#it would be because they decided to directly adapt a few of the originals | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

originalaccountname · 9 months

Note

There are some posts I've seen floating around that at the start Dazai may not of known that Chuuya wasn't a vampire which I kind of agree with. I'm at work currently so I cant double check but when he goes "that's a nasty trick you've pulled fydor" im pretty sure its in his thoughts?? To which why would he think that if he knew the whole time. I think dazai must of caught onto the fact Chuuya was faking it at somepoint but not sure when that would of been. Also at the end of the ep Dazai said he didn't have a plan. (I did watch the episode at just after 2am my time when it came out and then fell asleep afterwards so my memory could be not correct). I do think chuuya not being a vampire at all is a little disappointing tbh but this idea softens the blow. Would like to know your thoughts on this idea if you are open to sharing?

I'm in that category too, yes. I've left a few tags saying basically the same thing on some posts.

First, there are a few things the anime didn't answer (more than failing to justify Chuuya faking it since the start, there's Sigma's case about needing to help the ADA, which... didn't happen at all) so either we haven't seen the repercussions of this arc yet, or we got the shortened version of what the manga will offer. Which could work either way. (not ideal necessarily, but besides huffing what can we do huh)

Dazai not knowing though! Dazai did admit to his "plan" being to mostly adapt on the fly and trust his allies to help him back. He implied this prison break was one big trust fall. But that's how I've always interpreted Dazai's way of planning! I even made a post about it a full year ago!

Since Dazai knows Chuuya slowed down the elevator (which I can accept, Dazai's ability shouldn't affect random objects he touches, and Fyodor had told Chuuya through a comm to go finish off Dazai because he wasn't in the room), I assume that by then he was aware. Maybe not before though. Definitely not at first. Because this?

I refuse to believe was entirely scripted. Why is he acting? For Sigma? For corpses? I'm of the opinion that no matter what is going on through Dazai's head, his expressions are always genuine (ex: he might react with surprise at something he completely expected, if only because of how sudden it was, or when/how it ended up happening. Here? genuine distress.)

And I extend that feeling to Dazai having an emotional moment, complete with flashbacks, while "drowning" Fyodor and Chuuya. He did say he wasn't expecting to kill them that way, but perhaps it really was a moment of weakness triggered by concern or guilt.

I can accept Dazai having caught on during his face-off with Chuuya. That's Mr I-know-your-breathing-patterns we have here, so if they didn't high-five after the elevator crash-landing (still broke Dazai's leg), I would say Dazai knows physics enough to go "hold on" and connect the dots. So yes, that baiting of Chuuya, the light taunting, the bratty attitude he only really has with Chuuya, the angry YELLING and insults when Chuuya shot him in the shoulder? The destiny talk? Yeah I can re-contextualize those as Dazai over-acting his part. And then not being able to shut up after being shot in the head.

Maybe there's some reaching here, maybe this will not be totally accurate to the source material. But Asagiri does have a habit to write scenes from an outsider pov while knowing whats happening in the characters' heads and behind the scene, but then not give us that input directly. Never before today was it confirmed that Dazai improvises a lot in his plans. And yet! That's something I've believed in for a very long time.

This all could very well be covering Asagiri's poor decisions, but between this being the adaptation and bsd being an unfinished story, I have a hard time deciding at the moment how much of a poor decision this was. Maybe it's worth a raised eyebrow. Maybe it deserves some criticism in hope the author takes notes. Maybe this was an anime-original resolution due to time constraints (think of the Fifteen final fight). I can only raise concerns for now, and wait.

#bsd being a monthly release is also detrimental to its pacing #the chapters in the last+ year were very short and suspense-heavy #which makes it look cheaper than if you took a break and read them all in one go #there's a balance in there #i don't know if asagiri really writes with our time perception in mind. maybe he just writes the story and then it's divided in chapters #and that's that. who cares if there's 6 months between those two entries.#bsd #bsd s5 #bsd spoilers #apparently i talk sometimes #ask answered

114 notes · View notes

kudouusagi · 2 months

Note

Would you say that Bucchigiri is Utsumi's sophomore slump (coming off of SK8)? I was hoping for so much from this one, and yet it seemed like she and Taku Kishimoto were making so many wrong decisions here during its production. MAPPA's influence probably didn't help matters either.

Well, according to Utsumi from the Spoon 2.di article I read, she didn't really know what to make with this one so it was kind of a group project. She really wanted to make SK8 and she asked for pretty much all the staff that worked with her on it personally. It was very much a passion project for her.

For this one this one she said she was already making SK8 and didn't know what to make when they asked her to make another original series, so she discussed it with the producers at MAPPA and they all agreed on a yanki show, and then it took them a long time to decide on the Arabian Nights theme after that. She suggested a few different ideas and the other producers decided they liked the Arabian Nights theme best. She was assigned Kishimoto to be the writer, but she hadn't met him before. Things like that.

Here's something from the interview with Kishimoto in Spoon 2.di 107

Q: Kishimoto-san, it seems that you initially proposed a bit cooler story but Utsumi-san asked you to add some comedy to it. How did you feel when you heard that request? A: If I had to say, I've had a lot more work reorganizing and rearranging the structure of manga to adapt it into an anime. I'm not the type of person who naturally has a lot of stories and characters bubbling out of me, so when I make things I unconsciously drift toward making formulaic stories of cool heroes who always win. When I do that though, the characters I make are very stereotypical, and so when I submitted the first draft to director Utsumi and MAPPA's Otsuka-san, they said "The flow of the story is good, but the characters feel really stereotypical." It was then I was asked, "What were you like when you were Arajin's age?" I wasn't good-looking, so I figured if I just directly confessed to a girl I liked I'd be rejected, and so I thought I had to try even harder than other people. I'd give girls poems, and if that didn't work I'd carve the girl's name into a stone and give it to them, and I made it my goal in life to make that girl love me. So I told them I really couldn't be used as a reference for anything. But when I said that, they said "That's so interesting!" I felt like someone like that could never be a main character, or rather, I had ruled it out because I felt like it would be crazy to have a main character who acted like that! Since I was rejected for being so creepy in real life, after all (lol). But the two of them said it was interesting, so Arajin's weird parts became my weird parts and by adding my weird parts into him, it naturally became a comedy. So, rather than trying to write a comedy or making it become a comedy, I just added my own silly parts in order to give the character a personality, and it ended up developing into that because of the character's personality.

So the whole reason Arajin is who he is (someone everyone hates lol....) is because he's based off Kishimoto himself. I don't know what the story was like before but I really can't agree the flow of the story is good now... but yeah.... that's how we ended up here.

#bucchigiri?!

32 notes · View notes

vikkirosko · 10 months

Note

Wait, so you so you were doing sally face now? Sally face boys with a reader from Russia? Or South Park?

Headcanons From Russia

🎮 Sal Fisher x Reader 🎸

You and Sal met when you and your family moved into a new apartment. He went to meet you and immediately heard an unfamiliar language. Your parents didn't speak English, which surprised him. The door was opened to him by you, his age, who greeted him with a friendly smile and greeting with an accent

You were originally from Russia and you moved because of your parents' work. Sal knew what it was like to be in a new city, even though he moved from another state, not another country, but he decided to help you adapt. He introduced you to his friends and you began to spend time together often. Sometimes Sal helped you with English, because you continued to learn the language even after moving

Sal enjoyed spending time with you. You were happy to talk about how you lived in Russia and how life there was different from what Sal was used to. You weren't afraid of him because of his prosthesis, you noticed it only at your first meeting, and then treated it as if it was normal, even though it took your parents a while to get used to it, but Sal was grateful to you for not dwelling on it

Sal was glad that you moved to their city, because if it wasn't so, then you would never have met. Despite the fact that it was difficult for you to get used to some things, but you tried, and he was ready to help you until you feel at home in a new city

🎨 Larry Johnson x Reader 🎶

You and Larry met at school. You were a new student who had recently moved to Nockfell and you had to get used to a new city, a new school and new classmates. You spoke with an accent and Larry wondered where you came from. He came up to you at recess and talked to you, which made you smile. You were glad to have the opportunity to meet new people and told him that you and your family moved from Russia quite recently. This surprised Larry, but he was interested in getting to know you better

You and Larry began to communicate often and you began to spend a lot of time in the apartment where he lived with his mother. It didn't bother you that this apartment was in the basement. He noticed that there wasn't much that could confuse you. You didn't tense up when you saw the police radio in his room, you weren't afraid when you were walking together on the fifth floor, and when he told you ghost stories, you told him stories from your childhood that surprised Larry

You were the one who suggested Larry to date. You weren't the one who beat around the bush for a long time, so you preferred to tell him directly about your feelings, but even after you started dating, little changed in your relationship. You still got into various adventures and spent time with his friends, who gladly accepted you into their company. Several times Larry drew you, which caused a blush on your cheeks. It seemed nice to him, because something frightening did not cause you strong emotions, but something cute confused and caused a smile on your lips

Sometimes Larry thought about how you could live together when you get older. It was his little secret that he didn't tell even to his best friend Sal. He did not know what was waiting for you in the future and did not want to entertain false hopes for himself and you, but your future together was what he secretly aspired to from everyone

👓 Todd Morrison x Reader 📚

You and Todd met on the Internet when you were living in Russia. You both spent a lot of time on the forum and soon after meeting there began to communicate. You knew English well and you discussed a lot. Todd didn't tell you, but he was sorry that you wouldn't be able to meet in person in the next few years. He was sure of this until you wrote to him that your father had been offered a new job and you were moving to America, and not somewhere else, but to Nockfell

Todd hurried to you when he saw your family's car pull up to the house. Your parents were surprised when they found out that you had a friend who lived not only in the same city with you, but even in the same house, but they were glad that you wouldn't feel lonely, and Todd was glad that now you could communicate in the real world

You and Todd have started spending a lot of time together both at home and at school. You often came to the apartment where his family lived. Larry often began to joke about the fact that you are dating, but you hide it from others. At first, you took it as simple jokes, until you actually started dating, which Todd directly told his friends. Todd really liked you, with all your little oddities. When something annoyed you, you started speaking in Russian, what you ate sometimes seemed strange to him, as well as some everyday things that you considered ordinary, but it didn't bother him

Some of your classmates didn't understand how you could be together, because you were completely different, but Todd had a different opinion. You really didn't look alike, but that didn't stop you from communicating, liking each other and being in a relationship. It was these differences that balanced you and made your relationship calmer and more comfortable

#Sally Face #Sally Face x Reader #Sally Face headcanons #Sal Fisher #Sal Fisher x Reader #Larry Johnson #Larry Johnson x Reader #Todd Morrison #Todd Morrison x Reader

121 notes · View notes

m0thh-chai · 1 year

Text

Experimented on yautja and the subspecies that it created

Alright let’s get down to business. An AU that my friends and I regularly play with, It’s pretty fucking Hectic. I modeled it after Avatar, where humans come to the native planet, and fuck everything up. So here’s the summary before I get into it.

Humans arrived on Quatza-rij, or the yautjan “home world” if you will. The Fuckers kidnapped 2 Yautja children, and experimented on them. The kids were killed during the torture, but special Alien circumstances scientists got their dna, and mutated the fuck out of it, including making more yautja with it. Without further Ado, here’s what happened.

Yautja Abominations

A Yautja abomination is a species that is mainly yautja, but with added dna and advanced abilities. They are generally larger, stronger, taller, faster, and advanced. On rare occasions, the added dna they were mutated with was an animals. Let’s say…Dragon for the sake of this I guess. They would have Horns, wings, sharper claws, longer teeth on their mandibles, maybe tails, and very rarely could breathe fire. The abominations are yautja, mixed with whatever the fuck the humans decide to mutate them with. But after a while, some of the yautja abominations escaped from the facility, leading to wild yautja abominations, not lab grown ones. They tend to be on the edge with Yautja Malisons, with some abominations being accepted and taken as berserkers, and occasionally generals.

Yautja Purebloods

Yautja purebloods are the backwater of the yautja. They are seen as outcasts, because they are the most human with significantly less yautja malison blood than an abomination. They by no means can pass as a yautja Malison(I’ll get into them), whereas some Yautja abominations could. Their yautja malison features are the following: Fangs, no mandibles. A few of the dreadlocks that you see in malisons, but also have human hair. Claws, but They have much smaller Claws than both other subspecies. They tend to have skin patterns/markings, such as what we saw in the first predator movie, that yautjas marking was spots, and in the elder we see in avp, spines. However, this species has evolved to have many secret abilities. They adapted to live out of sight, in secret, and in conditions that no other subspecies could. But by far, their most effective gift is their strongest connection with the gods. While a Malison priestess needs to see a spirit sight, have her spiritual token, her spiritual familiar, her spirit sisters even, a Pureblood priestess needs no more than her Spirit Staff to have a stable connection with her deity, and some can even speak directly with theirs if they are at a spirit sight. The reason they have this power is from their creation. The yautjan child that was captured and it’s dna used to create them, was born from no female yautja, but from the goddess of Power and divinity herself, No’a’tey(made her up and will make a post abt her later).

Yautja Malisons

I really don’t have much to say about these guys, because you see them in every predator movie. If you figured out that I just call them malisons before, then 10 pts to you I guess. But yeah, Malisons are the purebreds, the originals, the ones who weren’t experimented on, and the ones who are native to the mother world. As you know, Malisons are the strictest subspecies by far. Tradition tends to be extraordinarily strong and important for them, Such as their ranks, battle formations, their code, who can become a general, who can become a priestess, how you must complete a ritual, etc. Some will accept abominations and nearly none will accept purebloods, viewing the latter as a stain in the species, especially since the purebloods are yet to even consider sharing their hidden abilities with the Malisons.

Bonus

Abominations and Purebloods have been known to occasionally create clans together, such as the Night clan(clan that I made, my ocs live there, will explain that in another post). Such clans are also open to Yautja Malison Badbloods, depending on what they did to be named Badbloods, and these clans tend to be much less strict, intimidating, and harsh, with more of a laid back and calm approach to everything.

(Gonna @ a few people with yautja stuff for no reason)

@cyvorg

@shaymin-99

#yautja #predator #avp: alien vs. predator #alien vs predator #AU #Yautja AU

19 notes · View notes

linklethehistorian · 2 months

Text

So while working on a drawing WIP of mine, I was watching a video from Drew Gooden on the Avatar Netflix adaption (note: I have never seen Avatar: the Last Airbender, and I don’t particularly plan to, either; I am just a fan of Drew Gooden’s videos and I like to learn about various series I will probably never and honestly have no desire to directly, personally interact with), and I think that he perfectly summed up in very short terms what I mean when I say that the Fifteen anime and manga are both poor adaptions of the original story.

[Transcript: “Now, before I continue getting mad about every single aspect of this show, I do wanna answer a more general question of like, ‘what should we expect out of an adaption?’ — because it may sound like I’m trying to say that this should have been a one-to-one recreation of the original show, when that is not the case.”

“You can, and should, be able to change things; why even bother spending all this money to make something that looks worse, if it’s going to be exactly the same? But, those changes need to enhance the story; they can’t be at odds with the spirit of the show, or fundamentally change a character.” /end Transcript]

While I still need to finish my article on Fifteen and its anime adaption, and later better address the manga, this is the point I want to hammer home to people who refuse to get the position I am coming from:

I am not saying that either the manga or the anime would be bad in and of themselves if they were wholly original stories, or that there is anything inherently wrong with adding content that was not in the original source material.

I am saying that they are bad at being adaptions; they are bad at representing the pre-existing story they are supposed to be telling in a new medium. While they could be perfectly fine and serviceable — if, in my opinion, far less compelling — stories if they were original content with no previous source material to adapt from, they are not that, and that is what makes them bad. They are horrible representations of the story they are trying to tell, and for an adaption there can be no greater failing than this.

The biggest changes that were made to both the anime and the manga do not enhance the story.

They do not fit the spirit of the source material.

The anime fundamentally changes a major character and re-writes an entire scene and major plot points in order to allow them to have an excuse for a few seconds of cheap fanservice for a popular pairing/character — which could have still been had in an even better way without mutilation in a different scene they actively decided to remove in order to save time that they completely squandered anyway.

The manga in certain crucial chapters takes visual creative liberties that do not at all fit the spirit, tone, or descriptions within the source material in order to play up a horror aspect that very simply was not intended to exist in the first place, and in doing so fundamentally alters important characterization, along with unnecessary and tone-altering tweaks to a few choice lines of dialogue.

An adaption should be just that: an adaption, not a re-imagining, not a re-telling, not a re-make; its job is to tell the story and elevate it as much as possible using the unique perks of the specific medium it is being brought into. For both anime and manga, this should have been done through the use of visuals (and in the case of the anime, movement, music, and voice acting) to bring the scenes described within the original source material to life and fill in the blanks based on the rest of the picture painted there, as well as expand on certain points and add to them using the spirit of the original story.

Both the anime and the manga have times when they prove that they can do such things quite well and quite efficiently, but then utterly fail to do at some of the points where it matters the very most, and that is why it can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven.

It is not a matter of not being one-to-one with the original with every scene, it is a matter of completely ignoring the most fundamental and important aspects of some of the very most crucial ones of those scenes in favor of “doing its own thing”, even if it means completely ignoring the points the original source material — and the adaption most closely worked on by the original creator (the stage plays) — tried to make.

#linklethehistorian #my thoughts #thoughts #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd novels #fifteen #bsd anime #bsd stage play #fifteen manga #fifteen stage play #season 3 #bsd arthur rimbaud #randou #I know I’m talking to a wall but seriously people need to realize that adaptions are supposed to be adaptions #and that the moment it fails to be that yes it is in fact a bad adaption no matter how much you enjoy it as its own thing #you can enjoy it as its own thing if you must and still understand and acknowledge that it is a bad adaption #an adaption that does not adapt a story to a new medium but rather changes it in unnecessary ways that do not elevate the original is #not an adaption #but a failure of one #as at that point it has become a complete reimagining #and reimaginings are not bad….but they are if that was not what they were supposed to be doing in the first place #and if they aren’t upfront about the fact that it is NOT the same story but only borrows parts of it

3 notes · View notes

kevinsreviewcatalogue · 2 months

Text

Review Double Feature: Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024)

Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material (Part One)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language (Part Two)

Score: 4 out of 5

Yep, we're doing the Kill Bill thing again and grading two movies together as one singular whole. And that's because, much like Kill Bill, this is no ordinary pair of movies. Rather, they're a two-part adaptation of the absolute monster of a novel that is Frank Herbert's Dune. A landmark of science fiction, it is no pulpy airport paperback, clocking in at 896 pages and covering everything from the ecology of a desert world to the use of religion as a tool of control to the fall of empires to the nature of power to a deconstruction of "chosen one" mythologies and everything in between. It's a novel that typically comes up on shortlists of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, one that's been compared to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy in fantasy in the canon of modern speculative fiction. (Ironically, Tolkien disliked Dune, though he didn't really say why in the interest of remaining diplomatic.)

It's not a book you take lightly, is what I'm saying.

What's more, the very things that have made it so tempting to adapt to the screen are the same things that have long given it a reputation as "unfilmable". Attempts to make a movie out of it have bedeviled nearly every filmmaker who's tried, including some of the greatest of the modern age. David Lean was offered the film, but turned it down. Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to adapt it in the '70s and failed. David Lynch actually managed to get his movie made back in 1984, producing a film that's widely remembered, not least of all by Lynch himself, as a psychedelic mess. The Sci Fi Channel produced a miniseries in 2000 that faithfully adapted the text of the book and, despite a very large budget for a TV show at the time and a huge marketing push, proved to be just as divisive among sci-fi fans. Its influence wound up coming less through its own adaptations and more from other authors and filmmakers inspired by it to make their own, less categorically weird stories, including a number of films that emerged directly from the ashes of Jodorowsky's abortive production. (You might've heard of a few of them, like Alien, The Fifth Element, Warhammer 40,000, and even Star Wars.)

So when Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve decided that he wanted to adapt Dune, many critics, film journalists, and fans predicted it would be his Waterloo. Sure, he's a modern wunderkind who's never made a bad movie, up there with Christopher Nolan as a darling of today's film buffs (and, in my opinion, one who has a better track record). Sure, he'd already done the impossible by making a sequel to Blade Runner, one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, that was just as good as the original. But if Jodorowsky and Lynch couldn't do it, then how in the world was Villeneuve, somebody whose background was chiefly in gritty, spectacle-light thrillers like Prisoners and Sicario, going to pull off adapting a novel as famously trippy as Dune?

What Villeneuve did was largely stick to the text of Herbert's novel as the miniseries did, cut a lot of the backstory and many of the psychedelic elements, and instead focus heavily on both the ecological themes of the story and the events of its present, especially its political subtext and its commentary on "chosen one" narratives. What emerges is a film duology that feels like a dark retelling of Star Wars (or at least A New Hope) in which the story of Luke Skywalker, instead of a tale of a straightforward hero saving the day, is instead a tale of the rise of the Antichrist -- and, incidentally, a far better take on the idea of "what if the chosen one turned out to be the bad guy?" than the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It's not a perfect adaptation, and honestly, I'm still not sure if a "perfect" adaptation of a novel like Dune is even possible outside of a miniseries. (Jodorowsky's version would've been ten to fourteen hours long.) But whether I was watching it at home on a big-screen TV (as I did with Part One to get caught up) or in a packed movie theater (as I did with Part Two), I got a gorgeous, compelling, slow-burn sci-fi epic filled with a rich cast of complicated characters that sets up even bigger things to come but still ends in just the right way, without a doubt the best adaptation of Herbert's novel so far and one that I expect to endure in the canon of science fiction classics just like the novel.

Our story starts over eight thousand years into the future, with humanity ruled by the Imperium, an empire in classic medieval fashion where power is divided between the Emperor and the various Great Houses of the nobility. Arrakis, a harsh desert planet that is strategically vital for its supply of spice, a drug that is necessary for faster-than-light travel to be possible, has just been transferred by the Emperor from the control of House Harkonnen, which ruled it for decades, to House Atreides. The Atreides patriarch Duke Leto knows that this is a power play by the Emperor to thwart the growing power of his family, as control of Arrakis paints a giant target on their backs for other families to go after, not least of all a bitter House Harkonnen, but he also knows that he can't openly defy the Emperor's wishes and turn down this white elephant of a gift. Sure enough, exactly what he feared comes to pass. However, when House Harkonnen took back the planet, they didn't count on one man: Paul Atreides, Leto's teenage son, who survives the initial attack with his mother Lady Jessica and runs off into the desert to live with the Fremen, the tribal native people of Arrakis who have always resented the power of outsiders over their world, and plots revenge. Unbeknownst to Paul, however, a secretive religious order called the Bene Gesserit, one that includes his mother, has plans for him, and has set in motion events that will lead to his rise as a mythical savior of humankind called the Kwisatz Haderach... but unbeknownst to the Bene Gesserit, Paul, who's been having visions of himself causing a galaxy-scale spree of death and destruction, has his own ideas as to what kind of man and leader he's going to be.

The first film opens with Chani giving a vivid description of the beauty of the desert ecosystem of Arrakis, and it's clear that the environmental themes of the story were where a lot of Villeneuve's attention lay. He keeps the exposition indirect in order to fit as much of the book into five-plus hours as he can, instead preferring to show us how the world functions: a mouse-like alien creature wiping the sweat off its ear and drinking it again, the fact that nearly all of Arrakis' human development is either underground or otherwise shielded from the brutal sun, the human population being consequently nocturnal, the status of mountains and large rocks as islands of safety amidst the sea of dunes and its terrifying sandworms, fresh water being a resource as precious as gold. This short of "show, don't tell" exposition extends throughout the story. We don't need to be told that the proliferation of personal protective force fields that only slow-moving objects can get through has made guns obsolete in industrial warfare and led to a revival of melee infantry weapons like swords, pikes, and daggers, nor do we need to be told that, against the Fremen who don't have those fancy shields, guns are still very useful. We can figure that much out just by watching how these devices function and figuring out the implications, and then doing the same with all the other neat stuff about the worldbuilding. In the book, Herbert explained the setting's retrofuturism and lack of computer technology with a lengthy backstory about a war between humans and AI called the Butlerian Jihad in which humanity's victory was followed by a thorough backlash against "thinking machines". None of that makes it into the movies, but it didn't really need to, not when the films do an expert job of crafting a society that thinks it's too good for computers, and not when it's resting on the visual shorthand of countless past space opera flicks like Star Wars. A rare case where the fact that the source material has inspired countless great movies actually works in the favor of its own adaptation, letting it spend less time on the parts of the worldbuilding that we've all seen before and instead focusing on the parts that stand out from the pack.

And the part here that stands out is a big one. Over a decade before George Lucas played a "chosen one" sci-fi story pretty much straight (and over three decades before he made the prequels as a deconstruction of such), Herbert wrote a story that portrayed prophecies, Great Man narratives, and organized religion as tools that could be easily exploited by a tyrant. Paul Atreides may have meant well, hoping to liberate the Fremen from tyranny, but by inserting himself into their struggle (with help from shadowy figures who had their own agenda in paving the way for his reign), he built something terrible, and the psychic visions he has throughout the story make it clear that his accomplishments will end in tragedy. Timothée Chalamet plays Paul initially as a rich kid struggling with the pressure placed on his shoulders, one who takes to Arrakis astoundingly well to the point that, when he's forced to leave his safe and secure life at the palace, he winds up comfortably integrating right into the Fremen's society. Throughout the films, we get hints of darkness within him, especially in Part Two once he starts delivering bombastic speeches to enraptured crowds that at some point start to sound uncomfortably like the speeches that the villains normally give in these sorts of movies. Even more than the psychic visions he has of the death and destruction to come, it was in these moments when I was both captivated by Paul's power and, more importantly, scared of the kind of leader he was growing into: a harsh, unforgiving warlord who's willing to resort to extreme measures to secure the independence of the Fremen. He's an easy guy to root for, but there's always a pit in your stomach as he slowly but surely pushes the boundaries right up to the breaking point. It's here where Chani, her role considerably expanded from the books, emerges as the film's voice of reason, serving as Paul's lover but also somebody who realizes that the Fremen are trading slavery at the hands of a colonial overlord for slavery at the hands of a cult leader, even without knowing the behind-the-scenes machinations that put Paul in his position.

That said, if it wanted to completely stick the landing here, there was one final shoe that needed to drop but didn't. Paul's psychic visions merely show him ominously as a leader with Hitler-esque undertones, as well as him in battle. The book went a lot further when it came to having Paul's visions showing him with far more than just undertones, sketching vivid displays of the misery that he is fated to cause: famine, genocide, the apocalypse on a galactic scale. What the films show us is designed to make us uneasy about Paul, while letting Chalamet's performance do the rest in making him look like a budding villain, but there's a point where "show, don't tell" can be taken too far, and that's when you're talking about prophecies of disasters to come that you can't linger on for too long in the film itself and can only tell us will happen. I was only a bit freaked out by Paul, when I should've been picturing myself in Germany in 1933. I was getting all the cool and badass parts of a great villain, but the things that actually make him a villain are still to come, and that, I think, undercut some of the menace and unease I was supposed to get from Paul. It wasn't a huge problem, but it was still a not-insignificant blotch on what's otherwise a great pair of films.

Fortunately, once you're past the plot, as a sci-fi epic this duology is gorgeous to behold. Villeneuve has always been a guy who, like Christopher Nolan, has an affection for gritty realism even when he's working with big blockbuster epics, and he made the most of the desert environments that give the story its name. He does a great job in particular imagining what big melee fantasy battles would look like augmented with futuristic technology, in which the pikemen and knights charging their enemies in the field are supported with artillery lasers. The cast is absolutely stacked and excellent all around, with Chalamet shining in the central role but everybody around him also doing great work, from Zendaya as the skeptic Chani to Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's mother with her own agenda to Austin Butler stealing the show in a surprisingly brief amount of screen time as the Emperor's depraved nephew who gets sent in in Part Two to stop Paul. It was perhaps a bit overstuffed; Florence Pugh wound up getting lost in the shuffle, not an easy feat with an actor of her caliber. I understand why Villeneuve decided to split this movie in half, because there is no real way this story could've been effectively told otherwise.

The Bottom Line

Villeneuve accomplished an impossible task here, crafting with two movies an adaptation of a legendarily dense novel that does it justice. This one has its faults, and there are things that the otherwise inferior Lynch version does better (especially with regards to its psychedelic elements), but even so, it is gonna go down in the ranks of all-time sci-fi classics. I give it a solid recommendation if you have even the slightest interest in science fiction.

4 notes · View notes

imaginarypasta · 5 months

Text

Coming into the new show, I was really curious how Luke was going to be characterized this time around. We’ve seen a mixed bag between the original series, reflections in later series, and the different adaptations, all of which regard him from different angles and places of emphasis. Overall, the show is quite true to the novels—if not directly including certain details, then in spirit (which I would argue is vastly more important). Every change they made was apparent to someone familiar with the books, but it was also very clearly meaningful. The way that things like Percy and Grover’s relationship, Annabeth, Luke, and Thalia’s backstory, and their encounter with Medusa, were changed were distinct from their literary counterparts, yet there was clear thematic reasoning behind this. Because the threads that will connect to his story are not yet settled, the reasons behind the changes made to Luke’s character are not nearly as clear—namely, the change of his status as counselor to camper.

I want to stress the positives of the changes more broadly—the buildup to the eventual ending, the increasing complexity through which we get to examine his character (a complexity that was absolutely present in the books, but also came in as the series progressed and Percy began to unpack some of the ideologies he had built up earlier on, something that at least so far seems to be taking a different route in the show), the way it allows us to examine different (perhaps more overlooked) aspects of his character. This last point is especially interesting as Luke has quite a few sources for his motivations all at once, but those don’t always get the same amount of consideration.

For me, the most interesting of those was his role as a caretaker-mentor-etc. central to his position as a counselor (and to some extent, in the family dynamic he has with Thalia and Annabeth), which is why it was so striking to me when I realized this seems to be changed. If he’s not a counselor in the adaptation and is just instead another camper, that allows us to examine these more overlooked sources of motivation, but also removes a massive aspect of his character—or, as I will posit, may just relocate it. Today I will examine Luke’s current appearance in the show with analogous moments in the novel in order to unpack how this role functions in the novel, how it remains (if reformed) in the show, and finally suggest how this change impacts the rest of the story.

On whether or not Luke is a camper in the show

Before we begin this journey, it is important to first decide whether this change even exists at all, which will then allow us to examine why it is so important. The first novel explicitly calls Luke a counselor—and the moments this occurs are relevant and will be discussed soon—whereas in the show, his role is not so clearly stated, but we can make assumptions based on a select few moments. The first moment is his introduction, in which he doesn’t seem to take on any sort of big leadership role in camp. When we first see him, he’s in the midst of a conversation with other campers during which one of them points out, “That’s the kid.” It seems difficult to believe another counselor would talk about a camper so unambiguously, so we can deduce that the speaker is a camper, but that does not inherently tell us anything about Luke. What does is how Luke responds: approaching Percy while his entourage, who we will see in a few other scenes, lingers nearby silently, watching and listening. This is clear from their body language and that they literally are not speaking or interacting with anything else. Luke makes no effort to dismiss the other campers at any point, supporting the idea that they are more of an entourage than his charges.

Something similar occurs in their interaction with Clarisse. When she begins to pick on Percy, Luke diffuses the situation, but as a peer world rather than someone tasked and trained with monitoring and being responsible for children. He says, “Knock it off,” but Clarisse continues on with no repercussions or further attempts to have her stop. Even when he debriefs about the situation with Percy after, he cites his credibility and skill as reasons for others not giving him a hard time rather than the possibility he’s literally in charge of them. With the idea that he is a camper in mind, let’s examine how the caretaker/mentor/authority role he takes on in the books is altered in analogous moments in the show.

Luke’s role at camp

Luke’s initial appearance in the book is quick, and yet so dense. His first spoken line, “‘Now, now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there,’” (84) does quite a bit of work. He has immediate authority over his campers, chastising their unwelcoming attitude, and then affirms the purpose of the Hermes cabin. This is something of an innate connection, too, but to see these two ideas together—that he is both an authority/caretaker while at camp, but also that being tied to the job of the Hermes cabin—will set them up as something critical to Luke’s character. They are, after all, literally the first two things he says in front of Percy. Annabeth then explicitly mentions that he’s Percy’s counselor for as long as he’s in Hermes cabin, affirming the authority he has demonstrated over the campers in this scene is echoed by his official position at camp. While Luke doesn’t acknowledge that authority by name himself at this moment, he commands it with ease. We also get a small tidbit here when Percy mentions the traditional camp necklace he wears. Looking back, we might assume Annabeth would mark the first mention of this, but it’s actually Luke. No explanation is given yet, but as Percy later learns what it stands for, this retroactively ties this symbol of camp—and not just that, but years spent there—to Luke first and foremost.

The relevance of Luke’s role as a counselor comes up again when the trio Iris messages him and he brings up the field trip some campers took late last year. This is the second mention of such an instance; the earlier one comes from Annabeth, who says, “‘Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice’” (99). Luke, however, brings a slightly different perspective to this anecdote in that later scene. He explains, “I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw [Hades]” (223). It is a subtle change, yet adds an important detail onto Annabeth’s earlier explanation. This tells us two really important things about Luke’s relationship to his job. For one, it is absolutely tied to how he sees the world; this makes a lot of sense, because going on and chaperoning a field trip are super different. Luke identifies himself as that authority/caretaker figure in relation to the campers, whereas a camper like Annabeth makes no differentiation. Second, it tells us that Luke’s position at camp and his role as the lightning thief (and further as part of Kronos’ plot) are tied together. Luke “theorizes” here about how difficult it would be for someone to steal the bolt, going into detail how someone might do it, accidentally implicating Annabeth and quickly taking it back. He is the son of the god of thieves, and has a natural ability to be better at this than most, but that’s not to imply the task was easy. It would be even more difficult if he was responsible for supervising a bunch of children, no matter how well-behaved they are. Luke’s use of his father’s talents does not come up too often, both practically but also in how he defines himself. We know from “The Diary of Luke Castellan” that these skills are not ones he likes to exercise, and yet they are critical to his role in Kronos’ plan. But they’re also critical in another moment.

Luke as a thief

One part of Luke that I find really interesting is his parentage. I know, I know, necessary comment that he would hate me saying that. But really, the way he seems to define himself as a caretaker/authority and through skills he chooses to hone like his sword fighting (we will discuss this soon), as opposed to doing so through the inherited traits from his father in the style of the other demigods, is really fascinating. Still, he cannot seem to manage to get away from this aspect of himself. He steals the bolt, yes, in service of something that would destroy the very systems that gave him the ability to do so, but he also steals something else, something much smaller: toiletries.

While they are waiting for dinner, Luke gives to Percy toiletries he says he stole for him from the camp store (110). At the start of the scene, Percy is unsure if this is a joke, but by the end, he’s grateful and at least humoring him if not outright believing him. It’s a very small detail and on a first read, really serves to just define Luke in relation to the Hermes cabin. But with the knowledge that he has such an aversion to using these traits and skills he inherited from his father, this action takes on new meaning. Much like he is using them to participate in Kronos’ plan, he is also using them to address a very rampant issue in camp: the lack of resources for the campers. Percy comes to camp with nothing more than the clothes on his back; he doesn’t have any of the necessary things for living here. At least of mentioned things, the camp only provides him a spot to sleep, not even a sleeping bag (85). It is Luke who finds him one later, and who goes against his preferred methods in order to provide Percy with resources for comfort—the fact that what this entails is literally basic toiletries is so telling.

Now seems like a good time to mention that Luke might just be lying. And while I do agree that we should take everything he says and does with a grain of salt, I don’t think there’s actually any reason to believe the camp is not providing campers with basic necessities (aside from food and a roof), even in situations like Percy’s where he comes there with nothing. Even if the camp isn’t starved for resources, it may be for staff. The only authorities there are Chiron, Mr. D, and the counselors. Whether the counselors—all college-aged kids—are given the proper resources is unclear, but the fact that there seems to be only one counselor for an entire cabin of kids (the biggest cabin at that) is massively revealing. As is the fact that counselors really aren’t mentioned for the rest of the books (quite possibly a large part of the reason this was cut from the show). If you start looking for this element, it starts to appear everywhere. I don’t want to get more sidetracked by this point than I already have, but I want to posit the idea that the support and resources are not there and wonder what that might mean for Luke’s motivations and for the campers who turn to his side. We know that the kids are not getting attention or even acknowledgement from their parents most of the time, but what does it mean if they are also not being supported in any way? This gives us a great insight into campers whose parents are minor gods especially.

A hidden darkside

One of the most fascinating changes to me between the novel and its adaptation is how Luke’s—pardon the word choice, I’m aware it’s cheesy—darkside makes its appearance. In the novel, Luke is introduced as this relaxed, calm guy. A few scenes later, he approaches Percy and begins to discuss a bitterness towards his father that really surprises our narrator based on how he sees him (100). Not only does it surprise Percy, but Luke’s attitude and body language actually scare him. He recalls, “... for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal” (101). While he mentions this fear, Percy doesn’t really address it besides those momentary fear responses. Otherwise, he continues to trust in Luke, going so far as to be grateful for his attention and even ask him clarifying questions about things that have been bothering him.

We get a similar bait-and-switch in the episode, but it ends very differently. Percy’s immediate reaction to Luke approaching him for the first time is worry he’ll be given a hard time. This is due to a lot of things—Percy’s experience with bullies, the part of the conversation he overhears, the way Luke approaches him—but is immediately assuaged when Luke compliments him. This marks a huge difference to the books, in which the change doesn’t come from Luke’s attitude, but from Percy brushing it off. As viewers of the show, we almost feel silly for believing Percy’s instinct when Luke is so immediately friendly. Even his bitterness at the gods is tempered by soothing comments about not trying too hard to understand them; that coolness is maintained, but in an entirely different way.

The best swordsman in the last three hundred years

Perhaps one of Luke’s most infamous scenes in the first book (though hardly the most lasting) is when he teaches Percy’s sword-fighting lesson. This scene is cut entirely from the show, and I’m quite curious as to why. Luke is a mentor figure to Percy—we’ll discuss soon just how this manifests—but he does not directly teach him any tangible skills. We see him accompanying Percy to find “[what he’s] good at,” but this direct impact on Percy’s abilities is nowhere to be found. There’s not even an analogous scene for me to compare it to. Rather, let’s take a look at the initial scene, how it comes up in later books, and what it might mean that it’s removed.

During this scene, as Percy and Luke spar, Percy mentions that, “Luke deflected it easily, but i saw a change in his face” (110). The exact details of the change are small: his eyes narrow and he uses more force, but Percy doesn’t even have a guess as to why that might be. Perhaps it’s increased focus, perhaps something more insidious, but there’s an ambiguity there that’s challenged in a few lines. When Percy disarms him, Luke responds, “‘By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!’” while grinning (111). At the end of the scene, Luke “[appraises Percy] with an entirely new interest” (111). The general sense here is curiosity, intrigue—and yet we have no way to gauge Luke’s actual thoughts.

At the start of this scene in the book, we hear from another camper that “‘Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years’” (109). While this could easily be hyperbolic or indicative of the sheltered world of camp, we get confirmation of this in later books. The only person who truly gives Percy a hard time in terms of sword-fighting skills is Luke (including much later when he’s possessed by Kronos), and even later than that with Chrysaor in The Mark of Athena. This scene with Chrysaor is so revealing because it allows us one of a few sympathetic looks at Luke after quite a bit of time has passed, and it’s framed through the sword skills Luke taught Percy that he never had need to improve because Luke was simply the best teacher that there was no demand for it.

A camper in the show makes a similar comment, but that is really the most we get of Luke’s sword-fighting abilities. He doesn’t train Percy here—in fact, Percy seems to have no formal training in this skill whatsoever, yet we can assume he’ll improve over the course of the show. This disrupts a huge point of comparison between Percy and Luke—that Luke’s skills seem to be self-taught and cultivated through hard work while Percy, though he has some training early on, largely operates through innate skill. Even if we change the basis of that comparison, it’s not one we’re naturally drawn to make anymore because we don’t even see Luke with a sword, except in passing. The role Luke takes on in relation to Percy must take on an entirely new angle, which begins with what we learn about Luke before he knew Percy.

Revealing his backstory

The choice for which aspect of his backstory Luke reveals plays a huge role in the differences in his characterization between these two versions. In the book, right before he walks Percy through the ropes of dinner, Luke mentions his failed quest. In the show, while preparing for capture the flag, Luke explains his backstory with Annabeth and Thalia. Choosing these different moments to define him before Percy meets him gives us an entirely different view of Luke. The change does quite a few things: defines his relationship to Annabeth from his viewpoint (something we’re not really given in the books) and redirects the question of glory in regards to his character. Not only that, but it makes that question so much more explicit, but also doesn’t acknowledge where he’s already failed in achieving that goal by his father’s terms. We get the introduction to Luke’s glory aspect so much more directly: in his explanation of kleos. This is perhaps the most explicit way Luke’s role is redefined in the adaptation.

Redefining Luke’s role

Though he does not have the same practical role in camp as in the books, Luke still manages to take on a mentor role towards Percy; it just looks a little different. Quite a few of the moments given to Annabeth (and others) in the novel are given to Luke in the show, like being the first and main person he talks to at camp and just generally his point of entry and explanation there. Scenes between the two of them are Luke reassuring and encouraging Percy, such as that they will find “[what he’s] good at” and introducing him to camp activities like capture the flag.

Aside from his practical expository role, Luke becomes relevant to how Percy is feeling/conceptualizing his time at camp. He affirms Percy’s anger, but suggests a more relaxed approach to it, not always explicitly but through example and advice. Overall, he really lets Percy come to his own conclusions about his feelings but absolutely hints at an alternative approach to the sort of reaction other figures are expecting/even leading him to have. Notably, we can see a line developing between Percy’s friendship with Luke and his feelings towards his father with how quickly Percy pivots between these ideas in his prayer to his mother (an idea discussed in-depth in the Seaweed Brain podcast episode about Episode 2 from 12/23/23). It’s very subtle, but as we find these two very distinct things in the same conversations, we can notice the way they’re becoming associated in Percy’s mind without him even noticing it.

Relocating his sympathies

Of course, if we consider how Luke’s relationship to Percy changes in how his role at camp changes, then we must also consider how it changes in regards to other campers. That is, if we are to assume that his role as counselor for the Hermes cabin is critical as a main pillar of his motivations, what does it mean for his connections to the campers and to his own ideals that this is now different?

One way to look at this is through the framing of the scenes in the show. We often see Luke coming out of these hushed conversations with other campers (who we likely presume to have a bit of an idea of what he’s up to, based on who we know the named ones to be). In the book, I never interpreted Luke as a loner, but he seemed so singular in his actions at least to start, that to have these hints of discussions we are not privy to with people we know will be tied to Luke’s cause in the future, really makes his cause seem bigger at the start than I at least had imagined. And while we hear later of his influences on the camp when he was there or “visiting,” these come in later books and force Percy to sort of reimagine his influence that has been slowly growing during the series but always present. In the show, he is not as unique in his opinions, but perhaps the role he’s able to take on is (i.e., as a counselor in Hermes cabin), which of course opens the very interesting question of why him (his allegiances, after all, don’t necessarily seem to be his first choice).

Before I conclude, I want to suggest where this sympathetic element of Luke’s motivations may be relocated to. I’ve mentioned briefly that I find it pertinent that Luke is not only a counselor, but also of the Hermes cabin. Removing this aspect, for me, was removing a really interesting aspect of his characterization. However, we’re not just cutting things from his character but rearranging them entirely—including the ability to now see his relationship to Annabeth (and to a lesser extent, Thalia and perhaps even Grover) from his perspective. Especially because he hints at this in his character diary, I wonder if that aspect of care that takes one step beyond his righteous anger at his father & perhaps the gods more broadly, and is now placed in defense of his self-identified family.

Conclusion

As for what all this offers for the show at large… I don’t want to get into my thoughts about why Luke’s characterization is so important to me, both in his role in the plot and as a foil to Percy because we will simply be here forever, but it really does offer us something different from the novels. One of the easiest things to get out of Luke in the books is his disappointment with and anger at his father, but one of the clearest things we see about Luke in the show is his interest in glory. We know this because he explicitly introduces the concept, because he shows us how it can be put into place (his position in camp irt characters like Clarisse), and because of how he reacts in small moments like in capture the flag (with a lot of excitement! I think he enjoys the game, or at least winning it). I’m very curious as to how this will manifest later, especially when discussing something like his quest.

It’s not impossible that the ideological aspect of Luke’s motivations comes without him being a Hermes counselor, but it is a position that gives him a unique angle to develop those feelings, but also a unique position to enact them (i.e., he gets to meet basically every camper that comes through, or at least a lot of them. This means he’s simultaneously relearning the sort of circumstances demigods have, but also can develop personal relationships with many of them); I have to wonder how it will manifest in the show, as we redefine what sort of relationship he has with Percy, the other campers, and his family, should they choose to even keep this aspect. I am especially curious to find out how his motivations will be changed further when we’re no longer conceptualizing this as a question of Western civilization, but instead one of different “worlds.”

#personal #ok i rewrote this because it didn't touch on everything i wanted it to and also it was poorly organized #i did also double the length. so it's just shy of 4000 words #but this is just sort of... a lot of my thoughts on the thing that stood out to me the most my first time watching the eps

2 notes · View notes

khalixascorner · 2 years

Text

In The Depths Pt 2

Summary: Meroctopus Tony just wants to have his own fry one day, but wants to ensure he has the proper mate to have them with. One day, merguppy Peter catches his attention and Tony decides that the merguppy is going to be his mate. Whether he wants to or not.

Tags: MerOctopusTony, Merguppy Peter, underwater au, Stalking Octopus Tony, Non-con/dub-conned into love, monster fucking,Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Sex, naive peter, Oviposition, The author spent way too much time researching sea creature reproduction and it shows, the author has also never written said stuff before and it shows, hermaphrodite Peter, Mpreg, Pregnant Peter,Squid Beck in Ch. 2, The Author Regrets Nothing, happy ending guaranteed, Dark Tony, sorry if i forget a tag

Read on AO3 Here Pt 1 here

Art by the absolutely fantastic @sausageg

Peter settled in as Tony’s mate easier than the octomer expected. He doted on the little guppy, bringing him anything he asked for even if Tony had to swim far out to find it. He also made sure to give Peter plenty of attention, wrapping him in tentacles each night to help him sleep.

Tony couldn’t wait for their fry to be born so his guppy wouldn’t be so lonely. Guppies were schooling fish after all, and he hadn’t realized how crucial that social interaction was for his sweet mate until he was clinging to Tony nightly. In the meantime though, he decided something needed to be done.

As Peter was sleeping one day, he slipped out, heading for one of the two foot places. He had watched them before, making moving things from nothing but hard pieces and shiny rock. After watching them for some time, he learned to manipulate their tools but a it took more work to make things work underneath the water. Unfortunately, most sea creatures feared them, so Tony kept his workshop hidden and all of his tech tucked away safely.

Now, though, he set to work creating plans for something guppy friendly. Something that wouldn’t appear so different while still keeping his mate safe and happy.

It took more cycles than he liked, but soon, Tony had two of his creations ready to go in their new bodies. Dum-e and U had originally been coded as helpers for his creating but nothing was more important than caring for his mate, and it had only taken a few updates for them to become nanny and guard fish. Tony was particularly fond of the monster lure fish so he modeled their bodies after them only on a smaller scale. They had sharp teeth and fast fins, like the ones two legs used on their floating rocks, and best of all he had been able to make the glowing bits on their heads work too.

Their den was dim and the area around it often grew dark earlier than nearby places, which forced his poor guppy to hide away. Tony’s specialized eyes and receptors in his tentacles made strong light a moot point, so the bioluminescent plankton and plants he cultivated were enough for him to be active whenever he wanted but Peter wasn’t so lucky. His eyes weren’t adapted to the dark at all, and there had been times Tony had to even feed him directly when he couldn’t see well enough to manage it himself.

Dum-e and U would fix that though, giving Peter portable light along with their company. They weren’t the smartest creatures but they’d do just fine for his curious guppy.

Peter was tired and sore as he always was these days. Being a carrier for their young was harder than he had ever thought. Other guppies in his school had carried their young without slowing down but Peter struggled and he wasn’t sure if it was because Tony’s eggs were developing differently or if he just wasn’t suited to parenthood. It was a depressing thought, and one that was hard to shake when he was so isolated.

He trilled sadly and curled up tighter into the nest. Tony had been gone more often lately to hunt for them and Peter missed him.

With a sigh, Peter forced himself out of the nest. He was hungry and there were bound to be some algae he could snack on until Tony returned with something more substantial.

Peter idly drifted outside their den, enjoying the filtered light and decorative shells Tony had added for him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here little guppy,” a sly voice said from above him. “Are you lost?”

Peter startled, looking up to see a squid mer floating above.

“No, not lost,” Peter said cautiously. Squids were predators, and had been known to even steal mer fry if they had the opportunity.

“You look like you’re carrying quite a big load there,” the squid said, swimming closer. “Do you need help getting home?”

“No, I’m fine,” Peter replied tersely. He flicked his tail and pushed himself away, mentally cursing his clumsy fins as he did. “Please leave. I don’t want any trouble.”

“I’m hurt,” the squid said dramatically, clutching at a shell necklace he wore. “I haven’t done a thing and yet you’re treating me like a dangerous predator.”

“You are a dangerous predator,” Peter retorted, still trying to move back towards the safety of Tony’s den.

“Don’t be so scared, little guppy,” the squid soothed.

Peter’s stomach turned at the smooth voice, his instincts going haywire as he tried to retreat. The squid swam closer, moving faster than Peter could out-swim. He trilled in fear, sand filling the water as his tail flailed uselessly in the water. His heavy belly dragged him down and panic stole away what strength he had.

“Come on, little guppy, you’ll hurt yourself,” the squid called. “I’m not going to hurt you. You have my word. I just want to spend some time with you.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious the guppy is taken, so how about you back the fuck off before I rip your knock off tentacles right off,” Tony’s voice said suddenly.

“And here I thought I’d finally gotten rid of you,” the squid said haughtily. “You should be careful, little guppy, Octopi are notorious for being dead beat dads. Oh wait, it’s just dead dads. They off themselves so they never have to deal with the fry.”

“Better than eating them like you,” Tony called back. “And at least I have brains between these arms instead just an ink sac to think with.”

Peter jumped as something grabbed him, then relaxed as he recognized the feel of Tony’s tentacles.

“I’ve got you,” Tony murmured, arms and tentacles wrapping tightly around him. Then the octomer called out. “Dum-e, U, deal with this intruder.”

Peter shook as two large silver fish burst past them towards the squid. There was a yelp, and the squid fled even as Tony called the other fish back.

“These are Dum-E and U,” Tony said as the silver fish came up. Only as they got closer, Peter grew confused. They looked like monster fish but there was an odd color to them and they didn’t move right.

“What are they?” he asked, reaching a hand out tentatively as they came closer.

“They’re nanny fish,” Tony said proudly. “I made them to take care of you and our fry. They’ll give you more light too with their little head lights.”

“And they’re safe?” Peter asked. One finally got close enough to touch, and he jerked his hand back as he felt the hardness of stone instead of the living flesh of a fish. “What? What is this?”

“I told you, I made them, like a two legger makes things,” Tony said as he gave one of the fish a pat. “They’re made of the strongest stuff I could find, though they’re kind of stupid. Smart enough to follow orders and be good for you though.”

“And they won’t try to eat me?” Peter asked as he noticed the rows of sharp teeth in their mouths.

“Nope, I put you into their main personality as the primary person to protect,” Tony said smugly. “They know you come first no matter what. Oh and watch this. Dum-E, light the way.”

One of the monster fish lit the bulb hanging off its head and Peter gasped.

“Tony, it’s so bright! How is that possible?”

“Just a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” Tony said, skirting the question. “If you’re really interested, I’ll take you to my workshop sometime.”

“That would be amazing,” Peter said, his voice full of awe as he touched the brightly glowing bulb. “I- Did you really do this just for me?”

“Of course,” Tony said firmly. “You’re my mate and you were lonely and I’ve noticed how much you get scared in the dark. So now you don’t have to be lonely or scared. I love you, Peter, and I know it was rough at the start but all I want is your happiness.”

Peter couldn’t help the melancholic trill that slipped free as Tony gathered him up tightly.

“I-I was so scared, when you first dragged me into your nest, but you’ve been so gentle and kind since,” Peter said softly. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, not really. I don’t know if I love you. You took me away from everything and I miss my school. That was my home, and my friends. But I, I think I could come to love you, with time.”

“That’s good enough for me, little guppy,” Tony said, drawing Peter in for a gentle kiss. “I’ll court you and woo you properly until you’re as in love with me as I am with you. And until then I can wait patiently.”

Peter curled into Tony’s arms and tentacles, relaxing into the octomer’s hold. It wasn’t going home, but he meant what he said. He truly believed he could come to love Tony.

“Come on, guppy, let's get you back home so I can take care of you properly,” Tony said, drawing his gravid mate close to him. “After all that excitement, you should rest a bit. I can help you unwind.”

“No toxin,” Peter said quickly and Tony agreed.

“Of course not, we don’t want to harm the fry, but I’m sure I can put these tentacles to good use in other ways,” Tony all but purred.

His little guppy flared his fins in interest and didn’t fight as Tony swam them back to their home.

Tony set the guppy down on their nest carefully, ordering the two bots to stand guard as he let his tentacles run slowly over his mate’s skin. His caresses were soft, suckers only latching on gently before letting go again, yet it was enough to get his guppy squirming.

“Tony, please,” Peter trilled, and Tony took great pleasure in letting a sucker tug particularly firmly against the guppy’s nipple. Tony slid down Peter’s body, taking the nipple into his mouth instead. As he suckled on it, he slid a tentacle up to Peter’s mouth, running it around the edges before pushing just the tip in.

His mate instantly started sucking on it, trills and whimpers slipping out around it. With a grin, Tony used his hand to feel his way down to Peter’s slit. He ran a finger along the edge, teasing the flap and rim as he lapped at his mate’s chest. Then he pushed in, reveling in how Peter gasped and arched into his hold.

“Oh little guppy, so tight down here,” Tony moaned. “I want to taste it and then I’m going to make you squirm on my tentacles again.”

Peter whined in response but didn’t fight as Tony continued kissing a path down Peter’s body towards his slit. He wasted no time in repositioning his mate in their nest, Peter’s heavy belly cushioned by seaweed and dorsal fins high in the air with his slit exposed.

“Such a feast for me,” Tony murmured, licking at the slit carefully. He held Peter’s hips firmly as he stopped delaying and thrust his tongue in. Peter tensed around him, moaning at the intrusion. Tony couldn’t help slipping his tentacle back into the guppy’s open mouth.

Peter moaned again, sucking the tentacle feverishly as the heat and pleasure built to a peak just from the thrusting of Tony’s tongue. The firm warmth rubbed all of the right places and Peter shook as his senses went on the fritz from pleasure. His head fell forward, pushing the tentacle down his throat and dragging another moan from him.

Since their first time together, he had kept stuffing Peter until the guppy didn’t feel truly satisfied without it. Even now, fresh from orgasm, he wanted more in his slit, so that it felt as full as his mouth.

Tony seemed to read his mind, pulling his tongue out and replacing it with a tentacle instead. The tip pressed in, and Peter sagged in the octopus’ hold, waiting on the relief his thick tentacles always brought.

Only instead of relief, Peter just felt frustration when the tentacle bottomed out only inches in. He whined, wiggling and trying to push himself back further only for Tony to pin him firmly.

“Easy there, little guppy,” Tony soothed. “I’ll take care of you but you have to be careful.”

Tony tutted as Peter trilled and tried to push back again. He grabbed his guppy more firmly in his tentacles and then reached down to rub at the younger mer’s slit.

Once he was sure the edges were softened enough, he slid a finger in alongside his tentacle. Peter whined and moaned at the intrusion. The vibration around his tentacle felt good, and Tony couldn’t help but push that in deeper, spearing Peter on it and filling his mouth and throat.

“Look at you, taking me so well,” Tony said, reaching his hand up to feel Peter’s stuffed throat. “I bet if I squeezed I’d be able to feel it. Should I stick my breeding arm here instead? Fill your throat with my seed?”

Peter’s slit clenched around his fingers and tentacle and he moaned loudly. Tony smirked, quickly switching the tentacles so that he could stuff his guppy properly. He also used the tip of three tentacles to fill Peter’s slit, freeing both hands for him to play with.

“That’s it baby,” Tony said as he fed his tentacle further into Peter’s throat. When it was far enough down, he grabbed the guppy’s throat and started massaging it, moaning at the warm pressure from the younger mer’s body. “Fuck, baby, it’s like I’m playing with myself.”

Tony continued to massage his tentacle through Peter’s throat even as he added another tentacle tip to Peter’s slit. Heat and pleasure burst through him as his seed released into his mate. Peter moaned around him, sucking it down even as his gills flared in pleasure, fins fanning and closing as his body tightened around Tony’s other tentacles.

“That’s it, little guppy, fuck– such a good mate taking me like that,” Tony groaned. “Can’t wait to put another clutch of eggs in this hole. Gonna keep you bred up until we have a whole school just for you.”

Peter whimpered, shuddering as Tony slowly pumped the tentacles in his slit until the oversensitivity became too much. Then his mate withdrew them. Peter trilled unhappily, feeling empty even if he knew more would be too much.

“It’s ok, little guppy,” Tony soothed, arranging them both in their nest so that Peter was cradled in his many tentacles. “I won’t leave you empty.”

Peter sighed as a tentacle slid back into his slit, just far enough to give him something to tighten around. Another tentacle rubbed at his lips, and Peter caught a slightly salty taste before it pushed into his mouth. He suckled it instinctively, relaxing as Tony’s hands cupped his gravid pouch.

“So perfect,” Tony murmured into his ears. “My perfect wonderful mate.”

Peter drifted off to more soft murmurs and the secure embrace of his mate.

#khalixa writes #starker #tony stark #peter parker #sfsummerbingo22 #mind the tags

21 notes · View notes

set-wingedwarrior · 11 months

Text

I finished Magia Record

It was interesting, that's for sure, but to be honest it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

And it's not because I am already aware about the truth about magical girls, witches etc, my biggest problem is the pacing. I can feel that it's from a game, with conflicts that are obvious boss fights, characters appearing and disappearing randomly, lots of infodumping through dialogues.

Not even mentioning that the are so many characters that, as much as are interesting, don't get nearly enough attention for me to get too attached. Like, I care, but not the same way I grew to care to the original girls, who I got to know better through their story (which btw, were a delight to see in the few times they appeared!)

This is so obviously a story created for a game, and it would have been nice if they did a better adaptation in my opinion.

That's not to say it's trash of course. I was interested, I waned to know what the hell happened to Ui (shout out to crunchyroll for spoil it for me because it decided to jump to the third season directly after the first episode of season 2 like, how does that even happen), and the characters that appeared the most managed to make me care for them a lot! The music and animation are amazing as usual, some fights are particularly very very cool to watch, and some scenes were actually impressive and hit hard.

So, yeah. It could have been better, and I grieve a bit for the lost opportunities and potential, but it was still a good spinoff for my favorite anime. Good job.

Now, time to learn how to download the damn game.

#madoka magica #magia record #pmmm #mahou shojo madoka magica #puella magi madoka magica #puella magi magia record #sorry not sorry but i love madoka magica too much to not annoy you with some sort of review lol

5 notes · View notes

give-me-stuff-to-watch · 11 months

Text

Watching Stuff Day 2 - 7/8/2023 - Current Streak: 2

For today's movie, I watched Nimona, and it was so good that it felt criminal that I was able to watch it by just having a Netflix account. I wish this movie had a theatrical release for the sole reason that it would allow me to purchase tickets and support it more directly.

As mentioned in my previous post, I read the Nimona graphic novel when I was middle school and I decided to read again before watching the movie to refresh myself on it. The movie ended up changing most of the plot while still keeping quite a few similar story beats, so the re-read wasn't really needed. Even though it wasn't a faithful adaptation with the exact plot, it did still feel faithful to the spirit of the original comic and the purpose of its story which is why I feel that it's still a good adaptation alongside being an amazing movie on its own.

One of the major changes that I ended up really liking was how they handled Ambrosius and Ballister's relationship dynamic, they made them have more explicitly show that they have romantic feelings for eachother and even had them in a relationship. I also specifically with how it changes the scene where Ambrosius removes Ballister's arm. In the comic, Ambrosius and Ballister were more spiteful despite still having some care for each other because they had a longer period of time in the comic to develop as enemies and because Ambrosius removing Ballister's arm was due to more selfish reasons. In the comic, Ambrosius was told that if he could beat Ballister in joust, he would become the Institution's Champion. The Institution wanted to secure his victory, so they gave him a weaponized lance in order to make that happen. He didn't want to use this unfair advantage, so he was planning to use it as just a regular lance. Since he wasn't familiar with it, he lost fair and square to Ballister, and in desperation he used the weaponized lance and blew Ballister's arm off. It's still an interesting backstory for how that happened in the comic, but I prefer how the movie handled it by making it a much more complex situation. Instead of it just being black and white with Ambrosius being fully wrong, it's a lot more nuanced now. Slicing his arm off was still a bad thing to do from the audience's perspective because we know Ballister is innocent but from the perspective of everyone else, he had a dangerous weapon that just killed the queen and needed to be stopped. However, since Ambrosius had such a deep connection and relationship to Ballister, it still works at being a betrayl to Ballister since Ambrosius would've been the one most likely to trust and defend Ballister, and Ambrosius being aware of that adds to his guilt over it. It does a lot to set up conflict between the characters while still giving you reason to empathize with both of them to some degree. Also, generally since they were still in a relationship at this inciting incident for the film and still have strong feelings for eachother throughout, it adds a lot more depth and intrigue for the scenes they share together and how they end up. As individuals though, I feel like both characters were changed a lot from their comic counterparts. Ballister's change feels a bit more natural to me as we're seeing a version of him that didn't have any reason to be critical of the institution or commit more actually evil acts until he met Nimona, while he was already doing that himself for a while in the comic. Ambrosius feels very different though, he seems to be a better person in the movie, showing more guilt and struggle with his actions. This is somewhat better because it strengthens his relationship with Ballister but doesn't feel as much like the original character.

As for Nimona's character she was handled perfectly here! They kept her as a violent, chaotic, fun-loving gremlin and executed that incredibly well, no notes on that. I also really liked all of the focus given on how she doesn't want to be defined by others or feel like she has to change to be accepted. What I found to be one of the most emotional scenes in the movie was when she was flashing-back to when she was using her powers and changing herself to try and fit in with various groups of animals only to experience rejection each time, only to find someone she thought did accept her as she is, only for her to be betrayed and have that ripped away. I almost cried at that. I also like how the movie had a more uplifting and happy ending for her with her being accepted and mourned by everyone while having an ending scene that implies that she is still fully alive and going to be more directly connected to Ballister. This is more of a personal preference though, the comic ending is also really good, and in quite a few ways better critically imo, I'm just a sucker for happier endings most of the time.

A few minor nitpicks I have:

I feel like Ballister's distrust of Nimona at the end wasn't as well built up as it could've been. It was still fine, but having the comic as a comparison, where it was much more believable with how it happened makes it stand out a bit more to me.

The artstyle was quite a bit different from the original comic. I found the comic's artstyle really charming and was a little disappointed it was changed so much. However, I understand that it was the kind of style that would be difficult to adapt in 3D and the new style they went with also looks really nice on it's own. While I'm talking about how it looks visually, it was also really well and smoothly animated for the most part along with having interesting shot composition. It also had really good modeling and set design. They really knocked it out of the park with all of that.

They changed Ballister's last name to Boldheart instead of Blackheart. I don't have an issue with that , but do think it's a missed opportunity that they didn't have a line where someone who believes him to be a villain goes "Boldheart?!? More like Blackheart!" It would've been cheesy but I would've appreciated the reference.

Overall, an amazing movie on its own along with having good callbacks to the comic (stuff like the board games, "I'm a shark", and the zombie movie). A near 10/10, I'll probably rewatch it at some point in the near future and if they do a blu-ray release of it I'll probably buy that too.

#nimona #nimona netflix #nimona film #nimona 2023 #animation #3d animation #review

6 notes · View notes

truebluewhocanoe · 6 months

Text

A Meeting of Minds Extended Author's Notes

Spoilers for my fic A Meeting of Minds! Please go read that first.

This fic was an interesting one, since it’s for a corner of Who I haven’t quite touched before: fan Doctors. A Meeting of Minds is based on a pitch for an animated Doctor Who series, drafted up by I.N.J. Culbard during the Wilderness Years but never presented to the BBC. You can read his pitch and the story behind it here; it’s only a couple paragraphs and the rest of these notes will be me talking about how I adapted said ideas, so please do read it.

Okay, now that you’ve read the Culbard pitch, let’s talk about it.

Character fusions are interesting. It’s not made clear in the pitch whether the resultant fusion of the Doctor and Master has one unified personality or both the Doctor and Master’s personalities hanging around, but the comparison to the Fourth Doctor and the Watcher fusing to make the Fifth Doctor makes me think it’s the former. Let’s be honest: he probably meant the latter, but multiple personalities is a sensitive subject I don’t feel qualified to write on and the trope of the Evil Alternate Personality needs to stay dead for a few goddamn centuries at least, so that option was off the table from the start.

So, the Doctor and the Master regenerate together into one body, with one resultant mind. How would that happen? The presence of the Fourth Doctor’s scarf and Harry Sullivan’s jacket implies it happens during, well, the Fourth Doctor’s era. Of course, we know that the Fourth Doctor never met the non-crispy Thirteenth Master on screen due to Roger Delgado’s unfortunate passing, but this is fanfic so I say it can happen. Harry’s jacket doesn’t necessarily imply Harry’s presence- maybe he left it in the TARDIS wardrobe- but I like Harry Sullivan a lot and Four/Sarah/Harry is one of my favorite TARDIS teams so I decided to set it roughly around Terror of the Zygons. Terror, of course, marks the end of the UNIT era (depending how you classify it), and a tipping point in the Doctor’s overarching characterization: he’s sick of running around doing the Brigadier’s bidding… so he takes off, and that’s that.

Harry’s stint as a companion seems very short-lived, with each of his stories leading directly into the next and thus apparently cutting him off from any other adventures with Sarah and the Doctor during the UNIT era, but Scratchman ignores this continuity and thus so can I.

The rest really wrote itself. The Doctor, in his fourth incarnation and traveling with Harry and Sarah Jane, merges with the Master in a freak regeneration accident. How? Because the Master was trying to steal the Doctor’s remaining lives. I didn’t give an explicit reason, just implied that for whatever reason the Master feels the need to get more regenerations, now. Why is the resulting person wearing Harry’s jacket? Because Harry died, of course.

Sorry Harry, I love you, but this was the most interesting way this could go. Harry’s death cuts off the Fourth Doctor’s arc before it can even get off the ground- literally- by giving the Doctor a slap-in-the-face reminder of why he runs around protecting the Earth: because he cares about the people on it.

Just one problem: is this person the Doctor? Or the Master? Or neither?

Of course, the original pitch was for Doctor Who: The Animated Adventures, not The Master: The Animated Adventures. I left it somewhat open-ended for our poor nameless Time Lord who’s not quite sure who he is, but of course he’s the Doctor. At least, mostly. He has the Master’s memories, too, and had the rather ruthless impulse to loot the corpse of a friend- even if I’d say that’s not outside the realm of possible actions for the Doctor.

But ultimately, the probably-Doctor chooses to run towards the Doctor’s TARDIS, not the Master’s. Harry’s death hits him hard. He doesn’t want to show his new face to Sarah Jane and the Brigadier, because he cares about how they think of him, and fears that they’d be revolted by his fusing with the Master. (And perhaps because he doesn’t know if he’s safe to be around, not with how close to the surface his ruthlessness is.)

But why is it the Doctor who had far more influence over the merge than the Master? Well, because he was the one supplying the regeneration energy. The Doctor and the Master got glued together, but the Doctor was also the glue. So if anything, the Doctor absorbed the Master.

…Yeah, okay, can we talk about how that’s kind of horrifying? Character merges always carry a sort of existential horror. There were two people, now there’s one, that implies some kind of death, right?

Yeah. I don’t think it’s just Harry’s death that will have a lasting effect on this Doctor, but also the fact that he essentially killed the Master by accident as well. Sure, he has the Master’s memories and some of his personality, but there’s no one left in the universe running around calling themselves the Master. They are effectively dead.

I don’t plan on writing a follow-up to this, but I can at least imagine the future of this Doctor. The Culbard pitch mentioned a story with Sea Devils in 1960s Brighton; I think this Doctor sticks around Earth, at least spatially, but hopping up and down its timeline as a self-appointed protector, maybe with just the slightest undertones of implied ‘ownership’ as a lingering mindset from the Master. I think it would take him a few adventures to gain the confidence that he’s the Doctor, not the Master, and that it would be safe for him to take a companion. Maybe he reunites with Sarah Jane, or maybe he needs a new friend for a fresh start. That’ll be for y’all to imagine.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

-The shift from past to present tense was originally at the moment where the new incarnation decides to run. I changed it to be at the POV switch to the new incarnation, since that made a lot more sense, and in doing so thought that removing contractions from the prose would fit as a quirk of this serious-faced new incarnation. He doesn’t get any spoken lines, but the implication is that he doesn’t use contractions when speaking.

-I planned to include a line saying that the new incarnation referring to himself with the ‘he’ pronouns was only out of habit, but I don’t think the Doctor or Master thinks about themselves in English, so that pronoun in the prose is due to the the fact that the TARDIS is translating their thoughts for us, the viewers/readers. I felt that they/them would’ve left it ambiguous whether the new incarnation was one personality or two, which is something I did want to definitively settle, so I stuck with “he.”

-This was my first time writing Delgado's Master, hopefully I didn't make him overly hammy. If I did: my bad.

Thanks for reading all through my rambles, I hope you enjoyed this weird little fic!

#doctor who #doctor who fanfiction #wilderness years #fourth doctor #thirteenth master #delgado!master #harry sullivan #true blue who fic

1 note · View note

oopshisaygoodnight · 2 years

Text

the DWD rant

Vanity Fair, Dec 2020

"The question of her second film, says Wilde, “is what are you willing to sacrifice in order to do what’s right?”"

That actually does sound like a compelling question- especially paired with Olivia talking about how of course she pays taxes and wants peace for her own children's sake, but is that feeding into a repressive system?

So she poses that question and doesn't answer it. How do we wake up?

&&& of course, miss “most male actors don’t want to play supporting roles in female-led films” relied heavily on promoting this movie directly to harries with the promise of free concert tickets (see Toronto) & early access in exchange for free unquestioning loyal devoted praise

if he can’t act, then he’s not pretending. if he can act, then it’s the difference between directors

letterboxd review:

(Having already read the original script that was then bought and adapted by Olivia Wilde’s frequent collaborator, Katie Silberman, I knew it was a simulation. I appreciated them cutting out the introductory scene where Alice & Jack are already trying to concieve and Alice is secretly wiping herself with Clorox as a contraceptive. Too visceral. But soon, dear reader, I would come to miss this Too Visceral excision).

Alice starts to get these moments of waking nightmares. She has a tune stuck in her head, and she doesn’t know why. She starts having real nightmares. And then she decides to stay on the trolley while it loops back into town, and she sees a plane crash. The same plane crash that drove Margeret to madness? She is seen in quick cuts dragging her son with her into the desert, and then alone, with only her sons toy airplane. Kiki Layne was so wonderful when directed by Barry Jenkins, her eyes were so expressive and communicative- the blankness in her stare conveys not a fragile state of mind but more of a general boredom.

So we get to the real problem I had- I saw this in a packed Dolby theater full of suburbanites of all ages, many adults, few Harries. No one even gasped when Harry first graced the screen- I was expecting at least a murmur of recognition. The crowd had gotten so riled up during a false start where the trailers started with no sound, hooting and hollering and joking. I thought surely, we might have a rousing time at the cinema together.

Alas, we were palpably bored. Scenes there meant to convey dread conveyed tedium as the actors tried to play some cat and mouse- Frank (Chris Pine) says some trailer line about “I’ve been waiting for someone like you to challenge me” except… how does she challenge him. The entire dinner table confrontation comes out of no where- how does Alice’s crumbling psyche suddenly sturdy up so she can point out how stupidly constructed the simulation is (apparently everyone gets one of three backstories about where they are from, where they met their partner, where they honeymooned. Like, come ON even the most basic of video game story structures has a better structure.)

If I were building a simulation, I would probably exclude the idea that “if you die in the simulation you die in real life”, just for the sake of my own comfort and longevity. Alas, rip to Jack because Alice hit him in the head with a simulation blunt object. Same to Chris Pine- sorry that programmed knife was blunged into your simulated chest. It was fun for Gemma Chan to do that, and I was glad to see it- but was this supposed to be the feminist takeaway?

Ok- what was the takeaway. What was the message. Great questions. Sometimes a movie can just be a fun story and you get to sit in a theater and be dazzled by loud noises, pretty people, beautiful settings, well-framed shots. I did not experience that, or if I did, it got old very quickly.

Olivia Wilde touted this film as many things (bring good sex back to cinema! Give women great meaty leading roles! Find male actors willing to let those female actors take the stage!) and said many more insane things (only women come in this movie! None of the men!), so you would hope there is some message tucked away as universal as, say, take control of your life! You are in charge of your own destiny!

We watch Alice discover that her happy life is a fiction, that the love of her life has kidnapped, gaslit, and trapped her, and the only real thing to come of her attempt to liberate herself is that she did find it kind of nice. Maybe the takeaway is that some fictions are easier to swallow than the truth?

Oh well. We know Alice wakes up in the real world next to her dead husband strapped to a bed, and beyond chewing through her own restraints, I don’t see how she’s going to get out of this situation.

Caveat number one: I’m not going to defend Harry Styles as an actor because I know his face is too ubiquitous for people who are tired of it to feel different. BUT, I think he did a fine job. Olivia Wilde wanted a Jack who sold the fantasy, and Harry Styles in his little 1950s getup with beautiful face is a classic fantasy. But what Jack actually needed to be able to do was to convey menace. Even when Harry yells, Harry is a puppy. Jack needs to be a pathetic incel in the real world, and they did an amazing job of making Harry Styles extremely unattractive. I like to speculate idly about why he would agree to this project when so much about it has been so ill-gotten and poorly recieved ever since. Perhaps it was an exercise in subverting a collective societal fantasy about how talented and attractive Harry Styles is- that it is, in fact, a performance and an illusion.

Caveat number two: The marketing. I know Warner Bros has a lot riding on the success of this movie, but this seems to translate to a desire to cater to Harries who are willing to show up for his face alone. Olivia Wilde somehow managed to alienate and anger the one good thing about her movie- Florence, in favor of whatever these many months of concert attendance and yacht photos has been with Harry. She also chose to market this as a movie about female pleasure- its about female torment. She put her two sex scenes in the trailers front and center, because Harry Styles going down on Florence Pugh is an evocative headline. Poor Harry, I might argue, is making an actorly choice to chew on Florence’s face, to constrain and dominate her, but it’s not a good look, especially when you had no intimacy coordinator on set. (You read that read! A movie about “good” sex with no intimacy coordinator!) For these reasons, I hope that the swirling intigue spllatered on tabloids and across twitter keeps people out of the theater. I want whats best for Harry, and I want this to flop.

more rumors: the edits are taking a long time, the release dates keep getting pushed back. harry & O are more or less regularly papped. there are deuxmoi submissions with shit like “saw O and her daughter at bakery and a harry song came on and they sang along and were cute”. she is living in london bc jason is filming ted lasso there, and rumors that she & H have moved in together.

ok- we arrive in 2022. i undergo my transformation vis a vis rabbit hole, and i enter into the “no stunts larrie” community. “no stunts” means that you believe every relationship H & Louis have been in for the past 12 years has been a publicity stunt. i’m not so sure i agree, but larries in general are more smart, engaging, and queer on twitter so that’s what i surround myself with.

there are plenty of interesting and insightful things said that make me slowly believe the likelihood of H & O being publicity:

Harry has said “everything you see is work. i keep my private life private”

Harry has said “i’ve never publicly been with anyone” (he genuinely has never publicly acknowledged any rumored gf)

backgrid is a papparazzi company that celebrities basically hire for staged pap photos- so everytime new photos came out and they were from backgrid? there was some questions, like, why would paparazzis be out taking telephoto pictures of a boat based on a suspicious that it might be harry and O? the coast of italy isn’t really crawling with paps waiting around for their moment.

and if harry & his team wanted to keep them private, they absolutely could have.

then there was this funny way that people could predict when we would get pap photos- it felt like clockwork, every two weeks, or after some other publicity event, and it would just line up in convenient ways.

it wasn’t until i experienced harry going MIA for two weeks between europe and north america that i really realized that he can disappear when he wants to. & he can be on public places where fans spot him just as easily.

ok so- back to DWD drama. it gets a trailer, it gets a venice premiere date. florence, who is normally very vocal about projects she cares about, is noticeably silent. and by that i mean on one day O made several instagram posts and several instagram stories about the film and many of them were specifically about florence- other people who were tagged reposted, you know, to promo the movie they’re in. but florence didn’t. 23 hours pass. the stories are still up, and the only thing florence has done on social media is share a poster for oppenheimer, the christopher nolan movie she is going to be in. now, showing that she was definitely on line and definitely willing to post about projects she is looking forward to while doing zilch for the movie she is the absolute lead of? telling.

florence does one other major thing, which is get featured in harpers bazaar, and quoted as saying “it’s not about sex scenes, or the most famous man in the world between your legs. it’s not why we do it, and i think we’re better than that”. olivia clearly continues to push the “female pleasure” aspect of the film in other interviews, which is exactly what florence asked her not to do? ok.

side note for funny timing- my policeman promo started and anytime they moved or posted something, so did DWD. i’m sure that made sense from a shared audience point of view but came off as trying to usurp the spotlight back.

another thing? rumors of a backend deal for harry AND olivia, so they took a smaller amount upfront and owned a greater percentage of eventual profits.

(DWD promo seems to be very tied up with Harry ™️ and love on tour to the point where there was a toronto pop up for DWD with harry cookies & the chance to win tickets to harry- synergy! there was also an LA screening with O that was specifically for Harries (allegedly the screams of these g’s girls were very disruptive to other patrons to the point of complaints in twitter). those noble fangirl s did manage to sneak some photos & audio recordings out for mass circulation.)

then we have the shia thing blow up- he came with some serious receipts.

someone made the point that it’s kind of fascinating O managed to catch the ire of the most destested actor of the moment, Shia, and the most beloved, Florence

then we get to venice- florence is said to be “too busy filming dune”, but she agrees to do the red carpet and ONLY the red carpet, violating the unspoken social contract that if you are VFF, you do the press conference, the private cast dinner, the red carpet, the screening, and the after party. she iconically arrives in venice 5 minutes after O, at the press conference, when asked where Flo was, said she couldn’t make it. another petty later to this delicious cake.

the red carpet is a chaotic gorgeous mess of avoidance choreography. harry is never next to O, flo is never next to O, flo is never next to harry. everyone else there gets hugs and kisses. tension is now palpable. the seats in the screening room has built in buffer between those three.

the movie reviews start to trickle in from the two earlier press screenings and then in greater force when the embargo lifts- bad reviews.

another funny coincidence? the bad reviews start to pour in along with the circulation of the standing ovation, which at VFF is a minimum of 6 minutes for the Big Premiere, and anything over 8 gets talked about with much more reverent tones. (it’s not a science- some crazy long standing O’s at vff were for boba fide flops that were otherwise critically panned).

the standing O might have lasted langer, but florence just starts to leave, and everyone follows, and one could generously clock that standing O at 5 minutes, less if you’re petty.

now let’s get to the script & development:

DWD was featured on the hollywood blacklist which circulated the best undeveloped scripts of the year. O bought the script and katie silberman, who also wrote booksmart, did edits.

so you can go & read the original script and see that changes definitely occurred, but the basic premise is rooted in the suburban fantasy being revealed as a mere simulation, one in which most oft he wives are unknowingly trapped. interesting premise for a movie that is also somehow about female pleasure as O has been trying to sell it.

i think the original script is totally mediocre but sure, a sci fi thriller full of dread and woman questioning her own sanity- fun!

now to the bad reviews and everything since venice. as soon as the first leaked sneaky pictures came out it was clear that the twist was there- you get a picture of a real-world Harry made up go look pathetic with long hair and ratty t-shirt laying down next to a comatose Flo with restraints trying her down to a bed with iv’s in her arms and devices covering her eyes.

now the simulation thing is supposed to be the big twist, but that real-world shit and it’s implications on the simulated environment the movie dwells in are triggering.

i think it’s not that the story shouldn’t have gone there, but that it did a disservice along the way.

0 notes

uomo-accattivante · 3 years

Text

Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:

There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.

The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.

On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.

“It was just a lot,” he said.

Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.

Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)

“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)

The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.

“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.

“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.

The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)

So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.

But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.

Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.

So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.

Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.

Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.

In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)

In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.

It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”

Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.

That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”

Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.

“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”

Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.

“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”

The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.

Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”

But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.

“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.

She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”

“It felt so dangerous,” she said.

I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.

Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”

The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.

“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”

By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.

Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.

“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”

###

#oscar isaac #jessica chastain #scenes from a marriage #hagai levi #michelle williams #elvira lind #behind the scenes #article

321 notes · View notes

velvet-cupcake-games · 2 years

Text

Very Gay Notes for Pride

I've posted a few times about gender and sexuality in my game world, as well as about character sexual orientations. Some stuff has changed a bit as I've gotten to know our characters better, though. So here's an updated list of characters whose stories touch on non-cisgender and non-heterosexual themes directly in-game. As Avalon operates on a pre-modern concept of sexuality, I do not use modern labels in the game. Heterosexuality and homosexuality just aren't concepts yet, so characters think more in terms of sexual preferences than having the idea that they were born with a particular orientation. I use labels here for ease of understanding for modern readers.

Marion is bi/pan, she romances characters regardless of gender, which just isn't particularly important to her in terms of who she's attracted to. In our prologue, you learn that she's had liaisons with both men and women in the past.

John is bi/pan, and it's officially part of the game's plot now as his previous relationship with a man during the Nibirian War is discussed. (Poor man got dumped. Why? Stay tuned! Don't worry, he's single and ready to mingle now, he's had time to get over it.)

Meissa is non-binary (not agender - they would describe themselves as full of gender) and bi/pan with a slight preference for femme-presenting lovers. Thanks to Nibirian shapeshifting magic, they are able to be in the body that works best for them. I neither know nor care what their original body looked like. Nibirians think of both gender and sexuality as fluid, and that fact is woven into their society.

Alanna was originally conceived as bi/pan, but I later decided that she's lesbian. She has no sexual interest in men, though she'll flirt with anybody - it's part of the job.

Geoffrey is demisexual and demi- or aromantic, and it's an identity that he's still discovering during the course of the game. His sprite is not in our photo because it's in flux right now, but he is a full and important part of our LGBT+ cast!

Theo is gay, monogamous, and married to another nobleman. He is sadly unkissable (unless you are his husband).

Roan is a major NPC that y'all haven't really met yet, but they are agender. They're a changeling - a former fae who decided to forego their near-immortality and become mortal - and are a scout for Robin's rebellion. Fae do not have genders as a natural state, but some greater fae develop gender preferences as they interact with humanity. Roan has not done so and seems uninterested in doing so.

Avalon doesn't have a concept of sex as sinful, though it is generally meant to be a part of the private sphere (something done "in shadow," which does not connotate evil, merely private). Commoners in Avalon freely choose life partners regardless of gender. The nobility has a bias toward heterosexual marriage because of an obsession with continuing noble bloodlines, but nobles having same-sex lovers on the side is common and considered unremarkable.

Regardless, some nobles like Marion and Theo struggle with the expectation that they'll marry heterosexually. Theo's marriage to another nobleman caused some ripples in both families, but he put his foot down about it.

Avalon is a society built on binary concepts, and unfortunately the gender binary is one of them. Transgender people who are part of that binary are quietly accepted, but being non-binary isn't a concept in society at large. The language does have an ungendered singular pronoun (useful when you're speaking of somebody whose gender is unknown), which I approximate with they/them. That's why Marion easily adapts to Meissa and Roan with they/them pronouns.

Other societies in the world are not like that. As I mention, Nibiru considers gender and sexuality to be fluid. They don't even have gender pronouns - they use the terms "bringer" and "bearer" to denote people of reproductive age who can sire or birth children, but those terms are purely mechanical and aren't necessarily connected to male or female gender.

Sunjata is a "third-gender" society. Their deity, Amun, was originally considered male (and is sometimes referred to with male pronouns), but took on other genders upon devouring all other gods and becoming the sole deity of the land. Trans and non-binary people occupy a third gender between male and female in their society. This third gender (I haven't named it yet, need to do more research) is considered sacred to Amun and worthy of respect. In general, gender is less important than skill and ability in Sunjati culture.

#made marion #lore #english otome #amare

50 notes · View notes