After the Credits

“Wait,” I whispered. “What?”

The secret scene after a Marvel movie. Familiar enough. I take you, then, to the theater I recently shared with a few dozen others watching X-Men: Days of Future Past (perfect, highly recommend). And more specifically, I take you to the end-credits scene, and to the comic book-born figure who was finally getting his close-up on the big screen. However, for the moment, his presence was lost on us. So I bring you to another familiar thought related to Marvel end-credits scenes: Who is this guy?

I had a wavering suspicion, but I wasn’t confident enough to say it out loud.

“Who is that?” my sister leaned over and asked.

“He seems too skinny,” I whispered feverishly to myself before panicking with a louder-than-preferred, “I don’t know!” 

“We’ll google it,” she resolved, quiet purpose in her voice.

I inwardly groaned and chastised myself for my ignorance. But my small whine of failure was nothing compared to the woman at the back of the theater.

“AUGH!” she screamed. And I do mean screamed. “WHY DON’T I KNOW HIS NAME! WHY DON’T I KNOW HIS NAME!”

The struggle is real.

By the way, though I can hardly take credit for it since I lacked the moral strength to own my conviction, my original suspicion of the character’s identity was correct thanks goodbye

This is one of the reasons I adore Marvel movies so much. The right kind of people go to see them. The ratio of people who are desperate to see these movies to people who come along begrudgingly is far weightier on the side of the first, and certainly far better than many other movies I see in the theaters. You can hear the passion in the crowd – everyone either loves the Marvel cinematic universe, the comics universe, or both. Either way, there is a lot of passion packed into that crowd.

I find that the comic book fans tend to accompany the cinematic fans. It makes the experience more interactive. They always sit together, and you can tell which is which, because at any given moment, the two are looking at each other like this:

It’s not only this way with Marvel movies, but with nearly any well-done (or otherwise) book-to-movie adaption. When you know how the story is vs. how it ought to be, it’s hard to keep quiet.

And after the credits roll, specifically with Marvel’s deliciously ambiguous after-credit scenes, everyone turns to the reader to interpret. Not always so much because they’re confused, but because the reader is having a fit in the aisles, waving their arms, going,

Whether the adaption was done well or not, a reader is always a mess after a movie.

Exhibit A: Did you see the internet after the first installment of the Hobbit came out? People were rioting in the [virtual] streets.

Exhibit B: What about after Catching Fire? Parades. Balloons.

Exhibit C: Percy Jackson. (You just started weeping, didn’t you?)

I read Hunger Games before I saw it, so I have that reader’s perspective – and yet I am baffled to no end about how angry people are that Madge was left out. This minor character, who had her name mentioned maybe three and a half times, became the freaking Mockingjay to the readers’ cause.

See, when someone loves something, and someone else comes along and rearranges it, it’s not hard to understand that there would be emotional upset. I think what irks us the most, though, is that it becomes canon. Obviously, it doesn’t change original, proper canon, but in this grand, cinematic universe, we have to accept something other than what is familiar.

And that’s not fair. Every feeling rebels against that sort of change, and rightfully so.

This passion for the story, whether fury over a change, or outright joy over a film’s faithfulness, is what makes readers such an adventure to catch a movie with. Alternately, the reader will always need someone less involved in the story to explain things to. It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship that everyone should experience.

10/10, highly recommend.

I suppose all this is to say that when a reader invites you to go see The Fault in Our Stars this week, say yes.

They need you.

Language Tutoring

I don’t speak sports.

I feel so un-worldly when I’m reminded of this.

Whenever the people around me start speaking fluent sports, and I have to be the stereotypical girl going, “Sorry, could you say that slower?”

The recentish Superbowl and currently-unfolding Olympics are good examples. At the Superbowl, I casually rooted for the Seahawks and was casually delighted when they grinded the Broncos into a pulp, but I can’t say I watched any more than ten seconds of the game at a time.

(Actually, I think I speak for a couple other people out there when I say the only reasons I tuned in for Superbowl Sunday were the Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Tom Hiddleston In A Helicopter Drinking Tea Superbowl trailers.)

“A stiff upper lip is key.”

With the Olympics, my response is rather similar. I mean, of course I’m watching events and rooting for the USA.

(I’m not a terrorist)

The whole concept of the Olympics is magnificent, and nobody really disagrees with said fact (cough*terrorists*cough). But I do wish I got more pumped about the whole spectacle – I think it comes to down to an altogether lack of plot.

But some people, as I’m sure you’ve noticed if you know a few of what we call homo sapiens, really, really like sports. Everyone has an area of expertise as far as conversation goes, and a certain sports and/or sports is a very common one.

Take pastors, for example. They, like everyone, have their own areas of expertise. I had one several years ago who liked to throw up clips from Men in Black and Lord of the Rings when he thought it helped his point, and even if it didn’t exactly, I always enjoyed those Sunday mornings.

However, a different pastor, a guest speaker at my church a couple weeks ago, is one of those sports fans we’ve heard so much about, and half of his sermon was a football analogy. I tracked, but I was pretty grumbly about the whole ordeal, mentally griping at him about his connecting with a few people at the cost of alienating others (And obviously, this whole “church” institution is for me alone, so he should clean up his act).

And then I realized something truly horrific.

This. This is what people must feel like when I make a fandom reference.

That, my friend, is a serious problem.

I don’t worry about that on here, of course, if you can’t stand my subject choice, you can feel free to close the web page anytime you please – but in real life, I have indeed been annoying in this way before.

Shocker, isn’t it.

At least pastors don’t hunt me down, open a conversation with an obscure football reference and then proceed to tell me to at least try football because “OHMYGOSH it’s so good, it’s got these really complex players, and you never know what’s going to happen next, and when you start to love it you can come to my house and we’ll have a football marathon, eat football-themed foods, tell each other football-themed pick-up lines, and we’ll collectively try to convert more and more people to our cult fanbase!”

It’s like looking into a terrible football-flavored mirror.

See now, I say that football is the opposite of things I understand.

But I think I understand the people who love it way more than I ever meant to.

I once shared an airplane flight with a kid who adored golf, and when he found out the in-flight entertainment was free viewing of the golf channel, he was ecstatic. I remember trying my darnedest to detect hints of sarcasm.

I mean, excited about golf? Excited about watching golf? He even mumbled, as he set up his iPad to watch the channel, “it’s kind of the only reason I would watch TV.”

Oh, cool, I thought, there goes hours of my best conversation fodder.

Which makes me sad.

What I do speak, I speak rather well. However, as a friend of the family put it best,

“… my second language is just speaking louder.”

You don’t want to talk about my favorite pieces of story-telling? Um, then *ahem* DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY FAIR LADY? OR WOULD YOU RATHER HEAR ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION HEY COME BACK

I have found myself being a jerk about a lot of things that other people love, but I never cease to be frustrated and hurt when people are jerks about what I love.

That’s a little bit backward.

For those predispositions to even out, I need to change one.

I don’t know if any of you share this cross with me, but if not, that’s okay – this has mainly been a stern slap across the wrist for myself.

I need to learn a couple other languages.

“It’s a Three-[Episode] Problem.”

Today in America, Sherlock season three, episode two, airs officially for the first time.

Today in the UK, or for everyone who has successfully tricked their computers into thinking it is the UK, it’s just another day in the new age of Sherlock hiatus.

Nine episodes from 2010 to 2014…

And welcome back to the waiting room, everybody.

Anyhow, due to the unpredictable nature of the internet and its inhabitants, if you have not properly watched the whole series yet, chances are you’ve at least had some element of it spoiled for you.

If you have not, simply continue reading and I promise that you will.

(That was a warning to the spoiler-shy. Be gone with you.)

I’m not trying to run a review blog here (for lots of reasons), but I need to talk about these episodes. I can’t not talk about these episodes. However, after several years of knowing myself, I’m aware that my tendency to wax eloquent (some pretty words for “never shut up until banned from all forms communication”) will force any conversation of mine about Sherlock into the space of novels, rather than chapters.

To be fair, there’s just too much to talk about – the Moriarty-Mind-Asylum, Sherlock’s even-more-of-a-jerk-than-usual bit, Molly’s serious over-correction after getting over Sherlock (meat dagger?), Mycroft’s unrealistic weight loss expectations…

Anyway, to take it all down a bit for post form, I’ve decided to condense each Sherlock season three episode into a study on one sentence, then two, then three.

Because that’s how many episodes there are.

Just three.

(weeps quietly)

The Empty Hearse:

• So we actually never find out how he did it?

Fine, we got the most credible solution at the end – but not from the mouth of Sherlock so much as from the Sherlock-flavored mind of a severely cray-cray Anderson. Rude. I think Sherlock, of all people, would be able to disregard John’s little “I don’t care how you did it” speech (speak for yourself) and tell him anyway.

No artist can resist signing his work.

The Sign of Three:

• Choosing Sherlock as the best man is simultaneously the best and worst decision John has ever made.

I would pay good money to have someone (Sherlock) flip over the reception table mid-speech, go “Let’s play MURDER,” and then proceed to solve the crime of the uncomfortably tight mandated belts.

It’s also worth mentioning that this episode made me irrationally afraid of ever wearing my own belts ever again.

• TELL ME ABOUT THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.

I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS MORE THAN I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUDAPEST, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE

His Last Vow:

• Magnussen made me want to sanitize everything I own.

Fantastic villain.

And by fantastic, I mean, utterly disgusting. However, a good friend of mine did critique the episode by saying she felt like she didn’t hate Magnussen enough.

I pretended to understand.

I don’t understand.

(And yes, I really should have that on a t-shirt)

• Oh sweet mother of pearl, Mary Watson, what the heck.

Surprise, everyone. I know that a lot of us were suspicious when Sherlock deduced her to be a liar in episode 1 (along with a number of other things identified by the Sherlock-vision floating deductions), but I definitely saw no words reading “crazy-pants assassin” flying around her pretty face.

• And in answer to the episode’s final question,

I present to you a short text-message exchange between a friend and I.