#i should just write out a whole silly script for this film cause i’ve been thinkin abt it alot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hopevalley · 3 years

Text

Season 8, Episode 9: Pre-Wedding Jitters

Y’all know what’s wild? The season is coming to a close! I feel like we just got started with Season 8, and it’s already nearly over. I’m not ready for things to end...except the love triangle. Lol.

One important thing I want to talk about, before we move on to my regularly scheduled episode write-up, of course, is the quality of the writing and filming this season. I really feel like the team took a step back and thought very carefully about how to improve the show, and then they went through the effort of actively trying to improve things.

Are there still badly-written areas of the show? Absolutely. Are there things I loathe seeing? Yes. Are there plotlines that are extremely contrived even by Hallmark standards? Unfortunately there are.

But I don’t think anyone can deny that the writing this season is, overall, an improvement over Seasons 5, 6, and 7. The only thing that I feel about S8 that is worse than 5/6/7 is the love triangle, but it had to come to a head eventually so it was always going to be a point of contention among the fans.

I’ve seen a ton of negativity going around the Internet, and you are all entitled to your opinions, but let’s hold back from being too angry until we see how things will work out. After all, there is a chance, however small, that Hallmark will end up surprising us.

So here’s to hoping that the writing quality uptick will continue as we move into Season 9.

And now, our plotlines from this episode:

The Dilapidated Love Triangle

The Wedding Planning/Party

The New & Improved Henry Gowen

Miscellaneous (Car Investigation, pastor position/Jesse and Clara + Cafe, Carson and Faith, Mike and Fiona)

This was another episode that felt pretty smooth in its storytelling; it had some smaller plots going on, but two primarily large plots, a smaller one that revolved around Henry, and then a few small (connected) plots from previous episodes/that overarched the whole season!

Sorry for the muddle by the way, it took me hours to type this and I’m too tired to read it over thoroughly before posting. If you see any glaring issues please let me know so I can fix them, though!

The Dilapidated Love Triangle

Let’s just get the pig slop out of the way, shall we? I think we are all in some sort of agreement by now that we’re tired of the triangle and just want to see it resolved as soon as possible so that we can get on with our lives and invest our interests in the right place(s).

I also believe most of us are also in some kind of agreement, however we feel about the characters, the triangle, and who Elizabeth’s choice should be, that this thing has been very poorly paced. This sentiment seems to be echoed across the Internet right now. The pacing is AWFUL. After two years of almost nothing happening, now we’re going to bullrush to the end of the triangle? That’s a yikes from me, Chief. (Wait, didn’t I say that last week, too?)

I was never a fan of the narrated beginnings of episodes. I think they’re really tacky and boring. That said, there’s no other way to get into Elizaeth’s head easily because...I don’t know. Either Erin isn’t that skilled or the director doesn’t know how to direct her, or the script sucks. They struggle SO MUCH with show-don’t-tell that they have to resort to telling...which is fine, sometimes. This is an instance where telling is just mega redundant since she says the same exact thing probably 10 more times in the episode. I wish they’d have just kept the first part of the reflection or focused more on that—how Nathan talking about it...makes it feel fresh and raw again in a way she didn’t expect.

Anyway, Elizabeth writing that she’s been “left to reflect, once more, on the senseless accident that took [Jack’s] life” is ridiculous. Senseless? He was in charge of the training mission, but unless I’m losing every last marble I’ve ever had, wasn’t it Jack’s choice to go after the younger recruits who had been separated? Wasn’t it thanks to Jack’s quick thinking and intervention that only one person lost his life that day (Jack himself)?

This is where the whole “Jack died heroically” thing kind of matters, actually. Especially when you butt it up against Nathan being the original person intended to go. Would he have risked his life like that? We’ll never know, but I’m sure Nathan thinks about it a lot, and it’s not something that should be left out of this story.

It’s valid for Elizabeth to wonder why Nathan kept the Secret hidden from her for almost three years, but what is really troublesome is the weird shift she seems to have between Casual Curiosity and Stricken Grief about it.

I grew tired of mopey Elizabeth in S4 and 5, so I’m not happy to see her back. Fewer eye drops, please. -_-

Anyway, it almost felt like a breakthrough when Elizabeth asked Rosemary why she thought Nathan took so long to tell her about Fort Clay, but Rosemary’s response was so bad. “He didn’t think it was important enough.” WHAT? WHO WOULD SAY THAT? Rosemary can be a bit thick-headed but that was almost too contrived for me to willingly follow. Anyone with a brain would realize it was IMPORTANT and THAT WAS WHY IT WAS A SECRET.

And when Elizabeth’s like, “Not important enough?” BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY IT IS IMPORTANT... Rosemary just tells her that Jack’s death wasn’t Nathan’s fault.

Which. She’s right. But that doesn’t make the secret unimportant. It’s still kind of a big deal. He’s confessed to being in love with Elizabeth multiple times now. Even Rosemary can’t be so dumb that she doesn’t realize that the connection between Jack’s death and Nathan is...meaningful, especially to Elizabeth. And that Nathan knew this and couldn’t bring himself to tell her because he knew it would hurt her.

Anyway, I’m doing my best to give Elizabeth a bit of grace here, because she’s just so self-centered I almost can’t stand it. To be clear, Elizabeth has ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THIS. It’s just that usually the issues at hand aren’t about her, they’re about someone else.

Rosemary’s right but what she said was straight-up stupid. I don’t know, I don’t think the characters are out of character so much as the dialogue just didn’t flow very naturally and I felt like the characters were making assumption jumps to force certain responses. If Elizabeth can’t agree with Rosemary that Jack’s death isn’t Nathan’s fault, then she should have expressed that a bit more directly so that Rosemary could draw the conclusion that Elizabeth does feel it’s Nathan’s fault. It came across like Rosemary was speaking to the audience more than to Elizabeth, and I didn’t like it.

The most delightful scene in the entire episode has to go to Allie and Lucas. That was so cute and wholesome and good. Her asking if she could sit at the bar, him offering her a treat, her trying to return the gift ‘cause she felt caught in the middle and like it wasn’t fair to accept it... SO GOOD. They remembered the gift multiple episodes later AND incorporated it into this episode flawlessly. LOVED IT.

Also, she asked an important question. LUCAS...where DO YOU LIVE?!

His story was a bit silly but I actually enjoyed it. It gives him a more playful vibe and also I think was almost entirely to ensure that Allie felt more comfortable and less anxious about what was happening around her. It was also his way of reassuring her that him courting Elizabeth wasn’t going to take Elizabeth out of Allie’s life...and that things will be okay.

I enjoyed it.

Things were a bit awkward with Elizabeth and Allie but they felt...better than before, so I felt like the conversation helped.

Lucas calling Allie “Allie Grant” was nice now that her adoption is official! I appreciate that.

Elizabeth and Lucas talk about how Lucas told Allie he’ll “work things out” with Nathan and Elizabeth definitely doesn’t appreciate it, and with somewhat good reason: she doesn’t like being caught in the middle of things any more than Allie does.

The thing is...she has had the power...all this time...to tell Nathan straight-up to leave her alone/that she isn’t interested. I stand by what I said before, that she shouldn’t have to tell him no for him to respect the boundaries she’s set, but if he’s not respecting those boundaries she needs to be firm about it.

I like how Lucas comes off in this scene. He wants to understand, he listens, he’s patient, he doesn’t push. I’m here for it.

She tells him what Nathan told her and he seems a bit overwhelmed by it, too. It’s pretty clear that he realizes she must be feeling all kinds of things after finding that out, especially after all this time.

Again, for the second time, Elizabeth doesn’t seem all that grief-stricken about the secret being kept from her for so long: she tells Lucas she just doesn’t understand how he could keep it from her.

He asks permission to suss out an answer and Elizabeth politely declines and says she’ll ask herself, but to please forgive her, she needs some time to...think.

She watches Lucas go and then...touches her wedding band.

Nathan meets Rosemary in the library and goes on a long boring monologue about how he’s read like, three whole books that women wrote, but still doesn’t understand women. No shit, sherlock. That was terrible writing...just straight up bad writing.

But I’m not exactly surprised because the very next thing that happens is that Rosemary tells Nathan...she’s been in his eXACT position before!

No...you have not. Yes, you were the unwanted third wheel, but that’s where the similarities ended, and you should have clarified. This just didn’t hit well for me, I don’t know. I don’t want to say it’s out of character, but...I don’t think Rosemary is this soft gentle personality anyway. I feel like she was always a bit more in your face with the things she said, not “try to encourage a manner of action in a very roundabout way” like she is in this episode. But again, without a logic jump from Rosemary, this scene doesn’t quite work.

I think I might have preferred Rosemary to play dumb and ask what specifically he didn’t understand about women. Make him freakin’ say it. And then she could react better.

We get Love Confession #3 or whatever we’re on with Nathan, now. Let’s go over the entire scene.

Elizabeth walks into Nathan’s office and instantly asks him why it took him so long to tell her what happened.

He says he felt guilty and when she tells him she doesn’t understand, he goes on to say that after the accident he requested a transfer to Hope Valley. He never met Jack but he knew he’d left behind a wife and child, and felt it was his responsibility to look after them and protect them.

She asks why he would assume that, and he explains that he felt it was his duty. And that when he found himself falling in love with her, he felt like he was betraying Jack and his memory. That’s why he didn’t tell her.

He then takes it ONE STEP TOO FAR and says, “I fell in love with you, and I think that love is always worth fighting for.”

Elizabeth says “Excuse me,” and leaves. Nathan’s face afterward is maybe a decent mix of “I probably shouldn’t have said that” and regret, but...woof.

Anyway, I was fine with this up to the point where Nathan said, completely unprompted, that love is always worth fighting for. How does he know? What are his experiences with love? Books he read, written by men??? PLEASE.

READ PRIDE & PREJUDICE U SWINE... ELIZABETH FALLS IN LOVE WITH MR. DARCY BECAUSE HE DECIDES HE WANTS TO CHANGE AND BE A BETTER MAN AND THEN DOES SOOOOOOOOO oh wait this is turning into an Elizabeth/Henry argument...OOPS?

Anyway, yeah. Not a fan of that line. It almost feels like there’s something missing. She’s standing in front of him about to cry because she feels hurt that he didn’t tell her this, you know, crucial information, and he’s just like “Yeah I didn’t tell u cause I love you and felt like i was betraying jack’s memory and also lol love is worth fighting for babe!” What kind of confusing mess of babble is this?

Honestly, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. :( I have so many really obnoxious opinions about Nathan and what they’ve done with him this season, but I feel like I should save them for a season summary podcast or something, just in case Hallmark ends up surprising me. Right now I just feel like they really just wanted to give him what the fans hated about him (he wasn’t passionate enough, not manly enough, not forward enough with his emotions, at least from what I read on Reddit and Instagram last year), but in like THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS and for the wORST POSSIBLE REASONS in the VERY WORST SCENARIO.

I feared that would be Nathan’s reason for coming to town from the moment the character was announced and...I wanted to be wrong.

Anyway, I really liked his self-awareness up to that point. He never met Jack, which keeps some of the weirdness at bay. Also, he felt like he needed to make sure Jack’s family was okay, and that’s fine. I wouldn’t call it noble (as Rosemary later does), but it’s not exactly bad, either. Then we got the line of him admitting that it felt kind of bad to fall in love with her. I wish he’d gone on to say that wasn’t supposed to happen, or even given her a reason he loves her (so that it doesn’t feel like we’re just being told everything), because his line about love being worth fighting for right after he says he felt like he was betraying Jack’s memory by loving her...was...really strange??? Maybe a few sentences were edited out?

Elizabeth tries to refuse to play Fiona’s blindfold game and LITERALLY NO ONE SAVES HER (though I think Rosemary considered trying). I hate the idea of this game solely based on the fact that several people participating shouldn’t even be there (Nathan, Bill, Mike, Fiona, Molly), but Elizabeth wouldn’t be able to accidentally choose Nathan if he wasn’t there, so... -_-

I think I might have actually liked this (her “no” with Carson was super cute actually, probably the cutest laugh she’s ever had on this show) if she’d had the chance to reject a few more guys on the way down the line. If she was closer to the end of the line she’d feel her options were running out and might second-guess herself. Having Nathan be the second person she touches and having her choose is...eh.

Nitpicks aside (their hands wouldn’t feel the same and she held Lucas’s hand quite recently actually), it could have been worse. At least she stated who she was searching for...

BUT UGH THE EMBARRASSMENT.

The thing that gets me about the whole scene is 100% that everyone in town would know about the Triangle drama, so it feels...weird to see everyone so gung-ho to watch this happen... I don’t know... I like having fun too, but NOBODY even TRIED to step in???

At least Lucas found some humor in it right away (he smiles).

I think I wish someone had said something. Maybe Nathan could have said, “Nope, sorry” to lighten the mood a bit? Or Lucas could have said, “Almost!” since he was standing right next to Nathan?

Anyway, we’re spared having to wait because the very next scene is Lucas checking on Elizabeth and laughing about her choice.

One line I wish they’d added in is that someone else got it wrong. Imagine if Lucas said, “At least you didn’t pick Bill like Clara did!” Or even just made a joke about it in general like: “Of course I’m not upset. But if you would have picked Bill I might be a little hurt. My hands aren’t that old yet.”

Elizabeth tells him that she spoke to Nathan about the whole...thing and it was awkward. She chooses to not tell Lucas the rest of the reason Nathan gave, but instead only admits that he told her he loves her again. When Lucas asks what she said in response she said she didn’t say anything.

Lucas seems...a trifle upset at this, and understandably so. I think he can sense she’s...not really a sure thing and is worried about it. :( I feel so bad for him right now.

Rosemary stops by to see Elizabeth after Lucas leaves, and tells her she ran into Nathan at the library yesterday. Elizabeth tells her what Nathan said in his office and Rosemary says it was noble and selfless of him.

(I mean...it wasn’t selfless. Like at all.)

Elizabeth says she never asked him to be noble. She didn’t ask him to fall in love with her, either.

She asks Rosemary if she encouraged Nathan’s feelings for her at the library. Rosemary says no, but Elizabeth asks again and she interrupts her to ask Elizabeth if she’d rather hear what she actually said or just assume.

Rosemary goes on to say that she just wants what’s best for Elizabeth.

And we get Elizabeth asking how anyone would know what was best for her.

I mean, that’s like 90% on you for not communicating with your friends, but also, it’s 100% on you for just assuming you knew what Rosemary said to Nathan. I think she’s just looking for a reason why Nathan is being so persistent and in her mind encouragement from someone else is the only thing that makes sense, ‘cause she sure as heck hasn’t been encouraging him herself!

This hurts Rosemary’s feelings, probably because she was about to say that she wants what’s best for Elizabeth so she asked Nathan to stop getting in the way lol, and says maybe she should leave (since Elizabeth is in a bad mood). Elizabeth agrees she should go.

End episode. On this note. Woof.

Overall it wasn’t too bad I guess? But I’m not a fan of how some of this was written. It really felt like they cut lines out to make the episode shorter, when...they could have cut out one of the boring side plots. You know. The entire thing with Jesse and Clara, for example.

The Wedding Planning/Party

I admit that I got a little enjoyment out of Florence saying no to all the dresses. Highly relatable.

Then, at the barbershop, Fiona says the exact wORST possible thing about Florence wanting a hairstyle that’ll “knock Ned dead” FLHDSFAJDSA.

Florence goes on to say she wants anything but “ordinary Florence” and Molly steps in.

Honestly, I wish they’d just let Molly stick to being Florence’s BFF because that’s the role she plays best. Also, I’m almost sad Florence and Ned got together because it means #teamflomo is no mo’. :(

Paul shows up...

I don’t know what I expected but this boy would have been a literal BABY in season one, which makes the whole thing with Florence almost sadder AND it gives Florence more in common with Elizabeth (widow with a young child) BUT I HAVE OPINIONS.

I know what you’re thinking. “Manna, you always have opinions!” Yes, you’d be right.

They based this off of ONE (1) line of dialogue that Florence had in S1 when something was stolen from her house. She says, “while my child slept nearby” or something like that.

They brought a child in...for that? On one hand...I’m impressed.

On the other hand, I kind of had just assumed they’d retconned that and that Florence had no children (which is why she was always goofing off gossiping with Molly) so I don’t really know how to feel about the whole thing.

Rosaleen starred in an episode and never showed up again after S1, so I think I’d have preferred to see her return instead of a child we literally never laid eyes on. But he’s a cutie. And he’s named after his father just like little Jack so...I’ll take it!

The party begins and we have to do “the men are stupid and don’t know how to plan” again which is really annoying. The highlight of this entire thing was Ned saying (about his hairline) that he’s been driving with the top down since his 30s. I respect you AND ONLY YOU, Ned.

The party continues on and they play charades. Rosemary chose weird awful options that don’t make any sense and are hard to act out. Ned’s could have been funny but the one Bill got is just...so weird.

The funniest part about it is looking at everyone staring at Molly as she guesses it.

I think it was supposed to be...cute? Or something? It was just really weird for me.

“Cuddle up a little Closer, Lovey Mine” (yes, it’s “lovey” not “lovely”) was written and recorded in 1908. You can listen to it here. Lyrics here.

They then play the Most Awkward Game Ever, one that would have had me sweating bullets if I’d had to play it. Florence has to find her man by only holding the hands of the other men.

As Fiona says, it’s a bit...risqué, but Florence rejects Jesse quickly and finds out the second man is Bill by squeezing his hands too hard.

Bill explains that his arthritis is flaring up and of course Sara and I jumped on that almost at the same moment:

We like Bill. :P

And then Florence correctly guesses that the next man is Ned. It’s very wholesome and sweet.

But then it’s Elizabeth’s turn because I guess she’s not been traumatized enough this episode. I covered that in the triangle part of the plot, though.

The New & Improved Henry Gowen

We start off with a BANG here with Henry and Christopher. Christopher misses Rachel because he’s a twitterpated little FOOL and he tells Henry all about it...while Henry sees Bill tearing apart the stolen car in the distance.

He asks Christopher how he got to Hope Valley from Hamilton and Christopher just straight up comes clean about it: he drove a stolen car that his buddy stole.

Henry scolds him a bit, tells him he can’t borrow a stolen car, and explains that he doesn’t want Christopher to end up like him. Christopher seems kind of surprised by this and says, “You turned out good.”

To which Henry replies, “The jury’s still out on that.”

Christopher says he’s done with that kind of thing, and Henry tells him he believes him.

Honestly, Henry’s “I believe you” got to me. It sounded SO genuine. And also, can I say YET AGAIN that this kid was an impeccable choice to play Henry’s son? WOW. I can’t get over how much alike they are even in mannerisms and looks.

But THEN when Henry tries to say Rachel has something to do with Christopher being done with that old lifestyle, Christopher tells him “And you” AND I ALMOST LOST IT. SOOOOO GOOD. Henry goes on to explain that “long after” he divorced Christopher’s mom, he met Abigail, who saw the potential for goodness in him. And that he can’t help Christopher be a better man because he’s still figuring that out for himself, but if he thinks Rachel can help him, he should do what he can to not lose her.

Later, Henry invites Christopher to Ned’s party and Christopher declines but asks what happened to the woman Henry mentioned earlier—Abigail, of course. Henry says she left town to help her mother.

Is this a...hint of things to come? I’m...not sure.

Henry sits down for two seconds before Lucas asks to speak with him outside. Once there, Lucas admits that he contacted Christopher. This is one of the most contrived plotlines we’ve had in a bit, if only because I just can’t figure out how Lucas would have known who Christopher was, let alone whether or not he would be useful? He doesn’t even have the same last name... I mean, what, did Henry write in sparkly gel pens or something?

But for some reason he contacted Christopher to come work for Henry to keep an eye on him. He’s not proud of having done it, which makes sense. I guess I wouldn’t be either.

Henry’s upset about it. Lucas tells Henry that he took advantage of him and that he had to make sure Henry could be trusted.

Christopher doesn’t know that Lucas told him, though, and Henry asks that Lucas keep it that way.

It makes Christopher’s behavior with Lucas make more sense (when he kept trying to push him around earlier this season), but the timing is just...awful? Maybe talking to Elizabeth about Nathan’s secret made him feel guilty about his own? I’d buy into it more if I felt like there was a really compelling reason for Lucas to feel that Christopher would do any good...but it’s just too contrived for me.

Christopher randomly decides to go to Bellingham to see Rachel. Henry tells him not to make trouble if her parents ask him to leave. Henry makes to leave, and Christopher stops him.

I CANNOT SING THE PRAISES OF THIS SCENE ENOUGH. Christopher tries to tell Henry about the thing with Lucas and Henry’s like...you’re different now, you’re starting over it doesn’t matter anymore!!!! Everyone deserves a second chance!

AND THEY HUG AND CHRISTOPHER TELLS HENRY HE LOVES HIM.

They almost got me to cry. ALMOST. I refuse to cry at this show because I refuse to give Brian Bird the satisfaction, but boy oh boy was this close.

Henry responds with a “me too” and makes Christopher promise to write. Then the stage leaves and that is that.

The rest of the storyline for Henry is under the car investigation. They’re related but...only intertwine at the very end so I separated them. ;)

Miscellaneous (Car Investigation, Pastor Position/Jesse and Clara, Carson and Faith, Mike and Fiona)

Car investigation: Nathan starts this episode off on the wrong foot. I think that was...a mistake. THAT SAID...I’m relieved Bill isn’t being written as a complaining whiny pile of trash for once, so I just want to say that...they had to realize after last episode the fan opinion of Nathan would be...not great, so mayyybe they shouldn’t have started this episode off with him literally complaining about doing his job...while he’s in uniform no less. Also he has NO PASSION at all for his job, or for investigating, which I hope means he’ll end up quitting the Mounties. (It could be a hint of things to come...I hope.)

I mean, does he think Bill got his position for...no reason? Also, thank God Nathan turned down the promotion to Inspector if that was how he was gonna treat actually doing the work?? I’m pretty sure this is their idea of “humor” but boy did it fall flat after the love triangle mess that’s been going on.

The owner talks to Nathan on the phone later and is coming from Hamilton to get his car. Nathan seems to be telling Bill this to discourage him from wasting his time investigating, but Bill doesn’t want to stop lol.

Ned’s comment from the party about his hairline being him “driving with the top down” gives Bill an Idea in the middle of the bachelor party and leaves. Ned looks shook that he produced An Idea.

And follows. Ned is absolutely adorable as he assists Bill. They should interact more?? Long story short, Bill figures out that the top was probably up when it was being transported to Hope Valley (as you wouldn’t want people getting a good look at your face if they’re looking for a stolen car), and finds a footprint in the removable top.

The next day, Bill approaches Henry up at the oil derricks and comments on the fact that Lucas told him that Christopher checked out of his room at the saloon. Henry is up front and honest about where Christopher went, and says he went to Bellingham to see Rachel Thom.

He says, “You know how it is. You love someone, you’d do anything for them.”

The one interesting thing about this comment is that...no, Bill does NOT know. He’s never admitted to being in love in his life. He married Nora, but that was out of obligation (something he makes clear several times). Like, he obviously cared about Nora, but he wasn’t in love with her.

Obviously he’s loved someone enough to do anything for them (his son), but considering he’s dead, and possibly died in a really traumatizing way considering how it’s portrayed, that seems a bit...insensitive. :P

Bill counters it with, “Almost anything, maybe.”

He then goes on to tell Henry he found a footprint in the stolen car.

And he just. Kind of. Gives Henry. A look. Because he knows exactly who stole the car, he just has to prove it.

Henry stops Bill and says: “A while back I remarked about how you had never solved the mine disaster. Perhaps if you and I get together, I might be able to help.”

Bill doesn’t say a THING...he just leaves. But he looks kind of...put off by the whole thing.

Like he knows what Henry is doing.

Do you know what Henry is doing?

Anything.

For someone he loves.

(Pst. That someone is Christopher.)

As soon as Bill is gone, he picks up a pair of shoes and throws them into the fire.

I think it’s pretty clear that Henry is using this mine disaster thing to protect Christopher, and he’s doing it for this reason WAY MORE than he’s doing it to come clean and be a better man. That’s just my theory, though. I think if Bill hadn’t found anything out about the car, then Henry wouldn’t have brought it up.

But I guess he knows something. The question is...what? And also, when did he mention Bill never having solved the mine disaster? I’m really struggling to remember Henry ever saying that to him, at least not recently. Does anyone recall offhand?

Anyway, I’m wondering if they’ll tie up that whole thing about Noah and Peter that was never addressed on the show to the fullest. You know, the whole thing with them going into the mine knowing it wasn’t safe and not warning anyone. I think a lot of people who watch this show have never been in poverty or lived paycheck to paycheck, but sometimes a person just has to put their head down and keep working even when it’s not safe, because they have to keep living. Or because they had more time to put a stop to things before anything bad happened.

I think blaming Noah and Peter as much as Henry is pretty stupid, but they still shoulder some blame. They were working to fix that problem. Henry wasn’t. He did what he was told and shut up. But maybe there’s a bit more to that story. Could be interesting.

Could also be the worst reveal ever, so...who knows? I’m curious to find out.

BUT ALSO what do they mean Bill didn’t solve that case? The widows sued and won. Sure, he got beat up in S1 carrying evidence out of the mine, but it’s not as if there wasn’t a lot more of it inside the mine, too. Everyone knows the fault of the collapse was due to working conditions being unsafe. What’s left to solve? Is Henry going to give Bill the names of the people who told Henry to keep his mouth shut?

Or...are they talking NOT ABOUT THE HOPE VALLEY MINE DISASTER, but the original one that sent Henry to Coal Valley (and Nora into a marriage with Bill)? Because that one was not solved. The company just made Henry a scapegoat in that case.

THE WAIT TO FIND OUT MORE IS GOING TO BE TORTURE.

Pastor Position/Jesse and Clara + Cafe: I enjoyed Minnie in this episode and seeing her step in and help Clara and become part of the town was great. Jesse giving more credit to Joseph than Lee was pretty funny, and a nice set-up for Lee realizing that Joseph is a pastor. Lee is apparently head of the search committee to find a new pastor...which...sure...okay. Also apparently the newspaper died?? Uh.

I’m kind of hoping Rosemary’s new passion will be the newspaper since she’s supposedly going to dig her nose into things next episode and she used to write a column for the old paper (so she has some experience). Thoughts on that?

Anyway, Joseph agrees to pastor the church instantly the second Lee asks...so it feels weird that his original goal/plans/whatever just...don’t matter anymore? Okay.

They buy a bell.................WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY BIGGEST PETTY COMPLAINT OF THE EPISODE. BRO THAT BELL STRAIGHT UP LOOKS 3D PRINTED FJLKDSAHFLDSAHFLDSAHFKLDSA

Anyway I’m teasing. The Liberty Bell weighs a little over one ton, and two horses could easily pull that.

No complaints. My husband complained last week that there wasn’t a bell and now there is. It’s like he knew.

Joseph talks about what a “calling” feels like (I think this will come back again with Rosemary which has me VERY HAPPY): a tug on his heart.

Joseph also tells Lee that the men in his yard earlier were surveyors and that he won’t move, at least not far, because he has a congregation to lead, now. Makes me wonder if he’ll actually sell!

Anyway, Jesse and Mike are cute pals and decide to have a snack in the cafe while the gals are socializing with Rosemary (who has just returned from the library).

Rosemary’s books are on land acquisitions, surveying, and territorial law.

Minnie and Rosemary decide to talk about this while Clara leaves. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe just ‘cause it was boring lol.

She gets back as Mike and Jesse are talking about, uh, her, actually, and Mike asks if all is quiet on the homefront.

Yes, it is. Unlike the trenches of WWI.

But seriously I thought it could be a joke reference to “All Quiet on the Western Front”...a WWI novel. Since...you know...WWI is going on and hasn’t been acknowledged at all even though it’s almost over now.

Joke’s on me, though...that’s too advanced for Hallmark.

Anyway it’s only quiet for like two seconds, because Clara busts in, thinks they’re eating the food she’s been busting her ass over for the party, and yells at Jesse. It makes everything awkward. Jesse simpers about like a sad little clown instead of trying to be understanding. Yawn. Awful. Bye.

I don’t know what would fix that scene, but I think part of the problem is...I’m just not invested in Clara and Jesse anymore. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to need more time to get over the problems in their relationship but I don’t care about them enough to care about the journey...if that makes sense. I’d rather watch Bill dust for prints on the car some more.

They do have a chat, and work things out, so that’s good I guess.

Carson and Faith: Carson has officially stolen the dock from Abigail and Frank, and so my hatred for them doubled instantly.

Me, a territorial loon: THAT SPOT IS NOT YOURS!!!!! FIND YOUR OWN!!!

Anyway Carson makes things awkward and then busts out that he accepted the fellowship without talking to Faith.

She’s kind of hurt by this?? UNDERSTANDABLY?? But then he asks if it would have made a difference. I mean, common courtesy would be at least sitting down like this and telling her, “I’ve decided to accept it.” But no. He just. Accepted it without telling her he was going to. Bro...

They aren’t on the same page for even two seconds. He tells her he was committed to the relationship and put all his plans aside so that she could be happy.

Honestly, as much hate as Nathan’s getting right now, if people gave a damn about Faith I think Carson would be getting his fair share of hate, too. What a jerk???

He goes on to say it wasn’t a waste of his time (when she asks), but never bothers to tell her more or to prove he didn’t feel that way (BECAUSE HE SURE ACTS LIKE IT WAS A WASTE OF HIS TIME). He just says he hopes she changes her mind and comes with him to Baltimore.

At the party Carson and Faith go outside to talk where Carson admits that he should have told her he was accepting the fellowship before he wrote. She tells him that the year she was gone was almost too much time apart for her, and Carson promises to write her and tells her she can visit him, too, but she brings the conversation back to reality. They’ll both be super busy.

He suggests they get married, and then immediately says he’s not asking (it’s not how he’d propose), but that they could look forward to getting married. (Good thing they laughed ‘cause I sure wasn’t. It was super awkward...) He suggests seeing how they feel in about a year. (Oh...perfect timing for...next season...hm.)

Faith tells him she loves him and wants what’s best for both of them, even if that thing isn’t them being together. They agree to just enjoy the night and worry about the rest later.

Anyway, I feel like these two just have NO chemistry (they’re worse than Bill and Molly in my books). I really appreciate the attempt to give them meaningful material, and I like that Carson has a passion again, but boy oh boy are these two hard to watch. The plotline is really good, but the characters just...aren’t great. I figured if anything they’d give a plot like this to AJ and Bill to tie that up (some kind of conflicting reason she can’t stay in Hope Valley to be written off the show for good) so I was surprised to see it going to Carson and Faith instead, but like...in a good way because it’s actually compelling for their situation! I've been in a similar situation and it feels REALLY BAD to like someone a lot but not be ready or willing to commit to an extreme for whatever reason. Faith doesn’t want to go to Baltimore because she loves Hope Valley and she undoubtedly doesn’t want to see it go without a doctor at all. Carson likes Hope Valley but his passion is in surgery and he can make a huge difference in a big hospital. He could still make a difference in Hope Valley, too (undoubted he’s the only surgeon for many miles around these smaller towns) but he also likes hospitals and their equipment and maybe misses what he had a long time ago.

So it’s a great plot. It’s compelling. It’s even a bit tragic when you think about it!

But my God do these characters just...not come off as convincing. :(

Mike and Fiona: The scene with Ned was SUPER cute. Genuinely funny. Mike asking Fiona out. Everyone teasing Mike about how much he likes her. It’s very cute and wholesome. So far I enjoy it a lot. There’s not a lot to talk about here but I like that it’s...simple.

I MEAN...she’s so cute.

END THOUGHTS:

I want the next three episodes right now immediately, but I’m also going to be pretty sad when this season ends...I think.

The biggest speculation from this episode, by the way, is that they’re opening things up to write Abigail back onto the show. How do we feel about that?

Any other thoughts? Favorite scenes? Share!

#when calls the heart #long post #analysis and meta discussion #character studies and information

14 notes · View notes

andormeddows · 4 years

Text

Pull it! ::: Ben Hardy

Pairing: Ben Hardy x Fem!Reader

Requested: Yes!

Summary: Ben and the reader both have a hair-pulling kink, but try to hide it. One night, they’re making out and he pulls the reader’s hair a bit, causing her to moan. She quickly get embarrassed and try to hide it, but it won’t last long until both of them are shagging. Lots of hair pulling, then. Smut!

Word count: 4629

Warnings: Strictly 18+. I don’t want minors interacting with this piece of writing. Hair-pulling kink. There’s a lot of swearing. Also, dirty-talking, fingering, oral sex (female receiving), orgasm denial, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it, please!).

Notes: I hope this turned out well… I’m sorry for taking so long to write this, but thank you so much for requesting it, Anon! Either way, I’ve sinned and I’m taking you all down with me! Hope you like it! Feedback is always appreciated!

Masterlist is here!

It happened for the first time on a wintry night. You and Ben were snuggled up together on the couch as the wind blew against the windowpanes. Steaming mugs of tea were propped on the coffee table, as were your feet, wrapped up in fuzzy socks. Your head rested against Ben’s chest as one of his hands slowly and absentmindedly caressed your neck, a few locks of hair intertwined on his fingers. Sherlock played on the television. You convinced Ben to start watching it, so there he was, watching the first episode for the first time as you watched it for up-tenth time. No regrets.

“Isn’t it amazing?” you asked when the credits rolled over on the screen, sitting up on the couch and quickly turning to Ben. Your voice was filled with enthusiasm, eyes ablaze with happiness. “I mean… I…”

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Ben answered, lovingly gazing at you. Your enthusiasm was contagious. “It is amazing. I loved it.”

“Did you really?” you asked suspicious, squinting your eyes as you pulled one of the mugs towards your lips.

“Yeah, I did!” he laughed, pulling, too, the other mug towards his lips.

“Thank you,” you uttered, smiling and pecking his lips after taking another sip from the steaming drink in your hands.

“You’re welcome, love,” Ben whispered against your lips.

You both stared into each other’s eyes, shyly smiling. Ben bit his bottom lip as he averted his gaze to your reddened lips due to the contact of the steaming tea with them. Fuck. The sight of him biting his lips in a half smile was a masterpiece. His blue eyes kept focused on your lips as he abandoned the mug in his hands on the coffee table. His warm hands reached for your face, cupping it and gently pulling it towards his. Your lips touched again in a tender kiss.

After quickly abandoning your mug too, your hands reached for his arms, covered by a comfortable hoodie, pressing against them in an approving gesture. Your thumbs slowly grazed on the soft fabric of the hoodie, caressing his arms. He smiled once again, breaking the kiss to admire you. His hands still firmly cupping your jaw, Ben pressed his forehead against yours and his blue eyes bore into yours in a look of utter love.

“I love you,” you uttered, pulling him closer and enlacing your arms around his neck. Unprepared for that sudden gesture, he gasped and laughed against your cheek before quickly pecking it.

“I love you, too, dork,” he kissed the corner of your lips.

Caressing the soft skin of his neck, you pressed a passionate kiss to his lips. It soon escalated to a deeper kiss as his tongue entered your mouth and you hummed in appreciation. Your breaths ran short as your noses bumped slightly against each other as the kiss intensified and saliva was smeared across your lips.

Your hands cupped his face, fingers pressing against his jawline as his hands reached your hair. Oh, fuck. You melted under his touch, feeling intense shivers run through your whole body as if they were an electric current. His fingers slowly tangled in your locks, caressing your scalp. It was happening again.

Having a hair-pulling kink was something you'd never admit. So, every time Ben would tangle his hands in your hair and softly pull at your locks, you would prevent some of the filthiest moans to escape from your lips. All of the fibers in your body fought against the urge to let yourself get lost in pure bliss because of his fingers working on your hair. The truth was that you felt embarrassed because of it, ashamed of it. Who on Earth would have a hair-pulling kink?

You had. Ben too.

You inhaled sharply, interrupting the kiss as his fingers slightly pulled at your locks. Fuck. Arousal exploded through your veins and your surroundings spun fast. Breath hitching in your throat, you threw your head back. Your eyes were closed in pure bliss, completely lost in his touch. What was happening? You should be trying to hide it from him. However, there you were, letting your emotions and sensations break free. He bit his lips, pulling at your locks once again in order to bring your lips to his.

It was when it happened.

A loud and filthy moan escaped from your lips as your eyes remained closed and all your brain could focus was on his fingers pulling at your hair and caressing your scalp.

“Fuck, Ben,” you whispered against his lips, almost whining at the pleasure those gestures brought to your entire body.

Ben froze on the spot after hearing those noises and words leaving your lips. He gazed at you, brows slightly furrowed and cheeks boring a light shade of pink. Heart racing inside your chest and against your ribs, you opened your eyes as adrenaline exploded through your veins. What had just happened?

Suddenly, your hands desperately reached for his, pulling them from your hair as your cheeks burnt in shame. You couldn’t bear to look at him as you felt his gaze on your anxious features, not after that moan. Not after revealing your weird hair-pulling kink. Your hands pressed against his in an anxious gesture, gently holding them down against your legs.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered almost inaudible. “This is embarrassing.”

Ben gulped, realization hitting him. “I guess I’m the one who should apologize.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it, it felt so wrong. Arousal pulsed in his body as that moan, your moan, repeatedly echoed in his mind like a symphony. Licking his lips, he exhaled heavily while his eyes wandered through your ashamed figure, your fingers nervously playing with his. The only reason why those words felt so wrong was because Ben had a hair-pulling kink either. Even though both of you tried to hide it, it was so obvious. So obvious.

His cheeks still bore a light shade of pink as he pictured your bodies tangled on the couch, his hands roaming through your soft hair while he slammed into you and heard you moan eagerly. Oh, well. He pictured you riding him, sweaty chests pressed against each other as his hands caressed your thighs and your hands buried deep in his blonde locks.

Neither of you bring the incident up during the following days. God, no. You still felt embarrassed about what had happened a few nights prior and Ben would never admit that he wanted your hands tangled in his hair so much he could orgasm just from imagining it. The next nights you spent at your apartment were lonely to say the least. You felt constantly aroused by the fact that you both had a hair-pulling kink, although you wouldn’t dare to admit it out loud. Picturing Ben pulling at your hair as his cock slammed hard into you was enough to oblige your hands to roam through your own body.

It happened again when you met him while visiting the set. At the end of the day, after long hours of filming, you were supposed to head to your parents’ house for a simple dinner. It had been a while since you both paid a visit to them, which lead to arranging that dinner. Instead, you both ended up in his trailer, lost in each other’s arms.

Ben had just been back from one of the dressing rooms in order to abandon the Roger Taylor persona and you were waiting for him inside sitting on the couch, ready to go. After walking around the set all day and standing aside while filming, your knees slightly hurt. A soft knock on the door tore your concentration away from the script in your hands that you had been reading. Ben quickly marched up the steps, opening his arms to receive you in a tight embrace.

“Could barely talk to you,” he whispered against your hair as his hands ran down your back, stopping when he reached your lower back, almost squeezing your bum.

“You know that’s not a problem. I knew you would be busy filming,” you replied, pecking his lips and handing him his brown leather jacket. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, stepping away from you and reaching for the script you had left on the couch. “Just needed to get this. Were you reading it, by the way? I always leave it on the table.”

Your soft laugh reached his ears as you nodded. “It’s a metaphor, Brian!”

Ben smiled at your silly impersonation, rolling his eyes at the deeper tone in your voice. “We’re actually recording this scene tomorrow.”

“Are you?” you asked enthusiastically. “It’s one of the funniest scenes I’ve read so far if I’m honest.”

“Yeah, it is,” he shook his head, a low laugh escaping from his lips as he remembered rehearsing that scene with Joe, Gwil and Rami. “The problem is I always forget the beginning of it,” he confessed, averting his gaze to the sheets in his hands. “‘Put my heart and soul into this song.’ as I cut slices of bread.”

“You’ll do fine, Ben,” you reassured him, crossing the narrow trailer in his direction and gently pulling the script from his hands, leaving it on the table. Then, you softly squeezed his hands in a caring gesture.

“Do you think so?” he inquired unsure, stepping closer to your body and causing you to avert your gaze to his lips.

“I’m certain of it,” you whispered, running your hands up his arms and softly gripping his biceps.

He pressed his lips against yours. Eyes closed, you both kissed slowly. Your noses slightly bumped against each other every so often and your breaths hit each other’s skin as you exhaled silently. His tongue traced your lips, entering your mouth while his hands gently pulled your body towards his. You bumped against his chest and one of your arms embraced his neck, hand reaching for his nape. Your other hand reached for his face, delicately touching his cheeks and running your fingers down to his jawline. Soft whimpers left your mouth.

“We should get going or else we’ll be late,” your voice sounded loud when you uttered those words, drowning the quiet kissing noises that had been reaching your ears. Wrong. You wanted to stay, you needed to stay. Your mind wandered to scenarios where you straddled Ben and rode him as he sat on the very couch behind him. He would pull at your hair and press his lips against your jawline down to your collarbones as your fingers slowly scratched his nape.

“Oh, please,” he murmured against your lips, reaching for your chin and tilting your head towards his. His blue eyes met yours, searching for the same eagerness, for the same will to stay behind and never show up to that dinner. He obviously found them, which caused him to smirk as anticipation filled his veins.

You pressed your lips together in a thin line as you rested your hands on his chest and gently pushed him against the couch behind him. He landed on its surface with a soft thud. His hands caressed your arms down to your hands, pulling you towards his body and in between his legs. A smirk was plastered on his lips. His hands reached for your ass, squeezing it delicately before moving up to your lower back. Ben’s fingers played with the hem of your shirt, traveling underneath it.

“Come on,” he uttered against your belly as he pressed feathery kisses on your skin.

“You’re going to call my parents later,” you said, quirking your eyebrows and propping your hands on his thighs. You bended down to press your lips against his in a passionate, but eager kiss. “Oh, I hope you’re a marvelous actor to convince them we weren’t actually shagging instead of visiting them.”

“Of course, ma'am.”

You smiled widely against his lips at those words, slowly straddling him. Your hands cupped his face and your tongues moved against each other in an eager kiss. It deepened until filthy kissing noises reached your ears.

“This is nuts,” you breathlessly uttered. “People might hear us.”

Ben warmly laughed, pressing his hands against your ass. “Nobody’s hearing us.”

“The boys are still here!”

Ben smirked and quirked his eyebrows while admiring your slightly worried features. “What if they do hear us? Do you want them to?”

You closed your eyes, inhaling deeply at the raspy tone in his voice. Should you say it? Before your brain could even process the words, they quickly left your lips. “If you pull my hair, everyone will be hearing us.”

With that, Ben tightly hugged you, eliciting a surprised squeal from your throat. He pressed your chest against his and reached for your neck, pressing his lips against it in a chaste kiss before massaging your skin with his tongue. You hummed in appreciation. “Damn, YN. Who would tell you would have a hair-pulling kink?”

You closed your eyes, exhaling deep. Your lips were slightly open as Ben nipped at your neck, glancing at your features in order to watch the effect those words had on you. Such a marvelous sight. You shivered and exhaled in pleasure as he kept biting your skin and sucking at it, reaching all possible spots that made you elicit quiet whines. Ben slowly reached the junction between your neck and your shoulder, pulling at your shirt collar to get to your collarbones.

Your chests were still pressed together; his hands eagerly squeezed your thighs, cupping your ass every so often. Your elbows were propped on his shoulders as your fingers tangled in his hair. He hissed loudly when you closed one of your hands in a fist around his locks, pulling them rather harshly.

“Guess I could say the same about you, yeah?” you teased, tilting your head to one side as his lips traveled from your collarbones to your jawline, leaving a trace of saliva behind. “Do you like it, Ben? Do you like it when I pull your hair?”

Shivers ran through his whole body as you pulled his hair once again. He let out a raspy moan, blinking hard and resting his forehead on one of your shoulders, it was almost too much. You pressed your lips against the spot right below his ear in feathery kisses.

“Oh, Ben,” you whispered in his ear, nipping at his earlobe and letting out a throaty chuckle. “You love it, don’t you?”

“Y-Yeah, YN,” he answered breathless, shutting his eyes close when your hips stuttered against his crotch.

You both whined loudly at the so needed friction as you started grinding against him. Head thrown back in pleasure, his sharp jawline was exposed to you, muscles moving as he gulped. You didn’t waste time in pressing your lips against his neck, licking his skin, sucking at it and slightly biting it. His hands gripped the hem of your shirt, pulling at it anxiously.

“Take it off already!” you whined against his neck. He let a raspy chuckle leave his lips, slowly pulling your shirt up, fingers digging in your skin.

He threw your shirt to the side, which landed uncertain on the couch arm, almost falling to the ground. His fingers wandered over your back, once again pressing your body against his until they reached your bra, eagerly fumbling with it in order to unclasp it.

“It’s not that hard,” you provoked, guiding your own hands to your back.

Ben pulled at the straps on your shoulders, taking the opportunity to sensually caress your arms as he got rid of your bra. His lips reached your chest, sucking at one of your breasts while nearing your nipple. They wrapped around one of them teasing it by flicking his tongue against the hardened nub.

“O-Oh…” he inhaled sharply, voice crackled with pleasure. Your hands had reached for his hair once again.

You kneeled up on the couch, legs pressing the cushions below your sweaty bodies, in order to level your bare flushed chest with Ben’s face. He smirked, ghostly dragging his fingers down your back as you melted into his touch.

He squeezed your ass slightly before pressing his palms under its curve and slowly changing positions on the couch. He carefully pushed your body against the cushions, making sure that your head rested against some of the thrown pillows so that you would be comfortable.

“A bloody masterpiece,” Ben whispered as he watched your half-naked body under the dimly yellow light on the ceiling.

You both undressed each other quickly. Clothes discarded on the ground, Ben spread your legs open and climbed onto you, getting in between them. Your lips met again in a messy kiss and he didn’t waste time in rolling his hips against your throbbing core. He guided his hands to your hair, fingers buried deep in your locks, which caused you to slightly arch your back in pleasure.

“Y-Yes,” you exhaled. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Am I?” Ben chuckled, tongue grazing over his reddened lips.

“If you keep pulling my hair like that,” you whispered hoarsely in his ear after kissing the spot right below it.

As his hands wouldn’t stop softly pulling at your locks, your hands reached in between your bodies and slipped in his boxers, slightly grazing at his cock. His hips stuttered at the sudden contact, which caused his fingers to tightly close around strands of your hair.

“Ben.” you moaned quietly.

You sensed his breath hitch in his throat. Ben gulped quietly, intently watching you. His intense blue eyes locking with your as he gripped your wrist gently and pulled your hand away from his cock.

“You first, love,” Ben pressed his lips against yours, biting your bottom lip and slightly tugging at it.

With that, he pulled himself up and kneeled on the ground, snaking his arms around your legs and bringing your aching core closer to his face. You propped your dazed body on your elbows, eyes ranking at his flushed body, blonde hair disheveled due to all your previous pulling. You intently watched every single one of his moves, loving the tingling sensation that his touch caused on your body. Both of Ben’s hands were on your thighs now, massaging your skin as his mouth pressed kisses against it. Your breath hitched. Ben’s lips approached your aching core, and, in anticipation, you bucked your hips slightly.

“So eager,” Ben chuckled, rubbing his fingers against your folds, feeling your wetness when he licked your clit through the thin fabric of your panties. Your body fell backwards in pleasure and your hands instantly reached for his hair. You both moaned loudly. “Fuck, YN,”

Your heart raced inside your chest and you smiled wide, feeling a thin layer of sweat spread across your body. His lust blown eyes locked with yours when he hooked two of his fingers on the waistband of your panties before pulling them down your legs. Once again, he kissed your thighs, ghostly grazing his teeth over your hot and bothered skin. He rubbed two of his fingers against your clit, teasing the sensitive bundle of nerves, which had you whimpering and pulling his blonde locks.

For a moment, Ben thought it was all too much. He obliged himself to close his eyes and rest his forehead against your thigh, inhaling deeply. Harshly biting his bottom lip, he prevented hoarse moans and whimpers from escaping the back of his throat due to the intense tingling sensation that ruled his body as you kept pulling at his hair. He felt dizzy, lost in pure bliss.

Clenching his jaw every so often, he dragged his lips to your pussy while his fingers still worked against your folds. He slowly licked her pussy, pressing his tongue in between her folds and reaching her clit. He, then, wrapped his lips around it, causing you to hiss and let a breathless chuckle escaped from your lips.

“Ah, yes!”

At every pleasurable remark that fell from your lips, Ben’s cock would twitch, pressing against the soft fabric of his boxers, almost aching from the amount of pleasure that exploded through his veins.

“Look at you, Ben,” you teased breathless, eagerly grinding your cunt against his lips. Your hips stuttered at the amount of pleasure that filled your veins. “All lost in pleasure just from me pulling at your hair?”

Ben whined against your folds, causing your hips to desperately buckle and the tip of fingers to slightly enter you. “Fuck.”

“What about you?” he murmured, intently watching his fingers tease your entrance, circling it painfully slow. “So desperate for me to touch you. My fingers aren’t buried in your hair yet, but you’re already dripping, love. Will you last any longer? Will you last long for me to fuck you while tangling my fingers in your hair and pull it at every trust?”

You gulped a filthy moan as he pushed half of his middle finger into you. Eyes closing shut, head being thrown back and lips slightly open, Ben smirked, licking his lips. You would elicit needy whimpers and moans, arching your back in pleasure as he pumped his finger into you. Your tight walls hugged it and clenched around it. Ben exhaled heavily, his hot breath fanning over your clit while he watched his finger bury deep into you. His cock twitched desperately.

You could barely handle your frustration at the slow pace in which Ben moved his finger. Your juices spread through your folds, smudged at your thighs and mixed with Ben’s saliva as he, once again, wrapped his lips around your clit. You bucked your hips against his tongue, crying out at the sudden wave of intense pleasure.

“Bloody hell,” Ben whispered, breath hitching because of a harsh pull at his locks and finger stuttering inside of you. He was obviously desperate; you couldn’t hold back a smirk at his frowned features, lips pressed together in a thin line.

Ben almost cried at the lack of attention to his throbbing cock. The frustration was so unbearable that he quickly guided his other hand down his body, harshly tugging at his hardened member.

“God, yes,” he laughed lost in pure bliss and closed his eyes, body almost combusting in pleasure. He increased the pace of his pumping into you after adding another finger.

“O-Oh…” you cried out, clenching around his fingers as your orgasm built up, the burning sensation in your stomach increasing inhumanly. “Fuck, fuck! Oh, fuck.”

“People might hear us!” Ben provoked.

“Idiot,” you mumbled almost incoherently while propping yourself on your elbows once again and averting your gaze to his fingers pumping in and out of you. Wet sounds echoed around the silent trailer.

Ben’s muscles burned. Having reached inside his boxers, apart from pleasuring you, he pleasured himself, fingers smearing pre-cum through his shaft as they tightly wrapped around it. His blue eyes locked with yours. Both of you had your mouths slightly open, letting whimpers and moans freely echo around.

“Ben!” you screamed loudly, one of your hands reaching for his wrist, tightly wrapping around it and hips buckling once again.

Ben felt the desperation in your voice in his bones, causing his hips to stutter. He was quick to remove his fingers from you. Your peaking orgasm quickly descended at the sudden lack of contact and you whined continuously. Ben shakily got up, knees red because of the time he had knelt in front of you.

He tugged his boxers down as you dragged your weakened self up on the couch and reached for him. “Come here.”

Fingers intertwined, you pulled Ben towards you. He thirstily cupped your face, reaching for your lips and kissing them so fiercely it almost hurt. Your teeth grazed against his and your tongues desperately tangled. Breaths uneven through the kiss, Ben moved forward to sit on the couch. You were quick to straddle his lap and tug at his member. He threw his head back in a silent moan, carding his fingers through your hair.

His jaw clenched as you lowered yourself on his cock, earning a strangled moan from him while a satisfied whimper left your lips. Your walls deliciously wrapped around his shaft, which almost caused Ben to lose it. You slowly moved against it, feeling him heavenly stretch your walls. His hands firstly squeezed your ass, but where quick to reach your hair.

“Y-Yes,” you hissed, a smile finding its way to her lips.

“God, I wish you could see what I see,” Ben’s eyes hungrily watched your body bounce on his cock. “So deliciously fucking yourself, aren’t you?”

He pulled at your locks, bringing your lips to his. Your back arched intensely as he started thrusting into you, meeting your own thrusts. Your orgasm was building up once again as was his. Ben swallowed the soft whimpers that fell from your lips as he kissed you hungrily and continued to softly scratch at your scalp. His lips worked against the corner of your parted lips, tracing down to your jawline, reaching the spot below your ear.

Your chests were pressed together, sweat covering them. Your hardened nipples grazed against his skin as you arched your back in pleasure. Ben slightly pulled your head to the side, giving him access to your neck once again, kissing down until he reached your shoulder blades tracing a patch to the junction between your shoulder and neck while he reached the same pleasurable spot over and over again.

Your fingers tightly closed around Ben’s strands of hair once again. But at that, his hips jerked upwards, thrusting deeper than ever, which caused you to cry out his name, cursing incoherently and a strangled moan fell from his lips.

“Shit. Shit, YN,” he repeated in a slurred tone as your walls insistently clenched around his cock. “You feel so good…”

“Y-Yeah?” you mumbled, a dazed smile on your features. Your eyes were closed in pure bliss and you eagerly reached for your clit with one of your hands, rubbing your fingers at a fast pace against them.

Your nails dig into Ben’s scalp, fist closed around his hair, which sent him over the edge. Chasing his orgasm, his hips stuttered and his breath was shallow. The pleasure exploding in his veins was so intense Ben felt dizzy again, his muscles all burning in pain due to the repeated movements of his hips.

You reached your orgasm panting and burying your face into Ben’s neck. Your brain couldn’t process the intense sensations that waved through your body. Your fingers insistently rubbed against your clit slowly stopped moving. Ben didn’t waste time to softly pull your hair one last time, increasing the intensity of the waves of pleasure crashing into your body. He weakly thrusted into you while you reached the stars. You moaned and whimpered Ben’s name desperately, letting the words fall from your lips in a cascade of pants.

You could tell he was close. He threw his head back in your hands, falling into your touch. You scratched his scalp, leaving open-mouthed kisses to his neck. Your walls tightened around his shaft, causing him to come in hot spurts inside of you, groaning incoherently.

“God… ” Ben hoarsely laughed, caressing your back reassuringly while your body collapsed onto his. You both breathed in deeply in an attempt to recover your breath. Sweat glistened on your foreheads and drenched your bodies.

“It was amazing, Ben,”

“Why did we have to hide it?” Ben whispered against your skin as he pressed soft kisses to your shoulder.

You laughed, shaking your head. “I just know hiding kinks isn’t happening anymore.”

#ben hardy #roger taylor #joe mazzello #john deacon #gwilym lee #brian may #rami malek #freddie mercury #ben hardy x reader #roger taylor x reader #joe mazzello x reader #john deacon x reader #gwilym lee x reader #brian may x reader #rami malek x reader #freddie mercury x reader #queen #smut #let writes

34 notes · View notes

iminyourhandskara · 4 years

Text

Chris Wood on FatMan Beyond with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin. (Full interview transcript)

A MASSIVE, MASSIVE THANK YOU TO @bwaybenoist WHO HELPED ME A LOT WITH THIS. ❤❤❤❤

to the anon who requested this, and for whoever wants to read this, enjoy!

__________________

Kevin: One of my favorite people in the world, man. If you're lucky enough, you get to work with people you like, and I met this kid on a set and most people on sets, you know, 'not necessarily all likable and stuff like that.

Marc: Careful.

Kevin: Yeah. (indistinct) This kid ain't just likable, he's fucking lovable, man. I was like, goddamn it, I fell in love with him the way I fell in love with Ben Affleck, where I'm like "You should be in everything! Fuckin, you should play Fletch." I still to this day think he'd be the perfect Fletch based on the Gregory McDonald books. When we got lucky enough to work on Masters of the Universe from Mattel on Netflix, I, you know, there was always a like "We could probably get a big cast for this" and stuff, so I played very few cards in terms of like "Well, here's who I think you could get and stuff like that" because Netflix, Mattel, these cats putting up the money, they should tell us who they want and stuff and Teddy who's our Netflix exec, he loves MOTU, so like casting of course with Netflix, the ability to draw talent is gonna be right up his alley. But one of the only names I put forward in the process..I was like “I worked with Chris Wood, and he is SO good, like he would be an excellent Prince Adam and He-Man as well of course, but like, can I put him on the list?” and they put him on the list, and you know, I thought that was gonna be it, “Kevin made a suggestion and we’ll put him in there and then it will never happen.” And he got the job, legit got the job. Mattel loved him, Netflix loved him, boom, he’s our prince Adam! So, here tonight, you got him? Here tonight, man..*Skype sound* Making a little chit-chat, that’s the sound of joy. That means we’re gonna talk to a guest, we get to open the door and welcome to Fatman Beyond, uh, He-Man himself, ladies and gentleman, Prince Adam, I give you..Chris Wood.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Marc: Look at that intro.

Kevin: And look at that pretty ass man, look at how pretty he is.

Chris: *Plays Jellicle Cats from CATS*

Kevin: Somebody’s been listening to the show!

Chris: Reminiscing about..the Winter Garden Theater.

Kevin: This is actually..I was gonna say..

Chris: My first Broadway show I ever saw, Kevin!

K: Was CATS?

C: Was CATS!

K: I totally forgot as we were sitting here, going “Nobody’s gonna care about us talking about Broadway.” There’s one guy waiting to be on the show who was like “I’d love it if it was all--”

C: I was having the time of my life! This was like Batman, Broadway edition, I loved it.

K: Give us the full rundown of every Broadway show that you’ve ever seen, and when you say Broadway, do you mean--

C: I mean, I mean Broadway.

K: You mean like seeing it on Broadway, not just live theater.

C: No man, that’s where I got my start, that was my whole...the stage was my whole thing. You’d have to sit here for like three hours to hear all of the shows I ever saw..

K: Are you serious? So wait you-

C: It’s got a soft place in my heart still.

K: You uhm, I remember when I was working on Supergirl, at one point Melissa was just like: “He was in Sweeney Todd!” and I was like “What?” Were you in Sweeney Todd?

C: It’s true, yeah.

M: With Victor Garber?

C: Yeah.

K: Yeah, it’s surprising, he was in Sweeney Todd and has worked on a Victor Garber adjacent show.

C: Yeah.

K: I (was) saying before Ben Affleck’s my last card, I’m turning to Chris Wood to make that Victor Garber connection.

C: Yeeees! Hey guys!

M: Hey man!

K: How are you sir?

C: What’s going on?

K: So wait, what- you were a musical theater guy.Correct?

C: That (was) my thing, man. All through college and high school and growing up, that was like-- aside from making movies on my Super8-- that was my, that was my other hobby.

K: What is uh- look, for those who don’t follow very closely: Chris has acted for a long time, I met him playing Mon-El when I was directing Supergirl episodes. Of course as I said, he’s playing our He-Man. What was the vampire show that Mewes loves that you were on?

C: The Vampire Diaries, yeah, yeah.

K: The Vampire Diaries as well and stuff, uhm, and he’s a wonderful actor and gorgeous human being but-

C: You’re always- you have the kindest intros in the world, Kevin. You’re- I come on just blushing every time I talk to you.

K: He’s wonderful (but) this is wanna lay out there: he is a fucking hell of a writer.

M: Outstanding.

C: Oh wow! It’s still going!

K: And you know that like I’m not just saying it’s a butter him up because we could totally just talk about He-Man and that’s it but like-- I’ve read a script that he wrote that took me back to 1994, where I was like-- This is what I felt like when I saw Indie Film. It reignited a love for indie film because the film was impressionistic and wonderful and original and singular in vision and stuff..

C: And nobody will ever make it..*Laughs* All of the qualities of a terrific independent film.

K: You got- you got some pushback on the movie. “Some people like this? What?” but he wrote- didn’t you write a script that went someplace legit or whatnot? Are you allowed to talk about it?

C: I did, yeah. It’s not public yet, but we’re--

K: That’s not public? That wasn’t in the trades or anything like that?

C: Not yet, man. It’s still like..under the table wheeling and dealing.

K: Alright, we can’t say what it is, but I can tell you right now, it’s like- it’s something that you and I (Marc) would work our Whole lives to achieve and we’ve been doing- all we have is writing. And this motherfucker has everything in life and he’s about to have that as well. But well worth it, because he’s wonderful at the written word. What do you attribute that to?

C: The written word?

K: Yeah. Where’d you- How come you’re such a good writer?

C: Well, that’s very- Thank you first of all. Uhm, writing, I always kinda did it. I think I was like you, Kev, when I was a kid I just- no one was giving me pages to shoot or to have my friends put on plays in the garage, so I had to write my own words. So, I kind of always done it. I remember writing plays and I’d write up thirty pages of a script when I was 13 years old and I’d hand it out to my cousins and we’d perform it for all of our aunts and uncles and grandparents. I kind of always done it, just never been paid for it.

K: Yeah, that’s the dream, to get paid for it at the same time. I saw when my man got married, he whipped out beautiful words as well. Like you know, where you get to like say something to your-

M: Your vows.

K: There you go. That’s that word, “vows”

C: “What do we call those *snaps fingers* those promises we make.

K: I smoked those away. *Laughs* Even his vows, were like beautiful, like incredibly well fuckin written, beautiful choice of words, look-

C: My missus..

K: I mean, yes.

C: (Blew me out) the water.

K: Who went first, was it you or her who went first?

C: She went first, that’s why I couldn’ t-- I couldn’t speak through mine.

K: Yeah, both of them got real beautiful.

C: Oh man..

K: The thing is, I knew Woody was a writer because I read his script and what not. Didn’t homegirl open with “I’m not a writer” and then dropped one of the most beautiful fucking speeches that you’ve ever heard in your life? It was really great, really special for me to be there for, man. The point is this kid here writes well, the point is one day he’s gonna take my advice and write himself his own fucking lead in the movie that he should make, particularly that one that I love and make a movie, ‘cause he’s got all the ingredients. Like you know, like me I was like “I wanna make a movie” but like I had to hire actors and shit like that. Well, not hire but beg them to be in it. Thank God they were. But like he could write himself a part and be that fucking part and direct himself in the part, because he’s been on enough sets so knows how the process works.

M: So what you’re saying is he’s unfair.

K: Yes, I don’t want to say it in front of him and embarrass the man but yeah.

C: I’m so sorry.

K: Um, take us into, for those watching at home uh, talk a little bit about Vampire Diaries. When did that, was that the first thing you did?

C: That was one of my early kind of like public roles, um, I had done some stuff before that, nothing really that caught on with a fan base. That was sort of the first thing I did where people got excited about a character I was doing, um and wanted more of them, so they wrote me more stuff, um, yeah that was, I guess, I started on that seven years ago? Eight years ago?

K: And what was the, did you leave? Did they kill you off gracefully? Did you leave because you were like “I don’t want to do this”.

C: Yeah, I was a bad guy, so with like all good villains in our favourite shows, they have to meet some sort of demise or just, you know go into a spin-off *Laughs*. It’s kind of either-or. Or they’re Skeletor and then they just exist forever as an equal force.

K: So after, how long were you done with that show before you went and did Supergirl?

C: So I did a couple of things after that, um, I did a mini-series and I was on a limited series called ‘Containment’ about a pandemic, much like what we’re living in now. A little too timely, I kind of don’t recommend it at the moment, but yeah I did that and then right after that ended, that’s when I went up to Vancouver.

K; So wait, and if I remember correctly, Containment, did Julie Plec do that? Didn’t she also…

C: Yeah, yeah, that was Julie Plec, who did Vampire Diaries. She kind of pulled me across, from that experience.

K: When you’re making it, are you like “silly fictional world this will never happen.”.

M: “I’ll never need to remember any of this.”.

C: You know what, I feel like in a way the show kind of prepared me for the quarantine because I read so much about the Spanish Flu and about outbreaks and what actually happened, so when this all started happening, I was like “guys no no no, this is real” you know like, when people who play lawyers think they’re lawyers? It was kind of one of those things, suddenly I thought I knew, I was like “send me in I’m ready guys”.

M: Was there any Containment swag that you got to keep like “oh they sent me all these masks, I got all of these masks!”

C: I wish! I think I have some uh, dog tags and that’s about it..

K: Alright so wait, did they come after you to come audition for Supergirl? How does that happen?

C: That was the first time in my career where I got offered something without reading for it. Which was kind of amazing. And I played hard to get for a second because I wasn’t sure if it was the right coloured spandex. I was always more of a Batman guy than a Superman and then eventually it clicked and apparently, there was some part of me that knew I was going to meet my future wife and the mother of my children. *laughs* So I guess it all worked out.

K: I mean, yeah, and aside from just getting to play a hero and stuff, it gave you the rest of your life.

C: The rest of my life, which is a pretty lucky thing to get from a job, usually the job doesn’t serve you that. So that was pretty fantastic.

K: And there are very few people who can walk away from the CW going “and that built the rest of my life”, you know what I’m saying?

C: *laughs* Well it does match, the network that matches my initials should promise me something like that. I think it’s somewhere in the rulebook, I don’t know where.

K: I just put that together.

M: Like the Wendy's girl walks into Wendy's and is like “I will take all of your hamburgers, I’m Wendy."

(all laugh)

K: When you, when they gave you the suit finally, which is something you know, for the run of the show was something you would look forward to and then finally they do give you the suit, looked tight. Was it as uncomfortable as it looked?

C: Oh yeah, they’re terrible. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever wear in your life. You know, it’s like a giant onesie. A onesie is known for comfort and relaxation and too many zippers. This is as few of zippers and you can have including no accessibility to use the restroom, and you really can’t move in them, it kind of squeezes your everything, if there’s a thing that can be squeezed by the spandex. So things are going like, your elbow is going up to your shoulder and you’re not really sure why. You know that you’re not controlling it. Uh, it’s an odd experience, but um, I’ll tell you what, those lunch breaks were always very, it was like a great release to unzip the spandex and just lay on the couch.*laughs*

K: Tell them what it’s like to be up on the harness thing man, when you have to do flying and shit, on the green screens.

C: The flying is fun, that’s one of the really, that’s when you feel like you’re on the trampoline in your backyard as a kid fighting the invisible villains. It’s literally the same thing, except someone is doing the jumping for you with a rope. But that’s when you get to play and feel like a kid. Those are my favourite, the big action sequences. They’re a bear to shoot because they take days to shoot two minutes, as you know. But when you’re actually doing the thing, it’s a great time.

K: How long before you think, because I know it ain’t happening now, how many years from now do you think it’ll be before you and Melissa are like “let’s watch the episodes and see if we can spot the chemistry, and see if I can see myself falling in love and blah blah blah.” Do you think you’ll ever get there?

C: You know, I think it’s probably all over every second of every frame *laughs*. You could probably just uh, start at the beginning and then the first second on-screen probably in some way, shape or form go “oh there it is, there’s the first bits of it”.

K: I believe that, Mr. Broadway.

C: Mr Broadway!!

K: Can I tell him [Marc] a quick Broadway story? I actually went to a Broadway show, where I got to sit next to Mr Chris Wood.

M: Did you now?

C: Oh man, yeah you did.

K: It’s beautiful. So we go see Beautiful, is the show, the Carole King musical.

C: It was also beautiful.

K: It was beautiful, branded and in my heart. The lead of the show that night is of particular interest to both me and Mr Wood, him a lot more. Melissa Benoist, "rhymes with moist", I learned that from Chris Wood.

M: That sounds awfully romantic.

C: He texts me late one evening..

K I used to say Ben-o-ist all the time, I don’t know why.

C: And then I shot you a text I was like “You know it’s Benoist like moist, like a chocolate, decadent chocolate cake”.

M: That was the most Christopher Walken thing I’ve ever heard: “It’s Benoist like moist”.

K: “And delicious like a chocolate cake”. We’re watching Beautiful and we’re watching Melissa open, this is the debut, the first opening night of the show, and Chris is there um, a bunch of people that love Melissa were there. Fucking Lynda Carter was there, Wonder Woman was there to watch Supergirl, how awesome is that? The curtain opens and it opens with Melissa, she’s up top like bang, singing, right at the top of the show and I’m sitting right next to Chris Wood who is crying. Crying those joyful tears of seeing his lady love’s dream come true. She always wanted, is that her first Broadway performance?

C: It was, first and last. *laughs*

K: *jokingly* She’s not going to do it again?

C: No, no, no, no, no I’m just kidding, no it was her first. Life long dream.

K: She was like, she’s like Chris, she’s a theatre kid. A couple of musical kids and stuff, drama kids.

C: You can say nerds, it’s okay.

K: Drama nerds, the idea of Broadway, that was the goal, it wasn’t like “one day I’m gonna be Supergirl”, that was the surprise and the delight where she met the love of her life and stuff, but the dream was Broadway and her dream came true and as you know, if the curtains open and Melissa was crying, of course, people forgive it because they’re like “Oh look at her dreams coming true” the fact he was bawling, I was like "oh my God, she’s got the right guy." All of the joy he felt for her joy, as she was concentrating on doing the very thing that she dreamed about doing, performing, so she can’t just stop the show and be like “can you fucking believe this?” which is how she feels inside, he’s expressing for her just by emotional, he was crying, it was one of the most beautiful things in the world.

C: I’m not ashamed of it.

K: No!

M: Nor should you be.

K: It was so fucking wonderful so supportive but he is a- point of the story, he is such a Broadway kid.

C: You could say I’m a Jellicle kid.

K: Somebody could explain that.

M: I too was sitting next to Chris Wood when he was crying, but it was in New Orleans, in a waiting room to shoot a scene for Reebot, and he's like "Listen, I gotta fly back to Vancouver and my flight is like twenty minutes from now and we haven't shot yet, and it's 4 AM and I'm a little bit daffy in the brain.

K: *Laughs* It's true.

C: Yeah, we were drinking- we were on coffee number four, at like 5 AM, and I looked at my watch and I went "Oh!! My flight's at 6:30." *Laughs*

M: "Anytime you're ready, Kev!"

C: But we got it done.

K: The boys were so sweet, they came out uhm- Chris and Jesse Rath came out and they're in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot during Chronicon, if you haven't seen it on Amazon Prime.

C: With the most extensive and detailed backstory that any limited amount of screentime has ever had in the history of film. There's a story in those eyes, if you look closely.

K: Oh my God, he's working. But he's sitting next to Mr. Marc Bernardin.

M: Yes.

K: Throughout the night, and it was- we ran up against- what time do we finally shoot you guys?

C: I don't even remember.

M: It must've been like 5:15 or something like that.

K: And then rush them to the airport so they could get on (a) plane and get back to Vancouver, correct?

C: That's right, I had to get back to work.

K: Such a special-

C: But it was such a blast, though. And thank you again for letting us come out and play. That was such a trip.

K: It just means that uh, one day your kids are gonna watch that movie and be like "They're both in this terrible movie? Who are Jay and Silent Bob? Was this before you guys met on Supergirl? Why would you be in a movie like this?"

C: *Laughs*

K: Let's talk He-Man. What-- Had you done voice work prior to He-Man?

C: So, when I was broke, living in New York, in between babysitting for three boys on the Upper West Side to make cash so I could support my acting aspirations, I bought a little USB microphone and I joined this- I can't even remember the name of the site. It was some like, some freelance voiceover site, where you join and you can record audio samples and submit auditions and that was the only voice work I had done. I would- I was making like 100 bucks here and there, doing a voiceover for a animated-- "Hey kids, don't run in the cafeteria!" Like a school PSA, or I did some military PSA teaching soldiers etiquette in the barracks and-- so strange. But that was all I had done.

K: Tell'em about how- what acting in front of a microphone is like, 'cause it is acting-

C: Oh yeah.

K: -And in some ways, it's way more acting than one can do on a camera, on a camera one can be subtle, you can't be subtle behind a microphone. You gotta communicate emotion just with the voice, tell 'em about it.

C: You know it's so funny, I actually would describe voice acting as incredibly physical work, whereas camera acting it's all- you know, it's what you're feeling, it's..they say it's through your eyes, which actually means they're seeing through your eyes, through your soul, right? If you're feeling something you'll see it. But for voice acting, we don't see anything, it's all voice, so you really have to take the feeling and elevate it, and sometimes it helps to physically express it, so people sweat in the booth and they, you know, they grit their teeth and they stomp into the ground, and really, you have to really dig in, to grab the emotion and kinda amplify it, otherwise *monotone voice* you're just kinda talking like you do on film and nothing's really happening, and no one cares. Which is sort of what American acting is a lot of the time, we kinda just try not to seem like we're interesting and care about anything. *Laughs*

K: Is that the secret to acting? Did you just let it-- Is that all acting or just CW acting? What kinda acting are we talking about?

C: I'm actually doing a master class series on early '20s acting and basically, the first lesson is to speak as monotone and enunciate as little as possible.

K: Fucking worked out, you married Supergirl for heaven's sakes.

C: Listen-

K: Mumble away, kids! That's what your future looks like if you can mumble your way through a performance.

C: Mumble core.

M: So what you're saying is, voice acting then is very much like theater acting? Where like you've gotta play to the back row, right? Like you can't see that person's eye from a hundred feet away.

C: This guy!

K: Right? This fucking guy, he made-

C: You've found a way to bring it back to CATS! Wow!

K: Thank you, fucking excellent job, now there's a writer. Marc Bernardin is a writer.

M: *singing* Midnight and the kitties are sleeping..

K: Yes, your theater training really comes in handy in that shit, I never fucking put that together!

C: Yeah! Because you learn how to take a truthful feeling and amplify it, that's what the best stage acting is, right? An emotion that an actor is feeling that can reach the back of the house and, with voice acting is that same sort of thing, but your relationship is with the microphone uhm, and it needs to go through the microphone and then into the character and then the audience gets to it. So it's a whole-- There's a learning curve, I feel like it takes a second. Hopefully we got it right.

K: Now you're way younger than us, so I don't know if like- was He-Man in your wheelhouse growing up? Or that was before you?

C: He-Man, yeah, He-Man was on uh-- we didn't have cable when I was a kid, 'cause we didn't have the money for it. So I was watching, they were rerunning it on-- I'm trying to think what network it would've been. I can't even think of the names of what they were back then, but they were running- it was the rerun after the original series had aired. 'Cause I would watch that and I would watch X-Men, those are my cartoons.

M: Where'd you grew up, in New York?

C: In Ohio. Yeah, Dublin, Ohio, home of Wendy's, yeah.

K: That's true, that's where Wendy's begins, is in Ohio!

C: Yeah and there's a callback to Wendy! So..

M: This guy!

K: There's a writer, there's a writer! *points at both Marc and Chris*

M: High five!

K: What uh-- you know, we gotta be very careful of course, when we talk about MOTU, all of us are NDA'd up the A-H. You gotta play two different characters, what was that like?

C: That was one of the fun aspects of Prince Adam slash He-Man. It's finding these very different placements for the same person, right? So it has to feel like the same character but that, their emotional states are- Prince Adam is sort of in a different place: he's covering, he's deflecting, he's more fun and goofy..And then He-Man we have to drop the truth of his core mission, you know, to save the world, so..I mean, it starts with registers, right? That was the easy part. Prince Adam is supposed to be full of youth so he's a little higher and a little more excited, and then He-Man, *lower voice* go down and be more heroic, down in the basement and use his big fighty-fight voice.

K: It's pretty awesome, like you join a tradition of storytelling in which performers get to be two people, like you know, whoever plays Batman gets to do Bruce Wayne, and then they get to do the Dark Knight, whoever plays Superman gets to do Clark Kent and then they get to do the Man of Steel, so you get to do Prince Adam and then you also get to be his heroic alter ego, man.

C: Right.

K: It's a wonderful fraternity that you join.

C: Although I hear I'm in deep trouble, because the internet has found out that I'm not bulking up--

M: You're not doing the work?

C: --for my performance.

K: Somebody on Twitter was just like "Chris Wood, he's not big enough to play He-Man!" and they meant in size!

M: "Have you seen his thighs? His thighs are not nearly there!"

K: "He skips leg day all the time" but oh my God--

C: You're right! "He can't possibly play the character!"

K: Yeah I had to point out, I was like "I better get in touch with Netflix and see if they'll send Chris some steroids and a fucking peloton so he could do the the voice in an animated series."

M: Also, Chris is not from another planet. That's also an issue. Could you not have cast an indigenous actor to play somebody from Eternia?

K: Who was it tweeted, somebody tweeted something about Griffin Newman, they were like "Oh, tell Griffin we gotta cut his fucking legs off". Maybe it was there, texted that, tweeted that. What uh, now that you've voice acted and led an animated series: is it something that you see yourself doing again? I mean, of course, hopefully we all get to do this one again, but other stuff. You got like one of them Disney voices and you can sing like a motherfucker, man.

C: Oh man, I would love to do Disney too. Let's uh, put that in the bucket list. I honestly, I get a real kick out of it, it's..like you said you can really go to a larger-than-life place, and it all, it always has to come from, you know, something sincere, that sense of play has to be grounded in something. You just kind of yell and scream, I think people can hear that..so there's a challenge to it, but it's also super rewarding because you get to, you know, play characters that fly on cats that are oversized and wear armor and..

M: Jellicle cats?

K: None of that Jellicle shit in our show, Marc! Battle cats!

M: What kind of Jellicle are you? I'm a cringer cat!

K:*jokingly* Somebody point a sword at me, quick. Yeah man, it's a..

C: It's a long life with He-Man too, 'cause this, I mean the character is so fun and obviously..I had the action figures when I was a kid and those toys..I hope to introduce my son to Masters of the Universe via the action figures, 'cause I mean they're so weird! They really went there-- have you seen that special that they do on the toys on the Netflix show?

K: Oh yeah, the toy, the wonderful-

M: The Toys That Made Us.

K: -The Toys That Made Us.

C: Yeah, yeah The Toys That Made Us.

K: Their He-Man episode is unbelievably wonderful.

C: Oh, it's great! And it just shows you- you know they were thinking "what weird crap would a little boy like, put together on a toy?" And then they end up with these wild names, and these characters who do insane things and it's part of why it's so fun. And the fact that they found a way to build a story around those bizarre toys, that was also compelling.

K: Thank God they did--

C: 30 years later, it's amazing.

K: Thank God they did, we all have fuckin jobs, all three of us.

C: *laughs* You're right.

K: Wait so before we let you go, it occurs to me that Melissa just had her episode air of Supergirl, that she directed.

C: Directorial debut!

K: That's right! Did you- Did the Wood-Benoists or Benoist-Woods- did you guys like kick back and watch it together?

C: You know, we didn't because *laughs* we don't have cable. So, no!

K: Don't let CW hear that, or perhaps do and they'll pay for cable! Why don't you have cable? Where are you quarantining?

C: We're in California, so we're home, but we're usually not home.

K: Right! Oh my gosh, that's right!

C: As a fortunate actor you move to California to never be there. I was shooting in New York and she was shooting in Vancouver when this all started and we were lucky to get home quickly but uh, but yeah I mean, we don't spend that much time in our house, so we don't have cable!

K: Tell 'em why you were in New York. Was it the- that's been announced, right?

C: Yeah, yeah for Thirtysomething, Thirtysomethingelse which is an ABC show that hopefully, knock on me, hopefully ends up going when we get out of this situation with Covid. Yeah, it's a reboot of Thirtysomething, another 80s classic.

K: Oh my God, that's-- you'll have two, you'll have fuckin MOTU and Thirtysomething. I watched Thirtysomething in real time when I was a kid, I loved that show, my mom watched it so I watched it with her and stuff, so I know all about Hope and Michael. I saw that they were redoing the show and I saw that fucking Chris was involved and I was like "What?!", and I texted him "Are you fucking for real?" and shit, and you're playing Hope and Michael's- did they announce that? I don't know

C: Yeah, yeah, I'm their son, yeah.

K: So he's tied in-

M: He's a legacy character!

K: Legacy character and like-

C: Legacy! This is what's all about.

K: That's fucking dope, man. So I mean, look I can't wait to watch that, but I have seen and heard four animatics so far of MOTU and-

C: Oh man.

K:- your performance..

C: I cannot wait.

K: It's wonderful, you did a great, great job and made me proud as the guy who was like "You know who'd be good? This guy." Put you forward--

C: This guy and they're like "who's that?" and you're like "hang on, let me tell ya!"

K: Yes, "Here let me pull up IMDb". They knew who he was, they know you, man.

M: If you did like The Music Man it wouldn't have been an issue: “You know who’d be good? Wood would be good, if he could do that, I bet you Wood could.”

C: *Laughs* Well, you got He-Man, my friends. (inaudible) city.That was a, that was a deep cut.

M: Hell yes.

K:Look at you, look at how you came to life with a little theater ref, man. Jazz hands all around.

C: Oh yeah, you can feel the jazz hands from there in the Cantina.

M: Touching us all over

K: Go back and enjoy the rest of your Thursday night, thanks for hanging out with us, say hello to the good lady Benoist and whatnot.

C: Thank you gentlemen. It was wonderful seeing you both.

M: Good to see you, sir. Be well.

C: Alright guys, be well.

K: Give it up for He-Man himself, Chris Wood, everybody.

M: *cheers*

K: Mon-El..flies away. He’s so good, such a good guy. I forgot he was such a fucking theater kid, that’s right, and we were like talking theater and shit. And I forgot his connection to Garber. One more we wrote in.

M: We have another point of entry.

K: That’s true, that’s good. Man, I’m telling you, I ain’t fucking around, his script was one of the most impressive thing I’ve ever read,

M: Yeah, that’s awesome.

K: It did make me feel jealous where I’m like “he’s that pretty and he can write like this? Like, all I had was writing, fuck!”

M: That’s a problem.

K: God, what a good guy.

#chris wood #kevin smith #marc bernardin #fatman beyond #melissa benoist #melwood #mon-el #masters of the universe #MOTU #he-man #prince adam #masters of the universe netflix

41 notes · View notes

mtemplex · 4 years

Text

Little Baby Faulkner

# 1

My girlfriend Sashi used to hate it when film crews used her neighborhood to film. She hated it because her neighborhood was quiet—and then come all these film people noising it up, blocking roads, leaving colored tape everywhere. But mostly she hated that she was the insider, and they were the outsiders, and shooting a film was their pass to become tourist in her neighborhood, where she was a native.

Also: Sashi went to film school. And somehow that figured into her hatred of film crews.

I went to film school too. Sashi’s was in New York. Mine was in LA. She studied lighting. She liked to be on crew. I studied directing. If I never pick up another light or calculate line voltages in my head it will be too soon. I think Sashi held it against me that I liked the heady work while she preferred the grunt work. Sashi was smart enough to direct. To write. She considered it more pure to haul cord, to respond to the cinematographer bark orders. When she worked on a movie, she *preferred* not to read the script. She and her fellow crew members would go to Starbucks after filming and talk philosophy—not the casual kind that most people talk, but real philosophy, the kind that to keep up with you had to be read up on every last work by Derrida. They didn’t *want* to know anything about the movie: Their way of filmmaking was *pure*. The less they knew the better.

This story I’m about to tell you took place over one weekend in September (or maybe October). It was senior thesis week and as a director I didn’t have any interest in helping out some classmate by holding the boom microphone—which is what I liked to do when I was required to be on someone else’s set. Much for the same reasons Sashi worked lights: I could be there and not be there. Just get the mic in the right place and my brain could wander to infinite places other than *here*.

I lived right up the street from my school. Three blocks. And right between block two and block three was a restaurant with no name (as is popular in LA). It had a black door and a red carpet and I had never been inside but I had walked past it every day for a year and on Sunday and Thursday the red carpet was rolled out. If I got drunk my apartment was one block up the hill. I could walk there and see the homeless man sleeping on a couch someone had literally thrown out their window. Hollywood is like that: Lamborghinis and rich people live on the same street as homeless ones. There is no plan to help the homeless ones. They wander, move, die.

I had seen people enter the restaurant with no name. In couples or quads, guys and girls, all dressed up. And disappear behind the door into relative blackness.

Now I stand here, ready to knock—realizing what a silly gesture that is—and I’m not dressed up, instead wearing my brown cargo pants that I used to swear by as a film person (due to the extra—the third—side pocket almost to the cuff at the bottom of the pants). I’ve never seen that pocket before or since. Only on the ones sold in a surplus shop on Hollywood B.

I pull open the door, walk a few steps in. I almost leave because no one is in there. The tables are stood on top of each other like they stand when a restaurant crew closes for the night. There was a bar—no one at it, no one behind it. I look around the place:

I see a bar with nine stools. An area in the back with a stained-glass skylight. Tiles on the floor underneath that: Forming the structure of a wave, patterns never lost on me. I think about texting my film school buddy but decide I want to be alone. At the top of the Ave is the Alto Nido building, where I live. Sashi lived with me for a while. Then I threw my phone across the room, shattering it, glass everywhere. Then I kicked her out. I feel bad about it but me throwing that phone was the last in a line of incidents tracing us from Arizona to Ohio and then to LA. I have never met anyone who made me as mad as that girl.

Other than the skylight, there were no windows in this place. The ceiling was packed with cinema lighting, stage lighting. Even underneath the floor, which was glass block, a parade of colors went by as though I was standing on a river.

I went and sat at the bar, put my laptop bag on the floor, leaning against my stool. Maybe there was an underground chamber and *that’s* where everyone who comes through that door went to..some *Alice in Wonderland* in the basement or sub basement where all the kids in Hollywood (not the students, not the ones without money) would go to dance and hook up and go home and fuck and come back next Sunday or Thursday and ignore everyone they had taken home before.

“Excuse me”—that was the bartender.

I smile in a familiar way, as though we know each other.

“Is this place open?”

“We open at seven, actually.”

“Do you have a kitchen?”

“Yes,” he says deeply. “I’ll get you a menu.”

“That’s ok,” I say. “Do you have a ribeye?”

“Yes sir we do.”

“I’d like a rib eye. Extra rare. With blue cheese crumbles on top.”

“Sure thing,” he says.

“Also? Could I have serrano peppers and two eggs over easy on top of that blue cheese?”

“Sure thing? You want a drink?”

“Yes, a glass of Syrah if you have it.”

“We have it! Totally. We have it. I guess it’s ok if you sit here. There’s a party later.”

“I’ll be out of here by then,” I say (having no intention to leave).

The bartender pours me a generous glass of wine in a glass with a thin lip (important if you’re me). He goes into the kitchen.

I flip through my phone book. Almost all the way to the end. I pretend to consider each name, each number, but really I’m looking for a certain name all along: Roberts, my fuck buddy from Ohio. Don’t ask my *why* I picked Roberts. It may have had something to do with my having tried cocaine for the first time a few days ago, and something in me knew that Roberts had done it, or could help me with her sexy words. My sex with her was the best ever—she said our sex was amazing. After our second bout of soap-suds squishy sex on the floor of my apartment in Ohio, she said, “It’s not that our sex is amazing. I just always wanted to know what it was like to have sex with a genius.”

I refrained from asking her what that was like.

Now in LA, in my empty restaurant, I called her.

“Well look who it is,” she says.

“Hey, pretty girl.”

“So what’s going on?”

“I’m on a coke binge and I need a break.”

“So you called me! Ha ha.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“Matt. You will not believe your synchronicity with me and my house right now! We—me and my roomie Hannah—we just got this house. To rent. And we are breaking it in with a whole weekend of coke. The whole weekend. You know what I think would be great?”

“If I fly to Dayton and participate in your coke weekend?”

Silence.

Then Roberts’ voice: “Would you?”

“Umm..”

“Oh please! *Could* you?”

“Ahh..”

“Oh my god we could do coke and have sex all weekend!”

“Ok!” I say. “Tell me about this house.”

“I will,” she says. “Hannah and I live here—the lease is in our name. My grandmom lives here. And Hannah’s boyfriend name of Rambuncto is getting out of jail on Saturday.”

“They let people out of jail on Saturday?”

“You’re my smart boy. As in: Anyone else would have asked me *What is he in for?* but you ask *Will they let him out on Saturday?*

“Well: What is he in for?”

“Assault. On a stranger in a Walmart.”

“Is he guilty? I mean: Did he do it?”

Roberts’ laugh gets two steps louder.

“I’m pretty sure he’s guilty, yeah.”

“Is he gonna be there this weekend?”

A pause from Roberts.

“Matthew, don’t worry about it. Rambuncto may talk some shit but he’s harmless.”

“Not to the person in Walmart.”

“Don’t worry about it, Matthew. You spend so much of your head worrying it’s a miracle you’re not losing brain celluloid whenever you wake up. Come over. Can you afford it? I can send you money if you can’t afford it.”

“I can afford it.”

“Ok, good. ‘Cause I can’t really afford it.”

We both laugh.

“And I have enough money for coke.”

“Ok, this is what I think we should start with: an eight ball,” Roberts says. Then we can get more eight balls when we run out. I don’t know if you remember, but I always wanted to get a Snoop doggy dog and—guess what?—I have one. Do you want me to tell you his name?”

“Hold up. Before that. Is Rambuncto—? Is Hannah—? I mean, are they ok?”

“You’ve *met* Hannah before.”

“Did she go to Colonel White?”

“She went to Stivers. She’s fine. Don’t worry! The house is cool, ok? Say *The house is cool*.”

“I just wanna—“

“SAY THE HOUSE IS COOL!!”

“Ok. It’s cool. The house is cool.”

“We’re gonna have so much fun when you get here, Matt. We’ll fuck *all weekend*. I know you like that slippy little soap suds fucking we do. Look. I gotta go.”

“Can you pick me up from the airport?”

“Guess what my dog’s name is. Just text me the details. What’s my dog’s name? Baby hurry ‘cause I gotta go.”

“I don’t know. What’s its name?”

“Faulkner.” She lays it out like carpet.

“Why did you name him that? Have you ever *read* any Faulkner?”

“I gotta go, my wayward king! Hannah says we have a dead-ish baby in the crib room.”

“Alright, girl—“ I say, but the line goes dead.

Just then the bartender returns with my steak. It is cooked extra rare. With two eggs, blue cheese, and jalapeño peppers instead of serranos. I decide to eat it anyway.

# 2

Roberts and I had a history. From the first I saw her practicing color guard with the school’s JROTC program—her face so smooth, her hair: an angels!—to the time I followed her across the gym floor during a science exploration—projects everywhere, and none more important to me—I tracked her down and we spoke and she did seem kinda dumb to me. But I liked her anyway, and over the years we’d become fuck buddies. From that time watching *The Great Gatsby* (Robert Redford version) sitting in the dark of the basement where her apartment was, her dog outside listening. And Roberts and I moved deliberately to a lying down position and kissed in the dark—and all we did was kiss—but the seed was sewn, and it wasn’t till a couple years since *The Great Gatsby* that we hooked up in my place on Second Street in Dayton Ohio (with the help of a bottle of Aftershock) that we finally took it all the way.

Fucking Roberts had become an exalted experience. Full of imagination and the fulfillment of imagination. Her puss was so red and so tight..it was unimaginable. Truly, the best sex of my life, right there. Soap suds—the works. Tight as a flower mate by a honeybee, the bee shaking his tail feathers to get in there. Before we had stood in the light of a street lamp visible five floors below..and when it turned red we stopped touching each other and when it turned green we started again.

My friend Julian was mad at me when I told him Roberts and I had fucked. He asked me to describe her vagina, which I did. Red. Redder than the purest red in a box of Crayons, a set of oil paints. Tight as a honeybee. Wet and snug and so tight she made me cum in her after five strokes, even after she asked me not to cut. We never used a condom. Kept it clear and functioning. Lord of the *Flies*. The next morning she jacked me off with two hands while she waited for her mother to pick her up. Then it was off and on, whenever one of us happened to call the other. And it never seemed off-limits, even when one of us was in relationship—it was never cheating, with us.

This is the girl I was flying from LA to Dayton to meet. This is the girl when I showed her picture to my film school buddy, he said:

“You fucked *that*?”

To which I said, “Yep.”

And that was the end of the conversation. The end of Mike’s constant pestering me about getting a girlfriend, about everything he pestered me about, right down to the bottom of why I took showers instead of baths. Right down to the end of who my Christmas present was: A girl who I woke up in my LA bed to see. A girl I fucked during film school: brown hair, lovely petite, screaming sex in her chokers and all blackness and pink panties you could see above her back. Her back hurt. She needed relief. Any way I could provide it, I was willing. Fucked that girl in the equipment room, just, like, that.

I don’t remember that film school girl’s name—believe that? I don’t remember my Christmas present’s name. She was a costume girl for Adam Sandler. And the fact that I didn’t remember her name isn’t really an act of pathological sport fucking—more an act of casualty that we all engage in. Fuck one girl, forget her name. Forget her phone number and wake up the next morning with more unknowns in your address book: “Molly, 323.818.9544”—total unknown. Don’t remember a Molly—don’t remember anyone. No one new, no one old. A real bright way of living, there.

But on that night Roberts and I decided to invite each other to spend a coke weekend at her house in Ohio..on the night I invited myself into this anonymous dance and supper club, on that night I stayed sober enough to remember two cute girls a few years older than me who danced and opened up their world to me.

“Do you wanna dance with us?”

These women were formally dressed and I with my six-pocket cargo pants they grabbed me me by the hands and took me to the place under the skylight and they freak-danced me, holding me in the envelope of light where each of them plus the skylight made a triangle of importable lust, striking jealousy in the eyes of the boys more normal to this party. Soon they picked me out as the threat, the tall nail which is inevitably hammered down, and the girls were saying goodbye and the bartenders and bouncers were telling me goodbye and the street lamp having just come on was guiding my home across the street with the intersection of the homeless man sleeping in a couch that had been thrown out the window and my school was far behind me and I let myself into the Alto Nido—it’s the building shown in the opening shot of *Sunset Boulevard*—and I took the stairs (down) and I struggled with the lock and soon was in the wood-flooring studio apartment where I had the pages of an entire screenplay (one I was writing) placed end to end across the floor.

This and some squirrel puzzles (dubbed thee by my friend Michael). They were stacked on the writing desk with a bunch of cocaine stacked next to them. I was reaching for a result and I thought coke could help. It seemed to speed up my thinking, but no result came. These were some mathematical puzzles that had been puzzling me and I didn’t know whether it was more in the problem-solving *vein* to take them to Dayton on my Roberts weekend or to leave them here and take a break.

I thought of the dead man out there on the sidewalk—he seemed dead to me. I had never used enough drugs to make myself actually *homeless*. I didn’t have sympathy for that man. This was what happened when you couldn’t control your addiction. When you lost your job and lost your wife and lost your nerve to walk into a job interview on LSD or walk into a job interview on meth and coke—if you couldn’t make that work, then you couldn’t *make it work*—period.

The idea that there were people out there who had never tried drugs was empty to me: I did not understand how that could be. My cousin divorced her husband after he 1) had back surgery 2) was prescribed opiates 3) became addicted to those opiates and 4) went to rehab to end his addiction. To me that seemed like the best-case scenario, minus the divorce. But, I mean, how in this first world of ours could anyone live for long without coming into contact with drugs. We live on them, can’t function without them. Anyone who has tried alcohol knows that if this drug was introduced today that it would be illegal. Same with cigs. The most dangerous drugs are on the street, legal to get. And a couple of the most transformative drugs are listed as the most restricted in our world. The real problem is you have people walking around with no general knowledge of drugs and their actual dangers and benefits.

I set up a line of coke, snarfed it.

I set up another line, banged it.

Mmm. Salad wenches of lines spreading before me the remnants of ecstasy flying, colliding. Rummaging in my mind tailwinds of stories I had yet to tell. Yardley dangers of Pluto, planets banging across each other to form craters, my jizz the center of the galaxy, girlfriend gone, somewhere at a Starbucks sitting out front talking with a homeless man, treating him better than she treats me (I have seen this) and her going home to some weekly hotel where she barely makes the rent, has to eat off the employee shelf—all she had to do was not wake me up at night, not engage me in impossible swirls of arguments that never end, there is never a truce, never a peace of the day, but me waking up with her kneeling over my body *yelling* at me. Never stopping. One who wants not to live together, not to love each other, but to be one end of a debate course, for us to work it all out *and for her to be right*! I could not take anymore of that.

I punched up my ticket—laptop, coke—making sure I got the flight times, origins and destinations, correct. Making sure I had the times correct. Enough room for changes to and from Dayton Ohio. I’d pack my bag tomorrow. I called Roberts.

“Hi y’all” (said in an English accent) “I hope you have been following my YouTube channel as of late where myself and my house mouse—we will call her ‘H’—move into a *fabulous* house in East Dayton. This weekend we have a guest, my old friend Matt from Colonel White. Anyway—*any who*—he’s coming for a visit. A sortie. An exportage. If you will. I” (sound of a smooch) “you, fuck boy! I smooch you I smooch you I smoooch you!!”

# 3

Listening to Roberts’ voicemail prompts were always like this: spinning in infinity, telling a tale. You could get a glimpse of her, through this medium, that gave you information you could only get in this way. If you saw her grandmother die and then asked Roberts if it saddened her, Roberts would say nothing. Then you’d listen to her voicemail and hang up before leaving a message, she would say the truth right there: she was sad.

Boarding the plane high on coke scared me. I had done a lot of coke before taking a cab to the airport, and I spent the whole ride there wiping down the corners of my bag, licking clean my normal coke holder and burying it in the bottom of my clothes. LAX is a trip within itself, messages of the white zone and the orange zone. I passed through the white zone thinking of all the white I had done, hoping those drug-sensing chemicals wouldn’t expose me—all to everyone. I took off my shoes and put my laptop in its own bin and walked through that fucking machine with the facial expression of the Dalai Lama and the shluffing feet of a would-be LA party goer—I would be a party goer except after that first impression I came across like a kid just broke into a candy store. I had the all the nerve but none of the money: real LA party people had rich parents and bottomless trusts and multiple parts in small movies.

They were the chosen ones. I was the nothing one.

I got through security. Got through the boarding process. Sat with my carry-on beneath my seat, leaned my head against a window, and I’m sure snored all the way through the flight.

During my sleep, I dreamt I was on a bicycle touring a school that was close to. There were a hundred black people in a small gymnasium watching a basketball game that was in cable—only—not on regular TV. I ride through that room and back outside, nodding to a guy who is riding *his* bike and he has crystal meth on him and while my nod means nothing to me, it means that I want some crystal, to him. Soon enough I’m riding my bike, high on crystal, around this park and some people hold a phone out to me:

“This is Paula Abdul. She wants to talk to you.”

I stop my bike and talk on speakerphone.

“Hey Paula!”

“Hey, my bro. How are you doing over there? Where is *over there* for you, anyway?”

“Over there? I think I’m in a poor neighborhood, traveling like a flashlight across the country by air, and my shadow casts a spot over poor neighborhoods across the country. Whatever the plane’s shadow touches, I am there. We’re somewhere in the Midwest now. That’s all I know.”

Paula Abdul continued the dream:

“Look there on your TV. There I am—see? Now tell me what to do.”

I looked at the TV in front of these hundred poor kids here to watch the game. It was an old-fashioned one, SONY, with no inputs but for one—the antennae—and skipping past the part where I wondered how they could see *anything*, I told Paula Abdul to make a heart shape with her hands and fingers and as soon as I said that, she did it!

Paula Abdul, right there on TV—right there for me.

I rode out of the gym and saw the meth guy again and I remembered (in the dream) something that seemed at the time to be a remembrance of another meth experience but which seemed at the time to be a remembrance of *another dream*, or a remembrance of dream—just created!—a memory of a memory, the second memory created *at the time!* to *seem* like a waking-life memory *of* another dream—I don’t know how I seem to you but this tangle tripped me solidly upon waking and it was a few minutes more before I took this dream within a dream to consist of another waking-life dream accessed by myself from within this secondary dream. It’s confusing, I know.

Somewhere in there was a stop to change planes. I stooped around this large airport sitting in a circular intersection of hallways, desperately checking that my carry on was beside me.

I sat down, removed my laptop. It had some of the snail puzzles on it—plus the code to generate them. I tapped this way and tapped thus, there was nowhere else to go with them. I had spent a lifetime (it seemed) in Tucson in front of a white board deducing what originally seemed a system of *two* states and *two* rules to what seemed now to be a system of *four* states with two rules. I could generate, with my new set of pieces, the table of 16 binary Boolean operators just by *copying* them with your hands, with visual pattern matching (and that’s what made this second rule set superior) but I could not generate the actual snail puzzles from them.

This concerned me as I sat alone in—which airport I can’t remember—working out the pattern matching, the visual copying of four rules which allowed *computation* to be known as simple creation and unfolding of patterns. They didn’t even have to be visual!—They could be calculated by a blind person—Even a person with no senses could *sense* this, deep in their brain, I had determined.

That and nervously picking at my coke pill: silver with a keychain and a screw-tight lid. I had carried it with me since I first started doing coke. It came from Amazon. In the airport I unscrewed it and tried tapping its (hopefully non-empty) contents onto my laptop cover. You’ve never lived until you’ve done coke off your MacBook. I was hoping to do some here but the silver pill box had nothing to offer. If you could somehow get your coke over the security points, doing coke in airports would be ideal: it would be a safe environment, no one would imagine you had coke on you and you could tap out lines in clear sight of everyone and they would go: *What? Is that what I just saw?* and they would say *Naw* and keep going.

I had a dangerously long layover—one could say a dangerous hangover—during which I could easily have exited the airport and ended up in Nashville, or Atlanta, or whatever city I was in. I could have easily met up with party people in an airport bar and from there gone off on some other adventure, something far more dastardly than the one I was on. Filled up my coke reserves and re-filled my silver pill box.

On the second leg of the flight I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a window seat. I was in the aisle and this meant there were duplicate waitresses-cum-stewardesses rubbing on my super-sensitive sides. Everyone seemed like they were on coke and everyone seemed like they could sell it to me.

I had a panicky moment wherein I doubted my entire goal: sleeping with Roberts was doubtable, unlikely: she had gained weight and had a child before our last meeting and I had been telling myself this time would be different: she would have lost weight (at least to her high school level) and the child wouldn’t be with her (that was a London baby that Roberts and her boyfriend had given to adoption)—when she had that baby and given her up, Roberts had suckered me into listening to her whole sob story, how they named her London and they *insisted* to the adopting couple that they keep her name and the adopting couple said *Sure, sure* and they obviously were going to change the baby’s name—*obviously*.

Roberts told me that story while I was pinned to the bar stool in a Dayton Thai place. Roberts always did that: kept you on the phone too long, long past when *anyone* would insist the conversation must end! She did it to everyone—I was one of the only people who would still talk to her (listen to her) and so my punishment grew. From a virgin boy who wanted to have sex with her to an experienced man who had sex with her and a lot of people, Roberts was always wasting my time. Always making a two-minute conversation into a ten-minute one. Always driving me crazy with superfluous monologues, over-emphasizing small points which Roberts claimed were big ones!

Years after this trip, several moves from city to city for me, Roberts found my number on Facebook and called it. I was on my last few minutes of cell time and that wasn’t even a factory when I finally said to her, “Stop. Roberts, stop. You always call me and dangle all this bullshit in front of my face, how your kids are doing and how this new man in your life is finally the perfect one..but then there is this unmatched thread where you introduce that he’s a wife beater or a drug addict or a crazy Christian. And you never get to it! You’re dragging me on for years with a story that could be told in a minute! Just stop, Roberts—please, stop. This is the last time we talk together. I have seen you for the last time. Don’t find me on Facebook. Don’t call this number—in a minute it will change. I love you—in a way. Were a high school thing. That turned into a fuck buddy thing. I had fun and I truly like you and I will always remember you well. You blew my mind—truly. And I appreciate that Dallas and Caycee have me as their godfather. That was nice if you—more than nice. But I’m not your children’s godfather. I’ll never see them. I’ll never see them, Roberts, as few or many years as you and I and they will pass. I will never see you, Roberts—never again.”

# 4

1 note · View note

brokenmusicboxwolfe · 6 years

Text

Catch up....

Hopscotch- A veteran CIA agent gets demoted unjustly to a waste of his talents desk job. He responds by announcing his intent to write a tell all book, and then leads the spies on a merry chase as he sends the completed chapters in. It looks like this fun game can’t have a happy ending....or can it?

This is a film I knew almost nothing about, but that turned out to be a delight. It’s a comedy and a thriller, but not a comedy in the big zany way and not a thriller that has bloodshed (even the bullets that are fired are aimed at unoccupied targets). Lots of fun!

Jabberwocky- A lad from the countryside heads to the city at the local castle to make his fortune and win the hand of his love, despite her distain of him. Meanwhile, the kingdom is being devistated by a giant beastie, but not everyone is eager to stop it. The merchants have actually found the situation hugely profitable, but the dottering king has to do something. The something, so he decides to have all the knights take part in a battle to the death competition to find someone to send to kill the creature.

What, send ALL the knights to take on the monster at once? Are you mad? Stories never work like that!

And generally speaking this does function in traditional style. Our under class hero sets out on that journey for your usual reasons (love, money, proving himself) and has a series of minor adventures before finding himself in the unlikely position of hero. But unlike the typical hero he’s more a Candide type, cluelessly bumbling his way through it all. And let’s just say, not everyone wants that fairy tale happy ending after all.

I love every Terry Gilliam film I’ve seen (and I’ve seen ‘em all I think!) but I remembered this one as being a lesser one. It was his first solo film, but actually it looks amazing. I started to say gorgeous, but considering the level of filth that would be silly. Narratively it wanders about, but I think I kind of works as part of the deconstruction of the fairy tale, pointing up the absurdity of the hero’s journey. Of course, it does work better if (like me) you are the sort to embrace the moment without concern for where it fits into the story as a whole. And it’s not quite as funny as it might want to be. Still, I think I enjoyed it much, much more on this rewatch!

Mary Poppins- In a household with a uptight workaholic father and a mother into being a suffragette...which for some reason we are supposed to think as silly instead of a heroic activity..... a new nanny is called for because the Bride of Frankenstein (well, the actress played her!) has had enough of the supposedly naughty, but actually completely average, kids. Along floats, literally, a nanny who is smug, arrogant, politeness masking a sense of superiority, and some sort of magic user. She clearly cast a glamour to cause everyone to fall in love with her no matter how cooly judgemental, bossy and full of herself she is (seriously, she declares herself “practically perfect in every way”). No sooner has she walked in than she spirits the kids off to a place theor parents couldn’t have found them, just so she can go on a sort of date with her jack of all trades but accent from nowhere boyfriend. She will make life interesting for the family, but has no staying power as an employee.

Alright, I’m going to make a shocking confession: I have never been fond of the movie.

It’s well made in a lot of ways, I’m not disagreeing. It has catchy songs, lovely ideas (leaping into chalk drawings, floating because of infectious laughter, etc), beautiful visuals (Peter Ellenshaw’s matte paintings....yeah, I’m sad enough to know that off the top if my head! LOL...are dreamily pretty), energetic performances....but I just don’t care much for the film.

You might have guessed from my description in the summery, I am not fond of the title character. I won’t rant on and on, but will point to the final straw when I was little. The so called heroine denying she has taken the kids on a fanciful trip when they talk about out later just pushed my buttons! Someone telling the truth (the kids) and having that truth denied by someone with more power (by that nanny), or just not being believed, is something that has enraged me since I was tiny. I hadn’t warmed to her before then, but after I had no use for her at all. And, honestly, dislike hadn’t lessened at this rewatch.

I’m not saying that the fact I can’t stand Mary (insert choice profanity) Poppins the character is why I have always been cool to the film and think people that call it “Disney’s Masterpiece” are a bit strange. But it’s certainly part of why I will never, ever understand why it’s one of the most beloved films if the Walt era.

Still, there are good things about it and it doesn’t make me really angry like a certain other “Disney Classic”. That’s reserved for a film where parents decide that as part of a divorce they should each get one kid and then NEVER TELL THEM that they have an identical twin sibling. Then that unnamed film goes on to suggest that kids actually can get their divorced parents back together and that this is a good thing despite how hideously selfish they were in the way they split up their kids!

Yeah, I’m cool to Mary Poppins, but I HATE The Parent Trap! LOL ***

**For instance, I’m STILL angry about the adults being patronzing asses to Big Bird over Snuffy!! “He’s telling the truth!!!!” They fixed that, but only after they realized kids understood Snuffy was real AND that the lesson that “Grown ups won’t believe you if you tell the truth.” was the lesson kids were getting. Unfortunately, by the. I was no longer in the target demo.

*** There are a lot of Disney Live Action films I loved growning up. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Escape to Witch Mountain, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, Freaky Friday, Treasure Island, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Dr. Syn alias the Scarecrow, The Cat From Outer Space.....it’s just I think I would even rather watch The Black Hole than the two mentioned above....and I came out of the script challenged spectacular grumbling as a child.

#movies #hopscotch #jabberwocky #mary poppins

3 notes · View notes

babycharmander · 7 years

Text

I finished reading the unofficial novelization of Grim Fandango last night. (I’d link it, but then Tumblr wouldn’t let this post show up in the tags--just google “grim fandango novel” and it’ll be the first result). It’s a full novelization of the entire game, and not the kind of novelization that just copy-pastes the dialogue and writes out word-for-word what happens.

It’s over 200 pages long, though the last 10 pages or so are two short stories (one amusing one featuring Manny and Glottis getting drunk during New Years between year 2 and 3, and one from Domino’s perspective that fills in some of the gaps at the beginning of the book). If you’re a fan of the game, it’s definitely worth checking out.

You can read my review under the cut.

Quick disclaimer: I don’t know if the author of this novel is still ‘round the intarwebz, but I understand that this novel was written nearly 10 years ago. My criticisms in this review are toward the story itself, not necessarily to the author, whose skills as a writer have doubtlessly improved since he wrote this story.

I’ve been reading fics for 20 years now, and I’ve read my fair share of (attempted) novelizations, both official and unofficial. Of what I’ve read, most novelizations have the same problem: they very stiffly try to stick to the script, resulting in very wooden writing that leaves the reader wondering why they’re reading the novelization instead of watching/playing the source material.

This novelization did not leave me with that feeling.

Not to say that the writing isn’t stiff (more on that later) but the writer adapted the game in such a way that it does not at all read as a direct copy-paste of the game’s script that was clumsily edited into novel form. Rather than trying to add each conversation and write out every puzzle, the author took the whole game as more of a rough outline for his book. Some scenes and conversations are adapted more directly than others, but for the most part, the author does a pretty good job of keeping the story flowing more naturally than a direct, word-for-word adaptation of the game would.

One of the things I liked most about this novelization is the way different parts of the story were fleshed out. We see a lot more of what Manny’s time in the Eighth Underworld was like before the events of the game, how he came to terms with his own death (which is not pretty), what Manny and Glottis’s trip to Rubacava was like, and nearly everything leading up to Year 2. An enormous chunk of the book is spent in Rubacava, as you would imagine.

The author spends a lot of time detailing the specifics of what life is like in El Marrow and Rubacava, Manny getting his casino started, his relationships with Carla and Lola, winning over other souls to the cause of the LSA, and so on. A lot of this is really fascinating to read. But some of it is... not.

Here’s a quote from the website that currently hosts the novel:

Now, a thorough revision of the novel has been completed to be hosted here. Many plot points are developed more fully and the entire text has been tweaked to become more textured, more adult. If the game was intended to reflect film noir, then the novel is meant to key off of the writings of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.

I have to admit, I do not know a lot about the noir genre. I had little interest in it before playing Grim Fandango (though Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of my favorite movies, if that counts for anything?), and I’ve never read a novel written in the noir style. Perhaps the style the book was written in is closer to the noir style--I don’t know.

But I have to say, if you’ll excuse the pun, the book is dry as a bone.

I prefer character-focused stories, and while the novel does give some good insight into Manny and the other characters and their feelings at times, other times it feels like the author was more caught up in the plot, the schemes, the worldbuilding, and the politics. There were times when I really, really wished I could see more of what the characters were feeling or thinking, but the author was more concerned about showing the impact this or that event had on the Underworld as a whole--which is still interesting to see, but not what I was hoping to read. Sometimes you get a good character-driven scene (there’s some nice moments between Manny and Meche, and Lola’s death is as shocking as it should be), and that’s one of the main things that kept me reading.

The website pointed out that this version of the novel is a revision, which makes me wonder how much of the original was revised. Given how the novel seems to inconsistently go from more character-driven scenes to dry-as-a-desert exposition, my guess is that the more character-driven stuff came later, and I wish the whole novel was written that way.

I’ve mentioned I’ve read other novelizations, both official and unofficial, before, and another thing I’ve noticed with them is that you can usually tell what parts and what characters the author liked the most. The same holds true for the Grim Fandango novelization. While no major characters are really skipped over, to my memory, the novel really skips over a lot with Velasco, Lupe, the sea bees, and Pugsy and Bibi, which was a bit disappointing, since I like all of those characters. And, bizarrely enough, it spends a lot of time with the communists in Olivia’s bar. (In fact, a huge part of the Rubacava portion is dedicated to Manny and those guys talking about communism.)

While some scenes from the game were elaborated more, others were cut entirely. We don’t see Glottis getting smashed at the cat track, for example--that whole subplot is nixed. Some of the more humorous scenes are cut as well--for example, I was disappointed to find the scene where Manny walks into the fog and falls into the ocean was absent, which makes Velasco’s “are you going to make this a tradition?” line a bit nonsensical. The thing that shocked me a lot though was that, of all the dialogue that was cut or altered, Manny’s character-defining quote--”Love? Love is for the living”--is gone.

I feel this is a good time to point out that Manny in this novel is a bit different from Manny in the game. In the game, Manny goes from “I’m getting out of here even if I have to STEAL a lead and break all the rules” to “I’m not leaving this world until I can save EVERYONE.”

In the novel? He starts as the latter.

I’m not really sure what the purpose of this was. I didn’t really notice the difference in Manny’s character until he got to Rubacava and was already talking about bringing Hector to justice and saving all the lost souls. Maybe this was an attempt at making Manny more sympathetic, but it felt the opposite for me. It makes scenes that would have been more character-developing and emotional more frustrating than anything. I don’t like the “oh woe is me, I’m ruining everyone’s lives even though I didn’t actually do anything wrong” shtick, especially since the game avoided that because Manny is a jerk in the game.

Some of the other characters got a weird treatment as well. Velasco somehow comes off as even more harsh and mean than he is in the game (or maybe that’s just me?). I think next to Manny though, Glottis is the one who got changed the most. As I mentioned before, a lot of the humorous stuff from the game was cut (probably in an attempt to make the novel more “adult”), which necessitated a change in Glottis’s character. As a result, he reads as more mature and responsible than he is in the game, which makes him feel more bland than anything. Lines kept from the game that make him seem silly tend to be reinterpreted as sarcasm. He does, however, get some character development in one scene that was drastically altered from the game, and I won’t spoil that for you. Unfortunately while there is a buildup to this part of Glottis’s character development, it’s mostly dropped a little after that scene, which makes the scene feel more like it was added for shock value.

Not all characters got this treatment, fortunately. Salvador, Eva, Meche, Carla, Olivia, and Lola were written pretty well from what I remember (I read through this slowly and I’m still feeling kinda messed up due to unrelated stuff so I can’t remember everything right now), and I don’t really remember having any objections to the way the villains were written (other than wishing I could have seen a bit more of them).

Among other criticisms, I will say that I feel the novel has a bit too much swearing. There’s language in the game, yes, and that would have been fine, but characters drop the f-bomb with more frequency than necessary in the book. While there’s some suggestive stuff here and there in the game, it’s taken a little bit further in the novel (including one weird scene where Olivia gets a bit closer to Manny than is necessary, and a few alarming comments from Domino in his bonus chapter). It’s not too much like the language is, but the added stuff does feel a little weird.

While yes, I have a lot of criticisms for the book, I didn’t feel like it was a waste of my time. It was interesting to see a different look at the story (even if I disagreed with the author’s interpretation of some scenes and characters), and some of the ways the author interpreted and expanded on the story were genuinely cool and interesting.

If you’re willing to put up with the dryness of a lot of the writing and willing to put up with a very different interpretation of Manny and Glottis, I feel it’s worth a read.

#grim fandango #fanfic rec

18 notes · View notes

comicbookuniversity · 7 years

Photo

Logan: A Discussion

Sorry for the delay; we’ve been sitting on this since opening weekend. You know how life can get. Enjoy

Before:

Weird Beard: Alright, what are your thoughts going into this film?

Bunnypwn Gold: My first thoughts going into Logan are optimistic. I liked the early X-Men films, but honestly I wasn’t happy with the soft, sentimental Wolverine we got because he never had a chance to be the stone cold badass we all know and love. The solo Wolverine films were weak and basically were about “Wolverine is good at killing things with his claws!” instead of having an actual plot. That’s such a cliché idea that it’s been his catchphrase for two decades at least. Logan, though, looks different. I was expecting it to be as mediocre as the others, but the trailers and advanced info changed my mind; they focus on him as a person, where he’s going, and what his plans are with Laura more than showing him cutting people up. I expect that he’ll be doing a lot of that anyway, so I don’t need to see it in the trailers if there’s really anything else to the film. I think I’ll be pleased with Logan.

WB: Yeah, when this was first announced, I thought, ‘Oh, here’s going to be another dud, because the first two Wolverine films are garbage.’ That isn’t to say that they didn’t have cool details within them, but that they were just poorly made and thought out. But then, I saw the first trailer and I was like, ‘That was a great trailer for what’s going to be a crappy movie. At best, it will be a watchable but otherwise forgettable film.’ So yeah, I definitely was not really paying much attention to the news about it or really looking forward to it in a way beyond maybe seeing a cool trailer. It wasn’t until reviews for it started coming in that I started to get hope for it. My bar for success for this film before the reviews was whether it was coherent, which is the most basic thing you should expect from a film. After the reviews, I started looking forward to it, and not simply because they were positive, but that people were saying it was easily one of the best superhero films.

When people started saying that about it, I started to be more interested in it.

So, have you seen both of the last Wolverine movies, or just Origins?

BPG: I didn’t see either of them. I was going to see The Wolverine, but I kept hearing everyone say it’s silly and underwhelming.

WB: Yeah, it’s superdumb. Like, it had the parts to be a cool film: Japan, ninjas, traumatic past haunting our hero, a conspiracy involving Silver Samurai. But then it was like the producers and everyone decided it would be better to just do everything in the most boring way possible.

I think I hate it more than Origins simply because you can see the working parts that would have made it a decent movie, whereas Origins was just a fucking mess from page one of the script to the final studio executive mandated edit.

Oh, and I really don’t like that Silver Samurai was not an actual samurai.

Oh wait, I was wrong. There was some samurai dude in there, but it was not a good take on him.

BPG: I saw the ending to The Wolverine, and I don’t like that it was about him wanting to die so he could be with Jean--that whole romance is bad writing to me--and I don’t get how Silver Samurai got Wolverine’s healing enough to get young (which isn’t what healing does because age isn’t an injury or illness) but not enough to save him when he blew up.

WB: Yeah, the whole thing is just nonsense. And to move on, I agree that we never really got the tough guy take on Wolverine in the films that he was in the comics. Jackman’s Wolverine was always a more damaged and sensitive take. Not that I didn’t think it was necessarily a bad choice, but I always wish he had been more gruff than romantic. And the Jean romance never helped, because just like in the comics, Jean Grey really wasn’t developed much beyond a set of powers and plot points into an actual character, so the question is: what, beyond lust, is the attraction based on? The answer is nothing, because one is a character and the other is a narrative mechanism shaped like a character.

BPG: Exactly. Wolverine’s soft personality in the films was basically a nice loner who occasionally goes into a murderous rage, because vague, angry screaming means you’re tough. And then Jean had just about no agency at any point in the series; she’s always been an object, but not a subject.

WB: Yup. I think, before he really blew up in the 90′s, Wolverine really was well balanced in that he could appeal to the tough guy patriarchal image, but he didn’t subscribe to it completely because you could see his pain from having been forced into that role of badass. He understood his power but his power was not a choice, and that’s what makes him heroic: he transformed trauma into positive, world changing motivation.

It’s similar to Batman or Spider-Man in that regard: each of these three men were forced in a way to accept that their power couldn’t and shouldn’t be used for selfish reasons and should be aimed toward making the world a better place despite the pain it caused them to have it.

BPG: Exactly. They sort of did that in the films, but they never showed him being “the best at what he does.” They showed him constantly trying to run from what he does but doing it anyway. Watching someone constantly cajoled out of retirement isn’t very compelling when he also doesn’t care that much about it happening.

WB: Exactly, and then he along with others got dragged into the hyper-masculine trend of the 90′s, and that kind of hurt him for two reasons. One, he was spread too thin, a trend that only got worse with time. And two, by giving into the hyper-masculinity, it took away from the character because it became more about displays of toughness and power. I’m not going to condemn the entire decade, but those were two prevalent trends that I think did more harm than good for the character.

And that’s what the movies were looking to when they were looking for more on Wolverine. So I think they overcompensated to help appeal to a wider audience.

BPG: Which was already pretty wide; they needed more people to like superheroes and build on the success of the X-Men franchise and films, not more men to like another man being manly.

WB: Truth. Considering the inherent diversity of the X-Men, the initial films could have done a lot more to cast a wider audience simply by embracing the international-cosmopolitan nature of the team, rather than relying upon the popularity of Wolverine to anchor the introduction to the team.

BPG: And let’s face it, he was basically the main character. He’s the whitest guy there, on a team with multiple women, one of whom was black, a team with multiple disabilities (since Cyclops’ visor can be read as the kinds of glasses you need when you’re legally blind but not totally blind), and... I guess Rogue can be read as a person with a compromised immune system, or a carrier of a highly infectious disease. The only person who rivals Wolverine in whiteness is Iceman, and those two duked it out for Top White Guy the whole second movie.

WB: Yeah, Wolverine’s trauma was romanticized for the films, rather than allowing it to be what helped connect him to the rest of the X-Men via their metaphors for power can come from anywhere. The X-Men films were interpreted through the lens of a harlequin novel when they should have been films about the power of a political minority working towards peace in a violent world.

BPG: Because, you know, that’s what they’re about. Do what works, you know? But with that being said, the films did OK most of the time and were successful; in order to keep moving forward, they only had to keep expanding the way they were trying to go, by injecting more of the identity politics that make the comics successful. And with the Wolverine movies, they did the opposite because they thought it was better to have him cut more things than be a good character.

WB: Yeah, Wolverine is an obvious action-movie character, so you shouldn’t try to design a movie that shows off his fights. Those are automatically going to be dope, so you just have to make the story good. But both his solo outings before this failed so hard because they were more interested in continuity and fights than character. Admittedly his powers and gimmick are cool, but that’s not why people love him. They love him because he’s the tough loner who is the best there is at what he does even though it takes a toll on him.

BPG: His whole character can read as a great metaphor for the problems of hypermasculinity. With just his healing and adamantium skeleton alone, he’d be awesome. His claws are entirely unnecessary and, let’s face it, shitty weapons; however, these six phallic symbols coming out of his hands (can you say homoerotic imagery?) are his main attraction to people despite this. He’s forced into a life of violence and constant use of his claws when he’d rather not be involved in it, but one day he realized he would never be able to turn it back off, so he instead turned it to something good.

WB: Yeah, his claws are pretty shitty weapons; a regular knife is a way more versatile blade. And I’ve never thought directly about the phallic imagery of his claws, but yeah, that’s definitely true and can be read as to say agents of violence as a form of prostitution. And I’m not going to lie, the idea that those are dicks coming out of his hands is straight up funny.

BPG: It’s hilarious; he’s always killing people by giving six handjobs at once. Also, it adds another level of insult to when he gave Cyclops the middle claw.

WB: Hahahaha yeah.

After:

WB: Saw it. Loved it.

BPG: Yes. It was amazing.

WB: I agree, but I do have a problem with something people have been saying about it. I don’t think it’s the best superhero film, because I don’t think it’s a superhero film.

BPG: Not at all. He’s retired, for one. Just because he has powers and comes from a comic does not make him a superhero. It’s like the Chris Nolan Batman movies: they were great Nolan films, but I’m still waiting on a Batman movie.

WB: I don’t know if I would agree on that for the Nolan films, but this was definitely a Western in the same sense that Firefly was. It’s about the myth of the cowboy in a sci-fi setting that stars former superheroes. And if it wasn’t clear that it was a riff on Westerns, they play a Western film that influenced it in the movie itself.

And they chose a fantastic quote from that film.

BPG: And in the Deadpool trailer before the movie, there were a bunch of Firefly posters. But yeah, this was a cowboy movie. Wolverine wasn’t trying to stop the bad guys or fight for truth and justice or even show basic compassion to his enemies; he just killed people before they killed him and drove for a few days.

WB: Yeah. This was a violent film and the first Wolverine film to really show off the violence that should be associated with the character, and this was definitely more of the asshole tough guy I’ve always wanted to see, even if we’re now seeing him in his old age.

BPG: Exactly. This was a great Wolverine movie, and it did everything right in that sense. The violence was truly violent instead of fight scenes choreographed like a dance. That aspect reminded me of the way Punisher fought in Daredevil S2. But in no way was this a superhero movie. It was a comic book movie, but not a superhero movie

WB: Yeah, and while I’m sure a lot of people know in their heads what the difference between a comic book film and a superhero film is, I wanted to take a brief second to talk about how I define them to show how this film is not a superhero film. A superhero film stars a character who through tragedy or conscience chooses to use their power, super or otherwise, to fight off evil in both the material and metaphorical realm by creating a figure to fight against a specific threat but with the understanding of a continuous battle against generally nefarious forces. And it’s important to state that the superhero is fighting on a metaphorical plane, because they are fighting against the very idea of crime or terrorism itself by showing the strong arm of goodness through their icons.

And Logan doesn’t fit any of that. And it’s better for it, because I think it would have hampered the themes of the film.

BPG: Very much so. This is a time when Logan, Caliban, and Charles are basically the last surviving mutants, and the battle is for the brief survival of a few mutant kids. It’s about winning hope from the jaws of impending genocide. Which is great, but it’s not a superhero story.

WB: Exactly. I think Jackman and Stewart delivered some wonderful performances. I liked Caliban, but he was probably the weakest link after the evil Doctor guy because he was just kind of generally evil and not terribly impressive.

BPG: Very true. They both could have been better. But I want to go back for a second, because I genuinely think the mass public doesn’t understand the difference between superhero and comic book movies. They’re synonyms to most people. I mean, superheroes are heroic because they have enough power to be heroic. Like…police more and more are using tactics that involve using multiple officers on one person as both a deterrent and because, if they do engage, they can overpower the person without drawing a weapon or really hurting them. They can do that with multiple people because a group has more physical power than an individual. That’s the power superheroes have, the strength to subdue and end threats without resorting to killing the person. On our level, as humans, we basically have those two choices: spend a long time hoping to end a fight before anyone gets more seriously hurt than needed or kill the other person fast. Superman doesn’t have to make that choice. But Wolverine was always different than those other heroes because his powers mostly enhance the normal human capacity to kill without giving him enough strength to show mercy. And I’m fine with that because Wolverine, Punisher, and others like them are cool. But it also means they can’t be superheroes, nor would they want to be. And now that people have seen Logan succeed as an R-rated “superhero movie,” DC is going to do a bunch of R-rated movies. Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash--these are not R-rated characters, and they never should be. But the confusion about what constitutes a superhero has confused the comic book industry for years, and that trend will now head into the films.

WB: Oh yeah, WB and DC have already said they’re going to do something R-rated based on this and Deadpool’s success, which sucks because you’re right: they don’t have R rated characters.

X-23 as played by Dafne Keene was a really great debut for a young actress and just a great performance and character arc.

BPG: There are those out there to choose from. I’m sure people would like a solo Will Smith Deadshot movie now. A Harley-Ivy movie would be awesome. Deathstroke is always cool. But those all come from the supervillain side. They don’t have good R-rated heroes, except maybe a Savage Hawkman movie.

Oh, hell yes. I loved their X-23. She was amazing and Keene killed it. She really acted as a great foil to Logan.

WB: Yeah, the film absolutely slayed it when bringing that character to life on the big screen, and I really, really hope that Fox is smart and gives her a solo vehicle. Quick question: do you think it’s just her claws that are adamantium or all of her skeleton? In the comics, it’s all, but the harpoon they shot through her made me question that assumption.

BPG: I thought it looked like all, but I was wondering about that. If they did all of her skeleton, she wouldn’t be able to grow past three feet tall.

WB: Yeah. I’m going to guess they’ll ignore that because Dafne will grow. I don’t mind, but yeah, seeing a little girl get shot with a harpoon was hardcore violent.

BPG: Yeah, that was intense. They were not holding back. And did you see how many people were stabbed in the freaking face? Stabbing faces is really brutal and personal; people usually cut off the whole head or just slash at the cheeks.

WB: Yeah, it was such brutal violence, and I loved it.

BPG: It’s hard to find good, quality violence in movies these days. They used it here to great effect and with a purpose, which is much better than the hypermasculine displays of status seen in most brutally violent movies.

WB: Yeah, and this film’s violence works for the same reason season one Daredevil’s did: they show the protagonist getting hurt first, which allows the audience to sympathize more and have a greater reaction to the retributional violence. It’s the Jackie Chan principle.

BPG: True, true. Wolverine may be able to heal, but that doesn’t negate all of the danger or the pain. They pretty much forgot this in the first few X-Men movies, but they made sure to highlight that here; even if Logan wasn’t healing the way he used to, he still could, and we got to see Laura having the same level of violence used against her with a full healing factor. They still get hurt, being able to heal doesn’t negate all danger in a fight, and we see them actively work to a life where they don’t have to be violent anymore if they don’t want to be.

WB: Yeah, they’re each trying build a life where they can escape the pain. And yeah, the first few films didn’t really show you that just because Wolverine can get hurt, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause him pain. They mention it, but there’s no real emphasis.

What did you think of X-24? I genuinely wasn’t expecting that.

BPG: Me, neither, but it’s a really good idea. The whole goal of weaponizing mutants is already a gut punch for any mutant, but especially Logan, and seeing him with X-23 was basically seeing him at a time when he could still be redeemed. X-24 is a much more in-your-face way of showing Logan exactly what he had become and what his whole life amounted to. X-24 was an amazing idea and he was very well executed.

WB: I 100% agree. At first, I was expecting something like that terrible version of Deadpool they did in the first Wolverine film, and in this context, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea on the bad guy’s part. But having it be a direct clone of Wolverine, the version who was without the influence of the X-Men, was a such a simple and brilliant twist to reinforce the themes of the film.

BPG: It was a truly smart choice. Arguably, it lacks subtlety, and this film actually had a surprising amount of that for a gritty story about a man killing a bunch of mercenaries before his death, but I guess the decided X-24 didn’t have to be subtle.

WB: For this, it was measured, rather than subtle, and I’m ok with that. I do have a problem with The Reavers: they’re shown having cyborg enhancements, but not being any more dangerous than the SWAT teams they work with. It’s a nice visual, but an underwhelming aspect of the film that could have served the film better for action and crafting a believably credible threat out of the villains.

BPG: Yeah, they weren’t particularly enhanced for someone who goes out of his way to say, “I’m enhanced.” Also, they were only called Reavers like once in passing. In the end, I think them having cyborg parts was more about showing how dangerous their targets were than showing that they were stronger than normal; the kids were regularly amputating them at Transigent, as near as I can tell.

WB: Yeah, but still. The point stands that they missed an opportunity with the Reavers.

BPG: For sure. And they missed a point in terms of talking about the lack of mutants. It’s mentioned, and their demise permeates the film, but it’s never really talked about until they’re in the woods at the end and the unusually cool-named but forgettable evil scientist says he got rid of mutants just because.

WB: It’s true, but that missing point doesn’t bother me as much, because I think focusing more on that would have shaped the focus of the film itself differently. I just wish that once they revealed the reason that it would have been something better.

BPG: That’s part of what I’m saying: not only should it have been better, but the lack of mutants in that world is sort of unnecessary to a story about Wolverine’s death. And let’s face it, it kind of was useless to this story. They kept talking about it, but the fact that Charles was talking to Laura and the existence of the Weapon X program or whatever that was are enough. Mutants could have been flourishing in that world and it would have largely been the same movie.

WB: No, the fact that there were no more mutants and Charles meeting Laura was important. I agree that they probably should have done something more, but I don’t know what. I would have really been OK with like the Shi’ar coming down and saying no more mutants or something. That would have been a bombshell and ridiculous to this film, but it is definitely better than what was given.

BPG: At the very least, they needed to show more of a connection between the downfall of mutantkind and the downfall of Charles and Logan. What work were they doing before this point in their lives? What was their reaction at the time it first became clear mutants were dwindling? What, if anything, did they do about it? We don’t know, nor do we have any word before this film talks about it at a point convenient for the plot that the government or whoever had any plans to go from using mutants as cannon fodder to weapons. Which seems like a really big thing to set up since that’s Logan’s whole life and the repetition of this pattern is integral to the themes of the film.

WB: They were originally going to show the Westchester incident, but the director said that changed the focus too much, and that the mystery of their misery before we see them was something better left unsaid. I’ll agree with that point, but yeah, I still can’t excuse the lame explanation for why there are no more mutants.

BPG: The vagueness of their misery was used very well, I agree, but part of me also feels like it’s kind of a cop-out, so they don’t have to answer any questions about their past.

WB: I know what you mean, so my answer is pick an emotion dammit. Just kidding, but seriously: can we please have the Shi’ar coming to the big screen?

BPG: I would love to see the X-Men in the movies do something besides fight Magneto in a different manner than the last time they fought Magneto.

WB: Yeah, they really do have some cool villains who have been put aside for Magneto or lamer choices--I’m looking at you Apocalypse, you overpowered Ivan Ooze looking eugenics nonsense.

BPG: Yeah, they really do have some cool villains who have been put aside. Ivan Ooze would have been a better villain for the X-Men, honestly. Why can’t we see Mojo, or whatever that fat, gladiator-reality-TV guy was named?

WB: Yeah, it’s Mojo. He’d be hell of a lot of fun now that superheroes are so big at the box office, because his character is all about making fun of the studio executives in media.

You’d be able to critique and make fun of a lot in TV and Hollywood.

BPG: He would be pretty fun, and the best part is that he’s pretty insane, so there’s no way around throwing him in as-is without trying to have him make sense.

WB: He makes sense. He’d be like Q on star Trek TNG, but less powerful

BPG: But Q made more sense in Star Trek because they constantly used god-like power in the series before that; in the X-Films, there hasn’t been any sign of aliens, so Mojo would be a huge break from the norm

WB: Yeah, and that is what Logan is: a huge break from the norm. I say they should embrace it.

Alright, back to Logan for a moment. Do we think Eden was real or was something else going on when Rictor was talking on the radio?

BPG: Eden was in North Dakota; the people in Canada weren’t Eden. Eden was fictional, so they made it real and used it as a base to get into Canada. Wasn’t that clear?

WB: Yeah, but since there wasn’t supposed to be anything there because it was middle of nowhere North Dakota and they just happen to find someone on the other end, that doesn’t strike you as strange?

BPG: It strikes me as a well-made plan by the nurses working on an international pathway to Canada, where mutants are safe. Remember when they were making that whole plan to save all the children?

WB: I guess, but with the coordinates being pulled from fiction within the fiction, we have to entertain the idea that something strange was happening or that you’re right and it was a much better plan than the audience was initially led to believe.

BPG: I think the latter is almost completely stated by the film, and quite frankly it makes way more sense than a vague mystery thrown in at the end with no resolution. The whole film was about Logan remembering that he can make a better world, even if it doesn’t look like one exists anymore. The idea that they just made their better world--picked coordinates from a sort of legend to give them hope and then worked out the rest of the details around it--fits perfectly with what they were doing. Randomly throwing in a new, mysterious, metafictional place at the end cold just seems weird and detracts from the work as a whole.

WB: Well, when you put it like that…yeah. I had seen some people think it was supposed to be a mystery, but it didn’t bother me too much whether it was real or not.

I’ve been asking questions; do you have something you want to discuss that I’m forgetting?

Or haven’t talked about yet?

BPG: I think this film directly attacks the hypermasculinity that has been plaguing Wolverine since the nineties. Logan spends the whole movie physically and emotionally pained by his violence and claws, he actively steers Laura away from that same path she was forced on (which was intended to make her “useful,” as happens to all shallow, fake-feminist female protagonists), and X-24 is nothing but the masculinity without the conscience. It’s pretty great. He dies a soft father figure wanting to open up emotionally to his daughter.

WB: Yeah, it’s a fantastic ending. What I really hope is that now with his death in comics and film means that we can all hop on board with X-23 as the best there is at what she does.

BPG: I hope so, too, but they didn’t really kill Logan in the comics. They should have, but they really just put in place a bait-and-switch, where they can have Old Man Logan for a while until they decide Young Man Logan should come back.

They weren’t going to get rid of a good paycheck, and so they basically didn’t.

WB: No, he’s like an adamantium statue. Last I remember he was sick before he got covered in adamantium. I mean, its comics, so they’ll find a way if they want him back. And yeah, adding in Old Man Logan was a dumb idea.

BPG: You basically made my point. They’ll just melt the adamantium off of him and he’ll heal the burns. Then Old Man Logan will finally die like he was supposed to, or go back to the future.

WB: I know, but he’s about as dead as you can be.

And X-23 in her Wolverine comic is getting great reviews so far. I’m genuinely interested in reading it.

BPG: I’d like to see where that goes, too. I hope she does end up with a good career, like Kate Bishop. In fact, I’d like to see them have a buddy cop comic. Or a buddy cop movie, if Fox ever cooperates with Marvel and they ever introduce Clint’s top SHIELD trainee, Kate Bishop.

But that being said, the keeping on of Old Man Logan is a dead giveaway that they aren’t really parting with the first Wolverine. Fortunately, they seem to be doing that for real in the movies, so let’s see where that goes; maybe Fox will let him be in Avengers, but that’s the only other option.

WB: Bringing him over to the Avengers is a…bad idea now. Maybe a year or two ago, I would have been down for it in some way, but now after Logan, I would feel cheated. I’m not saying don’t have X-Men crossover, but leave him dead. Also, the Avengers don’t need him: they have Bucky.

BPG: I agree, but it’s what Jackman would agree to.

WB: I know. And admittedly, it would be fun to see him having fun playing Avengers, but he just did this one and it’s like...Nah man. That’d be overkill.

So yeah, Logan was great. People should definitely see it.

BPG: For sure. I loved it.

WB: Where does it fit in the pantheon comic book-based films for you?

BPG: It’s up there. It didn’t hit me the way others did, but I liked it like a less witty Tarantino film.

WB: Comparing it to Tarantino’s a high compliment still. It’s in my top ten, but not my top five. Well, maybe a couple more days of thinking it might get that high, but this is definitely now my number one X-Men film.

BPG: Yeah, it’s better than the rest of those; First Class and DoFP could have gotten up there, but they didn’t hit the themes as hard as Logan did.

WB: No, they didn’t. Those are the top three easy.

BPG: Yeah. And Logan is the top.

#Logan #wolverine #x-men #the wolverine #old man logan #x-men movies #superhero movies #superheroes #comic book movie #marvel #marvel comics #marvel comics movie #hugh jackman #dafne keene #x-23 #Patrick Stewart #charles xavier #mutants

4 notes · View notes