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beerok23 · 5 months

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D: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens? M: Yeah, well, we became friends and we would, you know, whenever he was in town, we would meet up. And then eventually he started. He said, you know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens. I remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. D: Were you involved at that point? M: No, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day. D: Right.

M: And then Terry Gilliam came along and that was the day they were talking about that or whatever. And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of, like, the first episode of Good Omens. And he said, we started talking about me being involved in doing it. He said, 'Would you be interested?' I was like, 'Yeah, of course I would. Oh, my God.' And he said, 'Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come.' And I would read them and we talk about them a little bit. So I sort of was involved. But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do. And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, 'I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this'. But I just felt like, I don't think I can play Crowley. D: Of course you could play Crowley. M: Well, just on a sort of - on a gut level, you know, sometimes you have on a gut level, you go - D: Sure, sure. M: I can do this. D: Yeah. M: Or I can't do this. M: And I just thought, you know what? This is not the part for me. The other part is better for me. I think. I think I can do that. I don't think I could do that. But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, well, he wants me to play Crowley. And then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well, and he hadn't wanted to mention it to me. But he was like, 'I think Michael should really play Aziraphale'. And neither of us would bring it up. And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, 'Oh, thank God you said that. Oh, I feel exactly the same way'. D: Yeah. M: And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, 'I think we've got David Tennant for Crowley.' D: *Chuckles* M: And we both got very excited about that. And then all these extraordinary people started to joining up. And then off we went. D: The other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, oh, yeah, I phoned up Francis McDormand. She's up for it. Yeah. And you're 'What-Wait-What?' M: I emailed John Hamm. D: Yeah. M: And you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognize that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff. D: Yes. M: And had never been turned into anything. D: Yeah. M: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, oh, they better not fuck this up and this better be good. And I have that part of me, but then, of course, the other part of me is like, but I'm the one who might be fucking it up. So I feel that responsibility as well.

D: But we have Neil on site. M: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner - D: Yeah. M: I think it takes a massive difference. You feel like you're in safe hands. D: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet. M: No, I know. D: But it's been a joy to work with you on it. M: Oh, my goodness. D: I can't wait for the world to see it. M: Well, I mean, I've done a few things where there are two people. It's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon some more, and The Queen, I suppose in some ways, and I've done - Amadeus or whatever. This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as my character or my performance as that character. I think of it totally as us, the two of us. D: Yes! M: What I do is defined by what you do. That was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this. And the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy. D: Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

M: You know. Having talked about T. S. Elliott earlier, there's another bit from The Waste Land where there's a line which goes, "These fragments I have shored against my ruin". And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard. It can take you down at any point. You have to find this stuff. You have to find things that will. These fragments that you hold yourself, they become like a life raft. And especially as time goes on. I think as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between being surviving this life and going under and the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you. And what's meaningful to you will be not meaningful to someone else. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid. Doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them and find some way to hold them close to you. Make it go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are, like doing that with him or whatever it is. These are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely. D: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much. M: Thank you. D: For talking today and for being here. M: It's a pleasure. D: Thank you.

This podcast is so underrated. I heard it tonight for the first time, and it blew my mind. The episode was published back in April 2019 (recorded after a photoshoot for Good Omens season 1). Listen to these babies, starting to knowing and respecting each other *_* Of course, Michael Sheen was probably the greatest fan of Neil and Good Omens out there, but the joy and the excitement was already there to feel, from both of them!

And Michael saying "The Two of Us" 4 years before July 2023... My heart - just - can't.

#good omens #good omens 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #neil gaiman #my heart #a group of the two of us #the two of us #david tennant podcast #ineffable idiots #my edit

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waitmyturtles · 2 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: KinnPorsche, and Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist Edition (Part 1)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, in a two-part series, I offer my thoughts on KinnPorsche, my very first Thai BL, and the impact that I think KP has had on the Thai BL industry since 2022.]

Hot damn! It has been a MINUTE since my last OGMMTVC review, so I'm glad to be back. I've been very much looking forward to writing my thoughts about my recent KinnPorsche rewatch: I enjoyed this ENTIRE process, especially in regards to watching KinnPorsche in the context and chronology of past Thai BLs, and man, did I ever see KP WAYYYYY differently than the first time I watched it.

Why's that? Welp -- *KinnPorsche was my first-ever Thai BL*. (Not my first BL drama ever; that award goes to the GOAT, Kinou Nani Tabeta?/What Did You Eat Yesterday?)

But when I joined Tumblr officially in July 2022, just about a year and a half ago (in the heat of passionately obsessing over Old Fashion Cupcake), my dash was awash, AWASH, in KP posts. AWASH.

I had no idea what the fuck the algorithm was telling me.

I went into KinnPorsche knowing absolutely NOTHING about Thai BL tropes, the history of the genre, the actors in the roles, what made KP so innovative by way of its storyline, NADA. Dudes -- I'm half-Malaysian, and I had never even watched a show from the Southeast Asian region, let alone Thailand, and I was unaware of how prolific the Thai drama industry was (at least compared to the Korean drama machine).

When I first watched KinnPorsche, my perspective was that I had watched a pretty good show, and I was left surprised back then in particular by the No Homophobia Bubble (well, almost no homophobia, Big) that I now know is so much more common in Thai BLs than I realized.

It was through KinnPorsche that I discovered Thai BLs, and it was subsequently through Bad Buddy that I realized that I NEEDED to understand the development of this national genre -- so back to the history annals I went, through my OGMMTVC project, starting from 2014's Love Sick, and here we are at this moment of the timeline, the hot hot late spring and summer of 2022, enjoying the ✨vibbbeeezz✨ between Mile Phakphum and Apo Nattawin, and leaving me wondering why there was a national shirt button shortage in the midst of a Thai mafia crime drama. I'm glad I have history on my side now as I think about KinnPorsche as a standalone drama, and as I also think about the impact it has had on the Thai BL genre and fandoms prior to its premiere, up to today's moment in time.

I took my time to draft this piece partly because I was busy watching Be On Cloud's second and latest serial drama in Dead Friend Forever. I think BOC is doing something very interesting by way of their acting and contracted scripting choices, which I want to ponder by way of the context and aftermath of KP's airing. As such, while I had intended to write just one post about KP, I have a bunch of thoughts that'll spill over to tomorrow. So here we go, a quick overall outline for the lovers for today and tomorrow on my ruminating thoughts:

1) My critical thoughts on KinnPorsche as a standalone drama in the context of the history of previous Thai BLs, 2) My thoughts on how new arrivals to the wider Thai BL fandom shaped the perception of KP vis à vis older Thai BLs, 3) How I think KP has impacted how other studios approach, market, and write Thai BLs now, and 4) A quick passing thought on BOC's own continued influence on the Thai BL genre and industry since 2022, particularly by way of Dead Friend Forever.

I'm going to concentrate on numbers 1 and 2 in this piece, and they're actually going to be a touch conflated, because I want to lean into a now-obvious fact that the BL Elder community knew all along about KP when it first aired in 2022: there was not much that was new about what KinnPorsche was doing. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, as I’ll get into below.)

When I was a newbie on Tumblr, and the algorithm was feeding my dash, I remember seeing posts about how Be On Cloud, the studio behind KP, was doing things differently than the rest of the Thai BL field -- I recall posts about the studio hiring the best acting coaches, how the cinematography was nothing like what we had seen in other shows, and how Be On Cloud was committed to creating safe environments for its actors, particularly Apo Nattawin, who had reportedly faced discrimination in his past acting career, reportedly leading him to leave the Thai drama industry for a number of years.

While some very early Thai BL studios were known to not have the safest or friendliest environments (the filming of What The Duck comes to mind by way of this lore), by the time of KP's airing, GMMTV had strongly established itself as the leader of Thai BL productions, and other players, including New Siwaj and Cheewin Thanamin, had produced quite the number of dramas under each of their respective studio outfits. The industry, by 2020 and 2021, when KP was in its development origins, wasn't new anymore. Acting coaches, such as Aof Noppharnach, were now also regularly writing, directing, and producing original shows, and major BL studios had introduced workshopping as a regular step to production. On the artistic end, studios and writers had established expected artistic tropes -- 2018's Love By Chance is the first example that comes to my mind of when the Thai BL genre crystallized in a structurally derivative piece of art by way of containing and using prior trope references and dynamics.

Be On Cloud, in picking up the KinnPorsche script from Filmania during the pandemic (I use these posts here and here for my non-primary sources of KP lore) clearly knew it had something innovative on its hands by way of producing the genre's first mafia-based BL romance.

But 2020's Manner of Death had already introduced crime and mystery to BL, and 2021's Not Me continued a multi-genre perspective somewhat successfully around romance. And regarding sex and heat: KinnPorsche didn't do that first, either. MaxTul brought it first in 2017's Together With Me, and MAME has owned this corner since 2018's Love By Chance and 2019's TharnType. (Props to MaxTul for being in both Together With Me and Manner of Death; MileApo owe those dudes some beers.) By way of cinematography, which KP does extremely well: we had already begun seeing prestige cinematography in 2020's I Told Sunset About You, and 2021's I Promised You The Moon and A Tale of Thousand Stars.

It was natural, I think, for much of the KP fandom to think that KP was innovative in a lot of these categories, because, like me -- KP was our first-ever Thai BL. By way of money clearly spent on the show, the directorial purview of the show, the utterly gorgeous cinematography (man, that nighttime pull-away shot when the guys are in the roof pool, oof, why couldn't I find a gif), a new fan might think, geez, this has never been done before! But it had, and not just in Thailand, but for years prior in Japan, and more recently in Korea.

This is ALL not to say that KinnPorsche “suffered” because of what I'm uncovering by way of KP's misunderstood innovation. I think a perception of KP being entirely “new” in the BL field has contributed to its lore and enduring influential status. On this rewatch, I appreciated the mafia-based storyline as a support system to the central KinnPorsche romance. Yok being centered as an important mentor to Porsche, played by the inimitable Sprite Patteerat, was refreshing to see. Porsche accepting his bisexuality, especially with Yok's support, without the typical BL head-spinning queer revelation, was a welcome element to the show. And, frankly -- I had, on my first watch, missed, of course, the clear references to Thai BLs of the past in this show, references that I really loved seeing this time around.

From the old school, we got Kob Songsit, the OG BL dad, no longer Tong's dad in the seminal movie, The Love of Siam, nor Dean's dad in Until We Meet Again. This BL veteran is now a damn dad don, weapons and all.

We've also got Na Naphat, who played important side characters in IPYTM and UWMA. We have former BL lead guys in Jeff Satur and Perth Nakhun. We've got guitars and singing, we have underwater smooching, we have a cute-cute first date. We arguably have questionable kabedon in Kinn's and Porsche's first intimate moments. We have cooking for your lover, we have feeding your lover, we have the towel-drying of the hair. KP, by 2022, keeps up with Idol Factory's Secret Crush On You in prominently featuring a femme-presenting side character in Tankhun, PHENOMENALLY ACTED by Tong Thanayut, who we had seen previously in TharnType.

KP was, in part, directed by Pepzi Banchorn, who served as an assistant director on 2019's Dark Blue Kiss and 2021-22's Bad Buddy, and had a quick guest spot in 2022's The Warp Effect. KP was also, in part, directed by Khom Kongkiat, who played Uncle Tong in Bad Buddy, and subsequently directed The Promise in 2023. AND, finally, one of the KP screenwriters is Bee Pongsate, who has co-written so much flippin' BL: Last Twilight, Bad Buddy, Dangerous Romance (😬), Vice Versa, My School President, A Tale of Thousand Stars, 2gether and Still 2gether, and that's not even scratching the list -- you get it.

KP's supporting cast and crew was simply stacked with BL vets, who clearly knew the scene, and who helped to support Mile Phakphum's rookie acting and Apo Nattawin's return to the screen. I'd posit that this group of people knew EXACTLY what references they were putting into KinnPorsche, from actors to tropes, and also knew when, where, and how to innovate around those references to still make this show unique.

Certainly, KP's approach to sex and heat -- by way of Kinn's and Porsche's first drunken encounters (hi again, MaxTul), the uncut intimate scenes between them, and Vegas's and Pete's union by way of, well, semi-torture and/or kink -- was bold enough to be overall quite notable. But again: Thai BLs had been pushing that envelope for years past, and it has continued to do so in shows like MAME's Love In the Air and GMMTV's Only Friends.

In other words: after this rewatch, with the history of the older Thai BLs I've watched under my belt, I don't see KinnPorsche as firstly innovative. But I appreciate the show differently now, in particular for how very obvious it worked to include past Thai BL references in its production, and I actually gained a different appreciation for it.

I also want to made a quick tangential note about Apo and Tong specifically by way of innovation. Dr. Thomas Baudinette, a long-time BL fan and academic researcher on Thai and Japanese queer media, notes in his book, Boys Love Media in Thailand, that an ideal trajectory for a Thai BL actor is to debut in BLs in order to transition to more popular primetime het Thai dramas, as Gulf Kanuwat of TharnType, and Ohm Thitiwat and Kao Noppakao of UWMA and Lovely Writer, respectively, are notably doing at the moment. Apo Nattawin did this the other way around: he had established his career in het lakorns, most notably in 2015’s major hit drama, Sut Khaen Saen Rak, and subsequently left the Thai drama industry after reportedly being discriminated against for his skin tone and fashion choices. And his way back to the industry was through BLs. Taking the lore of Mile Phakphum recruiting Apo for KP out of the picture for a moment: I think this indicates a shift in how BLs are increasingly perceived in Thailand, and even globally, as being a career-worthy genre of content on its own for actors. (Apo's exploding fashion career is proof of this.) And BOC has now recruited another lakorn vet in Jes Jespipat for its third upcoming drama, 4 Minutes.

As well, Tong Thanayut’s very public coming out after the conclusion of KP’s airing is notable for how Be On Cloud has continued to center Tong in its productions after that fact, most notably in 2023’s film, Man Suang, while other out BL actors are not as lucky by way of guaranteeing and attracting future work.

I have a lot more to say about KinnPorsche's and Be On Cloud's impact on the current Thai BL industry, and how I think that impact has affected the marketing and creation of more recent shows like 2023's Only Friends, and 2023-24's Playboyy. But this first post has gotten long, and I actually haven't written much about the actual show itself, HA. So let me say this:

I think it's notable that the first shows that played around with themes outside of romance, like 2020's Manner of Death, and 2021's Not Me, were not perfect shows. We see now how multi-genre BLs are just exploding, what with Dead Friend Forever and the upcoming slew of vampire BLs that are going to drop (and let's not forget the first omegaverse BL drama in Pit Babe -- or should we forget it, I dunno). Not all of these shows are perfect, but the genre has only been around for a decade. There's a lot of time, and a tremendous amount of interest and funding, that upcoming shows can leverage to become better, especially these multi-genre shows that we're seeing more of.

KinnPorsche as well, was not a perfect show. I have some thoughts particularly on VegasPete to offer tomorrow, and I think, overall, that KP could have easily been a shorter series with more impact.

But I'll still give the show some of its flowers, because I think, unlike MoD and Not Me, that KinnPorsche did a better job of centering the Kinn and Porsche romance for dramatic effect, particularly by leveraging comedy. Were there many moments of hibbly-jibblies? Oh, totally. Dudes, also, Kinn fucking forgot about Pete! Pete coming back to the house and reminiscing about Vegas while holding his neck? Eeeeyikes, no thanx. There were a number of these weird bumps that I think could be explained by way of intentional camp (which I think KP did pretty well), but I do believe the show could have been tighter with more editing.

But, I gotta admit: I had a great time re-watching KP. That says something. Was it the heat that tiddled my dopamine cycles? Probably, somewhat. (No shame in my game.) Or -- a more reasonable theory, ha, is that Apo, as a veteran actor, demonstrated more range than I originally remembered. He can really do comedy well, and he timed his comedy perfectly for the absurdities that peppered KP through the series (the bread crawl, the constant throwing of hands, the jumping-on-Kinn when the ghost of Pete showed up, oh shit we're in the forest now, etc). Apo and Tong, in particular, stayed true to the bit many times during the show, and I think the series benefitted greatly from their collective comedic talent and timing -- which I thought was nicely refreshing for the genre.

With that, I'll have more ruminating tomorrow about the show itself, about how I think the impact that KP and BOC have had on the genre after KP's airing, and other thoughts about the cultural moment that KP demarcated when it aired -- see you tomorrow!

[MORE MORE MORE KP tomorrow! And I'll have more thoughts about the watchlist then. But for now, here's the classic OGMMTVC list for you to chew on!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist

...interrupting the OGMMTVC list here to watch War of Y (2022) (watching) in chronology to decide if it gets listed...

37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 44) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 45) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 46) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 47) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 48) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 49) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 50) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 51) 23.5 (tag here) (2024)]

#kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #be on cloud #mileapo #mile phakphum #apo nattawin #kinn x porsche #porsche x kinn #tong thanayut #bible sumettikul #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai bls #turtles catches up with the essential bls #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #pond krisda #dead friend forever #kinnporsche meta #kinnporsche the series meta

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dduane · 11 months

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I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, given the previous thing about different ways people write, but I just wanted to tell you because I'm so excited: I finished the first draft of that script! I actually finished a writing thing for the first time in over a decade! I've never attempted to write a script before, and now I've finished my first first draft. My friend said that's a big deal, and it makes writing other scripts much easier when you finish your first. Is that what you've found?

Oh apparently I have a few more questions, sorry: The first time you finished a project, and you knew you were on literally the last few paragraphs or scene, or what have you, how did that feel for you? And when you were done, did you initially love writing, or did you debate ever writing again? Did you start working on something right away, or did you break for a little bit?

Sorry, I'm just so excited and proud of myself right now, and wondering what feelings might come next. I haven't been this proud of myself in I don't know how long. I mean, I know I have to finalize it, and even still, I know I'll never be able to get it made. However, for right now, I'm proud of myself! I'll probably go back to being sad I'll never get it made tomorrow though, which sucks, but it's a good night right now!

I hope you're doing well today! Sorry for the bombardment of questions.

First of all: congratulations! You've got every right to be excited. Screenwriting isn't easy or simple even at the best of times. Doing it well requires that you write in ways that can seem really counterintuitive when compared to working in prose. And it's always, ALWAYS a big deal when by completing something you break a long creative dry spell. So GOOD ON YOU! You got the job done. :)

(And now, of course, comes rewrite. The brain—yours, or someone else's—always has notes. But I'm sure you knew that.)

While I know how it is to be relieved on finishing a first script, my weird work history makes me kind of an outlier when it comes to discussing this. I went with unexpected speed from "I'm Just A First-Time Novelist, What Do I Know?" to "I'm Just A First-Time Screenwriter, What Do—WAIT WHAT??". Because the man who was soon to be my story editor on Scooby and Scrappy-Doo walked in the door one evening, having just read The Door Into Fire, and said, "Would you be interested in writing cartoons?"

It was kind of a surprising career development, but I quickly learned at that point in my life that when the Universe turns up on your doorstep with the Moon on a silver platter, you don't tell it to try next door: you say "Wait right there and I'll get a knife and fork." In the space of a given month of being walked around Hanna-Barbera for the first time, I turned in my first animation script... and then sagged in my chair on getting the phone call when my story editors told me, "That's a strong start. Now we have some notes." And all I could do was collapse with relief that I had not fucked it up.

However, this situation also left me in no position where I'd be able to debate ever writing a screenplay again... because suddenly there were a couple of very intent guys telling me "Okay, new story premise coming over to you, we need the outline by next Thursday and the script the Thursday after, you okay with that?"

(Are you kidding me? I thought. Let me get the knife and fork!)

So as I said, I'm really an outlier in this regard. The next three years of my life pretty much went as above, as Tom Swale and Duane Poole (great Thoth rest both their gentle souls) took me with them from one show to another, and kept me busy. (Thereby financing the writing of So You Want To Be A Wizard and The Wounded Sky and assorted other work.) But there's no question that each time you finish a script, each time you type FADE TO BLACK, you feel better about the whole enterprise. It doesn't precisely get easier. But it gets more familiar. And that helps. (If I have to be locked in a haunted house, I'd sooner it was one I'd played in when I was a kid than one I'd never been inside before...)

Anyway, again: congratulations. But also: Do not be too sure you'll never have it made. ...Granting you that "made" can look a lot of different ways in different times and places, and can shift under your feet without warning. But the world that depends on scripts can do very, very weird and unusual things without warning. Best to do your homework and be ready for them... and know where the knife and fork are.

Also, a side note: As you do more of this work you may well find that finishing a script leaves you with more energy, not less. I think this may be a lot more normal than we routinely allow ourselves to believe. It makes sense to me, from the psych-nurse end of things, that successful completion of a project allows the release of a lot of energy that you've been holding in reserve to help you cope if something went horribly wrong with the piece of work you just finished. Me, when I've felt that rush, I do a thing that C. J. Cherryh taught me: immediately roll another sheet of paper into the typewriter. ...Though these days, it'd be "open a new file." You don't necessarily have to do anything with that blank page or screen if you don't want to. But it's wise to be ready.

In any case: all the good luck to you (because sheer blind luck plays its part in this business, no matter how much we wish all our hard work counted for more)! ...And let us know how you get on.

#writing #process

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artist-issues · 1 month

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Raya and the Last Dragon popped into my head today and I kept thinking about how the incredibly unsubtle and poorly executed message of trusting others felt like a first draft.

What do you think about it? Would a revised script with the same story premise fix that film? Or was it doomed from the get go in what it was trying to say?

Good question! I go back and forth. I think the movie's biggest weak point was its writing, so I guess I'd say, "a revised script with the same story premise would fix it!"

There's nothing wrong at all with a message like "Without trust, we can't stand together." Because it's very true. Everyone has priorities, and there's always a chance they'll choose themselves over you, or over the "greater good." But if you keep trying to take control of the situation by believing the worst about them before it happens, you'll be exhausted & jaded, they'll be exhausted & jaded, and all your time and energy will be spent on competing with each other for the grand prize of "who can look out for their own interests better."

I think Raya and the Last Dragon's premise works for a truth like that. It makes total sense to have a girl who's competitive become jaded and control-freaky when her father, the symbol of the virtue of trust & good faith, is murdered by betrayal. And not just any betrayal, but betrayal from someone she directly tried to befriend and trust as a sort of "first experience" with that good faith her dad was always talking about. Makes total sense. And it's impactful; something that traumatic and personal would cause a relatable character flaw that the heroine needs drastic measures to overcome.

I actually love the concept of Sisu too. I like the idea that she's this pure, selfless soul who's got childlike faith—but, all the jaded people in a post-apocalyptic world respect and consider her worldview because she's a revered dragon. So she really does change minds just by being around them, just by coming back and existing in the first place. I mean, if she had been just a sheltered girl from, say, a different country, who came into the broken Kumandra with stars in her eyes, the bad guys wouldn't have thought twice about whatever she exemplified. But she's a dragon.

And step back and think about it: having a group of characters from every walk of life come together as a mini-experiment in trust and unity during the course of the adventure is a great idea. It's not flashy or original, but it's classic and true. Avatar the Last Airbender has a crew of characters from each tribe combining to defeat evil. When Kenai has a prejudice against bears in Brother Bear, how is that character flaw solved? Not just by him turning into one, but by him having to travel with and get to know one.

What they get to know is that they all have something in common: they've all lost people to the great evil in the world. And, they all want the same things, despite cultural differences. They all want their families back, they all want safety and success.

So yeah, the pieces are all there. The problem is, the writing was just super clunky. Theres a lot of telling, when it comes to the story, instead of showing. There's not no showing. There's just not enough.

I know this is already a long post, but I'll just point out: Aladdin's message had a lot to do with trust, too. But no character ever said out loud, "you have trust issues and you need to work through them." Certainly not more than once. The closest you get is Genie telling Aladdin to be himself.

Instead, you're just shown that Jasmine is the type of girl to give an apple to a hungry kid without even thinking about whether or not the shopkeeper wouldn't want her to do it. She's the type of girl who plays along with a scrubby boy from the marketplace trying to help her. She's the kind of girl who goes out with a Prince even though she has reason to believe he's already lying to her. She just does those things, and never says, "hey, why did you lie to me--you have trust issues!"

Meanwhile Aladdin's whole story is him bending over backwards to control what everyone thinks of him, because he can't trust them to accept him as he is. But he never says, "Trust gets me hurt." He just says, "if Jasmine knew I was really some crummy street-rat, she'd laugh at me."

Those sentences that the characters say are well-written because they are realistic. Only in our modern psycho-babble Instagram-influencer culture, where everyone thinks they're an expert on the human psyche, are teenagers starting to say things like "My trauma causes me to struggle with trust."

What Aladdin says is much more immediate, much more down-to-earth than that. It shows where his brain is in that moment. He's not thinking about the general philosophy of truth and trust. He's just thinking about what he should or shouldn't say on his date, and how scary the idea of getting laughed at is. We, the audience, are smart enough to infer that it's all rooted in trust issues. We don't need Genie to deliver a speech six times to make it abundantly clear.

I'm capable of identifying that as the problem, but I'm not great at doing it, myself. I know the language, I'm not great at speaking it. But actually I'm going to punt this part of the question over to @doverstar , who is very skilled at "show, don't tell," especially in dialogue. How would you re-write that scene where Sisu is trying to convince Raya of the importance of trust?

One final thing that I think handicaps Raya and the Last Dragon is that, because of the way they're written, the characters lose likability. Theres a way to have a traumatized, defensive girl who thinks she knows everything still be likable. Just like there was a way to have a selfish, insecure liar be likable in Aladdin.

I think there are other issues—I'd have completely written out the baby and the monkeys, and I'd have cut the fight sequences between two teenage girls way shorter because nobody cares about them. But that can be for another post.

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c0s-lettuce · 1 year

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insurmountable - loki x reader

non-specific gender, loki s1e4 setting

a/n: had this in my drafts for a long time and finally decided just to get it done. anyway, can you tell i'm excited for season two? enjoy ;)

word count: 863

This sucks. There's no doubt about it. Loki knelt on the floor, head hung in defeat. A memory prison. He wondered which sadistic member of the TVA came up with this.

Loki couldn't spend much more time here, that he knew for sure. An honest confession to Sif only spared him the physical assault. The script didn't change. The same dagger was used each time.

"You deserve to be alone, and you always will be."

Footsteps approach again. Loki braces himself for another round, not even bothering to get back up.

But then something happens, something he would have never anticipated.

"Loki?" your voice sounds out from the entryway.

His head shoots up. Bleary eyes focus on you.

He's positioned in the middle of the courtyard. He's on his knees and frankly looks a mess.

As you approach him, you notice his face. It's almost unreadable; a mix of confusion, sadness and... relief?

"Are you alright?" You crouch down in front of him.

He grabs onto your shoulders as if checking you were real. You're slightly taken aback by the gesture.

"How are you here?" he asks, clearly shocked.

"Uh, I was just on my way back from my lesson with your mother," you say.

Of course. Early on Asgard, you had shown "magical potential", granting you lessons with the all-mother herself.

This was before everything. Before the kiss, before the heartbreak, before the death. You were still a fresh face around the palace.

You continue, "Then I heard Sif yelling, which usually means something bad. And you're on the floor, which is also not good."

Loki's thoughts are running a hundred miles an hour. He looks down and exhales deeply.

"I'm a terrible person," he tells you.

Surprised at his sudden confession, you ask, "What made you arrive at that conclusion?"

He looks up at you, "I cut Sif's hair. I thought it would be funny."

"Oh, I see," you say, "...Did you apologise?"

"I tried, though it didn't help much."

"Apologies can be worth a lot. Give her some time to cool down. Besides, your mother's probably got some spell to grow back hair, right?"

He looks away again.

"Maybe," he shrugs.

"Hey, it's okay, everyone does stupid stuff," you tell him, "All you can do now is work on making it better."

Loki looks back up at you; you're as beautiful as ever. He feels too ashamed to look at you for long. He exhales again, rubbing his eyes.

"You seem really tired," you say.

Loki lets out a dry laugh, "You have no idea."

You take hold of his hands and help him stand up.

"C'mon," you say, "It's late. We should both go to bed."

Though Loki wishes he could sleep, he can't leave. He tried about two or three memories ago. The courtyard loops back into itself. The TVA must be really proud of themselves.

"I just need a little more air," he tells you instead, "You go on ahead."

"Are you sure?" you ask.

"Yeah, I'll be alright," he assures you.

"Okay," you say, "See you tomorrow then."

"I'll count the minutes," he replies.

You smile before heading off.

Loki falters. They'll be minutes he won't have. You'll disappear across the courtyard, possibly forever. And Sif will return like clockwork with her fiery rage.

"Wait," he calls out before you've made it too far, "I need you to know something."

You turn back around, "What is it?"

I love you. That's what Loki wants to say. I'll love you until every star in the multiverse dies. But he can't. Not to you. Not now.

So instead, he tells you, "I know we haven't known each other for all that long. But I want you to know, you mean a lot to me."

You react surprised, but not negatively. And Loki feels relieved to see that.

"Oh, thanks. It's nice of you to say that," you smile.

You take a moment to look away and think of something else to say.

When you do, you look back and say, "I'm glad we're friends, Loki."

He smiles back. And the two of you stand there for a little while. It seems both of you have more to say, but words don't come to fruition.

He longs for every second, though every second hurts more and more. It's a pain he would endure if it meant just a little more time.

But he knows.

"Goodnight," you finally say.

He knows he has to let you go.

So he responds, "Goodnight, love."

The pet name slips out, of course, from years of habit. But he catches you smiling a little more after hearing it.

You were still you, even though this never happened. Even though you weren't really there.

Everything was so much easier during this time. But if only it were real. If only this was an opportunity to restart and fix all the mistakes ingrained in Loki's past.

But it's not. A bust in the system, perhaps. Or someone took pity. Or maybe divine intervention decided to gift this moment with you.

➸

Either way, it happened. So he takes his time watching you walk away. Insurmountable. Perfect.

You.

#loki #loki imagine #marvel #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki layfeyson x reader #marvel x reader #mcu #mcu x reader #mcu imagine #marvel imagine #loki x you #disney #disney+

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smalltendencies · 7 months

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Currently working on a TSP thing where the Narrator is an author who has drafts and scripts scattered all over his home. He works so hard and is proud of each one. They will be published one day, but he has a fear that they won't be recieved like they should.

But unknown to the Narrator, there is a borrower (Stanley or an unnamed borrower... Idk yet) who loves these stories written by the human they see only in glances. They are about scenarios and places they can only dream of. And so every night, when the bean is asleep, they go and read these before they go to sleep themselves; sometimes accidentally being so absorbed in the words they don't stop until the telltale signs the Narrator has woken up causes them to flee.

The borrower is a little shit though (like Stanley lol) and will use whatever writing utensil they have (a piece of lead, some homemade borrower pen with calligraphy ink they borrowed, ANYTHING) to annotate and mark up the pages. A paragraph about why they loved this scene. Underlining their favorite quote. Just showing that someone looks at these endless pages when they will probably not be published for years.

Of course, they don't stop there. Little bastard tendencies makes them also mark out words they hate. Little notes about how they would make the scene BETTER. Why this paragraph doesn't fit with the rest of the narrative. Anything that comes to mind.

While these papers and packets are strewn all over the house on different tables and desks, the Narrator has some uncanny ability to find them the next day. And he is so so confused as to why there is small writing (that he needs a magnifying glass to even see) pops up every night. Is there a ghost? An intruder? Who knows. But they clearly don't know good writing.

Don't get him wrong, he relishes in the happy comments. He enjoys the praise and love in the notes that give him more of an ego boost. But he LOATHES the markouts, the red ink that says he did it WRONG.

Sometimes the borrower can hear the Narrator rant through the walls.

"I don't need the validation of a person who won't tell me their absurd opinions face-to-face!"

"Don't waste my time if you don't even understand the character's motivations!"

"Maybe before writing all over my work, you should sit and think about how this description helps the readers understanding considering the protagonists choice in this moral dilemma."

"This is 'out of character'?! Clearly you have no critical thinking skills whatsoever!"

"Why are you doodling on MY art?!"

The Narrator is just ranting. He doesn't think the mysterious entity can actually hear him. As he slowly deciphers each comment (because that handwriting is chicken scratch and its so small), he will complain, rant, or thank the writer and explain why he chose to do what he did.

The borrower gets bold, and will write above their previous (now marked out) comments. Little snide comments to get under the Narrators skin just for fun. Because all of this is just to make both of their boring lives interesting. He never expected the Narrator to take in a BORROWER'S thoughts. (They have little written fights on sticky notes that last DAYS) Both of them can't wait to hear from the other.

It's not breaking the code as long as they don't get caught, right?

They do get caught. A prank laid out by the Narrator that involves some clear super glue on copied pages (that are also glued to the table Jesus Christ he committed to the bit if he was willing to hurt hardwood) with a note that says something along the lines of "If you know my work so well, why not stick around and tell me that to my face?" What was supposed to be a small inconvenience and joke for a person ends up being near life threatening for a borrower.

And the Narrator finds them the next day stuck and they are scared. More like terrified. This whole friendship they built is crumbled automatically because now the borrower is so scared and the Narrator doesn't know what to do about this whole situation.

#g/t #tsp g/t #tspud g/t #me rambling #there is no vore in this one #the stanley parables #the narrator #borrower stanley #borrowers au #g/t community #unintentional fearplay

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thefirsthogokage · 8 months

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More call outs on bullshit the AMPTP is saying they have all the risk and the people who work on their productions don't.

This has been in my drafts for apparently like a month and a half and I have no idea why I didn't just post this before. Anywho, sorry, my bad.

[Image ID: a tweet thread from Geoff Thorne's (@wintermanbooks) from July 23rd, 2023, that reads:

When I agreed to come on as showrunner for Black Panther's Quest, I was presented with an NDA that precluded me or my reps from telling anyone what I was doing or who for, for the duration. this took a 2-year bite out of my career & ghosted me in the eyes of potential employers.

When I was done with that job, my live-action career was AGGRESSIVELY stalled because, as more than one potential employer told me, "I thought you'd left the business." That 1 job (nominated for 2 IMAGE awards, BTW) nearly ended my career. Talk to me about risk again. #WGAStrong

CODA.

Even though I was the showrunner & head writer on that show, because it was an animation gig, guess what I get in residuals for that near career-killer?

That's right, zero dollars. No, risk?

Go and entirely fuck yourselves, you money-shuffling posers.

(Link to tweets: one - two - three)

/End ID]

[Image ID: A tweet thread by Matt Altman (@mattaltman2) from July 23rd, 2023 (that I had a real hard time getting to because Twitter is bullshit or him deleting it? Or he went private? Probably the glitching) that reads in its entirety:

I optioned a script and did 23 rewrites and a bunch of polishes for free so we could get a director attached and then they’d activate the one paid rewrite. I barely (with the help of friends) paid rent for months. But we don’t take risks. Oh yeah— that happened more than once

I “sold” my first script, got an announcement in Deadline, had meetings about the rewrite, and waited over a year and a half for the lawyers… only for the company to declare bankruptcy and never get paid. But no risk. I’ve done untold hours of free development… but no risk.

Optioned a feature script with rewrite. They brought me in for another rewrite, but were shocked when my reps billed for the optional step. They expected free pass. Fired me, hired a big writer to rewrite my original spec for 7 figures. My step would’ve cost 25k. But no risk

(Link to tweets: one - two - three)

/End ID]

#wga strike #wga strong #sag aftra strike #sag aftra strong #fuck amptp

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rh3maji · 4 months

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Anime Dubs My Beloved

Dubs are at the intersection of both technical and artistic skill and that's left me in awe for the past year and a half sooo lemme just kinda gush about this medium[?], for a sec I grew up watching anime [sub & dub] and for the longest time I didn't have a clue about how dubs got made beyond "words must fit lip movements" and "actors record separately", never in a million years would've thought sight-reading was a part of it! So imagine being in a booth ye? You got your script monitor and another monitor displaying the animated stuffs you'll be dubbing over. You've never seen the script until this moment and you've likely never even seen the footage before either. The director sets the scene for you so you have the needed context and of course a script writer writes with the flaps in mind, but at the end of the day it's on you to get the timing right, the performance right, the believability right [with or without other ppl's dialogue recorded depending on when your session was relative to your fellow castmates], and you're juggling all of this all while not getting to rehearse the scene beforehand. Maybe I'm just nerding out here, but to me being able to do that's really heckin cool! Finding out that most of the directors and script adapters are also VAs themselves has also been fun. I'd just be sitting there watchin' AoT, absolutely demolishing some hot wings, glance at the credits ,and go : "Script Writer Aaron Dismuke? ...wait he wha" [This discovery would singlehandedly send me spiraling down a dub-shaped rabbit hole I have yet to crawl my way out of] But while I think I know a lot more than I did as a kid, there's still so much about the process that I definitely don't know about yet. That ignorance is a lil frustrating tbh because i'd love to know more about the translation, audio engineering, directorial, and audio mixing parts of the operation ~FOR SCIENCE!~ And by "FOR SCIENCE!" I mean for my own peace of mind, and by "for my own peace of mind" I mean so that I could write about the process more confidently and accurately. This interest in the whole shebang is also why you might see me geek out abt or draw ppl who've adapted/voiced in my favorite shows at some point, the art stuff's sort of a side-effect of when I get way too invested in a subject~ Even in dubs where the script is kinda meh or I dislike a character's voice or a VA's delivery, I can still enjoy most of them on a technical level. Thankfully, dubs these days are pretty good on both fronts so I've been eatin' good ^^ Also PS; I am begging on my hands and knees to get a good look at an anime dub script, not even one for an actual existing property, I legit just wanna know the formatting of one. PS PS; I can tell from blurry snippets of Funimation/Crunchyroll bts stuffs that it looks like a spreadsheet with timecodes and a few different colored cells but no clue of what the values are. PS PS PS; I eventually found one well after writing this draft [courtesy of @thereubeh on twitter]

https://x.com/thereubeh/status/1667561334010179584?s=20

Brilliant.

#i'm just here for the free food.#english dubs #anime dubs #i am cringe but i am free

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mlobsters · 6 months

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supernatural s11e17 red meat (w. robert berens, andrew dabb)

have a vague idea this episode is gonna be difficult to watch, didn't have the emotional fortitude to watch it last night

well, sam getting shot in the cold open sure would do it.

DEAN All right, well, we make a call and we put somebody on it. SAM Yeah, but... [He sighs, closes his laptop and looks at Dean]. We'll get him back. DEAN How? SAM I... I don't know. But we'll figure it out.

i feel like an asshole but i'm like, are we talking about cas? dunno what other dude he'd be distraught over. maybe it's my total lack of emotional connection with the character but i'm just very ???? literally whatever i'm expecting they're feeling about him, i'm always wrong. broken record on that.

s11e17 / s8e23

reminded of that little smile dean gave sam when he was wrapping his hand in the church. and it reminds me of being with my mom when she was dying in the hospital. we're gonna smile and be so positive and softer than we normally would, but also try to keep it light. (i'm not sure i have the emotional fortitude for this tonight either)

not quite sure i'll ever have it to watch sam die like this. this is awful. trying to talk myself into just finishing so i don't end up crying for an extended period of time today and another day.

BILLIE It's cute, though. You pretending you're trying to save Sam for the greater good, when we both know you're doing it for you. You can't lose him.

just saw this line in an edit recently and thought it was attributed to Death, no wonder i didn't remember it.

DEAN I'm asking you... I'm begging you, please. Bring him back. Bring him back and take me instead. BILLIE I'm not here to bargain with you, kid. I'm here to reap you. And the kicker is... Sam's not dead.

here's where i'm never happy with anything. despite the unhinged love and commitment of it all, this all is really veering into emotional torture porn for me. how can we make it the worst. and then a little worse on top of that. except instead of making me irritated, i'm just more sad and want it to be over. maybe this is one i won't be able to appreciate until i have some distance.

DEAN Michelle, this is gonna be very hard. But you will be okay. And, eventually... eventually you'll get back to normal. MICHELLE No, I won't. They said I could leave an hour ago. But... where am I even supposed to go? After everything we survived together... I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that.

not sure what this pointed zoom into dean making the sad puppy face is about. we know he can't be normal when sam dies, he knows it too?? does he remember that year with lisa and ben? and now he has the threat of not only losing sam, that sam won't be waiting for him in heaven or anywhere else if he does die.

well, fortunately we have the production draft of the script linked in the wiki for this one so actually can get answer

so i mean.. ok. both watched their husbands die is what we're saying

DEAN So, that's it, huh? Two quarts O-neg, and you're good to go.

i thought we were treating abdominal gunshot wounds like the serious emergency they are but i guess not

SAM Hey, so, what did you do? When you thought I was dead? What did you do? DEAN Thought about redecorating your room [Sam chuckles], you know, putting in a Jacuzzi, a nice disco ball... really class up the joint. SAM Right, seriously. DEAN What, I, uh... I knew you weren't dead. SAM Right. DEAN I knew.

so i mean. sam not buying that, clearly. wonder if dean ever tells him

should remember to check for a script next time i have wonderings about what they're trying to convey with their faces (went to check if they had 11x11 because i was curious about that whole pining line, but wiki doesn't have one linked)

tonal shift after the like.. heavy focus on sam (mostly) dying very... graphic in swimming around in the pain and slow death and almost-murder of it all and then we're having dean kill himself (briefly) to try to take sam's place with no consideration of repercussions, to hey dude we saved (and tried to kill sam) is a werewolf and he changed and he's gonna punch through this cop's chest cavity in a pretty silly manner. so no moral quandary killing him either, look at that. weird. anyway, the woman who played michelle was really good in those emotional scenes

i'm wiped out.

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 11x17 #robert berens #andrew dabb

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wordsbyparker · 9 months

Note

Oh boy have I been waiting to ask some questions.

Will the welp have a love interest? (You knew this question was coming)

Any facts or hc you have for the welp?

Will we be referred to as “the welp” for the whole series or will it change?

Will the welp shift or transform in the series and if yes do you know when?

How long do you plan the series to be?

How long does it take for you to complete a video from a draft script to posting the whole video?

Advice for a beginner writer? (Me)

Fun facts about any and all characters?

Thank you for the time.

My apologies for keeping you waiting, then! 😊 These are good questions! I’ll address them one at a time.

Will the welp have a love interest? (You knew this question was coming) No comment. You’ll have to wait and see. Maybe, maybe not. (And yes, I did know that question was coming. 😊)

Any facts or hc you have for the welp? I’ve tried to make them as generic as possible, so folks can come up with their own versions. 😊 We do know they are a visual artist. Sketching helps them process things, which is why Judith or the others find them working on drawings.

Will we be referred to as “the welp” for the whole series or will it change? Yes, the listener character will be called The Whelp for the majority of the series. That might change, I’m not sure yet. Aside from being a gender-neutral nickname, it is used as a term of endearment for the listener by the Carson pack. They are new to being a werewolf, and they have a lot to learn.

Will the welp shift or transform in the series and if yes do you know when? Yes! Their first shift is coming up, but we have a few more episodes to go, and more to learn, before we get there. 😊

How long do you plan the series to be? The current outline is 20 episodes. (It was 12, then some other characters showed up and the story itself got longer, and here we are.)

How long does it take for you to complete a video from a draft script to posting the whole video? It depends, but on average about 2 to 3 months.

Advice for a beginner writer? (Me) Congratulations! Welcome to the insanity! 😊 My advice, from a storytelling perspective:

Write in different formats and genres and see which one you feel more drawn to. Each medium is a different way to tell a story, and you may find that you like writing prose (like novels or short stories) more than you like poetry. You might find it easier to tell a story in a script format than another format. Play and learn what works for you and what you like to write. And you don’t have to stick to “just one” format or genre.

Read, watch, and/or listen. I say that because I know writers who don’t like to read but are amazing storytellers. You can learn a lot about telling a story from watching a movie, playing a video game with narratives, and listening to an audio RP or drama.

Remember that your first draft is so you can get the story out onto the page. The subsequent drafts are for revising and cleaning up. So many times we get caught up in “the first draft needs to be good”. No it doesn’t. The first draft is just the beginning. 😊

Fun facts about any and all characters? Oh, wow. So many. 😊 Where should I start….

Tyler was a very thoughtful little boy. He had this look on his face when he was processing something, and sometimes there are hints of it now that he’s older.

Mason didn’t meet Tyler until they were college, even though his grandfather lived in Tierney’s woods, next to the Carson homestead. Mason didn’t grow up in Raven’s Landing, and Mr. Tierney never introduced him or his parents to the Carson pack when he would visit.

Judith is a research librarian. Her mate Oliver was a history professor. They had a shared love of history, which is how they because friends and study partners.

Maggie and Daniel have the “short girl, tall guy” dynamic; and he is the only person allowed to tease her about being short. She’ll giggle when he does it. She’ll verbally tear someone up if they do it.

Daniel has already planned out the next tattoo for his sleeve, one to represent his and Maggie’s first child (a boy). He’s working on a smaller bow and quiver so he can take the boy hunting when he gets older.

Tyler loves Maggie’s enchiladas, and she will often bring two trays of them to pack gatherings so that everyone gets to have some.

Scott is a big teddy bear, even though he can look intimidating. He used to (playfully) scare Tyler when he was younger. Not to be mean, but because he could. Scott also stepped in as a surrogate dad of sorts when Oliver died.

Gretchen loves to read. She has a favorite reading spot in the backyard at her parents’ house. Old bookstores are like treasure troves to her.

#words by parker #rhonda parker #adorkable author #voice actor #renegade's shadow #werewolves #answering questions #fun facts about characters

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popculturebuffet · 10 months

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It's Not The Years It's the Mileage: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Welcome back folks to "It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage", my long look at the Indiana Jones Franchise. And we've come, a bit belatedly thanks to my recent move throwing my schedule out of wack, to our penultimate chapter, what was until just a week ago the final film in the franchise.. and the one most fans like to ignore when their not shaking their fists at it..

So going into this one was a bit loaded to say the least. I thankfully still had mostly fresh eyes: i remembered this one a bit better thanks to having seen it theatrically with my dad and his friend Don, a really neat guy who really loved star wars and who we also saw the Star Wars Prequels with. As a teen.. I thought it was eh, but I also wasn't that invested in the franchise. So the question is as an adult who now genuinely loves this franchise after two great movies and a mess so far, how will Crystal Skull hit me now? The answer, as always is under the cut.

Saucer Men from Mars

Naturally Indy's 4 starts in the 90's. Last Crusade really felt like the end of the road: The Indy films were now a trilogy, Speilberg wanted to move on, and while Harrison Ford wasn't convinced that more coudln't happen, he also saw the writing on the wall. George Lucas though WANTED to keep it going and during the early 90's tried to convince both men to do a film: Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars

You know I thought Indiana Jones and the Monkey King was going to be the most bonkers draft to a potetial indy film I heard of on this journey. Given it involved human chess, cyborg nazis, and Sun Wukong, I had every reason to. But friends thanks to this article at den of geek , I can tell you.. saucer men is somehow WEIRDER.

So the film follows Indy as he tries to marry someone we just meet, has a wedding with every prevoius supporting character present including both of his exes, gets left at the alter , and then has drinks with Marion and Willie. Oh and it turns out his bride to be was called away to investigate A FLYING SAUCER.

Yeah... the film has Indy having to solve an ancient puzzle before invading aliens torch the earth. Oh and he also has to deal with cold war paranoia, the russians, and DEATH RAYS THAT MELT PLANES OUT OF THE SKY. Did.. did professor farnsworth write this? It also all apparently takes place in one small town which fits the astethic Lucas was going for but REALLY dosen't fit indy at all. indy is about globetrotting.. this is just

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Also Indy gets abducted in a drive in. Yeah this film really sounds more like an invasion film that Lucas just plopped indy into than an actual indy film.

SHOCKINGLY Speilberg wanted nothing to do with this: After doing Schinlders List he decided he was done with Blockbusters for a while, only returning to them for Minority Report and ironically, War of the Worlds, but both had a thinky sci fi undercurrent where as this is just stuff blowing up. As for harrison ford

So Lucas instead focused on the star wars prequels, and the matter was tabled for a while, though he kept having the film rewrote each time, piece by piece replacing itself. Eventually Speilberg and Ford wer ein just the right position Lucas needed...

And the film shockingly went off without a ton of hitches despite a near endless script cycle. a few cast subtstitions, some extra cgi and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull happened pretty easily.

And this might come as a shock given it's modern presentation, it certainly did to me.. but the film was WELL recevied at the time. Many a critic, including Roger Ebert, loved it, and it made money hand over fist. Fan response at it's most vitrolic was a resounding..

Not liking the hoakiness but not really getting the hate the star wars prequels got till later.

So the question is where do I fall in this debate? Is it okay or a true disaster? One that salted the earth so the franchise would never grow again?

Yeah honestly Crystal Skull is just.. mediocre. It's not OFFENSIVELY bad, but it feels like two legends half assing it. So because of this film being uniquely half assed and having such a rep, i'm going to break it down into diffrent parts than usual: The three biggest complaints people have with the film, Then what I thought about it beyond those. Of Ancient Aliens, Nuked Fridges and Mutt Williams: So yeah when you tend to hear complaints about the film, the three things that get brought up the most are the nuking of the fridge, using aliens, and Mutt Williams. So i'm going to go ahead and get out front of these. Nuking the Fridge: For those not as familiar, which I suspect is almost none of you but humor me, early in the film while fighting the russians, Indy accidently ends up in a nuclear test site and hides in a lead lined fridge to survivied, getting blown clean. He should be dead but isn't. And I... love this sequence. Is indy surviving this implausable? Entirely. Should he have been blown clear for this to at all work? Fuck no. But is it a beautifully shot, tense and fun sequence? Absolutely. The reveal of the manequins got me as a teen and as an adult, knowing the town was fake, I spoted how .. artifical it looked and loved the suspense as I waited for Indy to find out and even knowing how he'd survive this, the tension is awesome. IT's a classic indy ploy. And look this is a series where Shiva killed one antagonist and the Judeo Christian god killed the rest and let a knight live forever. It's okay to have a small bit of bollocks and frankly Indy's survived stuff that should kill him anyway, this is just the first time it was made painfully obvious he's indy-structable. I get not liking it, it is over the top.. but I fucking love it. The Aliens are more of a mixed bag. Now the alien itself we see.. is awesome: the way it arrives by having the skulls assembled with it slowly shifting into the statues, it's intimidating apperance, and the way it fries the big bad's brain in the same way she tortured Indy earlier, a look of contempt on it's face as if to say "You wanted our knowledge CHOKE ON IT". I also really don't have an issue WITH aliens being involved. Is it a tad more sci fi than fantasy? Yup. But honestly pulp adventure is the kind of genre you can take anywhere. While Scrooge McDuck mostly found lost cities he did visit the moon, aliens, and fantasy creatures, and Lucas made the right call in having the aliens be extra dimensional instead: instead of a ship it's more of a teleporter. It being aliens in itself isn't the problem The problem.. is the execution. Looking back on previous indy macguffins and forward to Archemedies Dial, each one has a reason why it exists: The Arc was made to hold the commandments and has the power of god because it's construction was ordained by him and it was hidden because no one should have this power. THe stones were in a place of worship before being pilfiried, fitting for a dieties power. And the grail was hidden because it could ONLY be used in that spot, similar to how in the arthurian stories, which I looked up, the grail had to be kept near the fisher king to heal his father. Here the aliens skulls are spread world wide, beam information into people, and summon the aliens themselves because...

I don't need to know WHY the arc can melt nazis or the stones can shoot lightning, but I need to know WHY the crystal skulls are what they are. You could say "to get the temple back".. but then WHY did they leave it there? Why were they worshipped? I'm fine with going with the flow and filling in the cracks myself if the storys good enough.. but the mystery here just isn't. Lucas and Speilberg REALLY coast on the idea "aliens isn't that neat", without building up the intrigue from before. The exposition here is just boring. It's just indy talking, saying really nothing, instead of building up a compelling mystery as to WHY these things are here and what the skulls ultimately mean. IT's the films fatal flaw: I often don't care about this adventure beyond Indy and his family... because the story dosen't seem to care. It's scattered around the world because "Well that's what these pictures do" instead of for intresting and well thoguht out reasons. If you want a globetrotting adventure.. you have to have a reason to trot the globe otherwise you just make me wish for the next set peice and that's NOT what these films should be. The non set peice stuff is there to build character, build the mystery and give us a second to calm down. It's just.. boring. Even temple for all it's issue iwth it's downtime scenes, didn't make me wish to turn the film off.

Finally we have Mutt who again is a mixed bag... but mostly a good one. For the first half of the film.. Mutt is actually a great character. He's a greaser sure, and the fact he says Daddy-O later physically hurts, but he's also shown as a troubled kid who has daddy issues, runs away from his problems and is passionate about what he does. He's indy himself, years younger, simply lacking his passion for discovery, somethign Mutt finds along the way allegedlys. And look.. as a person Shia Lebouf sucks. He truly sucks and he's an absuive monster. But I have to admit through gritted teeth he's a good actor, with Transformers being more bad direction and a script that called for him to SCREAM LOUDLY AT THINGS HAPPENING.. ALL THE THINGS ALL THE SCREAMING. He was a good choice for the part and plays off ford well. Sure the Tarzan thing was stupid, and Shia LeBouf was RIGHT to call it stupid no matter what Speilberg thought. No really Stephen took it personally and said "There's a time to speak and there's a time to shut up and eat"

Dude, oscar award winning film changing dude... sometimes ... it's okay to say something in a film you were in was bad TWO YEARS after it came out. Because it was. You admitted Temple of Doom was bad and should feel bad. How did this bother you?

Mutt isn't a terrible character the issue is more the film.. forgets to really finish his arc. He's mad at indy when he finds out even though he really.. shoudln't be? Indy had no idea he existed? , but this.. never gets resolved. He just accepts it because the movies over, picks up his hat and thankfully never puts it on. Mutt COULD have worked.. but the film just forgets to give a shit about him once his mom shows up and aliens are a comin. He's sadly wasted potetial and luckily the next film finds a way to make up for it with a whole new sidekick reminding indy of his past mistakes. Speaking of character

A Weakness of Character

In my Temple of Doom review I pointed out how it's lack of character arc was one of it's biggest weaknesses: By resetting indy to where he was before raiders, there was no where to really take him. Crystal Skull has the oppositie problem: Now set a few decades later, with an older Indy in a world he dosen't understand the film keeps him ... largely the same. We get some intresting seeds of a man out of time early on: The Goverment, originally indy's steadfast allies, are now in full red scare mode and instantly question Indy for simply having been friends with a traitor to the soviets without considering Indy didn't know, nearly costing him is job. He served in the army, worked hard, did all the things he thought were right.. and now he's getting spat on for stuff not his fault. So what does the film do with this?

Yeah after our hero leaves on his quest with Mutt and gets trailed by the KGB.. NOTHING comes of this. It has no impact on the plot. And that's the real issue... the movie brings up intresting character arcs for Indy and dosen't pay them off in any meaningful way. We get the knowledge he left Marion at the alter and has commitment issues.. and he uh marries her at the end and their married all the way to dial of destiny. That's it. He clamps down hard on wanting Mutt to go back to college and trying to be a dad.. and er.. he's a dad now I guess? The film starts up intresting ideas but can't finish a goddamn one. IT's what holds the film back: it STARTS really strong but then falls apart. Marion at least is awesome as ever and bringing her back was a top notch choice. Karen Allen is as good as ever, and feels like she's still fleshing Marion out and she plays off Indy and Mutt perfectly. My only regret is she really.. dosen't have much to do in the plot. She's held hostage, gets free, teams up with the rest of the heroes and.. really dosen't add anything. It's a far fall from last time. And that's the REAL problem with the crystal skull. Don't get me wrong, I get why the big three issues I tackled are such a big deal... but this is the subtle death that kills the film. Lucas and Speilberg and writer David Koepp, who wrote freaking Spider-Man and thus should knwo better, just didn't care to finish anything.

It's more apparent in the villians. Kate Blanchett is an awesome actress, as much as I didn't like Tar she does a phenominal job there and was amazing fun as Hela in Thor Ragnarok, but all she's given to be as Irina Spalko is a very sterotpical cold war russian bad guy. There's not substance to her and unlike with Toht there isn't any.. cold looming menace. It was much more personal with the Nazis and I fully respect Speilberg, after portraying them at their deadliest seriousness in schindlers list, for not using them again. This is personal to him for damn obvious reasons. But it was shown with Molla Ram he could make an intimdating villian outside the nazis. Here it's just a cartoon caracture. Irinia comes off like a bad 60's era iron man villian wanting to CRUSH AMERICA AND THE CAPTALISTS instead of the very real dread of a nation ran by dogma and under an unflinching uncaring leader, the stuff we deal with NOW with Russia as they continue to invade an inncoent country.

There's also Mac, Indy's friend who just loves money... and that's it. That's his character. He loves money and sold out to the reds to get it. He's a complete waste of breath and space and should've died int he prologue. I do not care fo rhim. There's also Ox. While John Rhys Davies tries his best... he's just diet Henry Sr. And that's not hyperbole: they wanted him to replace connery, he refused so we're just given this guy we're told is important who mostly goes around half brain dead till he gets his mind back at the end. Crystal Skull.. just has weak character. There was no care or depth put in. Even Thot as horrbile as he is had the thought of being a simple for just how purely monsterous the Nazi's were. Ther'es juts NOTHING here and it makes the film a slog. If your not going to finish any arc or give me a bad guy to actually want see taken down, why do I care?

Odds and Ends: So yeah ONCE AGAIN an Indy film does a racisim. You'd think after last Crusade reduced it to Sallah, who I begrudgingly accept at this point, they WOULDN'T go back to this well. You'd think 19 years later and after they already turned down one idea for the third Indy film for being too racist they wouldn't instead...

Yeah there's a weird martial arts cult of indegnious peoples depicted as savages. So .. THAT happened and i'm less lenient. Again they had 19 YEARS to learn this shit wasn't okay. Granted anyone familiar with episode 1 can tell Lucas really had learned nothing. But given Speilberg had done MULTIPLE films heavily tackling prejudice, slavery, and genocide at this point, you'd THINK he'd know better. YOU'D THINK. YOU'D. THINK. It's not as in your face as Temple but it's still very much beneath them. I have nothing but contempt for this choice and for them going with it and learning NOTHING about being culturally senstive after 19 years.

There's also a lot of CGI in this film. It wasn't intended and the practical effects, as before are good.. but the CGI here has aged like mayo topped with a fresh egg and dumped on the sidewalk and left in the hot unforgiving sun for 19 years. The Jungle Chase is paticuarlly bad: while they coudln't find a clear cut jungle to use, they'd of been better off.. doing somethign else. The actual stuntwork is good.

The Motorcycle Set piece is great and should feel great. And overall the goofy tone of the film is one I don't mind: I don't mind it being ab it more over the top outside of it's racist bullshit, and it's more over the top moments remind me of the good in temple of doom and help catapult me out of the dry rest of the film.

So overall.. Crystal Skull.. is

It has the potetial to be a good film, but dosen't care to actually use it. It's not a GOOD film.. but it's also just not bad enough for me to truly hate it. The good parts help keep it above that as does Karen Allen. It's a bad indiana jones film and a very bleh adventure film.. but it's just not this "RUINED THE FRANCHISE FOREVER" .. thing people desribe it as. If it was to you, I totally get it and could see that, but for me it's just a mediocre disapointing sequel. I've had plenty of those and plenty of worse disapointments sequel wise. Maybe the fact we got a much better one makes it impossible for me to really care. I deeply love indy now, I love this franchise and this is a bloch.. but it dosen't erase the two great films before this or the highs temple had amid the extreme lows. And with the power of time and nostalgia.. it didn't stop someone else from taking one last crack at it. Next Time: We put this retrospective in a box to be examined by Top Men as I look at the final Indiana Jones film, which is still in theaters: Dial of Destiny. Is it good, bad, mediocre? find out with me next time.

#indiana jones #indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull #harrison ford #marion ravenwood #mutt williams #cate blanchett #karen allen #stephen speilberg #george lucas

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lesbianwithchainsaws · 1 year

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Wait i actually wanna hear your thoughts/opinions on the Saw movies!

Anon, this is a risky thing to ask me because all that will happen is you will get a 10k word essay from me as a result. But okay. I am going to put this under "Read more" because I truly mean it when I say this ended up very long.

So first of all, I fucking love the Saw franchise. Like objectively it's not that good, especially the sequels, but I love these movies and the characters (mostly). I'm really excited for Saw X, even though I know it's not going to be good. The 10th movie in a horror franchise is never actually good, but at this point I feel like Saw could give me anything and I'll still watch it.

Despite some of the sequels being not so great, I genuinely think the first movie is a masterpiece. I'm a sucker for low budget movies because I love seeing what people can do with little money and I think Saw does a great job at showing the world, the traps and everything. It's definitely not perfect and you can tell it's got a small budget at times, but it just still works so well. Also let's be honest, Saw would not work if it had a huge budget.

Anyway, the story of the first one is still so intriguing and well made, even when you're someone like me who's seen it several times. And the reverse bear trap scene still hits.

I love Adam and Lawrence as characters. They're so intriguing to watch and Adam truly has the funniest lines ever. "This is the most fun I've had without lubricant." sir, you are in a death trap lmao!

Even the other characters are interesting to watch imo.

Oh, and I can't not mention the early drafts of the Saw script. There are some lines that make me insane every time I think about them. I'm sure you can find some of them on tumblr. My favourite is probably "so many days you have wanted to die. Now your goal is to make it out of here alive. Either way, you win, yes?". In the early drafts Adam was quite suicidal and that line is in the Jigsaw tape to Adam. Honestly there's so much about Adam in the early drafts that makes me lose it a little. There's even some dialogue of Lawrence asking Adam about him being suicidal. It just... aaaaaaaaaaaaaa yknow?

Saw really has such well written characters. Even if the story isn't always the greatest, the characters make up for it a lot.

Especially Amanda. Like her being addicted to heroin and after the rbt, she and John thinks she's good now. He's healed her. But he hasn't. She now needs John's approval. And she still hurts herself and starts killing others. Because John didn't do shit. He turned her into this monster and he doesn't really care. He supposedly cares that she's killing people, but only because he lives with some weird god complex where he thinks he's not killing people.

But genuinely if you really think about it, she's just a tragic character and that's the point. I love her character, even though she'll never get anything good to happen to her.

Also on a less serious note, Amanda Young is a lesbian. No, I'm not projecting. (I am)

Now onto Jigsaw himself. Fucking John Kramer. I would beat him up if he was real. I don't care that he's an old man dying of cancer, I would punch him. Every time he talks about how he doesn't kill people and that killing is distasteful, I feel like fighting. Dude straight up kidnaps people and puts them in death traps that are nearly impossible to escape. But sure. Yeah, they totally had a choice in the matter. Also like what choice did the people in Saw III have? They didn't have a choice, they had to have Jeff choose for them. And the people in Saw VI? Like I love Saw VI and I love that it's about health care in the US, but like those people didn't get to choose shit. He killed them. And yes, he's dead by that point, but it's his design and his trap. John Kramer is stupid and I would fist fight him at any point in time.

Sorry, I guess I should move on to the second movie.

I think the second movie is pretty good. I prefer the first one and kinda wish the 2nd one had some better character stuff, but the traps in the second one are so good? The fucking needle pit makes me cringe every time. Also fun fact, they used over 100k syringes for that trap. People had to remove the needles from each one to ensure that it's safe and I remember seeing this behind the scenes video where even the 100k syringes weren't enough. They had to put padding at the bottom to make it seem like the pit was a lot more full.

I also do like the idea of all the victims being connected because they were framed by Detective Matthews. And the twist is pretty cool too even if "your son is in a safe place" is silly. Did it have to be a pun? It's so funny.

Also Amanda waking up in the trap and immediately checking if there's a trap on her head? Makes me insane actually.

Now onto the third one, I genuinely think I'd like it more if Jeff didn't suck. He's a frustrating character to watch most of the time. However, I do think that The Rack (the trap Timothy was in that slowly twisted his limbs) is the worst trap ever, but like I mean that in a good way. It's probably the only trap I genuinely have to look away from. I can't handle watching it fully.

I think a lot of the other traps in Saw III are pretty cool too, again, I just wish Jeff was less frustrating of a character.

But Amanda and Lynn? First of all, there was something gay as hell going on there. If they both didn't literally die in that movie, I would say they hate-fucked afterwards. Also Amanda is so hot in this movie. Uh, I mean, what? Who said that? I'm not simping for the murderer.

Okay. I definitely prefer the Amanda, Lynn and John side of the plot. I think it's a lot more interesting to watch, especially with Amanda struggling because of the letter and not knowing whether to kill Lynn or not. I also like that we find out more about Amanda and her mental state after everything John has done.

I will forever be upset that Saw III has so many deleted scenes. Especially the one where Adam and Amanda interact. I think it's such a good scene, I wish they kept it in. (If you haven't seen it, the deleted scenes are all on youtube). I think it's so cool to see how Amanda is like hesitant almost for a bit to do anything to Adam because he's being nice to her. And like she's going to his apartment to kidnap him. She has zero good intentions, but she looks to almost second guess the decision as he's leaving.

Fourth movie, let's go! The fourth one is in my opinion very funny. Mainly because of the ridiculous scene transitions. I saw this behind the scenes video where Darren Lynn Bousman (the director) was so excited about the scene transitions, but me and my friends have watched this movie and laughed at the transitions. They're so ridiculous. Especially the one where the lady is goes through the mirror and onto the police office.

Anyway, the main overall trap is kinda not that great in this one imo. And the whole reason that the character is in the trap because he spends too much time trying to catch Jigsaw is ridiculous. However, I do like the fact that a rapist gets put in a Saw trap. 10/10

Oddly enough, I don't remember the overall plot that well of this movie. I don't even think its a bad Saw movie, I think it's pretty good. It's just kind of forgettable overall I guess?

Saw V... Saw V is a movie that I think could've been really good, but ended up kinda crap.

First of all, the concept of the trap is probably one of my favourites. I love the idea that all of them could've survived, if they just worked together and weren't selfish. I think it's a great idea. However, I don't think it was executed that well. Mainly, I think the backstory of the characters should've been clearer. And just the characters in general could've been better. Also sorry, but I thought the reveal that they could've worked together was so obvious. I think with some more improvements in the script, this could've been great though.

The fucking cop plot however? Jesus christ, I hated it. Mark Hoffman walks around like he's got "I'm Jigsaw" taped on his back, yet somehow not a single person is suspicious of him and instead think Strahm is guilty. Like please, Hoffman is not that good at hiding.

Also whoever did the casting for Saw IV and V is my enemy. I genuinely had a hard time telling Strahm and Hoffman apart at first. They both look like generic white guys and I'm supposed to distinguish from these two? It doesn't help that they're fucking dressed a similar way. I kinda wish they would've altered their appearance a little more at the very least.

The end is cool though.

Saw VI is one of my favourites though. It's a bit dumb, but I love it. I love that they show the stupidity that is American healthcare in it. I enjoy the traps a lot. Especially the shotgun carousel. Hello? Whoever thought of that is kind of genius. It's a really cool idea imo. I also think the characters are better written in this too. I will never not think that Jigsaw putting the janitor in a trap for smoking is kinda dumb, but I kinda understand why he's there.

The twist isn't great, but it's a great movie overall.

Fun fact: Saw VII aka Saw: The Final Chapter was originally supposed to be two separate movies. But Saw VI didn't do as well as studios wanted, despite the fact that it was a lot better critically received. So the studio made the filmmakers cut the idea down to one movie. I really wish we could've gotten two though, that would've worked way better. Apparently one was supposed to focus more on Lawrence, which would've been really good.

The Saw VII we did get is not a very good movie. Character-wise it's bad. The traps are okay. But also this movie is weirdly ugly? Like whatever they did with the colour grading didn't work at all. I think it looks hideous. The wrong colours stand out and it doesn't feel as much of a Saw movie anymore.

Saw VII needed more Lawrence. Also the way that the guys wife did nothing wrong and didn't deserve to slowly burn alive. Oh, also, I think the concept of a therapy group for Jigsaw survivors is so unintentionally funny. It's like an absurd comedy,how are there enough people for there to be Jigsaw survivors therapy group lmao

Just realised I haven't even mentioned Jill and Hoffman's whole plot, but tbh idk if there's much to say about it. I think it makes sense for John to want to test Hoffman when he's become too serial killer-y. And it's cool to have the rbt return. Especially in VII where we actually see someone get killed by it. I know Saw VII is the most hated, but imo it's not the worst Saw movie.

Which greatly leads us to Jigsaw. The worst Saw movie! Fuck Jigsaw (2017). Me and my homies all hate Jigsaw (2017).

First of all, Jigsaw looks even less like a Saw movie than VII. Like why did they try to go for this modern look to it? Why was that necessary? I think part of what makes the Saw movies so good is the gross 2000s look. It doesn't work as well without it.

The characters are alright. Although the scene where that one guy is right by the thing that would disable the trap completely and he doesn't fucking do it is kinda frustrating. Like at that point, do it just in case. I don't remember the exact details of the trap, but I'm talking about the bike one. I think he had to press a bike break? And the spinning trap that would kill him would be deactived completely.

But what really makes me hate this movie is the ending. First of all, John taking a bullet, showing it to the other two and going "this is the key to your survival" and then us finding out that he put keys to the chains inside the bullet? Yeah, what the fuck? This is so much worse than "He's in a safe place". I hate that part so much.

Of course, the twist that this was all in the past is even dumber. If this happened before Adam and Lawrence, then why does Billy have glowing eyes? Why does John suddenly have high-tech TV's. Why does the Jigsaw trap look like a fucking corporate office. Why is everything the way that it is?

But the truly worst part is Logan. My sworn enemy. I would gladly punch John, but that feeling is tripled when it comes to Logan. He's like a more annoying Hoffman. And Logan's been here from the start? Fuck off, no he hasn't. And "John didn't think I should die because of an honest mistake." I'm killing Logan. I'm aiming a gun at the writers of this movie. I'm fist fighting everything in sight. How do you watch SEVEN whole movies about the kind of person John is and think he would ever save someone because of a mistake? Logan's annoying ass should be dead. And listen, I know there's a theory out there where someone is saying that maybe John saved Logan because he put too many drugs in his system, which caused Logan not to wake up in time to give him a decent chance, and what John really meant was that he (John) made a mistake. But no, that's still stupid. It's John Kramer! He'd just blame Logan for the fact that the drugs didn't let him wake up in time. John wouldn't save him.

Also how does being spared by a serial killer equal deciding to work for said serial killer? What was the reason? Why did Logan do all that and decide that he wants to help John? It makes no sense! This movie makes no sense. The traps aren't even good enough or entertaining enough to look past all the stupidity. It makes me upset that they fucked up a Saw movie this badly. Saw is already convoluted enough. They genuinely could've just given a generic Saw trap plot and a generic cop plot, and it would've been 10x times better. Anything would've been 10x better than Jigsaw (2017). I truly hate that movie, I'm sorry.

Okay, finally there's Spiral: From the Book of Saw. Now I see quite a bit of dislike for Spiral out there on the internet, but honestly? I actually think it's alright. I'd put Spiral above Jigsaw and Saw VII. Maybe even above V.

This movie also abandons the gross 2000s aesthetic, but I think it works better here because it's a completely different setting and it's not Jigsaw! It's not John or Amanda or Hoffman or Logan. It's a copycat killer and in turn, I think that makes me more okay with the change in style.

Also I think the traps in Spiral are awesome. I especially like that, since this is a copycat killer, the whole "make a choice" thing kinda goes out the window too. It's just a bunch of brutal traps and I don't mind that at all.

The tongue trap is pretty unforgettable, but for some reason the finger one makes me cringe the most. Something about the idea of your fingers being pulled apart just gives me that slight uncomfortable feeling. Also the trap with the wax was pretty interesting too and quite brutal.

The twist in this movie, however, is so predictable imo. Like the second they didn't show the trap William was supposedly in, I knew he was alive and guilty. But I do love a Jigsaw that says ACAB.

I do also think Spiral has a lot of flaws. Like it's overall not a very good movie, but I enjoyed it. My opinion might be slightly influenced by the fact that this was the first Saw movie I saw in cinemas and it was a fun watch, but still. The movie's alright. I wouldn't mind a sequel to Spiral.

And as mentioned previously, I'm really excited for Saw X. Especially since they're bringing back my girl Amanda. I know it won't be as good as the first one, but I at least hope that Saw X will be better than Jigsaw.

#im sorry for how long this ended up being but seriously don't ask me about Saw unless you're okay with the biggest wall of text #I like this franchise too much #saw #horror

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howlingday · 2 years

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Blake: We need him to start talking, but he won't listen to any of us. We've tried everything.

Weiss: Did you find anything at the hideout?

Yang: Just some letters from some woman named Clair. You think he was cheating on you?

Blake: (Shakes her head) No, Clair's... She was Adam's mother, but she passed away a while ago. I guess he kept the letters.

Jaune: ...I have an idea.

Adam: What is this? If this is some kind of trick, then let me tell you right now and save you the trouble: I hate tricks!

Jaune: You know who else doesn't like tricks? Mothers. Especially my mom. It started out small with me. I'd keep the change when she sent me out for groceries. Too soon after, I was stealing from the fruit stands, and before she could blink, I was picking pockets to make Lien for her birthday gifts. That's what I told myself anyways. Then I got picked up by some thugs, made some friends with their "family". They convinced me to do things that would horrify my mother if she knew.

Adam: So you had a rough childhood, that doesn't excuse-

Jaune: Then the Grimm War happened. I got drafted and shipped off to the Grimmlands. Something they teach you to do is how to kill. Something they don't teach you is how addictive it can be. Not all of them were Grimm. I came home, expecting to be treated like a hero. I was the first one off the bus. (Looks at Adam, Somber look) And I was the first one they dragged down and beat. Everyone thought I was scum. Everyone except-

Adam: (Looks to the side, Moves his mouth around, Spits out a capsule)

Jaune: (Picks up the capsule)

Adam: They used my people, too. It's how I got into the White Fang. When that scorpion came by with that offer, I told him to piss off. Two weeks later, I was begging on his doorstep. I never liked Callows, and I don't like what he makes me do. I don't like that gire bitch he works for either. Least of all, though, I don't like who I am. I didn't like what we did in the war, and I don't like what the White Fang is doing now. (Leans closer) Have you ever killed a friend for the mission? But mom... She always thought I would start again and become a better person. Maybe it's time I finally do that.

Jaune: (Picks up the capsule)

Adam: The White Fang's next three jobs are in that script. The first one happens two weeks from now, on my mother's birthday.

Jaune: Thank you. I'll make sure you get to visit her grave once in a while.

Adam: Just once is enough.

Jaune: (Leaves, Sees Blake) Did you hear all of that?

Blake: I did. (Takes capsule) How much of it is true.

Jaune: Hopefully everything. I'd hate to think he made that up just to screw with us.

Blake: No, what you said. How much of it was true?

Jaune: (Walks away)

Blake: Jaune?

#rwby #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #jaune arc #adam taurus #blacksad

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merge-conflict · 5 months

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The appeal of starting from the ending and working back is that you put a cap on every Might Have Been, every wandering tangent, etc. that your drafting mind might otherwise wind down. And there's nothing more irritating then having a good idea when wrapping something up only to realize you didn't have time to foreshadow it like you did the other 2 or 3 recurring consequences (TV writer woes).

Everything in the final conversation Abernathy has with Valentine has to be doing the work of two or three callbacks. Right now I've only hit the initial callbacks, and as I sketch out the ideas mentioned her in passing, which evoke certain strong emotions, then I know I need to do something with V's work involvement with Biotechnica, with some sort of clash with Jenkins, with what Valentine is like when she loses her temper. And I know that because it's what Abernathy is fixated on trying to control this breakup conversation, and also reveals what Abernathy herself is concerned about, and perhaps has been concerned about for a long time and never shown. (Or has she?)

Anyhow I love talking process, so this is the kind of skeleton script I'm going to be working backwards from. It will most certainly not survive exactly like this, but it's a good anchoring point:

“If you tell anyone about anything, I’ll have you removed and handled as a double agent. You have been awful involved with Biotechnica lately.” - “I’m not going to warn you again. Do you understand?”

(dully) “You do that and they’ll know I was telling the truth.”

“It doesn’t matter what they know, it matters what they can prove.” (you know this. we've talked about this. don't be stupid.)

“I suppose next you’ll be asking me to use my new position to spy on Jenkins for you.” (petulant. bitter. a tool, you were always a tool, do you understand?)

“No. I know how you get when you’re angry.” (thinking. malicious. flippant.) “Besides, I thought you’d enjoy a chance to get your claws into him.”

(silently angry. is the implication that she’d do for him what she’d done for her? that she’s just a dangerous beast? that she knows her and her anger so well?)

“Well?”

“What do you want me to do? Beg for leniency? Make some emotional plea? You want me to ask if you ever even gave a shit about me? You want me to put on a show?” - “You wouldn’t believe a word I said anyway. Give me a cigarette.”

(hands one over, lights it. finally makes eye contact. this is real.) “Don’t look so glum. You wouldn’t have gotten half as far as you have without my help. You can cry into your bank account if you want, but it’s not like I’m kicking you out on the street.”

“Alright.” (inhale. peace. emptiness. drains her drink. drops the cigarette into abernathy’s.) “It’s done.”

Re-reading this I already know I need to work in some reference to Valentine's mother and some warning/advice/celebration they have near the end of this reverse story. Something that ties back to her own failed marriage and divorce and dashed expectations. Something about finding a reason to keep going on until you can't bear to any more. Something that echoes the familial stubbornness which means Valentine in the damn things overlap will endure anything so long as she knows the expiration date.

The most fascinating part of writing these two to me is that Abernathy has this very strict rule about never admitting guilt or regret directly, but she'll say something like "I'd apologize but it's already done, isn't it?" and it's like YOU COULD STILL SAY IT! But she sees that as weakness. And Valentine picks up that same attitude here "What do you want me to do? Beg for leniency? Make some emotional plea?" They're mocking each other for the very normal human desire for acknowledgement. They're intelligence agents who think they're just making sure they're not fooling themselves (they're fooling themselves). Sincerity is only useful for pre-empting someone else trying to expose your vulnerability.

Anyway, they're operating on a certain set of fucked up toxic social rules that are in some respects even harsher than the normal corpo set. They're self-policing, because Abernathy is obsessed with gaining favor with someone who is a misogynistic homophobe, and she's playing for keeps against people who aren't reviled by this person. The idea might also come up that she doesn't NEED to be doing it to this degree, but she's warped her own idea of what she needs to do, and what kind of person she needs to be, and applied that to Valentine as well. The tragedy is that they love each other. They work well together. It's never going to work out. It didn't work out. But look at what they had, and how fucked up and funny and exciting it all was before it went to shit.

#ship: hand in unlovable hand #that thrill of showing how in sync people used to be. how even when they're nasty you can feel the wistfulness #and then you get to trace it back to see how much they enjoyed each other honestly. before they sacrificed it for the job #you can't be smart and ruthless and powerful and successful if you're in Love. attachment is weakness #except ironically it's Valentine's utter loyal attachment that gets abernathy where she needs to go. that's why she ultimately gets Fired #placing her in the perfect position for her to warm to Johnny except then she meets Goro Takemura lol #knight-errant origin story #banished for dumb loyalty. bitter and angry but refusing to betray that sworn confidence even in exile. you know??

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kammartinez · 8 months

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I’ve always been curious about what it feels like for an author to see their work translated into another medium. The question seems particularly interesting with a film like Oppenheimer, the biopic directed by Christopher Nolan that opened in theaters this week. It tells the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” and is based on a mammoth, Pulitzer Prize–winning 2005 biography that took 25 years to research and write. American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, is more than 700 pages long; at first glance, it’s difficult to imagine how a book this granular about a subject this complex became a movie. Sadly, Sherwin passed away two years ago, but Bird was able to have the uncanny experience of “meeting” Oppenheimer while visiting the set of Nolan’s film. I talked with him about this encounter and about his book’s path to Hollywood.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic’s Books section:

Bird and I spoke over the phone a day before the film’s release. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Gal Beckerman: How are you feeling?

Kai Bird: Well, my head is spinning a little bit. It’s very weird. This book came out 18 years ago. Where was everyone then?

Beckerman: Well, you did win the Pulitzer Prize. So you can’t say that it was ignored.

Bird: That’s true. I can’t complain. But, you know, it got on the paperback-best-seller list last week. It never made it on the best-seller list back then.

Beckerman: It took a long time for it to be picked up and adapted.

Bird: Well, the book was optioned. But, you know, years went by, and nothing happened. So we were very lucky when I suddenly got a phone call in September of 2021, and I was told that Christopher Nolan wants to speak to me. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back at all his other work, he’s really the perfect director for this book. He’s always been interested in time and space and memory, science and science fiction. So it makes perfect sense that he could be attracted to a book about a guy who was a quantum physicist.

Beckerman: So the shift to film felt pretty seamless to you?

Bird: The way Marty [Sherwin] and I both thought about the book—and this would be true of any potential film as well—was that it might be an interesting story to follow the making of the atomic bomb, but that if that’s all there was, we wouldn’t be spending all these years—25 years—on it. What gives the story its arc is both the triumph of [Oppenheimer’s] achievement in Los Alamos but then the tragedy of what happens to him nine years later, when he’s brought down from being America’s most famous scientist to becoming a nonentity, humiliated on the front pages of The New York Times. His loyalty to the country is questioned. That’s what makes the story really interesting. And so, when I first had a meeting with Nolan, he was not sharing the script with me at that point. He said he works confidentially, although he’d done a whole draft already. He works very fast. I told him I thought it was important to focus on the trial. And I think he was relieved to hear me say that, because when he showed me the screenplay a few months later, it really is a lot about the trial.

Beckerman: Were there aspects of the book that you thought would be particularly difficult to communicate in film without the benefit of hundreds and hundreds of pages?

Bird: The quantum physics. This was also a struggle in the book, because it’s so complex. But actually, Nolan really attempts to explain quantum or give you a sense of the music of it. He develops a good analogy in the film. He has Oppenheimer walking through an art gallery in the 1920s, when he’s studying quantum, and he’s looking at Cubist pictures done by Picasso. And he’s staring at them, and he’s seeing the quantum in Picasso’s images. That’s not specifically in the book, but, you know, Oppenheimer’s mother was a painter and an art collector. She bought early van Goghs and several Picassos, so it’s entirely appropriate.

Beckerman: Did you learn anything about filmmaking through this process?

Bird: I saw the film for the fourth time last night. And each time I see it, I see layers that I didn’t see on the first occasion. I hear some of the dialogue that I missed on previous occasions, because it is very fast-paced. Nolan is really quite interesting as a filmmaker, I think, precisely because he’s not trying to bring you along. He’s not trying to make sure you understand everything. He’s leaving little clues throughout the visual experience that he doesn’t explain. So, for example, if you know who the physicist Richard Feynman is, he is portrayed in the film, but he’s never identified. But on several occasions, you see this young man banging furiously on a bongo, and that’s Feynman.

Beckerman: And if you know, you know!

Bird: Exactly. He wants people to leave the theater with questions: Oh, who was that? And questions about, you know, McCarthyism, living with the bomb, and why did that happen to Oppenheimer? Was it just or unjust? He’s not giving you the answers. And he does that with the whole very weighty issue of the decision to actually use the bomb, which is still controversial history.

Beckerman: I know that you went to visit the set while they were filming. I’m curious if you could tell me a little bit more about what that experience was like, just the uncanniness of it. And, you know, meeting Cillian Murphy, who played Oppenheimer.

Bird: It was very bizarre. When I met Cillian, he was being introduced to me after shooting a scene, and I shouted out, “Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Oppenheimer. It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been waiting all these years.” And then we had a five-minute conversation. And I told him I thought it was interesting how well he had captured Oppie’s voice. Oppenheimer’s voice was always very soft-spoken. It’s the kind of voice that makes you want to lean forward to make sure you’ve caught every word. And each word is pronounced very meticulously. And he speaks in whole paragraphs. Cillian’s response was Oh, well, I’m glad you think so—but, you know, we try not to imitate the voice; we try to simply capture the spirit of it.

Beckerman: Well, that seems a pretty apt description of adaptation when it works well, as it sounds like it did in this case.

Bird: I just think I’m a lucky, lucky author.

#books #oppenheimer #movies #kai bird #american prometheus

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