i really like that smoke and stack’s love interests parallel them. like you can tell ryan coogler thought long and hard abt who and what the women smoke and stack would love would be like, and that care is so deeply felt in every scene the couples share.
like,,, annie is no-nonsense but soft, sweet and loving while never mincing words. she doesn’t let smoke get away with his bullshit but also loves him so deeply that they come back together like no time has passed. like these two kiss with their eyes open- you can see their intimacy, their love, in the way annie meets smoke’s gaze head on without a hint of intimidation, only deep and cultivated understanding, and in the way he crumbles, shows his fear, but only when she’s there to see it. she’s a tough lady, and her love is a balm. she’s the kind of person smoke needs, the kind of person that would see him for who he is and what he’s done, because she loves him.
mary, meanwhile, is hot-headed and vivacious, blunt without care but so passionate in her convictions. she doesn’t let stack get away with bullshit, either, but where annie meets smoke’s head on with a level head, mary matches stack’s fury. turns it into an argument, a “who can go lower?” that he meets every time, while also deeply aching for stack, and only stack. she’s a tough lady, and her walls mirror stack’s so he doesn’t see just how deep her affections for him go. because he left her. because he hurt her, and even after 7 years, she couldn’t get over it, because she loves him.
i think the biggest difference between the couples, for me, is that annie tells smoke to let her go, and because he loves her, because she asked him to, he does. their love is steady, a safe place to come back to, home.
stack tells mary to let him go, and instead of giving him that, mary takes him down with her. their love is aching, animalistic, selfish.
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
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