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generallynerdy · 3 years

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One life, I thought—a thousand deaths (Jon Antilles & Fay)

Summary: On Queyta, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the only one to escape Durge and Ventress. One of the four legendary Masters, Jon Antilles, emerges from a lava stream despite knowing he’s going to die. He’s so sure of it that he crawls his way to Fay’s side, wanting to spend his last moments with the woman who he considers his Master. But she has other plans. Plans to make certain that Jon Antilles lives past today.

Warnings: Angst, Character Death, On-Screen Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, there’s both sorry, Self-Sacrifice, The Curse of Immortality, holy shit i made myself sad dude Word Count: 2,191

Prompt: Angstpril Day 2 - Sole Survivor

Author’s Note: listen I know nobody knows about these characters that are in literally one comic but I have FEELINGS about them okay?? Jon is meant to be a badass mysterious enigma but he screams sad boi and Fay is like...the greatest cryptid Jedi ever, I love her. So, of course, I decided to make them and Knol and Nico suffer. (Also I know Obi-Wan survived the mission but the Sole Survivor still applies because Jon is the sole survivor of the four legendary Masters, just in case that wasn’t clear.) I just finished this today, so the editing is minimal.

Read on AO3

Using the Force as a shield is, in theory, one of the easier skills a Jedi utilizes. That is assuming, of course, that the Jedi in question is in good health, a decent mental state, and isn’t under a severe amount of stress. If said Jedi is, say, three feet into a pool of lava, already bearing grievous injuries and the weight of the deaths of two close companions, and feeling the fading life of another, the simple task, understandably, becomes something of a problem.

Jon has finally managed to pull the Force around him like a blanket. It protects him from the bubbling lake around him now, but the first few seconds he couldn’t pull it off were torture.

As it turns out, lava burns. It burns like shame, like failure, like the nightmares Jon used to have about his Master abandoning him on a planet in Hutt space for getting just a little too mouthy. And it hurts nearly as much.

“Fuck,” he hisses. He makes a rule of not cursing, but right now feels like an appropriate time to break it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He claws at the charred remains of his robes. Contrary to popular belief, lava doesn’t melt initially, as Jon now knows. Instead of melting, he burst into flames for the few seconds it took to pull himself together, though they felt like an eternity. Red, throbbing burns litter his entire body, his hair singed but miraculously intact thanks to his hood, which is entirely ashes now. The pain consumes his thoughts, making his shielding start to flicker in and out.

And then, through the debilitating agony, a touch of something familiar.

Jon’s eyes fly open. “Fay,” he whispers.

Her light is dimmer than it should be, not flickering in and out mischievously like it usually does. But still, she makes an effort to reach out, to check on him. It sends a sob up his throat.

“Hold on, Fay, hold on.”

Clenching his fists, he opens himself up to the Force. His actions are ones of faith, not of desperation, and he lets it flow through him as he takes a deep breath. The idea of using one of his Master’s abilities would normally make him nauseous, but the disgust doesn’t even cross his mind this time as he prepares to teleport. He thinks of that open, flat space of rock that Obi-Wan and Fay ran to, their enemies close behind. Focusing fiercely on that distant image, he pulls on the Force and folds the two points—

Jon collapses on solid ground with a heaving gasp.

Every inch of his body protests the change, especially his knees, which burn when they make contact with the ground, but somehow he manages to ignore his own complaints.

Fay isn’t far, or she shouldn’t be, at least. The distance between them seems gaping when he tries to move.

Still, her light is fading fast. And he wants to be by her side.

So, Jon Antilles crawls on hands and knees, dragging his body across sharp stones and past bubbling streams of lava. He aches with each movement and cries out when it becomes too much, but he persists regardless. Something in him knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Finally, he sees her.

She’s sprawled out, her chest hardly moving as her breathing becomes shallow. Her near-golden hair is filthy with ash and her eyes are dim. She’s hardly herself, Jon thinks, and feels his stomach sink.

Hundreds of years the great Master Fay has lived and breathed. Hundreds of years and he’s going to watch her die today.

“Jon,” she calls out weakly.

He pulls himself to her side, grabbing her hand with his own shaky ones. “I’m here, Master.”

They only met when he was a teenager, but he feels as if he’s known her all his life. They’ve travelled the Outer Rim together, following the Force, for decades now and he’s never regretted a second of it. In all but title, Fay is his Master. She was always better than Dark Woman, even when the bar was six feet under. The only record with both their names will be at the Temple, where the dead are listed, a handful of mission reports with other Jedi, and the stories the younglings share of the 4 legendary, nomadic Masters.

“Knol and Nico,” Fay breathes out, “they’re one with the Force.”

Jon grimaces. “Yes. And the Force is with us.”

She laughs, breathy and half-choked. It’s an old lesson, familiar and grounding. “And so too are they,” she adds.

“Where’s Obi-Wan?”

“Gone, with the cure.” She smiles just a little. “The Republic fights another day.”

Suddenly grim, he squeezes her hand. “But not us.”

A pause.

“But not us.”

The silence overwhelms them. The wind whistles in the distance, carrying with it nothing but smoke and ashes. Queyta isn’t the best place to die, Jon thinks absently. He would rather it have been someplace with flowers.

“I wish it could’ve been Jedha.”

He almost jumps at her voice, but her words jarr a surprised laugh from his sore lungs. “Jedha? I thought you hated cold planets.”

“Oh, yes, but not that one. Force, I should have taken you. The Force there is so...so strong, so pure, you can feel the kyber from the surface,” she explains, staring straight up at him. If anyone else were to gaze so intensely at his scars, he’d be uncomfortable, but she’s safe. She’s family. “And the Guardians of the Whills are so kind. I met a young one of theirs some decades ago. You two would’ve gotten along.”

Jon laughs a little. “You’re always looking to find me friends, Fay.”

Her smile turns sad and she lifts a hand to his face, letting it rest on his cheek. “You’re so young,” she whispers. “Too young to be so lonely, Jon.”

He shuts his eyes, lets himself be comforted by her touch. When he opens them again, she still has that gut-wrenching look on her face. He places his hand on top of hers, unsurprised at how cold they are despite the blistering heat.

“I’m not lonely,” he promises.

Jon doesn’t say that it’s because of her, Knol, and Nico, but Fay picks up the thought anyway. Her eyes fill with tears.

“I have watched so many I love die.” Fay’s voice wavers as she says it. He realises that it’s the first time he’s ever heard it do that. To be honest, he’d thought it was impossible. “Taken by age, by Darkness, by foolishness. Never have I met a soul as good as yours, Jon. And never a Jedi so worthy of love.”

“Fay…”

She shakes her head. “Your Master did not deserve you. The galaxy did not deserve you.”

Pulling her hand away from him, Jon squeezes it. “You did,” he says firmly, though his voice cracks.

“I hope so,” she admits with a rueful laugh. “I hope so.”

He smiles weakly. “I wish you’d found me first. But I thin-I think the Force knew when I needed you to save me. Because you did save me, Master. I could never thank you enough.”

She takes his word silently, holding his hand even tighter. “You never needed to.”

“Thank you,” he says now, even though it’s useless.

Fay’s grey eyes meet his pale ones and suddenly, she’s distressed. “You’re so young,” she repeats.

But Jon can see that she means something else this time.

“Not too young to do my duty.”

“Too young to die doing it.”

Jon thinks of Tan Yuster, one of four Padawans to die on Geonosis. The Jedi have experienced great loss these past months since the beginning of the war and so many so much younger than Jon have died in battle, the clones included. Of course, to Fay, they all may as well be children.

“I will go proudly into the Force,” he promises her. At your side.

Fay’s expression twists. “No.”

He scoffs. “I don’t think we have a say in it.”

“The Force let me live this long,” she says suddenly, as if it’s a realisation, “longer than I should have. Obi-Wan is gone, I’ve done what good I can, except...you’re here. Why are we here?”

“To say goodbye,” Jon offers.

She shakes her head, then tries to sit up, struggling until her would-be Padawan helps pull her up. “I’m done with goodbyes.”

“What are you—?”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his question. Fay presses their foreheads together and grabs his hands with a newfound energy that terrifies him. Chills go up his spine when her presence in the Force covers him like a blanket. Warmth climbs up his hands, then his arms, and with a glance down he finds that his skin is healing.

“Fay, no!” he cries, trying to shove her away.

She only tightens her grip. “Stay still, Jon.”

She sounds more like herself, certain and unwavering. Jon would be happy-crying if he weren’t horrified. He tries to drag himself out of her grip, but she’s impossibly strong. Her healing creeps up his entire body, soothing his burns, though scars remain behind.

“No, no, no—FAY! Fay, stop it!” His screams turn to sobs. “You’ll die, stop—!”

“I already am,” she says, just as certain in her abilities as her fate. “But you don’t have to.”

Trembling, his attempts are weaker now but still there. “Please, please,” he begs. “Not without you!”

Tears stream down her cheeks. She allows herself a moment of weakness; she opens her eyes and meets his tearful gaze, remembering the teenager she first met. He was so scared and so brave. And for a moment, she’d thought he must be a ghost. But no, he was just a boy. For the first time in a long time, she had let herself build a bridge between them, like Knol and Nico before him, even knowing she would have to watch him die one day.

Now, she thinks with fierce stubbornness, she won’t have to.

It feels like her life is leaving her for him, though she knows it’s just fading into the Force. It’s to it that she speaks, the cosmic energy she’s dedicated her long, long life to.

“If anyone is deserving of the time you’ve given me,” she gasps out, “it is Jon Antilles.”

She doesn’t see the horror in Jon’s face, but she can feel it in his quiet Force-presence, so subdued. He hides himself on purpose and it truly breaks her heart. His light is so strong. The galaxy is all the better for his existence.

“I don’t want this! Fay, I don’t—let me die, please—”

Fay only lifts her head and kisses his forehead, the sort of gentle gesture a mother might give her son. “One day,” she promises. It rings with truth, with the strength of the Force behind it. “But not today.”

Jon cries out and tries to rip himself away, but freezes when pure light washes over him. The warmth he’s always associated with Fay soaks into him, healing all his wounds in an instant and rejuvenating his fading energy. Stars burst before his eyes, like he’s seeing into the very universe beyond Queyta, beyond what he’s meant to see with his petty Human eyes. In another instant, it’s gone and Fay is slumping over.

She falls to the ground with a thump, a noise that jolts Jon back into focus.

“Master!” he sobs.

He pulls her up from the ground with the sickening realisation that she’s a complete deadweight. She’s limp in his arms, already paling. Desperate, Jon pushes her hair out of her face and finds...nothing. Her eyes are dull. With his fingers on her wrist, he can’t feel a pulse.

“Fay?”

The steady beat of her Force-presence is gone, a gaping hole in his universe. Their bond, one strong enough to resemble a training bond, is shattered, a physical pain that throbs in his skull.

Jon begins to hyperventilate, his sudden gasps for breath burning his now-perfect lungs.

“Come back,” he begs Fay’s corpse. “Fuck, please. Please, come back.”

He pulls her into his lap, clutching her robes like a child being left behind for the first time. It doesn’t hurt to move anymore and, thank the Force for it because his entire body shakes with the force of his cries.

Overwhelmed with grief he’s never experienced, Jon wails into Fay’s shoulder, rocking back and forth. The agonizing sound rings across the valley, a noise like torture.

It’s only now that he feels the frayed edges of his bonds with Knol and Nico.

He screams again, his vocal cords protesting it sharply.

The last time Jon was this alone, he was a child. And now, he’s right back where he was before he met his three closest companions. Except now, now, he knows what it means to love and to lose. It aches. It aches like nothing he’s ever felt.

“Please,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can’t—I need you. What do I do? What am I supposed to do?”

He never gets an answer.

River’s Tags: @hahaboop & @mystoragehatesme

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apathetic-revenant · 3 years

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tidbits from the Fellowship of the Ring director + writers’ commentary track (feat. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens)

the prologue, and issue of how to work all the exposition about the Ring into the film, was a source of great difficulty for the writers and went through a lot of iterations. in some versions of the script Gandalf would have told Frodo the story of the Ring in Bag End as he does in the books. at one point they decided to scrap the prologue altogether, only to get a note back from New Line that they had to have it, so Peter, Fran and Philippa had to assemble it from the existing footage they had while they were in England putting the soundtrack together.

the framing of the prologue and exactly what information would be in it also went through a lot of changes before it was ultimately decided that it needed to be from the 'perspective' of the Ring itself since the Ring is in a way a central character in the story. at one point the narration would have been done by Frodo, from the perspective of him writing the book after the quest was over, but it was felt that he didn't have the necessary perspective to make it work and that an immortal character like Galadriel worked better.

although prologue!Bilbo is only seen for a few seconds, costume designer Ngila Dickson meticulously made sure his outfit matched the descriptions given in The Hobbit, including the brass buttons on his waistcoat that he later loses while escaping the caves.

the population of Hobbitton in the opening was mostly recruited from farmers and people living around Matamata, where the Hobbitton exterior set was built. two of the hobbit extras later got married after first meeting on set.

the shot of Sam with the flowers in the extended cut is the only time in the films Sam was actually shown gardening.

the shots of Frodo greeting Gandalf were done with four actors--Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, a small scale double for Frodo and a large scale double for Gandalf. when the closeup is on Gandalf, Ian McKellen is interacting with four-foot-tall Kiran Shah. when the closeup is on Frodo, Elijah Wood is interacting with almost-eight-foot-tall Paul Randall.

while many of the scale shots of the hobbits are actually done using very simple techniques, Peter Jackson chose to invest time in a few impressive ones early on so as to help really sell the idea for the audience from the beginning. one of these is the shot of Bilbo taking Gandalf's hat and staff as Gandalf enters Bag End--it was actually a very complicated shot that involved making big and small versions of the props and then carefully merging them together with CGI.

most of the Bag End scenes were shot by filming the actors on two different sets, a large-scale one for Ian Holm's scenes and a small-scale one for Ian McKellen's scenes, and then merging them together. however the scene of Bilbo serving Gandalf tea was done with both actors on the same set and used forced perspective--there are actually two tables of different sizes lined up to look like one table, with Gandalf interacting with the larger table and Bilbo with the smaller one.

Gandalf hitting his head on the ceiling was an unscripted accident left in because it worked so well.

before including Thorin's map from The Hobbit in Bag End, the writers made sure to double-check where the map canonically wound up in the books. they gave the task of researching this to Henry Mortensen, Viggo Mortensen's son and a diehard Lord of the Rings fan.

Peter Jackson expected to get pushback from the studio about the amount of smoking in the film, and in particular was ready to have to fight to keep in the scene of Gandalf and Bilbo smoking before the party. however no one ever brought it up at all.

most of the hobbit actors in the party were friends and relatives of the cast and crew. although the books state that Bilbo invited 144 hobbits to his special table, "due to budget constraints" the actual amount of hobbits at the party is probably closer to about 100. viewers are advised not to count them too closely.

some of the hobbit children listening to Bilbo's story were played by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh's own children. one of them, Billy Jackson, was the only actor in the movie not wearing a wig, because he already had "naturally perfect hobbit hair."

the "Proudfeet!" shot was framed as a homage to Ralph Bahksi's animated Lord of the Rings, which was what originally got Peter Jackson into LOTR.

during Bilbo's speech, the polystyrene birthday cake had so many candles on it it actually caught on fire and started to burn. the take was going so well, though, no one wanted to interrupt Ian Holm, so the cake is just sort of quietly burning away in the background while Bilbo talks.

the seventeen-year time skip in the books had to be compressed in the movie because they needed to get the story going quicker and keep up momentum. Gandalf's appearance when he comes back to Bag End is meant to imply that he's even more disheveled than usual because he's ridden pretty much nonstop all the way to Minas Tirith and back.

the scenes of Gandalf in Minas Tirith were the first time Ian McKellen had been in his Gandalf the Grey costume and makeup for months, as when those were shot he had been filming as Gandalf the White for some time.

there was discussion about using subtitles onscreen to identify locations, since there was worry that audiences would have a hard time following all the different places seen throughout the movie, but ultimately it was decided that this might feel too cheesy so it was dropped.

the voice of the Ringwraith that shows up in the Shire looking for Bagginssss was done by Andy Serkis.

the Green Dragon scene was cut for time in the theatrical release, which Peter Jackson was disappointed by both because it was a chance to see the main hobbit cast in their 'natural environment' before the adventure really starts, but also because it demonstrated the hobbit tendency to be gossipy, insular and distrustful of the outside, a trait they had some difficulty getting across in the films.

the full Ring poem is never heard in the movies; the filmmakers wanted to get it in there and at one point it was recited in full during the Council of Elrond, but it wound up being cut.

the Ring 'speaks' with Sauron's voice at certain moments to try to emulate the sense of psychological horror and dread associated with descriptions of the Ring in the books, which was very hard to replicate on film.

in one very early draft of the script, Merry and Pippin would have been introduced when they were caught eavesdropping on Frodo and Gandalf along with Sam.

Jackson chose to shoot the duel between Saruman and Gandalf as physically as possible because he didn't like "wizard fights" in movies "where old guys shoot lightning out of their fingers at each other" (gotta disagree with you there Pete).

Billy Boyd offered to use a Gloucester accent for Pippin instead of his natural Scottish one, but tended to lose some of his comic timing while doing so. it was decided that the Tooks had enough of a Scottish vibe that the natural accent worked better for the character anyway.

the shot of the hobbits falling off the cliff was one of the first things ever shot for the series. it was also the cause of one of the few serious accidents during filming--one of the stuntmen dislocated his shoulder during the fall, apparently just as a freak accident as the stunt itself was not especially dangerous.

the scene where the hobbits first meet the Black Rider looks like it's in remote wilderness somewhere but was actually shot in a park in the middle of Wellington.

the insects coming out of the ground while the hobbits are hiding is meant to convey the idea that everything living tries to instinctively flee from the Ringwraiths, but Jackson admits he isn't sure if that came across well on film.

the Buckleberry Ferry almost sank between takes and had to be saved with bilge pumps.

like Bag End, the Prancing Pony set was built twice, once at normal scale and once at large scale to film the hobbit actors on. some of the people seen walking past the hobbits in the backgrounds are actually on stilts.

the basis of the Ringwraith scream sound was provided by Fran Walsh screaming while suffering from a throat infection.

no real trees were harmed during the scene of the Isengard orcs chopping down Fangorn Forest: it was two fake trees shot from different angles as they were pulled down.

the question of whether it was appropriate to reference tomatoes in the Weathertop scene (since they are new world vegetables) was apparently a source of some contention among the writers. Peter Jackson was of the opinion that in a movie with a Balrog, a tomato should not strain suspension of disbelief that much.

the fight scene with the Ringwraiths on Weathertop was the first thing Viggo Mortensen ever shot for the films, and also the first time he'd ever used a sword.

the scenes of weapons being forged in Isengard were shot in a foundry and the molten metal seen being poured is real molten steel, because they couldn't come up with a convincing way to fake the appearance of molten metal. the workers at the foundry were recruited to play the orc extras in the scene.

Lurtz was created to provide a kind of 'face' for the Uruk-Hai as well as to be a villain that could physically confront the Fellowship at the climax, since both Saruman and Sauron stay within their respective domains and, aside from Saruman's scenes with Gandalf, don't actually directly interact with the protagonists.

replacing Glorfindel with Arwen is acknowledged as taking a big chance, but the writers were already struggling with the sheer amount of introductions to new characters in the film and didn't want to introduce yet another new character only for him to almost immediately disappear from the story again.

filming the chase scene between Arwen and the Ringwraiths was interrupted by massive flooding at the location. the cast and crew took a break from filming to help shore up Queenstown with sandbags.

when Gandalf escapes from Isengard, Saruman is holding his staff with one hand because Christopher Lee had injured his other hand smashing it in a hotel room door and couldn't hold anything with it.

the scene of Sam and Frodo in Rivendell talking about going home was a pickup shot after the main filming was completed, which is why Sean Astin is noticeably thinner there than for the rest of the movie--as soon as principal photography was completed he dropped all the weight he had gained for the role.

Elrond sounds especially deep and harsh while talking to Gandalf about the weakness of men because Hugo Weaving had a bad case of flu at the time.

the Council of Elrond took 6-7 days to shoot and was "a nightmare" because of the difficulty of keeping track of the eyelines of so many people sitting in a big circle.

Sean Bean occasionally glances down during the "one does not simply walk into Mordor..." speech because he has his lines written on a piece of paper in his lap; the speech was given to him so soon before filming that he didn't have time to fully memorize it.

when Gandalf reacts to Frodo volunteering to take the Ring to Mordor, Peter Jackson told Ian McKellen to imagine that he had just heard his son volunteer to join the Army in World War One.

#lotr #lotr films #lotr behind the scenes

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stargazing-enby · 4 years

Note

is it crazy to ask for a lil fic of some sort for the soulmate 'saviour' thing?

Not at all! Also, I think it’s funny how I recently said I probably wouldn’t answer any prompts anytime soon, but as soon as you sent this ask I was frantically typing this story on my phone, LOL. Hope you enjoy!

Based on this textpost

Drarry | 2.3k | Teen and up | Soulmate AU, Nicknames, Drunken Confessions, Sectumsempra Scars, Cuddles, Happy Ending | Read on AO3

The Dursleys never acknowledged it; never explained. It was just one more tally on a list of things that made him weird. That made him wrong.

Harry liked to stare down at it while he showered and imagine a thousand different reasons the word Saviour was tattooed on his chest, the ink a deep black that faded into gold around the sharp edges of the letters. He imagined himself flying like Superman did in the comics they kept on the highest shelf of the school library—imagined himself stopping comets from crashing against the planet with his bare hands, saving babies from raging fires.

In his daydreams, it never mattered if he got hurt. It only mattered that no one else did.

And then one night Hagrid stomped—quite literally—into his life, and he explained. He explained about Voldemort, about the magical world, about his parents. About the lightning bolt scar.

About the tattoo.

“It’s a soulmark,” he said. “Every witch and wizard has one. It’s meant to symbolise the nickname that your soulmate will give you when you’re together.”

“Do you have a soulmark?” Harry asked him, awed.

Hagrid laughed bitterly. “Nah. My only true loves are magical creatures anyway.” He leaned forward, as though to tell Harry a secret. “You have to be cautious who you share your soulmark with,” he said. “Could be dangerous if too many people knew. Especially with you being Harry Potter. There are… speculations, you see.”

“Oh.” Harry frowned. “What do people think it says?”

“Eh, the usual, you know. Love, honey… many people claim to know that it says whatever their daughter’s favourite word is. Very creepy, if you ask me.”

Harry nodded. “And what do you think it says?”

“Me?” Hagrid seemed uncomfortable by the question. “Well… Dumbledore wouldn’t tell me when we dropped you off at your Aunt’s, so I’ve been trying not to think about it, you know.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” Harry said.

“Really?” Hagrid’s face lit up. “Y-you don’t have to, but—”

Harry snickered, and told him.

He didn’t understand why Hagrid had to wipe away a few tears.

(more under the cut)

***

The first time he was called saviour was in his second year. Ginny, waking up beside him in the Hospital Wing and surrounded by her family, had murmured it without realising.

From the other side of her bed, Ron had given Harry an indecipherable look.

Ron’s tattoo was the word Idiot, neatly written on his ankle. Harry also knew Neville’s hip said Schnuckums, and he’d caught the word Flitterby inscribed in Ginny’s wrist when he’d rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets.

He didn’t think he would ever say such a word. Still, assuming he was Ginny’s soulmate was the obvious conclusion for any twelve-year-old, and Harry spent the next two years convincing himself he and Ginny were meant for each other.

And then Fleur Delacour called him a saviour when he emerged from the lake with her sister.

To be fair, Ron had been called an idiot by quite a number of people by then, including McGonagall, Hooch, all of his siblings and half their Gryffindor classmates, so Harry rationally knew that anyone could call another person by their soulmark nickname and not be their soulmate.

And yet, he spent a whole month sending increasingly confused letters to Sirius before he came to the conclusion that he liked playing Quidditch with Ginny more than he liked holding her hand.

***

Ron returned to the forest. Hermione, deep bags under her eyes, tears threatening to come out, called him an idiot, and then stormed over to where he was awkwardly standing, launched into his arms, and kissed him.

She’d never told them about her soulmark, but that night Harry learnt the word Love was neatly tattooed on her ankle.

On the same place as Ron’s, then.

***

Harry tore out the page of the Daily Prophet. Then he tore it into small, small pieces until his picture was no longer moving, until the headline—Saviour returns to Hogwarts—turned into a soup of letters in his hands.

As he threw the bits into the flames, he thought about his parents. He wondered, for what seemed like the thousandth time since he’d first stepped into the Gryffindor common room, if this had been the first place his mum had called his dad a Toerag. If this had been the place where he’d called her his Princess.

He’d never had the chance to ask Sirius about it. The only time they had talked about soulmates, Sirius had told him no matter how many people called him by the word on his chest, when the right person did it Harry would know. But when Harry had asked Sirius if he’d ever felt that, his expression had turned sombre as he’d shaken his head.

Now, Harry wondered if Sirius had even known what he was talking about. If it was all utter bullshit: the knowing, the butterflies and fireworks he’d imagined after hearing Sirius’ words, the very idea that there was someone out there—someone who would call him saviour, of all things—meant for him at all. If soulmates existed at all, or if it was all a bad joke meant to make him feel like he wasn’t destined to always be alone, even when he was surrounded by people.

***

Things were supposed to be better after the war ended. Harry guessed they were; all around him, the world was pulling itself back together. In a similar way to how his two best friends clung to one another and brought each other up, the castle was slowly becoming the warm, welcoming home it had always been, and so were its inhabitants.

Harry felt like he was sinking. Like he was too broken to be repaired, the wound so deep that nobody seemed to notice it was there.

Perhaps that was what drew him to Malfoy.

Malfoy, who looked broken, and tired, and as full of hurt as Harry felt. Malfoy, who took months of sitting in silence beside Harry, of half-hearted fights and sleepless nights in the Hogwarts corridors, to open up and tell Harry that nothing felt worth fighting for anymore.

Malfoy, who, a few months after the school year ended, rolled his eyes and mumbled the words bloody saviour as he accepted Harry’s scarf. He’d started sneezing uncontrollably, not dressed appropriately for the changing November weather.

It took Harry longer than it should have to notice—or perhaps to admit—that the word felt different when it fell from Draco’s lips. That the way Draco would use the word to point out the most mundane things Harry did, the way he’d catch Harry’s smile a moment later, always filled his chest with warmth.

That Draco was the first person to not make him hate the word in a very, very long time.

***

Soon the word became an inside joke between them. Soon, it began to come with soft brushes of hands, with private shared looks of mischief, of complicity. Soon, Draco would call him his saviour as Harry handed him the sugar bowl and Harry would just smile into Draco’s neck, and Draco would lean closer, allowing Harry to hide his smile for a second.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t told Draco yet. That saviour was his soulmark. That he was the first person that had made the word sound okay to his ears.

That he wanted him. That being around him was easy as breathing.

Okay, maybe he did know, even if he tried not to think about it.

He was scared. Scared that this would end—that he was mistaken, and Draco wasn’t really meant for him. After all, wouldn’t Harry have started calling Draco by some cheesy name by now if it was real? Wouldn’t they have talked about it at all?

“Has anyone ever called you by your soulmark?” Harry asked one night. They were slouched on the sofa of Harry’s shitty flat, as they often did these days, watching some crappy show and snapping back at the telly from time to time.

They never talked about their soulmarks. It made sense, Harry knew it—knowing what someone else’s mark was before you started calling them by it felt a lot like cheating.

Still, his mind wouldn’t stay quiet; wouldn’t stop telling him all of this, all he had with Draco, would disappear any moment like sand in the wind.

“Plenty,” Draco said, gaze weirdly fixed on the TV. They usually looked at each other more than the screen, each slumped on one arm of the sofa, legs tangled.

He was trying to hide a reaction, Harry knew.

“Me too.” Harry trailed his eyes to the screen too, but it didn’t catch his interest. He eyed Draco again. “Anyone feel different from the rest?”

Draco met Harry’s gaze. Then he eyed the clock. “I should get going.”

Harry slept badly that night, drowning in thoughts of Draco leaving. Of Draco being called by the word on his skin—a word Harry surely hadn’t said before and would never think to say—by plenty of people. What if Draco was destined for Harry, but someone else was destined for Draco?

***

He stumbled out of the elevator, Draco resting all of his weight on him. As he fumbled with the keys, Draco slurred into his ear. “You really are a saviour, huh?”

“And you’re really drunk,” Harry said, pushing the door open. “Sit down here a second, I’ll make up the sofa-bed.”

“Sleep with me.”

Harry spluttered—pulled back when Draco, leaning dangerously from the chair, tried to grab his jacket. “Wait here,” he said, a little breathless, and disappeared into the living room.

But when he walked back into the kitchen, heart in his throat, Draco’s words whirling in his mind, Draco wasn’t there.

Harry found him in the bedroom, sat on the bed, a deep frown scrunching his face as he tried to fumble with the buttons of his own shirt. He’d gotten halfway through, and Harry rushed toward him even though the sight had made something in him stir.

“Hey, stop that—” he started. But Draco, upon realising Harry was back, stood up and stumbled backwards, yanking the top of his shirt, as if to show Harry—

“Yeah, I know. Funny, isn’t it,” Draco said, although there was nothing funny about what Harry was seeing. “You slayed my soulmark in half and then became the sole person that makes my own name mean anything to me.” He laughed to himself.

Draco. The word, tattooed just below the sharp line of his collarbone, was split in half by an angry, deep scar that made the c almost nonexistent.

“We’re…” Harry started, not daring to finish the sentence.

Draco huffed, his sneer exaggerated by the alcohol. “Don’t be daft, Potty. Just because you say my name from time to time it doesn’t mean I would ever say whatever stupid, cheesy nonsense you have tattooed on your pretty arse—”

Harry pulled at the neck of his shirt, pushing aside the flap of his open denim jacket for Draco to see the word written under his collarbone.

“Not on my arse,” he muttered when Draco just stared at his chest.

A moment later, Draco shook his head. “But—I—didn’t—”

“You didn’t think that word could ever be my soulmark?” Harry asked. “Welcome to my world of disappointment.”

“I—” He shook his head again, stepped closer. “Only called you that because you’d… you’d started calling me by my name, and it felt so…” Draco touched Harry’s chest. He probably meant for it to be gentle, but he was unstable on his feet and ended up leaning forward, eyes closed, his weight on his palm where it pressed into Harry’s skin. “I was terrified. That you’d… that you’d notice. It couldn’t be you. I”—Draco frowned as though in pain—“couldn’t be for you. So I just—thought of the most ridiculous thing to call you, something that you would absolutely not have on your skin, under any circumstances, and I started calling you that so I wouldn’t call you anything else.”

Harry scoffed. At their luck; at the relief that was washing over him. “Good job,” he murmured, and Draco, emitting a low, pained whine, leaned into him completely, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder.

“Does this mean I can sleep in your bed?” he asked after a long moment.

“Wouldn’t you like that.” Harry, an almost painful smile pulling at his lips, walked a grumbling Draco back to the sofa.

***

“Hey there,” Harry said. All that came from the bed was a low groan as Draco turned around. He’d gotten out of his work robes and not bothered with his pyjamas, and his eyes were barely open. “Long day at work?”

“Like you wouldn’t imagine,” Draco muttered, even though Harry knew he would hear all about it soon enough. “Hmph. Can’t wait to retire.”

Harry sat on the edge of the bed—pushed his shoes off. “My poor, poor Draco.” He laughed softly, nuzzling Draco’s neck between the sheets. Draco immediately grabbed at him and made him fall on his stomach into the blankets. “Still a few years till that happens, I’m afraid.”

“Hmphh,” Draco repeated by way of an answer. He sniffed Harry’s hair.

“Want me to make dinner?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Harry asked, amused.

“Not as much as I want you to stay in bed with me all evening,” Draco murmured.

“There’s an easy solution for that,” Harry said, taking his phone out. “Pizza or sushi?”

“Sushi.” Draco snuggled closer, then scowled. “Take off those hideous jeans.”

“Okay, okay, one second,” Harry laughed as Draco dragged him under the covers. He re-ordered their latest order and left the phone on the nightstand, then pushed his clothes down. “Gimme a foot.”

Draco squirmed in bed and draped a leg on Harry’s chest. When Harry started massaging the sole of his foot, he sighed, a smile finally revealing Harry’s favourite lines on Draco’s face, rather than the ones that formed when he frowned. “Mmm. My saviour.”

Harry smiled and kissed Draco’s knee.

(Thanks to @spaceaas for betaing and to all the friends that helped me come up with these nicknames!)

#Drarry #drarry squad #otpshipper98 #soulmate au #soulmates #harry x draco #draco x harry #Anonymous

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fyeahtashirokun · 3 years

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[UPDATE] Tashiro-kun, Kimi tte Yatsu Wa Drama CD Cast Interview + Pictures!

We’re back with a fun new update; the cast interviews for the Tashiro-kun drama CD have been released by the BLCD CEL Twitter and the B-Boy P Tashiro-kun website! They said it’s to commemorate Ebihara’s birthday, which is 11/26 (today), so happy birthday to everyone’s favourite cute stubborn shrimp boy! o(≧▽≦)o 🦐🎂🧡 Keep reading for photos and the full interview! (machine-translated with me tweaking it as best as I could 🙌 )

First photo (from the left): Toshiki Masuda (Tashiro) and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Ebihara) | Second photo: Tomokazu Sugita (Bannai) and Yusuke Shirai (Sega) | Third Photo: Chiharu Sawashiro (Shikaku) and Koutarou Nishiyama (Maru)

Interview:

—Please tell us your impressions of the Tashiro-kun drama CD!

Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Ebihara): The original manga was very interesting, and I was wondering how the CD would turn out, but the recording was also so much fun (laughs). For a moment, I felt like my younger self again. I felt like I fully brought out my real personality.

Toshiki Masuda (Tashiro): By the time I realized I had gotten attached to Ebihara-kun, played by Matsuoka-san, the recording was already over! There are some exciting scenes, but the mood of the funny playful scenes that start suddenly are comfortable. Maru and Shikaku are a must-see in both the manga and the drama CD! Also, Matsuoka-san and I were discussing the mystery of Bannai’s hairstyle. When I looked at the cover of the original comic and saw what was inside later...I was shocked! Overall, it was a memorable and fun recording that went by quite fast.

Yusuke Shirai (Sega): It’s very fun, with a lot of gag taste. I’m playing someone in a university setting, but I never went to university myself, so I was doing the recording while thinking, “this looks fun.” It was a bit regrettable that although the recording was with 4 people (me, Sugita-san, Nishiyama-san & Sawashiro-san,) due to COVID-19 and the studio’s safety precautions, I did my recording in a separate booth from everyone else. I could hear their voices but it was lonely since I couldn’t see them. It can’t be helped...(laughs). However, it was a lot of fun because the four of us could still talk to each other during this time.

Tomokazu Sugita (Bannai): It was a wonderful recording that made the best use of each of the actors’ strengths. Regarding the content, there were some character-specific biases, such as Comiket, the manga research club, and doujinshi. It was a task to bring my real intentions and feelings to the character of Bannai.

Kourarou Nishiyama (Maru): It was really fun. When I first saw the character Maru, I kept wondering what kind of voice I should make. He looked really cute, so I thought it would be nice if I did it with a slightly deformed atmosphere.

Chiharu Sawashiro (Shikaku): I enjoyed playing the character Shikaku. I don’t usually play these types of characters, so it was a good experience. I had a lot of fun!

—Please give us your impressions of the character you played.

Matsuoka: No, I understand, I understand!* (I believe here he means he understands Ebihara’s stance) but Tashiro-kun isn’t a bad guy, so why not be a little more careful with him? It feels a little childish like that. Again, I understand his feelings, but no need to get so mindlessly angry! He felt like a passionate person who was always worried. I thought it was cute for me as an actor.

Masuda: He has a slight communication disorder, but it’s fine because he can still speak to people politely. I’m not good at speaking myself, so I can understand how nervous he is. He also can’t help but get nervous in front of his favourite person. Even so, how is he such a rich guy?

Shirai: Sega is so handsome that everyone calls him “Handsome-kun,” but he’s found to have a pretty bad mouth, yet he’s a charming and funny character with a wide range of mood swings. When I read the manga, there was a part where Sega said a tsundere-like line to Bannai, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, Sega likes Bannai...”. Oh, it was just for a moment, but I found out later that wasn’t the case at all, and that he was instead attracted to Ebihara-kun...(laughs).

(*This next part was translated really weirdly, so I tried to make out the general idea as best as I could.)

Sugita: Bannai’s a leader, and so I was asked to give a play of leadership, but I was consciously putting together the performance so that it wouldn’t be heard as an advisor or teacher. On the contrary, I adjusted it while thinking that playing with calmness seems to be getting old (in an bad way.) It’s boring to think that’s something’s interesting just because it’s a gag, so I played Bannai with that in mind.

Nishiyama: As you can imagine from the name Maru* (means circle/round in Japanese) his appearance matches his name. He has a healing atmosphere, kinda like a mascot, and in a good way, I felt like he was a character I could stay at my own pace with. There was a scene where I had to sing an idol song, but when I consulted Chiharu-kun, I was able to sing it very happily. Thanks to this scene, I think that our good teamwork showed, including Maru, Shikaku and Bannai who made it exciting (laughs).

Sawashiro: Since he’s an introverted yet hardcore character, Shikaku’s heart is quite rosy, but I was conscious of not exposing it too much. In the song scene that Nishiyama mentioned earlier, I thought it would be great if I could jump over a little and make it an interesting scene, so I hope you’ll pay attention to it.

—Great! Give us your recommended points for listening in the CD.

Matsuoka: I would like you to thoroughly hear all the exchanges with Tashiro-kun! I think you’ll laugh a lot. If you listen to it with the manga in mind, I think you’ll get a synergistic effect (laughs).

Masuda: Somehow I love it, but I’m a little nervous. There are many nerve-wracking scenes, but it’s a work with a lot of playful points, so please pay attention to that as well! It’s very interesting to hear the important points and the atmosphere!

Shirai: I think the axis of this work is the exchange between and Ebihara and Tashiro, or more specifically the change in Ebihara’s emotions, who initially aggressively refused Tashiro-kun, then comes to accept him. Amongst them, Sega’s meddling is one of the factors that affects the relationship between those two, so I hope you enjoy that part as well. When I first saw the cast list, I thought, “Wow, all the roles are so fitting!” Sugita-san fit Bannai very nicely, Kotarou has a round voice like Maru, and Chiharu has a square voice like Shikaku, so I really thought everyone would fit nicely (laugh). It’s a work where you can enjoy every other character alongside the main two, so I hope you’ll enjoy it as a whole.

Sugita: Asking the for voice actor’s favourite listening spot would kinda feel like negligent promotion. I think it’s more appropriate to have the original creator give their opinion on which lines you’d want to hear most. If the voice actor decides, there are people who will take it to heart and pay attention to only that, and as a result there’s a bias. When you say “this part,” everyone will think “only this part,” since it creates this persuasive power. On the contrary, if the listeners themselves send their own impressions with opinions like “this is the best part to listen to” to the creator, it’ll go through more clearly, so please send them.

Nishiyama: I think that the harmonious and fun atmosphere of this work will be very healing in this tense situation, so I hope everyone will enjoy the mood.

Sawashiro: Even if you see the the mellow atmosphere of the Manken,* (Manga research club) it will be soothing, so I hope you enjoy the loose feeling.

—“I’m a [blank] otaku!” Please tell us what kind of otaku you are and why!

Matsuoka: I’m a car otaku. Mainly for car contents. I’ve been collecting a lot of car magazines since I was a junior high student, so I’m kinda obsessed when it comes to cars. But I don’t have a driver’s license.

Masuda: Body otaku. I want to have fun and lose weight, so I tend to gather information to enjoy everyday. Before I noticed, I began to gain trivia-like knowledge about the body, so I think I’m more familiar with it.

Shirai: I wonder if I’m a green otaku. I really like the color green. Especially for clothes. I search up the color green on the net. If I find my favourite green coloured place in the city, I’ll be fascinated by it. I feel like this obsession is getting stronger year after year, and I’m afraid that the whole house will turn green at this rate. However, I think it’s better to be particular about what you like, so I’d like to continue to be a green otaku.

Sugita: I don’t really like the word “otaku.” I try not to label myself based on what I like or love. It’s different when it comes to “look at yourself playing a game,” and “look at yourself when you’re talking about your favourite idol.” When there’s differences, the essence of what you want will change, so I don’t like using these words too much.

Nishiyama: Soybeans are what I always consume in my daily life. I really like beans, so I eat natto, tofu, soy milk, and isoflavones. That’s why I choose soy milk over milk (laughs). I feel like I’m made of bean ingredients...I’ve just noticed that that’s another connection to Maru* (laughs). (I think he means because beans are round, like Maru.)

Sawashiro: I’m not an otaku, but I like natto and kimchi. Ever since I was a student, I’ve been eating natto and kimchi with everything my mother makes at home. Then, my mother told me “you don’t care about my seasoning...” with a sad face (laughs).

—Please give a message to your fans.

Matsuoka: The cast members also gathered with unique people (laughs). I hope you can enjoy this romantic comedy to your heart’s content by laughing and laughing again when feeling sad! Thank you!

Masuda: I expressed the humor I felt reading the original with my voice as much as possible. I hope you can enjoy the occasional thrilling development of people who are so unique with the drama CD!

Shirai: I don’t want to force you guys. Rather than aiming for perfection, I was conscious of finishing it first. If the doujinshi drawn by Bannai wasn’t something he wants to draw from the bottom of his heart, he wouldn’t be so happy. As the years go by, these memories become more and more interesting when I look back. I feel something close to the CD and I want to cherish it. If you listen to this CD after 10 or 20 years, it should be absolutely interesting, so about 30 years later, it’ll be like “Tashiro-kun, Kimi Tte Yatsu Wa UPRISING,” so let’s meet then.

Nishiyama: I had a lot of fun doing it. It’s really easy for BL beginners to get into, and I think it’s a very healing work. To be honest, I’m full of feelings for this series, where I really wanna do the continuation, see it and listen to it. I hope everyone enjoys it a lot and tells us what they think. Thank you.

Sawashiro: It’s the story of a college student, and I’m really young. I think you can really understand that we are absorbed in what we want to do and that all the characters have something glittering inside. I hope you can feel youthful while listening to this. Thank you.

—Thank you to the whole cast! The drama CD “Tashiro-kun, Kimi Tte Yatsu Wa.” will be released on January 20th, 2021! The second volume of the manga will also be released on the same day. Please look forward to it ♪

I hope you guys enjoyed this interview! Again, I tried translating it the best I could with the help of Google, so I hope you guys were able to get the gist of it. I’ll also be posting the audition videos in a bit (untranslated, unfortunately) so stay tuned for that! Are you guys as excited as I am for the CD? All the voices sound so great so far, it’s gonna be great (≧∀≦)

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nivenus · 5 years

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I Need You: Why Evangelion Still Matters

If you’re even a casual fan of Japanese animation (colloquially known as anime) you’ve probably heard of a few classics held up as the best of the medium; films and television shows whose place in the history of Japanese culture is widely regarded as secure: Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Spirited Away, to name a few of the most prominent. They all have their critics, but few would dispute their place as landmarks of the industry. But there’s one classic piece of Japanese animation however whose legacy is far more contentious and which sparks controversy even today. Like the aforementioned pieces it’s well-known and has been watched by many, but unlike them it remains quite controversial, beloved by some and derided by others.

I’m talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion,¹ Hideaki Anno’s 1995 post-apocalyptic series about teenagers who pilot giant robots (known as mecha) in a war for the survival of humanity. And in my opinion it’s actually one of the best and most important television shows of all time, animated or not.

(Spoilers ahead, though I’ll try to keep major revelations to a minimum.)

I realize that in making my claim, I’m setting myself up for criticism. The value (or lack thereof) of Neon Genesis Evangelion has been one of the most heated debates in anime fandom for decades. But even on the purely objective level of its influence on the animation industry, both in Japan and beyond, NGE and its subsequent spin-offs, sequels, and re-imaginings is a significant work worth consideration. Although the show is decades old now (the first episode aired October 4, 1995), I believe it’s still worth examining why the show’s so acclaimed and why, in my opinion, it’s still relevant today, in no smal part because of the lessons it still has to teach us about self-acceptance.

(An earlier version of this essay was posted 4 years ago here.)

Weaving a Story

Concept art for Asuka Langley Soryu, the Second Child

Today, Evangelion is a major franchise, incorporating films, comics, video games, and more. But it all started with one TV show, Neon Genesis Evangelion, created by Hideaki Anno for Gainax. Even from the start, NGE was somewhat exceptional. In the early-to-mid 1990s when it was produced, most of the major animated shows on air (both in Japan and America) were heavily merchandise-driven and sponsored by either toy or video game companies. Nearly all were owned by a major studio like Toei or Toho. Conceived of by a single individual and owned by a small creator-run studio, Neon Genesis Evangelion was highly unusual and something of a creative risk.

The story of Neon Genesis Evangelion is, on first glance, nothing remarkable for Japanese animation. A group of teenagers are recruited by a unified global government to pilot giant robots (mecha) in a battle for the survival of humanity. In the process they have to face not only their deadly adversaries but also learn how to work together as a team, overcoming their many differences and personal issues. Gundam, Macross, and Hideaki Anno’s own Gunbuster had all covered similar territory before. But where NGE would go with its premise was far stranger, blending the well-tread concept of adolescent soldiers with theological imagery, Freudian and Lacanian analysis, and abstract writing that soon set the show apart from its contemporaries.

The show quickly caught the fascination of viewers. While Neon Genesis Evangelion started initially with solid but unexceptional ratings, it soon expanded into a massive pop cultural phenomenon as more and more people tuned in to find out what all the fuss was about, eventually reaching 25-30% of the targeted demographic.² The final two episodes, noted for their abstract nature and for seemingly leaving several plot threads hanging, prompted a highly polarized reaction. The follow-up movie The End of Evangelion, released a year later, divided audiences even further. As a consequence, despite Evangelion’s immense popularity and influence, the franchise remains one of the most controversial works to ever air on broadcast television.

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s ending was, however, just one of its controversial aspects. Moral guardians raised complaints about the show’s frank (and frequently bleak) depictions of sex, violence, and mental illness, demanding networks censor its content. Critics such as Eiji Otsuka and Tetsuya Miyazaki accused Anno of “brainwashing” his audience and affirming, rather than criticizing, anime fans’ escapist tendencies. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of both Gundam and Ideon, complained that Anno tried “to convince the audience to admit that everybody is sick” and that it “told people it was okay to be depressed.” Additionally, much was made of the show’s religious imagery, particularly due to the then recent sarin gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which like NGE utilized a blend of Western and Japanese religious imagery.

Other complaints centered on NGE’s main characters, many of whom were found to be unlikeable or unheroic. Many attacked the lead protagonist Shinji as weak and indecisive, unbecoming of the hero in a show aimed at adolescents. Some further asserted the character was an attack on the show’s audience and that Anno wanted to “punish” his audience for their anime-loving ways. The rest of the cast didn’t escape criticism either and were variably found to be cruel, schizophrenic, or perverse. All could easily be characterized as dysfunctional.

But despite the backlash against Neon Genesis Evangelion, whether it was centered on the show’s ending, its thematic elements, or its characters’ deficiencies, none of it seemed to put a lasting dent in the show’s influence or popularity. And a lot of that, perhaps, has to do with the time in which it emerged. At the time NGE was originally produced in the early to mid 1990s, Japan was in the midst of an extended economic downturn that would come to be known as the Lost Decade, following a major asset price crash in 1989. During this time, Japanese animation, like many industries, experienced a contraction, resulting in slashed budgets and an increasing reliance on merchandising and product placement to sustain both the studios producing the content and the major networks who broadcasted (and often owned) it.

In addition to these economic concerns, there was also a growing feeling in the 1990s that animation was a thing of the past, whose glory days were long gone and which only inspired passion in either adolescents or callow, sheltered men in their 20s or 30s. The content of most anime was regarded as puerile or derivative and hardly becoming of serious adult interest. The term otaku,³ a word that literally means “house” but was used to mean “shut-in,” quickly became shorthand for anime fans who spent their adulthood collecting memorabilia and memorizing lines from their favorite shows.

But Neon Genesis Evangelion helped to change all that and to reclaim anime’s respectability. Breaking through the traditional animation fandom to a wider audience and owned solely by the creator-run Gainax, NGE was an invigorating shock to the industry, shaking it up and reviving interest in what had been regarded as a dying medium. Within a few short years, new creator-owned studios were cropping up across Japan, a trend which would continue well into the next decade and bear such fruit as Bones, manglobe, Ufotable, or Gainax’s own offshoots Trigger and Khara. The animation industry was expanding again and was beginning to boom overseas, in no small part thanks to the popularity and notoriety of NGE.

Devilman: Crybaby by Science Saru, a series itself based on one of Evangelion’s chief influences

The new anime boom would also reflect its origins in a number of different ways. More than a few of the new shows to debut in the late 1990s and early 2000s were directly influenced and impacted by Neon Genesis Evangelion, including such notables as RahXephon and Revolutionary Girl Utena. More subtly, the starkly realistic depictions of violence and sexuality in NGE as well as its bizarrely surreal imagery encouraged many directors to try similar techniques, resulting in a shift in style throughout the industry.

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s influence on later anime can be attributed in some ways to its technical sophistication. At its most basic, visceral level, NGE was startling to look at. Even compared with other Gainax works that had come before it, like Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water or Gunbuster, NGE immediately stood out as something unique in an increasingly homogeneous industry. The character designs of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, strangely subdued yet striking and expressive, helped distinguish the cast while Ikuto Yamashita’s monstrous and biomechanical designs for the Evangelions did the same for the show’s mechs. Combined with the intense direction of Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, and others NGE drew the eye right from the start.

The technical splendor wasn’t just limited to NGE’s art design or animation either. The voice talents provided by performers like Megumi Ogata, Kotono Mitsuishi, Megumi Hayashibara, and Yuko Miyamura gave life to the characters and helped audiences empathize with them, despite their dysfunctional and emotionally-wrought nature. Also contributing to the audio portion of Neon Genesis Evangelion was Shiro Sagisu, whose music swung significantly from jazzy to melodramatic and even to surreal, changing and evolving to match each scene with an appropriate mood. Assisting Sagisu was the vocal work of artists such as Yoko Takahashi, who made the show’s central theme, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” a pop sensation.

But while the technical triumphs of Neon Genesis Evangelion certainly contributed to the show’s lasting appeal and influence, they’re hardly the whole story. For many viewers, the appeal of Evangelion went well beyond the surface, to narrative and thematic elements they felt spoke directly to them. Indeed, it is arguably NGE’s complex characterization, unorthodox narrative structure, and thematic depth which have made it stand out as one of the most legendary examples of Japanese pop culture.

A Cruel Angel’s Thesis

It’s not an exaggeration to say that essays—and books—have been written about Neon Genesis Evangelion and its thematic qualities. Most of this has been concentrated in Evangelion’s own native Japan, but the sensation has breached the other side of the Pacific as well, resulting in comparisons to the works of David Lynch and other Western directors. Contributing to this no doubt has been Anno’s own numerous references in NGE not only to native Japanese culture but to the West as well, with tributes to works like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and UFO found frequently throughout.

The most obvious thematic element present in Evangelion, at least to Western eyes, is its frequent allusions to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It’s not hard to see why: the monstrous foes besetting humanity are “Angels” who shoot cross-shaped energy bolts, which the main characters fight with “Evangelions” (the Greek word from which “evangelism” derives). Coupled with other bits and pieces here and there referring to original sin, the will of God, and ancient Judaism, these details give Evangelion a strikingly religious appearance to Western viewers.

However, while they’re certainly the most obvious elements in Evangelion, the religious references are also easily some of the most transient and insubstantial. Although initially viewed as central to the plot by many Westerners, it has since been revealed that most of the Biblical references are there for styling rather than substance and were largely intended to make the show stand out. In many respects, the usage of the Abrahamic faiths in Evangelion is similar to the use of Buddhism in The Matrix or Egyptian mythology in Stargate: a bit of fun exoticism to keep things interesting.

The Sephirot from Kabbalah, as represented in The End of Evangelion

That being said, the religious themes are not as vacuous as is sometimes alleged and the sheer number and obscurity of some of them indicates some real effort on the part of Anno. Each of the Angels, for instance, (which are called shito⁴ in Japanese, meaning “messenger” or “apostle”) are named after actual angels from Abrahamic mythology and their names, when translated from Hebrew or Arabic, often do indicate their nature in some way (e.g., Arael’s name means the “light of God” and it is an enormous winged being who attacks the characters with a beam of light). And while the use of the Kabbalah’s Sephiroth may be perfunctory, many other references to Jewish mysticism appear more meaningful, such as the Chamber of Guf or the duality of the Trees of Life and Wisdom.

Less obvious to Western eyes but possibly even more sophisticated are the references Evangelion makes to non-Abrahamic religions. There is, for example, the notable similarity between what the show terms “Instrumentality” and traditional descriptions of “egoless” nirvana in Buddhism (a religion also referenced by way of the Marduk Institute’s 108 dummy corporations).⁵ Japan’s native religion Shinto also shows its hand, most notably through the depiction of the Evangelions themselves, which Anno consciously designed after the monstrous oni of Japanese legend. All in all, while he may not have intended to portray a particular theological message, it’s clear that Anno put a lot of thought and research into giving Evangelion a suitably mystical appearance.

However, obsessing over the religious imagery in Evangelion obfuscates something far more important: Evangelion isn’t really about religion. Rather, where Evangelion’s thematic depth and complexity most clearly comes into play is psychology and philosophy of the mind.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is often described as a deconstruction of mecha anime. To a large extent that’s true, but it’s deconstruction is specific in outlook, focused on the psychology of its characters in the form of a question: just what kind of people would put the fate of humanity in the hands of adolescent children? And just what would that kind of stress and responsibility do to a child’s mind? In that regard, NGE is in far closer in kinship to Ender’s Game than to its natural predecessors like Macross, Gundam, or Gunbuster.

When the story of Neon Genesis Evangeliom begins, the world has already experienced disaster on an unprecedented scale. 14 years before the show begins, a massive apocalyptic event called the Second Impact devastated the Earth’s climate, precipitated global nuclear war, awakened the monstrous Angels, and resulted in the deaths of half of all humans on the planet. In response, civilization has been restructured and militarized in anticipation of an even worse Third Impact threatened by the Angels. To combat this threat, the secretive organization Nerv assembles biomechanical monsters of their own (the Evangelions) which, as it so happens, can only be piloted by teenagers.⁶

Rei Ayanami, the First Child, believes that her life is expendable

This is the kind of world people like Misato Katsuragi, Gendo Ikari, and Ritsuko Akagi live in and it’s the severity of their situation which ultimately shapes their actions. Although many of the adults, particularly Misato, wish they could let the series’ child protagonists lead a normal life, they know that’s not an option. As a result, the adult characters are driven towards a cold pragmatism that means, no matter how warm or compassionate they may act towards their wards at any given time, they’re still ready to sacrifice them when necessary.

This ruthless approach has its costs, however. The constant pressure to succeed, alongside the emotional whiplash they receive at the hands of the pilots’ supervisors and the repeated trauma they experience in combat results in each pilot’s gradual psychological degradation. Beginning as relatively competent and capable (if slightly dysfunctional) individuals, each pilot eventually succumbs to their trauma and breaks, causing them to isolate themselves from one another and resulting in a breakdown in morale which puts not only themselves but humanity itself at risk.

In keeping with this theme of psychological frailty and the ways in which we as people both intentionally and unintentionally harm those we care about, including those we care about, the series makes numerous allusions to the work of past psychologists and philosophers. Many concepts are mentioned specifically by name, such as the “oral stage,” “separation anxiety,” or the “hedgehog’s dilemma,” while others are alluded to more subtly, such as the Oedipus and Elektra complexes, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, or Lacan’s dichotomy of the constructed and ideal selves.

Hideaki Anno has himself said he researched psychology both before and during the production of Neon Genesis Evangelion and that many of the show’s characters are based upon both these concepts and his own experiences. He has, for instance, described the protagonist Shinji as a reflection of his own conscious self, while the emotionally withdrawn Rei is a manifestation of his unconscious, and the enigmatic Kaworu is his Jungian shadow. Altogether, the works of Freud, Lacan, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Jung, and Sartre have all been identified by staff or critics as influences on the show’s characters and plot.

One of the chief psychological themes in Evangelion is abandonment, particularly by those you love or have been cared for by. Throughout the story—in its past, present, and future—each of the main characters is abandoned by people important to them: their parents, their guardians, their lovers, their friends, etc. Invariably, this abandonment leads to a breakdown in identity and self-confidence, as each character is forced to redefine themselves from within after devoting so much of their identity to how they were perceived by others. Thematically matching to this issue of personal abandonment is humanity’s own abandonment by their unknowable creator eons ago, a detail alluded to occasionally as the story progresses. Like the individual characters then, humanity must learn how to manage and master its own fate when it has no one left to depend upon.

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

These themes, however, would have little resonance were they irrelevant to the show’s human drama. It is to Neon Genesis Evangelion’s credit that they are not; each of the characters represent the show’s themes in both significant and personal ways. It is quite arguable then that it is the show’s protagonists, however controversial they may be either as individuals or an ensemble, which have truly allowed NGE to endure for decades as an icon of Japanese pop culture.

The most important of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s characters by far is easily Shinji Ikari, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01 and the son of Gendo Ikari, the enigmatic director of the Evangelion program. At the beginning of the series Shinji is called to Nerv by his father, who abandoned him years earlier following the death of Shinji’s mother. Shinji hopes that this sudden call is for the purpose of reunion, but he is quickly disillusioned when his father reveals to him that he needs Shinji to pilot one of the monstrous Evangelions he’s built—a machine Shinji has hitherto never heard of—and to save humanity from extinction. Brokenhearted by his father’s coldness and terrified of the task he’s been blackmailed into performing, Shinji puts off his own desires and self-identity aside for the sake of pleasing his father and others, becoming the so-called Third Child.

Series protagonist Shinji Ikari, the Third Child

Shinji’s a complicated character and one many find difficult to empathize with. He is self-consciously cowardly and phlegmatic, prone to self-criticism, and afraid of getting close to others for fear that they’ll reject him. At times he thinks seriously about running away from his responsibilities, but whenever he actually does he quickly returns, unable to commit to so blatant an act of rebellion for long. Despite this and despite his own reliance on others to define his value, Shinji does have his virtues: he’s thoughtful, easy to get along with, and proves remarkably skilled at piloting, even if he has no real passion for it.

Shinji’s commanding officer, Misato Katsuragi, is NGE’s most prominent adult character and (according to Hideaki Anno) the series’ deuteragonist.⁸ Loud, goofy, and irreverent, Misato strikes quite a different first impression than Shinji, but despite their outward differences they’re actually quite similar people with comparable issues, merely approaching them in different manners. Like Shinji, Misato feels abandoned by her father, who neglected her and her mother before his death years ago. But despite that Misato still yearns for his affection, manifesting her desires in the form of her relationship with Ryoji Kaji, a coworker and lover she admits resembles her father. And, also like Shinji, Misato fears getting close to other people for fear of being hurt, but whereas Shinji manages his anxiety by avoiding people, Misato does so by acting flippant and flirtatious in public, living lightly and maintaining only “surface level relationships.”

Shinji’s move into Misato’s apartment comes largely at her insistence and Shinji is initially quite uncomfortable with it, a feeling which does not subside when he learns she’s an extremely messy housekeeper and an alcoholic. But despite her irreverent personality, Misato turns out to be a deeply caring person who wants very much for Shinji to be happy and, over the course of the series, she tries to direct the development of Shinji as a good parent would, all the while concerned her own flaws make her an unsuitable guardian. Notably, these moments where the two of them bond are some of the most light-hearted in the series.

Although Shinji is the first pilot the series introduces, he is preceded by two others at Nerv. The first, Rei Ayanami, is arguably Neon Genesis Evangelion’s most popular (and certainly influential) character. Enigmatic and asocial to a degree that goes beyond mere awkwardness, Rei lives alone in a desolate apartment she doesn’t even bother to clean, close to no one but her pseudo-guardian Gendo Ikari. Because of her closeness to his father, who has raised her as his own daughter, Shinji initially sees Rei as a replacement for him. It soon becomes apparent however that Rei’s trust and faith in Gendo go well beyond that of a healthy parent-child dynamic. Obedient to a fault and unconcered for her own well-being, Rei causally throws herself into danger for Gendo and Nerv and comes across as emotionless to those around her.

But beneath Rei’s cold, ultra-stoic exterior beats a heart as capable of joy and sorrow as that of any other. Far from the robotic doll many assume her to be, Rei has a secret yearning for others to understand her and her them and, over the course of the series, slowly opens up to Shinji. But although she desires human contact, she doesn’t really know how to initiate it and she’s terrified of the possibility that there’s something about her that makes her fundamentally unlike other people.

Asuka Langley Soryu, the third of the child protagonists to show up,⁷ strikes about as strong a contrast to Rei as one can imagine. Egotistical, loud-mouthed, and possessed of far more bravado than either Shinji or Rei, Asuka joins the cast about a third of the way through the show, after transferring from Nerv’s facility in Germany. Raised since childhood to be a pilot, Asuka prides herself on her skills and looks with disdain on Shinji’s self-deprecating nature and inability to recognize his own accomplishments. Already a college graduate and convinced she’s as much an adult as anyone, Asuka also proves precociously sexual, pining for both Misato’s lover Kaji and, to a lesser but still significant extent, Shinji himself, whom she frequently teases for attention.

Asuka is like Shinji a controversial character; people often look at Asuka and see one of two sides to her: a selfish jerk who bullies Shinji and Rei or an accomplished young woman whose confidence and inner strength makes her the real hero of the show. The truth, however, is that in many ways she’s both. Asuka really is brave—far braver than Shinji or even Rei, who doesn’t really fear death—and she’s definitely skilled. But she’s also prone to jealousy and vindictiveness, as well as a consciously manifested attitude of not caring for anyone. In many ways, however, her bravado is a cover for own insecurity, built upon the belief that no one really likes or loves her.

The cast of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion

There’s a lot to admire about NGE’s characters, even with all their flaws and personality disorders. It’s easily got one of the most complex and diverse casts in anime and there has to be something said for the fact that of its four principal characters, three are female, allowing it to easily pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test (which it does). The characters each have their own virtues, which in a more easygoing series could make them quite endearing. Lead protagonist Shinji’s selfless and has a fairly noble streak, though it’s hidden deep beneath his own self-doubt and loathing. The adult Misato’s fairly protective of her young charges, at least insofar as she is allowed to be given the circumstances, and is also quite a bit more capable than many expect. Selfless Rei’s loyalty and discipline easily make her one of the most sympathetic characters in the series, even if she does sometimes come across as alien or inhuman. And there’s little question that the daring Asuka has enough chutzpah for the whole cast.

But it could also be argued that the complexity and harshness of NGE’s characters which ultimately make them work, even if at times they also make the show hard to watch. Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka are not the idealized paragons of humanity you’d expect to find in most television shows aimed at teenagers, but they’re not the imaginings of a bitter misanthrope either. They’re deeply flawed, yes, and when they’re hurt they keep on hurting, but they also keep going and keep trying to find a way to live with others that doesn’t result in pain. It’s this idea, the recognition that people screw up and hurt one another but want to do better, that really enlivens the franchise. For all the reputed darkness of Evangelion’s story, it is in many ways idealistic, always hopeful that it’s characters might find a way to be happy. You don’t have to be broken, it says, even if you are damaged.

And it is that core ethos of qualified hope that elevates Neon Genesis Evangelion from just another mecha anime or even a deconstruction of mecha to something more. Something sublime and, in its own strange way, even inspirational.

The Sickness unto Death

At this point I feel it’s useful to provide some personal background. I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion when I was in high school, sometime between my third and fourth years. My initial reaction was, I think, largely typical. The first episodes interested me and as the storyline moved forward and became more complex, I became more invested in the show’s events and characters. I even appreciated to some extent the bizarre and abstract final two episodes, though I’d hoped for a more conventional ending. Then, I watched The End of Evangelion, whoch left me shocked and dismayed at its harshness. I still cared about the series, but I felt more ambivalent as a result.

Over the next few years I continued to keep up with the Evangelion fandom to a small extent, checking out the rumors about the new movies and reading some fan fiction online, but I gradually drifted away. None of the fan speculation or fiction really seemed to scratch the same itch the original series had and eventually my interests in anime shifted more towards Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Fullmetal Alchemist. Evangelion, as much as I’d enjoyed it before, fell gradually into the background of my life.

And then I entered college.

In my youth, I was generally regarded as a “bright” student, fawned over by teachers and regarded by my peers as either a genius or a “know-it-all,” depending on how much they liked me (or didn’t). As I entered the final years of high school it was clear that I was expected to excel in university. But when I actually began my college career I quickly faltered. Depressed, socially isolated, and exhausted from getting four to six hours of sleep a night, my grades slipped quickly and my social life evaporated. For awhile, I tried to deny my problems and ignore them, believing I could power through without help. Eventually, though, I had no choice but to confront my issues: I was put on academic suspension and my financial assistance was pulled.

I was devastated. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to tell my parents, who I’d let believe I was doing fine. I didn’t know where to go with my life now that I’d failed to live up to the expectations I’d allowed other people to put on me. I didn’t even really know who I was anymore. If I wasn’t a brilliant student and child genius, who was I? In my own eyes I was worthless and contemptible.

Eventually, with the help of my family and friends, as well as staff from the university, I was able to make my way back to daylight. I began to undertake counseling. I went to community college to bring my GPA back up. I started talking more openly with my loved ones about my problems, even though I was worried it would make them think less of me. And I began to be more honest about my flaws and limitations.

A scene from Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo, the third Rebuild film

It was also around this time, rather coincidentally, that I began to seriously revisit Evangelion. I was prompted, as much as by anything else, by the release of the new “Rebuild of Evangelion” films. After my brothers and I attended a screening of the second film’s release in early 2011 with several of our friends, the latter (hitherto unfamiliar with Evangelion) expressed interest in catching up with the franchise. Indulging them, my brothers and I rewatched the original TV series. To my surprise, I began to see the series in a new light. Where once I had simply been sympathetic to Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka’s inner turmoil, now I felt deeply empathetic. Where previously the show’s harshness had at times alienated me, now it felt deeply relatable and truthful. And where earlier the TV show’s decision to focus on the internal psyches of its main characters instead of the plot had puzzled me before, now I felt as if I understood it completely. I even began to appreciate the theatrical finale, a film so brutal some regard it (falsely) as Anno’s revenge against fans angry with him for the original ending.

What had changed? Certainly not the show. Rather, it was my perspective. I possessed now of a viewpoint I hadn’t held earlier. I knew now what it was like to be full of contempt for one’s self, to be a defeated shell of a person who felt as though their value was slipping away or was already entirely absent. I knew what it was like to believe I was a failure in every meaningful way. In other words, I’d gained the perspective of a person suffering from depression. The same perspective as that of Evangelion’s principal characters as well as their creator, Hideaki Anno.

It’s hardly secret knowledge that Hideaki Anno was suffering from depression when he first created Neon Genesis Evangelion. The extent of his depression, however, was far graver than is generally recognized. When Anno began work on the project that would become NGE, he had already been suffering from severe depression for at least four years. In a statement released with the first volume of Evangelion’s manga (comic) adaptation Anno described himself as “a broken man... who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.” And while the production of NGE had originally been intended to break him out of a rut, the stress only compounded the severity of his condition. By the time of the show’s completion Anno was, by his own later admission, borderline suicidal.

No one’s ever said precisely what drove Anno over the edge publicly, but it’s widely agreed it had much to do with the production of his previous work, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Originally conceived by Anno’s mentor Hayao Miyazaki in the mid-1980s Nadia was eventually handed off to Anno after Gainax made a bid for the project. Far gentler and family-friendly than NGE, the comparative sweetness of Nadia obscured a troubled production that saw animation work outsourced and Anno frequently butting heads with NHK, the series’ broadcaster, over the show’s content and creative direction. Coupled with rumored trouble in Anno’s personal life, the experience proved too much for him, driving him into the deep depression that would haunt him for most of the 1990s.

The roots of Anno’s emotional troubles may go deeper, however. Long regarded by those close to him as a lonely and eccentric oddball, Anno was socially withdrawn as a child, preferring to spend his time watching and recreating scenes from his favorite anime and tokusatsu to interacting with others, a choice he’d later say he regretted. In 1983, due in large part to his social isolation and inactivity at school, he dropped out of university and lived homeless for a time before he was discovered by Miyazaki and employed as an animator for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The experience proved vital to his career and soon afterward he and a few friends gathered to form Gainax, their own animation studio. It was during this time that Anno directed Gunbuster alongside working on other projects such as Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise and Grave of the Fireflies. For a time, he seemed happy. But then came Nadia and he withdrew entirely from his work and social life, before reemerging to work on Evangelion.

Anno’s turbulent life and emotional turmoil is reflected in the characters of Evangelion, many of whom enter the story damaged but apparently functional only to completely fall apart later on. Shinji is lonely and dependent when he first appears, but he still manages to form friendships and do what’s required of him. Misato may be an alcoholic with a mess of a home, but Nerv’s trust in her is rewarded time and time again by her effectual planning and coordination of her pilots. Rei’s cold and emotionally withdrawn, but her dutiful selflessness both inspires and attracts others to her. Asuka can be arrogant and reckless, but she’s also intelligent and capable of real kindness towards those she respects. Like Anno in the early days of Gainax, they all seem to be on top of things.

But just when it seems like the team’s getting the hang of things and finding their groove, disaster strikes. Soon, as one crisis mounts on top of another, from near-death experiences to being forced to hurt his friends, everything falls apart. Shinji’s newfound self-confidence shatters and he becomes even more needy than before. Misato’s constructed domestic bliss blows apart just as her own convictions are thrown into question by new revelations about her work. Rei becomes colder and more distant than ever before, withdrawing even from Gendo, the one person she trusts implicitly. And Asuka collapses into a pit of self-loathing despair, savagely lashing out at anyone who gets close to her. It’s ugly, it’s nasty, and it’s real.

Shinji admits to his feelings of worthlessness to Misato Katsuragi, his guardian and confidante, in The End of Evangelion

This cycle of crash, despair, and recovery is not unusual for suffers of depression. Contrary to what is often thought, depression is not really something you have at one point in your life and then “get over;” it’s something that can shadow you your entire life, kept in check by momentary pleasures and good times but always threatening to surge and overwhelm you when things go awry, sending you into a spiral of self-hate and abnegation that can last for weeks, months, or even years. Friends and family help keep it in check, as does therapy and pharmaceuticals, but it never goes away completely. The only thing you can do is recognize the symptoms and do your best to confront them. You have to keep going. You can’t let your fears drive you to abandon the world. You must not, in other words, run away.

And really that’s what the characters’ struggles in Evangelion come down to: facing reality and acknowledging their flaws while also recognizing their own potential to overcome them and the painful struggle for acceptance we all, on some level, endure. The first instinct of every character in the series is to run away from their problems, to obscure them with outwardly derived duties, relationships, or purposes. Shinji and Rei both look to Gendo, Misato to her job, and Asuka to her pride as an Eva pilot, but all of them are running away and, as a consequence, are unprepared to deal with reality when it hits them flat in the face.

Or are they?

As Long As You Try to Continue to Live

It’s worth noting that when Anno created Neon Genesis Evangelion he didn’t initially set out to create a dark and cynical deconstruction of mecha anime. When asked what initially gave him the impetus to create NGE, Anno has said repeatedly that he originally meant to make a show more in the spirit of Gundam or Space Battleship Yamato, two of his favorite TV shows from his youth, but without the shackles inherent to sponsorship by a toy company, as was common practice for anime at the time. “I made Evangelion to make me happy and to make anime lovers happy,” he said in a 1996 interview, “in trying to bring together the broadest audience possible.”

But as pre-production on the series progressed (and his emotional state regressed) Anno became further disenchanted at the state of anime, concerned that fans were turning to it as a way to escape reality as he himself felt compelled to. “I wonder if a person over the age of twenty who likes robot anime is really happy,” he stated in an article for Newtype half a year before the series aired. This change in perspective, coupled with his resurgent depression, caused Anno to shift focus as he became more and more concerned with the characters’ emotional development, hoping that by the end of the series’ narrative “the heroes would change,” breaking away from their regressed emotional state and achieving the same emotional well-being and self-dependence Anno still sought for himself and which he felt his audience needed as well.

It’s this perspective of Anno’s—that anime otaku were and are caught in a kind of prolonged childhood—which has led to the impression that Anno hates otaku and believes their lives to be worthless. But the truth is that Anno’s thoughts on the subject are quite a bit subtler and more reflective than many give him credit for. Far from hating otaku, Anno counts himself among them and feels defensive whenever they’re derided by others. The issue, he thinks, is less that otaku are permanently stunted and more that they’re afraid or reluctant to open themselves to new experiences:

“I feel that otaku have already become common to all countries. In Europe, in Korea, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, in America, otaku really do not change. I think that this is amazing. I say critical things towards otaku, but I don’t reject them. I only say that we should take a step back and be self-conscious about these things. I think it’s perfectly fine so long as you act with an awareness of what you are doing, self-conscious and cognizant of the current situation. I’m just not sure it’s a good thing to reach the point where you cut yourself off from society. I don’t understand the greatness of society, either. So I have no intention of going so far as to call for people to give up otaku-like things and become more suited to society. Only, I think there are many other interesting things in the world, and we don’t have to reject them.”

Despite everything, the characters still care for and want to see one another happy

And that’s what I mean by Evangelion’s subtle, qualified idealism. Despite Anno’s frequent cynicism and troubled state of mind during the production of the series, it’s clear that at heart he’s a person who believes people can change and improve themselves. He’s someone who believes that, even in the worst or most desperate of situations, people can find happiness if they’re open to it. “As long as you try to continue to live,” one character states in The End of Evangelion, “any place can be a heaven… there’s a chance to become happy everywhere.”

It would certainly be easy to define the characters of Evangelion by their failures and—given the magnitude of their failures—it’s understandable why many do. After all, much of the series’ narrative is caught up (as I noted earlier) in deconstructing the kind of scenario typical of mecha shows and examing what really would happen if teenagers were put in charge of the world’s salvation. As such, as in other deconstructionist narratives (such as the Battlestar Galactica reboot or Watchmen), the characters screw up about at least as often as they succeed.

That being said, more often than not, when the characters are hit with tragedy or trauma, they eventually recover and bounce back. They’re definitely damaged and shaken by their experiences, but they keep on going anyway. As much as Shinji fears and abhors piloting he’s also someone who, when people are really depending on him, will almost always get right back in the cockpit and try to help. Rei may be over-compliant and lack any regard for herself, but she’s also capable of defying orders when she knows they’re wrong. And for all Asuka’s jealousy and grandstanding, she’s also a person deeply capable of love and self-sacrifice, who would die for those she cares about.

This ray of hope at the core of Evangelion’s story is made most clear in the television series’ original broadcast ending, wherein Shinji rediscovers his own self-value and the joy of living in a world with other people and declares that, although he hates himself, “maybe, maybe I could love myself. Maybe, my life can have a greater value.” But such idealism is even found in the much more outwardly harsh vision of The End of Evangelion. After coming face to face with the world he thought he desired—a world without pain or individuality—Shinji realizes that it’s also a world without happiness. “This isn’t right,” he says. “There was nothing good in the place I ran to, either. After all, I didn’t exist there... which is the same as no one existing.” Realizing this, Shinji chooses to return to the physical world he knew, even if it means feeling pain again.

The idea that joy and pain are in many ways coterminous with one another is hardly original to Evangelion; indeed, it’s a fairly important concept to Buddhism. But I’ve rarely seen the idea expressed in quite the same way as Evangelion, in a way that’s both fully formed and strangely life-affirming. Pain is inevitable, but so is joy. You’ll be hurt, but it’s better than never feeling anything at all and may only give you more appreciation for what you have. You may feel alone, but you’re not; everyone suffers in their life at one point or another, and you don’t have to carry that burden by yourself.

Reflecting upon and considering these themes through Evangelion, as I rediscovered it during a low point in my life, allowed me to appreciate it in a way I’d never been able to before. And it also helped me to move on with my life, to accept the losses I could never recover while also believing it didn’t mean my own life was over. Like Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka, I didn’t have to be defeated by my experiences. I could keep on going. I didn’t have to run away. And that’s a message I believe everyone needs to hear at least once in their life.

Series creator Hideaki Anno (left) with mentor Hayao Miyazaki (right)

Today, Hideaki Anno has found some peace of mind. He’s happily married, the head of his own production company, and he’s physically healthier too. He still suffers from depression—he’s not cured by any means and he probably never will be; depression isn’t that kind of disease. But he’s able to fight it now and to find the happiness he once believed illusory. He has the same hope he wanted his characters to find in Evangelion. And which I also feel I’ve found, in some small part, thanks to him.

¹Throughout this essay, Neon Genesis Evangelion or NGE refers to the original TV series, The End of Evangelion refers to its theatrical sequel, Rebuild of Evangelion refers to the series of rebooted films produced decades later, and Evangelion on its own refers to the franchise as a whole.

²Specifically, shōnen, meaning boys aged between 12 and 18.

³The term has since been adopted by Western anime fans, but in Japan the word does not necessarily refer to animation fans specifically but to anyone with an obsessive interest in something.

⁴Ironically, “messenger” is a literal translation of the word angelos from Greek—the origin of the English word “angel”—as well as the original Hebrew mal’akh.

⁵The numbers 8 and 108 are both significant in Buddhism. 8 refers to the Noble Eighfold Path to enlightenment. 108 refers to several things, including the number of beads in a Vajrayana prayer rosary, the number of questions asked of the Gautama Buddha in the Lankavatara Sutra, or the number of times Japanese Buddhist temples ring a bell on New Year’s.

⁶The reason for this is never fully explained. Behind the scenes, this was largely because of the show’s target demographic. In universe though it may be related to the secret nature of the Evangelions themselves, which have human souls.

⁷Deuteragonist is a term which means the second-most important character with whom the audience’s sympathies are intended to lie.

⁸Though referred to as the Second Child(ren) because she was the second candidate approved to pilot Evangelions, before Shinji but after Rei.

#neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #hideaki anno #my writing #essays #retrospectives

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Spider-Man Self-Improvement #1 Thoughts

A historic moment in Spider-History!

I’m sure you all know the backstory to this issue if you are reading this, but just in case you don’t I’ll briefly explain.

Once upon a time in the 1980s Marvel fan Randy Schueller proposed an idea about Spider-Man getting a new black costume from Reed Richards with all sorts of special features. Marvel liked the idea enough to buy it and bring the fan in to work on the story behind it. The original story ideas were never used but were later repurposed for what eventually became Spider-Man’s iconic black costume, which later of course was revealed to be an alien symbiote and later still became fan favourite villain Venom.

Spider-Man Self-Improvement is a comic book based upon Schueller’s original vision for the costume and the story surrounding it, but brought to life by writer Peter David and artist Rick Leonardi, coincidentally the co-creators of Spider-Man 2099.

Schueller’s original vision for the costume was that it was a high tech outfit created for Spider-Man by Reed Rchards. The design of the costume would ostensibly be identical to the black costume we all know and love, albeit with the white parts swapped for red. It would be made of unstable molecules (see the Marvel wiki for more info on what those do) that would improve Spider-Man’s wall-crawling powers and come with cybernetic components that would enable his to mentally control his webshooters. There are at least two drafts of Schueller’s original story that we know of, and an element in both of them is that the black costume is somewhat frightening to people and that Peter ends the story opting to not make the costume his regular attire. There are other elements to the story but we’ll talk about those later.

All the above elements are what made it into PAD’s version in this comic.

As a story unto itself it’s fairly superfluous. It’s really not worth the price of a standard issue of ASM, but perhaps wouldn’t have been as objectionable if it had been priced at early-mid 1980s prices (which even accounting for inflation were a lot cheaper than today).

There is nothing egregiously wrong with the story itself, it’s just very simple, basic and linear is all. As Spider-Man stories go at worst it’s subpar because it doesn’t address his personal life all that much beyond the very last page where he pricks his finger sewing his old suit back together; and I guess the fact that he can’t control his webbing.

The most interesting aspect of the story to me, beyond the superficial coolness of seeing the original black costume, was the idea that the costume would be scary and intimidating and thus prompting Peter to reject it in favour of his classic friendlier attire.

It’s a small but interesting angle to take with the character and feels I dunno...appropriate for Spider-Man’s character. It also touches upon a topic I talked about a long time ago regarding the black costume vs. the classic costume.

In that post I referenced a fan letter published shortly after ASM #300 where a fan talked about why the classic costume was much more fitting for Peter’s character. This issue by accident or design seems to subtly echo some of those sentiments. It is ironic though given how Peter David’s work on Spider-Man famously featured him in his black costume and used it to tell darker and grittier stories. Then when David and Leonardi went on to create Spider-Man 2099, who was also edgier than the classic version, they intended his outfit to also be red and black like this version of the costume. And of course now days PAD is working on symbiote Spider-Man, which is possibly what led to him getting the assignment for this issue.

I hesitate to really critique PAD for this because he is after all simply executing someone else’s story, and the story was really more of an under developed outline. It was a few ideas strung together and little more than that.

The design of the costume is cool, and having Rick Leonardi, which IIRC had some kind of contribution to the look of the original black suit, draw it was a cool touch, referential to history too.

His art in the story is also mostly fine. I say mostly because weirdly everyone looks fine except for Spider-Man himself. In either of his outfits in this comic he seems a tad...off. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he just doesn’t look right and seems oddly out of place next to everyone else. To say it’s not the prime of Leonardi’s art like in the 80s or the 90s would be an understatement but it is not bad by any means.

More interesting than examining this issue unto itself though is the opportunity to play compare and contrast with both Schueller’s original drafts and the original Alien Costume Saga. That could get a little long but let’s try those out in brief.

Schueller’s drafts are actually included in this issue as a very fascinating piece of Marvel history. In addition to what I talked about above, you have Sue Storm and Janet van Dyne designing the look o the outfit in the first draft, Spidey being over excited like a kid with a new toy in both drafts, him having the equivalent of gliding web wings or a web cape in one of the drafts, his inability to control the webbing in both drafts and the idea that the cybernetics interfere with his spider sense, which is more pronounced in the second draft.

I think PAD cut these elements out to better streamline the story, and the Wasp making Spider-Man a new costume doesn’t jive very well with their established hostile relationship.

Firebrand’s inclusion in PAD’s version instead of generic thugs is likely to add something more visually dynamic to the story, something that would better test out the suit’s new abilities given how fighting regular thugs is something he could do in his regular outfit.

He retained the idea of Spider-Man having to rescue a woman though, just in Schueller’s original draft but changed her fate and circumstances; her situation reminded me of his Five Minutes prose story from Ultimate Spider-Man actually. In Schueller’s original draft the injured woman Spidey failed to save felt rather out of left field, something oddly dark and cruel to pop up in a story which up until then had been a lighthearted tale about a kid and his new toy. It also set up the idea of him becoming a darker avenging figure in line with the suit’s scary new look. Which was ahead of it’s time now I think about it.

The first draft I feel suffers from something I see a lot in fanfiction. I won’t rake fanfiction over the coals here because being wacky, experimental and well something you wouldn’t normally see in professional works is part of it’s charm. However Schueller’s script wants to use the lore of the established universe badly and use it to introduce something they’ve dreamed up themselves. That’s fine and dandy but often I’ve observed that this comes off as contrived in many fanfics and sure enough that is true here. Why would Reed Richards for instance whip up a new suit for Peter? In the PAD version of the story it’s still a little eyebrow raising but he essentially did Spidey a kindness after he almost died of burn injuries. In Schueller’s draft Wasp and Reed just decide to give him a gift out of the blue. Schueller better justifies this in his second draft but DeFalco still scrutinizes the decision.

I also think Schueller in both drafts sort of lost sight of the core idea behind Spider-Man, moreso in the first draft. He was clearly enchanted with the idea of Spider-Man having a high tech suit with cool features that he didn’t stop to consider if that really fit well for Spider-Man’s character. Credit where credit is due he did come to a compromise in his second draft wherein Peter would keep the suit but use it sparingly as a treat for himself. However I found the rationale behind that rather contrived. Schueller in fairness was trying a lot harder in that second draft and it was markedly better, but pretty much all of DeFalco’s critiques were on the money. Would Spider-Man really be like a kid with a new toy? Would he really care that much about his public reputation? Would the Bugle really not want pictures of this other superhero?

By the way, this is a total dick move on my part I admit, but seeing DeFalco shoot down Schueller’s script was I’m sorry to say kind of funny to me.

Overall PAD made much better use of Schueller’s drafts, he knew what to drop and what to keep and how to rearrange the pieces to make it all work much better.

More significantly I think is the fact that Schueller might’ve had more influence from his drafts than even he imagined. Some of his ideas are rather reminiscent of Spider-Man 2099 and the Iron Spider costume. Could it be that the creators of both were directly or subconsciously influenced by his original drafts? Or was it minds thinking alike? I prefer to think it was the former.

Comparing all 3 versions of this original story to what we got in the Alien Costume Saga I have to be blunt, the original is simply much better.

Making the costume an alien allowed for a more dramatic rationale to get rid of the suit and more importantly taps into the Parker luck. Rather than the costume being a cool new toy which has some kinks ad drawbacks which makes Peter drop it or drop it but keep it as a treat for himself, DeFalco and Frenz made the suit too good to be true. The Parker Luck in action!

The features of the Alien costume were also more impressive than those of Schueller’s, and they repurposed the way it interfered with his spider sense in a more interesting way. Rather than opening him up to possible dangers the suit itself WAS the danger because it didn’t trigger the spider sense.

So, whilst this issue is a fun ‘what could have been’ story, I think ultimately we were lucky to get what we got.

All that might sound like I wouldn’t recommend you pick this up but it’s quite the opposite, I think this is worth your time. Check it out.

#Spider-Man #Symbiote Spider-Man #Venom Symbiote #Alien costume saga #Tom DeFalco #Peter David #Peter Parker #Reed Richards #Mr. Fantastic #Mister Fantastic #the wasp #wasp #janet van dyne #Rick Leonardi

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sherlollyandspoilers · 5 years

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Spoilers Ridden Endgame Review

Alright Avengers, it’s time to get down to my completely full of spoilers review of Endgame. (If you want a non-spoiler review, go here). All spoilers are under the cut. AGAIN, this has spoilers...spoilers...spoilers...spoilers!!! If y’all read this then complain about it spoiling the movie...I have nothing to say to you. Anyways, enjoy! And please, feel free to message me if you want to chat about it!

So I am pretty sure that I have this in order…but I’ve only seen it the one time and there was a lot of information coming at me. Also…sorry, it’s long:

- The very beginning with Clint’s family just killed me – way to freaking start by reminding us of the horrible things that you did to our beloved heroes.

- I struggled with Tony’s response to Steve at the beginning, but felt it was rather justified after everything that he had been through (….I did love how later on when Steve, Nat, and Scott show up he tells them they can stay for dinner if they don’t talk shop – they are still part of his family).

- I went for the head.

- Nat working so hard to keep everything together killed me – these people are what she has left to live for and she cares for them so deeply.

- “I get emails from a raccoon.”

- Tony Stark. Officially Iron Dad. My bleeding heart.

- Bruce and The Hulk…nothing left to say.

- I LOVED seeing Valkyrie in the village – I know Thor says it at the end, but you can just tell that she does a great deal to help keep the village running.

- America’s ass – can we say a giant nod to the fandom??? Also, THANK YOU and BLESS!

- “Hail Hydra” – to me this felt like a giant middle finger to when Captain said it in the comic book and I fucking loved it!

- It was fun to watch all of the scenes from the other movies with a different perspective.

- Loki will always be Loki – no matter what time line he is in.

- Thor getting to talk with his mother again was beautiful (also him stealing his hammer was great).

- Nat dying. Okay. Let’s talk about this. Like I said before, Nat cares for these people and they are what she has left to live for. Like Steve said in the movie, the Avengers were her family – dying to give them a chance to live and save everyone was exactly what she wanted to do. Also, Clint was her best friend – you show me best friend duos like Nat and Clint who aren’t willing to die for each other. While Nat knew that she had a family that loved her, she knew that Clint had a wife and three children that needed him to be there for them…she knew what she was doing…don’t downgrade or disregard Nat’s choice to die for her family just because you didn’t like it.

- When Tony saw his dad and got to give him a hug and then Steve getting to see Peggy but not saying anything to her…OH MY GOSH THE FEELS!!!!

- Bruce/Hulk knowing that they needed to wield the gauntlet…just the fact that they were like, yup, this is what I was made to do and I am going to do it because I can

- The whole scene when the Avenger’s base was getting blown up had me holding my breath the whole time trying to figure out what the hell was going to happen.

- STEVE FUCKING ROGERS IS WORTHY!!!! Like damn! I am beyond pleased that they included that in the movie – it was amazing! And honestly, didn’t you all already know that?

- The giant reveal that everyone was back and they were ALL going to fight – like that was the most epic heroes’ entrance ever and we will probably never get to see another one like it again.

- I LOVED PEPPER IN THE SUIT THAT TONY MADE HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Badass ladies coming to kick butt and help Carol get the gauntlet to the “time machine” is what I am so here for!!!

- I. Am. Iron Man. *sobs for an eternity over the pureness that is Tony Stark*

- On the note, I HATE that Tony died, but I also feel it was so appropriate for his character – he has been the heart of the Avengers since the first movie and it felt so right for him to be the one to save everyone (after all of the amazing sciencey things that he had done in the first place to save everyone).

- I was glad to see Harley at the funeral. He and Tony really did have a great connection in Iron Man 3 – it’s my own personal head canon that they still talked over the years, Tony checking up on him to make sure things were going okay.

- “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

- I’ve been hearing that everyone is pissed about Steve staying in the past…like dude. Peggy Carter was the fucking love of his life. LOVE OF HIS LIFE!!! And once you find that you never want to let go. Steve had to do that once before and now that he was getting a second chance he was going to take it. And you know what? Good for him. Steve Rogers finally found himself someone to fondue with.

- I heard people complaining that they couldn’t believe that Steve “left” Bucky…Bucky had started to make his own life in Wakanda and he would never have wanted Steve to give up a second chance with Peggy just to “babysit” his old ass.

- As for him handing off his shield to Sam? I LOVED that too. Sam has proven himself time and time again that he was trust worthy, loyal, and dedicated – he is ready. Bucky, while starting to make a life for himself, is still getting a handle on things…let the poor man rest guys.

- And to wrap it all up, I just loved all of the little nods to the past movies and prominent lines that were said in them. I have invested and dedicated so much time (more than I should have) to loving these characters and in my opinion each character was honored in the way they deserved within the plot line that was presented (don’t get me wrong, I still wish Nat and Tony could come back, but alas that is what we have fanfiction for!).

#spoilers #marvel #avengers #endgame #kate reviews things

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sinfully-romione · 6 years

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Time Heals

Category: Greed

Description: “He knew he was a horrible, greedy git. He should’ve been more than satisfied to get any little scraps of her time, but he truly couldn’t help himself.”

Rating: T

One-shot (2275 words)

Most people underestimated Ron Weasley, but today he felt like a ruddy genius. He couldn’t take credit for the entire situation- it wasn’t like it was his idea to go and get himself near poisoned to death. Not the he might not have tried something that desperate- if he’d known how it would’ve turned out. Aside from a very sore throat and some guilt for making his family worry, being poisoned hadn’t been all that bad. Really there had been all kinds of advantages: he got to have loads of ice cream (for medicinal reasons of course), stay in bed all day, miss classes, avoid certain people…have Hermione all to himself. There, he’d went and thought it right out loud. Well, it wasn’t like he could deny it anymore, not to himself, anyway. He doubted he was doing a good job of keeping it from anyone at all, including her.

When he first woke up to find her: a red-nosed, puffy-eyed vision of pure beauty, he couldn’t quite convince himself that she was really there. But then she’d started prattling along faster than a pack of Cornish pixies after a shot of treacle, and he knew it was real He could only make out bits of what she’d said, he’d like to blame it on the after-effects of his physical trauma, but the truth was that he was just so relieved to find her looking at him and talking to him without a trace of anger that all his energy went into soaking up every last bit of it. At one point he did make out a word, it was Sorry. He froze. Hermione hated to apologize, even more than he did. For months he had fantasized about a scenario much like the one playing out in front of him: a teary Hermione throwing herself at him, begging him to forgive her for…for…for what exactly. Yeah, those birds had hurt way more than he’d like to admit, but other than that why should she be sorry? For not talking to him? Hell, he’d given her the cold shoulder for a week for a two-year-old hidden snog; could he really blame her for…well, for any of it? Guilt lodged in his throat, harder to swallow than any bezoar. Suddenly he felt the weight of wasted time. He wanted to stop her tears with the perfect words, but neither his addled brain nor his injured throat could supply them, so he did the best he could: gripping her hand, he rasped, “No…M’sorry.”

Instead of stopping her tears, this seemed to produce even more, along with sputterings of “You shouldn’t try talking just yet,” and something his rapidly beating prayed was, “I thought I’d lost you!”

It had hit him then, really, how serious it had been. Not just the poisoning, because in all honesty when you’re used to narrowly escaping death every year “mortal peril” just doesn’t pack quite the same punch anymore, but his estrangement from Hermione. They’d obviously had fights before; they’d even gone for long stretches without talking in the past, so he’d just assumed that this time would be no different. Even as the weeks stretched on, he had stubbornly held to his belief that sooner or later she would see the error of her ways. It seemed so ridiculous now, why had he been such an arse? He could’ve died without making it right. Death was not nearly as frightening to him as an eternity without Hermione.

So they had smoothed it over, on the surface, like his mum frosting a chocolate cake, careful to cover any imperfections, never scraping the layers underneath. She visited him often, more often than anyone but Pomfrey knew, but it still wasn’t quite enough. He searched for any reason to encourage her visits: asking her about her parents, his missed prefect duties, Harry’s obsessions, his missed lessons.

In classic Hermione fashion she had taken his missed school-work as her own personal mission. For a day or two he half expected her to make buttons EGG: Educating Gitty Gingers or the Weasley Education Taskforce: WET. He’d almost given himself a heart attack at the thought of a gleaming WET pin on her jumper or worse yet, a WET tshirt stretched across her chest.

Her efforts were met with a ferocity of learning the likes of which she had never seen. However, his overeagerness to curry her favor had nearly backfired on him. A week or so into their tutoring sessions she’d announced, beaming at him, “You’re doing brilliantly! You’ll be caught up in no time at all!”

Shit. That wouldn’t do-not at all. And though he couldn’t stop his chest from puffing up at her praise, he mentally began preparing for a new phase to his plan. He could not, would not, lose such a solid excuse to have her with him. So, he wasn’t proud to admit it, he began to play thick. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds either…he couldn’t be too obvious about it; he couldn’t have her thinking he was hopeless, but he began to “struggle” an appropriate amount with the new material and “forget” a little of the old. So sorry ‘Ermione, all these potions must be messing with my memory. She was so patient with him, never nagging or becoming frustrated. If he hadn’t known better, he may have thought that she was enjoying it as much as he was.

He knew he was a horrible, greedy git. He should’ve been more than satisfied to get any little scraps of her time, but he truly couldn’t help himself. He figured it would be bad enough anyway, but when you accounted for all the time he’d missed - well, he hadn’t even broken even yet.

It wasn’t just about time either; there was also proximity. At first it had been like bloody Christmas just to have her in the same room, but soon he found, again, that it wasn’t quite good enough. So again he’d taken matters into his own hands, literally moving the chair closer to his bed before she visited, every day a few precious inches closer.

But today he had a new plan-genius really. If it worked, he just might…well, he hadn’t really gotten that far yet.

Checking his watch: first for the time, then for assurance that it was working properly. Really how could the hour before she came be slower than a History of Magic lecture?! He was rewarded with the sound of her coming through the doors. He sat up straighter, clasping his hands together to keep them still.

“Hi,” she crossed, as usual, to stand at the foot of his bed.

“Hi.” Was it even possible that she could look so beautiful? For a moment he wouldn’t open his mouth, afraid that he would ask the question aloud.

“Have you eaten yet?” She held up a small bundle, “I brought you a couple of things in case you were hungry.”

“Brilliant! I did eat a while ago, but I could have a nosh in a bit.” He wasn’t about to waste time eating, not yet anyway.

“Alright. I’ll just put it over here until you’re ready.”

“Thanks.”

Hermione sat in the chair next to his bed, it was so comically close that it must have been difficult to maneuver. She did not, however, make any attempt to move it away even though her shoulder was actually brushing up against his arm.

“I thought we’d start with Potions if that’s alright,” she looked at him hesitantly, “that’s the longest.”

“That’s great!” her quizzical look made him internally reprimand himself: Damnit! Excited for Potions?! That’s not a dead giveaway…nooooo…not all!“But..ummm…I don’t have my book.”

“You don’t? What happened to it?”

“Not sure. Harry mustive grabbed it by mistake when he was here earlier. You know how rattled he is lately.” At least that last part’s not complete rubbish.

“No bother.. We can just share mine.”

She brought the textbook out of her bag, placing it on the side of the bed next to his hip, “Hmmm..that’s not a good angle for you, now is it?”

Ron shook his head in mock sadness, “Not really.” Hermione looked puzzled, trying to find a solution, one that he had sussed out days ago, “What if you, well, you could comeuphere.” He slid to the right and patted the mattress beside him.

“Are you sure?” Her voice was soft and hesitant, and he thought about abandoning his plan for a second, “I don’t want to hurt you.” Hurt him? She was killing him, but he bloody loved it!

“Doubt very seriously that you can take me out when poison, giant spiders, and death eaters couldn’t finish the job.”

“Or the twins.”

The laughter broke from them both, easing the awkwardness as she climbed onto the bed beside him. Over the last week he had cursed the narrowness of it many times, but now he lifted praises to whatever genius had designed them. Honestly, his plan could not have worked better, he thought.

Here they were together, her right side deliciously, agonizingly pressed into his left side. Nothing between them but a couple of thin layers of clothing. He could feel her hair tickle the top of his arm, right where the sleeve ended. When she opened the book and placed in on their adjacent laps may as well be one lap, a singular lap her fingers brushed the top of his outer thigh. It was perfect. She was as close to him as was altogether decent, he had her sole attention, there were no interruptions: it was everything he had wanted. Inwardly he relished in the moment, careful not to sigh contentedly aloud.

Now he could just sit back and learn the lesson at hand not too quickly, of course. All he had to do was focus on the points in the text that Hermione was talking about. Yep…just focus. Hermione shifted the tiniest bit and her knee her very naked knee peeked out from under her skirt and burrowed itself just above his. Must be too warm for tights…that must mean…he chanced a peek over the top of the book to confirm his hypothesis: she had indeed slipped off her shoes, leaving her bare feet mere inches from his own.

Suddenly that tiny space between them seemed unbearable. Just a minute ago he had been completely satisfied, but now…he wanted…more. He knew a sudden move would never do, he had to be smart about this. Distraction, that could work.

“So..umm…the Boomslang skin…do you chop it or shred it?”

“That’s actually a great question,” she furrowed her brow and pointed to a spot in the text, “it actually depends on exactly how long you want the potion to last. Shredding it allows for a quicker absorption and therefore it dissipates in the system quicker. Chopping means it is slower to take effect, but longer-lasting.”

Her answer was very thorough, but he heard very little of it. The entirety of his cognitive processes were concentrated on moving his left foot slowly, almost imperceptibly across the cool cotton blanket until it rested just beside, barely touching her own.

“Fascinating,” he hoped his voice sounded much more steady and convincing to her ears than it did to his own. It must have because she gave him a warm smile, giving no hint of pulling away.

“You have to be careful though, when you shred it,” she turned her right hand palm up on top of the book, “it’s very prickly.”

In the middle of her palm, he could just make out three tiny red marks. Laying his side of the book down, he took her hand in both of his. Before any logic could interfere he’d brought the wound close to his face to investigate. Her quick intake of breath stopped him from proceeding with whatever automatic action his body had initiated.

“Does it hurt?” Still holding her hand, he strove to show her the genuineness of his concern for her.

“A little,” she was blinking in that way that meant she was trying not to cry, and he knew that they were talking about something so much more than a classroom mishap. He cursed himself inwardly, fearing that he’d pushed his luck too far when she added softly, “but not as much as it did before.”

“That’s good,” he was relieved to see her smile at him, “just wish I could do something to make it better…especially after all you’ve done to help me.”

“Well I guess there’s no better place for me to be than right here is there?”

He nodded sagely, “There’s not…you should stay as long as possible…just to be safe.” It was a lie, perhaps not as innocent as he wanted to believe; it was anything but safe to have her so close.

“Well, if you think that’s best.”

Hours later, when Madame Pomfrey had forcibly herded Hermione out the door to avoid missing curfew, Ron sat, left still tingling from her touch, smiling like a lunatic. He felt full to the brim with her company, but also oddly empty from her absence. Would there ever be a time when he didn’t crave one more minute? One more smile? One more laugh? One more touch? He wasn’t sure, but somehow he doubted it. With a sigh, he pulled the blankets up already anticipating tomorrow’s visit. Ron Weasley had a brilliant night’s rest, despite the textbook size lump protruding from beneath his mattress.

#7deadlysinfest2018 #romione #greed

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itispossibleihaveissues · 7 years

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Another Perfect Catastrophe -7

AUTHOR: Mikimoo PAIRING: JayDick RATING: Mature

WARNINGS: Non Consensual drug use, Non Consensual touching, Non Consensual kissing, humour, slight mayhem

SUMMARY: Dick goes undercover as himself in order to catch a gang of international thieves. Jason reluctantly tags along as his long suffering bodyguard. During the ensuing mayhem they get to know each other again and build a few bridges.

Thank you to burkesl17 for the beta!

Notes: An embarrassingly long time ago, the amazing and very, very talented Pentapus invited me to do a reverse bang style exchange, and drew me an amazing prompt. I have no idea how this story was the one that emerged from the many options I had, but such is the creative process I guess! Anyhoo, many thanks to Pentapus for both encouragement and patience, and of course the incredible art! (which will be included at the end of the appropriate chapter)

Chapters: 1, 2, 3 4 5 6

GO HERE FOR THE AMAZING ART BY THE AWESOME PENTAPUS!

“Nice undies.”

Jason blinked his eyes open to see a gray haired, wind bitten man looking down at him. “Not really the weather for skinny dipping though,” the man continued, thoughtfully.

Jason attempted to say 'what?' but all that came out was, “Nugh?”

“Rough night was it? You're lucky you didn't freeze to death down here.”

“Huh?” Jason's head was throbbing and felt like it was full of cotton wool. He was becoming increasingly aware that he was freezing his balls off, though. He appeared to be on a beach, dressed only in an undersized t-shirt and a pair of Wonder Women boxers. Beside him, Dick was wearing even less, just underwear and bruises. That triggered a flash of memory. Garner striking Dick's face, and Jason snapping the fuckers neck. He couldn't remember getting here though, and he was suddenly afraid Dick wasn't breathing. He made the mistake of trying to sit up.

“Christ,” he said, swallowing bile. He squinted at Dick and felt a rush of relief when he realised he could see the steady rise and fall of his chest.

This was worse than his most appalling hangover, but he managed to flail an arm out and poke Dick on an unbruised part of his face.

“Eughh,” Dick said, eloquently, rolling over and squinting blearily at him. “Why?” he moaned, and he sounded as piteous as Jason felt. Dick flopped back over and looked up at the man, still calmly watching them, sipping from the big blue mug he was holding. “Are you Captain Briton?” Dick asked, groggily.

The man laughed, “No, son. I'm Peter Hobson from the White Hart. What were you boys drinking last night?”

“A brew straight from Satan's ass,” Dick muttered, unhappily. Hobson laughed again, louder.

“Well, come on back to the Hart and have a cup of tea to warm you up. You can't go wandering around town dressed like that.”

“Thanks,” Jason groaned, attempting to get to his feet without falling over. He vaguely remembered swimming, and feeling euphoric. But now everything hurt and he wasn't sure what exactly he should be doing, other than sleeping off whatever shitty chemicals were working there way out of his bloodstream. He leaned down to offer Dick a hand up, managing to avoid vomiting on him when the world spun sickeningly for a moment. Dick whimpered but gained his feet, holding on to Jason's arm in a weak grip. Together the staggered after Hobson as he lead them back up the beach.

The White Hart turned out to be an old, quaint inn, with a rustic hearth and sea views. Dick somehow managed to turn on the charm, despite being mostly naked, shivering and suffering the same sort of hangover as Jason. The landlady took one look at his big blue eyes and swelling jaw and the next moment they were both swaddled in blankets and drinking giant mugs of sugary tea. It was close to heaven. Dick had somehow cobbled together a story of drunken woe, involving copious amounts of alcohol, an almost comical mugging and going for a midnight dip – possibly an ill advised attempt to swim back to the USA. He had them all laughing, and completely wrapped around his little finger in minutes, it was a wizardry that Jason by himself could never hope to match.

“Can I make a call?” Dick asked, after regaling them with a story about drunkenly attempting to escape the muggers in the sand dunes. “I'll call my dad and get him to wire us some money, we can rent a room and perhaps order some clothes.”

“It's no worry,” Mrs Hobson said, handing him a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel. “You shouldn't be talking so much with that swelling on your face.”

“Jay can make the call, can't you, Jaybird?” Dick was said, turning apparently innocent eyes on him.

“Oh sure, I can make the call. But I'm not going to. This is your fault, you tell daddy what happened.”

Dick's eyes seemed to grow in size, and his face became piteous and pleading. His lower lip even wobbled with sadness. “Please, Jay?” he asked.

To his eternal shame, Jason buckled.

But only because he had no intention of calling Bruce.

He took the cordless phone outside, still wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and clutching more tea. Then he called Tim.

“Hey,” he croaked, the short journey to the patio and bright morning light having caused another spasm of pain to his already aching head.

“Are you okay?” Tim said, in that rushed way he had when he was anxious and had a lot of stuff to say and no time to say it. “You fell off the grid last night, I've been worried sick. I wasn't sure if I should get the cops involved or not, but after I couldn't find any trace of you I called them anyway. Sorry if that screwed things up, but it was all I could do,” he added defensively. “Where were you? Why didn't you check in?”

“If I could get a word in?” Jason said, he kept his voice bland, despite the overwhelming urge to mock Tim for his concern. He realised that Bruce and the Bat brat's near miss probably had him on edge already, so Dick falling off the grid after Jason's call the previous evening probably had him frantic.

“Sorry,” Tim said, sounding a little sullen. “Where's Dick, he okay?”

“Yeah, he's fine. Bit bruised and with a drug induced hangover that feels like a night spent in a cement mixer, but otherwise fine.”

“So, what happened?”

Jason sighed, he really didn't want to go into details, but he sat his butt against a picnic table and gave a brief rundown of the previous night’s events. “...and then we woke up on the beach, and some local dude took us to his bar, and now we need cash,” he finished.

“I'll wire you the money,” Tim said, but there was something in his voice that sounded a little off.

“What? You got something else to say?” Jason snapped. “What happened after the cops were called, anyway? What happened to the gang?”

Tim was quiet for a moment. And Jason rubbed at his face tiredly as he waited for the kid to come out with whatever was bothering him.

“I laid some false trails, tide some stuff up for you, basically wrapped the gang up with a bow and dropped them in the cops lap,” he said at last.

“Thanks,” Jason said, slowly. There would have been a lot to tidy; DNA, video footage, the paper trail. A dead guy.

“You accessed their security system, you saw what went down,” Jason guessed. He felt another wave of tiredness wash over him, he really wasn't feeling up to a fight, but it was against his nature not to defend his corner.

“Yeah.”

“And? You going to make something of it? Forward it to the cops or to daddy-dearest?”

Tim was quiet over the line for a long moment, perhaps collecting his thoughts. Jason let him be, and squinted out across the bay. The morning was crisp and bright, full of the fresh promise of spring. It was calming, but he really wished he had a nice warm bed and at least nine hours uninterrupted sleep before he had to deal with this shit.

“When I got into their computer,” Tim finally began, “I tracked some emails back to Garner’s home system. I found footage he had taken, of the things he did to the other victims. He was going to do those things to Dick.”

“Yeah.” Jason didn't want to think about that, it made the red mist of rage bubble in his gut, and he just didn't have the energy for it. Instead he took comfort from the memory of the feel of Garner’s neck breaking in his hands.

“I got into their security system too. I saw what happened, why you did it.”

“Figured you did. Question is, what you going to do about it?”

“It's done already. After you escaped into the sea, they felt that you had probably both drowned. But on the off chance you hadn't they cleaned house and ran for the airport.”

“Cleaned house?”

“They disposed of Garner's body and started to erase any evidence of you being there. No fingerprints, no DNA that couldn't just be transfer from the times you spend together in London.”

“That was very helpful of them.”

“I thought so. I let them do that while I prepared my case for the cops. Then I let them get as far as the airport before having the police pick them up. You and Dick are in the clear. Richard Grayson wasn't involved with them after London and they killed Garner in a double cross. Only you and I know any different. Well, and the gang, but they would lie about that wouldn't they?”

“That's remarkably reasonable of you,” Jason said, perplexed. “You're not going to tell the B man?”

“No, although I won't lie if he asks. He probably won't though.”

“That doesn't compromise your overly-inflated Bat morals?”

Tim went quiet for a moment, and Jason silently cursed himself out for pushing dispute being thrown a bone.

“It does, but it’s a compromise I'm willing to take on this occasion. Don't think I'll do it again though,” Tim said, firmly.

“Not unless the situation warrants it?”

“Something like that,” his voice was clipped and tight. Not such an easy choice after all.

“I knew I liked you best for a reason, Replacement,” Jason said, trying to lighten the moment. He was all too aware he owed the kid big time for this one.

The tension stretched for a long second, then Tim huffed a laugh. “Oh you do, do you?” he said, his voice suddenly amused and mocking. “Didn't look that way to me, Jase.” The way he said the name was in the exact same way as Dick - no - Richie, had said it after they had played out that scene in the bedroom. It was an incredibly good imitation – so good it made Jason flush. Because of course Tim had seen that footage. Had probably seen far more than Dick, like the way Jason had to adjust himself after Dick had climbed off him and headed down to dinner.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jason tried, half-heartedly.

“Sure you don't, lover boy.”

“Shut up. And never say that sentence again, it's just wrong coming out of your mouth. Anyway, I may owe you for sorting out this clusterfuck, but don't push your luck.” Tim's silence seemed both loud and mocking, and Jason squirmed. “It was just acting, okay?” he said at last. “It's easy to get swept up with the moment, that's all. We're fucking professionals.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh shut up. Look, you can mock me all you want later, but right now I have the mother of all hangovers and I need cash. All I have to my name at the moment is my underwear and a child sized t-shirt.”

Tim laughed, the jerk.

“Will you send funds to this inn direct? We'll need papers and shit to get out of the country too.”

“Sure. I like you better when you're hungover, much easier to jerk your chain. Although the distance helps too.”

“Yeah laugh it up, Sunshine. But let me give you one piece of advice for free - if you ever decide to be a proper teenager and sneak out to have fun, drugs are bad.”

“Thanks for that little pearl of wisdom, Jason.”

“Really, really bad.”

Dick looked about ready to keel over when Jason headed back inside. He peered up hopefully, his jaw looked painful, and he had a black eye, but he still somehow managed to look attractive. It really wasn't fair.

“Spoke to our brother,” Jason said to the room at large. “He's booked us a bed for a few days, and is sorting out clothes and contacting the embassy about our missing passports.”

“That's a relief!” Dick said, “I'm ready to sleep for a week.”

“You boys are brothers?” Mrs Hobson asked doubtfully, looking between them.

“Same father,” Dick said smoothly, standing with the blanket still wrapped around him. “Did Tim say anything else? I assume it was Tim, due to the lack of shouting.”

“Nope, just that he's dealt with the legal side of things for us. Apparently I phoned him last night when I was drunk.”

“I suppose you boys will be wanting to sleep off those hangovers now, will you?” Mrs Hobson asked.

“That would be amazing,” The full force of Dick's smile was slightly hampered by his fat lip, but it still managed to charm Mrs Hobson, the woman was practically swooning.

Of course, ever the dickhead, Tim had booked them a king, no doubt he was back home in Gotham laughing his ass off. Well he wouldn't be laughing when Jason got home and zip tied him to a lamppost.

“Oh,” Mrs Hobson said. “Are you sure this is okay? We have two singles available at the moment, although they are on different floors, and a double room opening up after midday if you want to wait?”

“No this is fine,” Jason said. It wasn't only that he was ready to crash though, he could still feel the residue of fear in him, and he wanted someone to watch his back as he slept. It was very much something left over from before Robin, that he had never really grown out of, the need to be sure of his own safety before sleeping in a new environment. Even this exhausted he doubted sleep would come without a level of reassurance. And if he was being honest, he wanted to keep an eye on Dick, too.

Hell, maybe Tim wasn't such a jackass after all.

Dick shot him a considering look, like he knew the direction of Jason's thoughts, but then nodded and smiled at Mrs Hobson, gushing at how lovely the small, neat room was. Jason was sure it was nice but he was already shuffling towards the bed, clutching his blankets and blocking out Dick's continued chatter. Then the door shut and they were alone, too tired for awkwardness Jason slid under the warm duvet and when he felt Dick do the same he let his eyes slip closed and blessed sleep take him.

He woke once during the long day, adrenaline spiking at the unfamiliar room and strange smells of dried flowers and sea air. Beside him, Dick was sleeping quietly, his face peaceful, cheek pillowed on one hand like a small child. It was soothing, and Jason used the soft sound of his breathing to chase away his anxiety and slide him back into sleep.

#Jason Todd #jaydick #dick grayson #nightwing #red hood #Catastrophe #mik trys to write stuff #My writing #My fic

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joysofbraindamage · 7 years

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Interesting thoughts on “Speechless” from its creators. Unlike “Fosters” 5A the “Speechless” writers seem to be paying attention and getting input from actual disabled people, and disabled writers.

http://uproxx.com/sepinwall/speechless-great-family-comedy-season-2-preview/

Text from article.

When it debuted last fall, Speechless was just the latest of ABC’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of distinct family comedies. By the time its first season wrapped, the series — about a special needs family where oldest son JJ DiMeo (Micah Fowler) has cerebral palsy — had become the best of them, deftly mixing at least two parts silliness for every one part reality, exploring how mom Maya (Minnie Driver), dad Jimmy (John Ross Bowie), and siblings Ray (Mason Cook) and Dylan (Kyla Kennedy) build lives that are always at least partially defined by JJ. It’s a story that on the one hand is deeply personal to Speechless creator Scott Silveri, who grew up in a family like the DiMeos, including a brother with CP, and on the other had to be figured out as he, fellow executive producer Daniel Chun, and everyone else in the creative team discovered what could be funny about their premise, what risked being offensive, and when it was okay to let things get serious. It’s a balance Silveri, whose previous show was the grief support group comedy Go On, keeps feeling surprised he’s working to maintain. “I told my wife, ‘I just want to write something funny for once,’” he recalls, “and she says, ‘For a guy who just wants to write something funny, you sure do an awful lot of shows about dead wives and disabilities.” Last month, I visited the Speechless writers office to talk to Silveri and Chun about how they decided on the rules for this show, what they’ve learned from talking to real special needs families, what’s coming up in the second season (which premieres September 27), and a lot more. THE FOUR BULLSEYES Posted on the walls of the Speechless writers offices are four “bullseyes” for the writers to aim at, as explained by Silveri: Funny “Funny should go without saying, but you certainly can imagine a version of it that isn’t. One must always be mindful of that. That’s the goal, not teaching anybody anything.” Rock Star Family “This is meant to broaden the action in the show, rather than being the ‘ramp of the week’ show where Maya is always taking on some cause. A different thrust for fun seemed like, these are people who come to believe they’re in a special, privileged position, a little bit above the law. ‘We don’t play by other people’s rules.’ Taking the chaotic nature of their lives and turning it into a good thing, on the cheap, oftentimes.” Comic Specificity of Disability “We have that, let’s take advantage of it. When you set up, particularly in the first year, you want to do stories that nobody else can tell. We’re in a block of a bunch of different family shows, but we’re about this type of family, so let’s lean into that.” (As the season moved along, they gained the confidence to do episodes — a Valentine’s Day adventure for Maya and Jimmy, a family trip to the supermarket — where disability was a minor concern at most, but they first had to establish the characters in the context of JJ’s needs.) Non-Cynical “I wanted to celebrate the bonds they share, their inclination to take being ‘different’ and turn it into a positive — the farthest thing from cynical I could imagine, and it was important always to keep an eye on that. So we looked — and continue to look — for other avenues to inject the bite we wanted. Whether it’s trading on the ignorance of others outside the family, or leaning into our characters’ brutal honesty and their choice to laugh in the face of adversity. (Take Jimmy’s ‘Having a disability is expensive. It’s almost not even worth it?’ from the hero episode.) It’s maybe the most fun part of the puzzle of making this show. Finding that tone where we can be frank, direct — the teeth — without being jerks about it. “The other reason is simply a taste thing. I kind of relish the challenge of making a scene funny when people actually like each other. Folks taking turns crapping on one another has its place, but I wanted this to be a family that gets along, and I thought there could be plenty of opportunity for laughs even given that scenario. People have at times described the DiMeos to me as dysfunctional. I kind of think they’re supremely functional. They have differences and they butt heads, but they work in my mind. They care about each other. And this is a network comedy. I love darker, more sinister stuff in different contexts, but for a network comedy, people with differences finding common ground (and actually enjoying those differences) is what I most like to see.” ADVERTISEMENT NOTES: 1. All tokens are represented by '$' sign in the template. 2. You can write your code only wherever mentioned. 3. All occurrences of existing tokens will be replaced by their appropriate values. 4. Blank lines will be removed automatically. 5. Remove unnecessary comments before creating your template.

DRAWING LINES OF GOOD TASTE AND GOOD COMEDY Perhaps the show’s best, and certainly most quintessential, episode of the first season was the Oscar party show, which hit all the bullseyes, and particularly the ones about funny and the specificity of disability. Maya grappled with her jealousy of a much more put-together special needs mom, while JJ’s aide Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough) tried to organize competitions for JJ and his disabled friends, which climaxed with the absurd spectacle of the kids beating each other up with padded sticks and cushions and wearing various improvised devices designed to put them on a level physical playing field. “We’ve shot stuff and not used it,” says Silveri, “but that felt pretty much within our power alley, because it was coming from a place of empowerment: ‘Okay, if anybody else can do this, why can’t these kids do it?’ If you have that sure footing, then you can go for it. I was surprised early on when JJ gave the finger, people were into that. When JJ got drunk, people were into that. We got clued in very early on that he could even misbehave and that was welcome in itself, because it was ‘normal behavior.’ So as long as he’s got a point of view in it, as long as he and these other kids with disabilities are not props in it, then we’re on sure footing. How wrong can we be? “We also have a lot of sensitivity in the room,” he adds. “We have a lot of people with either siblings or kids with disabilities. We now have a writer with a disability. We’ve bounced a lot of the stuff we do off of a couple of different foundations, including the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. We could be wrong, and we will be at some point, but we kick the tires a little bit. But if JJ has a say in the matter, if he he’s active, that helps us a lot.” An early cut of that same episode found the creative team crossing a line without realizing it, with a joke where one of the kids at the party kept repeating the same phrase over and over. “It had the crew in stitches,” Chun recalls, “but when we saw it in the cut, it felt a little like, ‘Which side of this joke were we on? Are we laughing with this girl? Are we laughing at this girl?’ It felt close enough to that, that we cut that out.” Another major line the writers have to worry about crossing is being so honest that laughter becomes impossible. The show is blunt about the realities of JJ’s disability — Kenneth helps him go to the bathroom, Dylan has to feed pizza to him, and he has virtually no privacy — and can do it very well as matter-of-fact material, occasionally taking place in the background of a scene about something else. But when they did an episode about JJ being briefly hospitalized — a periodic fact of life for many people with disabilities — Silveri found it was “a tricky thing to edit, because he got hurt and was in a little bit of pain. That was not fun to lean into.” At the same time, JJ’s condition not only gives the DiMeos license to be jerks (though Jimmy would contend that they’re idiots, not jerks), but gives the writers license to let them be as loud and abrasive as possible — so long as the loudness is specifically in service of JJ. “Early on, we had some stories in mind that were just Maya going on a tear for a tear’s sake, and it didn’t feel right,” says Chun. “That was the sort of thing that we executed and just went, ‘If she’s doing it for the kid, that’s funny. Crazy for crazy’s sake is not going to win us any viewers.’” WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW Silveri didn’t pull the idea for the series out of thin air. His brother’s CP is more severe than JJ’s. (“He’s non-communicative.”) And in Micah Fowler, who has CP, he has a star who knows the material even more intimately than he does. Where some showrunners want no creative suggestions from their actors, Fowler is an obvious resource, both for details about life with disability and for advice on narrative philosophy. “I had my pad out ready to take down a bunch of disability-specific ideas,” Silveri recalls, “but that’s not how he sees himself. He wants to talk about what any 17-, 18-year-old wants to talk about. He wants to get in relationships. He wants to put himself out there. He wants to think about his independence. That’s what we ended up doing a lot of, towards the end of the season especially.” At the same time, the show can’t always draw from real life. Fowler is working on walking, which at first Silveri wanted to make into a parallel arc for JJ. But when they spoke to some of their other consultants in the disability community, “They’re like, ‘Maybe not make it about him overcoming disability. Living with, dealing with, thriving with.’ When it’s ‘casting off the shackles of dreaded disability,’ it’s much thinner ice for us.” “We met a lot of people in pre-production,” says Chun. “Either parents of people with special needs, or the people themselves. We went to some places that do therapy for kids with special needs and got tons of material from that. Usually, in pre-production we’re sharing, ‘Oh, this show’s at a restaurant. Let’s go visit a restaurant for 30 minutes.’ Then, it’s just a huge waste of time. Here, we got tons of stories from talking to those people.” ABC Zach Anner The season two writing staff has added Zach Anner, a writer and comedian with CP who worked as a technical consultant in the second half of season one — Silveri reached out to him after watching an online video where Anner discussed the show — and cameoed in one episode as a man Maya hoped could be a role model for what JJ’s adult life could be like. “In the first packet of ideas that he sent us [in season one],” Silveri says, “I think we used about five different stories out of it. We were just about to do the grocery store episode, and in my first conversation with him, he mentioned that thing of, ‘When I go to a grocery store in my chair, it’s just a string of, “Hey, buddy, you got a license for that?”’ I went, ‘Shit, change what we’ve got, get that in the show!’” Anner knows the subject, but he’s also funny enough to keep up with a room full of more seasoned sitcom writers, and at times outpace them. “The only problem with Zach has been typing fast enough to get what he’s saying on the screen,” says Silveri. “It does save us the added bonus of we don’t have to think, ‘How might this go? This process with the school board? Who would be involved in this?’ He knows. But that’s .01% of what we get from him.” ADVERTISEMENT NOTES: 1. All tokens are represented by '$' sign in the template. 2. You can write your code only wherever mentioned. 3. All occurrences of existing tokens will be replaced by their appropriate values. 4. Blank lines will be removed automatically. 5. Remove unnecessary comments before creating your template.

SOMETIMES, COMEDY WINS OUT OVER TRUTH Nowhere is this more unapologetic than with the show’s use of Kenneth. Not only would someone with Kenneth’s (lack of) qualifications (he was the school groundskeeper) never be allowed to take that job, but he wouldn’t be hanging out at the DiMeo house on nights and weekends, or really at all. “Sometimes, we’ll do some mental gymnastics to justify it,” Silveri says, “like it’s right after school, so he dropped the kid off and got sucked into some DiMeo thing. Or, ‘This isn’t a Saturday, even though they’re all sitting around sitting college football. It’s a Thursday, it’s right after school.’ But it will never limit us, it will never keep us from putting him in a scene. It’s the unfortunate curse of having him be really funny. Sure, he could work for that family 25 hours a week, but it would be a lot less funny. We’ve all worked on shows where it’s like, ‘Why are they over there at that apartment? Why is he meeting the murderer for coffee at work?’ After a certain point, you just go for it. We have bigger fish to fry.” (Chun says they also justify it both in the writers room and in occasional dialogue by pointing out that Kenneth doesn’t have much else going on in his life, and is thus eager for the excitement and companionship he gets from the family.) ABC Silveri and Driver HOW “HEY!” BECAME “OY!” In development, various executives kept pushing to make Maya an American. (TV executives are terrified of the idea that a foreign accent might scare off viewers, which is why Karen Gillan is somehow no longer Scottish.) So, for that matter, did Minnie Driver herself, who told Silveri that the Maya in the pilot script seemed very American to her. Silveri, though, wanted her to use her native accent. “Comedy is so delicate,” he explains. “Any time you see somebody trying to hide an accent, there’s this sense of, ‘What is that? Are her parents Dutch?’ It’s just a little off. It was clear to me, you didn’t want her to be playing vowel police off in the corner. We’ve got enough work to do without having to say, ‘No, that was really funny, but you were British.’” Driver and the execs gave in, and then she improvised one of the most defining bits of the character by inserting a demanding and very English “Oy, sea slug!” in a pilot scene where the script had her saying, “Hey, sea slug!” (The school’s mascot is a sea slug, for reasons best explained in context.) “As soon as she said it,” Silveri recalls, “we were like, ‘Throw some more “Oy!”s in there! It’s fine!’ Now, we keep writing ‘Hey’s and ‘Dude’s, and Minnie Britishes them up for us. I just wish she’d stop saying ‘bugger.’ It’s funny and we’re not allowed to use them.” Chun thinks Maya’s Britishness helps in another way: “It buys you about 10% more outrageous behavior than you’d accept from an American.” THE SHOW ALMOST DIED AT “THE COOKIE PASS” While Speechless has fit seamlessly into ABC’s family comedy machine, it was originally developed to air on Fox the year before ABC bought it. No pilot was ever filmed. There was no Kenneth character, since JJ in the first iteration of the script spoke with the help of a computer; while doing research later, Silveri met a woman who used a word and letter board like the one JJ has, with an aide who read aloud from it, and enjoyed their dynamic so much that he realized, “I don’t know if we can make a computer funny, but I know we can find a funny person to (play an aide), and that adds another flavor to the show.”(*) (*) Because the talking computers have become fairly common for disabled people with the means to buy one, Silveri decided to do a story midway through the first season where JJ inherits a hand-me-down device from a friend, only to realize that he prefers letting Kenneth speak for him. It was meant to answer the many fan questions they’d received on the topic, but, “We had to wait to find a version that actually felt funny, and wasn’t just like a Star Wars crawl at the beginning of an episode of, ‘Here’s why we do this.’” Silveri commends the Fox executives who read “70 different revisions” of the script, “each getting incrementally closer or way farther from the mark.” One of those is what he and Chun (who was developing Grandfathered for the network at the same time) refer to as “The Cookie pass,” in which Silveri attempted to transform the show into something that felt more appropriate on a network becoming increasingly defined by the success of Empire. That version featured “A lot of white fur coats and stuff. It was just leading into her being outrageous and her husband being a record mogul.” By the time Fox declined to make a pilot, Silveri was so dispirited that he initially wasn’t interested when he heard ABC wanted to revive the idea. “Then, when I looked at what ABC had, I thought, ‘Oh, of course. It was crazy ever to consider putting it anywhere else.’” ABC WHAT COMES NEXT? When I visited, pre-production for season two was still in early stages, with only a script or two having progressed beyond the outline stage. But the writers already had ideas for the year as a whole, from small ones, like the introduction of a rival for JJ who gets away with being awful because he’s disabled, to big. One of those big ideas involves Maya’s initiative in getting JJ into this great school backfiring, as word spreads throughout the special needs community that Lafayette is open for business, resulting in so many families moving into the district that it runs out of money, which could lead to JJ losing Kenneth as his aide. From a less plot-driven standpoint, Silveri is interested in JJ’s aging, and what that means for both him and Maya. “It’s an interesting and true fact of life with kids like him, there’s so much that’s available to a kid with a disability,” he explains. “Then, the older you get, there’s a little less. There’s a little less infrastructure. It’s a little less cute to people. There’s less novelty and help. Now we’re feeling like, ‘What is this guy’s life going to be?’ He’s going to apply to college, he’s going to have to become realistic about what his options are while challenging himself. “For Maya, she doesn’t want to hold him back, but at the same time, ‘This kid’s been my life forever, what am I without him?’ It’s going to open up new worlds for her about where is she, what is her place in the world, in a world that’s already a little less dominated by him. Now he’s in the school, and he’s got an aide, and he’s going to be more independent, and she’s going to get more independent. We want to meet her family.” Other stories will be less profound, like a Halloween episode where Ray and Dylan swap bodies. The writers had to sell ABC on that one, since it’s so far outside the show’s usual reality, but Silveri looks at it as the kind of big swing that then allows them to get more grounded and serious elsewhere. THE “FUNNY” BULLSEYE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE Silveri spent years as a Friends writer/producer, but of late has worked more on shows that straddle the comedy/drama line like Go On. But rarely has he seen the line become as blurry as it is here. “Shows that I’ve worked on, it’s normally like, ‘This is a funny scene, this is a serious scene.’ In this show, we do a lot of banking recklessly from one to two. It’s kind of a fun way to write, not to have to quarantine the arc.” That said, the longer we talk about the series, the more he begins to fear that this story will make it sound like televised broccoli. “One thing we really want to get out there is, if you see the poster, if you see a still shot, it could read as this earnest and self-serious thing. It’s no documentary on disability. It’s comedy, and it’s not too good for you. He pauses after that speech, worried he still hasn’t made his point. “Just tell people it stinks,” he adds.

#disability representation #speechless #speechless tv show #disabled writers #disabled actors

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melpomenecokr · 5 years

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﹟ ♡ THIS MONTH IN MUSIC : APRIL 2019.

♡♡♡

This month was surprisingly rich and eventful when musical releases are considered; I had a hard time picking my top five of the month, especially when a lot of great releases trickled in near the end. However, as many character flaws as I have, being indecisive typically isn’t one of them, so without further ado, here are my top five recommendations for the month of April.

Before we get into it, though, I just want to say I know that I missed last month -- you guys won’t let me hear the end of it, and rightfully so. I won’t make a lot of excuses beyond there was a lot going on with work and in my personal life, but I’ll do my best not to miss another month again. March wasn’t that eventful anyway, though there were a few gems. If you’d still like me to talk about them at a later time, let me know.

Anyway, let’s get started. As always, all links for streaming and purchase will be included in each section. Please support these artists and their great music.

#005. “THANKS (고맙다)” - DOUBLE SINGLE BY GEMINI (제미나이) RELEASE DATE: 06 APRIL 2019

Now, this may be a little shocking and possibly even upsetting to some of my readers, but I’m actually not entirely all-that-familiar with the whole Gemini situation, even if my younger sister is under their same company. All that went on while I was still in college,and trust me, I had a lot of drama of my own to sort through at the time, but the gist of what I knew before this release was that they were involuntarily put through a survival show where half the group got cut. Through my sister’s experiences, I know a little bit of what it can be like to be in a group; you literally spend every second of your time together and more often than not, the members get really close. The pain that event must have caused them is so tangible with this release, even three years after everything happened as it did, as the twelve of them briefly reunited to release these two songs.

With that bit of background out of the way, “Thanks (고맙다)” consists of two songs; one with the exact same title and another called “Don’t Wanna Cry (울고 싶지 않아).” Both songs are Future Bass-esque tracks with modulated synth patterns and heavy beat drops, which I think is a unique pairing with such sad and emotional lyrics -- but it works well. In both cases, it really makes the listener feel the strength of their emotions, and it has the potential to generate this sort of bittersweet nostalgic feeling, which I find quite genius on the part of the arrangers and composers of these two songs; and sensibly, the members of Gemini themselves worked on every aspect of these songs together. It shows.

For specifics, we’ll start with the title track, as it’s the first of the two that appears on the tracklist. “Thanks (고맙다)” is, in my opinion, the lyrically superior of these two tracks, so I’m glad to see it as the title. The chorus is so powerful both lyrically and musically that I got that lump in my throat as I listened, and even as someone who doesn’t know the entirety of their story, I really felt for these boys and all they had been through together, and apart. The general message speaks toward the regret they feel for not better articulating how much they cared for one another while they were together, so they take this time now to thank each other "even after all the waiting, all the longing, and all of our memories.” That’s a truly beautiful message, and I believe it may be encouraging to other groups not to take each other for granted, because you never know what your company will do with you, at the end of the day.

“Don’t Wanna Cry (울고 싶지 않아),” while not as lyrically solid as its predecessor, is definitely the sadder of the two songs as you may have gathered from the title. The synths are used in a way that support the simple chorus so that the listener can feel more than hear how the events of the survival show have affected them. According to the album description, this song was actually written three years ago, right after the events of the show came to an end -- but they re-recorded and released it now that they have the chance. It definitely shows how their skills as lyricists and artists have progressed; this isn’t a bad song at all, don’t get me wrong, but I almost feel as though “Don’t Wanna Cry (울고 싶지 않아),” should have been first on the tracklist because the way it conveys a simpler, though sadder message. On this track, the members of Gemini are basically telling each other how sad they are to be separated, and how much they wish things could have been different -- but how, in the end, they’ll be strong for one another, and always there for each other, waiting to do anything they can, and for the chance to be together again. It almost seems like a love song, honestly, and I appreciate the emphasis on the vulnerability and the value these boys place on their relationship. It’s definitely something you don’t see a lot of boy groups doing.

Listen to “Thanks (고맙다)” here and stream the music video here.

#004. “RUSSIAN DOLL” - STUDIO ALBUM BY COLA RELEASE DATE: 25 APRIL 2019

I feel as though everyone has those artists that they know about and appreciate but don’t heavily “stan” so, ashamedly, some things fly under the radar. That’s Cola for me. I love to see more experimental and bold artists out there, especially male ones, because male artists in the industry tend to repeat and copy the same trends and styles and ideas and it gets stale really quick. But Cola always brings something fresh and new, and that’s what I can really appreciate about his music. I didn’t let “Russian Doll” slip through the cracks for me; as soon as I heard it had come out, I dropped everything and went to listen. And let me tell you, I was far from disappointed.

As Cola’s fourth full-length album, “Russian Doll” consists of 12 tracks, with one title. As this isn’t an in-depth review of the album, I can’t talk about every song, but I’ll tell you now that all of them are worth your listen. The two I’d like to highlight are “Golden Age” and “Motherfucker,” and of course I have to talk about the title track, “Juice.”

“Golden Age” is the first song on the tracklist, and I think this was done with incredible purpose. The slow progression of both the lyrics and the music together really sets the mood for the rest of the album, which takes you on this sort of rollercoaster of emotions and sensations. The lyrics are delivered with so much emotion that it can be easy to forget about the accompanying music, but the way the vocals are pushed to the forefront is actually really appropriate for a song like this, in my opinion, and the way the progression is paced sort of primes you for this huge bang that doesn’t actually come within this track itself, but that’s okay. An explosive bridge or a sudden change in tone would have felt weird with a song like this, and I like it as a standalone, but I think it’s supposed to lead you into the album, like the prologue of a story. On top of that, the deeply personal lyrics convey a theme of self-discovery and self-giving love, which is really sweet. As painfully single and alone as I am, this song really made me feel loved for four minutes.

Remember that “bang” I just mentioned? That’s “Juice.” I was not expecting this energetic pop song right after “Golden Age” just plunged me deep in my feelings, but I think that’s what makes this song an even better experience than just listening to it on its own. As a pop connoisseur, I love everything about this song -- the high and light vocals, the disco-synth beat, the overt sexual innuendos -- it’s great. I can already see future-Melody in her skintight rainbow dress dancing to this in the gay bar after having too many sangrias, and I’m happy for her. I hope she gets juiced, too.

The last song from this album I’d like to talk about is track seven, “Motherfucker.” And no, I don’t just like this song because I have a potty mouth, though that’s definitely a factor; the fact of the matter is that lyrically, this song is really something special. The lyrics are written and delivered in this short-of-breath kind of way that makes the song feel so simple and yet so passionate, and the way its so in-control of itself as a song is excellent. This song knows exactly what it is and Cola knows exactly what he wants to say, and how to say it. I feel like most will agree with me here, but the lyrics “do you really want me to write a feminist anthem? / I’m happy cooking dinner in the kitchen for my husband” sent me. There’s something so intrinsically feminist about that lyric, because its his choice. It’s not something he, or any person listening, should feel required to do because they hold a ‘submissive’ role in a relationship. But when it’s something you’re happy to do, regardless of what society says? That’s powerful.

Listen to “Russian Doll” here.

#003. “OLD TOWN ROAD (REMIX)” - SINGLE BY LIL NAS X AND BILLY RAY CYRUS RELEASE DATE: 05 APRIL 2019

I know. Okay? I know. I am risking my credibility as a music journalist by putting this song in what is meant to be a serious review -- but hear me out. I’m more than willing to argue about why this song is unironically good all day long. As Lil Nas X says on the track himself, “Can’t nobody tell me nothin’.”

The original “Old Town Road” came as 2018 was fading away (good riddance), and though it was pretty popular within the meme community as this fun and entertaining country-trap hybrid, it never really saw real status as a musical release. Lil Nas X was only 19 when he released it to SoundCloud, and as I’ve stated before, SoundCloud is not exactly the place to go if you want to find music of legit quality. Not always, at least.

But when this remix hit the charts, everything changed. At first I didn’t even bother with it because I had listened to the original and while it served its purpose as a comical and light-hearted guilty-pleasure track, it wasn’t anything I was too invested in. Yet, as I’m sure any of you who have a twitter account are aware, this song was literally everywhere and was climbing the charts faster than anything I had ever seen before, so I gave in and listened. And, by god, this is among very few country songs I can actually enjoy -- and that’s saying a lot, as a country girl by birth.

So, let’s get into why this song is so, so good. First of all, the arrangement is simple yet so effective, and the beat drop on the aforementioned “Can’t nobody tell me nothin’” chorus is borderline artistic. The way the vocals are synthesized and enhanced gives the song a completely different feel from its original, like something you can actually enjoy without feeling as though your best friend will side-eye you from the corner of the room (that is based on personal experience), and even if he did, you wouldn’t care. Admittedly, this song leaves a lot to be desired lyrically, but the simplistic rhyme scheme and Billy Ray Cyrus’ assertive and very iconic rap bring a joy to my heart that is nearly indescribable.

My only complaint about this song is that it’s so short. At least one more refrain, or another verse would have been greatly appreciated since it feels like it stops so short, but that’s easily remedied by hitting the replay button. Not all songs have to be deep and thought-provoking to be good, and Lil Nas X deserved his big break with this infectious and spirit-lifting song he and Billy Ray Cyrus have brought us.

Listen to “Old Town Road (Remix)” here.

#002. “I LUV U” - SINGLE BY 5OGUE (보그) RELEASE DATE: 19 APRIL 2019

I felt somewhat depressed about missing my chance to review 5ogue’s sixth mini-album, “Mixed 6nals” last month, but as if they read my mind, they released an auxiliary single near the end of their promoting period to give me a second chance. (Side note: if you, my dear readers, are still interested in full a Mixed 6nals review, just let me know. I have a lot to say about that album.) They’ve actually done this before with their fifth mini-album, “Re:Covery” where they released “HXTE U” as a single as a gift to fans. I can only imagine how much work and planning goes into something like that, but 5ogue have shown themselves to be fiercely dedicated to their fans many times before, so I can’t say I’m surprised.

Anyway, to be honest, I was kind of shocked when I first listened to this song because I thought I wasn’t too fond of it. I’ve stated many times before that I’m extremely picky with songs that have overly-repetitive lyrics because I feel like if they don’t serve a certain purpose, it’s just ear poison, but after my first listen I quickly released just how obsessed with this song I was, even if the word ‘like’ is said over 100 times.

I don’t think I’m very susceptible to brainwashing, but the chorus went from being a little annoying to being infectious; I genuinely couldn’t stop listening to it because I couldn’t get enough, and the more I listened, the more the song grew on me. The chorus does most of the work for this track, and I think that’s where that ‘purpose’ i mentioned earlier comes in, because the verses are simple but are delivered in a way that center around the chorus and pull the song together perfectly. The message of being so extremely infatuated that it makes them physically and emotionally sick is conveyed in not only the lyrics, but the style and arrangement of the song itself, and that makes it so clever. They don’t glamourize that, either -- they show how unhealthy it is to think of someone that way, even if it can be sickeningly sweet. I love that. I luv that.

5ogue have pretty much established themselves as the masters of Retro Pop, so the old-school-with-a-new-school twist aspects of this track come as no surprise, but rather as a nice brand that lets you know this is something they’ve created. And even if you’ve never been obsessed with another person to the degree this song expresses, the power vocals and smooth raps draw you in enough to invite you to their world, and to give you a taste of what its like. That’s brilliant to me, and 5ogue really stepped outside of the box with this song.

Listen to “I Luv U” here and stream the music video here.

#001. “SUPREME” - EXTENDED PLAY BY WICKED! (위키드!) RELEASE DATE: 25 APRIL 2019

This may look like bias because, as many of you probably know, my sister is in this group. But, as many of you probably also know, I don’t really tend to let how much I like or dislike an artist influence my objective reaction to their music, so believe me when I say this album is number one because it’s amazing rather than my familial ties to it.

Good? Good.

That out of the way, let’s talk about “Supreme.” This is, by far, Wicked!’s best release to date and I’m not sure if they’ll be able to top it anytime soon. Every song on this mini-album was good, so much so that I struggled to pick which ones to discuss here at first, but after a long period of introspection I have settled on “No” and “Like It,” and of course we should at least briefly cover the other title track, “Kill This Love.”

This album starts off with a bang, literally, as the heavy drum and trumpets of “Kill This Love” will actively scare the shit out of you if you aren’t expecting them. But, given this song’s disposition and very bold lyrics, I think that was more than intentional, as the girls discuss getting rid of a toxic and superficial love before it becomes something they can’t walk away from. Kimmy’s rap in this song is some of the best I’ve heard from her; the tumble-like flow and high-energy really adds to the overall message of this song -- that they’re strong enough to let go of something for their own good, even if they don’t necessarily want to do it on the surface level. The vocalists really came through on this song as well, and all the members really did their part to make this power anthem the great song that it is.

Next up is “No,” one of my favourite songs to come out this year so far. This song actually distantly reminds me of “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred, with the low synths and dance-pop vibe it gives off, as well as the confident lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, though; these girls outsold those crusty white guys without any question concerning it. The chorus and Future Bass-like arrangement of it are so unique, and fuse with the idea of loving yourself and being confident in the things you like in an unexpected and yet perfect way. The bridge of this song is actually my favourite part, as it makes you just want to strut like a supermodel no matter what you’re doing or wearing. This song makes me feel sexy, independent, and free to do whatever I want, and I think that’s a common sentiment. It’s excellent work.

Finally, I feel a begrudging need to talk about “Like It” -- and I have to say begrudging because, as fantastic of a song as this is, it’s really weird to hear my little sister sing about sexual sensations. But, we’re both grown women and I can look past that enough to tell you that “Like It” is one of the best songs on this incredible album, second to only “No,” in my opinion. The Dance-pop and R&B combination of this track is beautiful in terms of both its arrangement and how it fits with the sensual lyrics. Speaking of those lyrics, they’re pretty simple aside from the raps, but I think that’s perfect for a song like this because when you get to feeling so strongly about wanting to be with someone, you often can’t think straight. Maybe I’m giving the writers too much credit, but if that was intentional, it’s brilliant.

Listen to “Supreme” here and stream its music videos here, here and here.

Well, that’s all for this segment of This Month in Music. Be sure to tell me about your favourite songs of the month in the comments, and start a discussion about any of the points I’ve brought up today. I hope you enjoyed, and I helped you to discover at least one new song you love. ♡

#r: multi #s: tmim #a: gemini #a: cola #a: lil nas x #a: 5ogue #a: wicked!

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renzywenzy · 7 years

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Logan Review

*Spoiler Alert*

“One Last Time”, said Hugh Jackman back in 2015. It was at that moment that I started to feel the pain. The pain of knowing we were going to lose someone who not only has been a huge part of the character that he played but has become the character. James Howlett. Weapon X. Logan. Wolverine. For over 15 years and for one role, he’s dedicated every facet of himself. His body. His mind. His heart. And now it has all culminated into this. With one last mission, we have finally arrived to his curtain call.

I was thinking not to let my emotions get the better of me for this review but then I thought that doing so would result in the best and most honest critique I can possible give. To dissect this film properly, I had to be a nostalgic nerd as much as a film critic because this is 17 years and 7 movies (9 if you include cameos) we’re talking about here. Whether those movies were great (Days of Future Past) or shit (Origins), he would never turn in a bad performance as the feral mutant. So with that being said, let’s delve deeper into the beloved hero’s final adventure.

The Good

1.) I just have to say this first. Hugh Jackman just fucking destroys it as Wolverine!! I always thought that his performance in the 2003 “X2″ was his best outing as the comic book icon and that his later performances, though fantastic, weren’t quite up to par…but this one is and actually surpasses it. For a role like this, he had to step his game up and he did so flawlessly. Wolverine is just a broken down mess of a man. He has been through hell and has the unhealed scars to prove it. What the writers did for Wolverine here is instill in the audience a sense of fear. Fear that he may actually die at any given moment. His healing powers are just not the same in his old age and the adamantium’s poison is finally catching up to him. I feel like I should tell some of you who may still be wondering what’s causing him to die what exactly is wrong with him. Well, to put it simply, Wolverine was the perfect test subject for the adamantium project because not only would his natural healing abilities help him survive the injection of adamantium but it would keep the metal from poisoning his blood after. However, now that he’s growing older (he’s not immortal, he just ages a LOT slower) his healing factor isn’t the same and because of that, his blood is finally feeling the effects of the poison. So now, he’s exponentially weaker and that’s what I love about it. We finally get rid of that feeling of “Oh well he’ll just heal in a few seconds. This is nothing to him”. No, that’s just not the case anymore. He’s relatively vulnerable now and that’s what makes Wolverine more engaging than ever before. He can feel the lasting results and not just from physical pain. Now, alcohol can make him drunk, his body can’t even heal enough to give him perfect vision and hell, maybe even a fucking snake bite can kill him for all we know. However, his physical deterioration is the least of his worries.

No longer the sharp, agile, and feral weapon that he once was, he is now a rusty, old, and mentally exhausted man running on whatever precious fumes he has left. A recurring motif is how tired he constantly is. Literally and figuratively. A far cry from the battle-ready and ever vigilant soldier that he once was. It takes a special kind of actor to pull this off but thankfully, Wolverine is played by a very talented man. Hugh Jackman, for all the positive adjectives I can give him, is just downright believable. You just believe every emotion he shows whether it’s anger (and there’s a lot of that), sorrow (even more of that), or happiness (so few that they have to be cherished). For example, that one scene at the barn where he, Laura (X-23), and Charles were having dinner with the nice family. Wolverine cracks a smile and it just feels genuinely warm. The fact that one smirk meant so much captures just how heavy-handed this film was and how convincingly depressed Wolverine was throughout. Another scene was when he was yelling at X-23 (I’m sorry but I’m just gonna call her that for the rest of this review since that's how I called her growing up) at how he and his friends “never asked for this”. You see the sadness and rage in his eyes at the same time. You see the decades of torment in his face and the toll it has taken on his body and mind. A body and mind that has been impaled, brainwashed, shot at, nuked, telekinetically thrown around, physically thrown around, and has even travelled through time. The perfect portrait of a man that has been through centuries of anguish.

A role like this requires a 100% from a physical and emotional standpoint and Hugh gives more than just 100. Maybe it’s experience, maybe it’s the fact that he has lot of hype to live up to knowing that this is his final outing, maybe it’s the love and the respect that he has for Wolverine. Maybe it’s all of the above. Whatever it is, I’m glad that he saved the best for last. I know that somewhere along the line, 20th Century Fox (or even Marvel Studios if they somehow get the movie rights) will just find a new actor to play Wolverine but this performance alone shows how it’s damn near impossible to fill Hugh Jackman’s shoes. I feel sorry for whoever has to replace Hugh because you would not just be replacing an actor. You’ll be replacing The Wolverine. Thank you, Mr. Jackman, for this bravura performance and thank you for 17 fucking years of unadulterated brilliance.

2.) This girl…holy fucking shit. This girl steals her scenes, man. Dafne Keen, in her first ever film role, absolutely amazing. She holds her own with Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart (who we’ll get to in a while). Honestly, I was genuinely surprised how solid this kid was. It was actually one of my initial worries that she wouldn’t pull it off because, if I’m being completely honest, we’re in a generation where good kid actors are a rarity these days. So it’s just refreshing to see this little child show off her visible acting chops and her potential to be an even better actress. What really makes her stand out is how so much of her emotions can be felt through her eyes alone and her eyes are fucking daggers that pierce right through you. When the camera closes in on her stare, you feel the coldness and the intensity. You feel that at any minute, if she’s pushed too much, she’ll unleash her fury on the poor soul she sets her eyes on. I was completely sold on her abilities in that final scene where Wolverine dies and she was required to cry. That scene right there was almost a litmus test to see if she can dial up the drama. It’s a scene that would make or break an actor and she made it.

The character of X-23 is properly developed (thank Jesus). She is handled just as well, if not better than her cartoon counterpart in X-Men: Evolution. Her life story is accompanied by such tragedy that doesn’t feel too manipulative. In fact, it garners a lot of sympathy. That’s why when the claws start flying, it feels extremely satisfying but I’ll talk more about the fight scenes later. Her tragic background, her attempts to become closer with her father, and her engaging search for a purpose make her a strong and compelling character who, if given the right direction, can replace Wolverine’s presence in future installments. I look forward to seeing more of Ms. Keen as X-23 and hopefully, her next adventures become as memorable as this one.

3.) Damn. Has Patrick Stewart ever given a bad performance? He’s just one of those dudes where acting just feels natural to him. Every line is delivered excellently and every emotion displayed perfectly. I will definitely miss Hugh Jackman as Wolverine but damned if I say nobody will miss Patrick Stewart once he leaves Professor X for good (I know he said that this will be his last outing but he expressed interest in appearing in future Deadpool films so there you go). He has proven time and time again that he is the perfect Professor Charles Xavier. McAvoy’s great too but this is the definitive Professor. In this film, every aspect of his personality is on full display. Whatever comedic potential he had was reached here. His vulgar cussing at Wolverine from time to time is just funny and is timed perfectly. His warm nature is still there but is mixed in with some bitterness and surliness which is appropriate given all the shit that he has been through directly and/or indirectly caused by Wolverine. The slight animosity that he has for Wolverine is earned because he is a man who believes in the idea of helping others while Logan seems to have forgotten that. Even with his sense of honor, more so than ever before, he is vulnerable. The most vulnerable that he can possibly get and it is dangerous for everybody around him. The greatest and most powerful mind in this cinematic universe suffers from seizures. Fatal seizures at that.

In X2, we’ve seen just how lethal his powers can truly be when he loses control. Imagine a powerful bomb that can potentially wipe out the entire world in a slow and very painful manner. Now imagine that bomb retains its level of destruction but now it has faulty wiring. That is how deadly Professor X has become in his ancient and deteriorating age. During his seizures, you see that his mind is eating away at the lives of those around him. I’m not sure what the fuck is happening to them but I sure as hell do not want to find out. All I can say for sure is that it’s not pretty and if left unchecked, it can kill people within a few minutes. How do we know? Well, apparently he has killed others already. It’s never explicitly said how (which is good) but the way I pieced it together was during his first seizure, he injured 600 people (some mutants and probably some humans) and killed 7. Those 7 were X-Men.

It’s really sad the more I think about it. The one person who gave Wolverine a home was the same person who destroyed it. You feel his guilt towards the end of his life and how he thought he doesn’t deserve to be happy. I’ll admit that I cried with him as he recalled that dark moment of his life and when he died, it was just horrible. Honestly, I thought that the way his death played was great. Not necessarily the way he was killed but what came after it. When Wolverine had him in his arms and he kept telling Chuck “It wasn’t me”. That was great and how Xavier was stroking the car and saying “Sun Seeker” as if he thought that he was on the boat that Wolverine promised to buy. It was shot beautifully. In the end, he died feeling both happiness and sorrow. If we ever get to see Professor X again, he may never top this performance but this newfound comedic timing would work wonders in a possible appearance in Deadpool. I enjoyed all the dynamics that were laid out among its 3 central figures. Whether it was the father-daughter relationship between Logan and X-23 or the friends/mentor-protector relationship between Wolverine and Professor X or the collective dynamic of all three characters together, the on-screen chemistry was just perfect and it really sums up the main vibe of the film.

4.) I think now it’s appropriate that I talk about the tone and pacing of the film. If anything else, this is probably the darkest,grittiest, and most down-to-earth movie in the X-Men Cinematic Universe. For Wolverine’s character, that tone fits perfectly. I think being an R-rated film really helped out here because not only does the R-rating show itself in the action sequences but it shows in the maturity of its storytelling. It takes a less fast-paced approach and becomes more methodical. There are plenty of stretches where there’s really no action happening and all you’re given is interesting character arcs that are handled with care and respect. It takes its time with these people and rightfully so. These moments could have easily been boring but because you care about these people, because the dialogue is so well-written, and because the chemistry between Wolverine, X-23, and Professor is so damn strong, you don’t really notice the slower pacing. The film is heavy handed and it wants you to feel the pain of these people through these character-driven moments.

It’s not all gloomy, though. The film balances drama with some humor and neither aspect ever makes the other an afterthought. There are also those bittersweet scenes of some subtle happiness sprinkled throughout. In fact, we needed some of these lighter moments to balance out all the depression surrounding their adventure. The sweet little barn scene, in particular, fleshed out X-23 more. With X-23 discovering music, it reminds the audience that she is still a child even with all that adamantium-filled rage within her. Scenes like her laying down on the floor and looking at her picture of friends reminds how this weapon created through test tubes and collected DNA is just someone who wants to have a normal childhood and have a family. That’s why seeing her have her momentary sense of sanctuary made me both happy and sad. Happy because at least gets to be a normal person for a few hours but sad because I know, right around the corner, the painful reality is slowly tracking them down.

5.) I just need to talk about the kick-ass action scenes. They are fucking bloody and gory as hell. Blood here, blood there, claws through the throat, through the eyes, through the chest, you got them all here. It’s superficially satisfying but awesome nonetheless and thankfully, there is a lot more of that in this film. Initially, I wondered how far would this movie go in terms of violence and within the first 5 minutes, they showed me just how. Wolverine is being messed around with by a few thugs and he just wastes them. One dude’s arm is just gone and I was like “Oh shit, that actually happened” and just from there, you get the sense that this is different from previous X-Men films. Also, there’s this one scene that takes it even a little further than. So X-23 is in a building eating cereal and this one massive dude comes in and attempts to apprehend her. The massive dude’s team is with him and the rest of his buddies are outside. You hear noise but you don’t see anything. X-23 comes out and is holding something and yes, that something is the guy’s severed head. This little girl established her bad-assery and didn’t even do anything on-screen yet but when she finally does unleash the claws for the first time, everyone just gets murdered and mutilated. I would like to thank Deadpool for being such a success because if it hadn’t, we probably would not get any of this. This is by far some of the best and most appropriate action sequences involving Wolverine and it’s just fucking awesome. I figured that maybe it might too gratuitous at times but then I said “Fuck it. This Hugh’s last outing so go out with all the bloodshed and severed limbs you want.” And just went you thought they would run out of ideas for these action scenes, they even use Professor X’s seizures cleverly. I don’t usually do this but I want to give massive props to the choreographers of these stunts because they did justice to the character here and hopefully, if X-23 gets her own films, we get to see plenty more of these.

6.) Finally, I have to talk about Wolverine’s death and I’m a little bit on the mixed side. The second part of this point will be #2 in my negative section. However, let’s first talk about why this death worked. He finally died and not as a punk. He died fighting like the rabid warrior that he is. It was an extremely sad point in the movie but what came after was even more melancholy. His final conversation with X-23 and how he tells her to not be the weapon that they her created to be was fantastic. Not only because of what he said to her but the fact that, out of all the people in the world, Wolverine knows that feeling better than anybody else. My favorite part was definitely when he said “So this is what it feels like”. There was something darkly funny about that moment because keep in mind: this is a man who, for centuries, has avoided death. He feels all the pain that he goes through but it’s never enough to kill him. Whatever gets thrown at him, he’ll just heal and come back stronger than ever. Yet, here he is. In the middle of the forest. Dying as both the wild animal they made him to be and as the honorable man that he thought he never was. It’s an emotionally powerful moment indeed.

Now that we’ve talked about the good parts of the film, here comes the less attractive job when talking about great movies: what didn’t work well.

The Bad

1.) This point is more of a two-parter, maybe even a three-parter because I will be talking about the main villains and their wasted potential. Seeing as how this is my biggest gripe, I felt it was appropriate to talk extensively about it.

The weak, vanilla villains. These dudes were generic as fuuuuck. You had the “relentless asshole soldier type” and “the evil doctor”. Oh joy. Thing is it’s sad because the two actors who played Zander Rice and Donald Pierce (above) gave solid performances but it’s just the development or lack there-of that was the movie’s biggest misstep. There was no real motivation behind these bad guys and nothing interesting about them. More importantly, there was really not enough character in there for me to hate. There was so little weight to their misdeeds and they were just not convincing enough. They were so over-the-top bad for no good reason that they just felt static and robotic so that’s why when they finally died, I didn’t feel any sort of satisfaction or hell, even that bare minimum “That asshole finally died. YES!” feeling. It’s not like Gaston from the animated Beauty and The Beast or Commodus from Gladiator or even Sebastian Shaw from X-Men: First Class where you let out an inner scream of triumph when you finally see the main villain die after a grueling adventure. I really wanted that triumphant feeling but sadly, it just wasn’t there. Hell, if they couldn’t make them convincingly villainous then at least make them insufferable and annoying like fucking Jesse Eisenberg from BvS. God, now that will be a death that I will cherish forever. For all who don’t know, I hate Jesse Eisenberg as “LEX” “LUTHOR” for reasons you can find in my BvS review.

But I digress. One thing that they could have done with these villains is build on those small character moments that they already showed. For example, that scene where Donald is talking to Wolverine and tells him that he looked up to Wolverine growing up as a kid. They could have made so much more out of that particular aspect but they didn’t and it would have made this cat-and-mouse chase all the more emotionally charged.

The biggest waste, however, is the character of Dr. Rice. The man who was apparently the reason for the extinction of the majority of mutants. He just comes in halfway into the film and I’m like “Woah, alright , that’s a bit sudden for a new villain.” and he does nothing to make the film any better. I really can’t talk too much about this guy because there’s really nothing too much to talk about anyways. He’s just there. He is, however, the creator of X-24.

X-24 is the younger, more feral, and more evil clone of Wolverine. Although, his healing abilites are limited and not quite up to par with the healing factor of Wolverine in his prime. He doesn’t have that much going for him but he’s not completely wasted as he does give Wolverine some pretty cool fight scenes. Again, though, they could have done so much more with this character and here’s why I say that. In his introduction scene where he kills Xavier, the nice family who owns the barn, and the family’s hostile neighbors, he gets a little too crazy and the doctor has to stop him by yelling at him. Now, that particular aspect of “Frankenstein trying to control his monster” felt unnecessary because they never went past that one scene. Then, there’s a scene where X-24 gets impaled and Doctor Rice is injecting this serum in him so that he can heal properly and he speaks to him in a way like a father does to his son. That right there showed a more human side of Dr. Rice that we sadly don’t get more of. Had the writer given more emphasis on this “father/son, evil genius/unstable creation” dynamic, it would have made this movie a lot better and it would have given Dr. Rice and X-24 a hell of a lot more development.

If maybe they would give us 15 to 20 more minutes of scenes like that, I would have been perfectly fine with it. They could given Logan the “Dark Knight Rises” treatment and make it 2 hours and 45 minutes. If Christian Bale’s Batman gets that much time than so can Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. I mean, honestly, it didn’t feel like it was dragging too much and extra scenes like the Dr. Rice/X-24 development would have kept things fresh. It’s a huge opportunity wasted.

2.) Here comes the continuation of positive point #6. This next point is a little complicated. You see, this point is about the fact that Wolverine didn’t go out in that grand and epic way that he deserves BUT the reason that it’s here in the negative section is only because of negative point #1. Had he been killed by a villain that actually mattered more and meant more then I would have been completely fine with the manner in which he died. As it stands, however, because he was killed by a rather bland villain, it doesn’t feel as grand as it should have. Don’t get me wrong though. It’s weird because I’m not necessarily talking about his final moments while he was dying but I’m talking more about the actual cause of his death. It’s not a huge problem in the grand scheme of things but still, for a character like Wolverine, we needed a little more. Guess it’s kind of appropriate, really, seeing as how his comic book counterpart canonically died rather anti-climatically. (Props to Marvel, by the way, for keeping Wolverine dead for 3 years and counting. None of this cheesy comic book resurrection bullshit).

BUT, and here’s a massive but, it still has some clever symbolism that makes it less negative. Remember throughout the entire film, Wolverine kept contemplating on whether or not he should kill himself. Also, remember when he was keeping that adamantium bullet for himself. Well, technically speaking, HE did kill himself just not in the conventional way and that bullet was used on HIM again not in the conventional way. I’m not sure if the writers meant that or if it was accident but the symbolism worked well as a whole.

Now that we have the major positives and negatives out of the way, here’s a new section that’s unique to Logan. It’s not really bad nor is it good but I feel like I have to mention it.

The Confusing

Where the fuck does this fit in with the X-Men movie timeline? It honestly does not make any sense and here’s why. After Days of Future Past (DoFP), the timeline of the films have changed. Basically, X-Men 1,2,3, Origins, and The Wolverine never happened. The timeline followed First Class, DoFP, and Apocalypse and James Mangold, the director, told people that this follows the timeline after DoFP BUT they make references to what happened in X-Men 1 and technically Wolverine got that adamantium bullet from Origins. It might not be the same bullet but I don’t see why it can’t be. There aren’t exactly any adamantium bullets lying around. So either they completely fucked with the timeline OR it’s an else-world story. Mangold, himself, did say that one of the main reasons the film is set in the future is to avoid following plot points from previous films. I get that. He wanted to tell a story and he felt that staying too much on the path of the previous films would limit the tale. I get it but it’s just so damn confusing. In the middle of it all, I accepted it because of how good the film is so that’s why it’s not good nor bad. It just is.

Quick Bullet Points

So because I can’t make paragraphs about everything, here are some quick positives and negatives for you

+ Cinematography is top notch.

+The settings they chose were beautiful.

- Caliban is a wasted character. More of a plot device than anything else and…

-….that’s why his death was just meh.

+ Soundtrack was pretty good.

+ Thank God they don’t use that fucking shaky cam

- They don’t really explain how they kept X-24 in control.

+ Some of Wolverine Uber-esque drives were pretty funny.

+ That Deadpool teaser at the beginning got me excited for the sequel.

- No Deadpool/Wolverine crossover

+ I’m glad there was no post-credits scene like previous X-Men films. That showed real closure.

Overall, this was a fantastic film. What Logan is to Marvel movies is what The Dark Knight is for DC. It goes beyond the comic book genre and instead becomes a gritty, dark, and dramatic tale of an old veteran looking for peace in this world. I am so glad that they made this movie and that it was every bit as good as it possibly could have and more. It’s the appropriate send-off to a beloved role that has become a part of people’s lives for 17 long years. Years from now when a new X-Men movie come out, something will feel different and you’ll realize it’s because a huge part of what made these movies so great has left this hole that may never be completely filled. For all the people who love and will miss Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, cherish this movie as much as you can. It’s funny when you think about how Hugh wasn’t even the first choice for Wolverine. Imagine what it would have been like had he never been chosen. They will find someone to replace him sooner or later (Tom Hardy is rumored while Hugh believes Scott Eastwood should do it) but deep down, we’ll all know nobody can really replace him. It won’t be because other dudes aren’t good enough actors. It’s because, like I said, this is 17 dedicated years and 7 full movies. That’s not easy to replicate or even add to so to the actor who’ll eventually play Wolverine, best of luck to you. You’re gonna need it.

And as for Hugh..

…goodbye and thank you.

#logan #movie review

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

Text

Spider-Force #2 Thoughts

The text at the issue’s end advertising issue #3 includes the phrase ‘what-the-heck-just-happened’.

All too appropriate for this series.

In issue #1 there was a sense of...confusion on my part. A sense of ‘why is this happening, who are these people, what’s going on’. Not for the over all plot but for specific elements, such as regarding Charlie. I thought maybe the consequent issues will flesh this out.

But with issue #2 I doubt that.

Some things were answered but other things played out in head scratching ways. In fairness I think it’s less a matter of what happened so much as the presentation of it.

I think the key example here is Ashley and Charlie’s relationship.

The idea that Ashley would seek to connect to a version of her grandfather isn’t an uninteresting angle per se.

However having her open up to Charlie and encourage Charlie himself to open up to her whilst they are literally tumbling through space is a baffling creative decision. I’m wondering if Priest went that direction to be funny (he does lampshade it a little) or if he just needed to cram it in there.

This baffling use of presentation applies to stuff that is initially confusing but gets answered later, but isn’t presented initially as something that is posing a mystery or a question in the first place. One example would be Charlie’s initial recruitment and him saving the falling safe. Another would be when we get 3 flashbacks in a row from the POV of Astro-Spider, Ashley and Charlie. When you first see this it’s very confusing because they don’t seem to line up and it’s not clear that we are getting flashbacks to all 3 characters. The fact that Charlie’s past was being dived into was immediately made clear when he yells for Astro-Spider to get out of his head. But it isn’t until way later in the comic that we find out we also got to see Ashley’s past.

Granted maybe that’s on my end because I’m not overly familiar with Ashley.

This brings up a point of debate regarding presumed knowledge on the readers’ parts. I have read Old Man Logan but it was a while back and shockingly I was more focussed upon Logan’s story than anyone else’s. And yet knowing the wider world building and Ashley’s angle would’ve made a point of alienation in the story much more accessible, but I was never told or reminded of that aspect. In contrast though Astro-Spider’s origin is clearly connected to the cosmic rays that created the Fantastic Four. And at first I didn’t bat an eye at that because of course I know the F4’s origins. But then I got to Ashley’s character and it made me realize if you didn’t know the F4’s origin you’d seriously be baffled by Astro-Spider’s. So at the end of the day I feel very much it’s a failing on Priest’s part that he doesn’t have some kind of exposition or explanation that will be more inviting to new or unfamiliar readers. After all it’s maybe one thing to presume general knowledge about Spider-Man when you are writing a Spidey tie-in for a Spidey event but quite another when doing that to presume they’ve also read F4 and Wolverine comics.

Even putting aside the issue of presumed knowledge there is a certain...cheapness to the modest exploration of Ashley’s character and her relationship with Charlie.

Now I read Old Man Logan a while back (and wasn’t impressed at all) and don’t remember everything about it. I also didn’t read all of Spider-Verse and skimmed a lot of the stuff I did ‘read’. So maybe I’m forgetting or in the dark about something in need of enlightening. But I don’t remember Ashley being a sexual abuse survivor. I don’t remember Ashley having particular connections to her grandpa Peter Parker.

These elements to her are thrown into this and the last comic and then exaggerated in order to give her some kind of emotional angle through her connection to Charlie. Now first of all throwing in so casually an abuse backstory for any character is pretty messed up (not helped when pages later the Inheritors are framed as pedophiles when...they’re really not at all). Second of all if Ashley really felt this kind of connection to her grandpa...wouldn’t that have come up earlier?

I mean she is emphasising a familiar connection with a version of Peter Parker who doesn’t wear the regular costume, has a drastically different character and backstory, isn’t even called ‘Peter’ and is barely a teenager not an older man like her grandpa. Surely there were other Peter Parkers around more closely resembling her grandfather. IIRC wasn’t Otto in Spider-Verse pretending to be Peter Parker initially? What about Kaine even? You could argue she connects with Charlie due to a similar backstory of being a child victim and growing up fast, but other Spiders were tough too and even if you disagree again it’s just sort of thrown in there. It’s lazy development.

It isn’t even that these aspects couldn’t be explored or make for interesting angles on what is ultimately a rather bland character. But they sort of just show up they aren’t conveyed or developed organically at all. The same applies to her over all relationship with Charlie.

If I had to guess the root of this is that there is too much going on in this comic. Priest simultaneously needs to serve the plot of the over all event he’s tying into but also wants to dosome character stuff and develop and flesh out his original contributions. And in 3 issues it just doesn’t work.

A street punk 13 year old Peter Parker who HATES Uncle Ben is a great idea.

A post-apocalyptic waste land criminal, childhood abuse surviving granddaughter of Spider-Man, who wants to connect some version of her long gone grandpa who represents the few good parts of her life is a great angle.

An astronaught Spider-Man who is a familiar face and leader of human survivors in space is a great idea.

A Spider Strikeforce on a suicide mission on a radioactive wasteland working against the clock is a great idea.

A morally grey clone of Peter Parker with a bloody past making tough decisions to serve the greater good is a great idea.

A Spider-Hero who just wants to protect the world for her baby’s sake is a great idea.

A Regency dressed totem vampire on the hunt for a crystal containing her father’s essence in space...is a shite idea but they can’t all be winners.

However when you do these things all at the same time...it becomes an inconsistent rushed mess.

Let’s tangent briefly to talk about a few (the only few) positives of the comic. The art continued to be good even though the new artists doing a few pages aren’t as good as the regular artists and the switch is very noticeable. And Astro-Spider...is a great idea. John Jameson as Spider-Man is something I’ve always been intrigued by but can’t recall ever happening before. This is different to what I imagined because I was thinking he’d be more traditional as Spider-Man not an astronaut version of Spidey. But it’s still brilliant, taking the most famous angle of John Jameson, the F4 and Spidey and smashing them together to create something visually dynamic and fitting for the world we’re in.

Okay the positives are over now lets get back to the problems.

Last issue the recap page seemed at odds with the internal comic story. The same is true for this issue but bizarrely the recap page is now saying something different so it’s at odds with the last issue’s recap page and still at odds with the comic itself.

We’ve gone from a group of Spiders not afraid to die to Spiders who’re willing to do whatever it takes. But last I checked that wasn’t true. Correct me if I’m wrong here but:

a) Was Charlie really established as being willing to do whatever it takes, which in context probably means killing people? He’s more rough and maybe more violent than 616 Peter but is he that extreme really?

b) In the Clone Saga Kaine killed people but he had a rule about hurting innocent people (some exceptions applied). Preeeeetty sure in his solo book at minimum the same applied or else he was in fact more against killing. Didn’t he NOT kill Kraven the Hunter specifically because of that? He also wasn’t ever willing to sacrifice anyone for the greater good last I checked. In fact this is one point I’m 99% resolutely sure is aggressively NOT in character for Kaine. For Otto sure, but Kaine as the comic implies. No fucking way. I dare you to prove me wrong.

c) I know Spider Woman has had spy and HYDRA associations, but is she really of the Wolverine school of thought when it comes to killing. I’m possibly wrong but I don’t think her morals regarding how hardcore you get are that different to Peter Parker’s

So what’s the deal here?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just say this is a team of Spider Bad asses who’re willing to get more rough and violent than the other hero’s?

Part of Kaine’s (meagre) characterization in this story is in fact connected to the ‘whatever it takes’ angle of the story. Like I said this is very out of character for Kaine but it also makes the story more inconsistent. The rationale for Charlie’s inclusion has seemed to be implied variously as him being rougher, him being willing to die (based on what?), him being willing to do whatever it takes (based on what?), him being willing to save people from a falling safe (just like...pretty much ever Spider-Hero here) and now we’re hearing it’s because he’s bait.

Because the Inheritors are sort of like pedophiles apparently and they like that young spider meat, like veal I guess. Um....again correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit, pretty sure the youth of their targets isn’t that big of a deal to them. But then again I’m also pretty sure that they can only drain the life forces of totems yet Verna bafflingly can just take ANYONE’s life forces...wtf??????

Connected to this WTFness is the fact that Charlie out of nowhere seems to just know the Inheritors have a preference for young meat. How and when did he figure that out exactly? He didn’t even know about the Inheritors until less than 24 hours ago.

Speaking of time...let’s do a rundown of everything that’s happened between their arrival in issue #1 to the end of issue #2.

So they’ve shown up, Kaine’ sabotaged their transport devices, they’ve battled Astro-Spider, he’s given them exposition and they’ve talked, they’ve located and boarded his space ship, then they’ve had an alert from his space station prompting another skirmish, then they’ve gone into space, divided their team, gotten to their designated target zones and whilst all this is going on Verna got into the station with her gang and had killed over 30 people and searched the place.

And according to issue #1 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall that...happens in under 15 minutes...

Fuck.

Off.

More than anything that time limit has irreparably wrecked the internal logic and consistency of this story.

Even moreso than the fact that the baffling fact that Solus’ crystal somehow ended up in space. I mean last I checked Mayday threw it into the radioactive world for Daemos to fetch. I’m not saying there is no way for it to have been lost and taken into space but no comic in the entire event has addressed that at all.

Skim Astro-Spider’s backstory and pages if you want but otherwise I recommend not reading this crap.

P.S. The explanation for the name ‘Inheritors’ seems inconsistent with the explanation given previously IIRC

P.P.S. Editing this in after the fact. But...

a) How and why does John have the ruby that turns him into Man-Wolf if he’s got Spider powers?

b) How and why does John know who Peter Parker is? It’s written as though he knows he was the hero Spider-Man but in this universe he wasn’t Ben Parker was.

P.P.P.S. What was with all the PG swearing where they used safe versions of common curse words? It felt tryhard edgy to me.

#Spider-Force #Spider-Geddon #Morlun #Inheritors #the Inheritors #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Christopher Priest #Ashley Barton #Kaine #Kaine Parker #Scarlet Spider #John Jameson #Spider Woman #Jessica Drew

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