#I really like the “obliteration through repetition” you get

[dimipea]

Apoptosis

8x15" (6x12" plate), Copperplate intaglio aquatint, 2024

process, plate and artist statement under the cut:

Artist statement: 'Apoptosis' refers to the apoptosis (controlled cell death) that caterpillars experience when they pupate. Without a caterpillar's juvenile hormone, this process could occur at any time before they chrysalize, killing them. Once inside a chrysalis, apoptosis occurs as the caterpillar digests itself, and the remaining imaginal discs become its legs, wings, antennae, eyes and genitals. Metamorphosis is frequently used as an allegory for change and growth, but the more gruesome details of these changes are often left unexamined. The chrysalises depicted in 'Apoptosis' have all "failed" in one way or another, some from disease, some parasitized, others forever stuck between caterpillar and chrysalis. Apoptosis is also phonetically reminiscent of apotheosis, used to describe something's apex, ascension or rebirth; an ironic description given that the chrysalises have all died mid-way through their transformation. The linework and aquatint are delicate and sensitive to highlight the beauty of the chrysalises and their attempts. The scale of the chrysalises is kept quite small, so one could imagine cradling them in their hands, emphasizing their fragility. The chrysalises are "failures," but they are still brought up to our eye level, subverting the way we typically look down on bugs from an often literal sense due to the difference in scale. 'Apoptosis' explores an anxiety around growth and change and the failure and pain associated with it while avoiding condemning the subjects of that failure.

[badcaninecemetery]

[a list of overhaul headcanons that i've been obsessed with + soft x reader imagines]

he's kind of low-energy, so i imagine a lot of his hobbies would be similar.

given his physique, he'd probably enjoy working out, exercise, and/or yoga. he'd listen to documentaries about scientific discoveries while doing the mindless and repetitive movements. he'd intently watch a creative recreation of the discovery of tiktaalik and then forget he'd been cycling for over an hour.

i definitely think he'd be into reading too. typically he reads autobiographical nonfiction, but i'm sure he could be swayed into more literary nonfiction. he'd also read academic/scholarly journals/publications. he'd spend hours reading and reading.

playing strategic/mentally stimulating board/card games would interest him too. it's to keep his wits sharp, and perhaps hone in his poker face more and more. he probably did this a lot when he was younger, but then it became a hobby so he just does it to keep his brain thinking.

he'd also be into things like wine making or custom metal work, something that he can build and create. chemistry is something he really would enjoy, and there are endless possibilities there. he probably brewed beer and things like that when he was younger to earn pocket money and get himself further out there, but it stuck around too.

along those lines, he spends a lot of his time studying and working on his technical skills. he has many things he has to practice and learn, and i don't think his hunger for knowledge is satiable. he'd dedicate time for learning languages that might help him one day. science and math become some of his favorite things to do to pass the time—it's like doing crossword puzzles to him.

when he was really little, i think he probably tinkered with model kits. he's a little too shy to show those off though, but they're still hidden away in a closet just in case he ever wants to attempt them once more.

—

imagine kai tells you that he has a surprise for you, so he leads you into the living room and reveals with a gesture a board game. his eyes are crinkled around the edges, so you know there's a smile underneath that mask of his. you'd play with him, only for him to obliterate you every. single. time. it's typically chess because he teases you that it's your skill level—and you should be glad he didn't pull out the checkers board (or worse, go fish).

imagine watching him fiddle around with experiments. he shows you the elephant toothpaste one and you both would watch in horror whenever it starts exploding out more than it was supposed to. whenever you ask what happened, kai admits that perhaps he shouldn't have been focusing on your reactions as much. but whenever he's not doing anything in particular for you (and he totally doesn't do those things to impress you), the two of you just parallel play in the same room. he's busy, writing notes down in that doctor's scrawl of his and staring down intently through his bulky jewelers loupes; while you're relaxing on the other side of the room, perhaps doing something quiet and easy like drawing, or knitting, or writing, or researching.

imagine soft jazz in the background during these things. kai slowly turns to face you with a hard stare whenever you start playing your mix of sad jazz. he shakes his head softly, telling you he's not going to examine the medicinal samples in his petri dishes to billie holiday's "the man i love" (which makes him shift from foot to foot awkwardly because of the lyrics). a sly grin starts to stretch across your face as you switch it to old german jazz (the kind that plays in those 1930s men's fashion instagram reels), and you start doing a little dance towards him, shaking your hips and shimmying. kai's eyes are wide, but he's unable to not succumb whenever you lightly grasp his hands and loosely swing his arms back and forth (he's imploding internally).

imagine making him a rap, rock rap, and/or nu metal playlist. it's sometimes heavy and emotional or bitter, and sometimes it's nice for him to lean back and grimace at the ceiling whenever he listens to the words. so you hook up your phone to a speaker, then hit shuffle. his head is leaned against the back of the couch, eyes closed while the playlist cycles through. one second cypress hill is playing, the next it's eminem's fack. kai's face contorts into dissatisfaction before his eyes open and he pointedly looks at you, but you just snicker and say it's like a game of russian roulette. i wonder just how many times this song is hidden in this playlist? kai just sighs in acceptance.

imagine kai gushing to you (in a definitely calm and composed manner) about some or the nonfiction/journals he reads, or documentaries he's watched. sometimes he'll throw a word out there that you don't know, but he's very willing to explain what it means. he's brief and precise whenever he elaborates the information, and he'll offer to let you read/watch the materials too. you'd definitely sit down and read/watch it (even if it doesn't particularly interest you, but you know kai enjoys it).

imagine the two of you getting into stuff to do together like reading theory (you wouldn't stop jokingly spamming links to the communist manifesto and industrial society and its future at three a.m. in the morning—but then you both dipped in émile durkheim and kai was immediately enthralled). or doing something like learning animal taxonomy (you wouldn't stop calling the centipedes little lovers). or something simple like drinking coffee (or whatever you'd prefer at that moment) in public and people watching.

so many little things to pass the time, just brief smiles and witty glances behind coffee steam.

[sammylkcho]

Could I request a Painter x Reader please? Maybe he helps hides you in the vents in the ceiling and such to hide from the other entities to keep you safe...

Tytyty I love ur writings ~ 🌌

I really enjoyed writing this, especially since it’s been a while since I wrote something for our beloved AI and for Pressure! Warnings/Notes: mentions of a rising panic attack, blood, mentions of deaths and trauma

You didn’t know how many rooms you had passed through without daring to look back, except for those brief moments when you had to make sure certain creatures weren’t chasing you down to devour you alive.

This was all within a corridor of pure infernal torture—which was ironic, really. You couldn’t die. And if you did, you’d end up in some kind of limbo between life and death that would drag you right back to your oh-so-beloved mission.

Locker, corner, room. Don’t look into the furious green eyes. Sharpen your ears before hiding in a locker. Don’t shine your light on the squiddles. And whatever you do, don’t enrage the big fish boy.

It could almost seem like routine if it weren’t for the constant, dreadful surprises.

The only part where you felt like you could relax—just a little, take a short breath—was when those cute sea bunnies showed up. Always so adorable with their squeaky, high-pitched noises that reminded you of guinea pigs. Of course, everything was peaceful until one decided to wander off with a landmine, leaving you completely stunned and adding yet another trauma to your collection as you watched the sea bunny get utterly obliterated.

One of the very few things (or people) that managed to keep you grounded in this hellscape were the only two sentient beings around: Painter and Sebastian.

Well, maybe not so much Sebastian, depending on your perspective. He seemed about as thrilled with your presence as you were with his. Painter, on the other hand, became something of a middle ground—driving you out of your mind only when you were truly upset or stressed.

Like now.

“You do realize you could’ve hidden in one of the lockers behind you earlier, right? It’s painfully obvious that no matter how many times you run around this place, the whole IDIOT thing just doesn’t seem to go away.”

That damned AI had an infuriating knack for appearing at the absolute worst moments, almost as if it deliberately wanted you dead.

"I'm busy right now. I don't want to die again," you muttered, not bothering to check if it had even materialized on the screen listing the endless sequence of doors.

The flickering lights and oppressive silence began to suffocate you, the mounting anxiety carving a deeper pit in your stomach with every passing second. You scanned frantically for a locker or even just a shadowed corner where you could hide. Each moment spent exposed felt like a countdown to your inevitable demise.

This wasn’t your first time in such a situation, but no amount of repetition dulled the sting. Each death, no matter how similar or varied, left behind a phantom ache that lingered. Sometimes it was worse, searing into you with traumatic clarity. Other times, it felt almost mocking in its familiarity. The endless cycle of dying and returning gnawed at your sanity, and more than once, you’d found yourself wishing for a real, final death—just to make it stop.

You needed an access card to make any real progress, but there was no chance you'd risk roaming freely right now. Your ears pricked up at the unmistakable sound of a distant, guttural roar growing louder by the second. Panic tightened its grip as you clutched the sleeves of your suit, wrinkling the fabric in an attempt to steady your trembling hands and quickening breaths.

You were going to die again, and this time it would be the most pointless, humiliating end yet—

“Above the desk in front of you.”

Painter’s sudden voice cut through the mounting storm in your mind, snapping your attention back to the present and toward his calm, albeit disdainful, direction.

“To the right—there’s a vent. The screws are rusted. You can pull the frame off and hide inside.”

Your gaze darted to the vent he mentioned, narrowing slightly as you spotted the corroded, copper-colored screws.

“You better hurry unless you’re really itching to die.”

You didn’t need to be told twice.

Scrambling onto the desk, you tugged at the vent with trembling hands, yanking the weakened frame until it gave way with a loud snap. Rusted screws clattered onto the floor as you hauled yourself into the narrow shaft, your previous experience with Sebastian’s shop and tight hiding spots making the process smoother than it might have been otherwise.

No sooner had you slid fully into the vent than the thunderous roar erupted again. A gust of icy wind swept through the room, chilling your exposed skin as you held your breath. Just below, an angler lumbered past, its hulking form filling the space where you’d been standing mere seconds earlier.

Your heart pounded so loudly it felt like it might echo through the vent. The air tasted metallic as you fought to steady your breathing, replaying the events in your mind. Painter had saved your life. He’d actually saved you—and not with some cruel ulterior motive.

As the angler’s shadow faded and silence reclaimed the room, you noted that several overhead lights had failed, leaving the emergency red glow to drench the space in ominous crimson.

“...Painter? You still there?” you whispered, hesitant, half-expecting he might have vanished without another word.

“Unfortunately,” he replied, his familiar, annoyed drawl crackling through the system. “Thought your disgusting carcass had finally kicked it after you ignored my simple instructions.”

His tone was as exasperated and mocking as ever, but you couldn’t shake the faint undertone of something else—something almost concerned.

This wasn’t like the countless other times he’d watched you scramble for safety, only to sneer and taunt you afterward for your mistakes or how close you came to turning into a grotesque, bloody mural. This time, for some reason, Painter had gone out of his way to help. And you couldn’t decide if that terrified or comforted you more.

It felt different; you didn’t know if it was because he had literally saved your life or for some other reason.

“Thanks… You saved my life. I really appreciate it,” you said, trying to choose your words carefully, leaving out any trace of sarcasm or teasing that usually colored your tone.

It was strange—unusual, even—this kind of scenario. You could never quite tell if Painter still harbored that direct hatred for you. Though, if you were honest, the number of times he had actively tried to kill you had decreased significantly (an accomplishment in itself).

You thought he had already left, maybe because he was bored or had no further interest in watching you cling to life. Minutes stretched on in silence, leaving you with a faint hope that he might still be there.

“The maintenance here is awful—absolutely the worst. Consider yourself lucky it was that rusted; otherwise, it wouldn’t have been your salvation,” he said in a mock-irritated tone, as if holding back something more.

A soft laugh escaped you at his stubbornness, even in his own words. Maybe, just maybe, you could give this annoying AI another chance.

[thenightshadowqueen]

Livestream Watchthrough Thoughts (14-12-2024)

I loved this stream! It was a lot of fun, despite the heckler (they made some great jokes out of it, but it’s still a shitty thing to do), and… Yeah, I don’t have much else to say before I start my thoughts, other than I made a new tag for my watchthrough thoughts, because I’ll probably be making these again. They’re really fun to make, and it seems like there are some people who enjoy reading them, too, so it all works out quite well.

The audio is great!!!

“Lovely little Luke Manning” I love that this is a new thing Sam seems to be doing

Tom has his head in his hands a minute in… this is going to be a good show

Honestly, just settling in and listening to Sam’s intro is so comforting (can you tell my autism likes repetition?)

“I’m taking the joke about German train stations out of my head, because Tom doesn’t want everyone to hate me” this intro has had some edgier jokes and I’m here for it

Callback to the Prime Minister’s First Day!

“I almost understand everything you say!” He said it so earnestly

I know it’s a different tunnel, but… Cliff, is that you?

AJ inserting what’s meant to be a one-off atmosphere-setting singsong and then Sam making him change it over and over is peak SFTH

We made it all the way through munchkin land with Luke without a short joke—amazing!

“Your performance” okay fuck this guy (slight overreaction? …No.)

(They are doing a really good job of handling the heckler, though)

I love the new format of Letters!!!

“Jonathan Rolex” I genuinely have no idea if this is a real person involved with creating Rolex watches (I assume not, but I do not know anything about this sort of thing, so I could be wrong)

“How fucking dare you” Luke is amazing at picking tones of voice; he sounds so politely offended and it’s great

Ooh, we’re breaking the… It’s not really the fourth wall, but kind of?

“You’re. In. …Words.” I love AJ

“Yay!” That was so sweet; Tom is amazing

I love when they do this accent (I’m not sure what part of the UK it’s from and now I fear I’m living up to American stereotypes (I swear I used to know, but I’m exhausted and it’s been a minute since I looked it up))

“Shut the FUCK UP!” Fuck yeah Sam and AJ!

Also Sam indirectly calling the heckler an ass is iconic

“For a wise man, you’ve got to work on your mime” I love it when they insult each other (look insults are a love language, okay, and I like seeing people have friends)

“Tell me a little bit about gold, then” I love that AJ took not knowing what frankincense was (which I assume was genuine, although it could have just been a bit) and turned it into a running joke with the gold

This is so confused and I love it

“I’m Frank; it’s my incense” we can always rely on Tom for wordplay

“Then I put down the hammer” fucking plot twist, Luke, good god

“Cheryl is now…” “Knocked out.” Honestly, I thought they were going to go for ‘dead’, so it’s better than it could have been

“This is becoming a regular occurrence” Tom???

“Is this a robbery, Aaron? Are you robbing the company?” “Only if you force me to get the gun out of my pocket.” This show is gold

“You also have another gun, which is clearly in your belt” I really thought that we were going… somewhere else with that

I’m the tiniest bit sad we didn’t get two lesbians (but obviously I’m also very happy with the scene we got)

Honestly ‘in the round’ is a hilarious suggestion

“I don’t know how to cry. My childhood was bad.” Sam

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Wes Anderson film, but their impressions are always top tier

Luke desperately trying to get Sam to actually understand the Spanish and Sam just failing is amazing

“Get yourself... a drug problem” SAM

Is it a SFTH show if Sam doesn’t unbutton his shirt?

“Calm down” Sam is amazing

“I think I’m going to give Luke the most appropriate book that I've ever given him...” “I Want that Twink Obliterated” oh my god (also, like... I can’t believe that’s a real book) (I absolutely can)

“Pretty sure that's the title of one of our fanfictions” well I’m sure it’s going to be now (also I know they know about the fandom and fandom activities but it still kills me whenever they talk about it)

“Will you please stop trying to have a conversation?” I love that Luke and AJ are just messing up the way the game is meant to work

“Chapter fourteen.” “How did you know we're filing for bankruptcy?” Tom that was an amazing save

This was actually surprisingly wholesome considering the title of Luke's book

The five seconds of pure holding-back-laughter staring between Sam and AJ at ‘egg’

Sam

“I’m going to fuck you up, sun” as a person whose chronic illness gets worse in heat, I don’t think Tom has ever said a more relatable thing

“Well, aren’t we standing in two bland positions” Tom is great

“Here we are. The two men in the world with the longest penises, touching tips.” Well that escalated quickly

I know snake eyes is a dice thing, but... Snakehips?

“Calm down” pt. 2; I love Sam (although I do hope it doesn’t actually bother him)

“If you kiss me now” being interrupted by a kiss is brilliant timing

Also AJ’s still wearing the bracelet ❤️

Fucking hell, Sam (him just grabbing Luke unprompted like that caught me so off guard)

“I’m putting this in a museum” Tom???????

“Now, am I saying ‘see it, say it, sort it’ or ‘see it, say it, sorted’?” “Well, based on that poster, I think it's ‘sorted’.” Look, as an American, I am grateful for the clarification (also hi, SNftHitW)

“The next station is Cockfosters.” “That's not on the Metropolitan Line.” I said in my last watchthrough that I love when AJ makes an unimportant mistake and Sam latches on to it, and I stand by that statement. (Also, they mention Cockfosters station a lot; is that a particularly popular stop, or do they just pick it because it has a memorable name?)

“Yes, well, he does make a lot of promises, doesn’t he?” Oooh, drama (and sass)

“Good evening and welcome to Chip Harrington. I’m Chip Harrington—” Is Chip Harrington related to André Beetroot? (Also I love Chip Harrington already)

I realise AJ stumbling over his words is probably an accident, but I feel like it’s important characterisation for Chip

Also is Chip Harrington grown-up Chip from the Cardboard Stegosaurus? (Seems unlikely, but it’s possible)

Luke causing trouble is the best

“Be very scared” wow, what a news reporter

I adore the way AJ just said ‘~metropolitan~’ (and Chip Harrington and André Beetroot are definitely related, because that was almost a Beetrootian accent slip)

Luke as a child does the most adorable, innocent little faces, and it kills me

“Oh, I needed to tell you something...” see now i really want to know what that was

Luke’s abduction technique is… interesting

“I’m going to copy your face” Luke???

“Just because I fucked your wife Cassandra—” plot twist! (“You didn’t know that.”)

“I was going to give you anaesthetic before I did this; now I’m not so sure” Sam taking his cues from the audience’s response and going “kinky” killed me

“I’ve always thought you were a handsome fellow” hello (god damn it, another niche ship to add to the collection)

“These noisy streets” I love Tom’s passive aggressive way of calling out the people talking at the back

“You always say ‘this is Chip Harrington, and I’m Chip Harrington’, but it’s actually called the news?” I love Tom’s character, and I don’t think we got a name for her, but she deserves one

“I’m Chip Harrington” look he may not have any idea how but he’s trying to help

“I thought you were going to say anal” Tom

Okay so Sam’s acting as Luke’s character pretending to be Sam’s character is incredible

Tom’s baffled/disgusted face as he tries to figure out where they are is everything

“I need to be outside at all times” I know this is meant to be a bit character, but I’m genuinely really intrigued by this storyline

I can’t be the only one who feels like Chip and the mum have a bit of chemistry…

AJ messing up his name after saying it a thousand times might be my new favourite thing

I know we talk a lot about AJ’s singing—as we should—but Sam is also really good

“It’s like that, but really much weirder” AJ is amazing

Chip Harrington is the best

This is chaos

Honestly Tom’s character is a great mum

“There’s a man out on my lawn who won’t shut the fuck up” I love Tom

I genuinely think the mum might be the most sane character we’ve ever gotten

“The audience will ~never know~” god damn it, I’ve been entrapped by another play

I love that the Underground Murderer didn’t actually kill anyone

Tom and Sam’s high-pitched-voice bit at the end is amazing

“We’ll never see some of you ever again. Hopefully that motherfucker.” Fuck. Yes. Sam!

I really hate that they had to deal with that heckler (but they did do an amazing job)

[thinkingabout-girls]

you miss the people who were probably not the best to you (judging by the crossed out eyes and the sadder tone of the video) even though you’re a good person

it seems you push your feelings down until it overflows judging by the “you never asked once” bit from kid you to more grown you and you put others before yourself to keep the friends you had even though they eventually left “you’d wear yourself thin” and even though you offered comfort to others they never seemed to do that for you, the bit about gluing yourself shut so people can be in and that clip of someone by themselves and you coming to sit as evidence

the end bit shows you miss the people you lost or unfriended even if they weren’t the best (my ‘proof’ being most of the animatic with the people)

and i guess the pressure and feelings about it have come back to surface again “a heart only heals after breaking”

—— i probably missed a lot but that’s my analysis you don’t have to read all that it was probably repetitive ——

i don’t know the extent of what your going through but i hope it gets better for you, you seem like a genuine kind and caring person i hope you find a group of people who can give that niceness and love back to you

bro you copped my ass HARD god damn. ok knocking this out one at a time,

-that’s a part of it, yeah. i had… not the greatest friends growing up, but also a lot of people who were pretty chill but who just. stopped talking to me for various and unknown reasons. also glad i come across as a good person, i try <3

-yeagh. they call me the apathy guy sadly i loveeee repressing my emotions until it all comes out in one emotional outburst and then i feel bad. insert another noah kahan lyric here. honestly you got me so bad here it’s crazy i have been the Therapist Friend my entire life and am always someone the one who’s Doing The Best even when i'm doing really badly cause somehow everyone i know is doing Worse so i’m like oh well my problems can’t be that bad then i should be worrying about them. (spoiler alert: not how that works!). the fact that you quoted me here is killing me. obliterated anyways you are spot on and it’s scaring me

-you came with proof i’m so cooked. and oh yeah i miss (some of) the old friend groups like a motherfucker. some of them i dont miss at all fuck those guys but theres. quite a few people i fell out with that i have no idea why they just never spoke to me again. and it makes me Feel Things (ew). my phone likes to recommend me old photos of people i don’t talk to anymore and it kills me every time

-yeah. yeah. the mental illnesses have been hitting me hard this last few months and noah kahan music knows how to make me feel shrimp emotions about the terror of the unknown and the idealized version of my childhood. but we move . this happens to me once every 6 months or so

honest to god you absolutely eviscerated me with this ask. read me like a god damn book

also thank you so much, that’s genuinely so sweet <333 i have a really good group of friends right now that i wouldn’t trade for anything i don’t know what id do without them. thank you for psychoanalyzing me anon

[stupidbeecandle]

are you against sports? a little confused by your post as someone who just recently got interested by sports for the first time. athletic competitions are like improv theatre in my option. they require a human element. the whole point is witnessing a group or individual overcome adversity through human effort and ingenuity. it would be boring if it was all AI. like watching a computer win at chess

Hi! I assume you're referencing my post earlier about how if we are gonna use generative AI for anything, it should be to replace heavy impact sports.

I don't necessarily have anything against sports for fun or even watching and cheering acts of athleticism from the stand lines. I've played sports! They can be really great. But just like everything that gets super big and has billions of dollars involved in the process theres some really DARK shit going on that a lot of people don't know about or don't want to think about. Or will learn and then conveniently say "oooh, but IM not really contributing to that, I'm just a fan~"

Lets talk about CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Its the condition I was trying to hammer on in my earlier post but while not everyone knows about the absolute horror show of CTE that has gone on to take the lives of many celebrated athletes, most people have heard of an athlete having their knees obliterated, or at least a good solid hand injury and personally I'd prefer nobody got put in such uselessly dangerous situations for the entertainment of others!

BUT I recognize that people want to engage in and celebrate athleticism and so the TLDR of my rant earlier was that I'd love it if we had better controls, protections, and limitations in place on what is and is not allowed in sports because these are human beings, some of which have died for entertainment and I am not exaggerating when I say they died.

Back to CTE, heres the wiki link if you'd like to read about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy

But the TLDR of it is that getting hit by a linebacker causes brain damage and its no wonder, just watch how hard some of these folks get hit. There are some truly frightening reels on youtube and in the documentary I link at the bottom of this post. They're potent videos, because they're borderline delayed snuff films if you understand what the automatic twitching responses mean for the poor person's brainstem. Minor and major occurrences of brain damage happen repeatedly. And they stack. Just like a nasty repetitive stress injury at a desk job writing only its in the most vital core part of your nervous system. A few years down the line you have a pretty solid case of CTE which causes pain, anger, depression, suicidality, and all kinds of terrible things. Even worse facts have been found out but similar to the smoking industry, the professional sports industry has a vested interest in preventing people from learning about the actual statistics and grim details of the harm they directly promote and do not want to temporarily lose a small amount of money on adjusting to a new standard. Absurd amounts of money go to cover up this topic.

fans and children see this and we start lining up future generations to emulate these behaviors. You can see the start of some pretty serious neurological injuries even in high school sports with 14 year olds just barely coming into their bodies repeatedly practicing giving and taking hits that make them dizzy, leave them feeling breathless, and start to have slowly so so slowly deadly building lasting effects just like a lung cancer or a different slow killer.

Better people have said more intellegent things about this topic than myself. My specialties are in developmental and behavioral health but we all had to take a unit on CTE in my program. If you really want to learn more about the sorts of injuries that could easily be prevented by adding more safeties, regulations, and making sports even a wee bit less violent in the heavy impact range then check this documentary out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SedClkAnclk

[otakween]

Cyborg 009 BGOOParts Delete (2020) - Volume 5

Finally done with this slog...well at least until it gets translated. I'll probably read this again in English if I ever get the chance because I feel like I missed a lot of what was happening.

Really didn't expect this entire series to just be the Mythos stuff, how lame. Why couldn't they just come up with new material? Oh well...

Ch. 29

Oh boy...more monologuing. It's a monologue off between Hera and Zeus and they just ramble on and on about the creation of the Mythos cyborgs. Zeus says he gave downtrodden, vulnerable people power and Hera's like "no bitch, you just enslaved them!" This whole manga series coulda been an email...

Helena does that weird "gay to be straight" thing at the end. As in, she kisses Francoise so she can kiss Joe indirectly. Okaaay...

Ch. 30

The numbers cyborgs take down the Atlas-type robots Zeus summoned using ~the power of teamwork~

Joe helps Apollon get out of the line of attack and Apollon has one of those "why are you helping me? We're enemies!" Cliche moments. I feel like we've gone through this about a zillion times now.

Ch. 31

I think this artist is horny for Artemis based on the sultry way she's drawn over and over. Also, they may or may not ship Joe x Apollon because there are a lot of tender moments between them. With how pretty they're drawn, it feels like fujoshi bait. (Maybe I'd ship them if they weren't bland, flat characters lol)

Apollon helps Joe take down the Atlas-type robots, Zeus talks about the benefits of robots vs. cyborgs (they don't betray you and aren't emotional) and then Apollon gets obliterated and the Atlas-type robots start attacking each other (because their ability to recognize allies began to malfunction).

Ch. 32

With all other enemies taken out, Zeus turns into his ~final form~ and starts zappin'. Helena gets caught in the crosshairs and the number cyborgs plan their revenge.

I'm kinda confused about Hera's role in all this. She's been judging him this whole time but also not exactly working against him...? I guess she's too weak to do that.

Ch. 33

Okay, so maybe that wasn't his final form lol. More battle nonsense happens and Joe manages to shoot Zeus in the head with his own laser, but then he transforms into Apollon

It really feels like the writer couldn't really think of anything to do with this story, so they just draaaaged out the battle as long as they could. Also, the dialogue continues to be hella repetitive. If I hear Hera/Zeus say "the Mythos cyborgs whose fate is under your control" one more time I'mma snap.

Ch. 34

Zeus monologues some more, transforms into an abomination and then Joe one-shots him with help from Hera's amulet lol. Pretty anti-climactic but I'm glad that's over with.

Prof. Gilmore randomly showed up to be like "I'm worried about Ivan." Thanks for your input, Gilmore.

We get one final Hera monologue and then she puts Prof. Gaia's soul back in his original body so that they can die together I guess.

It's revealed that Prof. Uranus' first name was Tyrone...did they just google "black guy name" for that one? That doesn't seem like a fitting name for his age/time period, but what do I know I guess...

Ch. 35

This chapter was the epilogue and it got all weird and existential. They talked about fighting alternate versions of themselves in other universes and about their minds fusing together to become one being (??). They also referenced an "angel of despair" a few times which reminded me of the angel from 009 Re:Cyborg. This all seemingly came out of nowhere...

Francoise kisses Joe to "pass on Helena's message." She tells everyone to close their eyes, but Ivan tries to sneak a peek. I feel like that was the one cute moment in this entire series lol

For the human characters everything's back to normal and their memories were wiped. The implication is that the numbers cyborgs will keep on keepin' on in the multiverse. Guess this franchise will never die lol.

Obviously, I didn't really enjoy myself reading BGOO Parts, but I'm happy for the real fans out there that they have some new content to chew on. As I said in my previous posts, the art was very nice, but the writing/pacing/story all kinda stunk. Not a lot of interesting character moments either. Onto the next!

[kingofdinosaurs]

ok if you know me you KNOW i voted for sho but i feel so BAD seeing kanami get rolled. and i want labrys to get her lead back. so without further ado, I'm gonna do propaganda for all my special persona 4 spinoff warriors (sorry to metis and the p5 guys, i just have more emotional attachment to these guys and they could use the help). vote labrys for president of spinoffs 2024 🥳🎉🎊

under cut because i don't want to obliterate everyone's dash with this ALSO DON'T READ THE ZEN AND REI PART IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS FOR PERSONA Q, it's impossible to talk about why i love them without spoiling the major twist of the game

LABRYS:

her accent.

no im serious in this house we love and appreciate labrys' silly slightly bad accent. it's literally plot relevant and important that it's a slightly bad impression. it matters. it's cute. appreciate it now.

no, genuinely, the accent is important. to some extent, labrys is carrying forward the potential and likeness of somebody else, a sick girl from kansai who was never afforded the chance to do many of the things she wanted to. but her response to that was to offer her likeness and personality as a base for labrys and her sibling line of robots. labrys is that girl's legacy, accent and all. love her accent it's important and it's CUTE

she genuinely has the best overall story segments in EVERY GAME SHE'S IN. i include bbtag here too, her chapter of the extra story is really cute and fun, which is exactly what the bbtag story needs to be. that's neither here nor there but i want to emphasise just how consistently great the stuff with her is.

her base arena story mode is bar none THE best in the game. the others, while nice character studies, can get a little repetitive, but hers is a backstory piece instead and has some incredibly emotional moments and reveals about both her and aigis. she also has a really lovely dynamic with chie, kanji, and teddie especially. her moments with those characters in the main story always make me smile.

imo she also has the best overall story path in ultimax. i really love the true ending, but overall i like the p3 route just a little more. she has all sorts of interesting and engaging moments with other characters, and i love her dynamic with sho as someone who's on the same path she is, just not as far along. p4 arena/ultimax is ultimately a story about recovery and moving forward even after terrible things have been done to you, and in that respect she's the perfect protagonist for it.

she's just a really wonderful character. i think in stuff like p3/5d or bbtag, she can come off as a slightly one-note plucky optimist type, but the thing that i really want people to know is that she earned that optimism. she fought for it, through some of the cruelest trials anyone could go through, and she came out the other side still believing that a better future could be waiting for her. she fucking WORKED to be that joyous!!! she lost so many people and so much time locked away, and she is STILL AN OPTIMIST. it's her god damn RIGHT!!! WE LOVE LABRYS!!!!!!!

also she's adorable like awww look at her little happy smile :')

vote labrys

SHO MINAZUKI:

i shouldn't be allowed to do this. i cannot be trusted to do this. sho minazuki has a known and debilitating effect on my brain that makes me incapable of being normal for even one second. but I'll try

ill start with the easy stuff. first instance of an honest to god no beating around the bush stated IN TEXT Wild Card who wasn't the protagonist. eat your fucking HEART OUT goro akechi. i always see people arguing about this. it's sho. sho is the answer. conversely, minazuki has a really interesting status as a very similar figure to ryoji. i am NOT pulling this out of my ass i PROMISE i need to make an infographic about it sometime

his shitass puns they suck so bad. they're so fucking BAD it's kind of painful but they're endearing. in general when he's not going through the fucking horrors he's a fun-loving guy and it's cute. he needed to be in dancing so he could spend a game just doing normal silly shit and not having multiple breakdowns over the course of an HOUR.

easily steals the show (the sho -_-) in the p4au manga especially, good lord. there's some scenes in there (the scar flashback, the scene where fake ikutsuki wakes him up, and the fight at the end come to mind) that are just cemented in my brain now as how things went. it's too good. go read the p4au manga.

sho is really interesting to me as yet another foil to narukami, and in a completely different direction than adachi. he's abrasive, very open with his feelings, both intentionally and inadvertently terrible at forming bonds with others. but ultimax makes very clear that he can change. from the very beginning of the horrors done to him by ergo research, it's emphasised that even back then he wanted to connect with others. even at rock bottom, with no hope for the future and no idea what to do now his entire world has been turned upside down, he held onto hope that he might be able to find that bond he's looking for, even if he couldn't recognise that in himself. unlike adachi, sho finds it very easy to love others, he just has no fucking idea what to do with that. so he lashes out, because it's all he'd been taught to do. it's why ultimax's ending needed to be so optimistic. ultimax is a story about recovery, and about hope. your life isn't just a write-off forever if something goes wrong. i really like that message, and I'm really glad that sho got that chance. he deserved it.

ok so i could for sure talk for hours about both sho and minazuki but I'm limiting myself. i really love minazuki as basically the only one in sho's corner for their whole shared existence. he's flawed in a lot of ways - he's slow to trust, quick to resort to violence (a trait they share) and has a habit of making decisions for sho without necessarily taking his input on the subject if he feels it's what's best for him. but beneath all that edgelord "harbinger of death" demeanor (which is its own fucking post whenever i put that infographic together), he really does genuinely want to protect sho. he'd do anything to make sure he was alright. and when minazuki is taken out of the picture in the p3 route, we see how much that stabilising influence and kind presence was lifechanging for sho. it's honestly hard to watch the scene at the top of the tower in p3 side, sho is so much more openly miserable and suffering than minazuki is in his equivalent fight. it's easy to write minazuki off. and i am guilty of drawing sho way more. but you can't love one without the other. they're too important to each other, and they're both suffering the same way. minazuki just has the calm facade while sho wears his heart on his sleeve more.

anyway you should still vote for labrys but i hope you understand my position. I've been obsessed with these guys for like a year now and i want to share with the class.

ZEN and REI:

persona q is the world's most necessary 50 hours of mid for the world's most beautiful, thematically + emotionally resonant hours of PEAK. zen and rei are at the heart of that.

briefly i want to note that persona q is a perfect example of a crossover done right, where the plot is intrinsically tied to and a blend of the themes of the persona games it's a crossover of. the emphasis on the idea that your life is worthwile just because you lived it, and because people loved you, also really reminds me of guilty gear's philosophy and i like guilty gear.

with that in mind, the reveal that rei has been dead the whole time is brilliantly done. i don't think i've ever seen a running joke so effectively recontextualised as her inexplicable and frequently impossible snacks - the physical representation of her hunger for life. the moment you get to the end of the final labyrinth, the game's tone completely changes, but they manage to make the previous hours of silly shenanigans necessary to the emotional impact of that shift in tone.

zen and rei are so fucking great, man. persona's own psychopomp, god of death and grief and acceptance, eternally aloof and distant from those feelings he brings with him. finally understanding the weight of life through a sick, lonely girl who feels she was robbed of one. it doesn't hurt that they're so cute together before the reveal. their relationship is honestly very cute in a way i wasn't expecting to like nearly as much as i did, although i will admit i did hope zen kept being dense as hell about it because of how funny it was to me. wrought iron gate ass man. wouldn't know what flirting was if it was signposted in bright flashing neon.

if i'm talking a lot about the before and after of q's plot, that's because it's so integral to how good these 2 are. every silly or sweet moment you shared with them, the collar you helped rei make, your banter as you travelled through labyrinths together, it's all so necessary to feel the weight of their ending together. that WAS rei's life, and her impact. she WAS loved, in the end.

AND THAT'S WHY Q BEING ONE OF THE "EVERYONE FORGETS" SPINOFFS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING THEY COULD HAVE DONE. but that doesn't ruin zen and rei for me. sorry for spoiling the twist of persona q shadow of the labyrinth

KANAMI MASHITA:

ok you guys are doing her dirty because she's in the worlds least accessible rhythm game and that isn't fair!! i honestly believe that p4d has a very well done story with a couple of glaring flaws, neither of which are on kanami. in fact, they're largely an issue because yu narukami and his stupid funky bunch are involved. in all honesty, i think p4d would have worked better as a standalone game because the p4 stuff kinda drags the overall plot down.

anyway. kanami is the main protagonist of the real world segments of the game, while the investigation team and her colleagues are stuck in the midnight stage. i don't want to spoil everything that goes on in p4d, but suffice it to say that she ends up working with dojima to try and figure out where the missing people are, and builds an honestly charming rapport with nanako as her new backup dancer. hearing nanako call her big sis in the climax of p4d did genuinely catch me off guard in a good way, it's very sweet. much like narukami, kanami and nanako have a lot in common as 2 people who really shouldn't be as isolated as they are, especially as young as they are (kanami is 15 years old and lives seemingly alone with no parents notably in the picture during p4d), who can find common ground in that.

in all seriousness, kanami really charmed me as somebody who's almost totally different offstage. she's a really nice foil to rise as somebody who doesn't really know who she is at all, vs rise who's decided to face her idol career with the same confidence and strength she's learned to live her life with since the events of p4. offstage, kanami is almost a completely different person, both visually and in terms of personality. she exemplifies the themes of p4d so well - the kanami people know and love is a packaged product, a false bond with people who will never truly know her, and the lie is equally damaging for both sides of the equation. underneath the glitz and glamour of her career, kanami is a deeply lonely person traumatized to the point of repressing memories by the death of her greatest inspiration, who she's ironically walking the same path as. she barely even knows the other kanamin kitchen girls, and from the outset her life outside work is presented as incredibly lonely and distant from others.

obviously, persona 4 is The Bonds Game, so all of its spinoffs are obsessed with bonds too. but i always eat it up. that's no less true with kanami. her budding rapport with the rest of kanamin kitchen and with rise is really interesting to me, and i really like the idea of them forming their own part-time persona team, perhaps with rise as a guest member. the little circle they did in the climax to power up rise was really cute and i love the idea of them moving forward and finding their own strength of heart the same way the investigation team did.

it IS really funny that all we knew of her prior to p4d is that rise was jealous of her while she was retired. like knowing kanami as she is in p4d it was distinctly NOT mutual rise was just being a hater 😭

anyway, if you've actually read all of this i salute you. and i'm sorry for the word vomit. in short LET'S GO P4 SPINOFF WARRIORS I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who’s your favorite persona oc?

oc is defined here as a character introduced in content that comes off the side of the original plot (sorry marie+kasumi, you’re actually in the main games)

[magicalgirlmel]

Anime Finished this year 8: Kaina of the Great Snow Sea

4/10

Transcript under the cut

If there was a word that I had to pick to describe this show, it would be either disappointing or underwhelming. You see, I'm not someone that gets annoyed by full CGI anime unless it's done incredibly poorly and while this might not be the best example I have ever seen, it's not like it was the worst either. When I watched the first episode or two, it had my interest. The world that it was trying to construct seemed interesting and there was some clear Nausicaa inspiration happening in the world design, which I really appreciated.

However, for all the ways that the world was interesting, the characters weren't. The world was a place that seemed serious, dangerous, and fascinating, but at times, it could feel like characters weren't rising to match that world. Most of the time they were just fairly bland, but at others, they could delve into some real "anime bullshit" type of moments. Like, what was the point of having Ririha's top fall down in the sauna? It was so out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the series that if felt like someone had broken into the studio and slipped a scene from a different show into this one.

The biggest problem facing this series, though, was that the pacing was just plain bad. There were times where we could go entire episodes feeling like nothing was happening, only for a whole bunch to suddenly happen all at once before things slowed right back down again. It would be one thing if this were to allow us to breathe in the world and sit with the ambiance, but many episodes contained conversations that felt like they were repetitive, even if they technically weren't. 

I had my worries about the series ending in any way that felt satisfying when it was announced that a followup movie would continue the story, but I didn't expect the ending to be fumbled so badly. The war plotline was a story that the series didn't really need, the search for the great spire tree could have made up the entire plot of the show, been more concise, and likely been a stronger adventure story. The war plotline was dragged out, though, only to end with a big deus ex machina moment where (spoilers) a teeny tiny laser cutter turned into a massive energy beam that obliterates anything in its path and effectively ends the whole war plot. This is followed up by a montage to end the series and lead into the movie that flashes through moments that easily could have been at least three episodes on their own that were far more interesting than anything that had happened in the last two.

At this point, I don't know if I'll bother seeing the movie, to be honest. This is one of those series that burned me and I can't be sure of what quality the movie will be after seeing this series vary so wildly in quality over the course of its run.

[p-taryn-dactyl]

hi!!! i wanted to ask if you could write an agatha x reader story, where they both are with the avengers on a mission, then the reader gets hurt really bad and agatha gets all worried and protective? with a happy ending pls 💜 thank you so much!!!!

a/n: hiiiii!! Thank you so much for this request!! I love writing for Agatha, she’s actually my wife [true] I hope i did ok with this and i hope you enjoy it!! 💜

word count: 577

warning(s): i made up some random shit for plot lol - injuries/mention of blood- mentions of guns and being shot - more like hurt/comfort but I’ll say angst as well

You Saved Me

You were getting tired.

The mission was dragging on, the fighting almost becoming repetitive. Your movements became sloppy, exhaustion kicking in. You could hear Sam’s shield being thrown expertly at the HYDRA sleeper agents, Tony’s propulsion blasts sending the enemy flying backward, and your girlfriend’s magic buzzing through the air. What you didn’t hear was the gunshot.

You felt it.

All the air drained out of your chest, your eyes going wide as you fell to the ground. A ringing filled your ears as your head hit the ground, making your eyesight go dark periodically. Blinking you tried to stand up, to fend off the agent who was quickly approaching you. But your muscles didn’t respond, making you fall back quickly to the ground. The HYDRA agent kicked your side, where you had been shot, causing you to cry out in pain as you rolled to the side. The agent raised his foot to kick again when he flew backward, purple mist surrounding him. Soon, warm arms surrounded you, pulling you close to a chest. Hands cupped your face, lifting your head off the ground.

“Y/N? Baby can you hear me?” Agatha’s voice sounded far away, the concern and worry in her tone making you want to hug her, to tell her you were okay. But since speaking apparently aggravated your wound, you merely nodded. Agatha let out a small sigh of relief before kissing your forehead. Her magic surrounded you, creating a pillow for you to lie on as she stood up, her eyes turning from a loving blue to furious purple. Her expression was one of murder, a promise of death being sent with each blast of magic. Soon, the fight was over. Each agent obliterated by Agatha’s power, even fellow Avengers took a step back from her as she was on her rampage. She made her way over to you, gathering you up in her arms, watching as your eyes fluttered open and closed.

Consciousness was something you couldn’t quite grasp, your eyesight going dark every moment or so. You registered Agatha carrying you in her arms, back to the quinjet, but your mind could only focus on the searing pain shooting through your body. You heard the concerned voices of Tony and Natasha, who were pestering your girlfriend with questions. Finally, you were laced across the seats of the quinjet, Agatha’s magic gently removing the bullet and healing your wound. She maneuvered herself to sit behind you as she pulled you onto her lap, arms wrapped around your midsection protectively. She nuzzled her face into the crook of your neck as you leaned your head back on her shoulder. Glaring at your fellow teammates, Agatha tightened her hold on you. Her magic continued to swirl around you, searching for any other injuries.

“Hey Y/N do you need-” Tony started, holding out an ice pack before shuffling away when he was subjected to Agatha’s death glare. You quickly understood why Tony had acted weird.

“Aggie!” You scolded softly, your energy still drained from your injury. The witch sighed, slightly loosening her grip.

“Sorry, darling. I just-I need to hold you alone for a while.”

You smiled, leaning back into her chest, moving to kiss her on the cheek. You could only imagine what she went through when she saw you on the ground, blood staining your movements. You shook your head, trying to erase the memory.

“It’s okay, Agatha. I’m alright, you saved me.”

a/n: i feel like i didn’t do a great job on this so i apologize! I’m also sorry it’s so short! Thank you for reading and hopefully someone enjoyed this!!

[luaspersona]

zeki 😭😭😭😭😭😭

how DARE YOU BE SO AMAZING, I FUCKING LOVE YOU

ok, i just wanna get there out of the way, now let's get onto the review lol

i know star wars is an already established universe, but it’s really hard to convey space and to create an atmosphere in fantasy (especially sci-fi fantasy like in star wars) without the visual aid. you, however, created this environment that’s so tangible, so palpable. you find words that add to the tone of the intergalactic feel, but that are also precise and not overly complicated so the world that surrounds jimin is visible for us.

also i have to point out how skillfully you lay out the angst. even if that’s the very first time we’re seeing jimin and learning of his sorrow, your wording adds so much weight to it, the repetition of ‘why’ and the clear deflecting of pain as he tries to get a hold of his mind — all while being responsible for a whole civilization, i mean 😩:

No more than a month ago he watched all that he held dear be obliterated, engulfed in the heat and power of the grand explosion. Confusion had ruffled the feathers of his mind, making him question why, why, why. But questions were worth nothing if not accompanied by answers, and so the newly orphaned Prince Jimin got up from his bed tainted with sorrow, and dedicated himself to what remained of his people. 

ugh, the angsttttttt, please pour me some 🍵

(also “bed tainted with sorrow” is such a good expression btw, i fucking LOVE your writing)

and jimin’s suffocated grief is so well flashed out. when i read this part i felt my heart clenching in my chest, like the wAY A WHOLE PLANET was suddenly under his rule:

What would mum and dad do? The King and Queen of Sheeua, loved by the commoners and respected by fellow leaders across the galaxy. Would they have done the same as he? A sting of guilt appears in his chest. He’d made the decision to separate his people onto three different planets to live as refugees. He had seen the lingering terror in their faces, the tears in their eyes. Children without parents and parents without children, elders barely making it through.

and how the “children without parents” also applies to him, but he doesn’t really have the mercy of griefing… god, it’s SO GOOD:

He’d felt many eyes on him that very moment in time. Citizens looking to him for guidance, solace, or pity. Fortunately he was able to keep calm in front of his people, thanks to the shock that had settled in his system.

i also want to comment this part:

The crown. It, too, had been destroyed in the explosion. All the royal garments that had been passed on through generations for thousands of years… gone. His father’s mantle that Jimin was supposed to inherit and wear with pride when it was his time. Silly, isn’t it? Mourning the loss of fabric and a head piece, when more than half the population of Sheeua had been wiped out. So silly it is to dwell on lost possessions, when he shall consider himself lucky to be alive. Privileged, really.

because there’s so much to unpack with the way you wrote this. first how, even though he says he should consider himself lucky to be alive, jimin seems to want nothing more than to… not be. the loss of his parents, and a crown he doesn’t feel like he really deserves or knows how to properly wear. but also, secondly, there’s the focus on the material too. how much little memories he’s lost, and how all of those things (the crown, the mantle) are exponents of said memories, his material memory of his parents, but also things that could confirm and legitimate his new position, if his actions feel unsure, like we see here (it looks like those material goods and formal events are the ounce of normality and legitimacy in the middle of the caos):

Maybe that is what’s missing; Prince Jimin has yet to be crowned.

and here too, with the weight he puts on the garments:

It is the only royal garment left from Sheeua, symbolising his status as Crown prince. Embellished with gold buttons at the front beautifully complemented by the matching golden embroidery around the edges. A feeling of awkward acceptance lingers within him. What is he, if not a Prince pulling the weight of a King?

and god, i don’t even know what to say zeki. i honestly feel almost stupid talking about your writing, ‘cus i feel it speaks for itself. it’s so captivating and i felt drawn to it right from the first line. you’re so greatly talented and i can’t get enough of your writing and how you phrase things. like here:

As he stands there for a moment, the presence of his parents fills his mind and heart, spilling over into his attitude. The poise of his mother, the stability of his father. Acting in such an impetuous manner, that is not how he shall honour his parents and what they stand for… stood for. Memories of them hug his soul and comfort him in these desperate times. He cannot afford to lose his head in this dire situation. So much at stake, too much already lost.

the PAIN in that thought, how much he needs to just… grieve, to mourn his loss, but can’t! god, that’s so agonizing. and it’s SO WELL WRITING, i saw myself tearing up with him here:

Fury burns behind his eyes, forcing him to blink a couple of times to avoid tears from gathering. It’s difficult; saying it out loud. Even though Jimin knows it to be impossible, a small sliver of hope persists within him. ‘Cause they still exist very much in his remembrance.

and god, jimin’s anger here is SO NICE TO FOLLOW, the way he’s firm with the chancellor god, so perfect:

“Forgive me, Chancellor, but your help has been nothing short of inadequate,”

YOU TELL HIM, BABY

i also loved yoongi’s introduction lol, the detail that they’re the same height and how yoongi’s voice sends hope to jimin. (also is this a yoonmin hint because i’M HERE FOR IT).

but ugh, i don’t know. i took way too long to write this review, and among personal reasons, my main point was to truly cherish your writing for what it is: fucking incredible. zeki, you’re one of my favorite writers ever. the way you mold sentences and chose words to convey effect and to make us feel with your characters is something like nothing i’ve seen before. in 3,6k words you made me feel so much, made me tear up and made me super excited for what’s to come — and even if i know some of it, reading how you’re going to take me there is just perfect. 

from your control of tone (the angst was soooo good, istg) and your sophisticated craft of sentences that adds to the atmosphere and the perspective, to the amazing plot that you’ve created that’s absurdly captivating and enticing. i can’t wait to read more from you.

attack on the jedi  ;  pjm ― ch. 1

SERIES MASTERLIST.

CHAPTER 1   ;   Destruction of Sheeua

SUMMARY: After landing on Coruscant, the determined Crown prince Jimin has a bone to pick with the Chancellor in office.

―  POV: jimin. ―  PAIRING: none. ―  RATING: m (18+), minors dni. ―  WORD COUNT: 3,610 words. ―  GENRE/AU: star wars au, sci-fi, fantasy, drama. ―  CONTENT WARNING: explosion, death - also specified parental death (minor character death), natural disaster, climate change, politics, refuge, heavy grief. 

TAGLIST: @pjmparadise​  ― if you wish to be added to the taglist, please send me an ask and i’ll add you.

vsualitae © 2023. all rights reserved.

Desperate and aggressive, the young man takes longer strides than usual as he exits a smaller spaceship that escorted him there. He makes his way across the concrete landing pad, heading towards the entrance of the dome-shaped building towering over the citizens of Coruscant.

No more than a month ago he watched all that he held dear be obliterated, engulfed in the heat and power of the grand explosion. Confusion had ruffled the feathers of his mind, making him question why, why, why. But questions were worth nothing if not accompanied by answers, and so the newly orphaned Prince Jimin got up from his bed tainted with sorrow, and dedicated himself to what remained of his people. 

Keep reading

[razorblade180]

Abyss Shenanigans

Hu Tao:*stretching*

Aether:🎶It’s that special time!🎶 *reading info* Floor 9! Normal atta-

Yoimiya:Let’s move out team!

Zhongli:Might as well.

Yun Jin:Yes!

Kokomi:Give us about five minutes.

Aether:Okay, we need a team 2. The chambers have a bunch of enemies.

Jean:I’ll go.

Kazuha:That makes two of us.

Sucrose:I…can help keep them all from attacking.

Mona: And I will gladly end it all.

Aether:That feels like overkill on many levels but I’m okay with that.

xxxx

Aether:I’m positive that was less than five minutes but I’m not complaining. Easy nine stars. Okay, Floor 10!

Ganyu:Hmm..why not? I rarely go in. I shall deal with the Herald.

Zhongli:I’ll keep her safe.

Kokomi:Same.

Sucrose:*looks around* …..*raises hand* Well…the enemies there tend to spread out. So…if that’s a problem I could possibly…

Zhongli:*pats head* We will keep you safe too.

Sucrose:*smiles* Then, I’ll help too!

Aether:We still need a first half.

Yoimiya:I got it!

Yun Jin:Ummm half our team is gone.

Yoimiya:Which is why I have many awesome combinations. Time for pyro supremacy! *pumps fist*

Bennett:Yeah! Let’s do it Yoimiya! Hi Yun Jin, name’s Bennett.

Yun Jin:Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you.

Bennett:I’m sorry…

Yun Jin:No they’re all good things.

Bennett:Oh thank goodness.

Yoimiya:Hey stranger~

Kazuha:*smiles* If we’re strangers then I wanna know how you treat your loved ones.

Yoimiya:*flustered gibberish*

Yun Jin:*red* Oh my…

Bennett:Yeah…they’re always like this…

xxxx

Aether:Half way down and perfect scores. Good job everyone. So, Yoimiya, the second half of chamber 11 hasn’t changed.

Yoimiya:Ah, I got it. Zhongli, Kokomi, Yun Jin, I hope you don’t need a break.

Kokomi:That’s our line. Thunder Manifestation is your endeavor. We just watch from a same distance.

Aether:Floor 11 increases normal attack by 50 percent.

Yoimiya and Yun Jin:Get ready for another 9 stars!

Zhongli:(Why is this abyss out on my and Ganyu’s rerun? Sure I can fight normally but…)

Aether:…..*smiles* I can feel you staring at me. *turns around*

Eula:There is nothing on this floor I can’t obliterate. Not to mention that buff.

Aether:There’s robots.

Ei:Meaningless.

Aether:Spectors and slimes?

Barbara:No problem!

Aether:Your shielder is gone.

Diona:And I better one showed up!

Aether:*smiles* Crush em!

EDEB:Yeah!!!

xxxxx

Aether:I’m so proud of you.

Eula:Tsk, that means nothing. *standing proudly*

Ei:Hardly worth the effort. Eula blew up everything.

Diona and Barbara: (Those Spectors nearly blew us up right back.…)

Aether:Floor 12, first half is the boss rush again.

Yoimiya:*looks at team* Guys, I have a really good feeling right now. Like…I feel good. Better than last time we tried this.

Yun Jin:I am vastly stronger. I willing to see this through to the end!

Zhongli:Mind the Ruin Guards and their spinning this time.

Kokomi:Don’t hesitate with the Vishap. Stay near the edge I’ll keep you healthy.

Yoimiya:*smiles* Aww you guys.

Aether:Lastly, we the second half again. Oh boy. Geo rift hounds, Pyro Lector, Abyss heralds, and Maguu Kenki.

Hu Tao:Alright. Guess it’s finally my turn. I’ll dance with a little corrosion.

Albedo:Not alone you won’t, unless you plan on dancing all day.

Barbara:I’ll be your safety net. Besides, I don’t think you’re beating a lecture or Maguu Kenki without extra help.

Chongyun:*stands up* She’ll handle the pyro shields and I’ll get busy with the Herald’s. Just hit them hard and fast enough before things get risky.

Hu Tao:Aww, you’re coming too? I guess we really will be dancing our way through this.

Chongyun:Remember, you have no constant shield. Don’t get reckless and let me take the lead if you need a minute.

Hu Tao:Don’t worry, I know the drill. I won’t miss a step. *pinches cheek* always so serious. Afraid I’ll get hurt?

Chongyun:I just don’t want this taking forever!

Hu Tao:C’mon guys. You know me.

ABC:Exactly.

Hu Tao:Hey!

xxxxx

She felt good, that’s what Yoimiya said. Maybe it was the repetition or perhaps or constant battles. All she knew was she didn’t flinch at the missiles, interrupt her combo, or feared the spinning Ruin Grader. She trusted the shield, was mindful of the spinning flags, and kept her feet close to the pulsing waves. Yoimiya twirled like she always did and lunched her arrow. A few more and they’d be done. She brought her bow back up to begin again, but found nothing but a fallen enemy, silent teammates and a number she had never seen before that snapped her out of the zone.

70,000k

Yoimiya:….

Zhongli:…..

Yun Jin:…..

Kokomi:…..

Yoimiya:*inhales* AAAAAHHHH~

Yun Jin:AAAAAAAHHHHH~

Kokomi:AAAAAAHHHH~

Zhongli:AAAAAAAHHHHHH~

xxxxx

On the other side, a step was missed. What should’ve be a clean finishing blow became a chilling slash from a cryo phantom that left Hu Tao’s sight blurry as. As she fell back, the girl heard a scream. Warm hands wrapped around her and the feeling of a chilling blow was paid back tenfold as ice blades crashed onto the mechanical warrior with blooms or geo sealing the deal. The girl blinked slowly. She looked up to see a tired Chongyun looking down at her with worry while Barbara had already brought her back from the brink.

Chongyun:Didn’t I say be careful?

Hu Tao:S…Sorry. Thought I landed that hit.

Barbara:You always get antsy near the end.

Albedo:To be fair, it’s the Maguu Kenki. Playing it safe doesn’t exist with it.

Hu Tao:*red* Umm Chongyun?

Chongyun:Yes?

Hu Tao:You’re still holding me.

Chongyun:…..*let’s go* Sorry.

Hu Tao:What happens in the abyss, stays in the abyss.

Barbara:I don’t know. That scream was loud. I think it might’ve reached outside. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream.

Albedo:I know right. So passionate. “Hu Taooooooooo!”

Chongyun:*blushing* I wasn’t that loud! I- woah! Hu Tao!?

Hu Tao:*leans on him* I think…the wind is still knocked out of me. Aiya, that hit really blind sided me. I just need a minute.

Chongyun:*lifts her*

Hu Tao:Wha!? Hey, I’ll be fine. You don’t have to-

Chongyun:I want to. You’re tired and I should’ve been faster. Just rest. Not like you have the strength to object anyways.

Barbara:He’s right.

Hu Tao:*red*….Just…put me down right before we walk out.

Chongyun:I intend to. What happens in the abyss stays in the abyss.

Hu Tao:Very funny. *kisses cheek*

Barbara:Awwww

Albedo:(Well I’m definitely telling Xingqui and have to write down our progress so…)!?

Barbara:*staring* Albedo…

Albedo:…Sigh, I will write simple and brief report about without minor details.

Barbara:Thank you.

xxxxx

Aether:Good job everyone. 33 stars in total. You’ll never hear me complain about that. Get some rest and I’ll personally go collect resources today. *walk away*

Yoimiya:Hmmm ya know if we were just a little faster…

“No.”

Yoimiya:Haha, I’m kidding, mostly.

[dharmadischarge]

Top 5 Novels: or it gets dark around here early.

So now I am trying to say something. That is all. No, that will not do at all... Here is a list of my top 5 novels, with one short review and four long ones.

1, Jim Dodge - Stone Junction. Reading Stone Junction by Jim Dodge is like meeting the father you never had

2, Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow Subtlety is overrated... and just because you have a boner doesn't mean you're a terrorist. I mean, it doesn't mean you're not causing those rockets to come from the sky. But, still, that is beside the point.

For me, this book is about obliterating the arbitrary distinction between high and low culture. The ironically arbitrary distinction between good and evil and the dangerously subtle distinction between despondency and hope.

Fractured, layered, elusive, you could accuse Pynchon of all these things.

The way characters bleed into one another to make one voice. A hellish symphony of discordant cries of pain reaching out to a belief that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and paranoia is the glue.

Also, it is funny. Like in a dumb way and there are songs. Also, dumb.

Everyone will talk about how polarising this book is but I don't believe it. you can follow the bouncing ball and sing along or live in fear that at any moment the terror will become real and you will collapse into ellipsis...

It is the third and newer testament. An epilogue to western culture as racist cultural energy written by a crazy white guy. T.S. Elliot and his wasteland were a prelude, in hindsight, nothing but a john the baptist-like figure for the cross that Pynchon presents to all readers as their burden to carry with this book.

Hope is crazy painful, consciousness is such a fragile thing and the burden of consciousness is the pain of knowing that (beyond the act of effort itself) it is a futile one.

Jim Dodge once said, "a stone falls till it hits the earth, transcend what?" and that about sums it up.

3, Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian.

Blood Meridian is a kind of repetitious, primeval-hillbilly level of primitive interpretation of the morality expressed in the book of revelation fighting its way onto the page as barely literate poetry.

It is not a book of social niceties, justice, or the warm feeling you get when you do something good. also, this book could also easily be seen as porn for serial killers.

I scanned the reviews and saw all the campy (and not the good kind of campy) parodies this kind of book inspires in the age of irony we live in (though it seems like it is on its last legs). And while I like me a good parody, I find that Eli Cash did it better.

There is something to be said about how Cormac McCarthy (ab)uses the English language. The one good line I read from one of the negative reviews of his books was that a middle schooler could list what he doesn't like about the kids who bully him and that this list would have more emotional nuance and better use of punctuation than a Cormac McCarthy novel. This is fair.

The conceptional power of Blood Meridian though is that it frames cruelty and violence for what it is: reality. While also through its sometimes monotonous exaggeration of William Faulkners styled repetitions it creates a sense of unreality. A sense that like David Lynch's best work that we are walking, daily, through something so evil and violent that it borders on slapstick, and at last we laugh in self-defense.

I think the people who parody the book without much thought got trapt in the intellectual self-defense state that is part of coping and couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Civilization is a fragile thing, it is the human race trying to domesticate itself, and the longer it goes on the more it seems like we're just sweeping what we don't like under the rug.

4, John Crowley - Little, Big.

There is a kind of hokey-Americana style kitsch that most of my favorite writers could be accused of, from, Tom Robbins to Jim Dodge. John Crowley may be the peak of it. It could be because on the surface Americans don't have a unified culture we are a melting pot with capitalism only encouraging the lowest common denominator (the pursuit of greed as its own reward).

But in any creative act that does not presume to be the literal expression of anything but pure gratitude, there is politics. The politics of worth, of greatness, inherent value, and the desire to prove that the wisdom offered was truly earned. That a difficult pleasure does not mean that there is none.

This is an American fairytale. A once upon a time that seems eerily to remind of another Crowley, that codesigned the deck of Thoth tarot cards (A really good one for those curious) more than the writers of magical realism. And probably because I didn't read this in translation I preferred it to a hundred years of solitude. This may seem random to people of the fantasy crowd who know that genre is only a limitation to artistic merit if you want it to be (usually for cultural-political reasons). but people often compare this book to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing. And while they are both family chronicles with supernatural elements. this is kind of a shallow comparison.

Crowley's work is more in the tradition of an occult mystic, and Gabo is more a romantic using personal folklore as the vocabulary of that romantic expression (of which I think love in the time of cholera, is his masterpiece).

I am trying to not give away any spoilers, or even talk about specifics at all. but the ending is worth it. Like most things in life, it's your journey to go on so I won't ruin it for you, but they are out there waiting for you, where the lights never go out.

5, Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

"words save our live's sometimes"

I was a frustrated borderline feral child, who could not deal with reality. My parents taught me how to read and not much else. I was homeschooled and weighed three hundred pounds by the time I was thirteen. I remember one night unable to deal with any more abuse that I laid down and decided my dreams would have to be enough, I close my eyes and went away for a long time. Lettie Hempstock's ocean is real to me I almost drowned in it.

When I was a teenager the cult-like fundamentalist atmosphere of my home life became less extreme, but the damage was done. I was still in the ocean. it says something about my state of mind that the closest I came to getting traction on reality was starting a habit of reading insistently, my favorite book was Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

Once on Twitter, I told him "thank you" for writing it. I later after reading this book I wrote a short review of this book and sent it to him. He said "thank you" to me in a @ mention. It was nice. I later @ mentioned him in a playfully sarcastic way and he deleted his original comment.

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. I have been told I had childhood-onset schizophrenia. I have been told I milk it. I have been told that I self isolate.

I have been writing reviews tonight, going through my favorite books, and just live streaming my mind. Thinking about how they made me feel and what they make me think. Neil Gaiman's work always makes my brain retreat on itself. Possibly because of stardust. But more than that it is the wisdom he has. He knows that stories are true in a way that transcends a mere list of facts. communicating for those with an ear to listen that there is more than what we know, there is more than our understanding, there is more than us. More than you, more than me. There is an ocean that is healing for some while necessarily absent for others.

We forget, and we remember. Each other and ourselves. Cruelty and innocence. But there is an ocean and it is Lettie Hempstock's.

[armageddon-generation]

Articulating Why His Dark Materials is Badly Written

A long essay-thing with lots of specific examples and explanations of why I feel this way. Hopefully I’ve kept fanboy bitching to a minimum.

This isn’t an attack on fans of the show, nor a personal attack on Jack Thorne. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show, I just needed to properly articulate, with examples, why I struggle with it. I read and love the books and that colours my view, but I believe that HDM isn’t just a clumsy, at-best-functional, sometimes incompetent adaptation, it’s a bad TV show separate from its source material. The show is the blandest, least interesting and least engaging version of itself it could be.

His Dark Materials has gorgeous production design and phenomenal visual effects. It's well-acted. The score is great. But my god is it badly written. Jack Thorne writing the entire first season damned the show. There was no-one to balance out his flaws and biases. Thorne is checking off a list of plot-points, so concerned with manoeuvring the audience through the story he forgets to invest us in it. The scripts are mechanical, empty, flat.

Watching HDM feels like an impassioned fan earnestly lecturing you on why the books are so good- (Look! It's got other worlds and religious allegory and this character Lyra is really, really important I swear. Isn't Mrs Coulter crazy? The Gyptians are my favourites.) rather than someone telling the story naturally.

My problems fall into 5 main categories:

Exposition- An unwillingness to meaningfully expand the source material for a visual medium means Thorne tells and doesn't show crucial plot-points. He then repeats the same thing multiple times because he doesn't trust his audience

Pacing- By stretching out the books and not trusting his audience Thorne dedicates entire scenes to one piece of information and repeats himself constantly (see: the Witches' repetition of the prophecy in S2).

Narrative priorities- Thorne prioritises human drama over fantasy. This makes sense budgetarily, but leads to barely-present Daemons, the Gyptians taking up too much screentime, rushed/badly written Witches (superpowers, exposition) and Bears (armourless bear fight), and a Lyra more focused on familial angst than the joy of discovery

Tension and Mystery- because HDM is in such a hurry to set up its endgame it gives you the answers to S1's biggest mysteries immediately- other worlds, Lyra's parents, what happens to the kids etc. This makes the show less engaging and feel like it's playing catch-up to the audience, not the other way around.

Tonal Inconsistency- HDM tries to be a slow-paced, grounded, adult drama, but its blunt, simplistic dialogue and storytelling methods treat the audience like children that need to be lectured.

MYSTERY, SUSPENSE AND INTRIGUE

The show undercuts all the books’ biggest mysteries. Mrs Coulter is set up as a villain before we meet her, other worlds are revealed in 1x2, Lyra's parents by 1x3, what the Magesterium do to kids is spelled out long before Lyra finds Billy (1x2). I understand not wanting to lose new viewers, but neutering every mystery kills momentum and makes the show much less engaging.

This extends to worldbuilding. The text before 1x1 explains both Daemons and Lyra's destiny before we meet her. Instead of encouraging us to engage with the world and ask questions, we're given all the answers up front and told to sit back and let ourselves be spoon-fed. The viewer is never an active participant, never encouraged to theorise or wonder

 Intrigue motivated you to engage with Pullman's philosophical themes and concepts. Without it, HDM feels like a lecture, a theme park ride and not a journey.

The only one of S1's mysteries left undiminished is 'what is Dust?', which won't be properly answered until S3, and that answer is super conceptual and therefore hard to make dramatically satisfying

TONAL INCONSISTENCY

HDM billed itself as a HBO-level drama, and was advertised as a GoT inheritor. It takes itself very seriously- the few attempts at humour are stilted and out of place

The production design is deliberately subdued, most notably choosing a mid-twentieth century aesthetic for Lyra’s world over the late-Victorian of the books or steampunk of the movie. The colour grading would be appropriate for a serious adult drama. 

Reviewers have said this stops the show feeling as fantastical as it should. It also makes Lyra’s world less distinct from our own. 

Most importantly, minimising the wondrous fantasy of S1 neuters its contrast with the escalating thematic darkness of the finale (from 1x5 onwards), and the impact of Roger’s death. Pullman's books are an adult story told through the eyes of a child. Lyra’s innocence and naivety in the first book is the most important journey of the trilogy. Instead, the show starts serious and thematically heavy (we’re told Lyra has world-saving importance before we even meet her) and stays that way.

Contrasting the serious tone, grounded design and poe-faced characters, the dialogue is written to cater to children. It’s horrendously blunt and pulls you out of scenes. Subtext is obliterated at every opportunity. Even in the most recent episode, 2x7, Pan asks Lyra ‘do you think you’re changing because of Will?’

I cannot understate how on the nose this line is, and how much it undercuts the themes of the final book. Instead of even a meaningful shot of Lyra looking at Will, the show treats the audience like complete idiots. 

So, HDM looks and advertises itself like an adult drama and is desperate to be taken seriously by wearing its big themes on its sleeve from the start instead of letting them evolve naturally out of subtext like the books, and dedicating lots of scenes to Mrs Coulter's self-abuse 

At the same time its dialogue and character writing is comparable to the Star Wars prequels, more childish than media aimed at a similar audience - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar the Last Airbender etc

DAEMONS

The show gives itself a safety net by explaining Daemons in an opening text-crawl, and so spends less time showing the mechanics of the Daemon-human bond. On the HDM subreddit, I’ve seen multiple people get to 1x5 or 6, and then come to reddit asking basic questions like ‘why do only some people have Daemons?’ or ‘Why are Daemons so important?’.

It’s not that the show didn’t answer these questions; it was in the opening text-crawl. It’s just the show thinks telling you is enough and never shows evidence to back that up. Watching a TV show you remember what you’re shown much easier than what you’re told 

The emotional core of Northern Lights is the relationship between Lyra and Pan. The emotional core of HDM S1 is the relationship between Lyra and Mrs Coulter. This wouldn't be bad- it's a fascinating dynamic Ruth plays wonderfully- if it didn't override the Daemons

Daemons are only onscreen when they serve a narrative purpose. Thorne justifies this because the books only describe Daemons when they tell us about their human. On the page your brain fills the Daemons in. This doesn't work on-screen; you cannot suspend your disbelief when their absence is staring you in the face

Thorne clarified the number of Daemons as not just budgetary, but a conscious creative choice to avoid onscreen clutter. This improved in S2 after vocal criticism.

Mrs Coulter/the Golden Monkey and Lee/Hester have well-drawn relationships in S1, but Pan and Lyra hug more in the 2-hour Golden Compass movie than they do in the 8-hour S1 of HDM. There's barely any physical contact with Daemons at all.

They even cut Pan and Lyra's hug after escaping the Cut in Bolvangar. In the book they can't let go of each other. The show skips it completely because Thorne wants to focus on Mrs Coulter and Lyra.

They cut Pan and Lyra testing how far apart they can be. They cut Lyra freeing the Cut Daemons in Bolvangar with the help of Kaisa. We spent extra time with both Roger and Billy Costa, but didn't develop their bonds with their Daemons- the perfect way to make the Cut more impactful

I don't need every single book scene in the show, but notice that all these cut scenes reinforced how important Daemons are. For how plodding the show is. you'd think they could spare time for these moments instead of inventing new conversations that tell us the information they show

Daemons are treated as separate beings and thus come across more like talking pets than part of a character

The show sets the rules of Daemons up poorly. In 1x2, Lyra is terrified by the Monkey being so far from Coulter, but the viewer has nothing to compare it to. We’re retroactively told in that this is unnatural when the show has yet to establish what ‘natural’ is.

The guillotine blueprint in 1x2 (‘Is that a human and his Daemon, Pan? It looks like it.’ / ‘A blade. To cut what?’) is idiotic. It deflates S1’s main mystery and makes the characters look stupid for not figuring out what they aren’t allowed to until they did in the source material, it also interferes with how the audience sees Daemons. In the book, Cutting isn’t revealed until two-thirds of the way in (1x5). By then we’ve spent a lot of time with Daemons, they’ve become a background part of the world, their ‘rules’ have been established, and we’re endeared to them.

By showing the Guillotine and putting Daemons under threat in the second episode, the show never lets us grow attached. This, combined with their selective presence in scenes, draws attention to Daemons as a plot gimmick and not a natural extension of characters. Like Lyra, the show tells us why Daemons are important before we understand them.

Billy Costa's fate falls flat. It's missing the dried fish/ fake Daemon Tony Markos clings to in the book. Thorne said this 'didn't work' on the day, but it worked in the film. Everyone yelling about Billy not having a Daemon is laughable when most of the background extras in the same scene don't have Daemons themselves

WITCHES

The Witches are the most common complaint about the show. Thorne changed Serafina Pekkala in clever, logical ways (her short hair, wrist-knives and cloud pine in the skin)

The problem is how Serafina is written. The Witches are purely exposition machines. We get no impression of their culture, their deep connection to nature, their understanding of the world. We are told it. It is never shown, never incorporated into the dramatic action of the show.

Thorne emphasises Serafina's warrior side, most obviously changing Kaisa from a goose into a gyrfalcon (apparently a goose didn't work on-screen)

Serafina single-handedly slaughtering the Tartars is bad in a few ways. It paints her as bloodthirsty and ruthless. Overpowering the Witches weakens the logic of the world (If they can do that, why do they let the Magesterium bomb them unchallenged in 2x2?). It strips the Witches of their subtlety and ambiguity for the sake of cinematic action.

A side-effect of Serafina not being with her clan at Bolvangar is limiting our exposure to the Witches. Serafina is the only one invested in the main plot, we only hear about them from what she tells us. This poor set-up weakens the Witch subplot in S2

Lyra doesn’t speak to Serafina until 2x6. She laid eyes on her once in S1.

The dialogue in the S2’s Witch subplot is comparable to the Courasant section of The Phantom Menace. 

Two named characters, neither with any depth (Serafina and Coram's dead son developed him far more than her). The costumes look ostentatious and hokey- the opposite of what the Witches should be. They do nothing but repeat the same exposition at each other, even in 2x7.

We feel nothing when the Witches are bombed because the show never invests us in what is being destroyed- with the amount of time wasted on long establishing shots, there’s not one when Lee Scoresby is talking to the Council.

BEARS

Like the Witches; Thorne misunderstands and rushes the fantasy elements of the story. The 2007 movie executed both Iofur's character and the Bear Fight much better than the show- bloodless jaw-swipe and all

Iofur's court was not the parody of human court in the books. He didn't have his fake-Daemon (hi, Billy)

An armourless bear fight is like not including Pan in the cutting scene. After equating Iorek's armour to a Daemon (Lee does this- we don’t even learn how important it is from Iorek himself, and the comparison meant less because of how badly the show set up Daemons) the show then cuts the plotpoint that makes the armour plot-relevant. This diminishes all of Bear society. Like Daemons, we're told Iorek's armour is important but it's never shown to be more than a cool accessory

GYPTIANS

Gyptians suffer from Hermoine syndrome. Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves' favourite character was Hermione, and so Film!Hermoine lost most of Book!Hermoine's flaws and gained several of Book!Ron's best moments. The Gyptians are Jack Thorne's favourite group in HDM and so they got the extra screentime and development that the more complicated groups/concepts like Witches, Bears, and Daemons (which, unlike the Gyptians, carry over to other seasons amd are more important to the overall story) needed

At the same time, he changes them from a private people into an Isle of Misfit Toys. TV!Ma Costa promises they'll ‘make a Gyptian woman out of Lyra yet’, but in the book Ma specifically calls Lyra out for pretending to be Gyptian, and reminds her she never can be.

This small moment indicates how, while trying to make the show more grounded and 'adult', Thorne simultaneously made it more saccharine and sentimental. He neuters the tragedy of the Cut kids when Ma Costa says they’ll become Gyptians. Pullman's books feel like an adult story told through the eyes of a child. The TV show feels like a child's story masquerading as a serious drama.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

Let me preface this by saying I genuinely really enjoy the performances in the show. It was shot in the foot by The Golden Compass' perfect casting.

The most contentious/'miscast' actor among readers is LMM. Thorne ditched the books' wise Texan for a budget Han Solo. LMM isn't a great dramatic actor (even in Hamilton he was the weak link performance-wise) but he makes up for it in marketability- lots of people tried the show because of him

Readers dislike that LMM's Lee is a thief and a scoundrel, when book-Lee is so moral he and Hester argue about stealing. Personally, I like the change in concept. Book!Lee's parental love for Lyra just appears. It's sweet, but not tied to a character arc. Done right, Lyra out-hustling Lee at his own game and giving him a noble cause to fight for (thus inspiring the moral compass of the books) is a more compelling arc.

DAFNE KEENE AND LYRA

I thought Dafne would be perfect casting. Her feral energy in Logan seemed a match made in heaven. Then Jack Thorne gave her little to do with it.

Compare how The Golden Compass introduced Lyra, playing Kids and Gobblers with a group of Gyptian kids, including Billy Costa. Lyra and Roger are chased to Jordan by the Gyptians and she makes up a lie about a curse to scare the Gyptians away.

In one scene the movie set up: 1) the Gobblers (the first we hear of them in the show is in retrospect, Roger worrying AFTER Billy is taken) 2) Lyra’s pre-existing relationship with the Gyptians (not in the show), 3) Friendship with Billy Costa (not in the book or show) 4) Lyra’s ability to befriend and lead groups of people, especially kids, and 5) Lyra’s ability to lie impressively

By comparison, it takes until midway through 1x2 for TV!Lyra to tell her first lie, and even then it’s a paper-thin attempt. 

The show made Roger Lyra’s only friend. This artificially heightens the impact of Roger's death, but strips Lyra of her leadership qualities and ability to befriend anyone. 

Harry Potter fans talk about how Book!Harry is funnier and smarter than Film!Harry. They cut his best lines ('There's no need to call me sir, Professor') and made him blander and more passive. The same happened to Lyra.

Most importantly, Lyra is not allowed to lie for fun. She can't do anything 'naughty' without being scolded. This colours the few times Lyra does lie (e.g. to Mrs Coulter in 1x2) negatively and thus makes Lyra out to be more of a brat than a hero.

This is a problem with telling Northern Lights from an outside, 'adult' perspective- to most adults Lyra is a brat. Because we’re introduced to her from inside her head, we think she's great. It's only when we meet her through Will's eyes in The Subtle Knife and she's filthy, rude and half-starved that we realise Lyra bluffs her way through life and is actually pretty non-functional

Thorne prioritises grounded human drama over fantasy, and so his Lyra has her love of bears and witches swapped for familial angst. (and, in S2. angst over Roger). By exposing Mrs Coulter as her mother early, Thorne distracts TV!Lyra from Book!Lyra’s love of the North. The contrast between wonder and reality made NL's ending a definitive threshold between innocence and knowledge. Thorne showed his hand too early.

Similarly, TV!Lyra doesn’t have anywhere near as strong an admiration for Lord Asriel. She calls him out in 1x8 (‘call yourself a Father’), which Book!Lyra never would because she’s proud to be his child. From her perspective, at this point Asriel is the good parent.

TV!Lyra’s critique of Asriel feels like Thorne using her as a mouthpiece to voice his own, adult perspective on the situation. Because Lyra is already disappointed in Asriel, his betrayal in the finale isn’t as effective. Pullman saves the ‘you’re a terrible Father’ call-out for the 3rd book for a reason; Lyra’s naive hero-worship of Asriel in Northern Lights makes the fall from Innocence into Knowledge that Roger’s death represents more effective.  

So, on TV Lyra is tamer, angstier, more introverted, less intelligent, less fun and more serious. We're just constantly told she's important, even before we meet her.

MRS COULTER (AND LORD ASRIEL)

Mrs Coulter is the main character of the show. Not Lyra. Mrs Coulter was cast first, and Lyra was cast based on a chemistry test with Ruth Wilson. Coulter’s character is given lots of extra development, where the show actively strips Lyra of her layers.

To be clear, I have no problem with developing Mrs Coulter. She is a great character Ruth Wilson plays phenomenally. I do have a problem with the show fixating on her at the expense of other characters.

Lyra's feral-ness is given to her parents. Wilson and McAvoy are more passionate than in the books. This is fun to watch, but strips them of subtlety- you never get Book!Coulter's hypnotic allure from Wilson, she's openly nasty, even to random strangers (in 2x3 her dismissal of the woman at the hotel desk felt like a Disney villain). 

Compare how The Golden Compass (2007) introduced Mrs Coulter through Lyra’s eyes, with light, twinkling music and a sparkling dress. By contrast, before the show introduces Coulter it tells us she’s associated with the evil Magisterium plotting Asriel’s death- “Not a word to any of our mutual friends. Including her.” Then she’s introduced striding down a corridor to imposing ‘Bad Guy’ strings.

Making Mrs Coulter’s villainy so obvious so early makes Lyra look dumber for falling for it. It also wastes an interesting phase of her character arc. Coulter is rushed into being a ’conflicted evil mother’ in 2 episodes, and stays in that phase for the rest of the show so far. Character progression is minimised because she circles the same place.

It makes her one-note. It's a good note (so much of the positive online chatter is saphiccs worshiping Ruth Wilson) but the show also worships her to the point of hindrance- e.g. take a shot every time Coulter walks slow-motion down a corridor in 2x2

The problem isn’t the performances, but how prematurely they give the game away. Just like the mysteries around Bolvangar and Lyra’s parentage. Neither Coulter or Asriel have much chance to use their 'public' faces. 

This is part of a bigger pacing problem- instead of rolling plot points out gradually, Thorne will stick the solution in front of you early and then stall for time until it becomes relevant. Instead of building tension this builds frustration and makes the show feel like it's catching up to the audience. This also makes the characters less engaging. You've already shown Mrs Coulter is evil/Boreal is in our world/Asriel wants Roger. Why are you taking so long getting to the point?

PACING AND EDITING

This show takes forever to make its point badly.

Scenes in HDM tend to operate on one level- either 'Character Building,' 'Exposition,' or 'Plot Progression'.

E.g. Mary's introduction in 2x2. Book!Mary only listens to Lyra because she’s sleep and caffeine-deprived and desperate because her funding is being cut. But the show stripped that subtext out and created an extra scene of a colleague talking to Mary about funding. They removed emotional subtext to focus on exposition, and so the scene felt empty and flat.

In later episodes characters Mary’s sister and colleagues do treat her like a sleep-deprived wreck. But, just like Lyra’s lying, the show doesn’t establish these characteristics in her debut episode. It waits until later to retroactively tell us they were there. Mary’s colleague saying ‘What we’re dealing with here is the fact that you haven’t slept in weeks’ is as flimsy as Pan joking not lying to Mary will be hard for Lyra.

Rarely does a scene work on multiple levels, and if it does it's clunky- see the exposition dump about Daemon Separation in the middle of 2x2's Witch Trial.

He also splits plot progression into tiny doses, which destroys pacing. It's more satisfying to focus on one subplot advancing multiple stages than all of them shuffling forward half a step each episode.

Subplots would be more effective if all the scenes played in sequence. As it is, plotlines can’t build momentum and literal minutes are wasted using the same establishing shots every time we switch location.

The best-structured episodes of S1 are 1x4, 1x6, and 1x8. This is because they have the fewest subplots (incidentally these episodes have least Boreal in them) and so the main plot isn’t diluted by constantly cutting away to Mrs Coulter sniffing Lyra’s coat or Will watching a man in a car through his window, before cutting back again. 

The best-written episode so far is 2x5. The Scholar. Tellingly, it’s the only episode Thorne doesn’t have even a co-writing credit on. 2x5 is well-paced, its dialogue is more naturalistic, it’s more focused, it even has time for moments of whimsy (Monkey with a seatbelt, Mrs Coulter with jeans, Lyra and Will whispering) that don’t detract from the story.

Structurally, 2x5  works because A) it benches Lee’s plotline. B) The Witches and Magisterium are relegated to a scene each. And C) the Coulter/Boreal and Lyra/Will subplots move towards the same goal. Not only that, but when we check in on Mary’s subplot it’s through Mrs Coulter’s eyes and directly dovetails into the  main action of the episode.

2x5 has a lovely sense of narrative cohesion because it has the confidence to sit with one set of characters for longer than two scenes at a time.

HDM also does this thing where it will have a scene with plot A where characters do or talk about something, cut away to plot B for a scene, then cut back to plot A where the characters talk about what happened in their last scene and painstakingly explain how they feel about it and why

Example: Pan talking to Will in 2x7 while Lyra pretends to be asleep. This scene is from the 3rd book, and is left to breathe for many chapters before Lyra brings it up. In the show after the Will/Pan scene they cut away to another scene, then cut back and Lyra instantly talks about it.

There’s the same problem in 2x5: After escaping Mrs Coulter, Lyra spells out how she feels about acting like her

The show never leaves room for implication, never lets us draw our own conclusions before explaining what it meant and how the characters feel about it immediately afterwards. The audience are made passive in their engagement with the characters as well as the world    

LORD BOREAL, JOHN PARRY AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

At first, Boreal’s subplot in S1 felt bold and inspired. The twist of his identity in The Subtle Knife would've been hard to pull off onscreen anyway. As a kid I struggled to get past Will's opening chapter of TSK and I have friends who were the same. Introducing Will in S1 and developing him alongside Lyra was a great idea.

I loved developing Elaine Parry and Boreal into present, active characters. But the subplot was introduced too early and moved too slowly, bogging down the season.

In 1x2 Boreal crosses. In 1x3 we learn who he's looking for. In 1x5 we meet Will. In 1x7 the burglary. 1 episode worth of plot is chopped up and fed to us piecemeal across many. Boreal literally stalls for two episodes before the burglary- there are random 30 second shots of him sitting in a car watching John Parry on YouTube (videos we’d already seen) completely isolated from any other scenes in the episode

By the time we get to S2 we've had 2 seasons of extended material building up Boreal, so when he just dies like in the books it's anticlimactic. The show frontloads his subplot with meaning without expanding on its payoff, so the whole thing fizzles out. 

Giving Boreal, the secondary villain in literally every episode, the same death as a background character in about 5 scenes in the novels feels cheap. It doesn’t help that, after 2x5 built the tension between Coulter and Boreal so well, as soon as Thorne is passed the baton in 2x6 he does little to maintain that momentum. Again, because the subplot is crosscut with everything else the characters hang in limbo until Coulter decides to kill him.

I’ve been watching non-book readers react to the show, and several were underwhelmed by Boreal’s quick, unceremonious end. 

Similarly, the show builds up John Parry from 1x3 instead of just the second book. Book!John’s death is an anticlimax but feels narratively justified. In the show, we’ve spent so much extra time talking about him and then being with him (without developing his character beyond what’s in the novels- Pullman even outlined John’s backstory in The Subtle Knife’s appendix. How hard would it be to add a flashback or two?) that when John does nothing in the show and then dies (he doesn’t even heal Will’s fingers like in the book- only tell him to find Asriel, which the angels Baruch and Balthamos do anyway) it doesn’t feel like a clever, tragic subversion of our expectations, it feels like a waste that actively cheapens the audience’s investment.

TL;DR giving supporting characters way more screentime than they need only, to give their deaths the same weight the books did after far less build up makes huge chunks of the show feel less important than they were presented to be. 

FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED EXPANSION AND NOVELLISTIC STORYTELLING

Thorne is unwilling to meaningfully develop or expand characters and subplots to fit a visual medium. He introduces a plot-point, invents unnecessary padding around it, circles it for an hour, then moves on.

Pullman’s books are driven by internal monologue and big, complex theological concepts like Daemons and Dust. Instead of finding engaging, dynamic ways to dramatise these concepts through the actions of characters or additions to the plot, Thorne turns Pullman’s internal monologue into dialogue and has the characters explain them to the audience

The novels’ perspective on its characters is narrow, first because Northern Lights is told only from Lyra’s POV, and second because Pullman’s writing is plot-driven, not character-driven. Characters are vessels for the plot and themes he wants to explore.

This is a fine way of writing novels. When adapting the books into a longform drama, Thorne decentralised Lyra’s perspective from the start, and HDM S1 uses the same multi-perspective structure that The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass do, following not only Lyra but the Gyptians, Mrs Coulter, Boreal, Will and Elaine etc

However, these other perspectives are limited. We never get any impression of backstory or motivation beyond the present moment. Many times I’ve seen non-book readers confused or frustrated by vague or non-existent character motivations.

For example, S1 spends a lot of time focused on Ma Costa’s grief over Billy’s disappearance, but we never see why she’s sad, because we never saw her interact with Billy.

Compare this to another show about a frantic mother and older brother looking for a missing boy. Stranger Things uses only two flashbacks to show us Will Byers’ relationships with his family: 1) When Joyce Byers looks in his Fort she remembers visiting Will there. 2) The Clash playing on the radio reminds Jonathan Byers of introducing Will to the song.

In His Dark Materials we never see the Costas as a happy family- 1x1’s Gyptian ceremony focuses on Tony and Daemon-exposition. Billy never speaks to his mum or brother in the show 

Instead we have Ma Costa’s empty grief. The audience has to do the work (the bad kind) imagining what she’s lost. Instead of seeing Billy, it’s just repeated again and again that they will get the children back.

If we’re being derivative, HDM had the chance to segway into a Billy flashback when John Faa brings one of his belongings back from a Gobbler safehouse in 1x2. This is a perfect The Clash/Fort Byers-type trigger. It doesn’t have to be long- the Clash flashback lasted 1:27, the Fort Byers one 55 seconds. Just do something.

1x3 beats into us that Mrs Coulter is nuts without explaining why. Lots of build-up for a single plot-point. Then we're told Mrs Coulter's origin, not shown. This is a TV show. Swap Boreal's scenes for flashbacks of Coulter and Asriel's affair. Then, when Ma Costa tells Lyra the truth, show the fight between Edward Coulter and Asriel.

To be clear, Thorne's additions aren’t fundamentally bad. For example, Will boxing sets up his struggle with violence. But it's wasted. The burglary/murder in 1x7 fell flat because of bad editing, but the show never uses its visual medium to show Will's 'violent side'- no change in camera angle, focus, or sound design, nothing. It’s just a thing that’s there, unsupported by the visual language of the show

The Magisterium scenes in 2x2 were interesting. We just didn't need 5 of them; their point could be made far more succinctly.

In 2x6 there is a minute-long scene of Mary reading the I Ching. Later, there is another scene of Angelica watching Mary sitting somewhere different, doing the SAME THING, and she sees an Angel. Why split these up? It’s not like either the I Ching or the Angels are being introduced here. Give the scene multiple layers.

Thorne either takes good character moments from the books (Lyra/Will in 2x1) or uses heavy-handed exposition that reiterates the same point multiple times. This hobbles the Witches (their dialogue in 2x1, 2 and 3 literally rephrases the same sentiment about protecting Lyra without doing anything). Even character development- see Lee monologuing his and Mrs Coulter's childhood trauma in specific detail in 2x3

This is another example of Thorne adding something, but instead of integrating it into the dramatic action and showing us, it’s just talked about. What’s the point of adding big plot points if you don’t dramatise them in your dramatic, visual medium? In 2x8, Lee offhandedly mentions playing Alamo Gulch as a kid.

I’m literally screaming, Jack, why the flying fuck wasn’t there a flashback of young Lee and Hester playing Alamo Gulch and being stopped by his abusive dad? It’s not like you care about pacing with the amount of dead air in these episodes, even when S2’s run 10 minutes shorter than S1’s. Lee was even asleep at the beginning of 2x3, Jack! He could’ve woken from a nightmare about his childhood! It’s a little lazy, but better than nothing.

There’s a similar missed opportunity making Dr Lanselius a Witchling. If this idea had been introduced with the character in 1x4, it would’ve opened up so many storytelling possibilities. Linking to Fader Coram’s own dead witchling son. It could’ve given us that much-needed perspective on Witch culture. Imagine Lanselius’ bittersweet meeting with his ageless mother, who gave him up when he reached manhood. Then, when the Magisterium bombs the Witches in 2x2, Lanselius’ mother dies so it means something.

Instead it’s only used to facilitate an awkward exposition dump in the middle of a trial.

The point of this fanfic-y ramble is to illustrate my frustration with the additions; If Thorne had committed and meaningfully expanded and interwoven them with the source material, they could’ve strengthened its weakest aspect (the characters). But instead he stays committed to novelistic storytelling techniques of monologue and two people standing in a room talking at each other

(Seriously, count the number of scenes that are just two people standing in a room or corridor talking to each other. No interesting staging, the characters aren’t doing anything else while talking. They. Just. Stand.) 

SEASON 2 IMPROVEMENTS

S2 improved some things- Lyra's characterisation was more book-accurate, her dynamic with Will was wonderful. Citigazze looked incredible. LMM won lots of book fans over as Lee. Mary was brilliantly cast. Now there are less Daemons, they're better characterised- Pan gets way more to do now and Hester had some lovely moments. 

I genuinely believe 2x1, 2x3, 2x4 and 2x5 are the best HDM has been. 

But new problems arose. The Subtle Knife lost the central, easy to understand drive of Northern Lights (finding the missing kids) for lots of smaller quests. As a result, everyone spends the first two episodes of S2 waiting for the plot to arrive. The big inciting incident of Lyra’s plotline is the theft of the alethiometer, which doesn’t happen until 2x3. Similarly, Lee doesn’t search for John until 2x3. Mrs Coulter doesn’t go looking for Lyra until 2x3. 

On top of missing a unifying dramatic drive, the characters now being split across 3 worlds, instead of the 1+a bit of ours in S1, means the pacing/crosscutting problems (long establishing shots, repetition of information, undercutting momentum) are even worse. The narrative feels scattered and incohesive.   

These flaws are inherent to the source  material and are not the show’s fault, but neither does it do much to counterbalance or address them, and the flaws of the show combine with the difficulties of TSK as source material and make each other worse.

A lot of this has been entitled fanboy bitching, but you can't deny the show is in a bad place ratings-wise. It’s gone from the most watched new British show in 5 years to the S2 premiere having a smaller audience than the lowest-rated episode of Doctor Who Series 12. For comparison, DW's current cast and showrunner are the most unpopular since the 80s, some are actively boycotting it, it took a year-long break between series 11 and 12, had its second-worst average ratings since 2005, and costs a fifth of what HDM does to make. And it's still being watched by more people.

Critical consensus fluctuates wildly. Most laymen call the show slow and boring. The show is simultaneously too niche and self-absorbed to attract a wide audience and gets just enough wrong to aggravate lots of fans.

I’m honestly unsure if S3 will get the same budget. I want it to, if only because of my investment in the books. Considering S2 started filming immediately after S1 aired, I think they've had a lot more time to process and apply critique for S3. On the plus side, there's so much plot in The Amber Spyglass it would be hard to have the same pacing problems. But also so many new concepts that I dread the exposition dumps.

[system-architect]

its easy to miss if you didnt do the achievements for it especially as it was kind of unfolding live but what it is is that a bunch of the awakened that were traveling through the portal from fahranur to rata primus during the instant the commander destroyed rata primus sort of got turned into fractals. like literally.

it builds off of what we already knew from fractals + mistlock sanctuary + wvw (yes) that the mists loves creating 'ripples' of things that touch it, which it'll near infinitely spit out repeated echo copies of, and so the awakened that were going through that portal when the destination become lost basically hit the mists so hard that it kind of instantly obliterated them and replaced them with mists clones of themselves. on top of that, they just get launched through rifts into places at random because this is what happens when gates get damaged, and this actually happens to braham and the commander at the end of A Bug In The System as well-- we just don't get turned into fractal copies because the gate was damaged as opposed to destroyed. yay!

what's also neat to me, though, is that as opposed to the fractals* we are familiar with, the fractal awakened are actively decaying. (*this includes mistlock sanctuary and wvw and revenant legends, which are also all fractals or things functionally similar. wahoo!)

here's the bits from ninn's journal about it that i really like:

Comparisons against archived golem scans indicate that the Awakened observed have significant degradation consistent with extraplanar overexposure. Left unopposed, they degenerate after a period of minutes into undifferentiated material. ---- The collapse of portal integrity, in the abscence[sic] of a stable endpoint, caused a phenomena inversion, obliterating the Awakened and trapping their remnants in an interstitial state. See related studies attached [clearance check]. The current attacks are created by this Mist-based repetition phenomenon, similar to the research submitted by [clearance check]. The attacks do not represent a new strategy on the part of Awakened command and do not pose tactical or political challenge to existing Peacemaker forces in their areas. The repetition phenomenon will decay until attacks case in approximately [clearance check] years.

what this sort of implies and what makes sense with the current mists lore we have is that, as i mentioned with the ripples, the 'seize onto something and constantly make rippled echo fractal copies of it' thing is something the mists just sort of... does. it's just a gigantic magic pond and everything that touches it ripples across it.

what sets the actual Fractals of the Mists Dungeon apart, as well as mistlock, is that dessa invented machines that basically grab onto these ripples and force them to constantly repeat themselves ad infinitum (Ha Ha) with a sort of forced hard timeline reset so that she can study them without them decaying

what's Also neat and horrifying about it is that we know from both SOTO and the mistlock sanctuary npcs that the people who live within fractals *are* real people-- presumably part of why dessa makes the fractals loop is to preserve the purity of the fractals/the original events within, otherwise the people inside would just begin making their own decisions as they slowly faded away. the SOTO fractal islands are sort of functionally different, but they are not forced to flow in a loop and can leave the islands without it being a problem, so they get to live out their lives. the fractalized awakened are not being stabilized by any sort of mechanism, but also cannot leave, which means that even though they're sort of 'walking ghosts' who are only pale copies of their original selves, they are both fully sentient and have awareness! potentially even an awareness that something is wrong! neat stuff!

the awakened portal incursion event/storyline is actually an intensely fascinating bit of lore and it both ties together a bunch of mists lore and adds kind of new angles on it and i think everyone should appreciate it with me

[dustedmagazine]

Music for Films, Vol. II: Chick Habit

For good and for ill, Quentin Tarantino’s movies have been strongly associated with postmodern pop culture — particularly by folks whose reactions to the word “postmodern” tend toward pursed lips and school-marmishly wagged fingers. There for a while, reading David Denby on Tarantino was similar to reading Michiko Kakutani on Thomas Pynchon: almost always the same review, the same complaints about characters lacking “psychological depth,” the same handwringing over an ostensible moral insipidness. Truth be told, Tarantino’s pranksome delight with flashy surfaces and stylistic flourishes that are ends in themselves gives tentative credence to some of the caviling. Critics have raised related concerns over the superficiality of Tarantino’s tendency toward stunt casting, especially his resurrections of aging actors relegated to the film industry’s commercial margins: John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah, Don Johnson and so on. There might be a measure of cynicism in the accompanying cinematic nudging and winking, but it’s also the case that a number of the performances have been terrific.

The writer-director brings a similar sensibility to his sound-tracking choices, demonstrating the cooler-than-thou, deep-catalog knowledge of an obsessive crate-digger. Tarantino thematized that knowledge in his break-through feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992). Throughout the film, the characters tune in to Steven Wright deadpanning as the deejay of “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies”; like the characters, the viewer transforms into a listener, treated to such fare as the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” (1970) and Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” (1971). As with the above-mentioned actors, Tarantino has sifted pop culture’s castoffs and detritus, unearthing songs and delivering experiences of renewed value — and thereby proving the keenness of his instincts and aesthetic wit. “Listen to (or look at) this!” he seems to say, with his cockeyed, faux-incredulous grin. “Can you believe you were just going to throw this out?” And mostly, it works. If the Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” (1974) has become a sort of semi-ironized accompaniment to hipsterish good times, that resonance has a lot more to do with Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel and Co. cruising L.A. in a hulking American sedan than with the Disney Co.’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

In Death Proof (2007), Tarantino’s seventh film and unaccountably his least favorite, soundtrack and screen are both full to bursting with the flotsam and jetsam of “entertainment” conceived as an industry. 

In just the opening minutes, we see outmoded moviehouse announcements, complete with cigarette-burn cue dots; big posters of Brigitte Bardot from Les Bijoutiers du claire de lune (1958) and of Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) bedecking the apartment of Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier); the tee shirt worn by Shanna (Jordan Ladd), which bears the image of Tura Satana; and strutting under all of it are the brassy cadences of Jack Nitzsche’s “The Last Race,” taken from his soundtrack for the teensploitation flick Village of the Giants (1965). Bibs and bobs, bits and pieces of low- and middle-brow cinema are cut up and reconstructed into a fulsome swirl of signs. And there’s an unpleasant edge to it; the cuts are echoed by the action of the camera, which has been busily cleaving the bodies of the women on screen into fragments and parts. First the feet of Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), propped up on a dashboard; then Julia, all ass and gams; then Arlene’s lower half again, chopped into slices by the stairs she dashes up (“I gotta take the world’s biggest fucking piss!”) and by the close-up that settles on her belly and pelvis, her hand shoved awkwardly into her crotch. 

As often happens in Tarantino’s movies, furiously busy meta-discursive play collapses the images’ problematic content under multiple levels of reference and pastiche. The film is one half of Grindhouse (2007), Tarantino’s collaboration with his buddy Robert Rodriguez, an old-fashioned double-feature comprising the men’s love letters to the exploitation cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. In those thousands of movies — mondo, beach-cutie, nudie-cutie, women in prison, early slasher, rape-revenge, biker gang, chop-socky, Spaghetti Western and muscle-car-worship flicks (and we could add more subgenres to the list) — symbolic violence inflicted on women’s bodies was de rigueur, and frequently the principal draw. Tarantino shot Death Proof himself, so he is (more than usually) directly responsible for all the framing and focusing — and he’s far too canny a filmmaker not to know precisely what he’s doing with and to those bodies. The excessive, camera-mediated gashing and trimming is a knowing, perhaps deprecating nod to all that previous, gratuitous T&A. His sound-tracking choice of “The Last Race” metaphorically underscores the point: in Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, bikini-clad teens find and consume an experimental growth serum, which causes them to expand to massive proportions. Really big boobs, actual acres of ass. Get it?

Of course, all the implied japing and judging is deeply embedded in the film’s matrix of esoteric references and fleeting allusions. You’d have to be very well versed in the history of exploitation cinema to pick up on the indirect homage to Gordon’s goofy movie. But as in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino doesn’t just gesture, he dramatizes, folding an authoritative geekdom into the action of Death Proof. In the set-up to Death Proof’s notorious car crash scene, Julia is on the phone, instructing one of her fellow deejays to play “Hold Tight!” (1966) by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Don’t recognize the names? “For your information,” Julia snorts, Pete Townsend briefly considered abandoning the Who, and he thought about joining the now-obscure beat band, to make it “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich & Pete. And if you ask me, he should have.”

It’s among the most gruesomely violent sequences in Tarantino’s films (which do not run short on graphic bloodshed), and Julia receives its most spectacular punishment. Those legs and that rump, upon which the camera has lavished so much attention, are torn apart. Her right leg flips, flies and slaps the pavement, a hunk of suddenly flaccid meat. Again, Tarantino proves himself an adept arranger of image, sign and significance. Want to accuse him of fetishizing Julia’s legs? He’ll materialize the move, reducing the limb to a manipulable fragment, and he’ll invest the moment with all of the intrinsic violence of the fetish. He’ll even do you one better — he’ll make that violence visible. Want to watch? You better buckle up and hold tight. 

Hold on a second. “Hold Tight”? The soundtrack has passed over from intertextual in-joke to cruel punchline. It doesn’t help that the song is so much fun, and that it’s fun watching the girls groove along to it, just before Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) obliterates them, again and again and again. The awful insistence of the repetition is another set-up, establishing the film’s narrative logic: the repeated pattern and libidinal charge-and-release of Stuntman Mike’s vehicular predations. It is, indeed, “a sex thing,” as Sheriff Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) informs us in his cartoonish, redneck lawman’s drawl. Soon the sexually charged repetitions pile up: see Abernathy’s (Rosario Dawson) feet hanging out of Kim’s (Tracie Thom) 1972 Mustang, in a visual echo of Arlene’s, and of Julia’s. Then listen to Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) belt out some of Smith’s cover of “Baby It’s You” (1969), which we most recently heard 44 minutes before, as Julia danced ecstatically by the Texas Chili Bar’s jukebox. Then watch Abernathy as she sees Stuntman Mike’s tricked-out ’71 Nova, a vibrating hunk of metallic machismo — just like Arlene saw it, idling menacingly back in Austin, with another snatch of “Baby It’s You” wisping through that moment’s portent. 

For a certain kind of viewer, the Nova’s low-slung, growling charms are hard to resist, as is the sleazy snarl of Willy DeVille’s “It’s So Easy” (1980; and we might note that Jack Nitzsche produced a couple of Mink DeVille’s early records, connecting another couple strands in the web) on the Nova’s car stereo. Those prospective pleasures raise the question of just who the film is for. That may seem obvious: the same folks — dudes, mostly — who find pleasure in exploitation movies like Vanishing Point (1971), Satan’s Sadists (1969) or The Big Doll House (1971). But there are a few other things to account for, like how Death Proof repeatedly passes the Bechdel Test, and how long those scenes of conversation among women go on, and on. Most notable is the eight-minute diner scene, a single take featuring Abernathy, Kim, Lee and Zoë (Zoë Bell, doing a cinematic rendition of her fabulous self, an instance of stunt casting that literalizes the “stunt” part). Among other things, the women discuss their careers in film, the merits of gun ownership and Kim and Zoë’s love of (you guessed it) car chase movies like Vanishing Point. One could read that as a liberatory move, a suggestion that cinema of all kinds is open to all comers. All that’s required is a willingness to watch. But watching the diner scene becomes increasing claustrophobic. The camera circles the women’s table incessantly, and on the periphery of the shot, sitting at the diner’s counter, is Stuntman Mike. The circling becomes predatory, the threat seems pervasive. 

If you’ve seen the film, you know how that plays out: Zoë and Kim play “ship’s mast” on a white 1970 Dodge Challenger (the Vanishing Point car); Stuntman Mike shows up and terrorizes them mercilessly; but then Abernathy, Zoë and Kim chase him down and beat the living shit out of him, likely fatally. In another sharply conceived cinematic maneuver, Tarantino executes a climactic sequence that inverts the diner scene: the women surround Stuntman Mike, abject and pleading, and punch and kick him as he bounces from one of them to another. The camera zips from vantage to vantage within the circle, deliriously tracking the action. All the jump cuts intensify the violence, and they provide another contrast to the diner’s scene’s silky, unbroken shot. The sounds and the impact of the blows verge on slapstick, and our identification with the women makes it a giddily gross good time.

So, an inversion seeks to undo repetition. Certainly, Stuntman Mike’s intent to repeat the car-crash-kill-thrill is undone, and predator becomes prey. But, as is inevitable with Tarantino’s cinema, there are complications, other echoes and patterns to suss out. For instance: as the women stride toward the wrecked Nova, while Stuntman Mike pathetically wails, the camera zooms in on their asses. Bad asses? Nice asses? What’s the right nomenclature? To make sure we can put the shot together with Julia’s first appearance in the film, Abernathy has hiked up her skirt, revealing a lot of leg. Repetition reasserts itself. In an exacerbating circumstance, Harvey Weinstein’s grubby fingerprints are smeared onto the film. Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios is credited with production of Grindhouse, but Dimension Films, a Weinstein Brothers company, handled distribution.  

When the film cuts to its end titles, we hear April March’s “Chick Habit” (1995), with its spot-on lyric: “Hang up the chick habit / Hang it up, daddy / Or you’ll never get another fix.” And so on. Even here, where the girl-power vibe feels strongest (cue Abernathy burying a bootheel in Stuntman Mike’s face), there are echoes, patterns. Note how the striding bassline of “Chick Habit” strongly recalls the pulse beating through Nitzsche’s “The Last Race.” Note that March’s song is a cover, of “Laisse tomber les filles,” originally recorded by yé-yé girl France Gall. The song was penned by Serge Gainsbourg, pop provocateur and notorious womanizer. The two collaborated again, releasing “Les Sucettes,” a tune about a teeny-bopper who really likes sucking on lollipops, when Gall was barely 18; the accompanying scandal nearly torpedoed her career. Gall refused to ever sing another song by Gainsbourg, and disavowed her hits.  

Again, that’s all deeply embedded, somewhere in the film’s complicated play of pop irony and double-entendre and the sudden explosions of delight and disgust that intermittently reveal and conceal. Again, you’d have to know your pop history really well to catch up with the complications, and Death Proof moves so fast that there’s always another reference or allusion demanding your attention as the cars growl and the blood spurts. Too many signs to track, too many signals to decipher — that’s the postmodern. But perhaps we have become too glib, assuming that all signs are somehow equivalent. Death Proof insists otherwise. Much has been made of the film’s strange relation to digital filmmaking, of the sort that Rodriguez has made a career out of. Part of Grindhouse’s shtick is its goofball applications of CGI, all the scratches and skips and flaws that the filmmakers lovingly applied. They are digital effects, masquerading as damaged celluloid. Tarantino cut back against that grain, filming as much of the car chase’s maniacal stuntwork in meatspace as he safely could. Purposeful practical filmmaking, for a digitally enhanced cinematic experience, attempting to mimic the ways real film interacts with the physical environment and its manifold histories. Is that clever, or just more cultural clutter?  

Amid all the clutter that crowds the characters onscreen, and their conversations in the film’s field of sound, it can be easy to lose track of the distinctions between appearances and the traces of the real bodies that worked to bring Death Proof to life. Which is why Tarantino’s inclusion of Bell is so crucial. She provides another inversion: Instead of masking her individual presence, doing stunts for other actresses in their clothes and hair (for Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess, or for Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films), Bell is herself, doing what she does best, projecting the technical elements of filmmaking — usually meant to bleed seamlessly into illusion — right onto the surface of the screen. And instead of allowing one group of girls to slip into a repeated pattern, bodies easily exchanged for other bodies, Bell’s presence and its implicit insistence on her particularity (who else can move like she does?) breaks up the superficial logic of cinema’s market for the feminine. She disrupts its chick habit. There’s only one woman like her. 

Jonathan Shaw