#but there's... a lot to figure out as far as scope and logistics...

[valiantverses]

The Azrael Series: Chapter One

(Simon 'Ghost' Riley X Reader/ Slowburn/Sort of Enemies to Friends to Lovers)

°°°°°

Summary/Notes: Task Force 141 is assigned a new member to deal with Makarov for good. Highly-skilled, brutally efficient and devastatingly competent, Ghost has met his match - and finds himself at odds with the SAS Fraternization Regulations as getting to know you makes him re-evaluate a life he never thought to allow himself.

°°°°°

Chapter One

Introduction 1

@beansproutmafia @chinuneko @agustdpeach

Click.

Ghost watched you methodically assemble your rifle, noting how deliberate each movement was. You worked smoothly - barrel into receiver, scope in place, alignment done perfectly. He met your eyes as you surveyed the area, sliding in casings into the magazine with focused intensity.

Not sparing him another glance, you turned to look into your scope, securing the perimeter. Out on the craggy cliff face of the unforgivingly frigid Ural mountains, escape would not be easy. The only thing keeping you from being spotted was the taiga camouflage you wore and the relative cover of the copse of rocks you had climbed on to next to the lieutenant, chest pressed flat on to the rough ground as you settled yourself into a prone position.

"Alpha Two, in position and operational."

Your voice was clear through the coms, unhampered by the face coverings you wore even as your warm breath created soft puffs of vapour, swirling lazily into the air.

Next to you, Riley shifted, your sides touching as he took a final look over the perimeter and inconspicuously - attempting to, anyway - looked over your rifle to see your handiwork.

"Alpha Actual, in position and operational."

His voice reverberated through the rock you had both deemed fit to survey the target location - A laboratory nestled in a valley in the Ural mountains that served as a logistics facility for Makarov, protected by the mercenaries he hired.

"Copy, Alpha Squad. Bravo Squad getting into position, T-Minus 10. Maintain positions. Over."

"Copy." "Copy."

Twin voices rang out, and then there was a silence, a chasm between you and the lieutenant.

You did nothing to break it, comfortable in the stillness of the break of dawn, even as the lieutenant continued to sneak assessing looks at you.

Though your file spoke for itself, experience and skills clearly laid out for the entire team to peruse in black - admittedly mostly redacted - ink, it was another thing entirely to trust a new teammate to watch your back.

Station Chief Laswell had attempted to soothe the situation, utilizing lots of what you recognized to be CIA mediation training to make the mission seem like less of what it was.

But the message was clear to you immediately upon receiving team assignments.

Ghost was babysitting you.

It didn't matter, you decided. You were the unknown variable in a well-oiled machine that had been training together for months. A factor that could put the team at risk so long as they didn't know - or trust - you.

Acceptance would come. Or it wouldn't - you rarely found the kind of stability needed to forge lasting relationships in this lifestyle.

Hunching your shoulders as the wind picked up, you meticulously cleared each area of your assigned quadrant, catching sight of Sergeant McTavish as he came into the view of your scope on the southernmost side of the compound.

Sergeant McTavish - Soap, as he had insisted you called him - had given you the warmest reception by far. He had taken one look at you during introductions and had been not just welcoming but outright friendly, giving you a wide smile and offering to take you on a tour of the team's home base.

You watched as Soap glanced behind him, jerking his head in the direction of the building closest to him as another hooded figure sidled up by his side - Sergeant Garrick.

Sergeant Garrick did not have quite the same warmness as Soap, but his wary smile had seemed genuine, facial muscles pulling up in such a way that your deeply ingrained intelligence training had told you was free of deception. He had offered to spar, and said that he'd give you a lay of the land outside the base upon return from this mission.

That's about where any sense of welcome started and ended with the team, Laswell and Captain Price had kept you at arms length, a clipped sort of professionalism. Lieutenant Riley was an apathetic sort of distance, and you had the sense that he was on the look out for any of your weaknesses and would no doubt be more than glad to pull out the Personnel Transfer Forms in his desk that had barely ever seen the light of day if you failed to live up to expectations.

You kept your breathing low and steady, the high elevations making the air feel thin. Next to you, you felt the lieutenant shift.

"Our directive mandates recon and reaction only, no active engagement."

His eyes on you felt like an itching in the back of your throat, easy enough to ignore but always at the back of your mind.

"Yes, sir." You affirmed, laser focused on clearing the western perimeter of the compound. "I was there when the instructions were given."

There was a pregnant pause where you continued constant surveillance, not even looking up as in your peripheral vision the blazing nothingness of freshly fallen snow was obscured by the bone white of your lieutenant's skull mask.

"I could do without your attitude, sergean-"

He had leaned in close enough to you that you were able to reach behind him to his nape and pull him in your direction, sandwiching yourself between his bulky body and the rough stone below. Before he could pull away, you tightened your grip on his coat, indicating with your free hand to remain low on the ground.

It had been subtle, well hidden, but the glint of a sniper scope aimed in your general direction had you reacting immediately.

Slightly winded from the lieutenant's weight on you, you reached up and clicked on your coms link.

"Captain, Alpha Two reporting. Hostile sniper positively ID'ed in area of operations. Westernmost building, clear line of sight of Bravo Team. Requesting green light for engagement."

You began to relax your arm but were quickly pinned to place by a hefty elbow as Ghost grabbed you by the collar of your coat, growling into your ear.

"Alpha Two heard. Confirm, Alpha Actual?"

Price's voice rang out of the coms, to no response.

Ghost snarled at you, placing his other hand next to your head, effectively locking you into place.

"Fuckin' hell sergeant, never heard of an anti reflect? Nine times out of ten a sniper has a sunshade o-"

"East facing window on furthest building, two windows down from the top floor. Sunshades work by blocking out light reflections but only with direct sunlight. The snow is freshly fallen and we're south- they hadn't accounted for the reflection of the sun onto the snowbank behind us. Nobody would expect hostiles on a blank cliff face-"

He grunted, keeping his eyes trained on you even as he reached over to look into your scope, bodies still pressed tightly together.

"Alpha Actual, positive ID'ed hostile? Over"

The captain's message once again went unanswered.

You shifted your legs a little, freezing when his thighs squeezed your sides in warning as he surveyed the westernmost building, the brutalist architecture starker in the snow.

You spoke in low tones, trying to get him to see your point. The low oxygen environment forced you to conserve your time spent talking.

"They're deeper into the building and have partial cover because of the drainage. They'd have direct line of fire on Sergeant Garrick and Sergeant McTavish. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel."

"Alpha Actual, do you copy? Ghos-"

He huffed, the movement reverberating through you as he eased away from his position on top of you, falling into a low crouch behind the rock.

"Captain, hostile sniper ID'ed. West building, two windows from top. Clear line of sight on Bravo. Over."

There was another tense pause as the coms line grew silent, you taking the opportunity to roll over on to your stomach and keep watch on Soap and Garrick's position.

"Copy, Alpha Actual. Alpha Two, request to engage approved- Alpha Actual and Bravo Squad, maintain position."

"Copy, Alpha Two moving to position."

You wasted no time, disassembling your rifle in seconds, taking care not to let the snow into any openings as you turned to face your lieutenant and gave him a perfunctory nod, not waiting for his response as you left the relative safety of the rock formation.

The trek to the Southeast of the valley was arduous, the oxygen thin and the paths non-existent in the freshly fallen snow. Your lungs took in searingly cold air and your vision started to blur as the whiteness of the snow began to bleed into each other, the visor you wore being the only thing that kept you from snow blindness. Sometimes it became necessary to crawl on your hands and knees in the areas that were particularly visible to the valley down below. You did your best to keep your deep breaths from drowning out the coms, hearing Garrick and Mctavish's confirmation of identifying the sniper and entering an obscured alcove.

As you reached a copse of rocks that had the Western building in sight, you took off the gloves which the jagged rocks you had crawled on had embedded into and immediately began assembling your rifle, the familiarity of the metal body a comfort even in the frigid air.

You breathed in, then exhaled, before focusing on identifying the hostile sniper in front of you.

As your eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the empty room, a figure began to form, carved out of the inky blackness, partially hidden behind a mounted rifle.

The outside world stuttered to a stop. There was your breathing, low and calm. There was the enemy, looking up from their scope. There was your finger on the trigger, and then there was the the enemy's body jerking back, a bullet between his eyes as he slumped against the wall.

You waited.

You kept the corpse in sight of the crosshair, making sure the enemy's radio was within sight of you at all times.

Because if there was a sniper, then there would be a spotter, and it would just be a matter of who was more patient.

There was a flurry of movement as another person emerged out of the darkness and ran to their previous partners radio, stopping abruptly and collapsing as the insides of their skull became acquainted with the wall behind them.

"Captain, hostiles eliminated."

"Copy, Alpha Two. Bravo Squad, commence operation."

You kept your eyes trained on Soap and Garrick. You ensured they avoided engaging with the enemy, removing obstacles from their path before it could become a problem. Through the coms, you led them to the intelligence building and then back out, until they had successfully left the compound with Makarov's data in hand.

It was a perfect mission, and you could see by the pleased set of Garrick's shoulders, the twitch of Price' lips and the glint of Soap's eyes that the team really, really needed this win.

Evidently, not everyone was pleased with your performance.

Being the last one out of the chopper before debrief, you felt a hand on your shoulder, tugging you back until that familiar skull mask was in your vision once more.

"Liuetenant." You inclined your head, unsure of what he wanted.

"I don't like your attitude, sergeant."

"I don't need you to like me, sir. "

He remained silent, eyes boring into your own.

You regarded him, standing under the bright lights of the air hangar, mask and snow clothing so bright it almost made it hard to look at him. So you continued on.

"All I need is for you to know that on the field, I have your back."

Your lips quirked up as you managed a relaxed salute, muttering a 'sir' as you went to enter the debriefing room and began giving your report when everyone had gathered.

There was not a shred of doubt in your mind that the skull mask was trained on you the entire time.

#simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x you #ghost cod #cod fic #cod x reader #valiantverses

[havendance]

Infinite Crisis Thoughts

At long last, I am sitting down and writing these out. Under a cut because it's a big event and required lots of words.

Overall I had fun and I’m glad I read it. It was huge and sprawling and had a couple hundred tie-ins of varying relevance that doubled back on plot points. It felt like the embodiment of everything a comics event could be and it was epic for it. It’s got a scope to it! Crossover your entire universe! It’s the sort of thing you can do with comics and the interconnectedness of it all.

In terms of plots I read the OMAC project stuff and the Villains United stuff, and largely ignored/didn’t seek out the Rann-Thangar War and Day of Judgement plotlines

The Wonder Woman storyline was by far the standout. (Greg Rucka my beloved. I am looking forward to getting to his run in my Wonder Woman readthrough).

Something that I did think was interesting was the fact that it ends with Themiscyra gone, sealed away, and Diana left alone in Man’s World. Rucka pulls the same move in his rebirth Wonder Woman run. (Though that one was also doing some heavy duty work to retcon whatever was going on with the new 52 amazons. (I don’t know, I didn’t read it. But I can that it was bad from how much they had to retcon it away.)).

It is, I think, a very compelling place to put Diana in. At least, I find it compelling. And he was able to build off of the idea more in his rebirth run whereas I don’t know how it’s followed up on in post-crisis.

Anyway, if I had a nickel for every time…

The OMAC stuff was also fun (Thanks again Rucka.) We get more Sasha. We get Bruce ruining things for everyone.

Just the whole ‘Everything’s going wrong for everyone at once.’ that was going on the whole event. That’s what makes it a crisis! It was just really neat seeing how it built up bit by bit.

And then you also have the meta aspect with the earth two heroes and them watching everything go wrong and using that as their basis to rewrite everything ever.

Superboy prime is punching reality and there are clearly retcons going down in real time but sue me if I can’t figure out what any of them are.

Uhhh what else

RIP to Ratcatcher for being the first random person to get killed off in Infinite Crisis #1. No one’s going to miss you.

My favorite superman comic from the event was the one where got nuked and it did this thing I absolutely love where they put the in universe characters alongside the actual creators in the credits:

Of course it was written by Lois Lane… Rucka just gave her a voice…

I read exactly one Firestorm issues (#20). I found that I did not care about the new Firestorm (unsurprisingly) but this was also the first time I’d encountered Animal Man and I came out of the comic seized by the need to read more of his comics

Anyway I’m like 7 issues in Morrison’s Animal Man run and while I found his JLA run boring and have heard, uh, many things most of them poor about his Batman writing, his Animal Man writing is very fun so far!

Animal Man tangent over

I did not get around to reading the Green Arrow tie ins which I probably should’ve. Oh well, I’ll come back to that whenever I get around to reading Green Arrow Comics again.

I also skipped the Aquaman (some day I will figure out how to dip my toes in there) and Hawkman comics

And also probably others but those are the ones that come to mind

I also liked the teen titans Nightwing and Superboy team up issue.

I am confused as to what all went down with Bart and the Flash side of things but also maybe some day I will read flash comics

So many comics to read so little time

I am curious as to the logistics of the swapping out Kon to die for Nightwing thing that I know happened. Because in Infinite Crisis #6 Superboy directly stops superboy prime from killing Nightwing. But then Nightwing also jumps in front of Bruce to save him later which also could’ve been a prime moment for him to die. Don’t know if anyone knows anything about that.

But yeah! Infinite Crisis! Now it’s time for me to meander my way through one year later stuff.

#dc #infinite crisis #havendance reads comics #carthago delenda est

[queenthxt]

Group 1′s Bicycle Day

Draw psychedelic images for the other player to guess in order to find your way home. The more trippy elements you incorporate during the one minute you have to draw, the harder it will be for the other player to guess and will give you a competitive advantage.

Iteration Process

The idea was solid but trying to find a base layout for the cards that would result in playability is the most time consuming element, as well as finding ways to manipulate images and experimenting with test drawings to see if they resulted in the desired effect. Once these came to have their own sort of template, we used our own images combined with editing tools to experiment with visuals and construct more “challenging” cards.

Cohesion and aesthetic are central to the game's thesis which is difficult to create simplistic prototypes that still hold the same weight as more fully fleshed out ones. The game hinges on the images themselves and creating non-usable images is more time consuming than it is worth. It made more sense to chip away at making more and more cards that we will eventually be able to use than making a bunch of throwaways that would have to be remade each iteration. We did save time by not sweating the actual card layout however, as the images themselves serve the same purpose.

Problems

Currently, there aren't any fully fleshed out prompt cards created, rather a few sample prompt images and short guessable descriptions. Additionally, our idea to provide variety and choice into the gameplay is not fully fleshed out as of yet. The game board is also not really fully implemented. We definitely communicated on a regular enough basis, but mostly worked congruently and came back with our individual findings.

Outside playtest results brought useful insight into the first impressions of the prompt cards, as well as the results of sample “special space” or “stranger danger” rounds. Taking a step back and seeing how a fresh faced player approaches each round, as well as the readability of any prompt images we have created thus far and what elements are most immediately recognizable. The time limit was implemented to encourage quicker more intuitive gameplay as well as drawings having common visual shorthand.

Butting heads a bit on some sections since both of us are pretty dedicated to this project. It mostly comes down to different creative styles, but the more we worked together the more we were able to use our strengths and compliment each other.

Solutions

Simplifying the game at every step possible, without stripping the game of the fun, to clarify the games core by combining separate initial ideas and overlapping systems bringing cohesion and solving logistical considerations. It definitely was more productive to not just talk together about what needs to get done but rather just trying it and seeing what we can use. We communicated to each other about our individual findings and experimentation, and consulted each other before making any final gameplay tweaks.

Changes

Each prompt card creation is easier and more streamlined, but finding a groove definitely took time. Streamlining their creation was easier after gathering raw images out in the world, as well as inspiration. Not putting off making these assets would make figuring out the game surrounding them easier to comprehend from a design standpoint. I did personally do better this project than in the past with this, but coming up on the final deadline without a mass quantity of the main playable game cards is definitely a hindrance, since we can’t really fiddle with many mechanics based on non self game tests.

The scope is still a bit big and a lot will most likely be scrapped by the final version, or at least scaled down. We have done a good job with not focusing on the dressing until the meat is fully established, but there definitely are a lot of loose threads still present.

#group 1 #bicycle day

[kitchenalia]

do u do any feminist activism irl? i want to but don't know where to start. also did you go to college bc you're really smart and i have this fear that i'm destined to be dumb bc i deferred higher education

pt 1: some but certainly a lot less than i'd like, and i'm working on remedying this. what you're able to do very much depends on where you live, how far you're able to easily travel, and how much time/money/expertise/resources you have to offer. look up outreach programs in your county (or equivalent administrative region if you live outside of the united states); most will have a page explaining how you can help. i just searched for domestic violence and homeless shelters near me and the ways to donate/contribute. donating money or useful items may seem small, but they help keep these programs afloat and helping women. volunteer and work opportunities are also often available! i would love to work with a DV shelter or coalition, but they are travel-prohibitive for me at the moment. i'm also contacting a local feminist chapter and will be going to some meetups because that's much closer and easier for me to work out while on public transportation. so right now my scope is basically nearby protests (limited but there have been a few), donations, volunteer work, and whatever immediate impact i can have, but i'm hoping to eventually do more permanent work. (also, i may have found a shelter to apply to work at, but i have some personal logistics to work out first.)

try finding out what women in your area are doing, talk to them, and figure out what the areas of the greatest need are as well as what you're interested in doing. my main interests lie in domestic violence advocacy, abortion rights, and lesbian rights so that's what i plan to mostly try to do things in.

pt 2: yes! i'm actually still in college/university (which impacts the time that i'm able to travel), but i started "late" because i didn't have the time or money to go when i was 18, and there were other extenuating circumstances that are pretty boring to hear about. i don't think that anyone who does not get higher education is stupid, and many of the most intelligent women i've known did not get a university education or didn't get one until much later than i did. however, i strongly encourage the pursuit of higher education if you have an interest in it and the ability to go. if you don't have the time or money for university, or have just decided that it's not for you, i still suggest honing certain skills and areas of knowledge in the meantime. using your public library (which often includes access to audiobooks and e-books), free courses from universities (like stanford, MIT, and yale), and online resources like untools (just a fun website to learn some ways of solving problems) are ways to keep learning while not going to university. i'm sorry if that isn't the most helpful, but they're what i mostly used while i wasn't going to university. just keep reading and keep your curiosity; in a lot of ways there are big benefits to learning in a non-traditional way.

[tonyglowheart]

Thinking about this again, but: Is there already a community/tumblr page/twitter page/discord server/whatever of Chinese cultural consultation for fic writers? Similar to Brit-pickers of ye olde, or Writing with Color here on tumblr?

If not, are there other Chinese ppl who would be interested in being a mod on such a tumblr page/twitter ask (probably via cc or some such)/or sth? I’d prefer a range, including diaspora in various parts of the world, Asia-based Chinese ppl (I’d prefer not just Western diaspora Chinese ppl), mainland-based if we can get them I know tumb & twt are banned..., recent immigrants, etc. The goal would be to act as an “ask blog” of sorts for specific questions similar to how Writing with Color does, as well as hopefully provide a pool of ppl who would be willing to act as cultural consults/Chinese-pickers/sensitivity readers for ppl to work in a more close/intimate way the way a beta reader would.

But yeah, if this doesn’t already exist, it’s an idea I do kind of want to get off the ground, because I do have ppl still asking me about it and it’s something I WOULD like to exist bc I feel like it could be a good resource for ppl or a good hub for cultural appreciation & learning, but it’s something which I don’t think I’d be able to do alone, nor would I feel comfortable doing alone since culture is so complex/in no way a monolith, and different perspectives are so important to providing nuance as well as verisimilitude, etc etc.

Edit:

This concept for a fan endeavor is still in its nascent stages so the exact details and parameters haven’t been pinned down, and I’m also grappling with what exactly the scope & function of such an endeavor would be. Is it going to be just more generally for “Chinese culture” stuff? Is it going to be more specific to fandom? If so, then does the scope of the fandom need to be limited? It seems inevitable that if this is a general thing there’ll be fandoms we can’t cover. And if it is fandom specific, do we limit it down to one fandom? A few fandoms? And how specific-to-the-fandom do we get as to what’s allowed and what’s not?

Additionally, there’s a lot up in the air as to logistics. What platform would this endeavor be based in? There’s pros and cons to most of the prevailing platforms rn. Some of the functionality is going to change depending on what platform is the “home” platform.

As of now I do envision it more of a WwC style situation, where people can ask in, and a designated panel of people provide their input, as well though with open invitations to the audience to comment. I do think something like this would benefit from having a specific panel of responses as a starting point, not to position anyone as an ”authority,” but to hopefully provide more focus and direction for the asker (I imagine something truly open the way open comments or even reddit could be overwhelming and might confuse the asker more because of the potential multitude of positions and reasoning). Again what I’m envisioning here is a platform as well as space to provide guidance and, hopefully, education and tools to people to better navigate the space respectfully and with confidence. Am I being too naively optimistic?

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #modaozushi #the untamed #tian guan ci fu #tgcf #SVSSS #heaven official's blessing #tagging two big mxtx fandoms bc I think that's where a lot of ppl are springboarding into danmei from these days #this is okay to reblog #I don't imagine it would be confined to just MXTX tho but.. #maybe that'd be a place to start...? #if this does exist please point me to it so I can point others to it #edit to add tags: okay I think from the response I'm seeing there's not really anything similar #and some ppl would indeed like to see this happen #but there's... a lot to figure out as far as scope and logistics...

[raimispiderman]

From the booklet which comes with the Spider-Man Trilogy Limited Edition Collection blu-ray!

This talks about the making of Spider-Man 3, here’s the bit about the first Spider-Man movie and here’s the bit about Spider-Man 2.

Click for a transcript:

OLD FRIENDS… AND NEW FACES

“The heart of the Spider-Man films has always been the depth of the characters and their interconnected lives. Peter’s love of Mary Jane Watson and his friendship with Harry Osborn have always been the richest parts of our stories,” said director Sam Raimi.

In Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker faces his biggest challenge to date – and the greatest battle of all is the battle within himself.

“We wanted to explore the darker side of Peter’s character,” said producer Laura Ziskin. “When his suit turns black, it enhances and emphasizes characteristics that are already in the host. In this case, it makes him stronger and quicker, but also more prideful and aggressive.”

“When I read the script I was really excited about the different direction we were going with Peter Parker and the other characters and storylines,” said Tobey Maguire, who returned to the role of Peter Parker. “We are covering a lot of new ground here, with a fresh take on the story while maintaining the continuity of the characters from the previous two films.”

In Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man takes on two classic villains: Sandman, who first made his appearance in the fourth issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man” and Venom, one of the comic book’s most memorable villains.

“Marvel comic books – and especially the Spider-Man books – have always had a great bunch of villains to choose from,” noted Raimi. “So many great Marvel artists and writers developed these characters. It was a very easy task to pick up these wonderful tales and images and develop our story from them.”

Thomas Haden Church played Flint Marko, a man haunted by the mistakes of his past, who is caught in a physics experiment gone wrong. “I consider it an honor, really,” said Church, an Academy Award nominee for his role in Sideway, on joining the franchise. “The Spider-Man films stand tall in the pantheon of superhero movies. Many are called, few are chosen, and I’m proud to be one of the few.”

“Flint Marko becomes Sandman when he stumbles into a radioactive test site where they’re performing a molecular fusion experiment and he accidentally becomes fused with sand,” Church added. “As a result, he can change his shape and adapt to his environment. He can be 10, 30, 80 feet tall. He can form giant sand fists, hammers, a mace. He can shift into a sand tornado, or sift into sand. He is as malevolent and menacing as any villain can be.”

Church spent over a year preparing for the role, with a physical training and diet regimen which led to his gaining about 20 pounds of muscle before shooting began. “In the comic book, Sandman was a bulky-muscled guy – he looked like a guy out of the WWF,” said the actor, “For the movie, we decided on a leaner look – street hardened, like Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.”

Topher Grace joined the cast as Eddie Brock, a character in some ways similar to Peter Parker, who transforms into Venom – Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis. “When I was first talking about the movie, Sam asked me if I knew what ‘arch-nemesis’ meant. I thought it meant a huge villain, but Sam pointed out that it really means a villain who has the same powers and abilities as the hero, but uses them for evil,” said Grace. “Sam has gone to great lengths to make this character Spider-Man’s equal and opposite. You might say that Eddie is the guy that Peter would have been if he didn’t have the good fortune of having Aunt May and Uncle Ben to bring him up.”

Grace, a self-described “skinny guy,” put on about 15 to 20 pounds for the role, working out during the several months before shooting began. During pre-production, Grace was subjected to body scans and motion capture data analysis for use by the costume and visual effects departments.

“They were doing a scan of my body, and someone mentioned that the scan would be really helpful for making my action figure. My action figure!” recalled Grace. “It hadn’t even occurred to me that I would become an action figure! It was very exciting.”

“The Spider-Man books have probably the greatest rogues’ gallery of any superhero comic – there are so many memorable villains throughout the books,” said executive producer and Marvel’s president of production Kevin Feige. “With the villains in Spider-Man 3, we wanted to continue the tradition – following the Green Goblin and Doc Ock – of presenting villains that not only provide spectacle and a physical challenge to Spider-Man’s abilities, but characters that are multi-layered and conflicted.”

“At the beginning of Spider-Man 3, we find Peter Parker pretty much where we left him at the end of the second Spider-Man story,” said director Sam Raimi. “He is coming to terms with what it means to be a hero and the sacrifices he has to make to do the right thing. Peter has never had anyone look up to him as someone they admire. Certainly, he’s never had anyone cheer for him before. This has an unexpected effect on Peter: it stirs up his prideful self. This is the beginning of a movement toward his dark side in this film.”

That dark side is brought to the forefront when he comes into contact with a black substance that attaches itself to Peter’s Spider-Man suit. When the substance turns his suit black, he finds he has greater strength and agility than ever before… but also the substance brings out his pride and his vengefulness. “In the climax, Peter has to put aside his prideful self. He must put aside his desire for vengeance,” Raimi continues. “He has to learn that we are all sinners and that none of us can hold ourselves above another. In this story, he has to learn forgiveness.”

Another fan favorite, Gwen Stacy, made her film debut in Spider-Man 3. Well known to fans of the comic books, Gwen made her first appearance in December 1965 “The Amazing Spider-Man #31” and quickly became Peter Parker’s first love. Bryce Dallas Howard took on the role. Despite the differences between the comic book and screen versions of her character, Howard was able to use the comic book as inspiration in bringing Gwen Stacy to life. “There was a very deep relationship built into the comic books – that became my foundation,” said the actress. “This a person who, had things been different, could have been a good mate for him. Because her father is a police captain, she’s accustomed to someone leaving and putting his life in jeopardy every day and loving him unconditionally. I was able to build on that, to play the character that was written in the comic book.”

“It’s wonderful to bring new actors into the series because, although you have an existing set of rules and storylines you want to adhere to, at the same time you need to shake it up, bringing new voices and energies to the film that we haven’t experiences before, “noted Raimi. “It gives the audience a new experience, with the characters they love, but with a new energy dynamic, with those new faces on screen with them.”

“In terms of logistics and scope, Spider-Man 3 is by far the largest of the three films,” said Ziskin. “Sam has really upped the ante for this film, in terms of action sequences and visual effects involving Sandman and Venom, so it is a gigantic endeavor, with over 1,000 people working towards that goal.”

During production, Raimi relied on key members of his filmmaking team to bring to life before the cameras as much of Peter Parker’s story as possible. “Whenever it’s safe and practical, I like to capture the action in camera,” said Raimi. “Visual effects are an amazing tool for action that human beings can’t do – but if a human being can do it, let’s do it.”

The talented team of stuntmen was ready, but so was the cast. Bryce Dallas Howard, especially, surprised the filmmakers by being game for anything they could throw at her. At one point, the actress found herself hanging from a harness.

After performing several portions of the sequence on soundstages in Los Angeles, Howard was eager to get in the harness again to fly with Spider-Man over Sixth Avenue. “What’s so great about movies is you get to really experience these crazy, crazy stunts, things that you would never emerge from alive in real life,” says Howard. “I knew I would be 100% safe because Sam and the stunt team really protect the actors. So I tried to do as many things as possible, because it’s really fun and a great adrenaline rush!”

Thomas Haden Church was also up to the challenge – in fact, even more so. Whether it was being yanked five feet in the air so he could do a face-plant in the mud, or being chased (and caught) by dogs, or dangling off the side of a set, or falling onto train tracks, or having his face smashed into a pane of Plexiglas, the actor found himself bruised and battered repeatedly, but was ready for anything. According to producer Grant Curtis, “It wasn’t intentional, but it seemed sometimes like if any actor was required to get beat up in any way, Thomas was always drawing that short straw.”

Two members of the production team that played key roles in ensuring that these action sequences were both as safe and as spectacular as possible were special effects supervisor John R. Frazier (who previously served in the same capacity on the first two Spider-Man films) and second unit director Dan Bradley (a veteran of Spider-Man 2). “Working with Sam is like going back to school,” said Frazier. “You have that moment where you say, ‘Oh, this is going to be really, really hard, but a lot of fun.’ It’s  not unusual for me to be on a movie like Spider-Man 3 for nine months, from the beginning planning stages through production.”

One scene that highlights their work is the Subway Drain portion of an elaborate fight sequence between Spider-Man and Sandman. Raimi worked closely with Frazier, Bradley and visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk on the sequence, in which Sandman is blasted by the force of a burst water pipe and, quite literally, goes down the drain. Sam wanted Sandman to melt away, in essence, during this sequence.

“This is the largest water gag for one shot I’ve ever done for a film,” recalled Frazier, who had previously supervised the special effects for Poseidon. “We used 50,000 gallons of water, shooting out of a pipe which blasted the rear of the set fifty feet away. When you see this sequence, the water appears to be a six-foot-thick column of water; however, we made the center of the pipe hollow, and used a restrictor plate to control the size of the column of water. The water is recirculated using pumps, which are able to pump 3,000 gallons a minute. We can fill both tanks in about five minutes, so that we are ready for another take.”

The sequence was covered using eight cameras, according to Stokdyk. “This sequence is where Spider-Man discovers Sandman’s weakness – water. We had to put a CG Sandman in here because the velocity of the water is too great to have Thomas Haden Church or a stuntman perform portions of the sequence. Water is a huge challenge for visual effects, especially on a large scale, so our goal here was to seamlessly integrate the elements for the sequence between practical and CG.”

Bradley and Frazier’s work is also on display in an action sequence during a bank heist, in which a security guard (played by none other than producer Grant Curtis) falls victim to Sandman’s wreath. “As a producer, Grant is uniquely qualified for guarding money,” laughed Bradley, “so Sam typecast him and invited him to spend a lot of time on set being buried underneath tons of sand as one of the armored car guards.”

Apprehensive as he might have been about performing the stunt, Curtis says that it would have been pointless to argue. “I’ve worked with Sam for ten years, so I know that once a decision’s been made, he’s going to get his way,” he said.

The sequence begins spectacularly, when Sandman smashes into the top of the armored call with his fist – which, in reality, Frazier’s team made of polyurethane foam. It was eight feet tall, six feet wide, and weighed over 500 pounds. Then, debris – sand – came flying at Curtis. “On the first take, I anticipated the crash and reacted too early,” he remembered. After an adjustment, he nailed the second take.

At the end of the sequence, the guard is buried in sand. To film the scene, the armored car was lifted and tilted at a 50-degree angle so that the sand could be dumped in and fill the car but with a fraction of the pressure on Curtis. The producer soon found himself beneath 4,000 pounds of ground corncob – the filmmakers’ ingenious substitute for sand.

The idea of using ground corncob as a double for sand did not come immediately to the filmmakers. The first man charged with investigating what kind of sand would make Sandman or solving any number of other costuming challenges, Acheson’s motto was: when in doubt, go back to the original text. “We derive our inspiration, as always, from the comic,” he said. “Sandman is one of those remarkable characters who can change shape, dissolve, disappear, grow, or become mud or concrete. We designed various stages and different scales of Sandman’s evolution, working with wonderful sculptors to create maquettes, small statues of Sandman in his various appearances.”

As much as Sandman required each of the departments to step up their game, so, too, did Venom – Spider-Man’s equal and opposite. Acheson and his team created various stages of Venom’s look, working with Raimi to create a tension in the sculpting of the suit. “It was important to Sam and to James that we keep the suit really sharp and aggressive, as with the tendrils that crawl across Venom’s face at points,” said head specialty costumer Shownee Smith, whose company Frontline Design worked under Acheson’s direction to manufacture the specialty costumes for the film.

For scenes where Brock transitions into Venom, Grace spent an hour being placed into the suit, which added between 120 and 140 pounds to his weight. The actor then spent an additional four and a half hours in makeup for the addition of appliances, including special sets of teeth worn by Grace to give the character the illusion of a larger, more menacing mouth. The filmmakers also attached monofilament to the skin on Grace’s face so that they could pull and distort the character as he makes his transformation.

“At one point while shooting the transition scenes, I thought, ‘What have I signed up for?!’” Grace laughed. “I had black goo poured all over me, wires attached to my face that people with fishing poles were pulling up, and other people below me were pulling down… When you see my character in pain, well, there wasn’t a whole lot of acting required.”

Also interacting with each of the departments was production designer J. Michael Riva, the member of the team responsible for bringing Raimi’s stylish vision to life. Riva was especially proud of his work in cresting the construction site that serves as the arena for the film’s final battle. “Making a construction site doesn’t sound very difficult, but if you have only eight weeks to design and build, it’s practically impossible,” he said. “We used over 20 tons of steel, 100 welders, and 200 carpenters working around the clock, seven days a week to get it done! But we all did it.”

The set took six weeks to complete, using tons of steel from a cancelled building project. A construction elevator, complete with operator, transported cast and crew to the various levels of the elaborate set. For the extensive lighting and electrical needs required for the sequence, a labyrinth of connections was designed and installed 80 feet above the stage floor, using over four miles of electrical cable. By the time the set was ready for shooting, Stage 27 was outfitted with approximately 21,000 amps, enough power to service over 200 homes.

“The great thing about a construction site is that it’s a very dangerous place. First, besides the implied height of the set, you have a lot of steel and rebar lying around at such a site. You can always rely on Sam to see opportunities and come up with an effective way to use these set elements to enhance the danger in a scene,” said Riva. “Second, it was an open structure, pretending to be 50 stories high, open on all sides. It offered Sam a jungle gym of possibilities to web up and down, to do a chase all over the face of the steel structure. The higher they go fighting their way up the building, the more the danger and tensions increase. It’s a long way to fall if you’re not Spider-Man!”

For visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk – the man charged with bringing the visual effects to the screen – those words were the beginning of a two-year process to develop the technology that would make Spider-Man 3 the most visually stunning film in the series so far. “When we began the pre-production process, the computer programs had not yet been developed which could achieve the look of Sandman and his capabilities that Sam wanted to see,” recalled producer Grant Curtis. “However, Scott Stokdyk and his team created new technology to manipulate every piece of sand on our character. The existing technology allowed management of thousands of particles at once – but to animate Sandman the way Sam wanted to, we would have to be able to render billions of particles. In the end, the new software they wrote required ten man-years to code.”

Stokdyk says that he and his team prepared for the challenge by first observing how sand moves in the real world. “One of the first things we did was to organize a sand shoot with Sam and Bill Pope, the difrector ofg photographer,” Stokdyk continued. “We shot footage of sand every way we would need it – thrown up, thrown against blue screen, over black screen. John Frazier, the special effects supervisor, shot it out of an aero can at a stuntman. Anything we could imagine sand doing in the film, we shot.”

“There’s a character the, emoting, but it’s just a pile of sand,” said Stotdyk. “If we’ve pulled together enough grains of sand to make feel something, then we’ve pulled it off.”

In the end, the artists were all extremely proud of their creation. “Sony Pictures Imageworks delivered on Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, but for Spider-Man 3 it changed the industry standard,” said Curtis.

Sandman, of course, was not the only character that posed a considerable challenge for Spencer Cook; animating the black-suited Spider-Man required subtle changed to reflect the character’s more aggressive personality, “He’ll move a little quicker here and there, hunch his shoulders a little more, put his elbows up a little higher when he’s stuck to a wall. We tried to find poses that the classic Spider-Man would not do – where the red-suited Spider-Man was graceful and elegant in his motions, black-suited Spider-Man is more blunt, rough, and reckless.”

In creating Venom, Stokdyk notes that the character has at least three different stages. First, of course, is the initial transformation, in which Topher Grace’s skin is pulled away from his body and tendrils of goo cross his face until they completely envelop him. “As he gets angrier, he turns into more of a monster, more of a beast,” Stokdyk noted. First, he becomes a kind of double for Spider-Man, played by Grace. By the very end of the film, he becomes an entirely CG character – the classic Venom from the comic books, with a menacing, unhinged jaw and a full mouth of very sharp teeth. “Everything is alive on ‘comic-book Venom,’” Stokdyk continued. “The challenge was to make a character that was monsterous, very detailed, very kinetic – but not delicate. Despite all the detail, he’s still menacing.

Stokdyk was also determined to break new ground in terms of live-action integration with the visual effects. The supervisor was on hand during production so that he could be ready to take the ball as soon as the scenes were filmed. “It was important to Sam and me to incorporate as much live-action into the CG as possible,” he said. “The typical reason a shot is animated is because a person can’t do all of it. We wanted to find a way to have an actor or stunt person do part of the action, and synthesize the rest. The goal was to find a balance between keeping the shot real and making it exciting and cinematic.”

One dramatic example of this idea comes early in the film, as Peter Parker finds himself ambushed by the New Goblin – his friend, Harry Osborn. “It was Sam’s idea to show Peter fighting as Peter not as Spider-Man,” said producer Avi Arad. “It’s a terrific amount, because it brings home what a personal battle this is for Peter when you can see his face.”

Tobey Maguire and James Franco completed much of the aerial stunt sequence themselves, doing wire work suspended high above the stage floor. “Tobey is really handy with stunt situations, and he picks it up really quickly,” said stunt coordinator Scott Rogers. “James is also terrific – he’s got a great attitude. Both actors are used to the type of physicality required for their roles, and they excelled.”

For Stokdyk, achieving such great heights would not have been possible without the contribution from his team at Sony Pictures Imageworks, assembling, in the end, between 200 and 250 people to complete more than 900 effects shots. “You live and die by your team,” said Stokdyk. “They were always ready to respond, always on their toes. That’s bit of the process of working with Sam, you have to be flexible and ready to deliver.”

“When developing this third installment, we asked ourselves, ‘What does this young man still have to learn?’” said director Sam Raimi. “We placed him in situations where he’d be forced to confront his absences of character – obstacles that, in previous stories, he might not have been able to surmount. In this way, he would either be defeated or grow into the heroic person who might be capable of overcoming these obstacles. As the depth of our characters grow, they become richer human beings and can achieve more than in the previous films.”

#spiderman #spiderman 3 #behind the scenes #tobey maguire #sam raimi #interviews #bryce dallas howard #thomas haden church #topher grace #laura ziskin #michael riva #scott stokdyk #avi arad #john frazier #grant curtis #sandman #flint marko #venom #eddie brock #gwen stacy #george stacy #peter parker #harry osborn #special effects #set design

[ettawritesnstudies]

Storge Edit Update Ch. 8

(links to catch up, I didn’t do any dedicated posts for #1-3: here’s 4, 5, 6, and 7)

Stats

The whole draft is at 41,435K and 81 pages (standard Word settings). That’s roughly 30-35% of the way through the draft!

This chapter is entirely new to this draft, and clocks in at 4412 words and 9 pages.

I have two more scenes to draft from scratch before I can get back to editing what I have so far, so the pace will pick up at the end of chapter 9 hopefully!

After this chapter, I took a break to get ~organized~ because this middle is slowly becoming untangled and I want to track my changes as I go so I don’t forget my reasoning. This included making a whole spreadsheet! It’s color coded and I’m really pleased with it, but it also showed that I have a LOT of work ahead of me.

Excerpts and Commentary below the cut!

Lyss, scheming as usual

First line:

Two days after her rise to power and the ruin of her city, the new Queen of Maaren found herself locked in gladiatorial combat of the intellect. At least, that was how it felt to be seated at this dinner-turned-meeting table after three hours of Atilan chattering.

Last line:

The god’s chosen.

It had a nice ring to it, the title she should have earned at the Trials all those years ago. A deep-seated satisfaction filled her stomach, not just from being full of food. She could be the chosen one, for the good of the city, and because it was what she deserved. She raised her wine glass again, a silent toast, to her own reign, before downing the contents in one drink.

Esil and his friends, scheming as usual

First line:

Two days after their greatest victory and greatest defeat, the new Master of the Anarchists found himself in the fight of his life. At least, that’s how it always felt when he sparred Amika.

Last line:

Esil reluctantly nodded his agreement. “It’s a plan. I don’t want to underestimate Lyss. This will show her that we’re still a threat, and you’re right. We need to act now, her control still uncertain. It’s for the good of the city.”

Divad laughed. “If I had wine, I would toast to that.”

Amika grinned and reached for the water canteen she’d set beside her after the sparring match. She took a drink, then unceremoniously dumped the rest of it over his head, to many protests and laughter from the assembled company.

“To the good of the city! Let’s kill a queen.”

Commentary

This chapter was very satisfying to get right. One of my favorite literary devices especially in fiction, is the use of motifs. I also struggle so much with intros and endings, but I think I finally figured out a trick, at least with these two villains. They both think they’re doing what’s right, and mirroring the openings and the phrase, “For the good of the city” adds an ironic element to their plans.

I can’t share the plans, because of spoilers, but I’m happy with how this chapter grounds their subplots into the wider scope of the story. The last draft, I introduced them in chapter 4 and Esil disappeared until chapter 14 because I totally forgot to write his background logistics until he had to show up for a big plot point. So now they exist and hopefully this low-stakes planning chapter will help with the pacing and start to add some tension as I build up to the midpoint twist

This was also the chapter where I started to feel a little overwhelmed with how much I have left to cover. I’m 1/3 of the way done with the plot so I’m hitting a mental sagging-middle-syndrome as I slog towards the fun part. I think part of this is because I had to draft from scratch, rather than edit an existing scene, so it’s going a lot slower. The other part is that I’ve been listening to a LOT of writing craft podcasts and making a mental list of all the steps leading up to publication, which is intimidating. I shouldn’t even really think about publishing yet, and you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, but I’m just as much of a planner as my characters. The idea of having to set up so much now to get the payoff 5 years down the line is exhausting, but I’ll get there eventually!

#storgewip #storge edit #storge update #storge chapter 8 #my writing #writing update

[norcumii]

For shits and giggles and I honestly couldn’t tell you why, I started listening to the Clone Wars movie commentary, by Filoni and...others?

Putting aside that at least 50% of it is some form of “ALL HAIL GEORGE,” which...yeah. Fine, whatever – there’s been an interesting thread I’m trying to chase down mentally. So, er, late night musings ahead.

They keep talking about how they tossed this line into the editing, or how George is all about tweaking the story in the editing room – and how that’s all about building the final vision. How in order to get a good laugh, in this bit the droid suddenly has the intellectual/philosophical context to ask “Whhhyyyy?” as its being tossed off a cliff to its doom and that was all added several editing rounds in.

And this has been bugging me. Not just because it’s cheap humor and might be good for a startled guffaw but not once one steps back and looks at the picture because ouch, that’s...pretty ugly. Also, this is COMPLETELY ignoring my instincts to snort and be bitchy about George Lucas’ ego and Marcia Lucas saving the OT in the editing room.  

See, my first instinct is to be cautiously approving of this approach. You write a fic, you edit, you edit some more, you get a beta and you tweak depending on their suggestions, and then you post. That’s what these people are talking about, right?

But if that were the case, then why do I spend so much time bitching about how Star Wars NEVER follows through on story lines, and they never spend a fraction of the time we do trying to figure out logistics and political folderol, and – there’s got to be something I’m missing.

I had to step back and look at my usual fonts of inspiration, Aaron Sorkin and Greg Weisman – the latter in particular given how he got tapped for Rebels.

Sorkin is a masterclass pantser. I have no idea what his process is, aside from procrastinating and getting quality scripts in JUUUUST under the wire (or often after that fact). Greg’s more a note-card, organizational type. Not much useful comparing those to what sounds like “George Lucas has An Idea, we try to execute it with our spin, and then Lucas comes in and has more suggestions. If all else fails we pull all-nighters and then wing it for George.”

They’ve mentioned cutting some things, and altering others, so it’s not just a matter of these people just add to things, whereas I know the other two have talked about cutting extraneous stuff a lot. So it’s not something vague about keep cutting the fat.

Something about that notion tweaked a thought, though. The Lucas approach here seems to be taking a storyline, then going in and brushing it up – and the focus seems to be on how to buff up moments. “We have a segment here, how do we give it more punch? Ok, add a joke. How do we buff up the next segment? Apply changes to that thing.” Add in the mantra they keep repeating in the commentary, about how it always has to be new, how for instance if you have a Rancor scene, it can’t just be a rehash or similar to the classic Return of the Jedi rancor scene, it has to have a new twist.

(….OH. And a belated realization that this is one of the things they DIDN’T do for the sequel trilogy, as compared to the prequels! Episode 7 was a rehash, but there wasn’t enough new angles, whereas the prequels were taking the same structure but putting in new scenarios. Maybe? Something for me to chew on later.)

Anyway. What all this does is take a storyline, and focus on those moments.

That DOESN’T look to the greater plot.

Greg approaches a season as a storyline. He has his tiers and tentpost episodes, but it all builds along an arc. Sorkin also has season long plots and themes.

Consequences. The Clone Wars never deals with consequences. They’re so busy punching up a scene they never look to what precedes or follows it, so there’s never any fall out for things other than in a broad, hand-wavy way –

oooooh.

They got so caught up in the theory about this week’s adventure in the Flash Gordon-esque production that they never looked to the overall plot. Like how in soap operas characters would get horrible diseases, need to get organs removed (multiple times) and the like – it’s so tied up in Teh Drama of the moment that there’s never someone going around saying “yeah, uh, this character used to have a kid we might want to remember that.”

So while there’s attempts to show Anakin being disillusioned with the Jedi – see the entire Rako fiasco – there never feels like any actual BUILD there, just moments of “why would you DO that you beTRAYed me Obi-Wan!” without the context we the fans labor so hard to structure. Sure, we can see how Obi-Wan reacts in the few seconds of screentime at the beginning of that arc – hunched over in the Council chamber, with the body language of someone who’s been browbeaten and argued into a fucked up and patently absurd scheme – but we never get more than hints that this is something he never wanted to do.

And then it never gets mentioned again. We can build consequences beyond “and then one day Anakin Falls and becomes Vader!” – I wholeheartedly believe that Rex (one of the most identifiable clones out there) wore Jaig eyes on the Onderon mission entirely as a message to SOMEONE about how he might have to be clandestine, but he’s not about to abandon his identity – but it’s all speculation and personal perspectives.

All the long term consequences are drowned out in the minutia of the moment. Filoni mentioned early on about how the clones check their wounded and call for medics to drive home that these are people, not cannon fodder – while unironically using them as cannon fodder. The only times they’re not used that way is when the deaths are furthering someone’s – usually Rex’s – particular storyline. The bit about a clone calling for a medic is great for a moment, but the followthrough is never pursued unless a different moment might be richer for it and someone on staff happens to remember.

It occurred to me that this is also part of my problems with Avatar the Last Airbender. Look, I’m fascinated by the meta worldbuilding, and some of the themes, but when there’s regular breaks in the dramatic tension by yet another snot joke, I do not have patience for it. I don’t like storytelling that feels the need to step back and jam in humor on the regular every [X] minutes because otherwise executives are worried that the kids will stop caring. And maybe that’s not what’s going on, but if it rubs me that way I’m disinclined to sit through hours and fucking hours of it without an enthusiastic guide.

However, that does explain Lucasfilms’ obsession with Filoni. He seems to thrive on that sort of storybuilding. Take a segment. See how to punch it up. Move on to the next segment.

This, right here, IS one of my problems with Rebels, that was so painful but intermittent through season one. It’s even worse in later seasons – none of which Greg worked on, which. Yeah. Fuck, I am going to have to do that watch through at some point. I mean, throughout Rebels, I could see the worldbuilding and structure, but then it’d get yanked off into left field by this week’s inane gag or absurdist moment or random ass THING they need to cover because oh yeah, they’re trying for an overarching plot and should probably include the thing before it’s immediately relevant.

Back to Clone Wars. I think the problem was too much inspection of segments, and people didn’t often step back and say “where is this storyline going?” Getting too caught up in the moment to check if the scene or gag moved the overall plot and themes along. They got so concerned about doing everything with a fresh new twist they never came back to points, never raised up old elements to say “look how far we’ve come” or “here is how that thing affected people and the plot.”

It’s funny, how something with so much scope can get hamstrung by all the fiddly little details.

#star wars #sass and murder show #thinky thoughts #writing is hard #story telling #rebels critical #sequels critical #aaron sorkin #greg weisman #no idea how coherent this is #but it's late and i wanted it done before bed because otherwise i'll never find this train of thought again

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, twice.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eight (34.78% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Fifteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Neither characters nor plot are engaging enough to hold strong interest, making the film feel longer than it is, plus there’s one character in particular whose behaviour seriously rankles. It’s not a terrible movie, but it is thoroughly uninspiring.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Liz manages a brief pass with her mother before the dance. Liz says goodbye to Betty.

Female characters:

Betty Brant.

Liz Toomes.

Michelle.

Marjory.

May Parker.

Karen.

Mrs Toomes.

Pepper Potts.

Male characters:

Adrian Toomes.

Mason.

Peter Parker.

Happy Hogan.

Tony Stark.

Jason Ionelli.

Ned.

Flash.

Abraham.

Mr Delmar.

Gary.

Steve Rogers.

Coach Wilson.

Shocker.

Aaron Davis.

OTHER NOTES:

Ah, here’s Peter’s video log from Civil War, where he has no idea why he’s even there and it’s completely irresponsible and inappropriate for Tony to have brought him in on something catastrophically dangerous with no preparation and none of the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision! I hate it. This makes me extremely hate Tony. I know I mentioned it already when I reviewed Civil War, but it’s super-true and not going to change any time soon. 

See, this thing where Peter is sacrificing academic and social experiences to hang out for Tony’s promised phone call? That’s on Tony. You can’t just rope a kid into your bullshit and then kick him back out into the world with a vague false promise and no follow-up of any kind. That’s not how kids work. It’s not fair to people in general, but it is especially not how kids work.

Peter having to run because he’s in the suburbs and there are no tall buildings is probably the best gag in this movie.

The inclusion of that little detail about the Washington Monument being built by slaves. Mmmhmm.

I find the plotting of this film very dull and predictable, like ‘oh, and now we’ll have another action set piece, now some cutesy highschool stuff’, etc, and as such I feel it drags excessively and I’m just sitting here waiting for each bit to be done with so that we can get to the next, so that it can be over too, because I’m not attached enough to any one or thing that’s happening for the predictable beats to hold internal interest. That said, the Washington Monument piece is pretty good.

The ludicrous ferry accident, not so much.

Tony shows up, lot of shit-talking, blaming Peter for not magically intuiting information which Tony didn’t give him. Urgh. I deeply, deeply hate this version of Tony. 

Toomes reveal is the most inspired choice of the film. Keaton kills it on Toomes’ own revelation of Peter’s identity.

This movie sure does go on.

This ‘screwed the pooch’ joke makes me want to bleach my ears. Also, this whole Avenger/press conference business is still Tony completely failing to appreciate how he’s upended this kid’s life; the right thing to do in this situation is not to lean into it and go ‘ok, but what if I upended it...more?’, just like the right way to deal with it was emphatically not to just kick the kid to the curb to figure things out for himself after that initial upending. I imagine I would have enjoyed this film sooo much more if I were not raging at Tony throughout.

Ok, let me just purge on the Tony thing before I go any further, otherwise I’m never gonna be able to focus properly on the rest of the movie. I hate what they’ve done with Tony. That’s obvious. I really, deeply disagree with it. Tony was a hard character to get to like, but the Iron Man films did really solid, intelligent work at achieving it despite the many and sundry hurdles, and the key to that was the fact that they had Tony, consistently, recognising the ways that his actions hurt others and then making the effort to fix that and fix himself, not just blowing it off, making some flashy gesture or throwing some money at the problem and then breezing on out like everything’s fine and none of it’s on him. The Avengers films - particularly Ultron - did significant work at tarnishing the character development of the Iron Man films, and then Civil War came in and - amidst the many, many sins Tony committed in that movie - handed the introduction of Spider-Man over to Tony in an act of incredibly irresponsible and reckless child endangerment, which this film proceeded to double-down on by having Tony completely fail to be a reasonable, thinking adult at any point. Frankly, I don’t feel that Tony’s initial decision to involve Peter in Civil War is forgivable, there’s no walking that back, but the least he could have done is to recognise that fact and make appropriate amends, which - as above - does not mean ignoring the kid any more than it means pandering to his hero complex. It makes me feel really, really old to be saying it, but Peter is a minor, he doesn’t have a strong perspective on the world yet, but he’s also old enough and wise enough that he can’t just have people throwing rules at him and expecting obedience; he needs to be treated with the respect of having things explained, but he also needs oversight because he isn’t mature enough to make choices without it. He needs guidance. That’s the position which Tony actively puts himself in and then fails to follow through on, and it leaves Peter feeling that he has to prove himself, that he has to further endanger himself in order to win the mentorship that Tony promised. As a character response and an emotional position for Peter, that’s great story fodder and logical follow-on from his introduction, and I can’t fault that. For Tony Stark though, who manages to both start and end this movie without actually learning anything, it makes me infuriated beyond belief.

THAT SAID, let’s segue to the natural place: to Peter. The good news is, if this film gets only one thing right, it’s that very precise balance of Peter’s age, with all its accompanying tumult; Peter is mature enough to feel like he’s in control of his life and choices and capable of taking on new, big, adult things, but not mature enough to realise the limitations that come with his age in terms of experience and worldview. He has that ‘teenagers think they know everything’ factor, but without it being conveyed as either too arrogant or too whiny to be palatable. It’s a tough ask for teen characters, generally, as the creative forces behind them are almost invariably adults (and usually have been for quite some time), and it’s hard to recapture the mentality of a teen once you’ve grown beyond that mentality yourself. When Peter declares that school doesn’t matter anymore because he’s ‘probably never coming back’, he’s gonna become an Avenger and that’s his whole life plan right now, no real details, no clarity in what exactly that means for his day-to-day life or where he gets his income or how things might go in the long term, that’s a classic teen moment for him: his future is a concept, all of its parts internally encompassed, and it’s not just that he dismisses the questions, logistics, and concerns that an adult would know to raise, it’s that these things don’t even occur to him in the first place. Peter is in this middle-position, the transition from child to adult, and he’s not as far through that transition as he thinks he is (teenagers never are). Altogether, I may not be enamoured by this film, nor am I especially compelled by Tom Holland’s take on this character (he’s not bad, he’s just...not that enthralling, either), but the particular pitch of Peter’s mentality is spot-on without being, in itself, just another tromp through dull and overwrought teen-angst cliches.

The rest of the movie, on the other hand...I feel kinda bad about spending that over-long first paragraph railing against a certain billionaire who could have done us all a favour and not been in this film (or at least, not as prominently), giving Peter more of a chance to explore his spider-self and what it means to his life on his own terms, instead of being so heavily influenced by how he fits into the wider universe, and then maybe we could have fleshed out more of Peter’s normal life in order to make all the extraneous pieces of this story more meaningful, and less, y’know, extraneous. As-is, I don’t feel like I’ve got a lot to say about it, it’s fairly generic and unremarkable, and while there are some good set-up pieces - Toomes’ whole descent-to-criminal-enterprise-due-to-economic-pressures thing has great narrative potential and scope for reflection upon capitalism in the real world - the story never explores any of those pieces enough to even half-ass a real analysis of the idea. Toomes is rendered a mostly stock villain, the same as Liz gets little to make her more than a bland Love Interest, May is an interchangeable maternal figure, and Ned - while fun and easily a highlight in a cast that’s hardly vying for the title - is also a bit of a heavy-handed stereotype sitting in the comic relief/sidekick chair (the fact that he essentially references this in-story, fourth-wall-denting style, does not make it less uninspired). And I’m not sure how we’re supposed to see Zendaya’s MJ as anything other than a gimmick at this point, kinda seems like she was literally only there so that her preferred name could be used as a weightless ‘reveal’ at the end. Like I said up in the notes, I found the movie to be excessively predictable in a bad way, bringing me out of the viewing experience to count off the minutes and story beats, and as such, even though this is not the worst film Marvel has churned out to date, it is one of my least favourites. I know there are a lot of people who loved it, who love Tom Holland’s version of Peter Parker and found this movie light and fun, and it’s not that I can’t see where they’re coming from with that...I guess it’s just that whatever parts of the story are self-contained are so recycled from so many other films of this ilk, I can’t find anything to attach to, and then the rest of the story which could have been spent making something a little more interesting from those basic, predictable bones, instead is wasted on an over-emphasis on placing this movie into the MCU’s larger framework (an ironic waste of resources since you can easily skip this film without getting confused watching the next MCU movies with Spider-Man in them, Infinity War and Endgame). Anyway. I fear I’m just gonna start repeating myself for lack of anything else to say; I don’t care for this movie, it had at least a good little piece of heart in it but it wasted too much time on things which did not enhance this story or the wider universe anyway, I hate Tony Stark now. The end.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU #Spider-Man: Homecoming #Bechdel Test #female representation #Spider-Man

[rhysand-vs-fenrys]

So, um, you go the "opera" a lot huh? And... if one wanted to find such an opera.. what do those tickets cost? Asking.. asking for a friend..

Kinks I’m into and kinks I write about don’t always overlap.

As far as figuring out the “opera” part---

I decided on the theater-like setting for the sex show, then started thinking about how close to impossible I could make it to identify people that attend such shows.

Multiple-entrances was a must, but people might still see one another in line, no matter how many you use. So where could those in line not know one another were in line? At an actual, proper theater.

How would they gain access? Through a fake ticket (the fic didn’t get into it, but each ticket for the show is just a copy of a real ticket, so the seat is still filled. Of course, Elain and Lucien would have access to Rhys’ private box if they wanted).

How can you get the people into the sex show while keeping the scope of those who knew about it as small as humanly possible? Limit it to 2 on the surface (the coat check fae at each entrance). 

How do you stop them from seeing each other in line (that old problem again)? When I was in London I went to the London Dungeon, a sort of macabre history/urban legend/torture museum thing. They used sliding mirrors to block people’s paths in an early portion of the tour, but mirrors are weird so sliding mahogany wood panels. Then the cloaking room, then the staircase, then the idea of wrapping the tables in curtains until the show starts, etc. 

Figured it out in the span of a shower and came back to punch out the first 15 pages. Added Anwynn as I went along to explain how they got their in and I couldn’t find any more questions regarding logistics to work through.

I’m pretty certain nothing like this exists in real life, but it’s also so highly possible that I could see something similar being around in the past. I kind of drew as my inspiration modern sex clubs, Victorian torture clubs (really nasty shit but they were good at hiding them), and the freakish labyrinths that exist under some of the older opera houses.

Not saying I”m not now tempted to build such a place, but I’m sure there’s some puritanical law in the US that would get in the way. 

#ask #i like figuring out stuff like this #my brain combs through it looking for snares and then I find a way to get past them

[mylifeatwar]

Book 2, Chapter 4, Page 23

Archived Text Follows:

Hey Everyone,

It appears that if you throw enough light at a Dragoon’s camo system all at once you can cause it to glitch out. That helps level the playing field some.

Thanks for reading,

– Luther out

Comment Text Follows:

killercow - Knuckledusters oughta’ give that armor a run for it’s money.

nweismuller - Well, that explains Lawman-Actual’s unusual weapon. I was wondering about that.

tkg - interesting I notice a dead patch on the rear left side-shield/armor area near where the dragoon was hit earlier…do the areas auto compensate? for knocked out areas within reason?

nweismuller - I’m not sure that’s a dead area- I think that’s a portion of the shoulder blown away.

Madorakas - I just (naiv) figured the camo system let the light trough. Turns out it just mimics whats behind it and shows it in front. Also i want to know more about this “Knuckdusters”.

Keith - Good lateral thinking. Even in daylight more light makes stuff show up and illume will provide a localized change in viewable spectrums. If memory serves radar doesn’t see them when cloaked either. I wonder how well it stealths against UV…which I’ve long thought they need to switch NVG’s and scopes to, why arent’ they using thermal? You can’t hide heat.

Sazuroi - If it was the light deflection cloaking system I described in one of my comments on the last page, it could potentially deflect all electromagnatic waves, each with a specified set of nanoscale “hairs” (I’m not sure how broad the range of wavelengths is that can be deflected with the existing technology). Heat radiation, which is largely in the infrared spectrum, is actually “larger” than visible light, so the light deflection material could potentially also deflect that, possibly enabling near-perfect heat managment and direction if used internally. That would at least make it exceedingly hard to find a unit cloaked in this way with infrared. Going by this it seems to be the fairly simple projection system, or something more complicated like a hologram in the air created by lasers (which has also been done, like the light deflection material, but in a very basic form, just balls of light hovering inside a laser cage, not sure if the cage was even filled with normal air). The laser hologram seems more fitting since the damaged parts are also hidden. This system could potentially also duplicate a heat signature (yes, there also is a system to duplicate heat signatures, why are you even asking? XD) but it would be more likely for this functionality to be integrated into the armor because the existing system for this is applied to the outside, like ERA. So, basically, if in 50 years we can’t build something like the Dhuvalian Limbs in reality, somebody really needs their butt kicked.

CaptEndo - Except that limbs and other mecha are totally and completely unworkable on any scale much larger than a human exoskeleton suit ( like the Bulls). Ground pressure is the real deal breaker, never mind complicated drive trains and high silhouettes. Even wheeled armored vehicles are severely hampered by high ground pressure. That’s why they were marginalized by major military powers after WWII. Heavy wheeled vehicles have too much ground pressure to do serious off road mobility. This means they get caught in the kill box more than tracks. Mecha would be lucky to move around even on pavement. Add the huge logistical drain of maintaining a walking machine that size and the huge hulking targets they would make, and it’s a pipe dream. 

tkg - Not quite a pipe dream john deere did make the plustech forestry vehicle which did walk on six legs and was fully functional. Here is an image as proof:http://indulgy.ccio.co/iF/d6/o5/futurefuturisticWalkingRobot2robotics9.jpgFootage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2V8GFqk_YThe issue was the price tag and a lack of interest by buyers but I suspect bipedal mechs would not be as plausible as most might think. Quad and hex designs are a totally different matter.

Sazuroi -  In my own writing I also only use exosceletons, but note that I did not say “actually deploy” or “make useful”. I said “can build”. We can probably build a walking machine that size already, no matter how bad it sucks. And the technology seen here is not completely implausible, though it will likely end up going in a different direction. Though there was that concept design wheeled tank with full visual cloak a few years ago. For actual applications though, some kind of spider is probably better, and even that would likely be a niche product. I do have some hopes for that four-legs-with-wheels mecha some japanese guy builds for about 2 million a piece (he introduced the one he built at an expo a while ago, pictures float around), but it’ll probably be too costly and risky. Like that canadian nutcase with the anti-bear armor who also designed a infantry armor nobody wanted to buy despite him offering to tank a full assault rifle clip while wearing it… which proably didn’t convince people of his sanity. Those slabs he made the armor out of seemed to work fine though, back when I came across the story I saw a video where one stops a 7.92 sniper round. That can be faked, sure, but the potential was intriguing.

Keith - Oh good someone else pointed that out. There are mechs and having dealt with armor for many years. It’s a matter of engineering, not scale. The big deal breaker is power to move and to power camouflage. It appears they use multiple small scale emitters as shown by the less than perfect camouflage on the leg that was hit.

Jack McCrary - Ground pressure is not the issue most people think it would be. if you do a volumetric issue for most mecha, their lower legs/feet are typical proportionately at least three times larger than a comparable human limb and then benefit from the dramatically larger surface area. It’s not uncommon for a mecha to end up with a static ground pressure of 0.5 psi or less per ton. So a 20 ton mecha will have around a 10 psi ground pressure (less than a modern MBT) where as an average human male who will have one ranging between 25-30 psi.

Sazuroi - I think the problem with the ground pressure is that a Mech of comparable power to a current MBT would need to weigh a lot more than the tank to be as resistant to fire, since most terrain does not offer cover a Mech would be able to hide behind. To deal with that much added weight, the feet would need to be either even more disproportionately large, which would make it difficult to maneuver in places even a tank can get around – which kind of defeats the purpose of building a vertical combat unit in the first place. Either that or more feet, which would admittedly also require more space to move around. In the few settings I thought up which did indeed utilize Mecha on the ground, I basically had two main directions I tended to go: One option was to make the Mechs extremely large support units – replacing a whole battery of AA missiles while carrying other weapons as well, basically a land warship, though smaller since the crew doesn’t need to be on board constantly. I think Armored Core has something similar as a boss fight. The other option was making them small and mobility-focused, often able to jump quite far, with many legs, “assist legs” or special dampener systems to avoid cratering when landing. Those weren’t terribly armored, and occupied a role between IFV and Helicopter, that is, near fire support. Those were typically single-pilot, and either built around a weapon or at least very focused on their weapons, and mainly defended by keeping a distance and dodging, in cities typically standing on the buildings. Stand-up-and-fight mainline combatant Mecha I never managed to justify to myself, even in space where the ideal small unit is a cube there are reasons against Mecha (why make it look like a human if you can leave out the joints and shave off more weight if you don’t? Why give your attack unit a large frontal profile when the front is supposed to point at the enemy?). On the ground, the main advantage of the vertical shape is essentially the same that led to us evolve in that direction – oversight, and a small “footprint”, as well as being able to mount effectors with a higher range of movement. That is useful – helicopters became one of the main weapons against tanks because a tank can’t spot them very easily, and a Mecha can have an easier time spotting them – but they are also dreadfully easy to hit up close, and easier to spot. Mecha may be harder to immobilize than a tank (opinions diverge, joints can be armored but are out if damaged, tracks are out if damaged and can’t be fully covered from all angles), but mobility is potentially their greatest asset, and it is at odds with MBT-grade armor. Hence, either a light maneuver combatant or a beyond-the-horizon asset. The horizon is reasonably good cover in most situations, particularly if Laser or Particle weapons proliferate and indirect fire becomes less available.

MasterFALE - Just back-up on the Thermal Camo, BAE has a system applicae panels, as noted: like ERA, which provide active camo vs thermal imaging. Hell, they can camo a moving tank in the open while displaying insulting messages.

CaptEndo - Fair arguments. A Mecha as light as 20 tons ( in the range of an APC or light tank, or the Stryker armored car) would suffer from the same liability as all light armor: it’s too thin skinned to take heavy weapon fire, and a high silhouette vehicle like a Mecha would draw fire from every conventional unit on the field long before the Mecha could target them. Not to mention mounting it’s weapons up that high would make it top heavy and enhance recoil. Using smaller multi legged walking machines for industrial purposes might have a real future, but not as an upright armored combat vehicle, which is what I have understood the term Mecha to refer to. There is likely a future for the prototype “pack mule” legged robots, and possibly as low slung mobile missile or gun mounts as well. Those could be practical in the very near future.

#comic #webcomic #mecha #action

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[31] Glitch in the System - Cuts You Up (Venganza pt. 2)

Part two, from Widow’s perspective. The next installment will be the final part of this scene from Sombra’s perspective. Stay tuned!

In case you missed it, here is Part One.

A big mistake happens.

Had anyone else proposed their mission - had it been Gabriel or Akande pitching the quest for revenge - Widowmaker knew with uncomfortable immediacy she would never have harbored the suspicion she did knowing it was Sombra. That recognition carried with it a twinge of guilt, a burdensome little weight sitting lopsided in her chest that felt equally warranted and traitorous. Among Talon’s ranks, Sombra stood out as the person she trusted most, theirs being the only remotely intimate relationship she accepted - in any sense of the word. Yet, she questioned the hacker’s motives all the same, and for no reason other than that the whole thing read as ostensibly, impractically convenient.

Talon, of course, was an organization well acquainted with opportunity as readily as meticulous organization; Widowmaker, appropriately, understood, accepted, and often embraced the necessity of the rare slapdash jaunt into unfamiliar territory. Even those, however, tended to have some greater amount of planning involved - a day, at least; this, on the other hand, felt uniquely brash. Appropriate, given its arbiter, but worrisome all the same.

Still, she’d promised Sombra her assistance when the time for vengeance came, and Widowmaker was far from inclined to renege on that agreement. If anything, she owed it to the hacker; though Sombra would argue otherwise - had argued otherwise time and time again - Widowmaker still cultivated a nagging responsibility for their first, failed endeavor against this otherwise unremarkable organization and the injury Sombra suffered therein. That feeling came and went, slow and steady as her own heartbeat as it oscillated between searing guilt and its absence as time progressed. Though the spaces between its appearances grew longer, the sniper couldn’t quite find the tools or ability to prevent them altogether.

She sat through Sombra’s proposal in almost uninterrupted silence, breaking it only once to offer the until-then unspoken but tacitly understood reminder that their first engagement nearly cost Sombra an arm, if not her life. No one had forgotten, of course, but that it should go without saying seemed, at least to her, grossly negligent. If so little planning the first time had such disastrous results, why should they expect anything better the second time?

“Last time we engaged with them, you were nearly killed,” she offered, far more venomously than intended; so much so that the rest of her concern - that they were, once again, charging in blind - died on her lips. Even Akande seemed to notice the stringency of her statement, but offered it only passing interest in the form of a raised eyebrow.

As the meeting proceeded, that venom became harder to place. She wanted to call it fear, but devoid of its physiological manifestation, Widowmaker couldn’t identify the source. She was regularly so good at parsing the firing of synapses into what would, in anyone else, be observable emotional stimuli; without them, she was left uncomfortably clueless. There was no activation of a flight or fight response, no palpable feeling other than the weighted guilt which underscored the entirety of their situation.

As Sombra continued, Widowmaker filed the conceptual feeling under “dread” and set it aside. She attempted to placate it, approaching the other woman after Akande agreed to her proposal, but she couldn’t find the means by which to articulate that concern - that suspicion at the convenience of it all.

“There is nothing more?” she asked, fingers curled about Sombra’s wrist in a wordless entreaty for something, anything else that might make the whole thing make more sense.

“No, Widow - I just want some digital revenge,” Sombra replied, offering a plaintive smile as she tugged her closer. “It’ll be like a date. A really bloody, violent date.”

Widowmaker studied Sombra a long moment, as if the crook of her smile or brush of fingers against her waist might yield some further evidence for her suspicion. Finding nothing, the sniper assumed of herself an unfair doubt of her partner and, with some effort, swallowed that mistrust in an attempt to take Sombra’s proposal at face value.

“Will there be wine?” she asked, forcing a grin.

All things considered, the mission was going well - better than she’d expected. So much so that Widowmaker found it surprisingly easy to shelve her suspicion and its associated guilt as unnecessary, if not silly. Talon’s presence was, as promised, entirely unexpected, offering them a welcome element of surprise that made their first handful of kills delightfully seamless. She lived for the hard kills: the shots borne of honed reflex, instinct, and timing that no one else on earth could make; still, there was something effusively satisfying about an ambush, the way realization flickered across a man’s face in the half-second between impact and death. In that instant, even the hardest human knew fear, and Widowmaker was eminently capable of acquainting others with it.

Following Sombra up the stairs to the steel-grate catwalk above, the sniper nodded to Gabriel as he disappeared into the shadows harboring the perimeter of the ground floor. They rarely, if ever, required communication in this regard; years of experience evened into a pattern: she took the high ground, Reaper the low. What threats she couldn’t eliminate in one or, at worst, two shots, he could handle. Beyond that, they operated almost as if by clockwork, Gabriel flanking the opposition while she controlled the field from above.

It appeared this would, in fact, turn out to be just another mission.

As they reached the second story landing, the sniper immediately pinpointed her position: a shelving unit a few paces ahead, its topmost platform a meter or two above the catwalk - tall enough to provide a perfect panorama of the room while making her a nearly impossible target from below. Widowmaker scaled the shelving with ease, rolled onto her stomach, and tapped the module that activated her visor.

After a split-second of darkness, her infra-sight revealed the warehouse around them in a monotone of blaring red. In addition to Gabriel prowling row to row, five figures moved amongst the stacks, all perfectly vulnerable from her current elevation. Predictably, Reaper clung to the outermost walls of the room, moving toward the back to attack from behind; her job, then, was to buy him time.

She leveled her aim on the nearest soldier, slid her finger past the trigger guard, and let instinct take over.

The first shot hit its mark, slipping through the target’s throat as if it were tissue paper. He crumpled, hands pressed uselessly to the wound, as the others hefted their guns and ran to attend their ally.

The second shot painted a stack of boxes and plywood with vibrant arterial spray as it blew through the side of the soldier’s head mid-sprint, the blood indistinct in hue from the rest of her rendered panorama.

The third stopped a man dead in his tracks as his shoulder and clavicle shattered on impact.

As the last of the enemy operatives arrived on the scene, Gabriel appeared behind them in a noiseless swathe of inky mist, pressing the muzzle of each gun indelicately against their scalps as he fired. Widowmaker watched from on high, steeped in the heady adrenaline of the kill that slithered through her veins like electricity.

“That’s all of them,” Sombra noted from below.

The room cleared, Widowmaker slid effortlessly off her perch to rejoin the hacker. “I know,” she murmured, disengaging her visor with the ghost of a smile. As she turned her attention to the floor below, Sombra was there, arms around her waist with an offer for more, then Reaper, appearing from thin air with a disproving cough.

“Let’s do a final round and get in there,” he growled, turning on his heel toward the opposite catwalk. Widowmaker complied, shouldering past Sombra to mirror Gabriel’s trajectory from across the room. As they moved across the upper level in a nearly perfect pantomime, the main door leading into the warehouse proper lurched suddenly, the grate of metal against metal snarling an imperative for which they hadn’t prepared.

“Sombra?” Gabriel asked - but Sombra was already moving, leaping over the second-story railing with ease and sprinting for the closing doors.  

“What are you doing?” Widowmaker hissed, welding the stock of her gun to her cheek on the off-chance reinforcements were waiting or on their way. As she followed the hacker’s trajectory through the scope of the Widow’s Kiss, she felt suspicion come creeping back like so many needles, sharp and cold.

“Going in the front door,” was the hacker’s sole response as she chucked a translocator beacon beneath the door. “I’ll handle it from here.”

Widowmaker watched as Sombra flickered out of existence, lowering her gun to level a glance in Gabriel’s direction. Even beneath the mask, his seething was apparent in the arch of his shoulders and the rigidity of his posture, as if braced for the worst.

At least they were on the same page.

Examining the room, she considered their options; with the main doors closed, they were left with two choices: the back doors or the air vent ducts. The former would be logistically easier, but likely much more heavily guarded; the latter was stealthier, but meant Widowmaker would be going in alone. Gabriel was a lot of things, but “air duct size” was assuredly not one of them. With an exasperated sigh, she crossed to the end of the walkway, glancing upwards to the vent grille, just a meter or so outside her reach.

“I will follow her,” she said flatly, lifting an arm and firing her grappling hook; it pierced the flimsy metal easily, and with a few, firm tugs dislodged from its frame entirely. “Better than going in blind from behind.”

Gabriel nodded from across the room as she plucked the grating from the prongs of her grapple. “Don’t let her get you killed,” he grunted. Widowmaker merely returned his nod, shouldered her rifle, and with a few steadying backwards steps took a running leap at the vent, catching its edge by her fingertips and sheer luck alone. Hefting herself into the ductwork, she pulled herself through the narrow, cobwebbed space by her elbows, keeping her motions as small as possible to avoid making her presence known — a feat made more difficult by the gun shoved against her back by the top of the corridor. Relying on the slivers of light from between the neatly spaced grilles, the sniper wriggled her way from port to port until she found what seemed to be the most practical exit: the view was narrow, but it appeared to let out just above another raised catwalk abutting what she assumed from her limited visibility was some sort of recessed second floor alcove. Beyond the walkway, she could just make out the ground floor of the warehouse.

“Almost in,” she murmured. Gabriel mumbled his acknowledgement as she slid thin fingertips between the grating and pushed, applying measured force to the panel in attempt to dislodge it without drawing any attention. The task proved more difficult than she preferred - unsurprising, given how little leverage was available in her position, but the steel ultimately gave way with a gentle creak she hoped would be more readily attributed to the structure itself.

She waited a moment, two, ensuring that no suspicions had been raised by the sound, then shimmied halfway out of the vent, deposited the pane of metal atop a neighboring shelf, and then pushed herself to freedom.

Before her, the raised walkway fanned out to the left and right, lined with a narrow railing; behind her was, as expected, a recessed second floor lined with more boxes and a few holopanels adjacent a stairway to the first floor. Creeping toward the metal seam between the alcove and walkway, Widowmaker peered over the edge and glimpsed Sombra, surrounded by six, seven men, all but one of whom had guns raised and pointed at the hacker. They were speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words or tone of the conversation and, most importantly, there were six men with their weapons trained on Sombra.

Rolling to the far left of the walkway, Widowmaker lifted her rifle into position, took aim, and fired; in a fraction of a second, the unarmed man was down, his skull bursting out the back of his head in a spray of bone and brain and blood as he toppled to the ground. In an instant, everyone scattered - Sombra taking cover as the rest of the enemy agents searched for the source of the shot.

Bolting to the opposite side of the runway, Widowmaker slid into position. “Are you okay?” she asked into her comms, aiming and firing a second time.

“I had it handled, Widow!” Sombra replied sharply.

Rising to her feet, the sniper leveled her sights on a third soldier. “There were six men with guns pointed at you,” she began, pulling the trigger. “That does not sound like a situation you had — oh!”

As if from nowhere, one of the enemy troops cleared the staircase and the space between them, curling an arm around her throat from behind. His grip was firm, but she was fast, and in an instant the sniper brought the butt of her gun around in a sharp arc that ended the side of his ribcage. It was enough to slip from his grasp, but  her reduced range of motion meant it wasn’t enough to stop him outright. He doubled back immediately - just enough time for Widowmaker to turn to face him - and threw his entire weight against her, sending her back against the railing, the impact sharp and surprising enough that it sent her rifle clattering to the floor.

“Sombra!” she growled, imploring the other woman for backup as the man bore down on her.

Curling a fist, she decked him squarely in the nose, then again in the jaw; though the first connected beautifully, the second only glanced its target, and that lone instant of inertia was exactly enough time needed for the enemy troop to draw the knife sheathed at his side and bury it in her abdomen.

At first, Widowmaker hardy acknowledged the impact or the blossoming Lichtenberg configuration of pain that followed it as real; she felt it like the edge of a dream upon consciousness, extant but somehow entirely detached from existence. She knew she screamed, but didn’t hear it; she knew, vaguely, of Sombra’s appearance behind her attacker, but wasn’t entirely sure she saw it. Awareness dawned in the space between breaths that came, suddenly, with so much more difficulty - the wave of pain spreading like a wildfire, the lameness of her own grip around the knife’s handle as she tried, failed, tried again to dislodge it, and, lastly, the sudden, rough shove that sent her backwards over the railing.

Awareness dawned suddenly, and then it was gone.

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

#spiderbyte #sombramaker #widowsombra #sombra x widowmaker #widowmaker x sombra #sombra #widowmaker #olivia colomar #amélie lacroix #amelie lacroix #reaper #gabriel reyes #overwatch #overwatch fanfic #overwatch fandom #overwatch fic #glitch in the system #glitchfic

[sterwood]

so i'm just curious - are you finishing all of your reading? if so, how are you managing and if not, what strategies are you using to get the most out of the reading ?

I have been able to get through about 90% of it (some of the Deleuze stuff I haven’t been able to just because of the logistics of when he assigns it versus when class is). Part of the reason I’m able to get through it, honestly, is because of social isolation (lmao) since I’m in a foreign state/city and know next to no one. So there’s little distraction.

But I really just spend the majority of my time reading and taking notes. It’s exhausting, but I don’t know of a way to get through all of it otherwise. I have been reading in a cycle determined by what was due next (I have all the assignments for the semester, insofar as I know them, in a word file and I put a strike through things once I’m done with them) - so, like, I would read for Pragmatism, say, and then for my Hume and Berkeley class because I have that after, and then Deleuze, and if I finished with that then I would just back to Pragmatism in the hopes of getting ahead.

Now though, I’m running up against the problem of realizing that I need to read a lot of secondary sources for my classes for end-of-term papers, so now I’m trying to organize my days thematically. Today was devoted to Deleuze, tomorrow will be devoted to Hume & Berkeley, and Sunday will be devoted to Pragmatism. That way I can begin by reading assigned texts, then move on to any written assignments, and then focus on potential secondary sources and paper topics. We’ll see how this method pans out.

Further, there were two structuring principles, I guess I could call them, that I’ve used to get through the stuff. One was based on foresight: I knew what classes I was taking during the semester, and had some idea of what texts I was reading (I’m taking a class on Deleuze’s Foucault, so it was obvious that I would need to read that, along with The Archeology of Knowledge and Discipline and Punish, and the same for the Hume & Berkeley class - there’s only certain obvious texts that we were going to be pulling from) so I ended up reading as much of those as possible before the term even began. I also tried to get a sense of some of the scope and background information about the people I’m reading about before class, so reading them would go faster (that is, so I wouldn’t have to get context, understand the structure/point of a text, and read them all at the same time).

The second principle would be a thematic one: I’ve been trying to group my readings around a certain figure (deleuze) or a single concept (empiricism). That way, in reading the texts I’m bouncing them off of each other and I’m able to use my secondary sources in multiple different ways at once.

Okay, in terms of how I actually read: I tend to treat my annotation less as a dialogue with the text (I don’t have a lot of marginal comments or anything), but more as a means of cutting through an argument to get its essential pieces (like cutting cards in debate, if you ever did that). I’m not going to full understanding, but functional understanding - I don’t have enough time for the latter. This saves me time on two fronts: 1) it saves me time for class, because prior to such I can just look over my underlined portions to get a sense of the main movements of the argument to know how to participate in class and 2) it saves me time during writings, because I’m not re-reading the whole text to get a sense of what to write about, but am trying (as much as possible) to stick just to the parts I carved out of the text. Again, this isn’t a good practice for thorough understanding, but it is a good one for establishing breadth. 

For doing this kind of ‘cutting’, I have a few major techniques. If the piece I want to cut out is around 4 or so lines long (I don’t always hold to that rule, sadly) then I will just underline it. With that underline, I will mark off important terms or phrases by putting them in parallelograms (just because I like those and they look fancier than just boxing them), or if I want to highlight a sentence or something in a longer phrase I will make multiple diagonal marks under the underlined text so it stands out more. If the piece is longer than 4 lines, I tend to put a curly bracket around the whole thing, starting at the line where the sentence began and ending at the line where it stops. This way I’m not spending a bunch of time underlining half a page (which would happen often in someone like Deleuze). Finally, since I ride the bus a lot, and it’s impossible to underline effectively while on there, I tend to put square brackets around sections of the text that I want to emphasize (like, “[...blah blah blah...]”), and then when I get to my destination and am somewhere a little less bumpy I can go through and underline all the parts that I had marked off. This gives me both the benefit of being able to use the time on the bus productively and allows me to read all the text a second time which helps with comprehension and memory.

I think that answers about....all of your questions? If you have more, feel free to ask. But as far as I can tell, I think that just about covers the whole of my techniques. Oh! I will say that I only mark things in pencil: I find marking books with pen is too much of a commitment, and I never understood using highlighters (it seems to cumbersome - I just separate types of ‘highlighting’ by using my pencil in different ways. That way, its still visually separated, but I don’t have to keep switching which writing utensil I’m using all the time. It keeps things consistent). I will also note quickly that one other thing I do sometimes is I’ll do paragraph summaries while reading a text (that way the argument really gets embedded in my head), but that’s only when I really have enough time to sit with the text, which has not been the case this semester.

#iraeths