#Rupert Neate

[trexalicious]

"The business, which Jones founded with a single “house” on Soho’s Greek Street 29 years ago, has never turned a profit – and pre-tax losses this year are expected to come in at about $73m" 🤯 Is that why they're talking about taking it private again?WOW

[mynameismad]

A collection of all the wizards I’ve drawn over the past year or so! Some of them used to have gray backgrounds, but now they’re all nice and colorful 🧙‍♂️✨

[xtruss]

Cost of the Crown: Windsors v Borbones: Comparing the Public Pay of European Filthy Royal Families

Stipends, palace maintenance, staff costs and taxes all differ, but the British royals are given the most taxpayer money

King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort; Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II; Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia; and Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. Composite: Guardian Design/AFP/Getty Images/ SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock/PA

— By Rupert Neate, Henry Dyer and Ashifa Kassam | Wednesday 5 April 2023

Comparing the cost of Europe’s royal dynasties is akin to comparisons between apples and oranges. Each family is unique, and each government has a different way of paying for them. Some royal budgets cover the cost of maintaining palaces, staff and security; others are limited to annual stipends to individual kings or queens.

Tax is paid by some European royals but not others. Some countries are highly transparent, providing detailed breakdowns of how public money is spent on individual royals. Others are more opaque, with royals supplementing an official government lump sum with other quasi-private sources of income. One thing, at least, is clear: European royal families come with vastly different price tags.

United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Members of the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the trooping the colour ceremony in June 2018.

Members of the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the trooping the colour ceremony in June 2018. Photograph: Shutterstock

Family name/House: The Windsors

Monarch: King Charles III

Approximate Public Funding: £86m-£127m

The most famous of Europe’s grand hereditary families, and probably the richest and most powerful too. Many Britons wrongly assume their monarch fulfils purely ceremonial roles, and has no real power. However, an archaic procedure known as “consent” allows the monarch, or heir, to secretly vet laws before they are approved by the elected members of parliament.

It was once used by Queen Elizabeth II to persuade ministers to change the law to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public.

There is no breakdown of how much individual members of the royal family receive for their official duties. The monarch does receive a lump sum – the sovereign grant –which has risen dramatically over the last decade. The UK taxpayer gave £86.3m towards the cost of the British royal family last year. Of that, £34.5m was spent on refurbishing Buckingham Palace as part of a 10-year restoration programme. The core cost to the taxpayer, for the royal household’s operating costs, travel and maintenance on other residences, was £51.8m.

Controversially, the new king and his heir, Prince William, also receive income from two hereditary estates – the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall – which pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax. There has been a centuries-old debate over whether that money – currently more than £40m a year – should really go to the public. Buckingham Palace insists the revenue is “private income” buts says part of it goes towards official duties.

From 1993, the monarch agreed to pay “voluntary” income tax, although they are exempt from inheritance tax, meaning the late queen passed her fortune to the king without any deductions for the public good.

Spain 🇪🇸

Clockwise from top left: King Felipe, Queen Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia pose for their 2021 Christmas card. Photograph: Zuma/Alamy

Family name/House: The Borbones (or Bourbons)

Monarch: King Felipe VI

Approximate Public Funding: £7.4m

Spain’s royal family ranks among the most beleaguered on the continent. Marred by accusations of corruption, extramarital affairs and a precipitous fall from grace, the former king Juan Carlos I abdicated in 2014 and eventually left the country.

Investigations into his financial dealings were eventually shelved and the former king’s lawyers noted he had been cleared of “any illicit conduct susceptible to criminal reproach”. However, the scandals led to an intense debate among Spaniards about their royal family, who this year will receive €8,431,150 (£7.4m) from the state budget.

Seeking to present a new era of transparency, Juan Carlos’ son, King Felipe VI, made public his personal assets of €2.6m (£2.28m). He renounced his personal inheritance from his father in 2020 and removed him from the royal family’s payroll.

From the public grant, Felipe receives €269,296 (£236,214.10) in an annual personal allowance, while his wife, Queen Letizia, gets €148,105 (£129,911). His mother, Juan Carlos’s estranged wife, Sofía, receives an annual stipend of €121,186 (£106,299). Spanish royals pay tax on their income.

Sweden 🇸🇪

L-R: King Carl XVI Gustaf, Prince Daniel, Queen Silvia and Crown Princess Victoria attend the Nobel prize ceremony in Stockholm in December 2022. Photograph: Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images

Family name/House: The Bernadottes

Monarch: King Carl XVI Gustaf

Approximate Public Funding: £11.5m

Sweden was the first monarchy to change its rules on succession from agnatic primogeniture (the eldest male son) to absolute cognatic primogeniture (the eldest child). The change was passed by the Swedish parliament in 1980, and led to Crown Princess Victoria becoming heir apparent instead of her brother Prince Carl Philip.

The Swedish royal court received a total grant of 147.9m Swedish krona (£11.5m) in 2021 (the latest figure available). Of this, 73.9m kr (£5.8m) covered the cost of the king’s official duties, travel, staff and stables. Within this, 13.6m kr (£1m) was allocated to the king and other titled royals who carry out official duties to cover costs of a “non-official nature which are connected with, or caused by, the royal position”, according to the court’s annual report.

Individually, Carl Gustaf and his wife, Silvia, get 8m kr (£625,423) between them, while Victoria and her husband collect 4.5m kr (£351,800), and Carl Philip and his wife get 1.1m kr (£85,995). In 2019, the king stripped five of his grandchildren of their royal titles in order to reduce the total cost of “appendages” to serving royals.

Belgium 🇧🇪

King Philippe and Queen Mathilde with their children (L-R) Princess Eléonore, Prince Gabriel, Crown Princess Elisabeth and Prince Emmanuel at 2022 National Day celebrations in front of the Royal Palace in Brussels. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Family name/House: Van België, De Belgique, or Von Belgien (or “of Belgium”)

Monarch: King Philippe

Approximate Public Funding: £12.5m

Like the British royals, the Belgian monarchy ditched its previous surname, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in 1920 in response to fierce anti-German sentiment after the first world war. The new name – van België (Dutch), de Belgique (French) or von Belgien (German) – means “of Belgium” in the country’s three official languages.

The Belgian monarch has had no direct power since 1951, although the king has kept the right “to be consulted by his ministers, to encourage them, and to caution them”.

King Philippe, or Filip, is granted an annual civil list to cover the cost of performing official duties. The amount is established at the start of each reign. Philippe, who acceded to the throne in 2013, received €12.5m (£11m) in 2021, according to the Belgian government’s latest report. The amount is set to increase with the consumer prices index measure of inflation. As well as the £11m paid to Philippe, other members of the royal family receive yearly “emoluments”. Philippe’s father, King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013, receives €980,000 (£862,635); Albert’s eldest child, Princess Astrid, receives €341,000 (£300,161), slightly more than her younger brother, Prince Laurent, who gets €327,000 (£287,838). Their half-sister, Princess Delphine, who had Albert’s paternity recognised by the court in 2020, does not receive any royal funding. The payments are subject to income tax.

Denmark 🇩🇰

Queen Margrethe II (centre) with Crown Prince Frederik, his wife, Mary and their children (L-R) Vincent, Isabella, Josephine and Christian at Fredensborg in April 2022. Photograph: Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images

Family name/House: The Glücksburgs

Monarch: Margrethe II

Approximate apublic Funding: £14m

On average, each Dane cycles 1.4km a day, according to the Denmark tourist board, and those cyclists include the royal family. Frederik, the crown prince and heir apparent, competed in the Tour de Storebælt cycle race near Copenhagen; he and his wife, Mary, ferry their children around town on a cargo bike.

Queen Margrethe II, 82, Europe’s longest-serving monarch, receives about 91.1m kroner a year (£10.7m) in civil list payments. The government says this covers expenses “relating to staff, operation of the royal household, administration and properties as well as the queen’s expenses of a more private nature”.

Separately, Frederik receives 22,434,876 kroner (£2.64m) a year, 10% of which goes to his wife. Frederik’s younger brother, Prince Joachim, the sixth in line to the throne, gets 3,965,400 kroner (£467,045) a year. All the money is received tax-free.

Queen Margrethe has stripped Joachim’s four children – Nikolai, Felix, Henrik and Athena – of their royal titles in a move designed to slim down the size of the family. The palace said the queen wanted to “create a framework for the four grandchildren, to a much greater degree, to be able to shape their own existence without being limited by the special considerations and obligations that a formal affiliation with the royal house as an institution implies”.

Luxembourg 🇱🇺

L-R: Crown Prince Guillaume, Princess Stephanie, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Grand Duke Henri, Princess Alexandra, Prince Louis and Prince Gabriel outside Luxembourg Cathedral in June 2022. Photograph: Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images

Family name/House: Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg

Monarch: Grand Duke Henri

Approximate Public Funding: £16.9m

The Windsors are not the only royals to deliver a Christmas speech. The grand duke’s message is broadcast from the yellow room in the Grand-Ducal Palace every Christmas Eve.

The latest government budget for 2023 shows payments to the Maison du Grand-Duc (House of the Grand Duke) totalled €19,257,155 (£16.9m). Of that, €15.9m (£13.9m) was spent on day-to-day expenses, and €3.3m (£2.9m) on capital projects, such as renovations.

In addition to the civil list payments for staffing costs, the grand duke and his heir receive endowments for personal expenditure: in 2022, Henri received €523,103 (£460,381) and Crown Prince Guilluame received €217,985 (£191,848).

From July, legislation drafted by the prime minister, Xavier Bettel, will peg future changes to the personal allowances to the public sector. Bettel has said the centralisation of royal funding will provide more transparency, after anger at the blurring of public and private budgets. “Now we have a monarchy that moves out of the 19th century and into the 21st century,” he said.

Norway 🇳🇴

Princess Ingrid Alexandra (C) stands between her grandparents King Harald and Queen Sonja for a family photo to mark her Covid-delayed 18th birthday celebrations in Oslo in June 2022. Photograph: Lise Åserud/AP

Family name/House: The Glücksburgs

Monarch: King Harald V

Approximate Public Funding: £24m

The Norwegian monarchy dates back more than 1,000 years. Harald Fairhair is regarded as the first Norwegian king, who united several “petty kingships” into a single realm in about 885. The current king belongs to the House of Glücksburg, which has held the Norwegian throne since 1905.

The royal court’s latest annual accounts say the Norwegian royal family received 312m Norwegian kroner (£24m) in 2022 in the civil list. It is unclear how this is distributed. A previous report from 2015 states that “the king and queen and the crown prince and crown princess all receive an allowance” to cover “the management, operation, maintenance and development of the private properties and households, as well as appropriations for private expenses and official attire”.

The Netherlands 🇳🇱

(L-R): Queen Maxima, Princess Amalia, King Willem-Alexander, Princess Alexia and Princess Ariane pose at the New Church in Amsterdam in November 2022. Photograph: Koen van Weel/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

Family name/House: Van Orange-Nassau

Monarch: King Willem-Alexander

Approximate Public Funding: £44.2m

The Dutch royals are among the monarchies exempt from paying income tax. This year, the prime minister, Mark Rutte, rejected opposition demands to scrap the exemption. His government proposed an annual royal budget of €50.2m (£44.2m) for 2023.

That includes €1,035,000 (£911,162) for King Willem-Alexander, and a further €5.37m (£4.7m) to pay for his staff and other expenses. His wife, Máxima, collects €411,000 (£361,823), and an additional €700,000 (£616,245) for staff and expenses. The king’s mother, Beatrix, who abdicated in 2013, receives €1.73m (£1.52m).

Princess Amalia, the 19-year-old heir to the throne, has been granted €1.72m (£1.51m), of which €307,000 (£270,235) is salary and the rest is for staff and expenses. However, she has waived her right to the allowance, saying it would make her feel “uncomfortable” to accept it “until I incur high costs in my role as Princess of Orange”.

[duckwnoeyes]

Having thoughts about the effects of Merrick’s ‘not-quite’ existence on Buffy and Giles’ relationship again:

Part of me believes that one of the reasons Buffy is able to get on with Giles when she meets him, and doesn’t blame him all that much for the whole ‘forced to fight vampires and die young’ thing, is because she’s already placed all that blame on Merrick.

I think Giles gets away with so much, in regards to how he treats Buffy (ie: the cruciamentum), because Giles wasn’t the one to introduce Buffy to the world of evil. Giles wasn’t the one to turn up one day and completely turn Buffy’s life upside down, he wasn’t the one to teach how her to stake a vampire, he wasn’t the one who had to do the actual heavy lifting in making Buffy start slaying. That was all Merrick.

When Giles meets Buffy she’s already capable, already aware of the risks and all the baggage that comes with the job. This makes Giles’ job (and conscience) a hell of a lot easier bc Buffy’s essentially a pre-made slayer. But it also means that Giles doesn’t have to be the one to tell Buffy she’s inevitably going to die soon. Bc I just can’t see Buffy getting as close to Giles as she does in canon if he was the one the break that news to her.

I think Giles can only fill the role of surrogate father because Buffy already had a watcher. Merrick is the scapegoat in their relationship, the person Buffy internally blames for all the horrible things the council does to her so that she doesn’t have to blame Giles. Merrick who she never mentions, who died to save her, who (according to the comics) treated her in a very similar manner to Giles in season 1.

Merrick haunts Buffy and Giles’ relationship, and here it’s that Buffy and Giles are only able to have a relationship because Merrick is haunting it.

[mycatismyfriend]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 2x17 → 3x12

[warmglowofsurvival]

[partywithponies]

Rupert Galvin is so. He talks about being too old for this and his monster fighting days being nearly over and how he won't be around forever. My guy you are like 45 not 80. I think Rupert has just already accepted that he's not going to die of old age and that he's only survived this far on sheer luck. His wife and his best friend/fighting partner both died in their 20s. Technically Mina died in her 20s too, she's just been undead for 125 years. From Rupert's perspective, he's already been living on borrowed time for the past two decades.

Rupert Galvin :( :( :(

[biglisbonnews]

Kandinsky painting stolen by Nazis fetches record £37.2m at auction London sale comes after owners’ descendants, one of whom was murdered at Auschwitz, reunited with work found in Dutch museumA Wassily Kandinsky masterpiece that had been stolen by the Nazis, who killed its owner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944, has been sold for a record £37.2m at auction in London.The painting was sold at Sotheby’s on behalf of the great-grandchildren of the owner. They were recently reunited with the 1910 work, titled Murnau mit Kirche II (Murnau with Church II), which had been discovered in a museum in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/mar/03/kandinsky-masterpiece-sold-for-record-372m-at-auction-in-london

[goldentriowins]

Trio Headcanons: (will add more later)

HJP:

Bisexual, bigender (he/they/she in varying order)

Mortified at the idea of being anything other than cishet. Went through a really awkward experimental phase w/ gender that he tried to keep secret (and mostly succeeded at)

Pretty androgynous mostly but can sometimes lean more hyperfem or hypermasc

One of the features he finds most attractive abt people is hair. Hair with a nice color, shiny hair, long hair, fun textures, cool styles, etc. It's something he likes a lot about the other two

SO sure that he only has aesthetic attraction to guys and probably only realized it was gay because of a crush or because someone else pointed out to him that he was acting really gay

Has depression & C-PTSD, possibly also DPDR

Likes unusual pets even if he might not get them himself. Both because he finds them neat and because he relates to them a lot (something a lot of people find unlovable being cared for)

Would main Daisy & Yoshi in Mario Kart (& other competitive Mario games)

Likes RPG games

Sleeps in all sorts of different positions but his signature is curling into a ball. Like a bug

Usually little spoon. Happy to either be laid on or to lay on the others. Likes to be in the middle but won't admit to it (they know)

RBW:

Bisexual, cis (he/him)

Very comfortable being a guy but will sometimes do feminine things if it’s really funny (or if the other two can manage to convince him)

Knows absolutely nothing about LGBT stuff and would probably be really uncomfortable about it at first. Not necessarily in a bigoted/malicious way, more so in a "I don't get it" kind of way. He'd get that from Molly, I think

When he's older he still wouldn't understand all of it but he'd be a massive defender of other queer people

Likes curvy girls and athletic guys mostly

I think he'd figure out he was into guys in some form because of Krum, but he wouldn't have the words for it and would bottle that up for years

Has ADHD

Would main Bowser & DK in Mario Kart but would also like the Koopalings

I think he'd really like video games and Muggle superhero comics but would be hopelessly lost trying to keep up with the lore. He strikes me as someone who would like Cyborg (Teen Titans)

Would like SpongeBob & probably other Nicktoons

I know people probably think of Rupert Grint's voice for him but when I hear Stephen Merchant I think of Ron. Especially his line delivery in Portal 2

Sleeps sprawled out. Limbs hitting all edges of the bed, drools if he's sleeping deep enough, snores constantly but not loud enough to be annoying

Usually big spoon or the one the others would lay on. A clinger

Would start getting the names of Muggle things wrong on purpose to annoy the others

HJG:

Bisexual, cis (she/her)

A bit of a pick-me at times but mostly because she has a weird relationship w/ her gender and doesn’t want to be boxed in by the roles/expectations of being a girl

Into gnc ladies. Found out because of Tonks

Mixed race, Black

Definitely autistic. The stereotypical “gifted kid” who always wanted to be the one to exceed expectations. Got told she was mature for her age by some adult in her life and her view of herself hadn't changed since

Would main Toad in Mario Kart or some misc quirky option like Wiggler

I don't feel like she'd be super into video games but I think she'd like some co-op games and visual novels

Likes Ace Attorney. Her favorite character is Mia

Likes murder mysteries in most media

This might be strange but I feel like voice-wise (sorry if you only hear Emma Watson, for some reason I just don't) it'd be kinda like Shiver from Splatoon 3? Of course without the underwater voice filter

Soldier sleep position. Weirdly stiff and doesn't move much even if someone jostles her around

Can be little or big spoon, prefers to just sleep on top of the others like a blanket

Trio:

Both platonic and Romionarry HCs

Would occasionally have a "girls' night" or a "boys' night." This would still just be the three of them, Ron would be an honorary girl and Hermione would be an honorary boy. And Harry is the same either way

For them, these are like nights where they get to indulge in things they might not usually do. So girls night might consist of makeup & outfits & sewing and boys night might consist of sports or masc outfits instead, etc. This would start when Harry realizes he's bigender to give him a safe space to experiment

Hermione knows fuck all about sports and can't play any to save her life, Harry and Ron can't sew for shit, all three of them would suck at makeup but its fun because they suck at it together

Would get together very slowly and it would probably not be something they have a conversation about. It just kinda happens. It'd be official after the Battle of Hogwarts but they'd basically be together the entire time they're friends lol

The more romantic aspects of their relationship would intensify probably mostly during 6th year and in the tent

They'd have a blast playing Jackboot party games. Like Quiplash and Trivia Murder Party

Might like DnD. I think Ron would be a fun DM

[wizardbracket]

Round 1: Match 5 of 64

Why they deserve to be the ultimate wizard according to YOU:

Giles:

“I just think he’s neat. Also, he looks like a wizard in this episode”  

Will:

“He's Will the Wise! :) ”

“ hus,,he's my little guy. he should have powers in season 5 (and might!). he is called both a cleric and a wizard by other characters in the show in different contexts. look at his littl wizard costume please. he's canonically gay and has been though so mucb <3 .”

[mynameismad]

I'm finally finished with my conventions for the year, but I've still got plenty of SAKANA books left over! Whether you're a new reader, or you'd like to complete your collection, now's a great time to pick up Volumes 1-3! Each book comes signed by yours truly, with a little sketch of whoever's on the cover (or whichever character you'd like, by special request!)

✨Check it out here!✨

I've also got copies of my new minicomic, WIZARD BARN PARTY, for sale, along with other zines, stickers, and various webcomic sundries.

[coraniaid]

top five buffy characters?

In order (today, anyway):

Buffy

Willow

Faith

Giles

Anya

Can't really put my thoughts on Buffy Summers better than I did last year. As I said then, she's one of my favorite fictional characters in any medium. I just think she's neat.

Big fan of Willow, too, although a little bit less so than I was when I first watched the show as a teenager. As well as the slight derailing of her arc with the whole magic-addiction stuff in Season 6 and the show struggling to find anything for her to do in Season 7, I think on reflection, despite the whole "occasionally I'm callous and strange" line, the Buffy writers sometimes don't actually realize when they've made Willow do something interesting and a little fucked-up. They're just a bit too sympathetic to her. So we never get the pay-off those moments deserved, and maybe we were never going to, because -- like Willow herself -- the writers simply don't think Willow did anything wrong.

Faith is the other character who is an easy fit into my top three. (Yes, not shocking, I know.) It seems a bit silly to claim that a character who appears in less than one full season's worth of episodes is one of my favorite characters, but ... I guess I'm a bit silly. She's a main character in my heart (and in my fanfiction), even if the show writers never quite realized it.

A bit below those three, but above anyone else, is Rupert Giles. I think Giles is a fascinating character, but -- more than almost anyone else in the fandom -- he tends to get flattened into this role of "Buffy's good dad" which simply doesn't reflect his role in the narrative at all. (I think it's telling that the fandom's big take-away from Helpless is "Giles has a father's love for Buffy, which we know for a fact because an evil British man said it", combined with a general indifference about ... the objectively awful things we literally just saw him do.) But canon!Giles is (mostly) much better than the fandom caricature. He kind of sucks. I like him.

That fifth spot is the tricky one and the one that's most liable to change. I don't think there's any character in the show who is consistently as sympathetic and interesting and multi-layered as those other four. Tara is nice and has a surprisingly deep relationship with Buffy, but doesn't really get much in the way of an arc. Dawn only appears in three seasons (and the writers seem to just run out of ideas for things for her to do in the third of them). While I will defend the importance of Joyce to Buffy forever -- I think Buffy's relationship with her mother is one of the key things that makes her who she is, and I think the show would be far less interesting without Joyce Summers in -- Joyce herself isn't ever given enough to do and basically doesn't exist outside of her relationship with Buffy. Xander is kind of like Giles in some ways - a deliberately flawed image of (a certain kind of) masculinity who cares about Buffy enormously but isn't always able to act accordingly because of his own self-loathing and because he has a slightly idealized image of her in his mind -- but he's also a little less interesting and a lot more irritating (and, like Willow, sometimes the writers just don't seem to realize when he's in the wrong). I think most of the Xander detractors on this site are misreading the text, but I don't really want to be a Xander defender either.

There are a whole host of other minor characters I wish the show had done more with or cared about at all: Amy, Jenny, Drusilla, Oz, Kendra, Robin are some names that come to mind. But the truth is that, as they appear on screen, I just can't pretend they were ever more than cyphers. (Even if Oz appeared in far more episodes than Faith ever did; at least Faith had some sort of agency and was central to most of the episodes she appeared in.)

So, who's left?

I think Anya is badly underused in the show throughout her time on it (she's just almost never taken seriously at all, either by the writing or the characters), her backstory has all the consistency of wet papier-mâché and to be honest I don't like Selfless quite as much as most people either. But, well, at least she's reliably funny, and there's definitely the idea of an intriguing character in there. Her death makes me furious too, more so than any other character on the show. So, almost by process of elimation, there she is.

[iloveschiaparelli]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: My Love Letter Part 1

Okay okay okay SO Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes longpost time just my whole opinion/analysis/love letter for the whole film beginning with my Wes Ball backstory so skip to the Ruin screencap if you want to skim past all that.

I haven't talked about it on tumblr yet but I'm actually like a huge fat fan of the Maze Runner cinematic series directed by Wes Ball. Really I'm just a fan of Wes Ball. It not only singlehandedly got me through my first year of high school but also became the reason I ended up entering the film industry. I've watched all 3 movies at least 4-5 times each. Probably like 20-30 for Scorch Trials at this point because it's my favorite. I can quote probably at least half of it from memory. I've watched all of the BTS content that was on the DVDs + the bloopers on youtube like i was obsessed ok.

2019 was like the second worst year of my life so imagine my distress in january 2019 when I found out about Wes Ball's next movie, Mouse Guard, got Super Hyped Up for the multimillion dollar mice-with-swords movie (I eventually read some of the comics btw it's insanely good) And then within the same week found out Disney pulled the plug on the project after acquiring 20th Century Fox. TWO weeks before production was scheduled to begin. I was livid. I'm still bitter about it. Wes Ball then released the demo reel for the film to the public which iirc also had temp music.

So anyway yeah that was awful but then! I think it was later in 2020 that it was announced that Wes Ball was going to be directing the 4th POTA movie. This kicked off me seeing the original 1968 film and then the trilogy and wow did doing so increase my excitement. In my opinion Rupert Wyatt/Matt Reeves' directing styles and Wes Ball's were/are very compatible. I also took the time to get caught up on as much of Wes Ball's old projects as I could get my hands on at the time, including his animated short Ruin (screencap below). Which is fantastic BTW and apparently was purchased by Fox for a feature film that was never made (???) I swear, filmmakers have their past works splattered all over the internet like body parts after a landmine explosion: Good luck finding everything.

Now, Finally Finally FINALLY!!!!!!!! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out. I meant to see it on the premier night but my boyfriend broke up with me 2 days before so I forgot. I saw it tonight instead! So now with the backstory out of the way I can finally talk about the actual movie.

First of all, the beginning of the film absolutely WOWed me!!!! It honestly feels like a callback to Ruin, the way that the buildings are overgrown and the post-apocalyptic setting is super evident and feels so delightfully reclaimed by nature. It's also really neat to see how far VFX has come since Ruin was released if you compare the opening shots of the movie with the wide shots in Ruin. Wes Ball himself is also a VFX artist, so it's really neat to see how that affects his work especially since Planet of the Apes is by nature a very vfx-heavy franchise. This movie absoutely popped off in that area but we'll get to that.

Secondly, I forgot how much I missed Ball's directing! Oh my goodness, the performances he gets out of the actors are always so authentic. I still have yet to see a performance by Dylan O'Brien that was as raw and believable as in the Maze Runner movies, and I'm like halfway through Teen Wolf already. In the action scenes especially, I love how characters in Ball's movies, you can really feel their pain. Since pain and physical discomfort aren't communicated directly through film, we often forget just how hard it is to get back up again after getting kicked down, but with Wes Ball you never forget. Ugh, when Noa was getting beat up on top of the bunker at the end of the movie, I caught myself catching my own breath when he coughed up blood. Like, yeowch!

Additionally, everything this man makes is just, like, a masterpiece? On a technical level at least. That's really the mark of a good director, whose job is not only to evoke a performance from the actors, but also to tie together the whole crew. And KOTPOTA really showed off how well the team worked together. Just the establishing shots alone in a lot of these scenes! Oh. My. Word. You can clearly see the fruits of labor of not only the concept artists, but also the VFX artists and production designers, and how they worked with the DP and actors to get the shot. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

There are more that I'm thinking of, but unfortunately without a digital release available yet there's a limit to the screencaps that I'm able to obtain. The shot where Noa is walking up the escalator following Raka and you see the plane in the background indicating that Raka lives in an airport is one of them. There's also one or two establishing shots in nature that just show off the setting. The opening shots, of course. And then the shot where it pans up and you see Eagle Village for the first time. There's also an aerial of Proximus Caesar's camp, but I'm unable to find that one as well. The main one I want to look at is the telescope.

Just, like, Hello???? It looks like an art piece. This screencap is a little closer in than I'd like, but in the full frame you can see the absolute mastery of composition that it is, you can totally imagine it as a painting. Which in my experiences usually means there's a painting behind it somewhere in the process, lol. Let's go concept artists!!! But then you see how the colors are just, perfectly balanced, the plant growth is realistic and accentuating the set, and so on and so forth. It was just absolutely breathtaking to see for the first time. I'm pretty sure I audibly gasped. I did a lot of stimming during this movie just to stay quiet and not start babbling about the film pipeline to my father in theater auditorium.

Even more magic happens when Noa steps onto the set, and starts messing with the telescope. Suddenly it's real, it's tangible, it's touchable. Transforming what was likely a matte painting at one point into a set that the actors can interact with, and then into a shot where almost everything is overlaid with VFX, and having it look so real like that is truly magic.

The ship also had me dumbstruck, but slightly less so because we saw a similar setting in The Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 2018. Although it was slightly different for sure. What had me going even more in this movie was how much the characters interacted with the ship, moving in and around it, and trading glances with one another from on the ground and up inside. In TMR:DTC, you really only see the decrepit ships in the background, and one is referenced as a plot point but the characters never actually physically interact with any of them. So it's much easier for our brains to categorize the ships as gimmicks to help us believe the scene.

It's when props like these are woven into the scene as tangible objects that our brains start to shut up about the CGI and really start to believe what's happening onscreen! and KOTPOTA did an amazing job at this. Please bear in mind like, I literally have zero specialization in VFX, it's not my field and although I draw, I've never done concept art for film. I honestly believe that I'm simply in an appropriate level of awe for what this film accomplished.

The other thing that amazed me was how stylized the setting was. The greenery was so green, the ocean felt like a painting, the ship was red, the telescope shot is very, very blue. Several of the shapes used in the ape's costume design are simplified. And yet, despite the stylization, it never feels cartoony or polygonal, it still feels completely grounded in reality, and I could really believe I'd see it in real life. I think this owes partly to the fact that we rarely inspect any of these simplified items at a close distance, aside from Raka's necklace which appears to be made of either bone or whittled wood. It also owes to absolute geniuses in color grading that kept the stylized colors realistic enough for our brains to believe. Overall I'd take the visual style of the film to be Impressionist. I love impressionism.

My main interest in filmmaking is writing/directing. However, most of my experience lies in costume design (Student films rarely need costume "design" so its usually coordination) and production design. As a result I spent a good deal of my time watching KOTPOTA zeroed in on the production design.

I love post-apocalyptic science-fiction/fantasy worlds like this partly precisely because of how much you can learn from the production design alone. When Mae enters Trevathan's room for the first time I swear I was eating it up. Every single prop in this movie was carefully thought out by the PD, which is why his room absolutely stood out from the rest of the setting that we had seen up to that point. It was distinctly "human-centric" as opposed to the rest of the movie. I remember seeing it in the theater earlier today, laying eyes first on the bed by the door, thinking that it must be something they set up for Mae, but then wondering why or how the apes would know or want to set up a human-style bed for Mae when we're so many generations removed from human-dominated society.

Next it was on many miscellaneous table objects, thinking to myself "That looks like how a human would treat a space. Apes are generally too big to decorate at that scale." and then my eyes roved on to the furniture, seeing a human-sized table, human-sized chair, human-sized junk everywhere! Slowly, by observing the room, I gained a stronger and stronger sense of "there is another human here," which upon observing the rows and rows of books became "a smart human like Mae, who unlike her can read" (Remember at this point we still believed that Mae and her mother were the only smart humans that Mae had known growing up, and that she had been pursuing the opportunity to meet other smart humans and join them).

It was only upon the instant of realizing that this was a smart human that Trevathan spoke and appeared on the stairs. It was absolutely perfect timing. THIS, guys, is exceptional production design. It was honestly my absolute favorite piece of production design in the entire film, especially because of how much it contrasted what we've become used to seeing in the series as humans have diminished in population and apes and nature have taken over the space instead.

That exact sense of change or "otherness", that noticeability of contrast upon seeing what is honestly a pretty "normal" human space if you look at it in the context of our existing society, is only present because of how well PD treats the rest of the movie. In order to make a completely normal space feel strange, you have to change literally every other space to something alien but consistent with itself. And KOTPOTA does just that. The job was begun in the original trilogy, with the decline of humanity depicted across decades, nature taking over the gas station and the dam and even the city. But this movie had the biggest challenge because of simply how many years had passed before the story even began. Society as we know it today is completely and totally obliviated in KOTPOTA's setting. In every set that the characters interacted with in any way, PD had to fabricate a space where humans had been but the virus, decades of decay and post-apocalyptic living, and ape encroachment had transformed it.

This also brings me into the subject of the rich culture we see emerging in the world of the apes through this movie. The original trilogy, especially the first and second film, was all about the ape's identity. In the first film Caesar wonders whether he is human or ape, and whether apes are pets or equals to humans. He eventually comes to the realization that humans are never going to look out for apes the way that apes will and decides to become that person. In the second film, Caesar and the other characters involved have to figure out what being an ape means. Does it mean strength is power? That humans are always an enemy to defeated? Or a similar species to live alongside? It's about establishing what the ape race's relationship is to the human race. The third film I didn't get to rewatch before seeing KOTPOTA, but iirc it was about whether humans and apes could ever coexist, which is a theme we see continued in this movie, albeit in a slightly different way. Either that or more likely it was about whether apes will repeat the same mistakes as humans.

Anyway, I digress. In the script we already see a rich culture emerging in hints, right from the start of the movie. It's in the hunt for the eagle eggs at the beginning with mentions of some kind of coming-of-age ceremony, followed by Noa reminding Anaya and Soona that they must "leave one egg always. It is the law." Already in the first five minutes we've established that this particular ape civilization not only has cultural traditions surrounding youth and coming-of-age, but also rituals and laws surrounding their relationship with and the conservation of nature. And through dialogue we extrapolate that these apes have bonded animals (eagles). It honestly felt like a crossover between Native American Indian hunting practices and How To Train Your Dragon, which is wild I know. (Also can we talk about how the eagles in this movie actually made eagle sounds???? And not falcon sounds! Finally we're breaking the bad habit of making up animal noises to sound cooler when the original already sounded super cool by itself.)

So in just a few minutes guys!! We already have so much. Then the trio heads back to the village and has their first encounter with the Echoes (Ekos? If anyone could get spelling on that for me that would be fantastic) but are too afraid (or law-bound) to get too close to or cross through the tunnel "into the valley below". So through these we establish that there is a taboo around not just humans but also around leaving the village. The clan has taken an isolationist approach wherein they not only forbid their young clan members from leaving but also withhold information about the outsiders from them until they've come of age. Guys the cultural system arising here is absolutely wild. Like sorry not sorry but I eat this stuff up. (Screenwriters-- this is prime example material of "show don't tell")

There's also all of the ape social communication rules that we've already gotten used to, mainly a variation of the palm-up/palm-down gesture as a means of showing respect (submission) and asking for permission/approval.

In this movie however the hands are mostly closed and the palms are down for the sub as well as the ape they're seeking approval from, as opposed to the trilogy in which the submitting ape always had their palm up. At first I chalked this up to cultural differences among clans since we learned that this clan is not the clan descended from Caesar's apes in the trilogy, but then Caesar's descendants were doing it this way too? So I don't really know what to make of it but I'm going to decide that it's just global cultural evolution (at least, as global as the real-world evolution of Old English into modern English).

Through the production design of the beginning sequence in Eagle Village, we see that the eagles catch fish and then the vast quantities of fish and the smokehouse indicate that fish caught by the eagles are the main source of food for the Eagle Clan. We also see feathers as a motif throughout, worn especially by the parents and the elders as a sign of social status (we know it's social status bc Sylva rips it off of one of the elders as an intimidation tactic and everyone audibly gasps, indicating it worked). That last bit is honestly more costume design, they popped off too but one thing at a time or I'm going to become incomprehensible. I will repeat myself. It is inevitable.

Then throughout the film we learn that not only do they adhere strictly to the "law", but that that law is set by the elders alone. We also learn that they primarily relate to their eagles by singing to them which!!! is just!!!! so!!! metal!!! I love it. The way it plays into the end scene with Proximus just AGHRGHJHRHGR GROWL BARK BARK FERAL NOISES>

ahem

Also we see them building nests at home for their eagles and they've figured out falconry tools for the aerie and everything on their own like??

Then in contrast we see what's left of Caesar's clan, it's descendants. Proximus Caesar, we learn later from Trevathan, has gone completely fangirl over the ancient roman empire and decided to emulate it because "he likes it" and it makes him "feel good" (yeah he's probably the most textbook tyrant I've ever seen in media), choosing to morph Caesar's teachings into his own new worldview rather than adhering to them properly.

So the culture of Caesar's clan is very heavily roman-influenced, often copying practices outright such as the insitution of slavery, a lot of the fashion choices and even the way that banners are put up around the camp and the way that Proximus dines at a low-set table filled with an overabundance of food. And he has a throne and crown, and there are roman numerals inscribed on both his and Sylva's necklaces. But we still see influences of Caesar's original society, most noticeably the persistence of the window symbol and the architecture of the dam. The architecture wouldn't be significant at all, instead being noted as a stylistic choice for the whole series, if it weren't for the fact that it's different from Eagle Clan's architecture.

If Eagle Village resembles those spaghetti bridges that engineers build for class, with thatched roofs, then the dam at Caesar Clan's camp is much more brutalist by comparison. Eagle Clan was very spindly and focused on height and lightness of building materials: many of the logs were thinner and longer, more spaced out, and sometimes rounded at the ends. By contrast, Caesar Clan's dam is built with stumpier logs, closer together, and spiked at the top. The dam is also shored up with soil and other materials. Which yeah, is typical of beaver dams but is also typical of the structures in the original Caesar's village in the trilogy.

Unfortunately, there's only one image currently available of Eagle Village and it's after it was burned down. But you can still see how it differs from Caesar's village, instead of being chaotic it's more organized, allowing for a more lightweight structure.

This (below) is the closest I could get to having a picture of the dam's architecture, but you can still tell how it's more similar to OG Caesar's architecture than it is to Eagle Clan's, even though it's using a completely different building material (scrap metal instead of hewn trees).

Eagle Clan's architecture is also a further effect of how their society revolves around making a life bond with eagles, which are flying creatures. So of course they would be inclined to taller structures, especially ones that are more lightweight and have structural patterns, imitating the way that birds are built (see above).

I'll continue in part 2 as a reblog because it's 1 am and I'm running out of steam but YALL I need you to understand: It's been 6 years since the last time I had a Wes Ball film to overanalyze and rave about. I have SO MUCH to say about this film.

[scalamore]

Rupert’s Numbness

Early on in the series, it was mentioned that Rupert can’t feel pain.

More accurately, he’s so traumatized and abused that not only he’s numb to physical pain, he’s also emotionally numb.

It doesn’t take Lari to realize he lacks proper emotions - he only knows negative ones like anger and fear - but Rupert himself is very self-conscious at how abnormal he is because of it. He WANTs to be normal, and that’s one of the reasons why he kept Lari around - because she’s so normal and he wanted a sense of normalcy through her.

It’s mostly off screen, but after Eva died, the Crazy Emperor beat him regularly, so did Arnulf, and this went on for YEARS, probably from the ages of 10-15. Rupert had learned to keep his head down, grovel, until the Emperor or Arnulf got bored finished and left, leaving him battered and bruised.

The story hints that Arnulf stopped harassing him when he’s around 15, the year he becomes crown prince, and instead sends his maids to hassle Lari instead. Similarly, the Crazy Emperor also slows down summoning Rupe after Ch 60. It's also hinted that the abuse continues after Lari witnesses it, but even if Lari can't do anything as a maid to help him, Rupert still appreciates her checking up on him and asking if he's ok. He knows very well their positions in the hierarchy, and he doesn't ask anything more from her.

What I felt was interesting, was that despite the early part of the story (Chapter 1-55) establishing Rupert can’t really feel pain (he can still feel fatigue and exhaustion though, like the Ventibolt arc), the recent arcs clearly show that Rupert feels pain now. Despite him still having a high tolerance for pain, he mentions more often of how much it hurts.

It seems that the trigger for this change was from the burst emotions he had at seeing Lari’s “death” in T2.

The mention of “pain” is brought up much more after Lari’s death attempt. For the first time, as he stared at her sleeping figure, he mentions how he broke his shoulder from shielding her from a falling pillar, and how his eye hurt because ash fell into it when he tried to carry her out. He felt suffocated, his chest was tight, and he couldn’t breathe. He felt especially miserable. After she left, he felt sore all over, as if someone trampled all over him. When he teleported to the seaside village urgently to look for her, he used a technique that caused massive headaches/pain, enough to make a normal person faint.

Much later, Rupert would complain that it hurts if Lari playfully hits him. All in all, I think it’s just a neat small detail that shows how much Rupe has changed over the story: Through living life with Lari, he’s obtained his earliest wish, to become more normal, to have normal emotions, and move on from the past trauma and not be so numb anymore. :)

[97keanu]

Rupert Marshetta x New Girl!Reader

Premise: You and Rupert have been getting closer these past few weeks. A short drabble about a drunken, junkyard first kiss.

You've been hanging out with Rupert in the junk yard for the last few weeks. He came to school a while ago, for once, and on that day you just so happened to be the new girl. He took a liking to you immediately and soon enough you two were skipping school to go rummage around for any cool junk you could find.

Right now, your hanging inside a car window halfway, reaching for an old snow globe you think Rupert would like. You manage to get it in your finger tips then carefully pull it out.

"Hey, Rupert, come check out what I found!" You call out in the mid afternoon chilly air. Soon enough Rupert comes bouncing in, walking from top of car to top of car. He drops down next to you, curious to what you have...

"Hey, that's pretty neat, let me see that?" Rupert leans in, his long side of his hair covering his face. He is so close to you now it makes you feel some sort of way. You've been feeling it the last few days ever since you two were drunk the other night. Things between you two seemed to be heating up, but in the morning the two of you were too scared to talk about it.

"Yeah, I thought you might like it..." You push a loose strand of hair back and look up at him. He's so tall, and that's something you've liked since day one.

"I think its pretty neat, I'll keep it safe..." He puts it carefully in his pocket, then takes something out from his other pocket.

"I found something for you, too..." Rupert says softly, watching your reaction closely. It's an old ring, probably not real, but some sort of lower grade metal. It's pretty and seems like it has a fake shining diamond. Rupert has a small blush on his cheeks but you can't tell if its because he's gifting you a ring or the cold air.

"This is really pretty..." you admit, trying it on. It's the perfect size for you, and Rupert takes your hand in his to look at it on you. His hands are so much bigger than yours, and a bit dirty with dirt and grim under his nails. Your hands aren't clean exactly either though, so you don't mind.

"I'm glad you like it, it looks nice on you..." When you look up, he's already looking down at you, you two are so close. Rupert looks away when he's caught gazing at you, and you can't tell what that means for you two. A small flutter in your heart makes you wonder if he and you have grown closer than friends recently.

You two don't say anything for a few moments, before Rupert clears his throat and takes your hand in his. It's warm in the outside air...

"Wanna go to the hangout spot and share a bottle of this?" He holds up a bottle of vodka from his pack, and you nod.

The two of you hold hands as he takes you to the spot where he likes to hang out at night in the junk yard. It is an enclave of cars, stacked up and rusty. It keeps the wind down and is perfect for starting a small campfire. Rupert is really good at getting a fire started, so when you two arrive he let's go of your hand gently and starts getting it ready. Your hand feels like it is missing his warmth as soon as his hand leaves yours. You blush at the thought.

After a while he finishes the fire, and sits down at an old, junky nearby couch. It is red and has lose springs here and there, but you guys have thrown blankets and towels over it to make it comfortable. You sit next to him, and try not to look at his soft face too much. He takes a big swig of the bottle and hands it to you. You try not to think about his soft lips touching the bottle and how yours are on it now taking a gulp.

You two pass the bottle back and forth as the winter sun begins to set early, casting orange glow on both your faces. Rupert is getting a bit more tipsy, as are you. You lean in closer, putting your shoulders together to touch slightly, and he doesn't move away. In fact, after a few moments he lightly, tentatively, puts his strong arm around you. You can't tell if your face is hot from him or the alcohol...

You look up at him, trying to be sly and spy on his reaction, but he's already looking down at you. This time he doesn't try to hide it. Maybe the vodka is making you both more bold. You don't know if this is going to end up like last time, and you don't care. All you know is Rupert and you have been hanging out so much lately, and he's the first person to really accept you in this new town. Besides all that, his face looks soft in the orange sky light, and his cute puppy eyes are looking at you in a way no boy ever did at your old school.

Rupert doesn't say anything as he slowly, so slowly, begins to lean down towards you. His eyes dart from yours and down to your lips and back up again. Your breath catches as he gets so close your lips touch. He smells like shared cherry vodka and sweat. You do too.

His lips part and lightly graze yours, as if unsure, as if asking. You reply, yours closing any unsureness, getting rid of doubt. This is going better than last time when he got tipsy and told you he thought you were pretty. The two of you move your lips together, deepening the kiss. You know your cheeks aren't warm from the liquor or the fire. You feel safe, and without care.

You don't know how long it goes on, but you kiss until eventually he pulls away, despite seemingly not wanting to. He looks deep in yours eyes with a softness and want that no one had before...

"I've been wanting to kiss you for a long time..." He admits, his voice low and husky. He looks at you, hoping you feel the same, his eyes searching yours.

You answer with another kiss, your hands wrapping around his neck, and getting lost in his hair. He accepts with delight, finding himself on top of you on the couch. You two kiss and share drinks until the sun comes up. And in the morning he's not shy to give you more. To wrap his hands around your waist and kiss your neck. You're young, you're getting into trouble, but at least you have each other...

[jack-doohan]

❝if you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain!❞ - will power, team penske #12

🖕i just think he’s neat 🖕

flash warning!

song is escape (the pina colada song) by rupert holmes