#sometimes... things that have molds on them... are spoiled in more ways that the visual mold tells you
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can you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills?
rating: T (this is the tamest thing I’ve written in years)
pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader
word count: 8K
summary: a year into secretly dating, you are overwhelmed by your feelings for Dieter Bravo, confident and resigned to the fact that he doesn’t feel the same way. But on Oscar’s night, drunk on sparkling wine and a terrific win, Dieter gives you a reason to doubt your fears.
warnings/tags: age gap, self-aggrandizing rumination on our public vs private personas, a stupid amount of kissing, angst but soft angst, angst that is resolved, this is very different from anything i’ve done recently, and there’s no smut? just kisses? What have you become Taylor? one very very very soft Dieter, waxing shamelessly poetic about being in love and being loved by Dieter Bravo
a/n: this comes from the same request by two of my LOVELY followers ( @tvversionperson and @bitchwitch1981) from my 100 followers event: “I’m not drunk. Can a drunk person do this?” “You’re not doing anything.” “But… I sent you my love. Did you… did you not get it?” with Dieter Bravo. this is so wildly different from anything i've done before, i'm flinging this into the internet like a goddamn trapshooter of emotional angst
shout out to @iamdesibell for the visuals of Dieter at the party. She spoils me with all of her incredible Dieter artwork.
🤍Masterlist
Every artist knows it's about the looks. The aesthetics of it all, the internet’s new favorite buzzword. Increasingly too often, the merit of the artwork is equated to the moral merit of the artist; it’s not so much about selling the image you create, it’s about selling the image of yourself. Does the artist fit into the image of what the masses imagine when they hear what the artist offers? Can the artist balance both the expectations and provide something new? When is the right time to break the mold, and be different, or when is it best to follow the crowd? Keep your head down and make more content than art. When does the aesthetics of a thing matter more than the thing itself?
For Oscar’s night, often there is nothing more important than the look of things. The elegance. The allure but approachability of the stars. Beautiful but obtainable. Handsome but effortless. But beneath all the veneer, all the lights, and gold and glitz, there is a yearning, an animalistic hunger, for a quite literal shiny object waved in their faces to clamor and push and shove for. The beauty is a mask that covers fragility and fear and anticipation – and that mask must remain firmly in place, no matter the outcome. Remember, they’re watching, always watching, and you cannot want a thing too much, lest you become conceited or conniving. You cannot love in a way that scares them.
And sometimes, you think you love him in a way that scares yourself.
His warm palm grips yours over your knee. He, along with the other nominees, wait patiently as the names are read allowed from the gilded stage. His face, a mask – of curiosity, of wonder – but only you, perhaps because you are so close to him, can see the fraught want in his eyes. You know how much he wants this, how much you want this for him. He wants it so much he’s trembling. Microscopically. Barely at all, barely a flinch of genuine human emotion, it makes you sick. Because Dieter, the Dieter you’ve come to know in the past year, is so wonderfully unpolished, such a sterling testament to the beauty in the raw, it makes a spot behind your sternum ache to watch him hold himself back.
You want to give him a smile of encouragement, to kiss his knuckles and soothe his hammering pulse with your thumb, but you can’t. You can’t even look at him, any movement immediately flagged by the cameras. Always watching.
But behind the rows of seats, they can’t see your clasped hands. Can’t see his tapping foot. They can’t see how much he wants, how much he loves. As the names are read aloud for the category of Best Actor, you lift your thumbnail to the meat of his palm, between his own thumb and index finger. Gently, softly, quietly, so as not to startle the molecules of air around you, you draw a heart in his skin.
But by his rigid posture, you’re not sure he registers it. You can’t tell if he knows you’re there at all.
It began a year ago.
After a truly spectacular break up that left you bereft and aimless, you decided to quit. Quit it all. Quit and start over doing the one thing you actually had passion for: screenwriting. Was it risky and dumb as hell at your age? Absolutely. But it didn’t matter if you never ended up writing for a big Hollywood film, you told yourself, as long as you were writing, that’s all that mattered.
So you quit writing articles about car insurance, packed up everything, and moved to the City of Angels.
Two years later, you were still earning your dues. Still working from the bottom of the barrel up, climbing through muck and verbal abuse and emotional exploitation and the very dredges of the industry.
You tried to focus on your craft, on getting more than just getting coffee for the actual writers, but after multiple days spending nineteen hours on your feet, the capacity to be creative so rarely comes, your brain often sizzled and fried like the back end of a janky, unreliable toaster. The production company you worked for had just purchased the rights to a popular novelist’s book for a film adaptation. The party you were at was more of a “pat yourself on the back” sort of thing for the director and novelist to rub elbows while surrounded by beautiful people. Attending mind-numbing parties for the sake of building connections was one thing. You could actually have fun when you wanted, but this? This self-indulgent, ego-driven, flattery bullshit, when all you wanted to do was sleep?
You watch as Eliot Baker, friend of the director and whose house is currently being trashed by a bunch of dangerously drunk and high animals, steps up onto his kitchen table. His pupils nearly dilated to the size of quarters, he holds up a baggy of white powder.
“Anyone interested in Colombia’s finest, please join me in the bedroom. Beautiful women, please stay.”
The three shots you had done earlier had done nothing to dull your irritation, now amplified by the grating cheer that goes up from the crowd. Coke rarely puts you in a better mood, but at least it’s better than sulking by the stairs. Eliot leaps off the table and leads a gaggle of giggling women, and men with their hands all over their sparkly asses, down the hall and you try not to roll your eyes, your feet all but dragging beneath you.
Then someone catches you by the elbow.
And you wonder how a homeless man got past security.
A comically large green beanie on his head, a blindly yellow hood zipped up over what perhaps had been a white t-shirt – you are immediately arrested by his dark, soft eyes. Thick, furrowed brow. He hasn’t let go of your elbow.
“That guy is a fucker,” he tells you with vehemence.
“What?” He could have asked you your name and you would have said the exact same thing.
“Baker,” he sneers over your shoulder at the small crowd tumbling through the open door, Eliot’s too blue eyes watching like a farmer counts cattle to the slaughterhouse. “He laces his shit. Makes you too fucked up. He’s the kind of evil fucker who roofies drinks.”
The stranger looks at you, the twist of rage around his mouth fading, eyes softening again, as if he is worried about you.
“Don’t go in there,” he says.
His warm hand is still around your elbow.
“Okay,” you say because you haven’t come across anyone this earnest, maybe in your entire life, and certainly not since moving to LA.
He blinks, as if surprised, and slowly withdraws his hand. You stare at each other for perhaps too long before he jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
“Wanna smoke some weed?”
The cool night air of LA always surprises you. It’s never cold, no, but the chill is noticeable, tangible, always right at the back of your neck when you least expect it. You stifle the urge to shiver as the man slides the glass door behind him, immediately deafening the party inside. You hadn’t realized it had been so loud until there is blissful silence, the sound of blood rushing in your ears replacing the trance music and the dull hum of overlapping voices.
The man straight off the set of The Big Lebowski unhurriedly digs around in the pocket of that obnoxious hoodie for a bit, as if he could lose an item in that small pouch.
He finds what he’s looking for with a grin on his face, and when he brings both the lighter and blunt to his lips, you realize his left arm is in a cast.
He sees you eye it, managing to light and hit the blunt with one hand before pocketing the lighter and offering the smoke to you. The browns in his eyes are overcome by the darkness surrounding you on the back porch overlooking the valley below, the skyline of Los Angeles winking in the far distance.
You notice something, not writing or words on his cast, more like a dark blot, but you don’t ask him about it. Most people in this business you’ve found are only on for the cameras and when it comes to personal, quiet moments, the less personable they have to be the better. You feel like you’re already pressing your luck by getting a few free hits off this guy so you wait your turn, ready to be as silent as he wants it to be.
Which apparently isn’t very much at all.
“How’d you end up here?” He asks with genuine interest and just a touch of weariness.
You shrug as you take the blunt from him again. “My boss is here to schmooze his new writer. As his assistant, I think I’m contractually obligated to be around him more than his own shadow.”
“You’re a PA?” He asks, voice strained and full of smoke, before he puffs out the side of his mouth. A considerate smoker, then.
“No,” you shake your head. “I’m whatever is lower than a PA. I think an actual bottom-feeder in a fish tank has more power than me.”
“So you’re new to the scene?”
You scowl, one arm tucked around your waist, the other tapping on your thigh. “Yeah, if two years is still new.”
He frowns. “What are you trying to break into?”
His fingertips brush yours over the next exchange and maybe it’s the earnest look in his eyes, or the bizarre fact that he actually smells good despite looking like he’d raided a garbage can, or maybe it’s the weed finally hitting, but you are honest with this complete stranger.
“I wanna be a screenwriter.”
Maybe it’s the drugs finally hitting him too, but the glossy shine to his eyes doesn’t seem to be from boredom as you explain to him the past few years of your life, starting from the breakup in Boston to getting a very specific brand of q-tips from a drugstore on the other side of town for your boss at midnight.
“I know I have to pay my dues, and I don’t mind that, but I just want to do something that matters, you know?” The unexpected chill of the night air curls around your neck as he listens intently to your uninterrupted ramble for ten minutes. “I don’t even care about big movies, or the awards, I want to write something that touches just one person. Give them something to think about for years to come. Comforts or encourages them to do the thing they’re scared of doing.” You feel heat climb up your ears as he watches as though you’re the most fascinating thing in the world. “It’s silly. It’s just a job, and I know I should treat it like that . . .”
You trail off, waiting for him to admonish you, but instead he grins. A smile that widens his whole face. On someone else it might look condescending, but he’s grinning wildly as he slides the joint back into his mouth with two fingers and leans back on his heels.
“So you’re a little dreamer, huh?” That faint blush now beats a harsh red. Fuck, you knew you sounded like an idiot – always opening up too soon and too fast to strangers who don’t really give a fuck. You were just supposed to have a conversation with this nice, albeit weird guy and go on your way and –
He cocks his head as he looks at you, takes in your beet-red ears and cheeks and that smile falters.
“You know that’s not a bad thing, right? The world needs more dreamers. People, who despite all the bullshit, continue to believe they can be happy.”
“You could also call that being delusional,” you mutter as you take the halfway-spent joint from him when he offers.
One of those thick eyebrows jerks as though thinking of a funny joke. He shrugs, his mouth twisting down in a disbelieving smirk. “Personally, I like to call it whimsy.”
Whimsy? Who talks like that?
You fight a giggle and find him looking at you again, that smile smoothed out and warm again. One glance and you snort loudly, then bust out laughing.
Those magnanimous eyes glitter as he watches you laugh yourself silly.
“Child-like, wondrous whimsy,” he teases and you laugh harder as though he tickled you. Another snort explodes out of you and you clap your hand over your mouth, finally hearing the noises you’re making and mortified beyond reason. You glance over your shoulder, worried someone else might have heard your donkey laugh. In fact, you wish anyone other than the gorgeous man standing next to you had heard it.
But if he finds it unpolished or annoying, he doesn’t show it. He just rolls on his heels, grinning and looking overly pleased with himself. When the giggles subside, you bite your lip at him.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Fire away, Pistol Pete.”
“How’d you break your arm?”
He looks down at it as he forgot it was there.
“Uh, it’s a long story.”
He finally pulls it out of the sleeve of his jacket. Your mouth drops.
You can’t even tell what medium had been used, either paint or sharpie or something else entirely, but the cast is a mosaic of some of the most gorgeous artwork you’d ever seen. Birds in gold and blue hues, flowers and leaves in stunningly rendered detail, the curves of anonymous noses and lips and teeth and earlobes – all wound together in collage by someone with an eye for detail and a precious reverence for the mundane.
But for all the artwork, designs you fully believe should be in a museum, you realize no one has signed it. Maybe only twelve year olds sign each other’s casts, you think harshly to yourself. Grow up.
But still, the sight makes you a little sad.
“Did you do these?” You ask quietly.
He nods, turning his arm to give you a better look, as if eager for your approval. You think you see the horns of Goya’s El Gran Cabrón before he pulls his arm back.
The man hasn’t answered your original question, watching your face for every microexpression. Finally, you do glance up and he has his bottom lip in teeth, as though preparing to be scolded.
At that moment, you want nothing more than to kiss those plush lips. You swallow, feeling rather lighted-headed and capable of making terrible decisions, so you take a clear step back.
“I got daydrunk and fell in my pool wrong.”
You frown at him. “That’s not a very long story.”
He drops your gaze, suddenly bashful, and shakes his sleeve back over his cast. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t come up with a better story that makes me look really cool, or makes you laugh, so I went with the lame truth.”
You don’t remark that it sounds like he wanted to impress you so you go for the easy alternative.
“Why would I laugh at you?”
He flops his arms in half-shrug. “I don’t want you to laugh at me. I just want you to laugh. I like your laugh.”
How does someone who wears their heart so openly on their sleeve survive in a place like this? You want him to swallow you down so you can count the rings in his stomach, learn his history like oak trees.
“Who are you?” You blurt out, your mouth full of cotton and brain somewhat disconnected from your brain stem.
At that, he laughs. “Gimme your number and you’ll find out.”
His smile elongates the longer you stare at him. “It’s not a line. I mean, it is, but not like that, if you don’t want it to be. This fucking industry is built on who you know and I know a couple of people to know. You can call me if you have any questions or need a reference.”
The whiplash between flirty tease and professional contact is jarring. Your fingers shaking from shock, you take your phone out of your pocket and hand it to him.
He taps away, bobbing his head to some tune only he can hear, before lifting it up to his face and snapping a selfie – tongue out and eye squinting into the flash.
He tosses your phone back and you learn his name for the first time.
The shock wears off immediately and you roll your eyes.
“Okay, my turn.”
He digs into his back pocket and slides a bright pink 2007 motorola flip-phone into your outstretched hand.
Full – chock full, in fact – of surprises.
“I’m not gonna get tracked,” he says seriously, eyes narrowed. “You really should think about giving up your iPhone. All kinds of bad vibes.”
You eagerly look forward to him explaining the Big Foot Conspiracy and his theories about the magic silver bullet.
It takes you a second to type out your name with the multiple buttons, some old sense memory from seventh grade coming back like a grumpy, displeased ghost, but finally, you snap the phone together and toss it back to him.
With the nub of the smoking joint poking out of his mouth, he frowns when he looks at the phone screen.
“Dolly Parton?”
You pluck the joint out of his mouth, a surge of playful confidence keeping your eyes locked on his. You nod. “Since we’re doing the whole fake name thing . . .”
You want to wink, with your hand on your hip, so clever to have figured out his little game, but when he continues to frown, that rush of bravery fizzles out.
“But the name I put in your phone is actually my name?”
You chuckle, surprised and confused he’s still committing to the bit, a little frustrated at this point because you are actually starting to like this guy and . . .
Unless . . .
“You’re actually Dieter Bravo? The actor? Three-time Emmy nominated actor Dieter Bravo?”
He loops his finger through one of the free-roaming curls from under the beanie and twists it. “That’s what it says on my underwear . . . when I remember to wear it.”
The blush on your face now scalding, you dart across the space between you and him and snatch his phone back. You can literally feel the shameful heat in your spine, your lower back, as you delete Dolly’s name and frantically type in your own.
“I’m so, so, sorry. I was just trying to be funny. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you but it’s dark and, um, you don’t look like I thought you would and I-I had no idea – I’m so sorry –,”
“Girlie, take a breath,” he chuckles and strokes your fingers as they tremble over the keypad. “I’ve never seen someone so stressed out after smoking half a joint before.”
You’ve gone stock still as he bleeds the panic out of you with just his touch. You watch as his warm hand, dwarfing yours in size, slowly moves up to your wrist, your pulse point. His thumb presses into the vein and gently rubs. You can’t help the sigh that eases out of your throat as all the tension in your arm collapses into that one focal point, that one place he presses against you. You inhale, not realizing you had stopped breathing for a second and he releases gently, the ache in your body left over from the rigidity gone.
A brief dark haze passes over his eyes when you sigh, but gives you space easy enough when you settle.
He takes the phone out of your limp hands and reads what you’ve typed out.
“Cute name. But I think I’m still gonna call you Dolly.”
Humor is your gut instinct. Defuse a situation or calm your nerves, sometimes the best you can do is crack a (often poorly timed) joke. You feel all fluttery inside, partially because you’d been talking to Dieter “I know people who know people” Bravo all night and partially because you’re about 86% sure he’d been flirting with you. And so, without thinking, you say:
“Because of my massive tits, right?”
His eyes flit up from his phone screen to, presumably, your tits. Which are very much not Dolly-Parton-comparable.
But he grins. He actually giggles, pressing the back of the hand holding his phone against his lips as if trying to hide his smirk.
“Yeah, that’s definitely it.”
It is the kind of laugh that you know he’s laughing with you and not at you and he’s still staring when his laughter subsides.
He is still staring at your tits.
Just as your face flushes what feels like the hundredth time tonight, he glances up at you. He offers you the last puff, you shake your head, so he sucks in down before flicking the nub over the railing of the patio. His hands sit heavy in his front pocket, the frown on his face contemplative, eyes searching the horizon.
“I think you’re going to text me . . . on a Tuesday,” he says, like he’s divining portents from the shapes of the clouds.
You swallow, trying to purge yourself of this whiplash embarrassment, but you can’t quite decide what exactly to make of this man or this conversation. “What makes you say that?”
His smile is so genuine it rattles something inside you. “It’s my favorite day of the week.”
This feels too good, too real, too intense, too fast. It was a quiet, but familiar story passed around in writer’s rooms or on the back lots of sets: an older man seduces a young girl, promising the world, and then offering nothing once he had gotten what he wanted.
You beg your heartbeat to slow down.
But Dieter Bravo doesn’t seem capable of that, not with his honesty, his open heart, but then again none of them ever do.
That’s the whole point.
“So, um, I should go. My boss is probably out back, breaking things, pissed off because I’m not behind him with a fresh macchiato.” Your phone feels absurd in your hands, as if it now carries something vital inside of it. “But, uh, thank you – for everything. The smoke, the advice, listening to me ramble endlessly –,”
“You weren’t rambling,” he says, arms crossed and finger tugging at an errant curl again. “You were talking about what makes you happy and I was listening. I like listening to you.”
You wanted to believe him. You really did.
“I’ll call you sometime, okay?”
He nods, raising a hand in a wave, but as you turn away, something final, the last piece of the puzzle, pops into your brain.
“Why me?”
Dieter looks at you, big brown eyes confused like a puppy whom you scolded for chewing on your shoe.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s gotta be at least fifty people here. Why did you stop me from going into Eliot’s room?
Dieter shrugs, that easy smile returning. “You looked like the only other person who didn’t want to be here. And you’re really pretty,” he adds casually and your heart launches itself into your throat. “I’ve got a thing for really pretty girls. Gets me into a lot of trouble.”
There comes that heat, that flare in his gaze that makes you wonder how someone like him fucks, all proof necessary that he has a working cock, and he’s not some mystical, Willy-Wonka-esque Ken doll.
It’s a look that makes you wonder if he wants his cock in you.
“Good night, Dieter.”
“Night, Dolly.”
Weeks passed and immediately you were so drowned in work, Dieter Bravo occasionally slipped your mind, falling back on your list of things to do when a deadline was approaching.
But when a contract for a position in a new writer’s room passes over your desk, you pause, and immediately think of him. The offer is unbelievable. More money than you thought possible working as an underling. The channel set to produce was the real deal, likely to order more seasons if the first went well.
“Saw your writing,” your boss told you by way of explaining your dreams falling directly into your lap. “Good work. I sent some of it off, and the studio came back with this. Don’t take too long signing the dotted line, okay?”
You nod, dumb-founded as he walks off, and you glance back at the contract.
And, despite your almost desperate elation, something felt off. But you didn’t know enough about the industry to confidently say if this is a bad deal or not.
So, with a glance down the hall, you call the only person you know who would.
He is immediately livid. Not that you haven’t called, of course, but that someone has clearly tried to take advantage of you.
“Do not take that deal. That corporate bullshit means they’ll own your IP for years to come. I can’t believe they’d do that to you. Stay right there and whatever you do, do not sign that. I’m calling someone at the studios.”
“Yeah. Uh, okay, Dieter, I won’t,” you murmur, half-expecting your hand to burn if you picked the contract up again. “But, um, thank you, for being honest with me. It felt weird, but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity and I was freaking out that this was the only one I was gonna get but I didn’t want to be rash,so I, um, . . .”
You trail off, the sudden silence on the other line only making your panic and shame more pronounced. You cringe inwardly – Dieter Bravo had better fucking things to do than console a baby screenwriter out of her first mistake – and Jesus, if there was ever a chance he was going to sleep with you, it’s long gone now – it must be, no one willingly sleeps with someone so goddamn gullible.
“Dolly?” His voice is quiet, but with a certain edge that makes you picture that implish little smirk. “Do you know what day it is?”
“No?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
That phone call turned into a new job with a female-led production team, thank yous over drinks, late-night dinners at obscure and dark Chinese food restaurants, movie nights at your shamefully small apartment, and then . . . a kiss.
Which led to all the rest.
A year later and you’re so in love with Dieter Bravo, you crank up Beyonce’s Countdown and belt it from the top of your lungs every time you hear it on the radio.
There’s a new irritant, a new agitation that can only be soothed by him. He’s remade you, changed you, reformed your very being to be missing a piece when he’s not around. He’s made space for him inside you, there was no life – not a real one, not a happy one – not before him and there won’t be anyone or anything after him. No one else fits with you anymore. Ever again.
Your blood runs hot over the ridges of his fingerprints, stamped deep on your soul and your bones.
Trouble is, he’ll never know.
“And the award for Best Actor goes to . . .”
His grip is almost painful and you return it with everything you can, your jaw drawn tight.
The pause feels like it lasts forever.
You hear his name and you think for a second you’ve blacked out, that you’ve somehow missed the moment, or you’ve somehow slipped into a pungently real dream.
And the crowd erupts.
The spotlight finds him in the crowd and you’re being pulled into his chest.
The cologne he wears costs more than your car payment but the instant you’re crushed up into his silken shirt, it’s him. Beneath all the layers, beneath the veneer, the man with the green beanie and fervent yellow jacket is still there. Somewhere. You love them both.
“You did it, darling, you did it,” you whisper into his ear and that’s all you can say before you know you have to tear yourself back, because every second you linger on him, the harder it becomes to quell this rising tide inside you that increasingly tastes like salt water whenever he’s around. It’s become so obvious his name resides in the cup of your mouth.
But when you do pull out of his embrace, in the ringing shout of the crowd, the sparkle of the spotlight, his hand lingers on your elbow, and in a space of a heartbeat that lasts impossibly longer in your memory, you’re met with such a look of profound regret you feel it take up room in your chest.
And in an instant, it’s gone. Grinning broadly, he drops your elbow and moves on down the line, cheered on by his peers, the white light from above illuminating his broad back, the bits of gray becoming ever more present in his beard. You cheer and you cheer and you cheer and you hope it’s from all the cheering that your voice grows hoarse and the tears start to trickle out of the corner of your eyes.
You’re trembling visibly as he accepts his award, showing just the right amount of awe, and appreciation, and excitement. He glances up into the spotlight and there’s the real Dieter for just a split second before he humbly gawks at the golden statue in his hand.
The clock begins.
Make your speech thoughtful and poignant – relevant to what is close to people’s hearts right now.
Be profusive with your thanks. Better start with that, actually. Lower yourself at the height of your glory.
Mention family, friends, names and faces that the masses don’t know because it makes you appear connected to a reality those watching on the television can only speculate about. Say something kindly about how this means so much to you.
Cry a bit, but not too much. Keep your voice steady but with tears in your eyes. Cut yourself off, the emotion too much, and say thank you again.
And anything more than three minutes, they start to play you off.
You’re mentally going through the notes on a potential acceptance speech his PR manager gave him on the drive over, but in the end, it’s clear he doesn’t need it.
Dieter’s speech is excellent.
Really good. Really, really, really good. It has a flare of genuinity, but not the bite of vulnerability that makes people uncomfortable.
He’s been practicing for weeks now, editing as he talks, in the mirror, while driving home from the grocery store, before he goes to sleep. Tonight’s speech, a compilation of all that you’ve listened to time and time again, is the best version of all of them.
He’s soft when he needs to be and excited when he can. He’s onto the gratitude bit, going through the director, the writers, the cast and crew, even his costar, whose beautiful face is shown on the twenty foot screen above the stage, joyful tears in her eyes. And as the applause dies down, his big hand dwarfing the tiny metal statue, his fingers flexing, Dieter’s back goes ridgid, his eyes downcast. A smile slips out infinitesimally.
Dieter clears his throat and looks up.
“And there’s someone else I’d like to thank. This, uh, this one goes to all the little dreamers out there. Working nine to five, to make your dreams happen. We did it, baby, couldn’t have done it without you.”
He stares into the camera and you swear, you fucking swear, he’s looking right at you.
It’s a drowning sort of wave, this focal point that draws you down into him. It’s all consuming and it’s tender and it touches places you didn’t know could go this warm and what else could describe this but love? You resent the Academy, this place, these people for keeping him away from you. You think you’ll claw out the eyes of anyone who tries to separate you again.
You are crying – for your industry friend, his guest at the Oscars, so sees the cameras and the glitz and the glamor.
You’re crying because you’re in too deep.
The rest of the night is dipped into a champagne glass and swirled fast, catching like lighting in a bottle.
Gold dust falling fast, dizzily.
Bubbles, glinting green and pink in the light, rising and winking out of existence.
Golden bubbles in your drink, in your mouth. Your throat. Your stomach.
You feel lighter than air.
With him, you feel as bright and as strong as diamonds. As timeless and luminescent as pearl.
As beautiful as gold.
When the door finally shuts behind you in a darkened apartment, you’ve entered a secret, separate realm of domesticity: mismatched shoes, coffee creamer flavors you don’t like, and shampoo bottles that take up too much space in your shower.
It’s quiet here, blue and shadowed. The girl who left here hours ago to get ready in a hotel halfway across town forgot to leave on a light, rushing out in her haste.
Behind you, you hear him snicker, his tongue behind his teeth, champagne bubbles still in his nose, as he hangs his silk jacket on your coat rack, right next to your muddy raincoat and baseball caps faded with sweat.
“We gotta be quiet,” he hums, wobbling a bit as he toes out of his expensive loafers, pushing them near your off-brand birkenstocks. “Nala’s gonna hate me forever if we wake her up now.”
He is, of course, referring to your tabby cat, who hates everyone who isn’t you, and has a distinct requirement for twelve hour naps with no interruptions. Dieter swears he’s going to wake up one morning with that cat flexing her claws against his throat.
It takes you a moment to recognize and comprehend how your lives have melted together, how extracting you from him and him from you would be akin to destructive alchemy, the process of deconstructing two things causing both of them to oxidize and reduce to flaky rust. You’re drunk and you’re a little dizzy and you’re swaying slightly because your feet hurt but you are too consumed by introspection on your own feelings, what it means to love something other than yourself, to do anything about it.
You’re so far gone from your own body you float, untethered and lost in thought, right up until the moment his arms come around your waist and he pulls you into his chest, like slipping on a beloved coat.
“I think I can buy you for a quarter at Coney Island,” he murmurs into the nape of your neck like he is reciting Neruda’s poetry. You stifle a smile, your hands gripping around his elbows, as he sways with you. He does this a lot; thinks one thing, then two, then three, and by the time it comes out of his mouth, it’s nonsensical to anyone not strapped into his train of thought.
“Try again, darling.” You stroke his cheek with your thumb, his chin tucked over your shoulder, ear pressed to yours. “I think you missed a couple of steps.”
Your voice is gummy even to your own ears, the endless drinks at the afterparty stitching your syllables and consonants together into some freakish creature. He’s slightly blurry in your eyes, his presence overwhelming all of your senses as they try to keep you upright.
He chuckles and presses his face into your neck in what you believe is an attempted kiss.
“I mean, you glow,” he admits quietly to your skin. The grin falls from your face when your heart constricts. “You fucking shined tonight and I couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful and sweet you looked. Sweetness I wanna lick up.” He chuckles again, this time through his nose, laughing at his own absurdity. “And then I remembered cotton candy is sweet too and you can buy cotton candy at Coney Island for a quarter and. . . I think I can buy you for a quarter at Coney Island.”
He scrapes the back of your neck with his teeth as he nudges you forward down the hall, not sparing an inch between your bodies. Which makes for a disastrous time, both of you drunk, his socked feet slipping on the wood, and your heels and dress tangling up together.
“Baby, wait–,”
“We’re almost to the bedroom, we can make it–,”
“Not if we break our necks first. Gimme a second, I’ll just–,”
You slide out of his grasp, inching down the wall and tucking up the truly insane amount of tulle they managed to stitch into your dress. You feel like you’ve been digging for five minutes before you find what you're looking for.
You stick your heel in the air and fiddle with the clasp around your ankle, drunk and working in near total darkness.
Dieter huffs and slides to the floor next to you. He watches you struggle for a minute, nearly swallowed up by the layers and layers of tulle, before he squeezes the air with his open hand.
“Gimme. We’ll be here all night.”
You pout visibly and awkwardly rotate until your foot is in his lap. His fingers are warm as he plucks at the clasp.
“I am perfectly capable of getting dressed on my own.” You toss your hair indignantly.
“Yeah, but you’re always going to need my help to get undressed, right?” He smirks, eyes bleary, as he slides the heel off your foot and takes up the other one when you don’t move.
Always, he said.
Forever.
He’s being so soft, so gentle.
He sees the red marks left behind by the straps of your heels and frowns, displeased. Slumped over in the hallway of your tiny, pathetic apartment, his top few buttons of his pressed dress shirt hopelessly gone, tonight’s bow tie slung around his neck like a tipsy snake, Dieter gives you a foot rub by way of kneading out your pain.
He kisses your ankle with such reverence, adoration, the liquid in your mouth vanishes and ends up in the crotch of your tights.
You’re both too drunk for an actual fuck (“don’t make fun of my whisky dick, baby, it makes it sad,”) but you don’t want to be anywhere else but in your bed with him when you do sober up. So, you let the tulle drop, Dieter giggling as he gets hit with an avalanche of dress and you both clamor over each other to stand up.
Towering over you and smelling like rich, warm, leather and splash of something spicy, he raises an eyebrow at you. You scrunch up your face, your twisted-up mouth betraying the stern look in your eyes, and put your knuckles to your hips. He matches your stance, this town ain’t big enough for the two of us . . .
“You’re in my way,” he grumbles, his mouth twitching.
“Maybe you’re in mine.”
“Well, then it looks like we’ve got on our hands a good ol’ Mexican standoff.”
“By all means, pardner, stick ‘em up.”
You eye him like PopEye, cheek full of nothing but air, your one eye all squinty. At that, he completely breaks, going red as he laughs. You hold the pose for a second longer before you collapse against him, laughing until tears run out of the corners of your eyes. You press your forehead into his chest, his heartbeat like a homing beacon, as he nuzzles the back of your head, giggles escaping occasionally on puffs of air.
“That’s it!” He says after a moment of silence and tosses his hands into the air. “I’ve had enough! I can’t do this anymore!”
Without warning, he bends down and hauls you over his shoulder. He continues his tirade over your brief gasp of surprise – “Dieter!” – his finger indignantly in the air as he marches off towards the bedroom.
“I can no longer date a girl who is funnier than me and so goddamn, fucking pretty. Who let you do that, huh? Who taught you how to be so fucking adorable? Answer me, you sexy, little weirdo.”
He tickles you enough just to make you squirm before dramatically tossing you onto the bed. You assume your best heart-broken divorcé pose, hand draped over your forehead, one leg tucked under the other.
“Think of the children, honey! Nala needs a father’s influence, a lonely girl trying to survive in a man’s world! You can’t shoulder me with the responsibility of single motherhood!” You sit up, eyes fluttering up at him. “Everything I learned, I learned it all from you!”
Smirking, he kneels onto the mattress, your body folding back as he hovers forward, his nose inches from yours. You fight the shiver that arches up your body every time he gets that look on his face. He’s got your sanity between his teeth. “That child loathes me, darling,” he purrs. “She’s better off with you. She looks far too much like the milkman to be mine anyway.”
Your fake gasp is buried beneath the lunge of his mouth over yours. His hand cups your cheek as his mouth seeks out all its favorite places against your lips, your skin, your jaw. Your fingers dig into his wrinkled, once-starched shirt, the heat of his skin pricking your fingertips.
It’s right there, that knife edge between starting something there’s no going back from, no alternative path that ends in anything other than him buried deep inside you, filth that still makes you blush pouring from his mouth into your ear. A part of you, the part of you that’s been stalking behind every smile and touch he sends your way all night, the part of you that every nerve sing for him, is begging you to continue. To touch him in the right places that make his eyelids drop, mouth wrench open, to take on the animal that’s gnawing at you both.
But you don’t. You can’t.
The simple fact of the matter is – you’re exhausted. You know he is too. The Oscar statue sitting on your entryway is a culmination of dozens of exhausted nights that finally paid off.
He sighs when you pull back, there is no anger on his face, no disappointment that you’re ending things here. There’s only . . .
“You looked really, really pretty tonight,” he confesses to your nose with a smile. “Thanks . . . for coming with me tonight. You make everything better.”
You tuck his hair over his ear, feeling whole and small beneath the gentle search of his gaze. His hair is getting long and you love it, but you don’t want to nag him about it. The universe has finally balanced itself with him in between your legs, the foundations that make up the galaxy all settled in right here.
He takes it one step further, reaching back behind him to the comforter you keep on the end of the bed that inevitably gets kicked to the floor every time he stays over. You’d pick it up and put it back every day of your life without complaint if it meant him in your bed until the end of time.
Dieter tosses the blanket over both of your heads and crawls back in between your legs, elbows tucked by your ribs. All the champagne in the world couldn’t give you this same warm, bubbly feeling in your chest as his weight sinks into you.
He’s submerged you both in another realm, a deeper one than the one before, and in this one you have to whisper, even though the only other person in all of existence is inches from your nose.
“You’re drunk,” you murmur, hushed. You can barely find the outline of his chin, his lips, his nose. The steady drum in your chest misses a beat as you consider where he might be looking on you.
He awkwardly tugs your knuckles from both hands beneath his head, kissing them gently before allowing them to quietly slide into his hair. He’s so warm, nearly completely invisible to you in the blackness, the weight of his broad chest threatens to choke the air right out of you. But this exactly is how you want it to be. You want to be overwhelmed by Dieter Bravo.
“I’m not drunk,” he tuts, a soft slur still tucking his words together.
You reach down just inches to his temple, following the lines of his body that swear all lead to you, to find the arch of his cheek. He closes his eyes, lashes fluttering like butterfly wings against your thumbs.
“Could a drunk person do this?” He asks quietly, as close as he could come to indignant in this special, dark little world.
You wait, for a sloppy kiss, for something hard to tap against your thigh, but nothing comes. In fact, he doesn’t move.
You inhale as best you can, grinning, ready to start another proverbial sparring match with him.
“You’re not doing anything, Dieter.”
His eyelashes stroke your thumbs again, a kitten lick, as he opens his eyes.
“I sent you my love. Did you not get it?”
All in the air in your lungs is purged in a heavy gasp as his words impact your chest the way comets collide with meteors.
He says your name, concerned by the wounded noise you just made, and when you don’t answer, he leans back, tugging the blanket as he goes.
It’s not until you’re looking up at him in your bedroom, his face blurry and your cheeks cold, that you realize you’re crying.
“Dolly, what did I do?” He sounds so concerned, so visibly shaken, you can’t help but cry harder. He only touches your wrist, as if he’d been banished from your body.
If you hadn’t had so much to drink, this wouldn’t be happening or at least you’d be able to get it to stop, reign in those explosive feelings that you had kept for so long deep and buried until he came along with a match in the dark.
You take a deep breath, eyes locked onto the ceiling, hands clenched in fists. You know he can feel the tension in your forearm beneath his thumb making circles inches below your pulsepoint. You thought you never, ever wanted to have this conversation, but now you understand this has been the only thing that’s been on your mind for months.
“You don’t mean that,” you croak into the darkness. You feel small and foolish, embarrassed for having a body that produces emotions.
“Don’t mean what, darling?” He’s still talking quietly, but firmer, providing a hook onto which you can grasp and fight the current in your mind. He knows this feeling, anxiety, and he hates how it looks on you.
“That you love me.”
Your words ring in the air, like the distinctive pitch of singing glass. You swallow that choking knot further down your throat and, wrenching your gaze down from the ceiling, finally look him in the eyes.
It’s the same look he blinked at you from the seats, there and gone so fast you partially convinced yourself you’d imagined it: profound, deep regret.
“You think I don’t love you?”
His tone makes you instantly feel guilty. Did you miss something? What if he texted it to you and you didn’t see it? Or wrote it in a note . . .
“You’ve never said it. At least not to me.”
And his face crumbles.
He slides off his haunches, feet dangling over the edge of the bed, his big shoulders curved.
Slowly, as if believing he has no right to, he touches your ankle, where he had rubbed away those painful marks in the hallway. He shakes his head, smirking darkly at himself.
“At the risk of sounding like a dramatic fucking actor, I didn’t want to put you in harm’s way.”
You sit up, unable to help yourself from curling up next to him, his grip adjusting to your thigh, instantly finding the heat of it beneath all the tulle. Cutting right to the core of you.
He gets this furtive glance when he’s thinking about something unpleasant, his eyes darting rapidly back and forth, as though unable to choose the right course of action. How much does he say, how much does he give away?
He rubs your dress material between his fingers.
“I’m older than you,” is how he starts. When your mouth twists open, ready with a litany of reasons why you don’t care, why no one should – reasons you’ve already said to him a dozen times – he meets your gaze and silences everything in your head. “And it’s not me they’re going to come for.”
The weight, the finality to his voice shoves that knot right back up your throat, your eyes hot and tight.
“I . . . I didn’t say it, outloud, because then we’d have to do something about it. I don’t want to keep us in the dark, but . . .” he swallows as if choking too. “But after the dox two years ago and then the incident in Austin, I feel like I’ll be putting you in physical harm when they find out we’re together. And I would literally rather die than have anything happen to you.”
He kisses your temple, the touch a consolation.
You don’t want to turn away, you want every kiss he gives you, but all you can feel are the studio’s words, the words of your managers, pressing down on you:
You know how some fans get. For your safety, let’s give it two years.
We’re happy for you, we really are, but you can’t be seen together too much. Minimal instagram, rare public appearances. We’re just trying to keep up appearances until the fans settle.
Appearances.
Aesthetics.
Image.
You’d happily kill anyone who tried to take him from you.
But you know he’s right.
“It has nothing to do with how I feel about you, what I feel for you,” he promises, voice warm, dipped in honey. “I just . . . I can’t lose you.”
“Then can you say it just this once? Just to me?” You try to smile but the tightening of your skin only spills the tears. “Please, Dieter, I won’t ask again. I have to hear it once from you. After that, I promise I–,”
His great warm palm covets the back of your neck, rolling you into him like melting chocolate drips onto the floor. He stops, inches from your mouth, so close you can feel your neutrons mix with his.
“I love you.”
Earnest, genuine, real.
A green beanie and a yellow jacket.
Chinese food and dreams of a better life. Of a happy life.
You steady yourself, your spinning world, against his hand around your cheek, clutching onto his wrist like it’s the last great lighthouse at the end of the world.
You open your eyes and, yes, yes, there is adoration in his smile, in the way he watches his words soothe some ache inside of you with joy.
“I love you too,” you tell him, in case it wasn’t obvious. If somehow he couldn’t smell your obsession for him. “I love you,” you say again, firmly.
It’s an inevitable sort of fall, his mouth into yours.
Like neutron stars collapsing together, alone and quiet in the far reaches of space.
Like the stone bones of an ancient church cracking and tipping into the sea as time and erosion eats away at a once great monument.
Like the spinning metal within a compass, never failing to find north, to find home.
When you awake next to him the next morning, warm in a way that goes behind physical body heat, he kisses your nose.
I love you, he tells you, with his words, with his body. With the dozens of ways he’s been mulling over in his mind to keep you safe and make you his for everyone to see.
I love you, he tells you that morning.
And every morning after that.
#100 followers event#dieter bravo#dieter bravo x you#dieter bravo x reader#dieter bravo x f!reader#dieter bravo fic#dieter bravo x female reader#dieter bravo fanfiction#dieter bravo x oc#pedro pascal character#pedro pascal character fanfic#the bubble fanfic#the bubble
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♥︎ ship your moots! (only if you have time tho no pressure ofc)
yes my time has come.
@woahsamu + atsumu. hshjsjsj yall are so freaking annoying. you spoil him to bits bc that’s what u do and he treats you like damn royalty. still flirts and acts like he’s trying to woo you. prob does dumb shit intentionally when u have a bad day to make you laugh. unrelated but you guys do really good impressions of each other. kisses you and runs away, tries to get you to chase him, u guys fall & land on top of each other like a rom com get a room ew.
@arrogantsonofabiscuit + mattsun. BBY I KNOW U AND MATTSUN would be amazing tgt. he would tease u endlessly but also yall kinda have that sweetheart and hot guy dynamic. yeah idk what that is either HHSHS. also u guys watch horror movies tgt.
@sumine + suna. JASMINE the both of you have such chill vibes. i’m thinking cafe hopping, picnics, soft dates. but i’m also thinking waterparks, splashing water at each other and tryna see who can hold their breath the longest, you catch him cheating coming up for air halfway and you start play fighting shjsjsj. u guys are always lost in your own world. you hang out w your friends and sometimes he’ll tag along just because.
@charlie-jay + akaashi. u guys are intellectuals. the both of you just connect. you guys would talk for hours at a coffee shop, under the stars, in the sun, you name it. you share a deep and intimate connection bc you guys are so intentional about everything. akaashi probably write you love letters, and you guys have these inside jokes that no one else understands HAHA.
@etherrreal luna + osamu. LUNA imagine cooking tgt w him, youre locked between his arms and the counter and as he guides your hand, molding the rice. PLAYFUL KITCHEN FIGHTS shut up i know it’s cliche HHAHSHS but i KNOW this is u guys. osamu gives u a piggy back everywhere. dawn + oikawa!! i feel like you have similar vibes. oikawa is so whipped for u lol and sometimes you can’t help being dramatic along with him (omg i’m sorry we don’t know each other that well yet dawn please forgive me TT)
@kuroowo + osamu. i feel like the both of you are such self-starters and always pushing each other to do better? late night drives talking endlessly about everything and nothing. always hugging, or holding hands or giggling at each other. like yeah we get it you’re in love HAHASHHSHS. starts setting his alarms an hour early bc u aggressively cuddle him and tell him 5 more mins every morning.
@etherealtobio + mattsun. MAB u and mattsun👌 that super cool couple everyone is envious of. first of all visuals? also you do everything tgt. bookstore- tgt, grocery shopping- tgt. and i feel like mattsun is really good at driving so you guys regularly go on these crazy road trips, fast food, sunsets, making out in the car, u get the vibe :”.
@stationery-store + kuroo. i feel like you guys have the same vibes yk what i mean. like slight crackhead (in the most affectionate way possible), but witty and smart as well. yall would be able to like prank someone and also have deep discussions on existentialism or smth LMAO.
@sunkeiji + akaashi. WHATS NEW HAHA. we all know you guys are disgustingly sweet and unintentionally make everyone else feel really single bahshs. the small little things he does for you? he loves staring at you when you’re so intently focused on something and will spontaneously get the will to hug u HSHD.
@bokutoism + timeskip kenma. hello u guys are the hot badass power couple?? spoils you w stupidly expensive stuff. but also lazy days in bed tgt. if u play games yall r always competing but if you don’t he’ll make you sit on his lap as he plays. prob teaches you how to play a new game the same way. will plan extravagant self-care sessions for u.
@sunatooru + hirugami. b b b. u would look sooo good w hirugami (sachiro). i feel like the both of you are so sweet and caring and empathetic (and cmon he’s so hot), you’re that “love for humanity and the world” couple who’s always iniviting people over, reaching out to friends, and showing them your amazing hospitality in general. but yall do it tgt <3 cus love LOL
@thighridingsamu + iwaizumi. ok morgan i know u love football and i feel like you guys would rave about sports tgt? but more importantly he would be ur hype man 24/7 like you show him an outfit and he’ll be like “hot 💯,” “ass looks good in this.” shskkdjd he probably cooks for u too and makes sure you’re eating right.
@ioveangel + sakusa. you’re a ray a sunshine in his life. you guys balance each other. he’s clingy bc poor babie is touch and attention starved. prob puts socks on your feet on a chilly night but will vehemently deny it. a babie.
@xybi + tendou. HEAR ME OUT. yall prob sneak around tgt. giggling to each other as another one of your victims fall prey to your shenanigans. u guys hang out w each other way too much LOL but really though you guys are just two really sweet people tryna brighten someone’s day tgt. cuddles. lots of em. but also u guys are just devilish for no reason sometimes nd u love it.
@keijee + sakusa. u have a sunny infectious energy and honestly sakusa could benefit from that LMAO. lets you play w his hair but will pretend he hates it. you’re the only person he can recharge with it’s ridiculous, like he’ll randomly cuddle u in the middle of a party just to recharge.
@m3gumiis + komori. athena what can i say. two little puppies.
@oi-oikawa-chan + ushijima. addy this little olive tree will do anything for you. talk to him about anything, he listens so intentionally. and also idk why but imagine u guys w a lot of little adopted pets and plants cus u guys are absolute sweethearts.
@elitparadox + akaashi. like u guys would go on dates to the museum, slow dance in the quiet of the woods, kiss under the night sky. yall are so dramatic for no reason.
don’t boohoo to me if you don’t get your fav HAHA jk kith 😚 i’m drowning in work rn so i’m sry i couldn’t tag everyone but KNOW that ILY :”) mwaa alsoo i jumped around w this and u can 100% i got so tired w some LMAO sry shdjskajs
#mutual games 👾#i’m sorry if i didn’t tag you it was getting too long but i still lub u 😭❤️#moots 🍡 <3
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Vulture: Elementary’s Joan Watson Is the Best-Dressed Detective on TV
In the seventh and final season of Elementary, Joan Watson is blonde. The character’s style has constantly evolved alongside her detective career and partnership with Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), but in all her years on the show, there has been very little change to Lucy Liu’s locks. With just 13 episodes left, though, Joan has drastically altered her hair, which in turn means one last style shake-up for the best-dressed detective on TV.
Credit for that goes to costume designer Rebecca Hofherr, who has worked on the CBS procedural since its second episode in 2012, and who has guided Joan’s transformation from predominantly casual-leaning clothing to more structured menswear-inspired pieces. Hofherr spoke to Vulture about the narrative and fashion influences behind Joan’s costume evolution, including how they put their own stamp on an iconic duo and the sartorial challenges of shooting a 20-plus-episode season in New York City.
Joan’s styling was much more relaxed in the first year of Elementary. As his sober companion, her relationship with Sherlock was initially a professional commitment. She was not yet a detective and she was very much in the background of the investigation scenes. “Her clothing was very casual because that’s what the job called for,” Hofherr says. As Joan got more versed in the crime-solving world, her role shifted from sober companion to Sherlock’s protégée. By the second season, her costuming moved toward a slightly more sophisticated and buttoned-up approach. “As cheesy as it might sound, you need to put on a little more armor when dealing with the NYPD and all these criminals,” says Hofherr.
Joan’s wardrobe isn’t an either/or between suits and dresses, or even casual and business attire. She didn’t become a detective and suddenly stop wearing comfortable clothing. The suits reflect a change in Joan’s status and independence as an investigator, but dresses and sandals are still a vital style ingredient. During one Hofherr’s first conversations with Liu, they agreed Joan should “feel like a real New Yorker.” Expanding on this, Hofherr included staple items such as blazers or sandals, which most women have in their closets to dress an outfit up or down. “It was really nice to be able to incorporate them into a professional world for Joan,” she says.
Discovering the true cost of a TV character’s wardrobe is an eye-opening experience. Joan’s closet is definitely packed with high-end items — Hofherr’s go-to favored designers for Joan include Victoria Beckham, Saint Laurent, Isabel Marant, and Stella McCartney, with Rag & Bone as her signature bootee choice — but to ensure her clothing reflected that New Yorker aspect, Hofherr also shopped at Zara and H&M. “It was really important to do a mix,” she says. “I think that’s pretty much how everyone shops. I don’t think it’s realistic to only shop at high-end stores.”
Noticeable costume repeats tend to be outerwear, but Hofherr also uses staple investment pieces such as high-waisted black pencil Victoria Beckham pants. (Dressing them with an inexpensive top, she adds, is “a great way to get a lot of outfits out of a really expensive pair of pants.”) There is an aspirational element to Joan’s garments, but the high-low mixing reflects how a lot of people shop. Hofherr also notes with a laugh that “pretty much everything Lucy wore from Zara, I also own. I was like, Oh, I can afford that.”
The one item that has appeared in all seven seasons? Joan’s red men’s Elder Statesman “house sweater.” Most people have a cozy garment that they only wear in the comfort of their own home, Hofherr explains, and Joan is no different. Sherlock and Joan’s brownstone home doubles as their office, but she wouldn’t be wearing suits at all hours of the day and night while solving a case. As Liu has worn this sweater so many times on the show, Hofherr says that not only has it molded to her body but it also has the pulls of a well-loved garment. It is also a color Joan doesn’t typically wear, which visually makes it a “nice change.”
Joan doesn’t eschew color, but a black-and-white motif runs through the first season to the last. Regardless of whether it is a suit, skirt, or a more casual outfit, sticking with the same color tone allows for experimentation with pattern. In the above outfit from season four’s “The Games Underfoot,” she wears a Saint Laurent polka-dotted tie with a checkered J.O.A. skirt and polka-dotted Ji Oh blouse. Sometimes the costume choice reflects Joan’s career, but on occasions like this one, it shows that Joan has a “fashionable side” too. “She can throw these things together and look really cute,” Hofherr says.
Two big style turning points emphasize Joan’s drive for equal footing with Sherlock as a detective. First came the ties, introduced at the end of season three. Suits followed, making their initial sartorial stamp in season five. The message is clear: Long gone are the days when Joan was Sherlock’s student. As with a lot of Joan’s costuming, she doesn’t stick to one specific suit-and-tie combo. In fact, the Marc Jacobs shirt above (which Hofherr got from one of her go-to sites, Shopbop) is a bit of an optical illusion, as it doesn’t even include a tie. Vests were thrown into the mix after Hofherr made the decision to stick with suits. It is also a nod to her relationship with Sherlock: Up to this point, Hofherr points out, vests have been Sherlock’s thing, so this costume mirroring is “a little nod to her respecting him so much.”
“I went to all ends of the Earth!” Hofherr laughs when talking about the many ties Joan has worn on Elementary. Men’s offerings were out of the question for someone of Liu’s stature, as they are just too wide and long. She snapped up everything Saint Laurent and Gucci had on offer, but she also shopped at uniform companies, bought a few kids’ ties, and even made them in-house. Maybe a Joan Watson tie line should be next? “If all these designers are going to sell women’s suits, I would love for them to start making women’s ties,” Hofherr suggests.
Another later costume addition was the Victorian-style Isabel Marant blouse. In part, this outfit was a hat tip to the original Holmes and Watson, but it also added another variation on the suit theme. One of the biggest challenges when doing a show with a full 20-plus-episode order is obtaining enough clothing, particularly for a fashion-forward character like Joan. Hofherr says that she needs 50 outfits a month — on average, Joan has five changes per episode — and costuming was made trickier because designers don’t typically replenish their collections between seasons. “We end up making a lot of clothes based on designs we love and change a few things because I can’t find 20 Victorian-style blouses or 20 men’s-style blouses,” Hofherr laments. “I can find five, but then that’s it for four months.”
Fashion seasons are not the only Elementary costume challenge, as shooting outside in New York City from July to May means having to find clothing that fits all weather cycles. (The 13-episode final season was a bit easier, though, because they only shot until December.) Sherlock sticks to the same styles — “This guy would buy 20 of the same shirts, the same sport coat, and the same pants,” Hofherr says — and he has also worn the same Tom Ford winter peacoat for seven years. On the flip side, Joan has many changes, but she isn’t going to have a different coat for each outfit, as that is neither practical or realistic for either the character or the designer. Hofherr’s preference was to have between five and ten on hand: “If we got the coats fitted and ready to go we could just recycle them episode after episode.” Outerwear is something that is repeated across various seasons — including the Alice + Olivia coat above — but accessories like hats, gloves, and scarves are switched out to keep things fresh.
Sometimes the weather also dictates the type of hat required: “I originally got that hat because we were shooting outside one day in the rain and they didn’t want to have umbrellas,” Hofherr says. The wider brim of this Barneys-brand men’s hat has since been worn on a number of occasions, as has the tie-waist Marissa Webb windowpane check coat (which will reappear in the final season).
Of course, the story also dictates what Hofherr chooses for Joan. At the end of season six, creator Rob Doherty didn’t know if they were going to get renewed, so they shot two different endings. This particular Diane von Furstenberg dress fit both the ending we saw and the alternative they filmed — though Hofherr couldn’t provide any other details without spoiling the end of season seven as well. “I wanted it to be timeless, as I didn’t know if it was the last time we were ever going to see Joan Watson,” she says. “It was a little bit of an ode to all the Joans we have seen throughout the seasons. I felt a suit would have been a different look for that final scene.” No surprise, then, that it is also one of Hofherr’s costume highlights.
Hofherr couldn’t pick a single favorite outfit, but this one she considers to be the most significant. At the end of season three, Sherlock has almost killed a man and relapsed, but Joan’s loyalty doesn’t waver. “This is where we start to see the Joan that we will forever know,” says Hofherr. “And I think this is the best version of Joan too.” The pink skirt is by Roland Mouret and the shirt is Uniqlo, which is another high-low outfit mix. It also happens to be the first time Joan wears a tie, which is a huge style turning point.
Hofherr also spoke in depth about working with Liu, not only as an actress but in her role as a director. (She has stepped behind the camera six times on Elementary.) Referring to Liu as “one of the most inspirational women I’ve had in my life” — she also did the costume design on the Liu-starring Netflix rom-com Set It Up — she says Liu is “willing to take risks, but she knows exactly when to take them.”
Which brings us back to the blonde mystery. Hofherr had already FaceTimed with Liu sporting her new hair color, but the styling was a task of its own. “She walked in for her first fitting of the final season and I didn’t recognize her,” said Hofherr laughing. They did plan fewer outfits than previous seasons’ fittings, she adds, “because we were figuring out what works with the blonde hair and what doesn’t.” Don’t worry: There are still plenty of outfits to come, particularly in the last two episodes. (Hofherr teased that Joan will have ten-plus changes.)
The signature black-and-white motif remains, including these fabulous Stella McCartney palazzo pants. “I always know it’s a really good outfit when all the crew members ask me what it is,” Hofherr says. That is the exact reaction Liu got when she stepped on set in this particular costume.
#joan watson#lucy liu#rebecca hofherr#elementary#elementasquee#behind the scenes#who dresses you girl#i think what you do is amazing#read more
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2019 in review in review:
A few years ago I started tracking yearly goals, books read, movies watched etc in a year, along with overview blurbs, in private posts. End of 2019/beginning of 2020 I was really frazzled/burned out about a lot of stuff and just never finished up making the thing. 8 months later, got the urge to read back what I’d got done, then figured I’d maybe go ahead and see about finishing.
Media tracking below the break. thoughts/blurbs written in 2020 italicized, 2019 not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Didn’t do so hot on explicit personal goals, but had a lot of stuff go ok around them this year.
School’s been fine/better than fine.
Job’s probably the biggest failing. Still with same job, haven’t made the firm moves to jump off, dragging my feet too much on exploring stuff w/ Columbia/NASA GISS.
Did not get better with covid, lol
Dating life still non-existent, but I’ve registered on apps, gotten more comfortable with selfies, improved general social life dramatically, been flirted with, updated my wardrobe, and generally started to get comfortable accepting that I’m a hot person.
Somehow got extremely better during covid.
Books
Grant (finished)
We stan a taurus legend
Guy was good at exactly one job, and was fortunate enough to have been in the right place/right time to get to do it.
Mort (discworld)
Definitely best discworld I’ve gotten to so far.
Don Quixote p. II
Really entertaining in a way that part 1 wasn’t; I was shocked how much the meta element landed for me.
Consider the Lobster (DFW collection)
had zero context on who DFW is/was when I read, and still don’t exactly tbh. Wanted to wait for a pause in The Discourse before diving into more of him, but dunno if I’m ever going to get that.
Crime and Punishment (revisited)
Weirdly didn’t get much more out of this than I did the first time I’d read it
Better Than Sex (HST Gonzo papers)
Xerox/widespread fax accessibility opening citizen access to mass media in a manner really reminiscent of what social media would go on to do at a much larger scale. Has a much more deliberate narrative arc than the other gonzo papers collections, also has that excellent HST richard nixon eulogy
The Brothers Karamazov
SPQR
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion collection)
Pet Sematary
Not my favorite King, but not bad
Sourcery (discworld)
still funny/charming, but Mort really made clear/reminded me how much the hapless sadsack Rincewind mold of protagonist wears on me after a while.
The Devil's Teeth
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Liked it a lot more once I realized it was doing a Fear and Loathing thing.
Homage to Catalonia
This should be the Orwell that gets taught in schools. Make it a followup to All Quiet on the Western Front or something, jeez.
Lyndon Johnson I
Having now finished all of them, this one’s probably the least-interesting but sets up a bunch of important context that the others still then feel the need to retread.
The Razor's Edge
Recommended to me as a “white guy discovers eastern mysticism” book, but also is more interesting in its treatment of that than I’d expected (helps it was written in the 40s).
Cat's Cradle
There’s a part in this where Vonnegut’s making fun of people who try to bond with strangers over being Hoosiers, and my dumbass immediate thought was “ooh, Vonnegut’s a hoosier? Me too!”
Lyndon Johnson II
Robert Caro felt compelled to apologize for spending so much words lionizing Coke Stevens, segregationist opponent to Johnson’s senate run. His goal was pretty clearly to show lbj’s lack of campaign charisma by contrast, definitely definitely overcommitted in his own narrativising.
Libra
I want to go back to this after reading some more De Lillo.
Gravity's Rainbow
This book absolutely kicked my ass
Overstuffed and referential in a specific way that really keeps me hooked in instead of put off. When I learn about some piece of cultural context that I retroactively recognize as being referenced in this, I want to go back and reread the entire thing.
From Caligari to Hitler
Kind of fails both as film criticism and cultural analysis, but absolutely made me want to run for the hills when considering current relationship between mainstream movies and demands of pop culture.
I took a class on Weimar cinema in undergrad that I now realize was probably biting pretty heavily from this and never once referenced it.
Movies
Venom
Movie itself is not as fun as the Tom Hardy hype coverage. PG13 was the absolute worst space to aim for, PG- or R- versions of this could have been a blast.
Harryhauser Argonauts
Was tripping when I put this on, and it was all kinds of fun.
2001: a Space Oddyssey
First time seeing this, all-time classic for a reason!
A Good American (the NSA doc)
Dr. Strangelove
Mel Brooks History of the World p. I
Not my favorite Brooks, best joke was at the beginning.
In Bruges
Had been a while since I saw a proper dark comedy.
Spiderverse
Fukkin awesome!
Visually great, and extremely better than usual superhero stuff for being aimed at PG instead of PG-13.
You Only Live Twice
Highlander (Revisited)
I watched The Old Guard on netflix recently and it mostly just made me wish I was watching Highlander instead, because at least Highlander knows exactly how goofy it is
Moonraker
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Much like The Shining, I though this would have been 100% spoiled for me by cultural osmosis, but turns out it wasn’t, and even the scenes I had seen *totally landed* in-context still.
Kung Fu Hustle
Ichi the Killer
Really gross, really fun
Matrix Reloaded (watched thru highway scene) (Revisited)
The highway scene was not nearly as cool as I remembered it being.
John Wick 3*
Probably dumbest plot of all of them, best choreography. I like how every single fight had its own distinct flavor. “Knife museum fight” “horse fight” “halle berry dogs fight”
Akira
A classic
Pet Sematary * (ugh, bad)
Why can’t john lithgow be in good movies anymore
The Revenant
MCU Spiderman
Fuck this was awful.
MCU Spiderman 2*
Really weird, complete Rorschach Test of a movie: it’d be totally valid to read into this that global warming is Fake News, for instance.
Lmao this was completely awful
Rites
Dredd (non-stallone)
oh hey Lena Headey’s in this
For All Mankind!
Watched in honor of moon landing anniversary
Lion King *
Watched it way too stoned, was like dark side of the moon + wizard of oz except instead it’s a lion king script reading + nature footage edited for lip syncing.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood *
Many scenes of very long setups for really stupid shaggy dog jokes, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I do kinda want to rewatch now knowing more about manson, which I knew pretty much nothing about beforehand
Blowout
A good john lithgow movie
also I think I like travolta in things.
Lord of War
A Good cage movie
I like when Eamon Walker shows up in stuff.
Taxi Driver
A classic
Snowpiercer
Watched in a bar with only one speaker working, which is the correct way to watch. Weirder and funnier than I thought it was going to be, which still doesn’t make it good, but,
dbz big green dub
Exorcist III
Brad Dourif just tearing it apart
Deep Red (argento)
Suspiria (1977)
Watched the remake in 2020, which was ok, but nothing tops the Goblin score.
Elf Bowling
Thanks, Gnome
Parasite *
Interesting to me that this one seems poised to hang around people’s good esteem for a while
TV
FMA: B
Rick & Morty
Saw some episodes, generally pretty funny, some misanthropy that’s probably appealing to a certain type of teen al a something like House, but ultimately I don’t totally Get the intensity of discourse about it.
Leterkenny
Mob Psycho 100
One Punch Man
Deadwood
Watchmen
Only watched like half of it. Was playing around with a lot of hefty imagery/thematics, but didn’t really seem ready to rise above playing (tho also I feel like it’s weird on some level to *expect* them to rise above that in the first place)
Music
New Avantasia
HEALTH/ show
lol remember concerts
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/ show
Just learned about King Gizz in 2019 and got completely obsessed with them. I don’t tend to expand my music selection very readily, and a lot of what I currently *do* know is old/inactive stuff, so it was/is incredibly exciting to have an active group with good momentum just immediately win me over like that.
Mistimed the edibles and ended up with a really good finale and a really long subway ride home.
New Yeasayer
Sad they split up
Steve Wilson Tull remixes
Aqualung’s a good album and the sound mixing’s kinda bad, so I liked this project.
Stonefield
Opened for Gizzard. Really good as studying music
Video Games
Civ VI: Gathering Storm
Hades
Turns out Supergiant’s design proclivities all work *extremely well* on a roguelike
Baba is You
Untitled Goose Game
Cute, if maybe a bit overhyped
finally fucking finished Pillars of Eternity
Had fun with it, but too long, and really dour for how long it is.
Pillars II
Kinda drifted off it eventually, but I do genuinely like that the flavor of the fantasy is colonial era rather than medieval.
There’s a Balancing Bastard Factions element where it’s like the writers are just being smartasses after a while. Having to go extremely out of their way to make siding with colonizers seem like a competitive option.
Pokemon shield
Cuphead
pisses me off, which was a nice outlet when I was stranded by flight cancellations during thanksgiving
Celeste
Also very difficult, but really easy to stay patient with, which is nice.
Disco Elysium
None of the discourse made me want to play this, but people talking about the mechanical stuff it did got me extremely interested. Mostly Delivered IMO.
Breath of the Wild
You can approach the nodes of the main quest in the order you choose, and the second one I chose made ninjas start fucking spawning everywhere when I’m just trying to explore, and there’s no way to make it stop. May go back to it one day.
Podcasts
Relentless Picnic Patreon feed
The treats really helped me start distinguishing individual personalities, compared to the regular eps.
Picnic Discord!
<3
FatT Counterweight
Fun, but also I think Mechs are not my shit.
FatT Spring in Hieron/ end of that particular world
8 months since I’ve last tuned into FatT. ah well.
Law School
He’s in everythiiiing!
You Must Remember This: Manson family
*There’s* the context
Misc.
Kindle train guy
Times Square sleeping guy + kids taking selfies w/ him
toddler singing along after Psycho killer (a, ya, ya ya, ya)
drunk and dragged to a drag show
Central park football family
Soft Steel Drum Subway Busker
Weird old lady going to grand central for oysters
2018 in review (cards):
MySelf (CC)
Self: Tower
Blocked: 10 Cups
Ethereal/subconscious: 8 Swords
Material: 3 Swords
Past: Justice
Future: Page Wands
Attitude: Sun
External: King Swords
Hopes/Fears: 5 Coins
Trajectory: High Priestess
Also Self:
Hierophant
7 Cups
7 Coins
Blind Spot:
(self & others): 5 cups || (others not self): High Priestess
(self not others): Moon || (nobody): 3 Cups
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Brave police j decker character review!! (1/5)
Alright you guys! Lets get to reviewing the BEST part of this show. The characters!(note, i will not include all villians, despite them meeting my criteria. Too many goddamn people, that honestly? We won't remember. Humans first, bots second, and any other creature last. Bots will have their alt modes.)
Humans!!;
Yuta Tomonaga!!;
Yuuta!! The boss of the brave police! While young,(about 9-10) Yuuta has more passion in his pinky finger than any of the adults on the show. Loving, caring, and determined, Yuuta has proven time and time again that hes a worthy leader, and an incredible friend. He's faced more than most kids his age should've honestly, and the nightmares and trauma needs to stop for him. He just needs ONE goddamn day with him hanging out with his friends and family, with plenty of good food.
Verdict:10/10. Hes adorable, and i wanna hug him and give him a golden sticker. Take him home, feed him and Deckerd.
Juuzo Saejima!!;
He. Is the most EXTRA bitch ever. Seriously, he's essentially a 12 year old in a 44 year old body. Constant upgrades for the team, constant new names and abilities. Hes an oddball, but despite this immaturity, he's a GOOD person. He listens to Yuuta and his opinions, and treats him as an adult, and treats the bots as humans. He deserves all he has, and honestly? Underrated character.
Verdict:9/10. Wish we had more background on him, but overall a character that i enjoyed seeing on the show. Take him home, be prepared for him to be SUPER extra.
Shunsuke Toudou!!;
SUCH. A surprising character. He made his one and only grand appearance in one episode, and i surprisingly??? Fell for the guy. He cares about the bots, and cars. He puts in effort, probably more than his entire team would. Even as a mechanic, this guy does more than his fair share of work fixing up the bots, physically mostly, but we've seen him do so emotionally as well.
Verdict:10/10. Hes the father we all need??? He GETS people. He knows what you're gonna say before you're even gonna say it, and buys you feel good snacks, and drives you around a few times while you talk to him. You've heard of mama bear, well this is papa bear. 10/10, take him home, talk to him about cars.
Seina Onoue!!;
(First of all. Yes I've been getting her name wrong this entire time. Im still putting her as 'Seina' and not 'Seia' for tag reasons)
My girl Seina! Gorgeous, headstrong, and and underestimated, sweet gal. Military lady, she's quite firm handed, but thanks to her boyfriend, McCrane, she's learned more about being human and embracing life. For someone who specializes in Japan's offensive branch, she's surprisingly shy and self conscious. Its sweet, in a way.
Verdict:9/10. She's a sweetie! She cares, an fights for whats right. Plus, she's a total historical figure, being one of the first few women who smooched a bot! She demands respect, and damn does she have it.
Ayako Kimizuka!!;
Our fellow reporter lady! (And Seina's best friend)She's the person who sinks her head deep into the news sand, fully commiting herself to her reporting. She dives in headfirst so strongly and quickly, the rest of the world melts away. A bit abrasive, but i grew to like her, and I've approved her to date my boy, Dumpson.
Verdict:9/10. Shes cute, flighty, and honestly cares about Dumpson! She teases him often, and i appreciate it. Plus...she's kinda gorgeous, honestly.
Regina Argine!!;
Me and her got off on the wrong foot. She treated bots, her own Duke included, as mere tools, to be molded perfectly into whatever was requested of them. However, upon almost losing Duke and meeting Yuuta, she learned. She had basically mentally abused Duke, and she can't un do. She can however, grow and try to make amends. She is now highly favored amongst the team, and no longer has this strong sense of entitlement. Most importantly, her past is no longer hurting her. And she's had such an impressive change, honestly. Duke cares about her immensely, and now? I do too.
Verdict:9/10. She's adorable, and now i absolutely adore her whenever i see her. She's just a delight to have around, honestly.
Azuki Tomonaga!!;
Yuuta's older sister!(who i just learned is 16) despite being the eldest, she doesn't behave as though she has the authority. Timid, a bit flighty, and incredibly sweet, Azuki is honestly just a cinnamon roll. I adores her the second i saw her, and i want whats best for her. She's essentially considered Shadowmaru's best friend (though my boy wanted to go to the pound, we all know what i mean), and although doesn't get many opportunities, shes a surprising emotional support, and a wonderful caretaker.
Verdict:9/10. An absolute bun! She'd absolutely make a nice, cinnamon cake for her neighbors, just because. Take her home, she'd just absolutely love to cook for you and your folks.
Kurumi Tomonaga!!;
The second eldest of the Tomonaga family! Shes adorable, albiet a bit abrasive and gossipy. Towards the end, she was considered friends of Shadowmaru, along with her sister, but honestly? She...kinda doesn't do much in this series. We wouldn't lose much having her leave, but i liked her personality, and shes pretty relatable.
Verdict:7/10. She...didn't really do anything in the series, plot wise. She was more of an extra. She worked, but really, she wasn't that important of a character.
Eva Farhzeug!!;
I know i said i wasn't going to include every villian. But i AM including her, mainly because i like the whole 'some other force was in control of shit getting messed up, and is now controlling everyone in a giant ass ship, and is a mixture of hot and creepy ' trope. I found her interesting, and honestly? Led to an ending that i didn't expect. She had a good villian motivation, was visually appealing, and had quite the surprising tie to the plot. I mean, the mother of all robotics??? No way you could've seen that coming in the first watch.
Verdict:8/10. She was good plot wise, but not an overwhelming character. I just wanted to point out that i liked the role she played. Don't take her home. Bitch is NUTS.
Emily, Kikjmaro, and Masaki!!(right to left;
These three are essentially labeled as Yuuta'd and Power joe's best friends. Id give them their own spots, but honestly? They're almost always together anyway. Emily is essentially kinda spoiled and whiney, and honestly? An itty bitty bitch. But shes cute, and she cares. Sometimes. Kikjamaro is the smart guy, basically, acting as the more level headed and reasonable of the group. Masaki is the dumbass. He's got anger issues, and is prone to being pretty fucking annoying. This group by themselves are honestly useless. But i fucking LOVE them when they're with Power joe. They think hes the shit, and hes DAMN right.
Verdict:7/10. This is PURELY because we have one thing in common. They love Power joe. Unless Power joe is with them, id kick them out tbh.
#reasons i like#bpjd#yuuta#saejima#toudou#seina#ayako#regina#azuki#karumi#eva#Yuuta's friends#reviews
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Fantasy & Science
Sometimes I feel like I say this word too much in regards to video-games and RPG’s general. Immersion. For good reason though. It’s the same reason that the fantasy genre is popular. Why people enjoy role-playing games. Why the anti-hero trope is so liked. I certainly won’t stake a claim on the extent of how prominent these elements are, but there’s a commonality among them all. It’s probably not surprising to most, but bear with me, it all compounds to a big point.
Batman, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, Dungeon and Dragons, Stranger Things, Star Wars, and Marvel Superheroes, all touch upon this (to varying degrees). Immersion. A story and its characters are like a sales-pitch. You can’t sell anyone on these without incorporating aspects people can relate to. Things that seem real or plausible. Steel, horses, castles, dinosaurs and mythologies. Our very real history as a species has included these things. Of course time has revealed certain truths about them, but nonetheless these are things that have had a very real influence on us. Thus in the theater of our mind, we have plenty of reference material with which to paint the fantastical. Medieval fantasy becomes an easier pill to swallow, as one mixes what’s known with the unknown, to create a setting that the consumer can get lost in; a new universe to which they can escape, and become enthralled. The same goes for simply modern settings, such as the likes of superheroes. Our own real-world setting should obviously be the one we can relate to the most. These settings are all very well-defined.
Enough about the setting though, what about the people inside it? Human beings are self-interested, which isn’t to say this is a morally good or bad feature of the human condition, just that it is the reality. We seek to further our own desires in some form or fashion, which in turns creates conflict. Against others, our environment, or even ourselves. Real-world history is once again the greatest indicator, both in our personal lives and on the world-wide scale. Betrayal, violence, scheming, passion, triumph, moral quandaries — doesn’t matter the culture or the times, everyone understands these concepts. What’s more is that people change. They grow. They’re molded by conflict. Well written characters develop like real people. Because of it, we can relate to them. We have either seen those traits in our ourselves or in others; the same struggles or temptations. Not many folks buy into stories where it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Conflict is a part of real life, and more often than we’d like, it doesn’t go our way. From a theatrical perspective, this just makes the story all the better when the conflict does finally go the way you wish. Victory is measured by the difficulty of its obstacles.
Now we’re to my main point. Immersion is the frame of reference that we use to measure how believable fantasy universe is. So now we introduce the fantastical: Magic, Mutants, The Force, Death Lasers, Robots, ect. Some settings do it better than others. For me though, there is nothing more irritating than when something extraordinary happens, and for its narrative rational to be total garbage. “It’s magic, who cares,” is the answer I’ve found way too many times. Or on the other hand, its “future technology, they found a way” — but when inquiring on the specifics, you’re left without a satisfying answer. To which I say that’s a copout. It’s lazy writing. Don’t get me wrong, I realize magic won’t be completely rationalized. At some point there’s going to be a breakdown where you can’t realistically define magic because it isn’t real (far as I know at least). Even if a story’s supernatural elements are not well-defined, this doesn’t automatically mean can’t be highly entertaining. But there’s a balance. There’s due effort. The setting and the characters can make up for this in how relatable, or immersive they act, that they can sell us on the supernatural. That point when the acting is so on-point, that we as the audience are forced to accept the fantastical elements of their world. It’s like hiding something in the small print of a contract. If the audience finds a character’s behavior relatable, or rationally realistic, then you’ve also accepted the reasons they act this way. Ergo, the fantastical and extraordinary.
Needless to say at this point, I think if one wishes to write a great story, then they need to incorporate immersive aspects in all three regards; setting, characters and the supernatural. This is where the Science part of the title comes into play. It lends to the credibility of the supernatural if you can approach it scientifically. Give it repeatable, testable observations. Too often (often in anime, for example) you get a character with some vaguely defined supernatural ability. The writers end up just tacking on new features as the story progresses, and despite any contrived story attempts, it's clear they're just doing it because it ‘seem cool’ or might make for a visually compelling scene. They build their story around events, instead of characters, which creates a sort of paradox. As stated already, conflict arises when a desire is acted upon. Characters in a story make events. They generate the conflict. If one starts with the conflict, then tries to build the character around it, you run the risk of forcing that character to commit to actions that otherwise don’t seem very characteristic of them. This pitfall then spoils immersion for the audience. It’s not as engaging. There’s a disconnect. It forces the consumer to mentally take a step back and re-analyze; in those brief moments of synaptic activity we realize that something doesn’t add up.
I find this phenomena is especially relevant in contexts where the audience is a character. Primarily I’m talking about video-games. In an interactive environment, where the audience is given free rein to explore and get lost in the immersive aspects of a make-believe world, if one doesn’t substantiate the supernatural aspects of their setting, you’re going run into same issues. Perhaps more accurately I should say, your audience is going to run into an issue you allowed, because they’ve been given that freedom to explore. This detracts from the immersive experience, once more forcing the consumer to mentally take a step back as they try to rationalize the situation, but falling short of that, retreat to the reality that is they are simply playing a video-game. It spoils the interactive magic of considering what those fantastical events might really be like.
So all that to say in my own long-winded way: incorporating science in fantasy makes for an excellent story. For my own settings, I spend more pain staking hours than I care to admit, just researching, but when I see it done by others I’m obliged to squee and enjoy a well-rounded story like many of the examples I gave at the beginning.
Agree, disagree?
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Weathering With You (text version)
Video version here: https://youtu.be/yPHPCMmel9E
This is not a word-for-word transcription, I made some changes o the fly going from script to video.
Your Name is one of my favorite movies of all time and I give it a completely serious 11 out of 10. All the parts work together to create something beautiful. Compared to that, Weathering With You was doomed to only be okay regardless of its qualities, but how is it anyway? This movie is only just coming out outside Japan, so I’ll try to not spoil anything that couldn’t be seen in the trailers, but I am going to express some strong opinions about the general themes and plot of the movie, so if you don’t want a biased perspective before you see the film yourself, don’t watch this review, because I’m speaking from the perspective of a fan of Shinkai’s movies and will be discussing open spoilers about some of his other filmography for this review. If all you want is a number, skip to this timestamp:
So what did I think about Weathering With You? Beautiful weather is one of Shinkai’s strong suits, so having a plot reason to show lots of rain and then dramatically clearing skies was right up his alley artistically. I don’t know of anyone better to visually capture that aspect of the story. There’s not as many scenes in nature as his other movies have, being mostly cityscapes, but there are a lot of very beautifully-rendered cityscapes and locations.This might sound strange, but I think this is one of the movies larger problems: Shinkai makes everything look too pretty. There are some locations in this movie that are not supposed to look inviting. Weather is sometimes supposed to be threatening in this movie ]but it rarely looks anything but pretty. The scenes that are supposed to be beautiful and positive are when the sun comes out, and for these the beauty of the scenes works very well. But flooding is hard to take seriously when the water is beautiful and crystal-clear. Real flooding is dirty and full of debris, not beautiful Shinkai-weather.
The second main problem, and the one I feared the most from the trailer, is constant conflict with authorities. Everyone after the main characters is boring and cheap drama that serves only to kick the plot further down the road. There is no agency when the protagonists HAVE to run away, because they know something the authorities don’t so there’s no chance to talk things out. I do not like this in stories in general, and there were many other conflicts that could have brought the plot to a head that would have told us a lot more about the characters and made me care more about them. The chases and fights in this movie didn’t really make me feel anything.
The best scene in Kiki’s Delivery Service is one that doesn’t happen. When she first arrives in the city, Kiki has a run-in with a police officer. A different movie would have had him reappear to chase her down repeatedly though the film. This would have sucked.
The movie has two main themes, weather and characters having to deal with the consequences of choices. Both of these are effective at points of the film, but are not particularly consistent throughout. I think for both of these themes, my issues with them come down to balancing the different sides of those themes. To focus on one example of that balance, I have a question that I don’t know the answer to: Does Shinkai really like firearms? This is the third of his films to have realistic weaponry in it, (the others being The Place Promised in our Early Days and Children Who Chase Lost Voices) and when I saw the handgun in the Weathering With You trailer my reaction was “Why?” The other two movies have serious military operations going down, this one is not as effectively dark as it wants to be. It has serious scenes, especially the ones where the handgun makes an appearance, but they did not feel in tune with the rest of the movie. Rather than having close ties to the characters or to Hina’s sunshine powers, the dark scenes are like the handgun. They show up in the story and it feels weird that they are there, they are unnatural and manufactured. You could remove the gun, or any of the side characters or authority figures, and it would not change the central narrative about a teenage love story and girl who can make the sun break through the clouds one bit. I think out of all of Shinkai’s catalogue of films, this movie relationship between fun scenes and serious scenes the worst, and it ruined a lot of the investment serious scenes would have had for me, because there is no relationship between the two types of scenes.
So that may seem like an aimless mess of a movie with just plot and no fun, so here are some positives to end this review. There is a good movie, or at least good scenes and characters, hiding under my issues with it. But the issues are what comes to my mind first above any of the positive qualities
The music is good. I wrote this before seeing the movie, because I had already heard some of the soundtrack. Since seeing Your Name, I have become a fan of Radwimps, and heard several of the tracks from Weathering With You before I knew they were for the movie. A couple other artists had good vocal tracks in this movie as well. Unfortunately this is probably the reason that the dub does not redub all the songs like was done in Your Name. Radwimps can perform in English, but the only song they perform in English in the dub is in the end credits. Most people won’t care about this at all or won’t even care about the dub in the first place, but I really appreciate when dubs redub music well. Don’t get me wrong, the songs were still good, and this is a very minor complaint as part of a positive quality.
The montage or more upbeat scenes during the songs were also good. Just like in Your Name, these scenes were well paced and fun and the characters got be interact in likable ways. There was no blow-the-doors-off good dramatic music moment like with Sparkle in Your Name, but that’s comparing to one of my favorite scenes ever so it’s not really saying anything. The fun, upbeat parts of the movie overall were probably the best, with the characters at their most likable.And of course the movie is beautiful. I had some issues with its beauty I talked about earlier, but it is really beautiful and might be worth seeing in theaters to some people just for that alone. Shinkai makes designs for the big screen and many areas are packed with details you might not even see on a TV screen.
Did I in the end like this movie? Yeah. Did I love it though? Absolutely not. I think you should decide for yourself if you want to see it, I have been pretty negative about it in this review, but it wasn’t terrible and has some strong points, they were just outweighed by my issues with it.[score] I’d give this a 6.5 out of 10. That’s on a personal scale where I will rate something a 2 if it sucks, not a weighted scale where 6 out of 10 is the lowest of the low. It might be Shinkai’s second-best movie, albeit without much competition for that mark, but I would probably still put Children Who Chase Lost Voices above it. But defending that movie is an argument for another day.
But wait! I still have a few extra meta-textual thoughts about this movie to talk about now, so there’s still some review left. While I did talk about Your Name some before, I was trying to judge this movie on what it presents on its own, but there’s more to the movie than that, and it might even be more interesting than the actual movie.I saw this movie in an early-viewing screening with an interview with Makoto Shinkai about the film after the credits. He had a couple interesting things to say and clarified a couple things about the film. The abnormal rain is climate change and it will affect our everyday lives, but I’m not sure what the intended message is if the only way we have to fight it is one magic girl. I don’t think that’s an angle to take literally.
The more interesting thing he had to say is that while Your Name was a success and broke the mold of what types of anime could be widely successful as a movie, but you also can’t just keep making the same new successful movie either.A lot of his movies have been about destroying something revered, and I think in a was Weathering With You is as well. In The Place Promised in Our Early Days, the titular tower is this mysterious beacon that almost gains a reverence from the characters, and at the end it has to be destroyed. Shinkai had remarks specifically about Studio Ghibli’s style which is somewhat appropriate as Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a repudiation of many things associated with the Ghibli style. It may look like a Ghibli film, but at points it feels like its directly attacking them, with fantasy creatures being gunned down with modern weaponry and a narrative ultimately mired in a long history of violence and death. Weathering With You, in line with Shinkai’s comment on not being able to just make Your Name forever, seems to directly contrast it at many points. The weather and nature is not given such reverence, obviously, but the movie also tries, sometimes more successfully than others, to show a different depiction of Tokyo as well. There are no glamor shots of the city, and the characters are runaways, hack writers and others people on the margins of society rather than normal people experiencing the glamor and mystique that Tokyo has in Your Name.This reading doesn’t make the movie by itself any better or worse, but it is an interesting reading of some of Shinkai’s catalogue.
One last thing that I’ll call a spoiler but does not affect the plot at all, but if you don’t want anything specific spoiled, just stop this last bit of the video now. Some of the cast of Your Name make cameos in Weathering With You. Seeing them again is the best part of the movie. However, they are not well-done cameos. The teacher in Mitsuha’s school in Your Name was a main character in Garden Of Words. She does not get excessive screen time or emphasis, it’s a true cameo. In Weathering With You, the camera loves Taki and Mitsuha and knows the audience wants to see them. I did love seeing them, but they did not deserve emphasis in the scenes they were in. This didn’t matter to my opinion of the movie overall, but they were in retrospect weird scenes, and it might make the movie a little worse overall to try to be different from Your Name while at the same time giving the fans more of it.
And that is all. If you never saw Your Name and were considering watching Weathering With You, holy cow watch Your Name it is the reason most people even care about Shinkai as a director.But anyway, (Like, comment, subscribe!) Am I a heathen who’s opinion is invalid because I like dubs? Did I miss an essential message of the movie? Tell me. And of course, have a nice day without constant torrential rains.
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