#the most themes and narratives of all time like

[quickcharlie]

Denis Villeneuve discussing Dune Part 2 in an interview with the New York Times today, including whether he will be reading any FeydPaul fan fiction lol

He explains why Lady Jessica’s face is so heavily tattooed, whether Paul considers himself the Messiah and what he thinks of those Javier Bardem memes.

This weekend, “Dune: Part Two” muscles back into IMAX theaters with the verve of Timothée Chalamet rodeo- riding a giant sandworm. After nearly two months in theaters, the film is the current champion of this year’s box office race, with a total take of more than $680 million. (It’s also available to rent or buy on some streaming platforms.) The film’s success is thanks in part to audiences that have returned over and over to get lost in the rocky warrens and spiritual reckonings of the planet Arrakis. One admirer reports he’s seen the movie 25 times to date.

That there’s so much to explore in “Dune: Part Two” is a credit to its writer and director, Denis Villeneuve, who boldly reshaped Frank Herbert’s complex and cerebral 1965 novel “Dune.” Villeneuve split the book and its themes into two films: “Dune: Part One,” released in 2021, focused on the political struggles between two families, the Atreides and the Harkonnens. “Part Two” delves into religious fervor as the two surviving Atreides, young Paul (Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), ingratiate themselves with Arrakis’s Indigenous desert tribe, the Fremen, by allowing the locals to believe that Paul is their Messiah — a prophecy that, if it comes to pass, will mean the slaughter of billions of victims across the galaxy.

Villeneuve has yearned to tell this story since he was a in . His devotion is palpable; every frame feels steeped in monkish contemplation. Yet, he’s also a visual dramatist who doesn’t want audiences to get tripped up by too much exposition. His scripts give only passing mention to core concepts like spice, a psychedelic dust that powers everything from space travel to Paul’s clairvoyant hallucinations.

Though Villeneuve doesn’t want to overexplain, he was willing to provide some answers in an interview via video where every question about the film — even silly questions! — was on the table.

Does Chalamet’s Paul Atreides actually believe he’s the Messiah? What’s the meaning of Jessica’s face tattoos? Villeneuve also got into the erotic lives of his desert dwellers and the extra narrative weight he threw behind Paul’s Fremen love interest, Chani, played by Zendaya. As Villeneuve said with a grin, “Chani is my secret weapon.”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

The last time we spoke, you weren’t sure what to make of the sandworm-shaped “Dune” popcorn bucket. It went on to be so popular that it sold out in cities before opening day and is being resold online for around $175. What do you think of it now?

I thought that the bucket was an insane marketing idea. I laughed so much. It is so out there. I don’t know who designed it, but they’re a bit of a genius. I’m at peace with the bucket.

In this film, Javier Bardem’s character Stilgar is reduced to a guileless follower of Paul Atreides, who Stilgar believes is the new Messiah. His conversion is tragic. But also, Bardem’s awe-face has become a funny meme, and the second time I saw the movie, people laughed at almost every line he spoke. Did that reaction surprise you?

No. I am very happy when you say that he is a tragic figure. For me, he is the most tragic figure of all. The idea to bring humor to Stilgar was to make him lovable, to feel the humanity in that character. He’s not an austere figure, he has a big heart. But his beliefs, his faith, his reactions bring humor — and that is something I love about making a sci-fi film, because I can talk about that without offending people because it’s a fake religion. I designed all the prayers myself, so I know it’s fake. I find Stilgar very funny. And when people laugh, I’m happy because that was the intention.

Someone makes a dig that Stilgar has found a savior again. This is not even his first time? All his life he has been raised with that dream. So I suggest that every time a guy comes from outside with a lot of charisma, he hopes he’s found him. Like in the Bible, we have tons of prophets before Jesus came.

The arc of “Dune: Part Two” is Paul accepting that he must become the Messiah — and get billions of people killed. Does he truly believe that he is the Messiah? Or does he just decide to let the Fremen believe that he is? I don’t think he believes that he is the Messiah. I think he feels the burden of the heritage that the Bene Gesserit [the mystical sisterhood that Jessica belongs to] have laid among the Fremen, and he sees the potential to use that religious power to survive. Paul is warned that no man can survive drinking the spiritual water of life. But as that’s part of the lore of a planet seeded with manipulative propaganda by his own mother, I have to ask: Have other men actually been drinking the water and dying? Have they been scared off from trying? Is the warning just a setup for a magic trick?

There are people that have tried it in the past and died. In Frank Herbert’s world, femininity is a power. I think Herbert was fascinated by motherhood, by the power of creation. I love this idea that the power is held by women. It’s something that was ahead of his time when he wrote it and I tried to put the focus on it. You say so much with Jessica’s costuming. In the first film, her look is immaculate and baroque. This film begins with her in rags, but she finds another path to being dressed and treated like royalty. And she gets a lot of tattoos on her face. Why did she get so many more face tattoos than the outgoing reverend mother?

She’s trying to play on the symbolism that was put in the prophecy. She’s supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, so I wanted to bring the idea that she was like the pope of the reverend mothers on Arrakis. There’s some kind of madness in writing elements of the prophecies on her face. Frankly, I think when you drink the worm poison, it affects your sanity — and the same with Paul. I like the idea that we feel she’s going too far. Jessica is already pregnant when the first movie ends, and she’s still pregnant at the end of this film. Which means you had to condense this massive story into less than nine months because her body is a time clock. The idea was to compress the book so that Paul will feel the pressure to get the Fremens’ trust, to start gearing up — but not to succeed, not to have the time to create a real war. Time is against him.

Because in the book, this takes years. Long enough for Jessica to give birth to a very unnerving daughter, Alia. We glimpse Alia as an adult — she’s played by Anya Taylor-Joy — but you skipped over seeing her murder people as a toddler. Was it hard to decide no “murder toddler”?

I think pregnant women look tremendously powerful. To use that power was very exciting. And usually when you see a pregnant woman onscreen, she’s always giving birth. To avoid that moment, to stay in the state of being pregnant, I thought was very Frank Herbert-like. I was going away from the killer toddler, but I thought that was more fresh and original. Honestly, it’s one of the things that I’m proudest of in the adaptation. Speaking of female power, let’s talk about Chani.

Chani is my secret weapon. Frank Herbert was sad to realize that people saw the book as a celebration of Paul Atreides. He wanted to do a cautionary tale against messianic figures, a warning against blending religion and politics. I wrote the second movie trying to be more faithful to Frank Herbert’s intentions than to the book. In the book, Chani is just a follower. I came up with the idea of her being reluctant. She gives us the critical distance and perspective on Paul’s journey. I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against. And then the movie becomes the cautionary tale Frank Herbert was wishing for.

Paul makes a choice at the end that will go on to kill billions of people. That’s so large and theoretical that it’s hard to grasp. But you structure your climax so that in that moment of betrayal, he’s also betraying the love of his life — a betrayal we understand.

He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them. That’s the tragedy of all tragedies. Like the Michael Corleone of sci-fi, he becomes what he wanted to avoid. And he will try to find a way to save his soul in the third part.

But “Dune Messiah,” the book your third film is based on, picks up 12 years later with a reunited Paul and Chani. How far did you feel you could push her anger? Because at some point, she’s going to have to forgive him. That anger is tremendous. I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision. In the spirit of no dumb questions, Chani says that Paul sand-walks like a drunk lizard. Which means Arrakis has booze?

Actually, there is spice beer. In the book, there are Fremen parties, even some orgies involving spice. I didn’t bring that into the movies because it’s PG-13.

Body fluids have significance to the Fremen. Spitting is the giving of water, a sign of respect. But tears and vomit are a waste. So what is kissing?

As long as you don’t lose your humidity, you can kiss. It’s an exchange of fluids — an act of love, when you think about it. Fremens love to kiss.

What about the, um, other romantic fluids? You cannot have sex outside, for sure. But they are very sexual. I suspect that all sexual intercourse happens in environments that are protected from losing moisture. When they are in their sietches [or caves] underground, those are sealed. You don’t need to wear stillsuits inside them. We can deduce from that there is no problem to have sex in a sietch.

By the way, who decided that Fremen was pronounced Freh-men and not Free-men? All the pronunciations, I took them from recordings of Frank Herbert’s voice. Frank Herbert used “Freh-men,” which I love. It makes it less on-the-nose.

You kept two major characters out of the first movie and only introduced them now: the princess Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, and the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The princess is the first voice in the books, the first face onscreen in David Lynch’s “Dune” [1984]. What made you sure holding them back was the right move, despite three years of fans asking, “Hey, where are they?” When people ask me what was the biggest challenge in making those movies, it’s writing them. In order to make this adaptation, we have to make big, bold decisions. One was that the first movie should be seen from Paul’s perspective. I wasn’t able to do that entirely because I had to go to the Harkonnens’ side to introduce them so that the story will be clear, but I tried to find an elegant simplicity in the story structure. And I wanted, frankly, to keep some firepower for the second movie.

Why is Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator scene in black and white? And what are the splats in the sky above the dome?

Frank Herbert explores the impact of ecosystems on cultures, on humans. How it influences the way we evolve — our biology, culture, technology, mythology, religion. The psychology of a tribe is linked with their environment. If you want to know things about the Fremen, you observe the desert. I wanted to have the same approach to the Harkonnens. They killed nature. It’s a plastic planet. One thing left was sunlight, but instead of a sun that reveals color, it kills colors. When you are outside, it’s all black and white. It gives us ideas about how these people perceive reality, politics, violence in a binary world — it brings the idea of fascism. It also gave me the opportunity to bring images that remind us in our memories of World War II and the Nazi regime. So it’s an idea that I had as I was writing. Then I had the idea to have strange fireworks in the sky that will look like Rorschach drawings. It’s a nightmarish celebration. The perception of a dome is not accurate. It’s just that the fireworks reach a certain altitude and then they explode. But it’s true that it looks like a liquid that falls from the sky.

Forgive me if I am not being fair to sadistic, psychopathic Feyd-Rautha. But all of the gladiators were supposed to be drugged for his happy birthday massacre. The one who secretly isn’t puts up a worthy battle. So I assumed that Feyd-Rautha isn’t that great of a fighter. But at the end, he’s the only warrior who is Paul’s equal?

It’s a show. You see that the Harkonnens are very cruel and their society is very paranoiac. His opponent is known in the books as one of the great fighters, Lieutenant Lanville. I tried to show that Feyd is excited to have a real opponent. He has a code of honor, he respects the effort, and he has fun with it. That’s the idea I tried to convey — he’s not a coward.

Audiences might remember that the Bene Gesserit wanted Jessica’s child to be a girl, that Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides was supposed to be female. And they specifically bred Feyd-Rautha to be a male. Were they hoping these youngsters would mate?

Yeah. They are trying to increase the potential of humanity by breeding the best specimen of each tribe or family. A baby between Feyd-Rautha and an Atreides daughter would have brought peace between Harkonnens and the Atreides, and created an über being.

Will you read any of the internet fan fiction spawned by the idea of Timothée and Austin hooking up?

[Laughs] But you know, we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for.

I rewatched the first film again recently. It opens with a quote in another language: “Dreams are messages from deep.” I love that quote. It feels like how a film resonates, too. But it wasn’t until I had subtitles on at home that I realized who said it. Of all the important characters and cultures to establish, you gave that major moment — the very beginning of your franchise — to an anonymous Sardaukar from the murderous imperial army that we’re cheering to see get killed. Why?

I love your question. The Sardaukar are the dark side of the Fremen. I thought it would be interesting to have a tiny bit of insight that they are not just tremendous warriors, but they have spirituality, philosophical thought. They have substance. Also, their sound was designed by Hans Zimmer. I absolutely loved how it feels like it’s coming from the deep, from the ancient world. Frank Herbert said beginnings are very delicate times. By starting with a Sardaukar priest, I was indicating to the fans that I was taking absolute freedom with this adaptation, that I was hijacking the book. But you also deeply love the book. So when you make these bold changes, do you feel like asking Frank Herbert for forgiveness?

Yes. There’s so many darlings that you kill. An adaptation is an act of violence.

“There’s so many darlings that you kill,” Denis Villeneuve said of filming “Dune,” a book he loved. “An adaptation is an act of violence.”

#dune part 2 #denis villeneuve #timothée chalamet #austin butler #paul atreides #feyd rautha

[eosofspades]

okay i meant to make this post forever ago but my personal opinion on why so many people were so dissatisfied with lightfalll (disclaimer: i am not one of these people, i love lightfall SO much), is that lightfall was kind of subjected to a really aggressive marketing campaign.

like, stick with me here, i feel like almost all the lightfall release content (the trailers especially) were so focused on battling the witness, how this battle has been centuries in the making and this is the Second Collapse Finally Finding Us, only for there to be,,, no real resolution. the end was left on such a severe cliffhanger, but not only that, there was NO battle with the witness. the witness didn't even seem to be having a hard time at all with what we WERE throwing at it.

and for narrative reasons *i* am obsessed with this ending; in terms of storytelling i adore practically every creative decision that was made in lightfall, but i think the reason that so many people were so upset about it is because lightfall had such intense marketing and was rooted in the implication that this was the End of Days, only for us to get almost no closure, and instead so many more questions.

(there's also something to be said, i think, about the fact that the people who ARE most upset about this are like, the youtube gamer dudebros who's content is very very often rooted in the aggressive, violence-and-warfare, pvp-centric, no-interest-in-lore approach to destiny, and that the people i've seen primarily ENJOYING the narrative decisions (or at least being understanding about it) are the artists and writers and loremasters of the fandom, but i'm not quite sure,,, how to expand on that point.)

#like. something something yt dudebros who are like 'uhhh destiny is about violence and war and the lore is only for people who suck at pvp #and destiny is a shitty evil game i hate it sooooo much hashtag 26871435 hours recorded gameplay' asshats #being the ones complaining MOST about the narrative in. a narrative driven game. and refusing to engage with ANY lore in a LORE HEAVY GAME #vs. the community on here thats full of artists and writers and people who actually like to analyze the story and characters #and engage with the lore and have any emotional attachment at all to the characters and world and themes #being the ones who are like. appreciative of the narrative decisions made and looking forward to where the story will take us and #looking at the game with LOVE instead of hatred and malice #and even if you didn't like lightfall!!! people in the latter category are still the people who i keep seeing be like #'yeah even if i didn't personally like it i can understand the significance of this narrative decision.' #'i acknowledge that bungie put so much time and effort and passion into making this even if it wasnt satisfying to me personally.' #'i have the critical thinking skills to understand that bungie is not a sentient malicious entity trying to ruin my life; me; specifically' #like. do you get what im saying. gamer dudebros who think the world revolves around them vs the fandom members who actually understand art #bc. thats what destiny is. its art. the whole thing is a massive art project made by a group of people that are very passionate about it. #do you hear what im saying at ALL its like two separate fandoms for the same piece of media the difference is so stark #mine #destiny 2 #lightfall #destiny 2 lightfall #eos destiny essays

[spacedlexi]

people will say clem should have died at the end of s4 like we didnt get the entire barn sequence. like clem didnt literally become lee in the end seeing his fate through her own eyes. like they didnt fake us out sooooo hard. like they didnt play take us back to hammer it home. the game ended on the pan out of the ericson gates and everything after that is the epilogue where things are Fine Actually and clem gets her happy ending. we got BOTH!!

like what you wanted her fate to be the same as lees? did you miss the themes throughout s4 of breaking the cycle?? did you miss aj feeling so helpless to a fate clem sees as inevitable? where all he wants is agency? where hes looking for another way?? he tells clem she wont always be able to tell him no and he was RIGHT!! he says NO to her death!! he makes his choice and SAVES HER!! she told him they couldnt be together in death and so he said then youll have to keep living!!!

and she does!!! she loses her leg but she gains a Home. a REAL ONE!! full of people who love her. where they get to choose their own paths and make their own future Together. and she finally gets some fucking Rest. a part of herself dies in that barn but a new part gets to emerge!! she gets to live a happy life surrounded by a loving community that she helps build!!! and you think she shouldve died 😐

#aj mvp for Real #the themes bro the themes..... #aj looks clems doomed narrative dead in the eyes and says NO!!! #and i love him for it :')!!!! #s4 u understood the assignment literally the best ending i couldve asked for #like why would u want her to die 😭 whats the message there?? its BOOOORING #this girl who has been fighting for her entire life succumbs to a fate she saw as inevitable when all she wanted was some fucking Peace #Groundbreaking 🙄 #her thinking its all over and its finally come down to what shes been running from. accepting her fate. but being told NO #youre gonna LIVE DAMMIT #clem having to let lee go and fight and survive on her own #aj refusing to let her go and in turn saving her life #SILLY IM SO SILLY clementine you are EVERYTHING #clem the most doomed character of all time. lives anyway. love that for her #twdg #the walking dead game #it speaks

[larrythefloridaman]

WOAH, HE'S BIGENDER? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!

#hey. hey. im just saying. he LITERALLY 'transed his gender' in a diagetic bit in orange. and if that wasnt enough. #in blue he disguised himself as squid jenny specifically with larry's powers (the only thing hes done with them on screen) #got caught by his god-assigned roles-obsessed caretaker. and was given the label of being something intrinsically unescapably deceitful. #while 'pretending' to be trans girl. #like. if i wasnt pretty sure it was all an accident i might even call the allegory here slightly heavy-handed. #with the nccts emphasizing a theme of 'youre not just what people say you are #you can be more than one thing at the same time' with crim #i think crimson can have boygirl swag. some bigender pizzazz. i think he deserves it. #is it REALLY a cpu kerfuffle arc without a subversive narratively relevant gender-transing. #am i supposed to believe the spirit of deviance himself is cis? get fucking real. grow up. /silly #also a lil crimtoinette in there. just for flavor. because i cant help myself. #also sidenote the nccts have given him this cute lil tendency #to tip his hat down to hide his face when hes trying to be Genuine or Thoughtful or Poignant. and i enjoy that little touch #i maybe like this guy a little too much. hes most of what ive drawn for months. #but what do you want from me. i read him as a queercoded villain deconstructed at the metanarrative level. #am i just supposed to be normal about that. #me and zia talked about this in dms and discovered. we came to a lot of the same conclusions. completely independently. lmao

[buckttommy]

I don't think 9-1-1 is in the business of killing off mains but I get the feeling something catastrophic is coming Buck's way and it's not going to be the car incident

#Time is a central theme that unites and binds Buck and Eddie but it is a theme that has been attributed to Eddie for the most part via #dialogue/context/circumstance/etc. #But last night Lev specifically mentions the concept of time in relation to happiness; not to Eddie this time but to Buck #in a way that simply cannot be mistrued or extrapolated or taken to mean or be associated with anyone else #Kind of makes me wonder about Buck's mental/emotional trajectory as well. Last season he clung to Taylor because he was afraid #of being left again. Understandable since he lost three key people in his life within a matter of months. #But they came back. And then Taylor was gone. And Buck's not clinging anymore but he's not happy either #so why the connection between Buck and Time? It's been so effectively established but why establish it at all? #Does he feel like Taylor was his last chance at the life he wanted? Wife. Kids. Happiness #(or at least some approximation of it) #That would put Lev's words into an even greater perspective: how he had this Thing that Buck actively desires and craves and it still #wasn't enough. #This thing that leaves Buck wondering 'if he had it all and it wasn't enough what will be enough?' #The question is: does he have the time to figure it out? #Because Buck might feel like *his* time js running out in the same way all human beings feel like there is never enough time #to heal the way they want to heal / achieve what they want to achieve / be who they want to be... #But Buck is a character trapped within a narrative he has no choice but to dance to #and that narrative is feeling so. Damning these days. #He feels like he doesn't have time but I'm willing to bet he has even less time than he thinks he has.

[anyroads]

Posts I've seen in just the last week:

AO3 is one of the most visited sites in the world

It's ok if your fanfic [that you're writing for free in your spare time] is unfinished! You do you!

How very dare these WGA writers not finish writing my stories for me [that they spend full work days every day working on] just because they don't get compensated fairly for their paid labor and decided to go on strike?

Respect unions! Unionize your workplace! Respect picket lines!

Posts I have not seen ever but maybe it's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

AO3 would not exist without the paid writers who are currently striking. You would have no stories to write fanfic of. The entire world your fic exists in was created by someone else's labor.

#tbh I don't like how you can't say anything remotely critical about fanfic without people getting up in arms like you're invalidating it #I very much agree fanfic is a valid art form #but most of it very much does rely on the work of writers who are able to develop narratives in ways that a lot fic writers don't need to #and who are practicing a craft they are trained in #and granted I don't really rove in fandom circles #but fanfic very much would not exist if not for someone else's world building and character development #and I haven't seen that acknowledged during this strike at all #people are expecting writers to finish their paid work when they can't even afford health insurance #I see so many posts about how fanfic is a valid genre and it is but that doesn't mean it's the same as professional writing #I love that people have such a passion for writing and storytelling that they do it for free in their spare time! #but that's not the same as doing it for a living and planning out a whole TV season's story arc before writing any episodes #it's not the same as writing every single character and plotline from scratch and understanding that process #it's not the same as understanding how to structure a novel and plan and implement literary motifs and themes and metaphors #which isn't to say fanfic can't do these things but how many fic writers do? #and tbh that's not the point of fic and that's fine but where's the acknowledgment that fics exist because other people DO

[magpiesbones]

It does honestly impress me how EXACTLY and PRECISELY Emily Skrutskie constructs the most INCREDIBLE and Appealing premises only to do LITERALLY nothing with them. These books are SO empty!!

like okay. First book of hers I read, a fun little synopsis:

woman who works as a sea monster trainer to train massive genetically engineered Beasts to protect ships from pirate attacks falls in love with a pirate! INSANE right. Should be accompanied by an exploration of THE CREATION OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED WEAPONS and probably also the ECONOMY LEADING TO PIRACY and not to mention the JUSTICE SYSTEM and what it means to have ALL THAT GODDAMN POWER but no. There’s nothing.

weird! Funky little book I’m sure I can just excise from my mind and never think about again—

BUT I CANT. BECAUSE HER PLOT POINTS ARE TOO DAMN INTERESTING. and oh big surprise but all the rest of her books have the EXACT same issues!!

hullmetal girls: two girls fall in love (I think?) in a military academy after being turned into weapons in a completely space-faring society. I believe one of them was a rich officer-track girl and the other was poor and in it for the family pension. But oh that’s so interesting! Will we be exploring THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM? Themes of BODILY AUTONOMY? Themes of perhaps even GENDER relating to bodily autonomy or MEDICAL AUTONOMY or PHYSICAL DEVALUATION? How about a look into WHY THIS SOCIETY IS SO DAMN BIFURCATED? or perhaps WHY THERES A NEED FOR MILITARY AT ALL? We sure fucking won’t!

All of this is Backdrop you see! Because it sounds Cool. A little bit of spice, perhaps, for what is maybe the MOST milquetoast romance I have ever read wherein neither of the characters was even differentiable from any other. Nobody had an arc. Nobody had a theme or god forbid a thematic resolution. Things happened because they were cool and sounded neat.

I’ve read books with bad writing before but usually those books were at least passionate and TRYING. I’ve never read before or since a book that was so empty and devoid of any deeper meaning. Shallow in the MOST literal sense. And to be frank I WAS digging! These books are a backyard sandbox marked out like an archeological site.

#like mmmm where’s. Where’s the ANYTHING. god I fucking WISH the curtains were blue honestly! #Did I go into the tags to see how big a beehive I would be kicking YES and I’d like to say um Diversity doesn’t excuse a total lack of them #I’m aroace! usually I AM in fact scraping for any representation at all but hm hullmetal girls is. I’m disowning it. #it’s such an unsatisfying book. It’s entertaining enough. But there’s nothing to it really. There’s no themes and none of the characters #Ever progress as people. The plot feels very pointless and even depressingly so at times. No narrative arcs at all. #Like. A lot of things happen but nobody really goes anywhere and no problems are ever fixed or caused or solved or anything. #A whole lot of nothing happens and then everyone is sad and worse off. And it doesn’t mean anything. #Not even in an ‘all violence is ultimately pointless’ kind of way. Nothing anyone does holds any deeper meaning and everything is lip servi #to culminate in the most SINGULARLY unsatisfying books I have ever read to the point I RECOGNIZED hullmetal girls as the same author #as the abyss surrounds us (pirates one) when I had forgotten the author name AND title of that book. #that should be enough to keep my filing system out of the general tags #Emily skrutskie #hullmetal girls #the abyss surrounds us

[jemmo]

it happened. my little sister has joined the bad buddy fandom.

we watched ep 11, we cried, then proceeded to talk for 3 hours (yes, three!) about bad buddy, im talking the fandom, the fic landscape, then nonstop just analysis, the themes present, the dynamics and relationships, the character building. basically fawning for hours about how incredibly crafted the show is. she’s an english lit major and a fic writer so she goes fucking ham on this kind of stuff, to the point where she said things that even had me shook bc like… not even to see the show through somebody else’s lens, but through someone that understands writing on an academic level and how she applies that appreciates it, it was just so interesting to see the things she picked out and how she applied them.

so yeah, she’s come out of it with a rudimentary fic idea, a dissertation’s-worth of analysis to write and a whole list of taylor swift edits to make, so get ready.

#we got her!!!!!!! #7 months late but we got her #and she’s so down like she fucking gets it #it wasn’t me telling her all this stuff it was her realising all this hidden stuff she could dig out and being like wow this show is amazing #like talking about ep 11 she went ‘pat breaks down the most bc this is the first time we see him with nothing’ and I was like YESSSSS #i can’t get in to everything we talked about bc it was literally over 3 hours nonstop but highlights were like #how pat and pran contrast as characters and why their dynamic works #how the themes of bets make absolute perfect sense in this show and are such a good tool #how you can tell they’ve been shaped by their past and their families #how music is such a overarching theme for them #symbolism through objects and gift giving #narrative structure and how bad buddy nails it #how ohm and nanon’s performance works #how the styling and theming gives weird nostalgia that adds so well #there was way more but it’s all blending together basically just absolutely fawning over everything #i could legit just cry bc… god I miss the bad buddy days and talking about all that stuff and being able to do it again was so much fun #anyway I will hold her to this I will make sure there’s a fic at least #get ready for her bc she’s genius and also fucking hilarious #bad buddy

[beatcroc]

star vs the forces of evil was so fucking good and for what. for ppl to be mad about kissing? hell and death and violence

#just had a fucking CONVERSATION in friendsever and ignoring the lackluster s4 its jsut like. my god #the only animated thing ever to do racism allegory well and correctly #and also be really fucking raw about it #the abolute fucking balls of this show to do its colonization loredump ep on july 4th #kickass well-excuted narrative themes aside theres also just fun awesome stuff such as: eclipsa #my GOD where to even start with eclipsa literally the character ever of all time #both in a narrative sense and just being a fantastially fun character #the way the characyer design on svtfoe was absolutely batshit but also really fucking good in the most unexpected ways #buff frog. #the toffee arc. the meteora arc. #just holy shit so much in this show was knockout #missing star vs. so hard on this fine saturday evening #bweeeaaahh #also i just rememberd the INSANE amout of external lore that was put out across like 3 hefty artbooks. or.. lorebooks ig #this show really had it all. and for what. for WHAT

[carbonateddelusion]

THAT REMINDS ME- I need to draw another entry for the explanation posts.. I think I'll give a rundown on the two (three? sane AU Eddie isn't really his own thing) versions of Edgar and how his relationship with The Main Antagonist Dude (Eli/Jack) impacts the narrative

I'll definitely need some input from Ben for Elijah's portion, though

#it's a shame tho bc eli's universe is nowhere near as developed... #bc i have jack brainworm and it's much easier to decide things when you control the two MCs #vs when you have to have an in depth convo before you make any decisions bc the antagonist is your friend's #also Benny has a really hard time putting his thoughts about Elijah into words. he has trouble with expressing characterization in general #not in a narrative way but in a 'i can't talk about my own characters and explain things because only one person speaks Benninese' way #im very aware that it looks like i make all the big decisions but that's why i push so hard to remind everybody of ben's influence!!! #half of the characters aren't mine after all! #some of the most important narrative decisions (jack and isaac's EXISTENCE; basically everything abt their family including maddie; #the deaths of a lot of the children; eli's motivations in general which helped me feel out and learn how i wanted jack to be etc) #were his idea!! and im sure there's way more but i can't even remember.them bc at this point they're so integral to the foundation of the #narrative itself and its themes. i am the biggest ben supporter #i promise i am not the only man behind the curtain he is also very present #rox rumblings #me things #oc ramblings #beanie tag #i'm just like... the spokesperson. i am the face of the brand but we are both behind the scenes coming up with the formula together #i have the big fancy flourishes but we are both cooking

[godsfavoritescientist]

I have a draft saved somewhere talking about my classpect headcanons for everyone, I really need to finish that sometime so people can see where I'm coming from when I say "fidds is a mage of rage". I have Ford down as a prince of light, stan as a thief of time, and bill as a lord of hope, but I think those are a liiittle bit more self explanatory

#classpecting #<-a homestuck personality/narrative role classification system for those who dont know #godsrambles #rage is the aspect of doubt. meaninglessness. of tearing things down when they arent working. #do you see my thinking here. fidds as thr opposing force to bill. doubting the project. trying to stop it. #inventing a device that literally takes away memories. things that give context and meaning to ones life #and then being stuck with narrative meaninglessness for decades #during which time he most fully embodied the aspect of rage. like. #even the clown/jester themes of rage sort of apply during most of the show. bc of his role as a joke character for so long #idk how to sum it all up in a post. but yeah #and then with bill. hope is about endless possibilities. imagination. feeling like you can do Anything with no restrictions #which fits really well with his whole deal. like inspiring ford. 'lie until youre not lying anymore.' wanting there to be no rules. #never growing up in all his milennia of existence. playing pretend to trick people. literally existing inside dreams. being whimsical #and the 'lord' class is the most powerful destructive one of all. #so yknow. wielding the hope aspect and everything it represents. as a destructive force. it fits him so well #when i write a full post i'll go over my thoughts on all the classpects. i just know itll take longer than i'd like #to write it all out and then make it concise enough to be readable

[bytebun]

….dreaming up a p*kemon si/oc like I wasn’t this silly when I was actually 9

#in a. positive way. I love being silly #I love goofin around. I’m entering my s*nic oc phase at 22 not 12 #I feel like a lot of ppl project themselves onto MCs in video games; and like a lot of the time they’re kinda made for that #but they’ve always been their own little guys to me… link is link and nobody else; ya know? #same reason I don’t really like self-inserts at all. there’s no room for me in this narrative #but coming up with a p*kemon team is different lmao it’s like taking a personality quiz #and what if…. they were themed around your profession… like most adults in the games…. #wouldn’t that be cute. #this is entirely because of the new tinkerton p*kemon they are soooooo baby :] baby who kills

[homophyte]

i am definitely not the kind of person who can break down a story into its technical beats the whole method of doing this makes no sense to me but it is very interesting to read other ppls breakdowns thereof and i think they are critical to analysis. like the shit i like doing, digging into themes and especially characters relationships to them asking the broader questions of what real world thing is this reflecting or commenting on how successfully does it do so absolutely needs that as a basis imo. it is somewhat useless to say 'this is thematically justified' without first asking 'is this narratively justified'

#myposts #ironically this is one of the thinhgs i like about limiting myself to themes #if something doesnt work in the narrative it is easy to dismiss it as a misstep a mistake a botched execution #you can sidestep that and ask an entirely different 'why' this is there #narrative function aside what does it accomplish what meanings does it create or effect #eg going through that blog which was doing that exact thing for DR they aptly point out #that some of the motives are well weird they lead to weird killings that dont meaningfully justify deaths which easily could have been #justified in other situations--which is true #but. what they also do. is prove junkos familiarity with the cast and emphasize their weakness so to speak #before dr3 existed it was SDR2s job to justify its own twist of the cast being the remnants right it has to 'make sense' #so they have to be the kind of people who could do that even independently of junko #junkos whole thing is shes a catalyst not a cause she is opportunistic and accelerative #a lot of this heavy lifting is done by 1 the FTEs and 2 the killers ending confessions. and ill be honest mikan is pulling a lot of weight #what takes hajime so much time to learn about the various tragedies and misfortunes of the cast the things that make them #vulnerable to doing something rash--the very things junko would have preyed upon--are accomplished extremely quickly with the motives #which is to say theyre largely targeted. not all but most #mikans a nurse. a nurse with power issues directly related to her nursing. she was always going to snap with an illness motive #the funhouse and its starvation arent a motive theyre a time limit. the motive is the final dead room and its weapon #which is a puzzle followed by a luck based suicide game the reward for completion of the highest difficultly being the information #nagito has been itching for the whole game. youre joking if you think that wasnt specifically designed for him #why do you think shes so comfortable letting him take over chapter 5 going motiveless? the idea was always to make specific people snap #fucking nobodys obligated to give a shit about twilight syndrome! less than half the cast are even involved and most are bystanders! #it means nothing to them....except to the people it means everything to and junko already knows that #its proof that theyre remnants both proof she knows them and knows where to pinch and proof theyre the kind of people who could be them #if sdr2 is making a point about vulnerability about systems that create it and its inherent unsustainability...there it is right #theres the point. theres junko applying pressure exactly where its needed to problems that existed well beyond her scope #its THOSE problems which come into focus. its hajime pressured by eugenic systems that deem him worthless to unperson himself #its chapter 6 being structured around izuru kamukura. do you understand me

[blacktabbygames]

Slay the Princess Concept Art

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!

#slay the princess #interactive fiction #character design

[yoggybloggy]

how i feel about the nva finale and also the season as a whole

#i know you dont gotta explore the themes all the time and its all improv and the most important thing is them having fun or whatever #and like im not even smart enough to comprehend or analyse themes n shit. but like idk. the entire lore and metaphysics of everything #is too confusing to me. id say incoherent but idk if its a me problem or a story problem. possibly both #like i know the ending is basically wish fulfillment for the players and thats the most important thing for them. good for them. #unsatisfying and narratively incoherent as a viewer tho

[buggachat]

the thing with Adrien is that I just feel like his entire character/the themes surrounding his arc/etc just lend themselves so well to a queer narrative. Adrien's whole deal is that he is a generally repressed person who tries, desperately, to be the kind of person that's expected of him— to be perfect— to be whatever his parents wanted him to be..... but he can't. He can never actually reach those standards, and the closest he can get is by hiding certain parts of himself. By keeping his actual wants and wishes tucked closely to his chest. By putting on a performance of being The Perfect Son, doing what he's told, and never letting anyone in to his world. He has a secret double life that he hides, that his father would never approve of, a secret life where he feels freer and more himself. Meanwhile, in his every day, all Adrien does is keep his thoughts and feelings so closely guarded to his chest that not even his best friend knows what's going on in his head most of the time. Adrien has repressed himself so hard that even he doesn't know who he really is or how to properly identify his own thoughts/feelings, not beyond knowing that they're likely not what is expected of him.

#gabriel told adrien to pick an appropriate outfit for the day and adrien left and never returned #some say he's still lost in the closet