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novelistash · 4 years ago

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Life Simulators

Tinkering with life simulators are a guilty pleasure for me. The chaos of procedurally generated lives keep me far too interested. My mind fills in the blanks creating the story of these rich lives. It kind of goes against what I was talking about yesterday, but I think I said it was an issue up for debate? Well, if I didn't, you can basically say that about everything. Newtonian Physics was the only way to view the Universe until it wasn't after all.

Anyway, I'm going to drop the life of Alexandra Miller, a character who was able to live most of her life with perfect stats. Is this for posterity or just for me to keep a semi-obsessive record? Also this might be in multiple parts. Hmm, maybe I should turn this into an exercise.

Born in Sydney, Australia, my parents conceived me on a nude beach. Cate Miller, my mother, never knew who my father was, and never cared to find out. She was a 40 year old history teacher. She quickly found and married Samuel Hornsby, a 33 year-old army enlistee with a son, Kobe.

Alexandra (Lex) had trouble getting along with her new family at first. Samuel didn't want to take 3 year old Lex to the zoo when she asked, and she got into a fight with Kobe where she got so mad that she licked him on the forehead.

To help Lex feel welcome, Cate got her daughter a boxer named Baxter! Lex was very serious about taking care of Baxter, giving him baths at the age of 4 and feeding peas for treats. Her family warmed up to her, with Kobe talking to Lex about how scary the toilet was and Samuel discussing Lex's imaginary friend.

When Lex started school, she was anxious about the other kids. Some of them didn't seem to like her. In particular Ariana was always giving Lex the stink eye. Lex tried to be her friend. Ariana responded by telling Lex to jump off and calling her a sausage shark! Lex gave up on trying to make peace with Ariana and instead tried to be nice to everyone in class, showering them with compliments. She became friends with Ayla, the first girl to talk to her, as well as the smart cookie Clive. Lex cared so much about her grades in Kindergarten that she studied until her eyes were sore.

At the age of 6 Lex went to Pompei with her family and starting taking piano lessons. She learned to enjoy reading, finishing Corduroy and Stellaluna by herself.

At age 7, Lex became friends with revolutionary Archie and stylish Eleanor. One of her fondish memories of her father Samuel happened this year, when he took her sky diving! Afterwards, he gave her a compass that had been in his family for three generations. Whenever Lex was lost, she could look at the compass and know where to go.

When I turned 8, Lex's step brother Kobe became a cadet for the Sydney Police Department and moved out of the house. Continuing this theme of people leaving her, Baxter ran away from home. With compass in hand, Lex looking for her dog and found him hiding in a bush! They ate lemons together and hated it. In addition to piano lessons, Lex started taking taekwondo and voice lessons and dreamed of becoming a pop star.

An avid reader and compulsive studier, Lex was having trouble with her eyes at age 9, but the optometrist said she wouldn't need glasses if she just studied in the light. When she got a yellow belt, she learned how to perform the eagle strike in taekwondo.

Lex was content that some people would never like her, but those that showed her kindness, she'd always go out of her way to talk to them. She felt extremely luck to have so many amazing people in her life.

Kobe became a Patrolman, but Lex's 11th year would be anything but safe. Lex fell out of bed and hurt her jugular. She was bed ridden for 5 days. Baxter got in a street fight with another dog and died. Ayla helped Lex get over losing her dog and the two became best friends.

Sixth grade was the year of the great Disney movie debate, where Lex's entire class argued about which was the best Disney movie. Clive wanted to sneak into a neighbor's house to get a box of Reese's Puffs, but Lex stopped him from taking a suspicious risk. Lex was finally old enough to go to the library by herself and she started going there every week.

At the start of secondary school, Lex joined the school's orchestra! She did 26 hours of babysitting for a neighbor. She tried out for water polo but had too much trouble breathing to focus on the ball at the same time. She started going to the local gym and focus on breath control. Lex found that diving helped her get better and ended up joining the diving team instead. She started working with her mother on the garden. Her mother Cate said that the garden always reminded her of Lex.

Lex will always remember the day before her fourteenth birthday, because she met a boy from another school, Chase Edwards. After spending some time together, Chase asked to kiss her and she gave him her first kiss. When she felt him opening his lips she pulled back and decided not to spend any more time with him. A few months later, Lex went to a party with Ayla. Ayla spun the bottle and it landed on Lex. Ayla seemed like she wasn't sure if she was ready to kiss a boy, so Lex went into the closet with her. Once they were inside, Lex realized that she wanted to kiss Ayla, but didn't have the courage to try anything. Their seven minutes in heaven turned into seven minutes that were very much on Earth. Lex vowed to not live life in fear and focused on her taekwondo, earning her blue belt. While at the gym training for dive, she was asked out by Connor Robinson, and agreed to date him. Lex did work as a babysitter and lawn mower, and used that money to pay for her first mani-pedi. She joined instagram just to show off her nails. She was meditating a lot on the nature of the world and joined her school's recycling club. If all of that wasn't enough, she started taking guitar lessons.

Lex and her acne ridden boyfriend, Connor, snuck into Lex's attic, and found her mom's camcorder. There wasn't anything interesting. Lex became her orchestra's section leader and her mom, Cate, gave her a BMW after acing her driving test. Feeling like an adult, 15 year old Lex decided to go on birth control, and her mom had no objections. Ayla joined the art club, and Lex partied with her and her friends. She realized that she still had feelings for Ayla, but Ayla confessed that she was into one of her club mates and so Lex decided not to act on her feelings and stay with Connor. Ayla got a boyfriend and Lex felt like she was ready to commit to Connor.

Her sixteenth birthday was an emotional high point for Lex, and she felt like she was happy for no real reason. She became concertmaster of her school's orchestra. Everything was going great and she decided that she wanted to take things to the next level with Connor. Connor wasn't interested in sex before marriage, so she broke up with him. Her friend, Clive, helped her get over the break up by getting mani-pedis with her and they became best friends. Ayla had recently become single and so against Clive's advice, Lex decided to ask Ayla out on a date. Ayla rejected her, but said that she was willing to still be friends. Lex wasn't over her but gave up after her attempts at flirting continued to go nowhere. Lex's tutoring gig let her work with grown men from college. Clive thought one client was a pimp.

Kobe became a Corporal, Lex became dive team captain, and the family had a big party to celebrate. Lex told all of her friends that she was pansexual and everyone was more interested in going to the movies.

Lex decided to study biology at university. She met Charlie Edgecliff at the gym and asked him out. On their first date Charlie took her yodeling. After going to the movies, Lex gave her virginity to him. Lex joined the university's orchestra and swim team. For Charlie's 20th birthday, Lex took him cliff diving. They had a serious talk about cloning and decided that it would be cheating to hook up with a clone of your partner.

Lex's ex boyfriend Connor went to Lex's 19th birthday party and tried to get back together with her. Lex told him off without needing to use her brown belt in taekwondo. Between swim team, uni, and hooking up with Charlie, Lex was not only busy, but happy.

Lex became the section leader in her orchestra and somehow found time to do tutoring to pay for the many dates she went on with Charlie. She wanted to look her best for him and got Brazilians and laid on the tanning bed. She loved her body and her boyfriend, but one day at the tanning bed, she got out and threw up all over the floor. When she went to the doctor, they told her she had skin cancer. Lex had maybe five years to live. Lex couldn't accept that, she needed to try other options. When Lex talked to Connor about going to see a witch doctor, he laughed at her. She broke up with him and saw a spiritualist from Mexico. The woman told Lex to eat chihuahua hair as part of a ritual. Lex did and her cancer was miraculously gone! The 20 year old Lex had a new lease on life and she wasn't about to spend that life being single. She met the buff Kylie Mills, and dated her. Within a week they were not only girlfriends, but they were talking about moving in together.

At the age of 21, Lex took her girlfriend Kylie to Kobe's marriage. Sergeant Kobe had married a school teacher, Kiara. At the reception, Lex's old friend Archie joked with her about how weird it was that he was dating one of his mom's coworkers, even if she was only 34. Lex liked Archie's dark humor and the two became best friends. Lex kept tutoring, swimming, playing, studying, and dating. She climbed up onto a try with Kylie and school children taunted them to kiss. They made out while the sun set.

The love of Lex's life, Kylie, graduated and became a Pilot Trainee for Salls Air. Kobe and Kiara divorced after having only been together for thirteen months. Six months later, Kobe was a father to a little girl named Kylie. After graduation, 22 year old Lex got a job as a Jr. Environmental Scientist at Pacific Consulting.

Not hindered by his divorce, Kobe got promoted to Inspector. 23 year old Lex, put everything she had into her job, working more and more overtime. She was determined to buy her own place and marry the woman she loved. Things wouldn't be the same as Kobe.

Kobe had another daughter, a girl named Hazel. No one really talked about who the mother was, but they were proud of him for taking her into his family. Lex's research discovered that used condoms were threatening the lives of duck billed platypus, so she engineered a biodegradable condom. This got her a promotion at work. Feeling like she could do anything, the 24 year old Lex read War and Peace. She purchased a ring of alexandrite and proposed to Kylie. She said "yes." They were going to get married!

At Cate's retirement party, Lex realized she'd been with Kylie for 5 years! Thought the two were madly in love, Kylie's financials were in doubt. She had a lot of debt and her job wasn't even covering her student loans. At Lex's mom's retirement part, she learned that Cate was actually independently wealthy, owning some 3 million dollars in stocks and bonds. Lex's brother was the one who brought this up, because he was pretty sure the two of them were going to get a million dollars each. He told Lex to look out for Kylie, because she could divorce her and take hundreds of thousands from her. Lex knew in her heart that she could trust Kylie, but when she saw a male proustite on the street, she found herself tempted. Maybe their relationship wasn't perfect. The still Jr. Engineer, Lex, asked her boss for a promotion, but despite having come up with a new condom, she was denied.

For Lex's 26th birthday, she went to Comic Con with her coworker Bella and her friend Eleanor. Eleanor became her best friend. Lex worked while sick with the common cold and got a raise. She applied for a mortgage and bought a town home on Evans Manor. Her mom had to help her pay for the place, because Kylie's financials were all tied up in her debt.

After celebrating Lex's niece Kylie's birthday, her fiance, Kylie wanted to get married. Lex was still house poor and asked her parents to pay for the wedding. They agreed. They were going to be wed within the year. Lex had a short battle with athlete's foot. She was really starting to think of her own mortality and the mortality of her mother. After going paintballing with her step father, Lex decided that Kylie needed to sign a prenup. When Kylie refused, Lex made her promise to wait to get married until Kylie could stand on her own two feet. Kylie wasn't happy and the two stopped having sex. Lex begged Kylie to go to couples counseling, but Kylie wouldn't try. It was then that Lex knew she needed to end things with her fiance. The 27 year old Lex cut down on her hours at work and decided to focus on herself. She had a one night stand with Archie Irvine and realized that it wasn't for her. She wanted something long term and went online to date Ariana Evans. Their first date was a parkour exercise. And even though things went well, Lex wasn't ready to start getting physical with Ariana. Ariana told Lex that she was willing to take things slow.

After giving her all to a company that didn't seem to appreciate her and a fiance that wanted everything, it was only after Lex stopped caring that things finally started to change. At age 28, Lex was finally promoted to Environmental Scientist. Ariana took Lex for a photoshoot to celebrate and the two finally got physical. It was then that Ariana admitted to Lex that she didn't need to work. She was independently wealthy, being worth nearly 5 million dollars from her family's wealth. Lex threw a party at her house and Ariana was content to live separately.

Lex was falling for Ariana, but she didn't want her to think she was after her fortune. She asked her mother to pay for the wedding, and Cate agreed. Lex bought a $500 platinum ring and proposed to the millionaire, Ariana. Lex took Ariana to a football game and proposed on screen. Ariana said "yes!"

At the age of 30, Lex finally married Ariana. There was only one catch, a prenup. Lex laughed and agreed to the prenup, explaining that her mom was also wealthy. When the time came to go on a honeymoon, the two women realized they'd rather just stay local and be with friends and family. Lex took Ariana's last name, becoming Alexandra Evans.

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butchcraftmacncheese · 4 years ago

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tagged by @lesbianblackphillip

I know I’m vocal in like. Replies and messaging people, but I’m honestly too shy to tag anyone ever so. If we’re mutuals, I’m probably very interested in learning more about you but I’m too shy to tag, haha.

1. your name and then what you would have named yourself: My birth name is Sarah, but I actually go by my preferred name everywhere. It’s... not that common, so I’d rather not post it. But K is fine.

2. astrological signs: Capricorn sun, Sag rising, Aquarius moon.

3. when did you join tumblr and why? Joined once about... six, seven years ago? My friend told me I could learn from some super smart lesbians. I then got pulled into the seperatist community and left the moment I realized how honest to god toxic it was. Rejoined a few months back because Catradora became canon and all of my favorite fic writers were on Tumblr. Figured this was where fandom thrived and you know what? I was RIGHT.

4. top 5 fandoms: Xena Warrior Princess, Star Trek Voyager, The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica (the reboot), and Steven Universe

5. top 5 favorite films: 1) The Children’s Hour (1961) is a wonderful historical drama (sometimes noted as the best ever written for the big screen) starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley McClain. It shows how being a lesbian was perceived in the early 60s and sided with the lesbians. 2) Iron Sky 3) The Hours 4) The Craft 5) Beaches

6. go to song for when you want to feel something: O Mistress Mine as done by Emilie Autumn or The Great Gig Up in the Sky by Pink Floyd

7. what’s your religion or faith if you have one: Born Jew. My dad always kept the Tao Te Ching on his nightstand, so I was raised with a sort of. Mix of Judaism and Taoism. Now I’m just... I don’t feel like whether a god exists or not is relevant. Or if a god ever did exist. I want to do good for the sake of doing good; hurting people just feels too awful. I look for guidance from the world and the people around me.

8. a song that makes you feel seen: Stress by Kim’s Big Ego

9. if you could have any career: Mission Specialist. Or maybe a marine ecologist that specialized in deep sea adventure science. Or pro skater.

11. what does your heart/soul yearn for: Adventure and love. Family.

12. if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone who doesn’t know you: Awkward, creative, dreamer, well-intentioned.

13. favorite subjects in school: It was music theory. I also loved Film

14. where does your soul feel most at home: Corny as this sounds? With my partner. We could be anywhere.

15. top 5 fictional characters: Xena, Rose Solano, Carmilla (love me some vampires), Camina Drummer, Admiral Helena Cain

16. top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: AFIN :/ So many times. I cried so hard that I covered the mirrors in my home in shiva. I know there must have been other points during shows, but I honestly can’t remember them.

17. the earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: The sun. I get my energy from it. I wake up to watch the sun rise and immediately feel tired after it sets. The moon and stars are gorgeous, but I’m a sun girl.

18. favorite kind of weather: Somewhere in the low to mid eighties. Partially cloudy skies. A nice light wind.

19. top 3 characters you kin with: I think this term means characters you see yourself reflected in? Seven of Nine. We are like. The same. On so many levels. Then mix in a bit of Craig from Parks and Rec and add a dash of Malfoy from A Very Potter Musical. (Rolling on the ground and sexy posing when arguing or upset? Me.)

20. favorite medium of art: Haha actually? Poetry probably. Something about spinning words, making me wonder, transporting my heart to some place so, so far from the present moment. I also love digital art.

21. introvert/extrovert/ambivert: Ambivert. I NEED to be around people. Sometimes I go through periods of time where I need to be alone for a few days, though. Generally I’m pretty extroverted.

22. favorite literary quote: I can’t think of one. And I don’t feel like flipping through every book I have to find one.

23. some of your favorite books: The Expanse series, Weaveworld by Clive Barker, The Black God’s Drums by Clark P Djeli, The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

24. if you could live anywhere in the world where would you live? The thing is? I’m content living in the Potomac River Valley. I also loved briefly living off of a fjord in Norway. I just love to travel. I move someplace and the wonder fades out. Not entirely but a lot. I start loving where I am and can see myself staying there forever. But it’s that known unknown, that desperate craving to know and experience and explore. I’m not ready to live anywhere in the world yet. I still want to live everywhere.

25. if you could live anywhere in the world when would it be? Proooooobably the 1980s? Or maybe do the 90s again? Just because it’s similar enough to now, but more freedom, dude.

26. if you could play any instrument masterfully it would be: Haha. Man I don’t know. My favorite thing to do with music is to compose on paper, so maybe I’d master composition and conducting. Not quite an “instrument” but it something you can study at any music conservatory that specializes in performance.

27. if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you feel a connection to: Since I was a child I’ve always felt an intense connection to Artemis (to the point where I’d lay in bed for hours and hours at night yearning for her to be real...) Not to be that lesbian but. You can’t fight who you are.

28. and lastly, favorite recent in your camera roll: Found these friends when I went on a walk the other day.

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in December 2021

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Ho, ho, ho. And like that 2021 is (almost) over. It went by fast, didn’t it? But even as the year that was begins its final 30-day run on your calendar, we cannot deny being happy to see the broader holiday season here, and all the good cheer it brings—including on streaming services.

Netflix, for one, is committed to spreading happy tidings, as judged by their glut of new Christmas movies. However, if you’re someone who isn’t looking for more cinematic trifles this December, and rather just want to know about the best non-original film content coming to your living room, well we’ve comprised the list below!

Closer (2004)

December 1

No one would mistake Mike Nichols’ brutally cynical adaptation of Patrick Marber’s play to be a holiday movie, and yet there are few better films you could watch on Netflix this December. A blunt force meditation on relationships—and the ties which unbind us from our significant others—Closer is the tale of two couples who switch partners repeatedly over several years, and learn each others’ nastiest secrets and worst vulnerabilities.

It’s an acting showcase for its ensemble which includes Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Julia Roberts. It was a particularly important role in Portman’s career, marking her first major adult success post-Star Wars, and one which netted her an Oscar nomination for her disruptively disarming interpretation of Alice, a young woman whose innocence is as much a weapon as a liability. Still, we are also particularly taken by Owen, who made his first major Hollywood picture by playing Larry after previously portraying Law’s Dan character on stage. As Larry, he is a neolithic savage among the quartet of otherwise intellectual characters. He’s also the only one who dares to tell the truth. What a monster.

Death at a Funeral (2007)

December 1

We’re not entirely sure (yet) which Death at a Funeral is coming to Netflix, but either way you’re in for a humorously good time. Made first as a dry British comedy in 2007 by Frank Oz and then remade fairly well by Chris Rock a few years later stateside, both films feature a winning screenplay by Dean Craig and an all-star cast of performers getting involved into all sorts of unexpected hijinks at a funeral. But perhaps the most amusing thing is they each co-star Peter Dinklage as the scariest funeral crasher you’ve ever seen on a screen. Twice.

Looper (2012)

December 1

Sorry, Knives Out and The Last Jedi fans (yes, I know you’re out there), but for my money Looper remains writer-director Rian Johnson’s best film to date. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis both play a hired killer named Joe; the younger Joe dispatches targets who are sent back from the future by his crime organization bosses there, and is surprised one day when the next victim sent back in time is his own future self. Their path leads them into some unexpected places involving a mysterious future figure called the Rainmaker and a young woman and her son with powerful psychic abilities.

Incredibly smart, and tightly written and directed, Looper remains one of the best science fiction films of the past decade and the 21st century in general. Gordon-Levitt is great; Willis actually shows up for a change; and the time travel premise doesn’t get lost in the weeds as can so often happen. Genuinely surprising and moving, Looper is a modern classic of its genre.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

December 1

While film historians might disagree, for our money there has never been a finer Zorro adventure, on page or screen, than the first time Antonio Banderas slipped under the mask in this rip-roaring 1998 classic. Directed by Martin Campbell fresh off GoldenEye (1995) and at the height of his powers, this is is a ‘90s blockbuster engine firing on all cylinders. It reimagines the famous Zorro pulp stories into a multi-generational saga about the original Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) seeking biblical revenge on the nemesis who killed his wife and raised his daughter as his own—a fetching Catherine Zeta-Jones in her star-making role. Thus Zorro the First trains Zorro the Second (Banderas), finding a true heir among the impoverished and disadvantaged his mask had always served.

But beyond plot mechanics, this is simply an irresistibly charming swashbuckler where swords clash, horses neigh, villains scowl, and James Horner’s bombastic score introduces literal flamenco dancers into the soundtrack to its action scenes.

Minority Report (2002)

December 1

Steven Spielberg is often at his best in the genre of science fiction, and Minority Report certainly ranks among the best films from the second half of his career. Based on a story by Philip K. Dick, the film is set in a future where certain humans have the ability to see events yet to happen—leading to the creation of a special branch of the law called Precrime, which arrests criminals before they commit their acts. Tom Cruise stars as a Precrime officer who uncovers a conspiracy in which the Precogs, as the psychics are called here, are being used by powerful people to manipulate the timeline.

Cruise is outstanding, the film is fast-paced and unrelenting, and Spielberg creates a plausible yet still chilling 2054 in which surveillance of all kinds infiltrates every aspect of our lives. With the exception of the action thriller format, and an ending that works too hard to go out on an uplifting note, this is perhaps also the best adaptation of a Dick story since 1982’s Blade Runner. All in all, this is top-tier Spielberg, or close to it, which makes it top-tier filmmaking.

Pet Sematary (1989)

December 1

The first film based on Stephen King’s ultra-dark 1983 novel (and far superior to the dismal 2019 remake), Pet Sematary follows Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff), a young doctor who takes a position at the University of Maine and moves there with his wife (Denise Crosby) and their two young children. The Creeds soon discover a pet cemetery in the woods behind their house—and beyond that, even deeper in the wild, another burial ground, one with powers that soon wreak horrifying havoc on the Creeds.

Movies

Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century

By Don Kaye

Movies

15 Best Stephen King Movies

By John Saavedra

King’s novel was about many things: grief, folklore, how we deal with death, and, in the end, the most unspeakable choice a parent can face. Directed by Mary Lambert, with a screenplay by the author himself, Pet Sematary surprisingly captures much of the tone and thematic content of King’s book. Some of the acting is uneven, but Lambert tightens the noose around the neck of the Creed family with impressive results. This one is underrated in the King cinematic canon.

Wyatt Earp (1994)

December 1

As the other ‘90s Wyatt Earp/Doc Holiday movie, Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp frequently goes overlooked. There is of course little denying that Kurt Russell’s faster paced and slightly rougher around the edges Tombstone from a year earlier turned out to be the more entertaining and memorable Earp picture, not least of all because of Val Kilmer’s iconic turn as Doc. But Kasdan’s generally more historically accurate interpretation of these mythic figures from the Old West is no slouch either.

For starters, Wyatt Earp is told on a vastly more sweeping canvas, tracking Wyatt from boyhood to old age, and from Missouri to his brief stint as a gold prospector at the turn of the 20th century in Alaska. It also provides a somewhat fuller portrait of Wyatt’s gloomy family history of lawmen and failed dreams. And it does so with a hell of an ensemble, including a pretty great Dennis Quaid as another memorable take on Doc Holiday—although Kevin Costner’s extremely laconic interpretation of Wyatt leaves something to be desired at over three hours. Indeed, there is too much in Wyatt Earp, but in the modern era of all-day television binges, that might not be such a bad thing. Plus, the James Newton Howard score is terrific.

Darkest Hour (2017)

December 16

The movie that won Gary Oldman as an Oscar. Not that it was a surprise won Oldman won that Oscar. After all, he played Winston Churchill, and if there’s one thing the famed British Prime Minister is good for in the 21st century, it is winning actors awards. Nevertheless, Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour is a pretty good biopic made in this fashion. Zeroing in on Churchill’s darkest, but also finest, hours inside of the old tunnel systems beneath London as the Dunkirk evacuation unfolds and the Blitzkrieg attacks loom, the movie does a worthwhile job of reminding modern audiences just how close Great Britain came to falling before Nazi Germany—and how hard Churchill had to fight with his own cabinet to stay in the fight.

Also: no one yells on-screen louder than Oldman.

Oldboy (2003)

December 18

So you watched Squid Game and think you know how dark Korean fiction can get. Oh sweet summer child, if you haven’t seen Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy yet, you know nothing of winter. Indeed, this masterpiece of noir and twisty criminal dramas is the stuff of Greek tragedy and unshakable sorrow. How could it not be when it begins with Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) waking up in a cheap, windowless motel room in which there’s no way to exit… and 15 years then pass.

One day, long after madness has come and (maybe) left, Dae-su is inexplicably released from this hell and allowed to walk the streets of Seoul again. But as he begins to piece together who locked him up—and why—he soon learns his hell is only getting warmed up.

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pebblysand · 7 years ago

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On Children.

Last night, when I posted this - the last 15,000 of a 103,087 words journey - I promised myself I’d talk about it - write about it - later. After I’d slept, after I’d been to work, after I’d processed the thoughts in my head.

I barely slept. Shut the lights out at midnight, woke up at two, then at five and stayed awake after that. I’m usually a heavy sleeper. I think it was the adrenaline.

Today, I spent more time on tumblr and my personal email, anxiously refreshing pages for reviews and comments, than on actual work. I’ll admit it’s insecure and weak on my part, but I guess I am of a generation that is in constant need of validation.

I haven’t felt this happy and excited in a long time but let’s be real, I still haven’t processed shit. Who was I kidding? Maybe, it will help to write this out. I guess I am a writer, after all.

I write that (I’m a writer), and think that’s a weird word, all things considered. It refers to a profession but I’m not a professional, and it is still what I do - like to do - with the spare time that I have. You see, sometimes, I have ideas about things that could happen to people who aren’t real and when that happens, I type them out on a laptop and share them with strangers on the internet. It’s a bit of weird hobby, admittedly, but I like it. I’m okay at it. Sometimes, the thought even crosses my mind that I might be good. It mostly happens when I write things like this:

When she thinks about him, she thinks about them and all she sees is children. A boy and a girl and her pale skin against his cheek, pulling at each other’s hair, laughing, loud, like Nick and Niamh on court benches, school benches, and the autumn leaves scattered around their feet.

Or this:

It’s not homesickness, she thinks, it’s just moving on.

I look at those three sentences and I think (because yeah, let’s dive in, shall we? that’s enough of an introduction) that ultimately, this is what all this was about. Those 103,087 words. This fanfiction, as it is refered to, is called Children not because Martha gets pregnant at the end, but because it’s a coming of age story. A coming of age story that involves a couple of forty-somethings who have spent so much time over the last fifteen years working and helping other people grow that they’ve forgot to do it themselves. This fic is as much about the concept of home and career choices and Sean, than it is about Martha and Clive. And sure, it’s about me, too. Because let’s be real, maybe I was going through a bit of a similar thing, at the time I started writing this, and maybe I did Mary-Sue the heck out of it. Who knows?

What I do know, though, is that I love this story. So much. It feels important, and cool, and smart, and funny and the kind of tale that I like to tell. I also know that although I won’t bore you with the details, I wasn’t in great place, this time last year, when I started writing it. Thankfully, I am in a much, much better place now. I frankly thank Peter Moffat, Silk, and Martha and Clive for that. I think this story gave me room to grow, and focus, and believe in myself more than I ever had before. When I started writing it, it was a 10,000 words one-shot that involved Clive breaking into Martha’s flat through the window and a very early version of that last scene in chapter vii. It was cool, too, but not the story I needed to tell.

Then, chapter i came. Chapter i is crap, I know that. I made it a bit less crap by editing it sometime after I posted chapter ii but really, not by much. In its defense, it was written at a time when a) I hadn’t written a word in three years and b) I had no idea what this would all become. I think that when I first published it, I still thought the fic was going to be fifteen to twenty thousand words, two or three chapters at most.

For a very long time, I was terrified of not finishing this fic, actually. I had a lot of comments about that - understandable considering the sad amount of abandoned works on the Silk fandom - and it just made me more anxious very time. That fear did start to go away over time, but surprisingly late, probably around when I was writing chapter ix. Still, I think I still had remnants of that panic up until I actually wrote the words the end at 3 a.m. last Friday. It felt almost surprising that I had, indeed, finished. All the long projects that I’d started before, I’d abandoned, or gotten tired of. At the time, I held it against myself, but coming back to my earlier point, I’ve now realised that they just weren’t my story to tell.

Then, chapter ii came. I like chapter ii. It’s not perfect and would need to be worked on in a future edit, but I like its plot. I like what it says about the show, about Martha as a character and how she breaks down, how we all do, sometimes. It also says something about what often happens to women, sadly, when they do.

I think this show is important and matters because to me, it talks about something that happens all the time in the legal world and that no show ever touches on. We show the courtrooms and the decorums and the ships, but not happens behind the scenes. Not what I’ve seen. The truth is that when you spend all your waking hours fighting other people’s fights, sometimes, you lose yourself. You breakdown. You burn-out. It’s sort of a premonition but Clive warns Martha about it in the first series, jokingly, sure, but he turns out to be right. That’s what I see in the last episode of series three. As much as I hated the whole courtroom and Micky Joy debacle there, I loved that storyline. I love that she just fucks off. That my ultimate head canon is that she moves to a beach somewhere and opens a café on the coast, pours expressos and chats up tourists all day. Maybe, there, she meets someone. Maybe, she even has a family. But in my head, Children is and always will be a very long AU.

In that AU, of course, she has to stay. And that’s what chapter ii is about, ultimately, about staying when you don’t want to, breaking down and dealing with the consequences. When you’re a woman and you fuck up a bit, the price to pay is sometimes, sadly, very high. So, I tried to show that to the best of my ability. I hope I did a decent job of it. Frankly, I’m not quite sure about how I dealt with the aftermath. I think if I went back and edited, I would probably allow the assault to be more of a recurrent theme in the following chapters. I sometimes wonder if I didn’t deal with it a bit too quickly. But then again, I guess every survivor is different, and there was also a lot to talk about in those next chapters, with Billy and Clive, and Chambers, so I’ll cut myself some slack.

Chapter iii is to me the moment when this fic found its tone and its voice. When Martha and Clive found their voices in my head, too. It was a very difficult chapter to write, I remember, but I think that’s when the fic went from being an extended one-shot to a full blown story, with a plot and character development, and thousands of words, and eleven chapters. That scene at Billy’s grave is one of my favourites.

The one that follows, chapter iv, wrote itself. I barely touched it. I love chapter iv. It’s funny and quirky, and everything I loved about writing those characters I was lucky enough to be able to borrow. I was very insecure about the explicit sex scene in it, but then I felt like that scene was necessary. Again, I didn’t want the only sex in this to be non-consensual. Most often, sex is pleasurable and fun, thank God.

I think when I look back, chapter v is the most personal of them all. Chapter v is what I meant when I said that this fic was about me. Jokes aside, I remember being very nervous about it, wondering if I wasn’t turning a wonderful fic into a horrible, Mary-Sue-d attempt at a diary of my own problems. But then, well, it’s also fiction. My fiction. Because in chapter v, aside from Martha and Bethany’s very short stint, all of the characters are OCs. There’s Martha’s mum (Maureen), and Jo, and Evershed, and Roy. Boy, do I love Roy. Roy is the amalgamation of every man every sixty-something woman in my life has remarried to. He’s not a bad person, he’s just very, very out of tune with current times. Evershed, I don’t have many feelings about. Martha just needed a sounding board. Martha’s mum was probably the hardest to write. She loves her, I think, but I also think they’re very different people. I think they’re linked by what happened to her dad and that sometimes, that gets a bit heavy. And Jo. God, I love Jo. She makes me laugh and sometimes, I wish she was my friend, too.

Again, I was nervous about chapter v and my characters, wondering if people would like them, would like what they said about Martha, about the concept of home, until someone said: "It's like you're writing my life and all the feelings I've had about home and the bar and superimposed Martha Costello on top". I think that’s one of the best comments I’ve ever had on anything I’ve ever written. So, I’m not naming you, you know who you are, and thank you.

Chapter vi was originally very, very long and was then split into vi and vii for readability purposes (I will split xi too, one day, I promise). Yet, in my head, they will always be paired up.

As I’ve mentioned before, the contents of chapter vii, and especially that last scene with Clive when they decide to “try again”, had been in my head ever since I’d started writing this fic. It was always where this story was going to go and when I published it, it felt good to finally release that, to have it out in the world that yeah, this was going to be that kind of fic, with an argumentative, blond, blue-eyed baby being born the end. Although these two are probably the most important chapters in this fic, I oddly don’t have much to say about them. I guess everything is pretty spelled out in there. Clive and Martha are in love. And they’re going to try for a baby. When I split both chapters, I took the opportunity to put back into chapter vii a bit that I’d taken out in the original editing phase. It’s a scene in which Clive and Martha talk about her father’s disease and she mentions that she took a test, once upon a time (i.e. when she got pregnant), to know if she had it, but never read the results. It’s a letter in her handbag that she doesn’t want to open, but that he wants to read. I think more than the topic itself, it shows how much they love each other, and yet how different they are. Martha got to know about Billy’s health when, in fairness, I don’t think she ever wanted to know. I think she’s the kind of person who only likes to know about things she can deal with or solve. If not, she wants to know late enough so that she won’t have to think about it too much. She’s the kind of person who wouldn’t want to know if she had cancer. Clive does, though. He would have liked to know about Billy; I think it hurt him not to. He would have liked to be prepared.

In my canon, Clive reads that letter and never tells her what was in it. He vouches to keep it to himself, and he does. He likes that he knows, respects her decision not to. He would tell her, if she asked, but she never does. As the writer of this story, I personally don’t know what was on that letter, either. I’ve gone back and forth on it a few times and I really don’t know if she has it. She definitely thinks she does. I think that’s kind of where the smoking comes from. I think she sort of hopes it will kill her before she forgets that it will.

I kind of wish I had found a way to use all of that in later chapters but somehow, after that one, it just didn’t fit within the plot. Maybe it will upon further edits. I don’t know.

Now, chapter viii is cute. Like iv. Still, I wanted it to be mostly about her career and going back to work, rather than about her getting pregnant. I hope that it was. Chapter viii is also where the character of Charlotte makes her entrance and I really like her, I like that she both fits in (through her education, her parents) and doesn’t (through how odd and quirky she is). I think if Martha were to ever go back to work after everything that happened, it would be for someone like that. I like that she’s not Billy, too.

And of course, then, Martha gets pregnant, when she leasts expects it. Because, she had to. As a side note, I love the scene where she "tells" Billy. It feels like a full circle to me.

Circles are not necessarily good, though, are they? ix, oh ix. That, also, unfortunately had to happen. I think Martha and Clive had been very nicely playing house for a while but it just couldn’t go on forever. Mostly, I had to deal with Sean, though. Because Sean, oh, Sean, do I love Sean. Again, this fic, frankly, is almost as much about him and about what he represents (young love, home) than it is about Clive and what he represents. When I wrote chapter iii, I thought I was done with him but then again, when I wrote chapter iii, I didn’t know there would be nine chapters, did I? So, Martha, she couldn’t let go, could she? She had to close that door in order to open another one.

ix was so hard to write. Mostly because I’m terrible at writing arguments. I had turn it all around for it to make more sense but I feel that somehow, it more or less worked. I guess, you tell me, though.

(As a side note, I kind of like CW’s role in it. She’s not a friend, but she’s not a stranger either. I think that ultimately, she kind of cares about Martha, for some reason. And I love that conversation between Martha and her mum at the end, almost teared up when I wrote it. Again, part of moving on and growing up.)

And then, comes x. It’s a bit of a filler, I’ll admit. A 10,000 words filler. I couldn’t see Clive and her get back together that easily, so things needed to happen in between. I decided those things were court scenes. I was so nervous about those. I’ll be honest and say I have no fucking clue about the UK’s appeals process and probably got it all wrong. I guess that’s the difference between me back when I was still in law school and me now. At the time, I would have done the research. Now, I just don’t care, as long as the drama’s good. If you’re from the UK and thought it was all wrong, my most sincere apologies.

Finally. xi. As I said in my A/N yesterday, there was supposed to be a xii, until two evenings ago, when I realized that there wasn’t. In fairness, I think I’d suspected it for a while. In my head, I’d always thought of xii as some sort of epilogue, with a mix of cute pregnant-Martha scenes and a bunch of more serious ones (the baby’s name, Clive’s priorities shifting). Then, at 3 a.m. on Friday, I understood that a bunch of scenes stuck together do not necessarily make for a coherent chapter. And that I hate epilogues anyway. Finish your bloody story and stick with it, I say. So, the important stuff made it into xi (Clive’s priorities shifting, the baby’s name) and the rest just went to trash. I’m happy with that. In an earlier draft of an outline for xii, I also had a scene about CW prosecuting Brown Hair in an assault case on someone else, but that felt a bit cheap and would have kind of taken away the point I wanted to make with ii, the fact that most of the time, sadly, there is no resolution to these things. So, yeah, I’m happy I didn’t write that in.

I guess I don’t know what I thought would happen when I wrote the words the end after of all this. I think I thought fireworks would be in order, and champagne. Instead, I was alone in my flat on a Friday night, drinking beer and thinking holy shit. I didn’t cry - still haven’t - but I’m not sure all of this has really sunk in, yet, so.

So, what does this all mean? Well, it means that I’ve written a story and finished it. Not a novel, sure, but a story nonetheless, with some characters that were mine and some that I borrowed and it had a beginning, a middle and an end. That feels great. Amazing, in fact, like the top of the world. And yes, in a few years, months maybe, even, I’ll probably look back at this post and think I was full of shit and full of myself. Right now, though, it feels good. I’ve motherfucking done this, you know?

And I acknowledge the fact that there’s still a lot of work to do. Because everything I’ve mentioned I want to make better, want to rewrite (like chapter i, ugh), I’ll do. I’ll let the fic sit, for a while, but I’ve planned to go back to it in a few months (August or September, give or take) and edit. Because frankly, although I love this story to bits, I also know it has flaws. For better or for worse, I’m a perfectionist at heart, so I want to make it the best it can be. That being said, I am very proud of this, nonetheless.

So, yeah, if you’re interested, maybe click again and go back to reading Children this time next year, it’ll probably have changed a bit. If not, that’s alright, please, just don’t hold chapter i against me.

Lastly, again, I’d like to repeat my thanks. To @missmarthacostello for early-fic chats. To @asummerevening for later-fic chats. To everyone who’s read, commented and PM-ed me over the last months and to everyone who will hopefully read and comment and message me in the future. I owe you many. Again, if you have prompts, requests, feel free to PM me, I’m happy to try my best. And lastly, again, thanks to the wonderful @cursedandcharmed without whom, honestly, this would not have seen the light of day. As I said in my A/N, you listened to me rant for a year about something you were not reading and that took place within the universe of a show you were not watching. I can’t thank you enough for that.

So, there. I hope this was somewhat coherent. I honestly tried, to the best of my ability. This fic has taken up so many weekends and hours of my life these past few months that I am unsure as to what comes next, and what one does with so much time on their hands. Again, though, I’ll probably look back at this in a bit and think I was full of shit, so, there’s that.

Thanks again and whoever you are, if you’ve stuck around this long, you have all my love and admiration.

Best,

pebblysand.

#children #silk bbc #the major post #thanks for reading

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spryfilm · 7 years ago

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“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” (2017)

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Running Time: 137 minutes

Written & Directed by: Luc Besson

Featuring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu, and Rutger Hauer

Doghan-Dagui: “We know how humans work. They are all so predictable.”

Sergeant Laureline: “Clearly, you have never met a woman.”

There are very few directors at work today making films the way Luc Besson does, he works outside of major American studios creating what can only be called concept movies that challenge what it means to be a film-maker not only in this century but last century as well. Besson has made some of the most memorable as well as intriguing characters in film, all while working mostly in a second language, something many people forget. Whilst his earliest creations were French, such as his second film “Subway” (1985) followed by the brilliant “The Big Blue” (1988), they translated so well internationally that it was not long before he made his first genre film with the stunning as well as unforgettable “La Femme Nikita” (1990), a film that broke Jean Reno, leading to his starring role in the international hit “Leon, The Professional” (1994), which featured a young Natalie Portman.

While Besson’s narrative style is unique, so to is his visual flair, which can be seen in all of his early movies, but it was not until his Science Fiction masterpiece “The Fifth Element” (1997) that all of his sensibilities came together with cutting edge special effects so that he could complete a vision of the future, with a touch of comedy, drama as well as what could only be described as grandiosity. Of course there is a strong link between “The Fifth Element” and this months new mega budgeted film “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” (2017), that being Jean-Claude Mézières who co-created the comic Valerian is based on (Valérian and Laureline) as well as being the production designer on “The Fifth Element”, this is also evident while watching both movies – they share the same DNA. One based directly on a French comic the other highly influenced by comics as well as pop culture.

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is set in the 28th century, the former International Space Station has become Alpha, a city where millions of creatures from different planets live peacefully and exchange their knowledge and cultures. The humans form a special police division to preserve the peace within Alpha, including officers Valerian, a major, and his partner Laureline, a sergeant.

While on-route to receive a new mission, Valerian dreams of a planet where a low-tech humanoid race lives peacefully. They fish for energy-containing pearls and use certain animals, referred to as “converters”, to duplicate them. As the planet is destroyed by massive debris crashing onto the planet, the natives flee to shelter, but a single female is trapped outside and manages to send a telepathic signal before dying.

To say this movie has a sprawling storyline is an understatement but as I really do not want to spoil anything I will just say the plot is, actually fairly straight forward, as well as pretty easy to see where the characters are going to end up. The fun for me in the film was the narrative that moves around the place like balls on a pool table, you may think there is absolutely no logic but as you weave your way through the story with the myriad characters you start to see a pattern forming. I for one enjoyed the seeming randomness of where the main characters end up after a protracted journey, meeting unique as well as pretty lovable characters, the best I thought was Rhianna as a shape changing blue being called Bubble – taking advantage of all Rihanna’s talents.

The casting in this film is interesting to say the least; it has the oddest leads in a Besson movie yet, with relative newcomer and unknown Dane DeHaan in the titular role as well as an inexperienced Cara Delavigne as his sidekick/love interest Laureline. For Besson to place the film in these two actors hands was brave as it could have been a disaster, not that they are terrible actors but to act in front of the amount of special effects could have been overwhelmingly, for the most part they both pull it off, in my mind Delavigne seems more suited as well as a spark against the out of place DeHann. The rest of the cast is highlighted by Clive Owen as Commander Arun Filitt who has never been in a movie like this, but as the archetypal villain he is well suited, it would be great to see him in more films like this, lending some well earned gravitas from his previous work.

As you can see in the trailers to this movie, the special effects as well as the makeup of all the alien characters are extremely well realized. Not only that, but the mise en scène is incredibly dense, every frame of almost every scene has depths that are eerily similar to Besson’s “The Fifth Element”, so much so that I swear I spotted similar aliens in both. The way in which the origin of the ‘City of a thousand planets’ is not only shown as well as told is unique for a science fiction film, all done in the opening credits over the David Bowie song “Space Oddity” which, while not completely original is a great way to not only play homage to Bowie but instantly assists the audience identify with the movie – very smart move. With movies like this there can be a temptation to fill it with CGI thereby destroying some of the inherit reality that a filmmaker is trying to go for. Within this movie there are long periods of just CGI as well as computer generated characters which because of their setting, whether on an alien plant, Mül, or in Alpha, the CGI is top notch as well as quite believebale, its as good as anything in the Star Wars series, maybe even better because this is more original as well as more thought out in terms of the depth of the field of vision.

My only real issue with this film is the odd relationship between the two leads Valerian and Laureline, where within the first few moments he has asked her to marry him, she will not of course because he is some kind of futuristic lothario who has a playlist that is full of female conquests. For the entire rest of the film his only real aim other than the maguffin of the movie is to get Laureline to marry him, I found that really strange. I mean the only relationship they have is the commander/subordinate role, but for some unknown reason he suddenly wants to make her his wife. This detracts from the entire rest of the movie, every time there is some momentum within the main narrative, it comes to a screeching halt as there is too much time put into the marriage angle. Now, I can understand if there was a subplot involving a budding romance, but to go straight to marriage is just plain strange.

I have to say that I really enjoyed my time with this film, sure it’s a little long but that is aptly mitigated by the special effects as well as the surprise that is Cara Delevingne as Laureline who more than makes up for aspects of the story as well as the possible miscasting of Dane DeHann as Valerian. It appears that if Delevingne plays her cards right as well as chooses some roles that she can fit within, learn from some experienced co-stars she might have a nice career ahead of her, I would recommend staying away from starring roles and stay as a flashy character’s actor for now. This is a family rated movie with no real content that will offend, but it will catch and keep the eye busy for most of its run – go and take the family now.

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” is out now only in theatres.

Film review: “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” (2017) “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” (2017) Science Fiction/Fantasy Running Time: 137 minutes…

#Cara Delevingne #film #Film review #film reviews #luc besson #movie #movie review #movie review new zealand #movies reviews #Review #Reviews #spry film #spry film review #Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

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spryfilm · 7 years ago

Text

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” (2017)

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Running Time: 137 minutes

Written & Directed by: Luc Besson

Featuring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu, and Rutger Hauer

Doghan-Dagui: “We know how humans work. They are all so predictable.”

Sergeant Laureline: “Clearly, you have never met a woman.”

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” is out now on DVD & Blu-ray.

DVD & Blu-ray review: “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” (2017) “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” (2017) Science Fiction/Fantasy Running Time: 137 minutes…

#blu-ray #bluray review #bluray reviews #Cara Delevingne #Clive owen #dane dehaan #dvd #dvd review #DVD reviews #luc besson #Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets #valerian bluray #valerian bluray review #valerian dvd #valerian dvd review

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