#C.S. Crew

[fairmerthefarmer]

Retired Star and his daughter who live at the last island on the eastern ocean.

Also here’s Ramandu with and without his cloak that I decided he has.

I will draw every single character from this book

[reqxxyt]

secret relationship c.s

[unedited]

pairings: carlos sainz x f!reader

warnings: angry toto (??).. none other really

masterlist

_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

Giggles left my lips as another pair traveled down wanting to hear them on repeat. I could feel my stomach turn as it suddenly felt tight from the lack of personal space. My hands were wrapped around his neck interlocked with his hair strands, wishing this could last the entire day but knowing this should stop. 

“Carlos” My lips quiver at the sensation he was leaving, footsteps passed by the locked door before I heard a conversation being made outside. Biting my lips quite harshly not to be heard left an indent later on. I could feel his lips twitch between a smile and what felt like a smirk as he traveled only downwards toward the collarbone. The conversation faltered and with that rose my heavy breaths suppressing a whine that leaked through my vocal cords. 

“Your race starts in only an hour. We should really not do this” My whisper was barely audible as it took everything in me to not let out sounds. His face tore from my neck as he looked down at me with a small smile. 

“Promise you’ll be here afterward?” his voice sounded a bit more pleading than usual as the corners of my lips curved upwards as I nodded. My heart still pounded as he closed the already nonexistent gap, placing a soft, sensual kiss. He left the storage room, taking a quick glance before leaving me in there for a couple of minutes checking it was safe enough for me to exit. 

Me and Carlos have been secretly dating for the past 3 months but lately have been more careless the past week because our confidence in keeping this a hush situation had risen over time where we now have secessions in storage rooms. 

I left the room and spotted my dad, the team principal of Mercedes spot me as he visibly relaxed seeing that I was okay, and stopped the search party. He was very protective of me since I turned 18 and decided to introduce myself to the drivers over time. 

“Where have you been?” his tone sounded impatient as he paced to me before we both started walking towards the Mercedes garage. “I almost had to ask them to delay the race”

“Why would you do that?” I rolled my eyes but knowing that would be impossible. “I had to go to the restroom”

“Nearly 10 minutes?” his eyes narrowed as they met mine and before I could make up a terrible lie, one of the crew members working with him pulled him aside as I sat on the chairs next to his where the monitors laid for surveillance. My eyes gravitated towards the red-blaring car as my dad sat down beside me, putting on his headset and pushing his glasses upwards. 

The lights, one by one showed before they all went off and the race began. I was silently praying for Carlos to get a podium standing knowing how stressed he had been over the season. Max had been leading and my shoulders tensed the more I leaned toward the monitor. Every time Carlos’ car would appear on the screen, my eyes would stay glued to the screen and finally blink at the next driver. I didn’t notice but my dad who sat next to me did, noticing a pattern. 

“Thought you weren’t into the races?” he whispered moving a side of the headset behind his ears. I gave him a confused look even though he was very much correct. No matter how hard he tried to get me into racing myself, I refused and focused on my studies instead. 

“Is it such a terrible thing to cheer for my dads' team?” I gave an innocent smile but he didn’t seem to be convinced. 

“Right. Even though you keep only looking at the monitor when Carlos comes on screen” he pointed out and my smile twitched downwards thinking this would be when I would get caught. After only a month, I would be the one to ruin it. Here I was thinking it would be him and his clinginess, instead, it was my inability to lie when it came to my dad. His eyebrow lifted the longer I stood silent. 

“Me and Carlos are just close friends, nothing more I swear” I really regret those words because he seemed to believe them for the moment, or at least tried. He only gave me a nod and went back to analyzing the race. 

The race had ended and Carlos had achieved P2, right behind Max. I felt my own heart leap, feeling overall proud of him. George achieved P3 while Hamilton was P4 and the entire team congratulated each other making sure to give a small congratulations to the driver after interviews and celebrations. 

“Need a ride?” my dad offered but I shook my head making up an excuse that I left some things in the garage. I instead went to the Ferrari garage patiently waiting for Carlos. I soon spotted him walking towards me with a smile making sure no one was around before lightly kissing me. 

“Congrats,” I said once, deteriorating from his touch. He thanked me and we walked out of the stadium, heading towards his car. If I had known that people spotted us entitling his car from afar, taking pictures as proof I would've driven with my dad. Like I said, careless.

“Planning to head to the after-party?” I asked even if I already knew he was unlikely to go, spending every moment he could with me in the comfort of a bed. His grip tightened on a sharp turn before he shook his head, landing his gaze on me. The way his eyes reflected the lights on the street made me want to stare at them forever, almost like stars. 

“Have to celebrate with you” His soft smile made my heart leap like it was our first date all over again. I could only smile back feeling my cheeks warm up thankful for the most part it was dimmed. 

We got to the hotel and walked together to the side entrance trying our best not to be noticed. We successfully got into the elevator and went to where my room was. What I spotted next made me stop in my tracks.

My dad was leaning against the door staring (more like glaring) at us who were now holding pinkies. My hand quickly dropped and I could feel my own heart drop before speeding up. 

“Dad-“

“Not another word. I saw the pictures. I can’t believe I almost believed you when you said you two were just friends” He scoffed at his own actions, looking away for just a second. 

“Sir I-“

“You can not have a word in this. You have-“

“Dad, you can not to him or me that way. I love you, but you have to understand that I have to make my decisions and live my own life. Stop trying to keep me hidden, whether you like it or not. I am in a relationship with Carlos. I am sorry you had to find out without me telling you, trust me when I say that I wanted to tell you myself” He stood quiet for a moment, looking between the two of us as I stood closer. 

“Y/n I gave you a simple rule” His stare softened at my pleading eyes. “But, it’s already happened, and while I am not a fan of how I found out. I can’t do anything but accept it” 

“Thank you,” I said giving him a hug to which he tightly wrapped his arms around me giving me a small kiss on my head. We let go of each other and the two of them gave each other a nod before he left. I shrugged “That wasn’t that hard”

“I need a drink of water” 

[pleasereadmeok]

A Goode year? ... 2024

Time for my usual review of Matthew Goode's (public) year. I usually sit down to write these thinking - hmm - we didn’t see enough of Matthew Goode this year and then get surprised by the number of Goode things that happened. But this year - OMFG there was hardly anything to write about. WTF? I know we have had droughts in the past but it's been a very lean year for Goode fans.

Oh well - we will make the most of the crumbs that we had.

January

December 2023's promotion of 'Freud's Last Session' continued into January and the praise kept on coming for Matthew's performance as CS Lewis.

Fans never doubted that Matthew would more than hold his own playing opposite Anthony Hopkins but it was still fantastic to have critic and audience reviews confirm our views.

These are some random reviews that appeared in January ....

Matthew Goode proves himself as a reliable character performer as Lewis. Squaring off against Hopkins is no easy feat, but the actor holds his own with quiet determinedness. [Punk Drunk Critics]

“It couldn’t be better cast, with both Hopkins and Goode slipping right into the skins of their characters and creating a sparkling chemistry. When the two are together the film makes for a mesmerizing study. “ [Keith and the movies com]

“Much of what we get is truly great material and the performances from Hopkins and Goode are exceptional.[Keith and the movies com]

Matthew Goode (“The Offer,” “The Imitation Game”) as C.S. Lewis, meanwhile, is as straightforward as Hopkins is slippery, and the two make a good pair. Lewis is not intimidated by Freud, nor is Goode intimidated by Hopkins. Both Goode and Lewis regard their older interlocutor with a mix of respect, affection and skepticism, as well as with a confident willingness to let a brilliant old showoff go into his dance. [San Fanscisco Chronicle]

Hopkins and Goode give masterful performances that transcend the conversation at hand.  [National Catholic Reporter]

February

In amongst the buzz around 'Freud's Last Session' we finally got confirmation of that Netflix series Matthew said he was due to start filming. Great news coz it's a goode one - a crime drama series, 'Department Q' adapted from the books written by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen.

📷 Netflix

The showrunner is Scott Frank who Matthew previously worked with on the 2007 film, 'The Lookout'.

Here's a summary from Deadline - Goode will play DCI Carl Morck. After a violent incident turns Morck’s life upside down, the emotionally scarred detective is charged with setting up cold case unit, Department Q, upon his return to work. At first, the disillusioned cop is happy to waste his days away, but his detective instincts are ultimately reawakened and his new department becomes a magnet for a crew of misfits and mavericks.

It got better at the very end of February coz we got the first proof of life for 2024 [we need more of those please] when Matthew attended the special screening of 'Freud's Last Session' in London. He was showing off his full 'Carl Morck' beardiness for the first time in public and we loved it.

📷 Yaffa Meskell

March

The promos for FLS kept rolling and extra screenings were added.... but then HACKETT!

Matthew joined up with Jenson Button and Hackett again to give us the Spring/Summer campaign. We got to see Matthew posing with doggies, playing croquet and looking cosy in beige (yes - BEIGE!) cardigans - so just your average trip to Seville. Although sitting on that trunk looks a bit eye watering. 😬 Ouch

📷 Tom Craig for Hackett

BUT the goode stuff kept coming coz cheeky Matthew had done a whole new movie appearance and WHO KNEW???? Well - we did ... in March.

Matthew was due to appear in the vampy movie 'Abigail' and we speculated about his role. Actually we didn't have to speculate too much coz when we found out that Abigail had a big, bad DADDY - we just knew. Vampy Dad 2 was coming soon!

April

In April we got some early sightings of Matthew doing a 'Carl' around Edinburgh including some squeally fan encounters. Loved this one from Sara Maude -

📷 Sara Maude

Sara told Edinburgh Live - "I absolutely had to get a picture with him, and I believe if you don't ask you don't get! He was an absolute delight, warm, friendly and down to earth - a true gent. To me, he is a sex god, and I was delighted to share that with him."

'Abigail' opened in April and we got to see Matthew as another vampy dad but this time - WITH FANGS!

OMG how he managed to even speak with those babies in his mouth was a mystery. But he was excellent as the supremely creepy vamp Kristof Lazar and audiences loved him too. His 'dinner' line brought the house down when I saw this 😂 Frikkin' hilarious.

Meanwhile 'Freud's Last Session' was going down well in Australia and there was lots of new praise for Matthew's portrayal of CS Lewis.

May

Oh, hello - here he is again in May. We know that Matthew is a totally geeky dad but - FISHING???

📷 James Murray

All in a good cause coz Matthew joined up with James Murray, Burn Gorman and Dominic West to catch some fishies (and put them back I hope) to promote the 'Off the table' campaign against farmed salmon.

📷 James Murray, Burn Gorman and 'Off the Table'

June

'Freud's Last Session' got its cinema release in the UK (at bloody last!) so I got to see Matthew on the big screen for the second time this year. Woohoo!

July

Nothing. Seriously, I GOT NOTHING!

August

There was a tiny update on 'Tally Ho' AKA 'Spiked' [Sort the name out guys - what's it gonna be?]

Kapers Animation gave us a few more pics of the amnesiac rabbit Walter - who will be our next crush - coz he's played by Matthew. So that's a given.

📷 Kapers Animation

Later in August 'A Discovery of Witches' popped up on Netflix in the US - which was great for the 3 people in the US who hadn't seen it yet. Seriously - so many more people discovering the joy of vampy Matthew is always GOODE news.

📷 Sky

September

Yep - you guessed it. Nothing.

October

To be fair I wasn't fully conscious for most of October so I probably missed stuff. None of the usual October golf appearances - so sad for him coz he bloody loves hitting a tiny ball with a stick. But nothing doing.

I know Matthew went on holiday with the family but that he and Sophie still found time to do something beyond kind for a very grateful fan. ☺️

November

Another proof of life at last thanks to the fabulous David Max Freedman - he knows we love BTS of Matthew and he delivered this of Goodey doing his ADR for 'Tally Ho'/'Spiked' -

📷 David Max Freedman

December

A truly bleak month with nothing. Not one scrap of news except that Department Q doesn't seem to be in Q1 for Netflix so we have to wait ...

But according to the Kapers website it looks like 'Tally Ho'/ 'Spiked' will be with us in Q1 next year

So bring it on Walt!

YEEEES!

Goode things coming... Spiked/Tally Ho, Department Q and what else? Last year Matthew was in 'talks' to possibly revisit the character of Robert Evans for something. The Wine Show season 4? Another movie or 3? Who knows? Whatever it is - it will be GOODE!

[noonaishere]

Music of the Heart [J.YH] // Online/Offline [C.S] - one hundred and eleven* | pocket square

“So what’s going on with you two?” Yunho asked.

“Two of who?” San asked back.

“You and /yn.”

He shrugged. “We’re friends.”

Yunho turned from where he was standing at the mirror and raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Sure you are. You fake dated and you’re still just friends.”

“Friends can fake date and still be friends. No one would fake date a stranger.” He laughed.

Yunho rolled his eyes, turned back to the mirror, and went back to tying his tie.

San looked to Mingi, who was shining his shoes. Mingi shrugged, not exactly sure what conversation he was in the middle of. He nodded at San.

“So, uh. T/n was invited too, right?” Mingi started.

Yunho paused. “Was she?”

“You know she was-- Everyone was, stop pretending.”

Yunho went back to his tie. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’?”

Yunho turned, fumbling with his tie as he spoke. “What do you want me to say, huh? I stood her up last time and maybe she won’t hate me? That’d I’d honestly be lucky if she doesn’t completely hate my guts at this point?”

Mingi stood and slapped his hands away from the tie. “You were never good at this.”

Yunho acquiesced and sighed as Mingi tied it for him.

“You should make it up to her.”

“How?”

“Being there, for one thing.” San said flatly as he folded the pocket square for Yunho’s suit.

Yunho attempted to shoot him a look, but when San looked back with an expression of kind firmness, he couldn’t muster the annoyance.

“You know… y/n thinks that you could have gone to the last party but you chickened out at the last second.”

“I had to film.”

“The company scheduled filming during one of their own parties?” Mingi asked as he finished tying the tie and cinched it up as far as it would go.

Yunho looked betrayed for a moment as Mingi took the folded pocket square from San and tucked it into Yunho’s breast pocket.

“It was… Second Unit filming.”

“Did you need to be there?”

“...No.”

Mingi smiled as he finished adjusting the pocket square. “Then it looks like you chickened out.” He patted his shoulder and sat back down.

Yunho’s eyes drifted to the floor staring hard as he considered the accusation.

“Ten thousand won for your thoughts?” San asked.

“That’s a lot, isn’t it?” Yunho asked, eyes still on the floor.

He smiled. “I drive a hard bargain.” He stood and readjusted Yunho’s tie so that it was no longer noose-like around his neck. “I think that if you like t/n as much as you say you do, you’ll do something to make this right.”

“But I fucked her life up so much years ago… and for so long… how can I--”

“And she survived. And your fear that her leaving before you would ruin everything in general - nevermind purposely fucking up her life - was unwarranted. You survived.”

Yunho’s brow furrowed, confused.

San sighed. “I think that: meeting here, years later like this… I don’t think I believe in destiny. But I think that sheer dumb luck gave you a second chance that you’d be stupid to squander.”

Yunho nodded as San smoothed out his collar. 

“We so rarely get second chances in life, it would be stupid not to make this right, don’t you think?”

He nodded again. “But what do I do? What do I say? What--”

“You’re the one who’s known her all those years. That’s up to you.”

“But she’s changed.”

“Are you still the same person you were back then?”

He shook his head.

“You’ve changed so much, even from being ‘Dancer Yunho’ to becoming ‘Actor Yunho,’” Mingi added. “I’ve gone from ‘Single, Street Dancer Mingi’ to ‘Mingi Who’s The CEO Of A Dance Crew, Dating My Dream Girl.’” He looked at San. “I don’t know your whole story, but from what Yunho’s told me about you, you’ve changed a lot.”

San looked from Mingi to Yunho and nodded.

Yunho mirrored his nodding and whispered, “I just want her not to hate me anymore.”

“Then humble yourself.” San said plainly.

Mingi nodded.

Yunho looked at both of them and nodded.

c.s previous | main cast | masterlist | next

j.yh previous | main cast | masterlist | next

a/n: Humble and kindness… do you think he can do it? Do you think San can?

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🧋 🎵 Any comments, reblogs, or asks are appreciated! I love talking with you guys and seeing what you’re saying about the chapters, it keeps me going 🥰

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[filmmakerdreamst]

How Lyra and Will suffered as Protagonists in BBC's His Dark Materials

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the book, when Lyra dreams of Roger in The Land of the Dead, the two of them have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He’s an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He’s naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He’s pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy’s body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don’t make as much sense, because of the fact that he’s softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. Plus it adds to the narrative to flesh out their dynamic alot more on screen. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there’s a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from ‘The Subtle Knife’ (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He’s fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they're in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books — where as the adaptation version of them doesn’t. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being “friends” more. I’m not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him. 

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: great, unique and creative worldbuilding in sci-fi

A note: most of the books on this list are ones I cherish very highly (some are on my all time favorites list!). A few had a lower overall rating for me personally but still stellar worldbuilding and are of what I'd consider good objective quality even if I subjectively didn’t super enjoy them.

For details on the books, continue under the readmore!

Other book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding

Mermaid books

Dark sapphic romances

Vampire books

Feed (Newsflesh series) by Mira Grant

Zombies and news bloggers and presidential elections, oh my! A look at the world post-post zombie apocalypse, when society has gotten back to its feet but the zombie virus is still very much active. Humanity as a whole has been forced to adapt to the ever-present threat. Largely political, character and worldbuilding focused. There is some zombie action, but it’s far from the central focus.

Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey series) by Jasper Fforde

Walking the very thin line of giving you just enough information to follow the plot and grasp the overall idea of the world, but not enough to create info dumps or hand you answers not yet earned, Shades of Grey presents a world in black and white, where your perception of color determines your place in society. Is it fantasy? Scifi? Post apocalypse? Who knows! I sure don’t! Occasionally it hands you a tidbit of information that seems like a remnant of our world and you feel like you're onto something, but then some pages later said tidbit is turned on its head and you're back to square one. It’s delightful.

This Alien Shore (Alien Shores series) by C.S. Friedman

Space opera in which humanity found a way to faster than light travel and began establishing colonies all over the galaxy, only to belatedly realize the method of FTL caused irreversible mutations and disabilities and leaving their nascent colonies to die. Much later, many of the colonies have survived and thrived, and one has found a new way of FTL travel, allowing an interconnected space society to grow. However, Earth is on the hunt for their method and is prepared to do anything to steal it. Aside from cool worldbuilding, This Alien Shore also features some interesting commentary on disability and accommodation. And there are extra-dimensional space dragons!

Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire trilogy) by Yoon Ha Lee

Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.

Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch series) by Ann Leckie

Another space opera, in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is one the hunt for revenge. This series also does very cool things with gender!

The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur series) by Hannu Rajaniemi

Place this one in the category of 'accept that you're gonna be confused as hell and just let the world wash over you'. The singularity has come and gone and humans can now easily upload, download and copy themselves into new bodies, not all of them human and not always willingly. Consciousnesses and time has become something close to currency. Follows a murder mystery on Mars.

Stray (Touchstone trilogy) by Andrea K. Höst

Young Adult. Cassandra accidentally walks through a wormhole and ends up on another planet, where she tries to survive in the abandoned ruins of a long since gone civilization. When rescue finally arrives, she soon finds her troubles are far from over as she gets embroiled in a war between her rescuers and monstrous creatures from dreamlike other dimensions. Mixes scifi elements such as space travel, vr and nanomachinery with fantasy tropes such as psychic powers, monsters, and interdimensional portals.

The Peacekeeper (The Good Lands series) by B.L. Blanchard

Alternate history in which Europe never colonized the Americas. Follow Ojibwe detective Chibenashi as he travels from his small home village to a city of living skyscrapers to solve a murder. While I found the mystery somewhat lacking, the worldbuilding and look at a contemporary North America never touched by European colonization is absolutely aces.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

Leech by Hiron Ennes

I mean, this is probably scifi? Like Shades of Grey it hands you only just enough information to get by, and whether its historical fantasy, an alternate timeline, or futuristic post apocalypse is hard to determine. A sentient hive mind have taken over the entire medical profession to ensure the health of their host species. One of their doctors is sent off to an isolated location where they’re cut off from the rest of the hive mind, only to realize they’re faced with a rivaling parasitic entity.

Children of Time (Children of Time series) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

A classic following a healer as she travels a post apocalyptic Earth with an alien dreamsnake to help people. When her snake dies, she must go on a journey to find a new one. The worldbuilding feels fairly vague, but not in an annoying way but in one that makes the world feel vast and mysterious and lived in. Just like in the real world you won’t get all the answers, but you do get the feeling of the world as a whole being much larger than the character and her quest.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman

AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic 'angels' to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart.

The Three-Body Problem (The Three-Body Problem series) Cixin Liu

While I felt the characters could’ve been better developed, this is undeniably a well-written novel featuring an alien race and culture developed on a planet vastly different from ours. Firmly in the realm of hard scifi, this is a realistic, fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how first contact may look.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Eurovision in space! If you lose, humanity is doomed! Good luck! The sentient species of the galaxy have chosen to face each other not in war but in a musical contest, and now humanity is invited to partake. The problem? If we lose, our species as a whole will be exterminated. While I found this book as a whole slightly gimmicky, it’s a fun and flashy experience with some wild and creative alien species.

Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one.

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

More fucked up biological spaceships, this time all women edition! It’s weird, it's gross, there’s So Much Viscera, it has biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one. Features a mass of slowly dying world-ships, and the conflicts arising between them as they struggle to survive. It’s also sapphic but not what I'd call romantic.

Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher

Young spanish noblewoman Catalina thinks she’s done for when the ship she’s traveling on is attacked by pirates and she’s captured. Things gets worse when the entire crew is stranded on an inhospitable island where time works strangely, dangerous monsters terrorize the woods and something alien stops them from leaving. Strong Lost vibes. Lesbian romance. Admittedly quite indulgent but very fun and creative.

Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

Slow and long and literary, Vagabonds presents a world a hundred years post a war of independence between Earth and Mars, after which two vastly different societies have grown. A close look at the impossibility of a utopia and how different circumstances allow for different cultures to grow, and how the two aren’t always compatible while neither is necessarily better or worse than the other.

Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines quartet) by Philip Reeve

Young Adult. On a barely survivable Earth humanity has taken to living on great wandering cities, hunting each other across the plains for resources. Tom lives in London, but when he intervenes to stop a murder, he falls off the city alongside a strange and hostile girl on the hunt for revenge. Aside from excellent worldbuilding this also features one of my most favorit female characters ever in Hester Shaw. If you’ve seen the movie, forget about it and read the book instead.

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we're prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan duology) by Arkady Martine

Mahit, ambassador of a small station nation, arrives at the heart of the Teixcalaanli Empire, ready to battle for the continued independence of her people. In her head she carries part of the personality of her predecessor, there to guide her. A look at imperialism and the conflicting feelings of hate, fear and even admiration one can have towards empire. Also features a sapphic romance!

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir

I mean, you're on tumblr, you probably already know about this one. Trust me when I say it's exactly as good as people claim. There are indeed lesbian necromancers is space (quite a lot of them, actually), but also incredible worldbuilding that keeps growing with every new installment, interesting political commentary, morally complex characters with fucked up dynamics, and well-thought out plot that keeps you guessing until the last.

Railhead (Railhead trilogy) by Philip Reeve

Young Adult. Listen, Philip Reeve is so good at absolutely wild worldbuilding, I nearly included a third series of his on this list (hey go look up Larklight okay!). In a future where humanity travel between the stars using not spaceships but a portal-connected system of sentient trains, a young thief and street urchin is hired to steal something off of the Emperor's train.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

More AI gods!

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Magic in space!

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

Angels in space!

[kyl3gutz]

fu ck it, cing on main

I have a GG oc (gasp shock the horror) and I love him very much so here's everything about him for you all.

-

Name: Mauve Roux

Age (can list how old they’d be in each game): Roughly 18 in strive

Species: Human

Origin (Nationality): Australian

Affiliation: Nobody!

Backstory: Mauve was once a young girl with a giant paint brush, aiming to become the best artist in the world! Yet.. that dream was lost a long time ago. That girl found himself, and now he’s a rough and tumble young man. The most annoying and active graffiti artist who has a bounty of about W$250,000.. of course he has his secrets. He got into some bad fights back in Australia and ended up killing some people by accident, causing him to panic and run to Illyria. Now, he runs around graffitiing things.

Personality: Mauve is an overconfident asshole to put it simply. He doesn’t care about where he is or where he’s going, he’s one to only focus on the present. His insistent ‘nemesis’ is his only real worry, and even then she’s not worth the worry! He loves art, though he finds poetry quite “trashy”.

Status (Dead or alive): Alive

Abilities: Mauve can control paint at will, he mainly uses this to create “paint bombs”. He fills vials with paint and then throws them, he makes the paint expand to cause a large explosion.

Weapon of Choice: Two spray cans with trigger attachments to make ‘paint guns’ 

Friends, family, enemies, etc: Bridget (Nemesis, in his eyes), Axl (Friends, somewhat. Mauve doesn’t mind him), Slayer (Acquainted.)

--

Moveset 

Mechanic - Paint Meter

Mauve has some attacks that will affect a meter placed over the opponent’s tension bar called the Paint Meter. If the paint meter is full, Mauve will now start doing more damage. The paint meter is reset after Mauve does a super or certain specials, after the opponent bursts, Roman cancels or does a super. If the opponent takes no damage for a long enough time, the meter will drain. 

5P - A quick jab forward, basically the same as most other characters

5K - A quick kick forward, can gatling into a second quick kick forward that will knock Mauve back after he uses it.

c.S - Mauve uses his spraycan guns to shoot small spray of paint that fills the paint meter slightly if hit

f.S - Mauve shoots a spray of paint to just a bit under midscreen, slightly fills the paint meter if hit.

5H - Mauve sprays forward twice, this move is risky but can yield good damage if hit correctly. (Probably a combo ender?) Slightly fills the paint meter if landed.

6P - Mauve does a snazzy little click upward, this is an anti air. As most 6P’s are

6K - Mauve kicks more upward, functioning as an antiair 

6S - using both of his spraycan guns, Mauve will do a long spray forward, reaching just a bit ahead of midscreen. Fills the paint meter slightly if hit. 

6H - Mauve will throw a paint bomb down on the ground, this will deal more damage the more he’s taken in a round. Fills the paint meter about 1/8th of the way if hit. 

Specials

Cover your eyes! (236K) - A Parry, Mauve will shield his face. If hit, he will then spray the opponent several times. Fills the paint meter 1/5th of the way if hit.

Not safe from me! (214H) - Mauve will throw a paint bomb all the way to the other side of the stage, it will then explode and deal damage. Stunning the opponent if hit. Fills the paint meter 1/8th of the way if hit.

Runback (63214S) - Mauve will rush forward, if this is landed he will toss the opponent as far away as he can.

Heads up! (236S in the air) - Mauve tosses a paint bomb down onto the ground, if this lands he’ll throw a second before plummeting to the ground. Fills the paint meter 1/8th of the way if hit.

Cleanup crew, stat!!! (214K) - Mauve will spray some paint 3 times to mid screen, if all three of these hit, he will then do a fourth one. Fills the paint meter 1/5th if all are hit, if not then only 1/8th of the way.

Make it rain! (236H) - Mauve will toss three paint bombs into the air, they’ll fall at different points of the stage depending on how long this is held for. Fills the paint meter 1/8th of the way if hit.

Paint Specials (Only can be used while Paint meter is at max):

Blitz! (41236P) - Mauve will do a ton of short sprays forward, this can then be chained into one of his other paint specials

Better hold on tight! (214P) - Mauve will toss a paint bomb just in front of him, this can be chained into his other paint specials..

Lookin’ Good! (236S on the ground) - Mauve will spray forward then step forward to ‘admire his work’. Thing is, if he’s close enough, he will step on the opponent’s foot. This can chain into his other paint specials.

After 5 paint specials are hit, reset the paint meter. 

Supers

Make it pour! (236236P) - Mauve will throw many paint bombs into the air, causing big damage across the screen. If the paint meter isn’t full when this is landed, fill it halfway. Otherwise, clear the paint meter.

Seven Spray Death Blow (214214P) - Mauve does two sprays forward, if both are landed then this super will continue. Mauve then sprays the opponent 4 times before finishing with his finale. He spray paints the words “Seven Spray Death Blow” onto the opponent. If done near the wall, this triggers a wall break. Always resets the paint meter regardless of how full it is when this is used.

--

Voicelines

Intro Quotes (Generic):

(P1) “You better not give up halfway!”

(P1) “You’d look better in pink.. i can paint that onto you!”

(P2) “I’ll get you good!!”

(P2) “If you turn me in after this, I’ll never forgive you!!”

Round win:

“Aha! That’s the stuff!!”

“Easy now.. you gotta let the paint dry!”

“Don’t cry.. I can’t let the paint job get screwed up!”

“C’mon, is that really all you’ve got? You’re going easy!”

Round Loss:

“You’re good.. Owch..”

“My vials!”

“Ough.. my ribs..”

“Is that blood?!”

Timeout:

“Oh god damn it!”

“Times up already..”

“You better get this done quicker next time!”

“Stupid time limit..”

Victory Quotes (Generic): 

“Hey now, it’ll wash out.. EVENTUALLY!!”

“Hmm.. did i go a little too hard with this one? Nobody likes a bruised and battered art piece…”

“Hehehe.. Better luck next time !”

Taunts (Generic): 

“I like the look of this..”

“Just needs a little on the left..”

“You’ll keep letting me hit you, right?”

“To think this is what they’re sending these days!”

Taunts (Unique):

(Bridget) “You’re off your game, Shelia!”

(Bridget) “Is this really the best you can do?”

(Axl) “Easy now! I don’t wanna paint you too badly, think of what she would say to me! Hah!”

(Slayer) “How?! How am I getting the upper hand?!”

(Bedman?) “..I’m tired, can I take a nap on that bed? Because this match is BORING ME!”

Respects (Generic):

“Oh, you’re not even dirty!”

“How do you keep getting away from my shots, it’s so cool!”

“Maybe i need to up my game..”

“You better come hang out after this!”

Respects (Unique):

(Bridget) “Ooh, yeah, you’re not playing around this time.”

(Axl) “If it helps you feel a little better, I’m not even bruised! Just very.. very cut up from those sickles.. Owch..”

(Slayer) “Ahaha.. expected nothing less!”

(Mauve) “You’re too good! I can’t let a copycat get the better of me!!”

Intro Quotes (Unique):

Normal text is Mauve, italics is the other character

Against Bridget

“Eep! You again??”

*”Yes, me again!!”*

*”Are you gonna go down this time?”*

“Nah.. are you?”

Against Slayer

“Woah.. am i in over my head?”

*”I would certainly hope not.”*

*”You don’t seem to be in quite good spirits.”*

“..eh.. eh.. eh.. eheheh.. I’m so gonna die..”

Against Mauve

“Me?! Okay, who screwed up this time?”

“Eh?! You better not be some kinda.. weird clone faker person!”

“Hey, what colours do you have there?”

“I got enough, that’s what i got! Why, you wanna collab?”

Victory Quotes (Unique):

Against Bridget

“HAHA!! Mauve wins again!”

“Now will you stop trying to turn me in?”

Against Slayer:

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod okay.. note to self, DONT PICK FIGHTS WITH VAMPIRES.”

“Hehehe.. haha.. ha.. how’d i live that!”

Against Axl

“Hey, big fella, the 90’s called, they want you back!”

Against Johnny:

“Wait, are you THE Johnny? In the flesh?! Ohmygod i am so sorry!!!”

Against Mauve

“Righto, faker! Go back to hell where you belong!”

“Well.. that was weird.”

Using moves (not including grunts or similar);

Cover Your Eyes

“Need to take cover!”

“Get off of me!”

“Try not to get this in your eyes!”

“Cover your eyes!”

Not Safe From Me!

“Over there!”

“Hey, step back a little!”

“Look out! ..or not!! Hehe..”

“Not safe from me!”

Runback

“Eep! Get away!”

“Over there!”

“Nope!!”

“Runback!!”

Heads Up!

“Up here~!”

“Hey, look up!”

“Heads up!”

“Bonk!!”

Cleanup Crew, stat!

“Cleanup Crew, stat!”

“Better know how to wash paint off!”

“Haha!! Take this!”

“Take that!!”

Make it Rain!

“WOOP WOOP!”

“Make it Rain!!”

“Hahah!! They’ll be washing this out for days!”

“SPLAT!”

Paint Specials

Blitz!

“BLITZ!”

“HAHA! CALL THAT A FINISHING TOUCH!”

“PRETTY, JUST LIKE ALL MY WORKS!”

“TSST! TSST! HOW YA LIKE THAT??”

Better Hold On Tight!

“Hold on!”

“Hold on tight!”

“Better stay still!”

“Bumpy ride!”

Lookin Good

“My best one yet!”

“Mm.. Lookin Good!”

“Better frame this one! Heh..”

“You look better like this!”

Supers

Make it Pour!

“MAKE IT POUR!”

“THIS IS MY MASTERPIECE!”

“AHAH!! WAIT UNTIL THEY SEE THIS ONE!”

“PAINT! PAINT! AHAHA!!”

Seven Spray Death Blow (two parts)

“Gotcha!” -> “SEVEN. SPRAY. DEATHBLOW!”

“This is the end!” -> “SEVEN SPRAY DEATHBLOW!”

“Now you’ve done it!” -> “SEVEN SPRAY DEATH BLOW!”

“Oh, i know what you need!” -> “And done!”

--

Mauve’s Theme - “Colours of Life��

Funky little riff goes here

(Verse 1)

Paint dries without me, a sign of safety.

How do you know I’m not around?

It’s tranquility, a real sense of security 

I’m here to break it all DOWN!

Let’s go with yellow for hope and green for guilt

Each colours knits into its own special place and-

Blue for peace and pink for im-ma-tur-it-y

It’s the Colours of life you’ll see! 

(Prechorus)

(Possibly whispered or with that radio effect seen sometimes in here?)

WOAHHH!-

DOWN ON 5TH STREET!

Ba-dum Ba-dum

HURRY UP!

Ba-dum Ba-Dum-Bum-Dum

THAT DAMN ARTIST WON’T GET BACK ON HIS FEET!-

Don’t get cocky.

(Chorus)

(Clear now)

Let me know!

When you’ll let the colours flow.

Let me know!

(HEY! HEY! WOAH!)

I won’t go!

Not without showing off my life’s work!

I won’t go!

(HEY HEY! WOA- NO!)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-

NOPE!

Little break here

(Verse 2)

Find yourself within your passion.

That’s good! (Let’s use Purple for-)

Find your love within the things you strive for.

Can’t forget to.. keep the show on the road. 

Can’t let it stop now! (Let’s use orange for-)

Can’t forget your goal from the inside of a hole.

That’s what my art is for!

Buried myself in shades of gray, where did it get me?

Covered in hues of red and tears of blue now-

Why can’t you see? The bad one isn’t me!!

You’re stuck in a system that pulls you on strings.

(Prechorus)

(Again go all like fuzzy here)

WOAH!-

Hey, i know you’re there!

Ba-dum Ba-dum

You can’t hide from me!

Ba-dum-bum-dum-bum-dum

Welcome to the show!

WOAHHH- NO!

Better not let myself get caught now!

The colours of life can’t be spread across the world once I’m gone!

(YEAH!)

You already know!

BUZZ OFF! BUZZ OFF! THIS IS NUNYA BUISNESS!

(Chorus)

(Clear now)

Let me know!

When you’ll let the colours flow.

Let me know!

(HEY! HEY! WOAH!)

I won’t go!

Not without showing off my life’s work!

I won’t go!

(HEY HEY! WOA- NO!)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-

NOPE!

Insert long break here.

(Bridge)

Why must we keep running? (and running, and running, and running-)

Why must I hide? (Secret, secret, I’m a real secret!)

Questions that can’t be answered before one!

Who are you really now?

(Hey, hey, hey!)

WHO AM I NOW?

(Woah! Woah! Woah!)

WHO IS MAUVE NOW?

(Hey! Hey! Hey!)

WHO IS HE NOW?

(Woah! Woah! Woah! Woa- NO!)

(Chorus)

CAGES WON’T HOLD ME!

Better not get slop-py now!

NOR WILL CHAINS!

(YEAH, YEAH, TELL ‘EM ROUX!)

YOU WON’T WIN!

Not without a real struggle

I WON’T GO DOWN!

(Yeah! YEAH! YEAH!!)

Or, I dunno!

(WHO AM I NOW!)

QUESTIONS UNANSWERED!

And more keep popping up!

QUESTIONS UNKNOWN!

(WHO ARE YOU NOW?)

THE PAST CAN’T HURT ME!

Or that’s what I’m meant to say!

THE FUTURE IS THE GOAL!

Or something, I dunno!

(Outro, Spoken)

Ugh, god. Was i getting poetic back there?

Damn it.. that was so cheesy..

Lameee!!~

Little ending riff goes here

—

Past Looks

--

feel free to ask any questions ^.^

[miniherodesktales]

Advent 15: Home Alone Cat: Part 5

'They said they'd blown up the Starbug and the crew into itty bitty pieces!' said Chicken Soup Vending Machine No. 12.

'You mean...they're all dead?' Cat asked.

'Well, yes,' said CS.

'I can't believe it...my only friends....all gone...'

'There, there,' soothed Talkie. 'Would you like some toast?'

The Cat sniffed loudly. 'Yeah, I'd like some toast.'

'Coming up.'

The Cat waited. The toaster remained silent.

'Is it done yet?'

'It may be a while....you see you have to actually put some bread in me before I can toast it. As the old saying goes: you can't make toast without bread.'

The Cat slammed the wall with his fist. 'Nothing is going right today!'

'Easy,' said CS. 'You don't know anything for certain. Someone may have survived.'

'You think so? How can I be sure?'

'I have a suggestion,' said Talkie.

'Shut up! No more toast talk! It's up to me now to save the Dwarf. It'll take cunning and it'll style. Now let me go change clothes.'

He strode purposefully down the corridor, turned around, and strode purposefully back in the right direction.

'So what was your idea?' asked C.S.

'Rimmer is always in connection with the Holographic suite, right? If I can get there, I can send a message. Find out if the boys are alive.'

'That's an idea but how you going to get there?'

Margo the Scutter came rolling past.

'Ah,' said CS.

***

'Ok,' Lister breathed. 'Let's take stock. I have a pineapple and you have a platypus.'

'Correct,' said Rimmer.

'Not quite,' said Kryten. 'You have a concussion and Mr Rimmer has a glitch.'

'That's what I said.'

'He did say that, Crouton, you should pay closer attention.'

'Maybe I'll take over,' said the android patiently. 'Starbug is a wreck but the fire is out. We're stranded but at least we're on a planet with breath-taking sea views. Mr Lister has a broken leg, while I've lost a leg. Mr Lister also has a head injury, while you, Mr Rimmer, have suffered damage to your Light Bee and are floating two inches above the ground. Thankfully we have two scutters to help us. Now that we're in a more stable situation I suggest that you two rest while scutters build a shelter. In the mean time I'll try to contact the Dwarf. It's possible that the Cat could also be in danger. Now, does that sound like a plan?'

'I feel strange,' Rimmer moaned.

'Try and sit down,' Lister suggested.

Rimmer sat down, still two inches above the beach. His eyes flashed purple.

'You guys look like toast!' he said in a voice that was not his own. 'Speaking of, would anyone like some toast?'

'Rimmer?'

'Talkie is that you?' Kryten asked.

'It sure is and, boy, am I glad to see you guys! We have a situation here.'

'We're not doing so great, either. How about you send out Starbug 4 to us? We'll need a team of medi scutters and engineering scutters to help us.'

'I'll do my best. But don't worry I guarantee there'll be fresh toast on board too! Signing out!'

Rimmer drew in a deep breath as he regained control of his body again.

'You OK?' Lister asked.

'I can taste burnt toast. It's not the worst but not the best either.'

[hushed-chorus]

Thirty Books in November Challenge - Day Twenty Check-in

(Day 10 check-in here)

Since last update, I’ve managed to read twelve books. That puts me nearly back on track; nineteen books read with ten days left to reach my target. Reading three graphic novels and a novella helped, but given most of what I have left is novel-length, I’ll need to knuckle down to make it.

Some short reviews of a select few.

Captive Prince trilogy by C.S Pacat - The books that defied my expectations

I am not a big smut consumer, so I wasn't sure I’d vibe with this. Turns out there’s a lot more going on here. Plot! Twists! Great characters! Gahhh. And it does something that so much modern ‘traditional’ fantasy does not - it gives us victories and happy endings! Adore adore adore.

Heartstopper (2-4) by Alice Oseman - The books I’m kicking myself for not catching up on sooner

I thought vol 1 was adorable and set aside the rest for when I needed comfort. Got more than I bargained for. Love the character work, love the softness and teen joy coupled with the frank look at mental health. Many parts made me nostalgic for my teenage years. 

The Wager by David Grann - The book that I wish more nautical nonfiction was like

Do you know how hard it is to research day-to-day Age of Sail bullshit? It’s fucking hard. This book is a solid starting point, because while it’s telling a story of a particular ship and crew, it gives us a peek at life on a ship. If I write a nautical story, I reckon I’ll re-read this to help prep me.

Currently reading: Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree, and Heartstopper 5

[rey1x1]

spaceship shenanigans - group verse interest check !

welcome to the c.s. pandora, otherwise known as project pandora! we are a mixed crew of scientists, mechanics, bounty hunters, and even treasure hunters with the one goal: to explore the stars and whatever adventures they bring alongside them. join the crew as they explore new planets, strange creatures & plants, even stranger new people, and treasures beyond their imagination across the galaxy on the strangest road trip ever known.

theme: science fiction - space exploration

size: 6-8 muns (preferably 21+), 12-16 muses (all oc)

platform: discord

writing style: paragraph-based, with some 'radio' chats

[fairmerthefarmer]

More character designs except this time they’re fantasy dwarves and whenever I draw fantasy dwarves they legally all need to have facial hair regardless of gender cause I think that’s cool.

Also these guys are all secretly Narnian and are also on the crew of the Dawn Treader cause I’m forever building out the crew in my mind, and it’s practicing doing my own designs. Here is some more of the crew.

The slightest amount of lore for them is down here if you care, along with general Narnia headcanons and waffling.

——————————————————————————

The dwarf on the far left is a river dwarf I’ve decided. I don’t know fully that is other than I think it’d be cool if there was a tribe of dwarves that were close to the water nymphs, and generally have great knowledge and skills that are an asset on a sailing crew.

The river dwarves are one of the reasons telmarines were scared of the water (along with the niads, however the bridge of beruna imprisoned the river god, who otherwise was also responsible for many folk tales told to young telmarine children. Their fear of water is ironic to me cause I believe there’s evidence of them coming from the Caribbean as pirates? I imagine the humans on caspians crew are like, either rediscovering their roots or the few who held on to that seafaring background. Mostly younger telmarines in the same generation as caspian, they questioned the leadership and were very happy when old narnia overthrew Miraz.)

the river dwarves are generally peaceful and most lived in hiding during telmars reign. They’re temperament is very stable and they do well under pressure. River dwarves are incredibly stealthy and only attack in necessity as self defense. In terms of stealth think like lotr hobbits, and this is a great contrast to most other dwarves in Narnia (strong strength and combat, low stealth) A lot of them abstained from fighting against telmar alltogether due to their peaceful values. They are disconnected from some other dwarf cultures which can cause some tension.

The two in the middle come from a tribe of dwarves that are blacksmiths, and also they’re siblings. The brother in particular is a toy maker by trade specifically, and loves kids. His wife (far right) has a background in carpentry. Him and his wife don’t have any but virtually adopt any child they see. The sister is always having a good time, and seafaring comes more naturally to her than smithywork ever did.

The carpentry/forest dwarves generally have a history of closeness with dryads similarly to how the river dwarves are with the water spirits. Some of that connection has been severed due to how deeply the dryads retreated and were removed when Caspian the Conqueror (not our caspian) and his descendants over-deforested. It takes time to restore that connection.

The two on the left may or may not have a situationship and the two on the right have been married for years.

Regardless of trade they’re all on the ship because they’re loyal as fuck to Caspian, the married couple kind of see themselves in a parental role to him but it’s debatable on how that actually plays out.

Also no one has a name cause I’m so bad at coming up with names.

————————

My thinking in general is that Narnian dwarves make up a lot of the trades, other races do contribute as well, (I’d imagine some marshwiggles work in stuff related to ships/seafaring but perhaps not travelling themselves) most fauns are more into the arts/spirituality, but some do take up trades (a couple of my designs from this post are tradespeople, one of them is a bard.)

I haven’t done many centaur designs, but my vague thoughts is that there are those who are more spiritual and practice prophecy, stargazing, advising, and those who are more into combat, and are protectors, or messengers.

—————

Gender and the ideas around sexuality I’d also imagine would be a lot more fluid and most Narnians are a lot more open than some of the more human civilizations. (Like it’s a country made of sentient trees, talking animals and mythical beings, and the human countries kind of canonically are like “what the heck is going on over there???” Or they’re afraid of them and try to colonize them, like the telmarines)

These are all half baked ideas but I’ve been fixated on Narnia since I was five and it’s lowkey the reason I spent so much time and passion into drawing and now have a career in graphic design and illustration, so. This is mostly all for me, so don’t mind how long this post has gotten. 🤠

[maudeboggins]

Garbo, Taylor and Crew: Production Still, 1936 by C.S. Bull

[guerrerense]

20142 'Sir John Betjeman', Birmingham New Street por Arriving Somewhere Photography Por Flickr: 6Z76 1036 Kings Norton Ot Plant Dept to Crewe C.S.

[litcityblues]

"On Basilisk Station" --A Review

Last year, I plunged headlong into the delights of the Vorkosigan Saga (I'm still going to be working on that one this year) but I wanted to add a series that's been lurking on the bookshelves of my parents for years now that I've never gotten around too- and that's the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

(My Dad has a ton of Eric Flint books, so I've read a lot of the 1632 books-- though I'm way behind on those as well, as there seem to be more and more every year. But, a long-time collaborator of Flint's in multiple universes? David Weber.)

One thing that I found surprising right off the bat is that a brief dive into David Weber's wiki page reveals that he hasn't (at least from what I can find) ever been in the Navy. That both surprised me and impressed me. Granted, we're talking about space navies with the Honorverse, but the level of detail about ships, command structure and philosophy, and basic procedures seems like it should come from someone who's experienced it firsthand, but I guess not. That Weber lists C.S Forester and Patrick O'Brian, as influences on his writing is unsurprising and honestly, makes me want to put both authors on a future TBR list because what Weber has crafted with On Basilisk Station is the beginning of an immersive and well-crafted universe that I found to be compulsively readable and I know after one volume, I'm going to get through every one of these I can get my hands on.

On Basilisk Station introduces us to Commander Honor Harrington, newly graduated from the Royal Manticoran Navy's advanced tactical course and awarded her first commander, the light cruiser HMS Fearless that's undergoing a major weapons refit. Harrington discovers, much to her displeasure that most of her normal weapons have been stripped out and replaced by an experimental 'grav lance' commissioned by Admiral Sonja Hemphill.

Unhappy, but always ready to do her duty and expecting her new crew to do the same, Harrington and the Fearless use the grav lance to great effect in one round of war games, but taste crushing defeat after crushing defeat in the subsequent rounds as the grav lance, while devastatingly effective at close range is less effective once people know what to look for.

Admiral Hemphill, embarrassed by the failure of her experiment has the HMS Fearless assigned to picket duty on distant Basilisk Station, a posting generally regarded by the fleet as where the screw-ups and embarrassments get sent so they're out of the way. There, Harrington meets an old nemesis- Captain Lord Pavel Young, a spoiled son of a nobleman, whose career has been stuck in neutral due to an attempt to rape Honor at the Academy several years earlier. He is using her arrival as a ploy to ruin Honor's career and takes his heavy cruiser Warlock back to Manticore for some 'emergency refits' leaving Honor and her light cruiser as the only military presence in the system.

Harrington (unsurprisingly) sees this as a challenge and not a setback and to the surprise of local officials on Basilisk Station and the planet Medusa itself actually starts doing her job and finds out all kinds of interesting things. She cracks down on smuggling, and finds a drug manufacturing ring planetside that's selling hallucinogenic drugs to the sentient species of the planet inciting them to furious violence and whoever is behind that is arming them as well.

What the Fearless finds begins to cause a political stir back home on Manticore as well- and forces who want to discredit an isolationist faction who wants to withdraw from Basilisk Station work to delay the higher-ranked Lord Captain Young's return to the system to let Honor and the Fearless continue her work.

Eventually, they find out whose behind it all: the People's Republic of Haven, intent on gaining a strategic foothold in the system to drive Manticore out attempting a coup de main. Honor's complement of marines handles the native uprising planetside, while the Fearless runs down the Sirius, a Havenite Q-ship disguised as a freighter, who is running to signal the rest of their forces to move in. Harrington sends a message to Manticore advising them that the invasion is imminent and moves to engage.

The subsequent battle is costly to the Fearless in terms of damage to their ship and crew, but Honor manages to get the Sirius within range of their grav lance and uses it to destroy the Sirius.

Honor returns home to a hero's welcome, and a promotion, but unfortunately, the HMS Fearless is too damaged to salvage, but a newly constructed heavy-cruiser, christened as the new HMS Fearless is her new command.

Overall: When can one achieve mastery of any given subject? I don't know if a debut novel is enough to declare Weber a master of military science fiction, but for sure, On Basilisk Station confirms that Weber knows what he's doing and is pretty damn good at it to boot. I like that we don't get lost in world-building-- Weber drops us into the political situation from the word go and builds out as necessary from there. We don't get a sprawling history of humanity's diaspora out to the stars or anything like that- we're in the story and off and running.

I also like that Honor is presented as a character who is not morally flexible (at least so far in the series.) When given orders, she follows them to the letter and expects her crew to do otherwise. She recognizes the importance of when to push and when not to get the best out of her people and while her Executive Officer Commander McKeon struggles with her arrival and his own feelings about it, eventually, she wins him over as well. As a character, she leaps off the page.

My Grade: **** out of ****, a strong debut for this series. Send me volume two and sign me up for the next posting, because I'm all in on Honor Harrington.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Books of 2023 - March

Reading slowed a bit this month because 1) most of the books on my list were printed or digital rather than audio and 2) I had a lot of other projects on my plate, so if I couldn't listen to a story, I wasn't getting through it very quickly. As always, I got to the end of the month with a bit of spare time in which I crammed several books. I'm only going into April with one book unfinished, and I'm starting to think I may put it down anyway.

Total books: 8  |  New reads: 5   |   2023 TBR completed: 2 (0 DNF) / 7/25 total   |   2023 Reading Goal: 29/50

February | April

#1 - Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers - 5/5 stars (audio)

see note from last month about me screaming into the carpet

#2 - The Traveler by E.B. Dawson - 4/5 stars ('23 TBR, audio)

I should put an actual review here but at present I'm just reeling over the crew's collective inability to back anything up. Vital research documents? Not backed up. Super important evidence? We only have one copy. Years' worth of work on very personal issues? Yeah it's right there in plain sight and oh no now the villain has it.

People. Please. BACK UP YOUR WORK.

#3 - The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery - 5/5 stars (reread, audio)

I am completely normal about this book. Extremely normal.

Also it occupies the same shelf in my brain as both The Secret Garden and The Unsettling of America. Do with that what you will.

#4 - Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom - 4/5 stars ('23 TBR, audio)

More instructional rather than the largely-informational book I was expecting, and not as engaging as I was looking for, but I still learned things! And now I’m itching to go camping….

#5 - Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis - 4/5 (reread)

I've always been pretty neutral about this Narnia book. It's comfortably familiar while at the same time I saw things I hadn't really noticed before, little details I missed the last time I read it (whenever that was) or that were probably cut in the Radio Theater production.

#6 - Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry - 5/5 (audio)

I don't read a whole lot of literary fiction, and what I do read tends to be hit-or-miss. This one was a hit. Beyond that, I can't really articulate much. One of those "hold on, I need to process this" sort of books.

#7 - The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud - 4/5 stars

Stroud's writing style is enviably enthralling. I hate him. And I'm delighted that Lucy and Holly are reconciled. Holly's untaming was a marvel to behold.

#8 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis - 5/5 (reread)

This installment of the series used to occupy a lower spot for me than Prince Caspian, but I liked it more on this read-through. Maybe it's the pace. Maybe it's Eustace.

DNF

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard - The concept was beyond intriguing, and the opening images reminded me of The Goblin Emperor for some reason, but the writing failed to grab me. The voice itself was bland, but also...vague? Not immersive, I guess. It feels unfair to give up so soon on such a large book but there we are.

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Jack Thorne's 'His Dark Materials' wanted it both ways

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the dreams she has of him in The Land of the Dead, her and Roger have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He's an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He's naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He's pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy's body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don't make as much sense, because of the fact that he's softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there's a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from 'The Subtle Knife' (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He's fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they’re in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books - where as the adaptation version of them doesn't. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being "friends" more. I'm not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him.

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.