey ho, have you seen The Creator (2023) yet? Unsubtly about US imperialism, but also really moving, aesthetically stunning (Greig Fraser as DP, oh yeah) and John David Washington killing it in the main role. I was surprised by how much there was to love. xoxo

I fucking LOVED The Creator and kept trying to write something about it here but never managed to collect my thoughts. But yeah what a fucking movie, oh my god. I feel like it kind of got buried by lack of publicity but tbh I am not that surprised because it's one of those movies with politics that make you think how the fuck did they get away with making this.

Gareth Edwards, like Villeneuve, is a director I've been paying attention to for a while now, ever since his 2010 movie Monsters, which was a really impressive low-budget sci-fi with effects that just looked seamless and interesting things to say about borders and the human cost of militarized responses to disastrous events.

And then he did Rogue One and pulled off something very impressive, which is to take one of the most famous sci-fi weapons of our era--the Death Star, a metaphor for nuclear weapons so iconic it has become a symbol in itself--and made it actually fucking scary for the first time in the history of the franchise. And he did it by turning the camera around.

Because the thing is that before this point, we had only ever seen the Death Star from the point of view of the people firing it. The idea of a planet-destroying weapon is intellectually horrifying but we didn't really ever feel it. Because for that we need to see the weapon from the point of view of its victims. It's such a simple but radical shift in perspective, and I feel like Gareth Edwards took that idea from Rogue One and then made it into a whole movie with The Creator.

The Creator, for those unfamiliar with the premise, is about a near-future counterinsurgency war in which the US military is hunting down various forms of AI/android/robot beings. It also features a space-based super-weapon that is eerily beautiful but goddamn fucking terrifying. It was mostly shot in southeast Asia and heavily evokes Vietnam War imagery (as the ending of Rogue One did as well); it is probably about as close to "Vietnam War movie but you're rooting for the Vietnamese" as it is possible to make in the American studio system. The protagonist is still an American soldier (who defects and "goes native" fairly early in the movie) but making him a Black disabled veteran was certainly a Choice. And yes it's John David Washington and he's great in it.

It feels facetious to say The Creator is Reverse Terminator, because it's much richer than that, but it's also kind of fucking true. For the entire movie, the characters are just running for their lives from the implacable and overwhelming destructive force of the US military which is just crushing everything in its path.

The movie does a lot of things that you simply do not see in most American war movies, but the one that stands out to me the most is that in every scene of war violence there are civilians, including children, fucking everywhere. It really threw into relief for me how often American war-action movies create these empty video game environments for soldiers to run around in, where any actual people who might live in the place where the war is happening are at best props and at worst completely absent. (Alex Garland's Civil War, in addition to being terrible in every other conceivable way, is a particularly bad offender at this.) The Creator does what really should be the bare minimum of taking time to showing that these are people whose homes and lives are being destroyed and it is shocking how novel it seems. (There's a line that plays in my head all the time where one of the AI characters says something to the effect of, "Do you know what will happen to the humans when we win this war? Nothing. We simply want to live.") I will also say that this made it a very intense watch in late October 2023 in particular, but it is fiction so we get a very satisfying and cathartic ending. And yes it is an absolutely gorgeous movie, the VFX are mind-blowing, and I found it quite moving.

#asks answered #the creator 2023 #gareth edwards

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tenebrius-excellium · 1 year

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It leaves me very confused and a little sad that there isn’t a richer, larger, more united and more enthusiastic fanbase for the Avatar movies. I’ve been waiting for commentaries on the second movie, both indulging and critical, and there’s a mere trickle of content appearing in the tags. So far, they all fall in weirdly isolated columns of character x reader, Kiri stans, ‘I loved the movie!’ one liners, ‘boycott Avatar’, Na’vi learners and people being horny over clone!Quaritch on main.

There isn’t much meta despite the universe being huge, fairly consistent, and ever-expanding. The like-to-reblog ratio on posts is catastrophic. There’s not much art. I miss people being excited. I miss discourse, headcanons and AUs! I miss people giving detailed reasons for the way they respond to the movie, no matter whether they liked it or not. Nothing seems to stick despite so many refined details, e.g. the Metkayina using sign language underwater and having inner eyelids like amphibians! Or the fact that the explanations for the use of English, Kiri’s and Spider’s existence etc. were quite thought-out and satisfying.

Sure, there’s the epic Pandoran world on one hand, and then there’s of course the “Cameronism”: The two-pronged personal fantasy of the director who is playfully exploring colonialism as negative while reaffirming it in the same breath, combined with a bland, overly conservative story. If the plot really reflects Cameron’s thinking, it is dangerously outdated by 15-20 years and cannot stay relevant. But the point to me is: It was to be expected.

Avatar and Avatar The Way Of Water are US-American Hollywood stories based on military culture. Once you know that, it is my firm belief that it’s possible to detach yourself from that lense. But perhaps I really am arguing from a merely European perspective that is so used to mediocre language dubs, the strange obsession with heroism, patriotism, weapons and violence, and other US-specific phenomenons that just feel generally outlandish to non-US viewers. We don’t have the same problems, so being constantly faced with yours through entertainment media causes us to... kinda tune those out and enjoy what’s left, tbh. Because some of them are really painfully cringe up to completely unthinkable to the rest of the world. Even the first Avatar was never intended as a global story; - although the RDA is supposedly composed of international players, the representation on Pandora is purely US-American, even more, it’s not even covering all of your own ethnic variety. So if we can’t even expect European, Asian, African and South-American scientists in the space mission, what are we supposed to expect about indigenous voices of smaller civilizations?

What I’m trying to say is, US media currently have a certain range of messages they convey even here in Europe, because, well, you still have the monopoly on filmmaking and we watch all of your stuff. However, we are very aware that your POV is narrow and limited since it rarely actually applies to us. And sooo, what do we do with the reality of our own exclusion that we are inevitably constantly reflecting? We ignore it, we roll our eyes and don’t think too deeply on it, we leave you guys to solve your own problems and enjoy what’s given. Perhaps we are able to separate a fantastic narrative from the cultural/ political clashes that come with it a little better, because most of the time, we don’t identify with the latter. I’m not saying the differences are in any way good or that they should stay that way. I’m saying that from where I’m at, Batman, Spiderman and Avatar don’t look too different to me when it comes to elaborate escapist fantasies about good vs. evil, and media might not quite be as relevant to conflicts as they seem in the US. Education is much more important, and to act in real life rather than in fiction. As for me, I’ll appreciate Avatar like any other fandom space, because the concept is extraordinary, its future potential still enormous, and I would love for more positive interaction. I harbor the sliiiight hope that Cameron might grow out of his current spree and redeem himself in one of the later sequels. Since there are going to be 3 more of them, you know. There you go :)

#avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #avatar 2 analysis #analysis #avatar the way of water analysis #wherethekiteflies

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ultfreakme · 2 years

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Black Adam is the Supehero film we need

I mean it. A film like Black Adam was sorely needed when it was first announced and still badly needed now during it’s release. It does this thing, that most superhero movies these days don’t do; it takes its characters seriously. It never pokes fun at their names, their suits, their powers. No. These are heroes who are on a mission, and it’s so refreshing seeing a superhero movie that isn’t so insecure about itself. The Rock and the cast are proud of the characters they’re playing, they respect them and that makes all the difference. From the get-go, the confidence and care placed in the source material helps set the tone and immerses the audience. You will love and respect them as much as the writers and cast does.

:read more:

The biggest highlight of the movie to me, is how explicitly critical it was of American Imperialism and the military. It’s prevalent throughout the movie. Khandaq is an African, Arab country invaded and abused by entitled Americans, under the pompous thumbs of their military. The titular characters are all from Khandaq, fighting for their freedom and their rights. Teth-Adam(Black Adam) is a villain only to Americans because he gets in their way. His methods are not pure or benevolent, because his people have been enslaved and used for thousands of years. Of course he’s angry. Of course the people of Khandaq support this man- this god-- who is freeing them from the people who would care even less for their lives. Why should they empathize? Why should they have any mercy when these American assholes have been invading, abusing, killing and restricting their freedom for so long?

FUCK NO.

And you know what? He’s never condemned for it. The Justice Society of America(JSA) enter thinking they’re in the right, but when they learn what’s up, they admit that they’re wrong.

I did not expect such scathing and overt undressing of how shitty the situation is for countries occupied by the american government but here it is. In a comic book movie.

I say comic book movie because MCU at this point is thinly veiled military propaganda.

The trailer makes you think you know everything but I promise you, you don’t. The promo material shows a very tiny part of what Teth-Adam is about. Teth-Adam’s character is very subtle, he’s not bombastic and he does not verbalize his emotions and thoughts but as you watch the movie, you’ll realize there’s more to him than “I’m no hero” (and that line is not what you think it means, the movie will give you context for why he keeps repeating that).

The JSA are extremely fun, Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan were amazing, they brought such presence and weight to the characters. Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are also wonderful, they have amazing chemistry and the amount of thought they put into their characters was shocking tbh. You can tell what each character is about just based on the way they move (Cyclone’s twirly, light-stepped, often very free. Atom Smasher is extremely awkward, shoulder’s hunched, unsure how to fit into a space). Black Adam’s physicality says so much about his character like y’all, they thought through everything for them.

The civilian characters; Amon and Adrianna are freaking amazing too. Amon is very much the heart of the story, the one who shows JSA and Teth-Adam what being a hero is really about. Maybe not directly, but he represents what a hero’s supposed to be, what their end goal is with all these heroics. Adrianna is who keeps the story centered and human. She’s who reminds these people with god-like powers that this is not about their petty squabbles and fights when there are so many regular people relying on them for help. She keeps them on track.

It was so nice to see the civilian side play as big of a role as the human side.

This is not a cinematic masterpiece. But it’s a darn good movie with an important message, a heartfelt production, amazing effects and acting. You won’t be bored for a single second and you will walk out of it feeling awesome.

#black adam #black adam 2022 #teth-adam #atom smasher #dr. fate #cyclone #hawkman #amon #adrianna #WATCH BLACK ADAM

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dualcordie · 6 months

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15 people, 15 questions

thanks to @myguiltyartpleasure for tagging me! <3

1.) Are you named after anyone?

I wasn’t really named after anyone, but I used to be obsessed with my grandpa’s guitars when I was little and he called me Chords/Chordie, but my grandma always spelled it Cord/Cordie, so that’s what I go by :)

2.) When was the last time you cried?

Ok so… I cry A LOT… like I literally cried last night over a tiktok I saw (it was a SatoSugu edit)

3.) Do you have kids?

Nope! They scare me tbh

4.) What sports do you play/have played?

I played soccer pretty much my whole life. In between soccer I did cheer, volleyball, baseball, and track. I’m not as active as I used to be, but I do still try to run when I can just because I like the structure lol

5.) Do you use sarcasm?

Like I breathe. A lot of people hate it, but I can’t help it.

6.) What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Typically their vibe, but physical trait? Hair. I feel like you can tell a lot about a person from their hair (or maybe that’s just my weird ass idk)

7.) What’s your eye color?

I’d say brown, but my friends argue that my eyes are more green now

8.) Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings all the way. Scary movies make me anxious.

9.) Any talents?

I’m a really good cook! I’m everyone’s go-to when we have get togethers or even when they’re just hungry. A lot of people ask me for food when I want to gift them something. I’ve even held some cooking classes for close friends and family.

10.) Where were you born?

On a German-American military base (I know, gross x2)

11.) What are your hobbies?

I love reading, traveling, cooking, and baking. I’m new to baking, but so far I love it a lot!

12.) Do you have any pets?

I have a dog!

13.) How tall are you?

5’4 (I actually measured myself specifically for this and imagine my shock when I realized I’ve grown 2 inches despite being an adult).

14.) Favorite subject in school?

History and foreign languages. I pick up on languages really easy and always found history interesting, so that’s what I excelled at and they obvs became favorites of mine.

15.) Dream job?

I’ll be honest… I don’t dream of working. I guess I’d be content doing anything creative or educational as long as I made enough to live comfortably.

The thought of tagging 15 people makes me anxious, so I’m just gonna tag some mutuals <3

@zukkas @leafsfromthevine @zukkaturtleduck

#tag game #i know people won’t really read this #but it was fun #my hair color is red btw!#my bonus question is: what’s your favorite drink #@ my mutuals #please don’t feel obligated to answer if you don’t wanna !#i just love silly little questions

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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it's hard to know where american audiences draw the lines for things. I'm in the animanga side of things on social media, but I often end up seeing other stuff too like marvel and dc movies, webtoons, comics, non-english dramas, and ofmd. it seems like everything is a pissing contest to see who's the most knowledgeable on a given topic, but they're americans who infamously know very little of their own history, let alone anyone else's. but they still jump through hoops to talk about 'what's wrong with __ country/people/group' based on simple pop culture media consumption, but americans only do this to things from other countries or non-anglophone franchises, i don't think americans are more sensitive to topics that handle the military poorly either. they only do this for things they don't like. i'm not going to get into aot because it's clear what a lot of socmed says about it isn't true if you just read it, but how is fma any better with how the story prioritizes the military and the soldiers and defangs scar? or naruto with everything that's wrong with it being the stuff that people say about aot that is actually true in naruto's case? or the marvel movies, especially captain america with how it does glorify the military and is even sponsored by the us military? if they were actually sensitive to these issues like people say, where was the massive outcry about one of the biggest movie franchises to date? it's only ever about the things they dislike or stuff that's slightly more morally complex than the average ya novel.

TBH, I find Iron Man even more tedious than Captain America about things like this—to the angry screaming of Tony fans.

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myrddin-wylt · 1 year

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S, ship ranking for k i m c h i b u r g e r ?

A: I love it.

finally, some good fucking food. delicious.

it's deeply unfair that this is a rarepair tbh. like what's with that? Americans are so fond of S. Korea that now we're swapping music and movies??? And yeah that's kinda normal but that's normal with other English-speaking countries, not other languages. Bong Joon-ho got the entire US including then-president Trump to watch his movie and it was critically acclaimed??? like do you know how rare it is for Americans to watch foreign films Britain doesn't count? I just think that's so neat. It was bizarre when Gangnam Style went mainstream, especially for my Korean friends who were just ??? 'Why am I hearing my native language rn?'

like yes Alfred and Yong Soo are military allies and would fight tooth and nail for each other but there's also a much more kind of artistic appreciation that they have for each other? and honestly I think Yong Soo is one of the few people who can actually get Alfred to talk about like, the more complex sort of artistic analysis that he wouldn't share with anyone else.

like even though American culture is so globally pervasive - or, more likely, because it's so pervasive - not many people think of Alfred as a particularly cultured person, and he's honestly fine with that. there's fucking nothing worse than really liking a piece of media and start digging into it just for someone else to say it sucked, right? Alfred is like that about a lot of things he enjoys, and it's hard to blame him when his peers include Francis and Arthur and generally the most snobbish people on earth (ie Europe). He's not going to talk about the merits of video games and/or cinema as an artform with, like, Arthur- (even if that's probably a little bit unfair to Arthur tbh) because enough people have looked down on him for not having any sophistication and his interests being too childish (okay Arthur's definitely guilty of that one) etc etc.

He doesn't worry Yong Soo will judge him though. Imo my Alfred is kinda just Not Great at anything artsy, but he still enjoys doing it sometimes; if he's in the mood to draw a comic, Yong Soo will be the person he shows it to. or if he impulse-buys a guitar and spends months trying to learn to play it, he'll play something for Yong Soo first.

and it's really cute because obviously Yong Soo knows what it's like to have older, "more cultured" people call you childish and tasteless, and he's also just an upbeat, positive person. So when Alfred shows him the dumbest comic he's ever seen or a mangled cover of a song everyone's heard a million times, Yong Soo can still hype it up and engage with it with Alfred. And then Yong Soo starts adopting parts of American culture without seeing it as like, low-class pedestrian kind of content, and Alfred is flattered, thrilled, and a bit baffled. and then Alfred realizes that, oh hey, this shit slaps!

It's really shows and movies that get to Alfred more than anything. Yong Soo asked if Alfred wanted to come over and watch Squid Game and share what they thought of it and Alfred's just 'I want to come over there and kiss you on the mouth. And yes I'll watch Squid Game.'

when it comes to pastries and food, though, Alfred is definitely taking tips from Yong Soo. Yong Soo offers him bingsoo for the first time and Alfred's just 'wow I didn't think you could make me fall in love with you more than I already have but somehow you did.'

#ask #itstokkii #ask game #ship game

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cassatine · 2 years

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☕️ + zero dark 30. Been pissed off since I saw that film and rarely found anyone who cares to critique it so really just want to hear you drag it tbh

*cracks hands*

Zero Dark Thirty is a CIA-backed pro-torture propaganda film, and while it pretends at being a near-journalistic piece, it is in fact constructed to make the CIA look good and torture like a reasonable if maybe sort of regrettable option that not only works (a lie) but was also instrumental to the irl extrajudicial killing of bin Laden (also a lie). It did draw a fair amount of criticism for the way it dealt with its subject matter, mostly wrt its take on torture and historical accuracy, and if you hit libgen or scihub you’ll find more in-depth criticism than I can offer. I watched it once maybe five years ago, and I mostly know about it from reading up on the military-entertainment complex, so that’s the aspect I’m going to be focusing on.

Because when I say the film is CIA-backed propaganda, I don't mean the Agency saw it and liked it. I mean the CIA was involved in shaping it, starting before there even was a script: Mark Boal (the screenwriter) and Kathryn Bigelow (the director) were already working on a movie script about the hunt for bin Laden and were in talks with the CIA for that project at the time he was killed; when the news broke they decided to scrap their losing hunt movie and do a winning hunt one. The CIA loved the idea and gave them so much access to information and personnel there was a bit of a scandal about it.

I also mean that beyond the specifics, it’s not something unique to Zero Dark Thirty: it's the norm for American movies using DoD assets or internal knowledge or locations for free (free for the filmmakers/studios/moneyfolks, at the end of the day it’s people's taxes that pay for it), that the script and film go through the concerned branch(es), in this case the CIA, for approval, which is of course conditional and mostly rests on creatives’ and studios’ willingness to comply with requests for changes. Depending on directors, studios, screenwriters, the sort of stories being told, which arms of the DoD are concerned, and a bunch of other factors, that process can be more or less invasive but overall, it concerns a long list of films, although the most complete one I found stops at 2013.

Creatives do get to argue back, to a degree; some of them do, more or less successfully, some of them, well, don't (Boal and Bigelow belong to that category). I say to a degree, first because as I mentioned, the DoD is under no obligation to give its approval in the end, so if you plan to make an epic war film (or shoot a scene in, said, the CIA headquarters at Langley) it can be sort of hard to justify to the money people why they need to pay for planes and fake locations and things when the DoD can offer those planes, let you in real locations, and give you access to all the things for the measly cost of a few script changes.

Secondly, to a degree because there is an unavoidable requirement, that of positive representation, with a view to public opinion and recruitment:

According to the army’s own handbook, A Producer’s Guide to U.S. Army Cooperation with the Entertainment Industry, this collaboration must “aid in the recruiting and retention of personnel.” (quoted in Operation Hollywood)

Of course, if you look at military-entertainment films, you’ll find plenty that are more nuanced than actual recruitment spots; the positive rep requirement means the DoD can say no to helping any film project deemed too negative, but it’s not going to say no over an asshole drill sergeant or bureaucracy criticism or a good helping of “war is hell” etc if, on the whole, the project is deemed positive enough in its portrayal of the military, its role, or its importance.

While accuracy is also technically a requirement, as can be read in the DoD’s own guidelines ("the production must be authentic in its portrayal of actual persons, places, military operations and historical events. Fictional portrayals must depict a feasible interpretation of military life, operations and policies.", as quoted in Operation Hollywood), in a move no one saw coming, that's…. extremely relative, as this amazing quote also from Operation Hollywood illustrates:

Phil Strub, the head of the Pentagon’s liaison office recently revealed the following criterion for getting approval for a film as “accurate”: “Any film that portrays the military as negative is not realistic to us.”

In practice it means that, well, historical and factual accuracy frequently take a backseat to the positive representation requirement, but also that DoD requests couched as demands for greater accuracy range from technical nitpickings, to erasure of atrocities in the name of being accurate to the ethos of american fighting forces, to technical nitpickings that are really major changes. Etc.

In Zero Dark Thirty's case, one of the script changes demanded by the CIA was not to have the lead character be an active participant in the opening torture scene:

"For this scene we emphasized that substantive debriefers [i.e. Maya] did not administer [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] because in this scene he had a non-interrogator, substantive debriefer assisting in a dosing technique." (from a Gawker article covering the changes)

Under the procedural jargon and the rulebook technicality framing it's not a small change that's being required here, especially since it concerns the opening scene, which sets the tone, and is the audience's introduction to the lead character. Even in 2012, introducing your heroic ladyboss character doing torture was somewhat risky; making her an observer was more likely to help with audience identification, and it gave the film more time to bring the audience to the point of accepting that maybe torture is kinda yikes and it's not great we had to do it (which is not at all the same than it's not great we did it) but. it worked, didn't it? and who's gonna argue it wasn't for the greater good?

Leaving some room to the notion that torture is kinda yikes lets the film pretend it isn't portraying torture as a good thing, no sir, all the while constructing a narrative that frames acts of torture as instrumental to the success of the bin Laden hunt, something a bunch of reliable people, including one acting head of the CIA itself, have called a big fat lie and/or generally criticized as a choice for the film.

The CIA script memo only says that according to The Rulebook Maya wouldn't have been an active participant in the opening scene; what was made from that change comes from Boal and Bigelow, in an example of the worst sort of synergy the military-entertainment complex facilitates -- they were clearly into working *with* the CIA and never planning to do anything but a film about heroic, hard-working Agency people who had to do some ugly things for the greater good, and in turn the CIA was more than happy to help. But if Zero Dark Thirty’s overall thesis and message wouldn’t have been that different without the CIA’s active involvement, it would nonetheless have been a different film. It would have shown a lead character arguably closer to the people that inspired her, people who include a CIA employee literally nicknamed the Queen of Torture (identified as Alfreda Frances Bikowsky). It would have shown an officer firing an AK-47 from a roof for funsies during a party, and it would have shown a dog used to scare a detainee. Those two scenes were removed for “accuracy.” I don’t know if the CIA used dogs for the bin Laden hunt, or if it’s in their catalogue of atrocities at all, but I’ve seen Abu Ghraib pics and it’s definitely accurate that dogs were used for intimidation during the War on Terror.

Now, while I find the accuracy tricks especially pernicious personally, you’ll find plenty of cases where the DoD liaisons don’t ever bother – Operation Hollywood, which I quoted previously, covers times when they straight up asked for more positive rep or, you know, lied, or demanded stuff like plain atrocities erasure, as with John Woo’s 2002 Windtalkers, the script of which initially had a Marine nicknamed ‘the Dentist’ removing gold teeth from Japanese war dead and a scene in which another Japanese soldier attempting to surrender gets blasted with a flamethrower, also I think by a Marine -- two things documented to have happened at least many times more than once, details in this book I’m reading, but all that went away easily enough because the Marines have an ethos or something, and that’s what must be shown.

The whole system is rotten, really. It’s meant to facilitate positive portrayals of the US military and if not completely forbid criticism, make it not only much harder in comparison to put it on screen for cheap, but also to flood it under those more positive portrayals. Zero Dark Thirty is an especially awful, unsubtle product of that system, but it is not a surprising one. The almost-underdog against a unhelpful bureaucracy, the ugly but necessary acts, the horror of war and even the moral injuries – nothing in Zero Dark Thirty is new or revolutionary. We’ve seen it a hundred times, and if it was American, more often than not the DoD had a hand in it.

#ask meme things #meta #zero dark thirty #the military-entertainment complex #took a while to hunt down the quotes and sources but i hope the drag met ur expectations

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mandaloriangf · 3 years

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Tbh I'm kind of half and half about the Eternals. I saw the movie and I wasn't impressed. There were things I thought were really not good, particularly having Phastos indirectly responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at a time where Black people and Asian people are having issues within their communities and each other.

That said I think people are hyping it with good intentions. We all know that movies with diverse casts get held up to a higher standard. They can't afford to just be mediocre like the Ben Affleck Batman movies or Doctor Strange or any movies with white men as the stars. If Black Panther had bombed, Shang Chi probably would never had gotten made, and even then Black Panther had to be one of Marvel's highest ever grossing movies for other diverse movies to get greenlit.

The sequel trilogy is another good example. Instead of putting the blame where it belongs, on the lack of a cohesive story, people blame the diverse actors for how bad the movie was so now Lucasfilm has an excuse to make all its main characters white men, and that includes Pedro Pascal, who is as white as Benedict Cumberbatch is, he's just from another country.

I just feel like there has to be a better way since we know diverse movies aren't allowed to be bad or mediocre. Idk what that way is, though. Jordan Peele hit it on the head when he said that if Get Out had bombed, people were poised to tell him to go back to comedy and stop trying to stretch out. He said he feels pressure with each movie to prove that he can do horror and that the minute one of his movies underperforms, he's prepared for people to turn their back on him. This is a really shit thing to deal with and Black creatives have to deal with it all the time, so despite my own dislike of Eternals, I'm sort of okay with people, especially POC, hyping it up.

i understand where you’re coming from but i personally have to disagree. it’s true that these projects are held to a unfair higher standard but i don’t think the solution is to ignore any problematic aspects. disney specifically has not once proven they actually care about diversity. mcu wanda is likely going to be a major player going forward yet she’s whitewashed, stripped of her jewish heritage, and played by an unapologetic racist. they see diversity as a way to generate online hype because they know people on the internet will do their promotion for them by insisting we all need to support it because of its diversity, even though it’s still american military propaganda (ntm it had ableist set conditions for the movie’s deaf actress). it’s almost 2022 so i think it’s time we demand better, you know?

#ask amanda #anonymous

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moontheoretist · 3 years

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I am watching What IF...?

Episode 1: What if... Captain Carter were the First Avenger?

You know... when I saw that it started from the breach in Captain America timeline and saw Peggy become a super soldier, I was pretty sure that Steve will resent her for what she did, because his portrayal in the First Avenger movie even before the serum indicated that he would be, just like he was of Bucky for being drafted while he was left behind. It’s canon behavior for him as far as I noticed.

What If..?’s Steve however is a better man. I dunno when exactly he changed, but he did. He doesn’t act as if he resented Peggy, and he seems quite ok with how everything turned out. Which is like, wow, I didn’t expect that. Also, Peggy has a far better story as Captain.

Like, she isn’t put into USO, she is denied being a soldier even, because she is a woman, the only thing she seems to share with Captain America is murdering punching bags and throwing stuff when angry, which is kinda a bad sign, but ok, everybody needs coping mechanisms. ANYWAY, when she learns where Hydra went, she quickly figured out what they were after, but the guy in charge (John Flynn), the same one who told her that she is a woman not a soldier, doesn’t want to send her there even though they still have a chance to get it back in time. So Howard steps in and her whole rebellion against the military is about not endangering everybody with a stupid ass decision made by a general who doesn’t get how important the cube is, instead of about saving just one man and accidentally saving 400 others by extension by literally going AWOL and endangering his friends like MCU Steve did. Everything about the mission which makes her recognized is about retrieving the Tesseract. And Howard gives her a uniform and a shield to do just that. All in British colors, because American military sucks.

(I love their “she just reaped the bars out, holy shit” faces xD)

AND THEN they go SAVE BUCKY. That makes much more sense story wise. And also Howard is showing Steve that technology can aid him when the serum now can’t, because Peggy is the super soldier instead, literally building better foundations for Steve’s attitude towards technology and the future. He will not be stuck in ice and come back for the Avengers, but at least he is getting better development not only in relation to this topic, but also to his hatred towards his body and his masculinity. Peggy still wanting him despite him being small and frail and now also disabled even more after he was shot and has to walk with a cane, literally builds in Steve the idea that his masculinity is not weak or bad, because he is not a macho muscly type and that his body isn’t something which he should hate or which makes him less than others. AND he is literally Tony now! I did suspect that the technology he got was a suit, but damn, is Steve in this universe fated to be the first Iron Man and then Tony second?

Lol, they named him “Hydra Stomper”.

And now Peggy teaches Steve the most important lesson “the Suit is nothing without the man inside”, which he as much as Tony needed to learn to finally feel free and not less than the others, because they rely on something. The only difference between Steve and Tony here is that Iron Man without Tony is truly nothing, because he made it, while Steve's suit was given to him, so anybody can technically pilot it. Anyway, I like this Steve so much more than MCU one.

(Which when I think about it now creates a pothole in the later part of the episode. Like why Hydra and Red Scull let the suit hanging instead of use it against Peggy? Why put Steve in chains next to it? It kinda looks like damseling him for literally no reason. I wonder why they didn’t kill him right away? Because what? Because he had blonde hair and blue eyes? Or what? Scull liked him? And we cannot even say it was done for the sake of Peggy saving him, because Peggy never sees Steve in chains. She went the other way, so why is he there? To save for whom? Bucky? It would be more logical if Red Scull just killed Steve and put the suit himself and fought Peggy in it to hurt her. Then at least space squid wouldn’t kill him, lol... ah wait. OH, yeah, Tesseract was inside the suit, so he just took it out. Still, he could power up the suit with something else and put one of his people inside to fight Peggy anyway, just in case she came for him).

AND OF COURSE HE HAD TO TRAGICALLY DIE WHEN I FINALLY STARTED LIKING THE WEASEL! LOL, we know what will happen next. He will become the new Winter Soldier, I suppose? If he survived the explosion.

Oh, they brought the original castle storyline back! It never appeared in the Captain America: The First Avenger, even though I personally remember a castle being a main stage for the whole “Steve sacrificed himself prelude” thing, so it’s nice to have a castle and an interdimensional portal back, instead of a plane battle.

“I am up for anything, but this is crazy”.

“And so is Steve Rogers”

Me: *wheezing*

Anyway, he survived. There is no Winter Soldier in this universe and Peggy gets lost in the portal, and she is brought back to 2012 by I suspect Project Pegasus as it is the “Loki’s arrival” scene.

I think that now, if we assume that everybody else is still present in this universe, meaning that Tony became Iron Man and all, Steve becoming a Hydra Stomper and working with Peggy gave Captain Carter an experience in fighting alongside someone in a metal suit. Plus her friendship with Howard means that she won’t have any bad disposition towards Tony and hence Avengers team will actually work better, and if there is Civil War it would be different and about something else, because Captain Carter knows her way around learning political related stuff, so she wouldn’t really kick Accords in the ass unless it was a Hydra plot. I also suppose that without her making Project Paperclip, Hydra would not infiltrate SHIELD, or someone else does that, and Captain Carter would notice something is not right with SHIELD, and she would root the Hydra out herself.

Also, I wanna point out that the scene in which Peggy is shown to be “smarter than Howard” is there only to establish the difference between her and MCU Steve Rogers, who doesn’t know shit about technology. It’s not that Howard isn’t smart anymore. He is a civilian, who is not a brawling type, in a room with a huge octopus which crushed Red Scull like a wooden stick. It stands to reason that he would be panicked enough to not be able to articulate properly. It also establishes that no “it runs on some kind of electricity” will happen in this universe during the Avengers storyline, where she ends by the end of the episode. It comes out a little out of the blue, that’s true, but this is not a line which only “genius” or “science type” can say. It’s just a typical sci-fi approach to the problem with anything, which also sounds smart at the same time. She could even take it out from a sci-fi novel. But I agree that they didn’t establish where that knowledge comes from in any of the previous scenes.

Episode 2: What if... T’Challa became a Star-Lord?

Lol, a vastly different reaction xD

And this was the moment when young T’Challa thought, “who needs to tell their baba that they’re going into space, anyway?” and just went and disappeared. I don’t even wanna know what Wakanda did after the prince vanished. Though it means that Shuri can become a queen and the Black Panther now, HELL YEAH!

And this is the proof that anybody who says that we have to murder someone else to “save the planet” from overpopulation is wrong. (Because they are wrong, just go and check studies about that). T’Challa just showed Thanos the benefits of equal share of the resources and saved the universe with logic and diplomacy.

And my hopes for Queen Shuri just went out the window. BTW, why Nebula turned into a living example of “blue space babe” (from feminist studies which pointed out that alien women are just human women painted colors and shown in sexy clothes or portrayed as dancers and prostitutes for the benefit of the male gaze). She got sexy hair, sexy dress, and she is later shown to be some kind of spy by the clothes she wears and her general attitude. She reminds me so much of Natasha that I am tempted to say she is a sexy spy cliché.

It’s kind of degrading after the whole episode which centered around a woman being denied being a soldier, which in the whole militaristic and male dominated setting was pretty much conveying feminist messages, while here in another male dominated setting we have only two women shown with any lines and one of them is Nebula sexy spy. It just comes across weird after the previous episode, tbh.

She even speaks like Natasha from the MCU... and she betrays just like our dear russian friend, Natasha. Anyway, it looks like Queen Shuri is still on the table! Wakanda prevails! It was not destroyed!

Ok, nevermind. She is a space Black Widow, but in this way that she plays every side just like Natasha does. Apparently... betrayal was part of the plan, lol. What is with this idea that women named with a name starting with N are good spies in this universe?

Carina the badass! GO CARINA! SHOW THEM!

At least in this universe, she doesn’t foolishly die for “drama”. Or, in MCU’s case, for exposition to show “what happens to those who touch the infinity stone”. I gotta say, her revenge was sweet.

#what if...?#what if...? spoilers #peggy carter #bucky barnes #nebula #t'challa #thanos #mcu steve rogers critical #what if...? steve rogers rulez #mcu critical #feminism #why did you have to sexualize Nebula to make her second Natasha?

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bronanlynch · 3 years

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(bi)weekly media update

apparently I just. do these every two weeks now huh. sorry to the tuesday again no problem extended universe crew for being unable to keep to a consistent schedule

listening: Curses by The Crane Wives, a band that I just started listening to but I like their sound, nice and fun and folksy, lots of songs with ominous lyrics that are good on fanmixes

youtube

honorary mention to the new Lil Nas X song because we are all love the new Lil Nas X song, it’s a bop, it’s been stuck in my head on and off ever since I heard it, and I am not immune to sexily blasphemous music videos

reading: finished Smoke & Ashes, the most recent book in the Kate Kane series that I talked about last week, and I enjoyed it a lot but there sure is a cliffhanger and afaik no set release date for the next one. it’s pretty angsty but does have lots of nice moments of hope, and some discussion about recovering from both depression and alcoholism that I appreciated.

also read more romance novels, and I appreciate that Cat Sebastian, like KJ Charles, knows how to write about rich characters while making it incredibly clear that hoarding wealth is morally indefensible. it’s like the “wow, cool robot” thing where I want to be told that I’m right for disliking capitalism/imperialism/the military industrial complex, but also I do very much want you to show me the cool robot (hot rich prettyboy in nice clothes)

also finally started Harrow the Ninth today, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that next time

watching: speaking of “wow, cool robot,” watched a little bit more Turn A Gundam, which sure does have some cool robots. also some gender. the main character crossdresses to like, hide their identity for fun complicated spy reasons and it’s not treated as a joke or anything? it’s just a thing that they do? and no one comments on it beyond when they were like “hey you have to wear a dress to this event because the people from the moon think our mech pilot is a woman and they can’t know it’s actually you because they still think you’re working for them”

absolutely hate that the guy on the right is just wearing a normal boring suit though like. c’mon man

Zan and I have been watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier aka the sambucky show each week and my review so far is. well it’s about what I expected. the first episode was incredibly slow and kinda disappointing (Sam and Bucky never interact! the fact that Bucky might maybe miss Steve is never brought up, not even by his therapist, who tbh gives me incredibly bad vibes! if my best friend and the only person I knew from my past fucked off and left me alone to deal with my trauma in favor of ruining the life of a woman who’d moved on from him, I’d be pissed!) (for the sake of not being angry all the time I pretend Steve died instead of did That).

the second episode was more fun, more happens, there’s some incredibly heavy-handed corporate queerbaiting mixed in with some actually nice emotional moments (this article and this thread by the same person have a pretty good summary of All That). the handling of race, uh, could be better tbh. I appreciate what they’re going for, and to be fair the whole show isn’t out yet so it could get better (since some of the problems are tied to, y’know, the overall political problems, i.e. the fact that the villains are a group of people, led by a Black woman, who hate borders and illegally deliver medication to refugees which is somehow a bad thing, I kind of doubt it). but there is something about the way they’re making a Black man the mouthpiece of American imperialism, and the way that the new (white) Captain America who takes the shield when Sam doesn’t want it has a Black girlfriend and a Black best friend who, so far, have mostly just given him motivational pep talks, that doesn’t really inspire confidence. (this article and thread are a good overview of that aspect of the show)

also, I think it’s very funny when people are like “well you can’t say anything about the show yet, only two episodes are out” like. first of all lads it’s a six episode show, a third of the content is a decent chunk to use to form an analytical opinion, and second of all, if something strikes you as Not Great, you’re allowed to feel that way and say that, you don’t have to wait to see if there might be some twist or context that makes the thing you didn’t care for great and fine, actually,

that being said,

(when we watched the first episode, the immediate next thing we did was watch Winter Soldier and I was pleasantly surprised how well it holds up. not perfect obvi but still a solid movie, and the music does fuck)

also watched this very neat little video essay on Victoriana costuming and like, why so much media is set in the Victorian era, and started the c-drama Word of Honor which I’m sure will either be in a future post or just. something I start blogging about normally

playing: the weekend before last was the Beam Saber season finale, which I’ve already posted about quite a bit because it was fun and I love to play games with my friends. played a very fun game of Things, Eldritch and Terrifying by S. Gates this past weekend. it’s a very fun game, with very easy-to-follow rules and lots of helpful adjectives and scene starters, and also just conceptual it slaps (one person is an eldritch terror, the other person is the human that they’re courting. there’s a variant where you play as a vampire. it slaps). we made it uh, more of a rom-com than a horror story but I had a very good time, we told a very cute love story, and we’re gonna try again to make it more horror-y next time.

also I finally started Brigmore Witches and it’s very good and fun. my one complaint is that I want the Whalers to have names, because I enjoy the bit at the beginning where you can eavesdrop on them and some of them are concerned for you and some of them are fucked up about the Overseers invading their home and some of them want to fucking betray you. also, I didn’t realize that the very beginning when you fight Corvo is a dream sequence so I spent the whole fight being like “wait why does he get a gun and I don’t, where are my powers, wait aren’t I supposed to lose this fight for Plot Reasons why is he dead.” also, fucking love the favor that lets you dress up as an Overseer to get into the prison. I do love a good disguise mission

making: citrus chicken (from a cookbook so no link), plus some citrus-y root vegetables. very good if you like orange.

writing: nothing I can share yet for ~zine reasons. yes I have several fandom event weeks coming up that I want to participate in, no I haven’t written anything for any of them yet

#dreaming.txt #pictures of food below the read more

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anonil88 · 4 years

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We Are Who We Are Ep 1 thoughts.

Heads up I've started writing these halfway into an episode so I'm immersed pretty into it and can make a well rounded reaction.

Interesting set up and premise. But I wonder how well this will be executed.

Very open free spirit household.

Those kids are pieces of shit for inviting him and then bullying him. He is a little weird but a sweetheart.

Also HE LIKES FASHION of course he does.

He's a bit of an alcoholic it seems or just likes alcohol which can teeter the line. Oh no he had to leave his lil boyfriend 😭.

Aw his other mom picked him up.

Ooo throw up shot nice smh.

This mustn't be the first time he's been drunk or gotten in trouble.

Sigh theres always a parent who saves the day no matter straight or gay.

Ahh military parents getting caught in their ego and ignoring their partners and kids.

Oooo "Americans can only be happy in America"...."This is America." Gotta love that US based are tiny bits of America but lineal spaces.

Wait is Fraser autistic? Or does he have any mental disorders? Maybe I'm only saying that because my family would have drop kicked me if I'd slapped my mom unless (when I was younger with less coping skills) was having an outburst of sorts.

Whattt dead? Whatttt? Oh he's still drunk.

Thank goodness he still had some clothes packrf like I would have had a full panic attack if my luggage was lost oversees with my designer clothes. (I'm assuming designer because his granddad has schmoney but he also gives me cates about his looks.)

Thats a nice jacket though, I think Commes Des Garcons is the brand or at least this is an inspired piece.

Oh okay Fraser I see you have some lil crushes forming. That soldier foine tho he's probably like 18. So eee idk bout that cause he's underage. (Edit: Fraser is 17 so if the soldier is 18 its not illegal but i'd rather Fraser not get community ass or dick. No more cmbyn Luca.)

The music selection is pretty great like Klaus Nomi ??

CUDI !!! Wait Cudi is their, Caitlin's dad :0

The military regulations are pretty clean. Her voice and commands could be a bit cleaner though. But maybe that's on purpose because shes gotta be nervous af now commanding a base.

Fuck you Colonel.

This base is pretty nice btw.

Oop okay subtle flirtatious behavior and noone can kick you out of the US military for being queer now...kind of. Oh he's just a giant flirt also again can we not do the minor and grown ass adult thing.

Loving Maggie and Fraser's relationship. But I feel like Sarah and Fraser's relationship is going to be whirlwind.

Oh thank the lord his clothes have come omg all designer/custom piece .

Just let them be them jeez everyone has to find themselves regardless of if you like or agree with it or not. Ahh Caitlin/Harper is living a double life hmm exploring their identity.

Lmfao Fraser said you're like me so lets talk, but I won't out you.

So overall thoughts the editing is a bit choppy like all over the place. Which is kind of disorienting and I don't know if a lot of people are going to enjoy that. Editing can really break shows even good ones. But characters wise I'll say Cait/Harper is a mystery and it took me a second but I got that they were staring at Fraser because Fraser seems very obviously nyc and probably more understanding. But they have no idea how to approach Fraser so they were just staring and tbh queer folk yes thats what we look like its sometimes obvious that we all stare at eachother with a certain wonder, confusion, and excitement even past the baby gay stage.

I feel like Fraser is a person who goes through the world in a daze like floating from one space to another. It makes him scatter brained and different, his interests vary but this is about him learning. I like him though just don't know much about him yet. Of course if I had to relate him to any character from another popular adult show that centers teens he's a more chaotic windmill version of Jules from Euphoria. Speaking of which I think this show might have a hard time carving out its own identity because of their shared platform. This premiere was like world building and very very vague so we only have touches on each character.

I will keep watching because I would like to see where this story is going to go. Also to see the acting chops of these new young actors. I am hoping that the next episode gives us the viewers more to hold onto rather than dental floss attached to ceiling post by nails. But, I just hope we get more clarity rather than just vague things we need to piece together in the future. Which btw works super well for movies but not always TV. So adapting that style to TV is gonna be interesting.

[Also funny how most actors first big role their characters name sounds like their name lol.]

Preview: so everyone just doing everyone but, this seems like it is going to be very sad and dark which is fine with me.

Sorry this is so long.

#we are who we are #we are who we are hbo #wawwa hbo #wawwa #jack dylan grazer #luca guadagnino #francesca manieri #wawwa liveblog

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where-all-the-time-went · 3 years

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gah, screw it

[ID: A tumblr post from me, reading, “now is probably the time to write my 500-word essay on the politics of revolution of the daleks that gets 30 notes and is never seen again, which i return to in a month to find a lot of typos, otherwise no one will see it, isn’t it,,, “but i haven’t seen jack robertson’s first episode,,,”. End ID.] answer: yes, it is. but im gonna take a while to write this and look up a summary of arachnids in the uk (which i dont wanna watch because i heard its Not Good and you dont have to watch every episode of doctor who to be a fan, ok?) i sometimes talk about politics on tumblr, but rarely do i make political posts--mainly because, as my sidebar bio says, i’m a teenager. i don’t really have a degree in politics, and as much as i have been trying to read up on political stuff, its kinda hard when i dont have access to a college professor to guide me along. still, some things about this episode stood out to me, especially because it’s stuff i’ve noticed in a lot of media. i’m not even sure where i stand politically, but i absolutely love media commentary, and i have so many thoughts i feel like i never get to put out there when im watching movies and tv. obviously, spoilers under the cut (and it probably won’t actually be 500 words. probably.) i’m also gonna assume you’ve seen this episode, because i don’t wanna recap it. if you haven’t, go watch it! tbh, it’s well worth it (my favorite chibs era episode, just ahead of the haunting of villa diodati and demons of the punjab)

Now, um, obviously this episode is political. It’s the in-your-face without down-your-throat type of political we know and love. Still, media can be a direct allegory that wouldn’t bother the average viewer while still having politics that are good, bad, or somewhere in the middle (I mean this extremely subjectively). First, I’d like to address the elephant in the room:

While a Doctor Who festive special would normally film in the summer, this time the episode was filmed well ahead in winter 2019, over a year before it was due to be broadcast in a bid to include it within filming for series 12 (which aired from January to March) and give cast a longer break.

- The Radio Times

I’ve noticed some people pointing out that the episode references the protests that happened this summer. Honestly, I’d love it if that was the intention behind the episode, because then maybe Chris Chibnall’s team really does have a TARDIS, and we can all just time travel out of this mess.

[ID: An image from “Revolution of the Daleks.” A very sleek Dalek stands in front of police who have riot shields. The air is foggy, possibly gaseous. End ID.] However, the protests from this summer and the episode itself do not exist inside a bubble. Police brutality did not come into existence this summer, and it did not end with the autumn equinox. The episode, while featuring a small-scale protest that was eerily reminiscent of the large BLM protests this year, chooses to focus instead on one of the roots of the issue: somehow, capitalism.

I can’t say how purposeful the anti-capitalist messaging in the episode was. Obviously, Jack Robertson is meant to be an American capitalist caricature. Not to mention, Doctor Who is a family-friendly show: you can’t get too overt with what can be considered “radical” coding. Nonetheless, the episode tackles the connection between policing and money, and thus inherently comments on capitalism.

The Dalek itself only exists to support the police force because Prime Minister Patterson knows that the idea of security will appeal to her constituency. Simultaneously, it could not exist if Robertson didn’t know just how profitable it would be. As they preach security, they create chaos. More importantly, the security they preach is one that bases itself on profit--similar to the weapons of the policeforce, and the prison industrial complex. As a result, the “security” inevitably fails.

[ID: Prime Minister Patterson, in a red coat, listens to Jack Robertson and Leo, in dark neutral-toned clothes both. They stand in front of a brick wall as they discuss the new Dalek plans. End ID.] Unfortunately, while the show presents a clear stance against money in policing, there is never any direct call to action. The political allegory may be straightforward and obvious, but the solution at the end is just to end the Daleks, and watch as Robertson announces his run for President (which, by the way, is very reminiscent of Trump, who does exist in-universe, so that’s weird). Regardless of all that, why am I even talking about this? Well, on the one hand, I love talking about these sorts of things. On the other hand, this post has started to sound like nothing but a rant with some pictures. Earlier, I said that this was something I noticed in a lot of media. For instance, I think of “The Boys,” with its obvious anti-capitalist and anti-military industrial complex messaging. At the same time, the show offers no solutions. Both are afraid of the obvious solution to capitalism: replacing it. To be clear, I say this as a person who is unsure about capitalism. I don’t know where I stand. Like I said, I’m a teenager. However, these shows can’t seem to make a decision either, when they're made by big companies with big budgets and professional adults. Politics in popular media tends to fit perfectly with the popular politics of the time, given that media must do so in order to make profit. Hence, similar to the media we consume, so many individuals seem to recognize that there’s something off with the hand money has in politics, and war, and security, yet no one seems to look for solutions. Personally, I love talking about politics in the media, and analyzing media in general, because it’s the best way for me to communicate my internal thoughts. Meanwhile, I don’t even know my own internal thoughts. This post’s very existence is ironic. I had said in a very awful post that I wanted to write this when the tag was still trending, because I, in part, want someone else to do the thinking for me. I want people to see this and go, “well, okay, here’s where you’re wrong,” or, “here’s what we do about it.” Do I then have a responsibility to know what I’m talking about? Is the discourse all that matters? Does the media as a whole have to propel revolutionary ideas to get them into the social conscience, or can it just open up discussion? There is, of course, irony in shows that could only exist in a capitalist world degrading aspects of that system. But no one, not even me, is exempt from the fact that these ideas do not exist in a bubble. The show’s protests look eerily familiar because, as this summer has proven, those protests are profitable (see literally every ad from companies that own sweatshops talking about how much they care about races they don’t represent in their board of directors). At the same time, I exist in that capitalist world, and my opinions have been formed via the capitalist media I was raised with. tl;dr: i know literally nothing. im sure of literally nothing. help, someone tell me about the politics of doctor who. wow, this was a really sad tl;dr, i normally make a shitty joke here. um, uh, EXTERMINATE

#doctor who #revolution of the daleks #thirteenth doctor #13th doctor #politics #i put so much effort into this yet im not super proud of it #im probably gonna edit it later #which means im probably not gonna edit it and will just have to live with whatever comes of it #goddamn tho i can't believe i got here from talking about a businessman in a cheesy kids show #no one get mad at me for calling who a kids show #i know its not #ok i need to stop with the tags now #i'm adding everyone's names i want people to see this post i worked so HARD #yasmin khan #yaz khan #ryan sinclair #graham o'brien

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morwensteelsheen · 3 years

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I just have to tell you how much I ADORE “Finger Back.” I keep retreading it! I’ll be starting my masters in the autumn and reading this AU put a huge smile on my face and a warmth in my heart. (If only lecturers looked like Faramir or Aragorn, though. *sighs*) I do have a question that I’m not sure you addressed already: I read your endnotes that say you’re protective of Denethor, and I’m curious as to what your reasons are. Could you flesh that out for us? Cheers!

Thank you so much!!! I’m so glad to hear you dig it — and good luck with your masters!!

So, yeah, The Denethor Problem. My answer to this is gonna go under a cut because this is gonna be such a long answer lol.

Some of it is in response to how he’s portrayed in the films, which is I think wholly unfair, but a lot of it is because I think I recognise the real life cultural/social archetype (I think) Denethor fits, very much unintentionally on behalf of JRRT. For context, I’m a historian of modern British history by training, and gendered/political history specifically, so I spend a lot of time dealing with the social implications of WWI/II, if not the actual wars themselves.

Denethor to me fits the mould of a very specific member of the Lost Generation (yes, I realise this is a largely-American generational identifier, but I think the cultural stereotypes fit well enough for the WWI generation in Britain), which is the sort of man who was, in effect, completely and utterly destroyed by the meat grinder that was WWI. Whatever he may have been had the war not existed doesn’t really matter, because the war was ultimately the end of life for him. A lot of British men of that generation faced what was essentially a systematic unmanning (not in the gendered sense, as in, total depersonalisation/dehumanisation), and were never given the care or community necessary to recover from it. They then went on to live through WW2, the slow and miserable recovery from that, and the repeated crises of the 1970s, which is typically when they died — see JRRT himself.

These were men for whom the abject violence of war never really went away. Lots of them had severe PTSD, though it was never diagnosed and certainly wasn’t treated adequately, and almost all of them had some form of war-based trauma. They were men who were so scarred by the violence of WWI that things like love and joy and other positive human emotions ultimately ended up requiring too much energy and too much heartache to express, and so they retreated in on themselves. It’s not to say those emotions weren’t there for them, but what they experienced during the war was so traumatising it became hard to ever fully become “human” again. They were weapons of war discarded at the armistice.

So, socially, I see a lot of Denethor in that, this man who has, effectively become the war.

But also I think when you read the text there’s a lot to actually recommend Denethor. For starters (and I do intend on elaborating on this more later), we tend to only see Denethor when he’s in direct conflict with Gandalf, and Gandalf is obviously given the privilege of controlling the narrative. It’s this huge elephant in the room with most of the Gondorrim: we never really get more than fleeting glimpses at how unbelievably shitty and miserable life has been for them at the frontline of this war to end all wars.

Actually I think I’ll run with this Gandalf comparison for a second.

Gandalf is portrayed as this political and military mastermind, who rides from kingdom to kingdom fixing the problems of the free men of ME. We rarely ever see the aftermath of Gandalf’s time in these kingdoms, which means we never actually see what sort of political effort has to go into enacting Gandalf’s provisos, or covering up for the strange politicking that goes on. What this really comes down to is: Gandalf is a consultant, not a ruler, and in his status as consultant enjoys this moral distance from the practicalities of keeping a country/state afloat.

Denethor, however, does not. Unlike Gandalf, he doesn’t get to go gallivanting about Middle Earth searching for Elendil’s heir or Isildur’s bane or whatever, because he’s got a kingdom to run. If there’s a plague in Lossarnach, it’s ultimately Denethor who has to take responsibility for that (even if there are multiple layers of vassals below him, the buck ultimately stops with him). When there’s an entire looming cataclysm at Gondor’s (and, in effect, Middle Earth’s) eastern border, Denethor’s the guy who has to coordinate that response. And in that it’s not just Gondor he’s responsible for. If Gondor falls, everywhere else will fall too, but as far as we’re told, Gondor’s running this defence almost entirely by themselves.

And, importantly, Denethor’s a mortal. He’s a Man. I know that mostly is associated with death in LOTR, and, in the movies, the folly of Men’s pride, but what it really means, I think, is the tangibility of life. Life and time means something to Men, they have to feel and live in each second in a way the others don’t. They are tethered to the world in beautiful but also terrible ways.

The big gripe about Denethor is that he sends his son to hold Osgiliath. Okay, fine, but think about that this way, Denethor sends his son to Osgiliath. For us, the readers, and for Gandalf, the consultant, that could be anyone. But for Denethor, that is his son, flesh and blood, someone he loves dearly, one of the last living connections he has to his dead wife. The war is real and intimate for Denethor in a way it isn’t for other (yes, including Aragorn), and he bears this unbelievably difficult burden of being the ruler of a kingdom without having any of the real political legitimacy to be that leader.

Which is to say: Denethor is the Ruling Steward, but he is no king. That’s a hugely important distinction, I think, and limits a lot of what I think Denethor has the right to do. He’s essentially managing the decline of a kingdom because he doesn’t have the right to play offence for it. Everything about his life and title is about making him subservient to something else — in his case, something that literally doesn’t exist (as far as he knows). Imagine how soul destroying that is. You have to bear all the horrible psychological and emotional burdens of ruling a kingdom with none of the benefits of getting to shape it in your own image. Horrible.

We tend to give Théoden a pass for his weakness and (to be frank, even though I do love him) shittiness because he’s brought back to his senses. Denethor has suffered essentially the same problem as Théoden, except worse because he’s getting it direct from Sauron, and he never gets the chance for healing. And why doesn’t he get the chance for healing? Because he’s literally holding back the apocalypse. By the time anybody thinks to come help Denethor out, the world is already ending, and — so far as we’re told — nobody’s actually bothered to help Gondor out until the very end.

A lot of this is, tbh, wrapped up in how angry I get about how Gondor is treated by literally every other kingdom in ME, but I think Denethor-as-Gondor is a salient and important point so I’ll keep it in.

Oh also, sorry for jumpiness (my ADHD meds are wearing off) but my other gripe with the Osgiliath thing is — okay so Denethor sent his son. But he had to send someone, didn’t he? If they hadn’t held back the army at Osgiliath Minas Tirith would’ve been overrun before anybody had the chance to get there to save them. So they have to do it, somebody has to go, so who does he send? Not his son because we, the readers, have a total crush on sadboi Fara? Okay fine, so then he sends someone else’s son. But that’s still someone else’s son! We just hate Denethor because he has to make the decisions none of us would ever want to make lol

Anyways. Yes. That’s why I’m super defensive of him, I just don’t think he gets a fair shake all things considered and wish he would. He’s not a villain, he’s a man at the edge of the world, and I think we all oughta have a little empathy for that.

Like, I do think he makes the wrong call on a lot of things, and, to put it lightly, I think trying to kill your own son is Not Great, but I think as a character Denethor deserves a more nuanced interpretation than what he gets. I actually spent today writing like a three thousand word Denethor POV on the idea of hope and his kiddos which I might post at some point. But yeah. Yeah. God, sorry, that was such an info dump lol

#asks

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