#abstract short film ideas

[bl-bracket]

Anyways I was going to make a post about the process of picking bracket topics and whatnot and was trying to come up with some examples of types of topics that would or wouldn't work and for whatever reason I thought of the concept of a "best murderer bracket" and I can't stop thinking about it lmao

it's just like such a funny concept? the idea of fictional murderers battling it out, especially ones from bls (which like I don't think is most people who are not super familiar with the genre as having a lot of characters who have killed people) is just funny in like an absurd way. like abstracting yourself from tumblr and tournament blogs, the idea of telling someone else that there's a tournament going for fictional murderers from east asian mlm tv shows, a genre that for several years was primarily shows about high school and uni students.

anyways that devolved into thinking about it more seriously, and then deciding a more practical way of doing it would to make some kind of directory of bl murderers. which would then lead to a lot of interesting statistical analysis, like characters with highest on screen kill counts, which countries have the highest proportion of fictional killers, etc. you can then make a separate category for characters with implied kills that aren't explicitly shown on screen or vague. and you could track how the number increases over time, which I assume exponentially goes up as more bls are exploring darker and more serious genres.

anyways back to the country stats, I started thinking about what the breakdown would look like so here's my guess based on zero research and just my general knowledge of shows

China. While having very few bls (censored or otherwise), they have a very unfair advantage and that is genre conventions. The 3 biggest Chinese bls I can think of are: The Untamed, Word of Honor, and Guardian. With The Untamed and Word of Honor, the conventions of xianxia and wuxia genres means that there are a lot of characters and almost all of them have killed before (usually nameless canon fodder but still). And then with Guardian, it's a supernatural detective mystery show with murder plots in it and a lot of characters, which again leads to a pretty high kill count. So even only counting these 3 shows, China will probably have the most killers in bl, or at the very least most kills done.

Thailand. It's a numbers game on this one. There's just so many Thai bls and an increasing number of like detective or mafia ones. A show like Kinnporsche has a lot of killers and deaths. Then there's other shows that include a few murderers (but less than Kinnporsche) like The Sign, Manner of Death, 4 Minutes, 3 Will Be Free, Never Let Me Go (Palm did shoot a couple guys dead elt's nto forget), Dead Friend Forever, etc. However the numbers also hurt Thailand in terms of proportions, since there's a lot more Thai bls that don't have murder, so it actually might be 3rd.

Japan. You're not getting much murder from your Cherry Magics and Old Fashion Cupcakes, which is what a significant portion of bl fan's primary exposure to Japanese bl is, but let's not forget that there's a lot of dark Japanese bls where murder is definitely on the table. Now I don't actually have a good gauge of what the numbers on this is, cause I haven't really delved that deep into this corner of the bl market, so I can't make a good estimation but I bet there's more than I'm aware of.

Taiwan. They've got a couple of mafia shows like HIStory 3: Trapped and Kiseki: Dear to Me, both of which have some implied and explicit murder (though less then you would expect if we're honest). That'll give them a few kills and they also have a relatively smaller pool of shows to pull from, meaning percentage wise it's a bit higher.

South Korea. Ok I am far from an expert of bls from South Korea, but unless there's like obscure short films I'm not aware of, the only drama I can think of from here with kills is Long Time No See? or I guess The Director Who Buys Me Dinner has like 1.5 murders? anyways Korea also has a not insignificant amount of bls to their name so proportionally it will be quite low.

The Philippines. Out of all the countries on this list, I am least familiar with the bls from here, but from what I've gathered during my routine mdl searches, basically all of them seem to be murder-free (unless of course there's some shocking plot twists in them)

anyways I'll probably never do this project just cause it would require a lot of time and collaborative effort and I've got a lot irl going on right now (hence why the submission period for most whipped is so long lol) and also have some other projects I'm already planning on doing so I don't really have time to do it. but I wanted to tell y'all about my thoughts on the matter.

also sorry if this is the weirdest thing I've ever posted. kinda had a major stress breakdown today but then resolved it relatively quickly cause I realized I could just reschedule the life altering appointment that was causing the breakdown lmao so I'm in a strange frame of mind lol

[kitthepurplepotato]

Chapter 8 - Is this the famous honeymoon phase?!

Summary: Mina breaks Bakugou. Bakugou does his best not to break her neck as a Thank You. Kirishima goes overboard. The Menace enjoys every single minute of the drama. Katsuki has “weird” thoughts. It must be the weather.

Warnings: Swear words, Katsuki using the word “bitch, Mina brings Y/N some questionable underwear.

FIRST CHAPTER MASTER LIST

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

“Kats, do you mind helping me into a sitting position? This is getting kinda awkward.” You mumble quietly.

“Oh, sorry.” Katsuki jumps off the floor and he’s next to you in a matter of seconds.

“Did Katsuki just say the word sorry?” Mina stares at the two of you as Katsuki tries his best to put you down in the most comfortable position.

“His mom said the same when he first heard it.” You smile at your boyfriend proudly. He only rolls his eyes. “So let’s see what you got, entertain me.” You grin at the pink girl.

“Katsuki, I love her. I can take her if you ever get bored. I ain’t picky, you know.” Mina winks at you, while Katsuki sends daggers with his eyes towards his old friend. It really shouldn’t be so endearing to see your partner like this, but man, seeing him being so protective over you just makes your heart flip. Is it too soon to tell him to marry you?

“You touch my woman with one fucking finger and I’ll make sure no one will be able to look at your ugly, burnt face for the rest of your life.” Katsuki spits, clearly aggravated.

Yup. One day, you’ll marry this man.

“Kats, calm the fuck down, I wanna see my presents!” You whine in a high-pitched voice, just to take a piss out of Katsuki.

“Stop being so cute, it’s really fucking irritating.” He mumbles, but he finally sits down next to you. Mina comes closer with her backpack and plops down on the floor in front of you two, acting like a YouTuber filming an actual HAUL video.

“Ladies and gents and everyone in between, welcome to my haul video! I’m pro hero Pinky and I love shopping!” Mina grins; you are already in love with this weird pink woman.

“Yay!” You yell with your head on Katsuki’s shoulders. He acts like your loud voice just annoyed the shit out of him but he’s also smiling, so it can’t be that bad.

“First of all… I got you the brand new skincare range made by Creati!” Mina yells happily, clearly proud of her old classmate. Pro Hero Creati is a big name in the industry; not just in the hero world but also in retail; as Creati needs a lot of knowledge to be able to create her own weapons and support items, she decided to use that knowledge to come up with brand new products for the common folk - there isn’t a single thing in the stores that doesn’t have a Creati version of it and you usually get luxurious quality for really cheap prices. There are a few things she doesn’t do cheap though; jewelry and skincare products.

“That’s half of my monthly salary there.” You gawk at the pink girl but she waves you off.

“I got it for free. No worries. I’ll show Katsuki how to use them properly later.” She winks at the blonde who only rolls his eyes at that. “Speaking about merch… tada!” Mina takes out an absolutely adorable pajama set, all pink like the girl herself; there is an abstract pro hero Pinky logo on the top and the small shorts have the pattern of her hero costume.

“She’s not wearing that in my bed.” Katsuki retorts angrily but there is a tiny smile on his face behind that ugly scowl.

“Well, this is the best I could do on such a short notice so I kindly ask you to shut the fuck up and enjoy the show.” Mina gives Katsuki a scornful look.

“Tch…”

“So then! Underwear!” She perks up, ignoring Katsuki’s annoyed grumbling. ”I managed to get you some really cute ones! Some are my own designs but I got you some really sexy ones as well, just in case!”

Well, maybe drinking water right now wasn’t Katsuki’s greatest idea as he sprays it all over the coffee table as he sees the absolutely gorgeous lace underwear that barely hides anything. It also doesn’t help that it’s black with an orange hem.

“Please tell me it comes with a bra.” You sigh and it doesn’t take the pink girl long to find the matching bra in her backpack; if you can even call that transparent thing a bra, really.

“I’ll fucking kill you.” Bakugou yells with a red face. “I’ll murder you and no one will find your body I swear to fuckin All Might.”

“Don’t worry darling, I brought some condoms as well because safety first, you know.” Mina fucking winks and you can literally see the steam coming out of Katsuki’s ears at this point.

If the situation wasn’t hilarious enough, Kirishima decides to barge in through the door right at this moment and the first thing he sees is Mina holding sexy underwear in the air while Katsuki is having a brain fart moment.

“Do I want to know?”

“Honestly, babe? No.” Mina grins at the redhead who takes a deep breath and makes his way towards you.

“Hey, lovely, how are you feeling?” He kneels in front of you, completely ignoring the awkwardness in the room. If Katsuki haven’t had enough reasons to murder the whole city, now he does; Kirishima goes all protective over you as he takes in the view in front of him and strokes your cheeks lovingly, his eyes full of worry.

“The fuck are you touching my woman for? Honestly, get a fucking grip!” Katsuki yells again and by the look of it, he’s about to reach his limits.

“You know I can’t stop touching people when I worry!” Kirishima yells back with teary eyes; Mina only sighs in the background, probably knowing how true that statement is.

“Yeah, I realized it when you almost fucking kissed me a few months ago, you fucking weirdo.” Katsuki retorts, sitting down on the floor, out of energy.

“Well, at least I’m not kissing her. Right?” Kirishima says it like that’s an appropriate answer and you can see Katsuki’s anger coming back with full blast (no pun intended).

“That will be the last fucking thing you do alive, best friend or not.”

If someone could die from a death stare, Kirishima would be nothing but ground beef. Ahh, you love your boyfriend so much.

“I got you some cute socks too.” Mina mumbles sadly as all the attention went to Kirishima in the last few minutes.

“I love cute socks, show me!” You ignore the two bickering men completely to keep your eyes on the grumpy pink lady.

Eventually, Bakugou runs out of swear words and Mina runs out of random stuff; there were hoodies, shirts, joggers, obviously all of them some kind of merch; even Deku decided to send some fluffy Deku socks over with Mina when he heard about her getting a little “survivor pack” ready. Obviously, Katsuki wasn’t too happy about his girlfriend having so much pro hero merch that’s not his but Mina made sure Katsuki understands that her options were quite limited at 8PM.

“Ahh, I forgot, I bought you ear plugs in case Mr. Grumpy gets annoying.” Mina hands you the last thing from the bag; needless to say you have a really hard time restraining yourself to not put them in when the explosive blonde starts yelling again.

~•💥•~

“Stop eating my leftovers and get the fuck out! My woman needs to rest!” Katsuki yells out of the blue. The two idiots quickly stuff their mouths with the leftover snacks you two left on the coffee table then they run towards the main entrance, like eating Katsuki’s food is a sin; and to be fair, it is, because he made that shitty food for his woman, not for these two bozos. He kinda hoped there will be some left in case she gets hungry again. Oh well, Katsuki can just make another batch if that happens, even at 11PM.

Okay, what the fuck is going on in his stupid head, this is domestic and lovey-dovey as fuck.

He loves it - Hates it, he means. Absolutely hates it. Yeah. Fuck this shit.

Katsuki is so deep in his own head he doesn’t even react when Eijirou runs back into the living room to leave a kiss on Y/N’s forehead to “get well quicker.”

That guy needs to get a grip. Or get a girlfriend. Or both. A guy like him should be surrounded by women; he is kind, affectionate and even though Katsuki doesn’t think he swings “that way” he’s certainly sure his best friend is really fucking hot.

To be fair, chicks like bad boys. Or at least Katsuki thinks so. Maybe Eijirou is too good for them. It also doesn’t help the situation that Katsuki chases away every single woman who comes close to his best friend if they don’t fit Katsuki’s criteria and one of the criteria is for them to be able to get along with him, but most women just start crying when he gets moody around them for the first time; and no, he is not being sexist, he also made men cry before. It’s just who he is, what can he do?

“You know you just did “the Deku” and blabbed all of that out loud?” Y/N giggles adorably from her spot on the sofa.

Adorably? Okay what the actual fuck is wrong with him today?

“Shut the fuck up and keep flapping around like a dying fish.” Katsuki mutters under his nose which only makes his woman laugh even louder; is she even sick? Honestly, she might be just faking it to force Katsuki to be an affectionate, worrying boyfriend. Not like he is… worried. Or anything like that. Fuck no.

“Hey! You can’t just say that to a sick person!” Y/N does her best to act offended, but it all goes to shit when her lips move upwards. Oh, how much he fucking loves this shitty woman.

“Act more sick, then.” He grumbles back while he rolls his eyes aggressively.

“These… are my last… words… to… you…” Y/N stutters dramatically, her arm flapping on the side as she tries to hold them out for Katsuki. “Find someone else, when I go… I want you to be happy, honey bun.” She stutters, barely concealing her laughter. Katsuki takes her hand and for his surprise, he doesn’t mind playing along for a bit.

“Fuck that, bitch, if you die I’m going after you, you can’t get rid of me that easily. We will haunt all our enemies until we get bored then have ghost-sex on Deku’s bed.”

“Fuck, that was so romantic and hot Katsuki, I love you so fucking much.” Y/N mumbles with teary eyes and a shit rating grin; funny combination that is, but Katsuki swears he fell in love all over again with that stupid face. Katsuki’s own face becomes a mess of emotions; fondness, love, lust, probably a bit of anger for no reason at all; all obvious and easy to read as he pulls Y/N up from the sofa without a single word and makes his way towards the bathroom with her in his arms.

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Y/N giggles, but doesn’t try to wiggle her way out of his hold.

“I’ll brush your teeth and then we are going to bed. You are clearly delirious.” Katsuki fucking giggles as he puts Y/N down on the toilet seat. Maybe he’s the delirious one. Who knows.

“Says the guy who wanted to have ghost-sex on his best friend’s bed.”

“He ain’t my best friend!” Katsuki yells defensively. “Deku is… Deku.”

“Yeah. Deku is Deku. And I am me. And we all love you.” She giggles again, clearly too tired to even think about her words anymore. Katsuki is concerned.

“You sure you don’t need medical attention?” He mumbles, crouching right in front of his loved one like a worried mother. Y/N only smiles, her hand coming up to put a stray lock of hair behind his ear. The motion is slow and Y/N needs to use a lot of strength to be able to finish her task, but she manages.

“I’m just happy to be here with you. I hated the fact that I won’t see you for a whole week, feel free to call me a clingy fuck but I’m speaking my truth.” She giggles and oh my god, Katsuki uses all his willpower to not kiss her senseless right now.

“My clingy fucking woman.” Bakugou grins and leaves a kiss on her forehead before moving towards the sink to put toothpaste on Y/N’s new, glittery pink toothbrush. It’s an abomination. “Try to hold it.” Katsuki mutters and stares at Y/N for a minute as she tries to brush her teeth with zero strength but he gets way to impatient and snags the toothbrush back to finish the job.

“To shtrooong!” Y/N tries to tell him, but Katsuki is on a mission; the germs needs to fucking die.

Y/N looks traumatized.

~•💥•~

Okay, so… now what?!

Katsuki is utterly confused by what to do with himself. He’s standing by the bed, Y/N already hogged all the covers to herself and Katsuki… well, Katsuki is not sure where to sleep, to be honest.

Here’s the thing; yes, they’ve slept in the same bed before but… they were kinda forced to do that except when he was quirked, but again, that was a special occasion. This time, they have all the rights to sleep in separate beds.

He can just take the couch. He certainly can. Katsuki moves towards the door but then he changes his mind and comes back to stand awkwardly by the leg of the bed.

He can. But he doesn’t want to.

He should be around if something goes wrong during the night, right?

What if she needs to use the toilet? What if she gets thirsty? What is she chokes on her own saliva because her body forgets how to swallow?!

Katsuki makes another steps towards the bed, but then…

He changes his mind.

Again.

Maybe she wants to be alone right now. It needs to be really fucking embarrassing for her to be in this situation and maybe she needs some space. Katsuki might want to stay with her but maybe he would do more harm than good; she might need to force her body to do stuff for her to get better. Maybe if he does everything for her she won’t be able to get better.

Katsuki makes his way towards the door again, now with more confidence, but his confidence wavers as he stares at Y/N from so far away; she looks heartbroken and sad as he puts his hands on the doorknob… ahh, fuck.

“Where are you going?” She mumbles in between two sniffles. Fucking sniffles. What the fuck.

“Why you snifflin’.” Katsuki grumbles under his nose; needless to say there is no fucking way he leaves this room today after this shit. Call him weak and manipulable, he doesn’t give a flying fuck.

“It’s a bit cold, Katsuki.” She says, large puppy eyes staring into his soul.

“Want me to put the heating on?”

“No…” she mumbles with an offended pout.

“Want a hot water bottle then? An electric blanket? Wanna go to Malibu?”

Yes, Katsuki is absolutely taking the piss right now, but man, it’s so much fun to see her struggle. Y/N pouts even harder.

“I want my own hot water bottle.” Y/N murmurs and points at him angrily. “That one there runs hot all the time, I’m quite sure it will do a good enough job.” Oh, Katsuki can see how much she struggles to keep her face neutral. Oh, there it is, the small smile in the corner of her mouth. Oh damn, Katsuki is so whipped.

“I am not a fucking furnace, you fuck!” Katsuki yells, fake-offended.

“No, you are a hot water bottle, silly.” She doesn’t even try to hide her grin anymore and Katsuki is really proud to see his own shit eating grin on his girlfriend’s pretty face. He never understood the whole “other half” thing before, but it makes so much more sense now.

“If this is supposed to be a sexy role play or something, it’s not working, princess.” Katsuki raises a single eyebrow and he gets an annoyed eye roll in exchange.

“I would prefer to be able to move my limbs for that action, thank you very much.” Y/N answers with a straight face and needless to say, Katsuki’s face is as red as a ripe tomato.

“Fuck you, you human-sized burrito.” Katsuki yells but makes his way to the other side of the bed, albeit begrudgingly.

“Not today, sir.” The shit eating grin is back and Katsuki is not a big fan of this one specifically.

“You are such a menace.” Katsuki pulls the covers off her with an angry grab and Y/N yells profanities as the cold air hits her stomach. “Stop yelling and let me in!” Katsuki laughs, the sound loud and so disgustingly happy it makes him want to vomit.

“Hurry up, it’s freezing! … hey, don’t go away from me! That’s not where the hot water bottle goes, sir!” She whines and while it’s certainly a little bit annoying, Katsuki can’t help but feel butterflies in his stomach. This is the first time Bakugou Katsuki feels needed and loved and it’s absolutely exhilarating.

“Stop being so needy, what’s wrong with you!” He grumbles anyway, faking annoyance just cuz why not.

“Just cuddle me, you angry Pomeranian!” Y/N whines again, her weak arms trying their best to pull him closer.

“What did you just call me?!” Katsuki rolls to his side to face Y/N head on; what he didn’t expect is the sudden urge that comes over him from the sudden closeness; he wants to bury his face into her hair so fucking much, kiss her neck until it leaves a mark, kiss every single crevice and scar until they’re pink and sensitive… “This calls for a punishment.” Bakugou mumbles but instead of a punishment he just does everything he wanted to do in the first place.

If Bakugou Katsuki says kisses are a punishment, then they are. Fuck everyone who says it otherwise.

… Next Chapter!

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Potato ramble:

- I’m so sorry for being away for so long. There is one, personal post right before this one if you want to read it, where I tell you about some of my struggles, but only read it if you really want to know. It’s all good now (almost.)

- I absolutely love how Katsuki acts in this one. It’s still his edgy self but he feels safe enough to actually act upon his real feelings and AHHHHH I LOVE HIM SO MUCH! 😭

- Btw I swear I’m not plotting some weird polyamory thing in this ficc, Kirishima is just affectionate like that. He will have his own reader in a few weeks who works in the coffee shop next door so don’t worry I won’t make this story weird! (Not like there is a problem with those kind of stories, while I’m not a big fan of them, I did read a few and some of them were really good! I believe we should all write about whatever we want anyway. 😂)

- The next part will have some non-sexual (or sexual? Dunno yet.) nakedness in it. I’ll probably need to say it’s 18+ because of it. FYI 😂

- I think that’s it for today! I’m on my way to London to go and see Harry Potter World! Yay! I brought my Kirishima plushie over with me so I’ll post a little “Kirishima in London” montage when I have some time haha 😂

Likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated as always!💥

TL:

@sixxze @iwannahaveaprettyaesthetic @hanatsuki-hime @cloroxisadelectabletreat @cheesenmax @coffeent @smolsleepybat @therealpotatobish @qardasngan @canarystwin @unofficialmuilover @nanamomo1 @mikestuffffs

If I left anyone out, let me know pls!

[conundrumoftime]

Cat, what do you think Galadriel’s role will be from now on? I’ve heard so many disheartening opinions that she’ll just settle as the wise and distant and passive Galadriel from the movies. While I’m afraid of that and don’t really trust tv writers anymore, I can’t see them going down this route so soon. They showed already they’re not giving into the tolkien bros, I don’t see why she wouldn’t keep her role as commander.

I love this question! I have been thinking about this so much. My short answer is that I don't think they'll do that. My longer answer:

I've talked before about how I think people are mistaken about where Galadriel's canon story ends up, and a short version of why I don't think TROP Galadriel will end up as the 'lady of light [passive, retired]' figure people remember is that she never really existed; even for film Galadriel, people are remembering a version filtered by pop culture history of a story where she's a minor character. (As are all the other powerful elves of Middle-earth at this point - Glorfindel, Elrond, Círdan - it's not b/c they've settled down and got married now, it's b/c this is the hobbits' story we're seeing through the hobbits' eyes and the big mythological figures need to take a back seat.)

So here's my predictions for what they will do with her story:

She'll still be a main character. It's an ensemble show, but they have set up a main antagonist and main protagonist and built the whole idea off one of her lines in LOTR about him.

Her temptation will continue to be linked to Sauron. Partly as a convenience of visual TV storytelling (harder to have her do a speech to camera about how she desires power and realms to rule in the abstract); partly to tie into what the show has already established for two seasons; and partly because the show does so love visual callbacks to the films, in which we get this Galadriel:

recognise the dress?

(second one there is the official concept art by Julian Gauthier. We had a whole year of people saying "her hand is NOT on her stomach as if she was pregnant in that scene, you foolish Haladriels!" and then this came out and who's laughing now, eh? Who's laughing now. Anyway!)

She'll play a role in the Battle of the Last Alliance. They might put her on the battlefield - Tolkien doesn't say she was there, but on the other hand Tolkien doesn't specifically say she wasn't, soooo - but I think it's more likely they will bookend that conflict with some other kind of confrontation, like a mindbattle raft vision during the fight. My bet would be they will also do something with repeated images of water/the sea/Nenya/calling back to what Peter Jackson called the 'drowned Galadriel' look and that we'll see that s1 raft again - the showrunners do love mirroring and repeating and echoing.

They will make Celeborn and their marriage interesting. I am less confident about this one because they certainly don't have to and it's always possible that they'll just parachute him in at the last moment like "yay! husband back now :) well done :) off you go back to the forest" and God only knows I've been burned before on interesting 'female characters + marriage = boring, lesser, unimportant' on TV shows. However! I have a reasonable degree of confidence, like say maybe 65%, that they will make him and their marriage interesting.

Celeborn is probably another post so short version of why is: she is still the main protagonist and him being back gives the writers the opportunity to show more of her journey, not because husband = destination but because you can learn a lot about characters in how they relate to loved ones; and they've set him up in a way that introduces conflict (where's he been, how have they both changed from the younger idealised versions of themselves they remember) that makes for good storytelling.

They will link her back to Numenor somehow for that storyline: again I'm less confident on this one and I have no clear ideas on how they'd do it, but it feels like too good an opportunity to pass up when she's already been there once.

Her storyline will have something about learning compassion and pity - which I think people do not like the sound of if (like me!) they like her angry and violent, but it is such a Tolkien-y thing and it's already been set up in what we have seen. Note: I don't mean this in a "she'll be sweet and calm and exist to pat the male characters on the head" way; I mean it in the sense we already saw in s2 with Adar. And who else did she have a really angry, inflexible, "nothing you do will ever be enough to be forgiven" line with in season 1? hmmm...

Her getting and learning how to use her Mirror will be a big thing in some upcoming season. It's such an intriguing question mark in canon - we don't really know anything about where she got it from, how it works, even how she personally uses it - but we know it's important in the future. They will definitely do something with this.

[bloody-pony]

What I say: a book-accurate adaption of Blood Meridian into film is very much possible. Due to BM's age, published in 1985, it has accumulated nearly 4 decades' worth of interpretation, discussed and analysed in academia and in the wider public sphere. One need only, for example, search for the novel on Spotify, and they’ll be met with a wealth of playlists and albums showcasing the vastly different lenses BM's readers have applied to the novel (a personal favourite of mine is Hellenica's sythensizer-spaghetti soundtrack). This goldmine of art, writing and music, not to mention McCarthy's own prose and dialogue, should make it ridiculously easy for any director to produce a halfway acceptable film that, by and large, ought to largely appease its long-awaiting fanbase.

Most detractors for a BM film cite the novel's extreme violence, but this, imo, is the easiest part to render for the silver screen. Full Metal Jacket and Apocolypse Now prove compelling showcases of the disorganised-organised chaos of war and the violence it wroughts in the hearts of its participants, with no short supply of dark humour, and even The Passion of the Christ portrays human cruelty and suffering with unflinching affect (see Acolytes of Horror's YT video). However, as is the curse of all adaptations of grand novels into grand films *gestures to Villeneuve’s Dune series*, it will never wholly meet the expectations of its hardcore readership, because novels (but especially in BM’s case) rely so heavily—by design—on the imagination of its audience. This is a work where the sun rises "out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus", and where "little devils with their pitchforks" are thought to skitter along the mouths of volcanoes, not to mention the immortal, 7ft tall, 150kg hairless albino who traipses the pulsing red horizon in search of souls to recruit for his plight of perpetual war. How, then, can a film best capture the mythopoetic haze that stains the sands of BM? It's doable, sure (see certain shots from Ken Russell's Altered States or Tarsem Singh's The Fall for the general vibe I'm trying to get at), but like with any calamitous attempt at adapting Homer's Odyssey (not including the 1968 mini series <3), how do you make a myth concrete without clipping its wings?

Like I mentioned earlier, I think the recent Dune films (another book series that, in the wake of Lynch's 1984 adaption, was likewise once considered too dense and rich for film) have opened people up more to the idea of a BM movie, or even a whole franchise (there's certainly enough material to go around, personally I'd enjoy a duology), some may make the mistake in wanting a literal, line for line, act for act, page to screen adaptation. And, yes, thanks to McCarthy's command of plot and prose, he certainly provides material, and with a few edits here and there made for time (*cough cough* James Robert Bell/the imbecile *cough cough*), it can surely be shaped into a 20-hour masterpiece—which I would definitely enjoy—but, nevertheless, a literal adaptation still runs the assured risk of losing that blood-red shroud of mysticsm which makes the world of Blood Meridian so intoxicating. A literal adaptation would reduce it to solely a Western, but, to me, it is placed better as a Thriller (my mind always goes to Harry Powell as Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter whenever I imagine the judge's speeches) or an Epic (see Aguirre, the Wrath of God) or, even better, a Horror (like Come and See). In a way, though, Blood Meridian is so vast, so fantastical, that filming it in the desert, with an endless budget to spend on fake blood and stunt horses might, strangely, prompt other failings. It's partly why I personally would rather see it not expanded but condensed, confined and made abstract, forced into sets like the kind Eiko Ishioka designed for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters or Joel Coen's stark and foggy sets on Macbeth. Music is another tricky thing. The only person I feel could do proper justice with BM's score would be Ennio Morricone (RIP), but Johnny Greenwood is a close second, then again I'm also tempted to suggest no score at all, like with No Country for Old Men. Tarrantino's playing of 'Apple Blossom' by The White Stripes during The Hateful Eight is an interesting way of evoking theme while not adhering to a film's time period, but it's only used best in small doses.

Considering half of BM's dialogue is in Spanish, though it would be marketing suicide, it would be cool if they didn't provide subtitles during the Spanish conversations in the film, keeping in line with how non-Spanish speakers likely felt when reading the book.

Of course, we haven't even touched on the subject of the kid. A big part of the novel is how McCarthy never lets us properly gauge the extent of the kid's participation in the Glanton Gang's slaughter and debauchery. He's no angel, certainly, but his heinousness is only determined by us, the reader. A film may feel compelled to flesh the kid out in ways that undo the intentions of the novel, marketing him as sympathetic or relatable in ways that threaten BM's basis of having no likeable (or even knowable) characters. He is a blank slate that shuffles from bar to brawl, apathetic but not passive and borderline suicidal. He has few defining traits other than his dark humour and his proclivity for mindless violence which he's harboured since birth. The kid is not Paul Atreides or Luke Skywalker, nor is he Holden Caulfield or Arthur Morgan, and if he ever met any of them, he'd either tell them to fuck off or shoot them, or both. He's hardly blockbuster material.

Of course, I'd still love to see the kid portrayed on film. Casting and marketing is another area worth considering for Blood Meridian, as I am of the opinion there should be few, if any known actors cast to play the Glanton Gang. The kid, especially, should be played by a Tennessean random, to keep in line with his anonymity as a character. Glenn Fleshler would absolutely kill it as Judge Holden, going off his performance in season 1 of True Detective. I don't know why, but I always envisioned Tobin as Andy Serkis, but he's probably still far too young for the role. Whoever they'd cast, I don't want to see a single set of veneers or drop of botox. Role them in dirt if you have to, I don't care. I don't want a single member of the Glanton Gang to look like they know what Ozempic is, and cast as many Native American actors and Mexican actors as possible.

Given BM's violence and characters, I worry for the kind of audience it'll attract, media literacy being what it is these days (*gestures at the hundreds of Judge Holden edits all wildly missing the point of his "Before man was, war waited for him" speech*). With the marketing, I take issue with casts of serious films and shows doing dumb promotional content, like those Buzzfeed puppy interviews. Considering the tough subject matter of Blood Meridian, I don't see why they'd need to do anything more involved than simple, respectful interviews and panels.

In the end, Blood Meridian can obviously be made into a film and it looks like we're finally getting one, whether we like it or not. But just because you can doesn't mean you always should, and though I can't say I won't be the first in line to watch, I also can't promise it won't be without obscenely high expectations. Every director is different, and though John Hillcoat's track record with McCarthy adaptations hasn't proved all that inspiring, I am nevertheless pleased to be seeing another person's interpretation of a novel that has captured by every waking moment ever since I read it over a year ago.

What I want to say: Blood Meridian should be a ballet/dance with little to no plot à la Ravel's Boléro or Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (and mayyybe Akram Khan’s Giselle)

[duhragonball]

End of Evangelion: 25'

Yeah... that's...

"You don't understand!" is pretty much Neon Genesis Evangelion in a nutshell.

Or "You do (not) understand! (true²) Director's Cut" is how the franchise would put it.

Let's just get on with this.

I watched End of Evangelion last night. Well, early A.M. I took a nap and woke up at midnight and it seemed like the right time to watch a thing like this.

I did not enjoy the movie. I'll explain this, of course, but I wanted to get that out of the way up front. There are positives, sure, but I went into this thing hoping for a more satisfying conclusion than what was presented in the TV show, and I didn't get it. Both endings suck. There you go.

Let me back up a bit. So the TV series ran from 1995 to 1996. The final episodes, 25 and 26, were controversial because they were expected to wrap up the whole story, but instead they went in a bizarrely abstract direction. Both of those episodes apparently take place inside Shinji Ikari's mind as he struggles to accept being part of a collective gestalt of every human mind on Earth. This is the result of the "Human Instrumentality Project" a concept mentioned in Episodes 1 -24, but never adequately explained. The final episodes just skip past the part where Human Instrumentality was achieved and shows the result, without bothering to discuss the background or the cause, or the long-term ramifications.

From what I gather, the main reason Episodes 25 and 26 were Like That was because the studio was short on time and money, so a more satisfying conclusion was not practical. But since the series turned out to be so successful, they were able to take another crack at it with End of Evangelion. The film is very clear about its purpose as an "alternative" to Episodes 25 and 26. It's divided into two sections, numbered 25' and 26'.

I'm not sure the viewer is expected to pick one over the other. The original 25&26 take place in Shinji's mind when Human Instrumentality happens. 25' and 26' take place in the outside world, showing the events leading to Human Instrumentality and the aftermath. There may be some continuity issues to iron out, but a fan could easily accept both endings as canon.

That's not my problem here. The problem is not that there are multiple endings, or that the endings are too "abstract", or that the endings aren't "happy". Fundamentally, my gripe is that the endings are confusing. Perhaps it might be said that the endings are pathologically confusing.

I think this is one of those Big, Emotionally Raw Works, where you can't really discuss it without revealing something about yourself in the process. So let's do that. End of Evangelion makes me feel stupid. There's parts of the movie where I'm just completely confused and I have no idea what is happening or why. It feels less like entertainment and more like I'm about to take a test I didn't study for.

Except I did study, because I've literally been taking notes on this thing for the past three weeks. I was looking forward to this, and last night I'm near the end of the movie wondering what the hell I'm going to write here, because I don't understand what the hell happened in the movie.

So I poked around a fan wiki for a bit, trying to get a handle on some of the major concepts, and as I read the articles, I realized that a lot of this information just stone cold never made it into the TV show or the movie. There was one thing I looked up that had to reference a Playstation 2 game that released six years after the movie premiered.

It's not that I'm too stupid to understand Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's that the franchise appears deliberately designed to hide information from the viewer. You're just supposed to roll with it, I guess. Or spend days researching all this side material. Read the manga, read the wiki, read fan commentaries. I hate this. I hate this so much.

So maybe I'm not stupid. Maybe the anime was just badly designed. That would be comforting, except I still feel stupid for investing so much time into trying to understand this thing that seems purposely rigged to defy understanding. It's not just the ending. That's what everyone talks about, but the ending is just a symptom of a bigger problem. The beginning is really slow. Then the middle starts to get weird, and there's a lot of mysteries and subplots and lore that gets set up with the implied promise that "we'll explain later". And the ending(s) drop that ball. The surgery was a success, but the patient died.

I feel stupid because I got a reply to one of my liveblog posts, I think Episode 12, in response to some comment I made about all the characters having the same backstory. Ritsuko has a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist mother. Misato has a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist father. Shinji has a complicated relationship with his workaholic scientist father. Is that a theme or did they only have one idea? My point is that eventually it stops being clever and starts being redundant. Later, we learn that Asuka has... a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist mother.

"What, are you stupid?" asked the reply guy to my wry observation. They deleted it a few minutes after I saw it, so maybe they felt some remorse over the comment. Normally, I let these things slide. I might respond if I get legitimately hot about it. But this one got to me. "Am I stupid?" I asked myself last week. I seem to be complaining a lot about this show, but it's supposed to be a classic. Am I not giving it a chance? Am I missing something here? Am I just not smart enough to appreciate this thing? Am I just not trying hard enough?

If you're reading this, Reply Guy, please know that I didn't take it personally. I'm not upset with you at all, but I am trying to be honest with myself about this. This Neon Genesis Evangelion business has been frustrating me all month long. Now I'm at the end and it all feels very hollow, like I wasted my time.

I think that's my philosophy on life. I try to seek out new things to explore, usually stories, and sometimes they don't work out the way I wanted them to, and that's okay, because it's the journey that counts. Shinji Ikari keeps shutting down throughout his story, asking why he should bother doing anything, because he's too terrified of the possible outcomes of his actions. My thing is that bad stuff happens all the time no matter what, and you just sort of have to recover and move forward, because that's the only way to see what happens next. So I'm not sure if I can relate to Shinji or not.

Anyway, let's talk about Shinji masturbating in a hospital room over Asuka's comatose body.

I had heard about this scene, but I didn't realize how long and pathetic it is. Asuka had a nervous breakdown in Episode 23. This movie has to follow up on that, becuase Episodes 24, 25, and 26 each refused to pick up on her character arc.

Meanwhile, Shinji is wracked with guilt and dread over his battle with the 17th Angel in Episode 24. He had to kill Kaworu, but in spite of Kaworu's betrayal, he was still a friend to Shinji when he needed it the most, and he was such a good sport about getting killed, you know?

So this movie has to get us back to that moment, when Shinji and Asuka are at their lowest ebb, and I guess they decided that Shinji should go see her in the hospital because he's desperate to talk to someone about what's he's been going through. But Asuka's unresponsive, so he starts shaking her like he's trying to wake her up. Instead she just rolls over, which somehow exposes her half-naked body, and Shinji is so overcome with lust that he rubs one out right there and then. Doesn't even get a Kleenex, doesn't find a place to sit, he just whips it out and goes to town right in front of her.

I guess this is supposed to be a joke, but it doesn't land. It's not even a matter of the joke not aging well. Yeah, this is a 27 year old movie, but Shinji admits this is terrible behavior almost immediately. The "joke" didn't age at all. It was stillborn. This is like when you go to a graveyard and you see one of the tiny graves and the dates are from the same year. That's how funny this is.

The most charitable reading I can give this scene is that it represents the hypocrisy of Shinji's whole deal. He constantly insists that he can only do as he's told, because he's afraid of people not liking him if he makes a mistake or thinks for himself. But here he's doing some pretty disgraceful shit, and I sure as fuck didn't tell him to do this. did you? Did anyone? Of course not. He goes limp for most of the rest of the movie, but not here. Nossir. Seems pretty sure of himself in the minute or so it took him to finish his business.

The other aspect of Shinji on display here is that his ideal social interactions are one-sided. He's most comfortable with people when they can't see what he's doing, when they can't touch him back. That's why he wished for isolation in Episode 25. Here, with Asuka unresponsive, he's basically got the same thing.

I suppose the flip side of this is when Asuka kissed Shinji in the TV series. Her hangups are kind of the opposite of his, where she wants to be in charge of everything and everyone constantly showers her with praise for her achievements. She wants to kiss Shinji but she can't be vulnerable enough to admit that, so she orders him to just stand there and be kissed because she wants to "pass the time". And she makes him hold his nose shut because she doesn't want to be breathed on while she does it. I mean, they both have intimacy issues, but at least Shinji had a chance to consent to her weirdness.

In the NERV base, the crew wonder why they're still on alert status, since the last Angel was defeated. There should be no more threats, and it kind of makes sense for NERV to be disbanded. The only business left is the Human Instrumentality Project, and none of these ham-and-eggers know what that is.

But Misato has some information about it, which she mulls over while she's in her car. I guess? Let me explain this in more detail, because the movie never totally gets into the "why" of it all.

Okay, so the SEELE group has access to something called the "Dead Sea Scrolls". According to the NGE wiki, SEELE got it from the two angels that came to Earth, Adam and Lilith, in the distant past. SEELE has used the information contained in the scrolls to establish themselves as the secret rulers of the whole world. And they founded NERV, and its predecessor organizations, to study the Angels and figure out how to preserve the human race.

They talk a lot about Second Impact on this show, but they never explain exactly what caused it. Second Impact was not a meteorite strike or a rampaging angel who self-destructed, or even a lab accident. It was caused deliberately by SEELE, as part of an effort to contain Adam, who lay dormant in Antarctica.

If I understand correctly, this was necessary because at some point, Second Impact would occur anyway, and then Adam's children, the fifteen Angels we saw in the TV series, would come looking for Adam's body and unite with it, triggering a Third Impact that would definitely wipe out humanity. This is all supposedly explained in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So SEELE's play was to trigger Second Impact deliberately, so that they could confront the Angels on their own terms. This gave NERV time to develop the Evas to fight the Angels, and to shrink Adam down to a more manageable size so he'd be harder to find.

Once the Angels were all defeated, SEELE could then trigger Third Impact. See, the TV series made it seem like the objective was to prevent Third Impact, but that was never possible. Third Impact is inevitable, I guess, so the only way to ensure humanity's survival is to evolve humans into something that can withstand the disaster. Thus, the Human Instrumentality Project, which will combine all human minds into some sort of disembodied superorganism at the moment of Third Impact.

However, throughout the TV series, SEELE has butted heads with the NERV Director, Gendo Ikari, about how this plan is to be implemented. Gendo wants to transform humanity into something new. But SEELE seems to want to retain their human nature and just use the plan as a lifeboat until the disaster has passed. At least, I think that's the disagreement here. Like I said, I had to learn about SEELE's agenda from the description of the PS2 game. It's not exactly a shock that the cabal of worldly oligarchs should want to save themselves and hold onto their wealth and power at the same time.

Gendo, on the other hand, seems mostly fixated on reuniting with his wife, Yui Ikari, who apparently died in 2004 during an experiment with Eva Unit 01. In the TV series, it was heavily implied that Yui lives on inside of Unit 01. Since Gendo's version of Human Instrumentality involves drawing up human minds into a noncorporeal union, I guess he figures that this will include Yui's mind, even if she has no body. It's unclear in this movie if Gendo actually intends to include anyone but himself and Yui in this merger, but in Episodes 25 and 26 of the TV show, Human Instrumentality is presented like it's all humans, even dead ones, and Gendo Ikari talked about it like that's what his version of Third Impact was supposed to be.

I suppose the only thing keeping Gendo and SEELE from turning on each other was the Angel threat, but now that this is over, SEELE attacks. First they try to hack NERV's supercomputers, but this is foiled when they recruit the aid of...

...Ritsuko Akagai, who betrayed NERV in Episode 23 when she destroyed all the Rei clones they had in storage. But she's the only one smart enough with computers to block the hack, so she crawls back inside one of them and uses her dead mother's notes to build a more robust firewall or something. I think she j-pegged a RAM or something, I don't know.

Ritsuko wonders why she's even bothering, since she already turned on Gendo. They had been banging on the down-low, but she got fed up with him when she realized he loved his dead wife more than Ritsuko or her mother, who also used to bang Gendo on the down-low.

With that cyberattack fended off, NERV now has to brace for an actual attack. Admiral Clownshoes notes the irony of NERV defeating all those Angels, only for their final opponent to be the humans they were trying to save.

Tactically, the entire battle is a formality. SEELE runs the whole world, and they can send wave after wave of soldiers into the NERV facility, which is already badly weakened after months of Angel attacks and budget cuts. NERV's defenses were designed for dealing with Angels, and their greatest weapons were the Evas, except Unit-00 was destroyed in Episode 22, and Unit-02's pilot has lost the ability to sync. Nonetheless, Misato wants the pilot kids secured, since she knows SEELE's goons will try to take them out first. She orders Shinji to deploy in Unit-01, and even though Asuka's in no condition to fight, she has her put in Unit-02 and then sent to the bottom of the lake. It's not much of a hiding place, but at least she'll be safer there than inside the base.

Where's Rei? Well, no one can find her, but she's gone down to the room where they keep Lilith and she's soaking in that orange goop they have down there.

Perhaps anticipating this, Gendo excuses himself and orders Clownshoes to take over the defense of the base. Clownshoes seems to know what he's up to, and sends his regards to Gendo's dead wife.

At this point, it's basically a race to see who can trigger their version of Third Impact first. SEELE wanted to use the Lance of Longinus and Lilith somehow, but since the Lance is in space now, they now plan to use Unit-01, the only Eva created from Lilith. That's what makes it special, apparently. Units 00 and 02 were made from Adam, I guess?

Anyway, Gendo plans to do it by combining Adam and Lillith together. He's got Adam's body within his own, and he wants to join with Rei, who contains some essence of Lillith. This was Rei's main purpose all along, I think.

Meanwhile, Misato leaves her post to find Shinji, who was sulking in some corner instead of reporting to his Eva like she ordered. She saves him from some goons, but they're cut off from Unit-01, so she has to find a way to get him where he needs to go. She also has to convince him to cooperate, since Shinji's completely gone to mush in the midst of this new crisis.

As she drives him to where they need to go, she explains (most of) the necessary backstory to him. Second Impact was triggered deliberately to buy time for Human Instrumentality, and humans are descended from Lilith, just as the Angels came from Adam. So in that sence, the human species is collectively the 18th Angel, just another candidate to inherit the future of Earth. Humans, like any of the fifteen Angels spawned from Adam, have the opportunity to trigger Third Impact and secure their place as the dominant life form of Earth, but we had to beat all the Angels first to do it, and then find a way to survive Third Impact when it finally happened.

And while Gendo plans to do with with Adam and Lilith, SEELE wants to use the Eva series, somehow, so it's vital that Shinji use Unit-01 to destroy all the other Evas.

Speaking of destroying Evas, Asuka finally wakes up in Unit-02, which is currently getting battered with depth charges. She still can't control the Eva, and she just keeps whimpering that she doesn't want to die. Eventually, she hears her dead mother promising to protect Asuka, and she realizes the truth: that Asuka's mother, Kyoko Zeppelin, was absorbed into Unit-02, much the same way Shinji's mom was absorbed into Unit-01.

Now, at long last, Asuka can operate her Eva again, and she goes apeshit on the SEELE troops. They sever her power cable, but she doesn't care, boasting that five minutes is plenty of time to take out these creeps. This is honestly the best part of the movie, because they had reduced Asuka to a pitiful shell for so long, and now she's finally taking charge and whoopin' ass.

It won't last.

With the conventional forces beaten, SEELE sends in nine Eva Units of their own. These are units 05 through 13, but they all look the same, and I'm not even sure they have pilots. It's a pretty cool design for a "bad guy" Eva, but they don't figure into the plot very much. They're here to destroy Asuka and Unit-02, and Asuka has to destroy them to stop SEELE.

Meanwhile, Misato has almost gotten Shinji to the Unit-01 launch bay, but she got shot, so she tells Shinji he's on his own from here. Shinji continues to resist taking any responsibility here. He says he's not worthy to pilot the Eva because he hurts people. He killed Kaworu, and he "did something terrible to Asuka". So at least the movie recognizes that. I guess it was included just to show the audience that Shinji isn't exaggerating when he doubts himself like this.

Misato refuses to indulge his self-pity, and she doesn't care how much he cries or tries to use his past actions to disqualify himself. She tells him she's made plenty of her own mistakes, but she still learned something about herself anyway. Hey, I guess Misato kind of gets what I was saying earlier. I guess this makes her my favorite character?

Well, yeah, but I don't like how she gives him a long kiss goodbye, then promises they'll "do the rest" when he gets back. I mean, she dies immediately after he leaves, so I think she was just feeding him empty gestures to motivate him while she still could, but... that's kind of fucked up.

Meanwhile, Gendo and Rei reach the room where Lillith is to begin their attempt at Third Impact, but they find Ritsuko waiting for them. She pulls a gun on Gendo and tells him that she sabotaged the supercomputer while she was reprogramming it to stop SEELE's hackers. Except... when she tries to execute her plan, the computer doesn't do it. This is because it's been imprinted with the mind of its original creator, Ritsuko's mother, and apparently mom still carries a torch for Gendo, even after Gendo screwed both Akagis over. Gendo then pulls a gun on Ritsuko, and says "I truly..." but the sound cuts out as he says the rest of it, so we don't know what he wanted to tell her.

In any case, she calls him a liar after she hears it, so either he told her he loved her and she didn't buy it, or he said something really cruel and she knew he didn't mean it. Either way, Gendo shoots, her which normally would suggest his true feelings, except I think this Human Instrumentality business works on dead people too, so life and death kind of becomes meaningless in this movie. We see a ghostly apparition of Rei as Ritsuko falls into the LCL fluid. We also saw ghost Rei when Misato died, so this seems to be a thing now.

Meanwhile, Shinji makes it to Unit 01, but it's immersed in Bakelite, which Misato had ordered dispersed through the base to impede the invading goons. I'm not sure how it got here, though, unless the bad guys used Misato's own trick to secure Unit-01. So it looks like Shinji can't get in the robot, even though it's not a robot, and he doesn't even have to be inside the stupid thing to control it. He literally proved that on his first day on the job. Yo, Shinji, get in the robot, your mom loves you.

Meanwhile, Asuka seems to be doing just fine killing the bad guy Evas without Shinji, but just as she finishes the last of them off, the Lance of Longinus suddenly flies back to Earth and improbably stabs Unit 02 through the face. Uh... how? Why? What the fuck?

Also, all the Evas Asuka defeated suddenly reactivate. With her battery drained, Asuka is helpless to stop them as they crack open Unit-02 and eat it. I'm pretty sure Asuka herself is killed during this, but we don't see a body.

I guess this was the catalyst to get Unit 01 off its duff, as it finally breaks out of the Bakelite and grabs Shinji like it's gonna put him in. Unit 01 busts out to join the battle, and it's thig big impressive spectacle. It even has angel wings now.

But it doesn't actually do anything. Shinji just gets a look at what's left of Unit-02's mangled corpse and screams.

And that's the cliffhanger for 25'. There's a credits sequence, then a dedication note from the director, and then the second half starts as Episode 26'. So this is a good place to take a break.

If you're curious, the part where Eva 05-13 show up to confront Asuka is about where things ended in "Evangelion: Rebirth". But 25' is about twenty minutes longer than that, so I'm not sure what the significance of that cutoff point was supposed to be. I guess it works as a cliffhanger, but it's kind of dumb to have Asuka finally wake up and kick ass, only to get utterly destroyed a few minutes later. Then Shinji shows up to set up the real cliffhanger.

To be fair, this half of the movie is better than the second half. Mostly, it benefits from the parts where they actually show the characters recovering from Episode 24 and beginning to move to the next phase of the story. This was what the TV show failed to do with its Episode 25. Now, we get to see the SEELE vs. NERV battle that was only implied before, and we get to see how Human Instrumentality is arranged.

We also see why it needs to be done. In the original ending, it seemed completely arbitrary, like Gendo Ikari just decided this was a cool thing to try and he just did it to the whole world without asking anyone's permission. Here, it becomes clear that if Gendo doesn't pull the trigger, SEELE will, and it's just a race to see who can get their vision accomplished first.

And we actually get to see the other characters in this version. Asuka wakes up and gets her groove back, Rei's part in the drama is revealed, and Ritsuko and Misato get shot. Seeing this stuff makes me even more irritated that the TV series just jumped right past it all.

Still, this half of the movie has problems. For one thing, a lot of runtime is spent just showing troops slaughtering NERV personnel, and showing Misato leading Shinji to his Eva. Also, there's a healthy dose of Gendo and Rei just staring pensively at Lilith without actually doing anything. A lot of the footage doesn't actually progress the plot, and only Misato and Shinji's scenes are useful for providing exposition. Gendo and SEELE's words are too cryptic to be of much use.

The main point of this installment was to reinforce things we already knew: Rei's important to all of this somehow, Shinji is a sad sack, and Asuka is helpless. And maybe it needed to be reinforced in July 1997, more than a year after the TV show ended, but I don't think it needed to be hammered home this much.

And like I said from the start, this whole thing relies on a lot of ridiculous stuff that I feel like I should have been told about in the TV series. How did the Lance of Longinus come back? SEELE couldn't have arranged this, since they were the ones who were so upset about losing it in the first place. Why are there two methods to trigger Third Impact? How did Asuka's mother get sucked into the Eva and yet she remained in human form long enough to go insane and hang herself? Why did the bad guy Evas suddenly recover from their injuries when it was convenient for the plot?

Perhaps most critically: Why are they just treating Third Impact and Human Instrumentality like the same thing? Like if you do one, then the other one just automatically happens? Is that how it works? Then why were they so worried about the progress on that project? It could be done at will, right?

Oh, and how did SEELE figure out how to do all this stuff? They have their own fleet of Evas, which seem to work better than NERV's. They made their own Angel in the form of Kaworu. They seem to know how to make Third Impact happen, without Gendo's help. And however they got this far, they seemed to pull it off without anyone from NERV knowing about it. So why did SEELE even need NERV in the first place? As it currently stands, the only reason Gendo's ahead of them is because he's physically closer to what he needs to work with. SEELE could have nuked the base from orbit and hauled Eva Unit 01 from the wreckage.

Again, the whole movie just makes me feel like I missed an episode, except I didn't. I watched the whole thing, which leads me to assume that the next chapter will clarify everything, except it doesn't, as we'll see next time. See you there.

[marvelstars]

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon

"Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan disagree about using what one would call in mythological terms "the guide" . One believes in the guide, the other one doesn´t . When you are walking down the street and the are beggars on the street , one character takes the beggar along and the other one says "Why are you doing this, this is not a wise thing to do" The other one says "Yes but beggars can be useful to us" It´s a classic mythological motif but at the same time it´s conflict.

The characters have to grow so what happens is that eventually the character who is agaisn´t doing this has the obligation trasnferred to them.

In this case we have Qui-Gon, the mentor who takes on Anakin and the Padawan who thinks this is a bad idea so we have got a dynamic between these two Jedi, at the end of the film Obi-Wan takes on the obligation to train Anakin, one he can´t really fulfill because it´s over his head. His inability to train this kid properly turns Anakin into Darth Vader and drives the rest of the stories. Not only does he lets his mentor down but it plays into the collapse of the Republic. This is why he feels the obligation to try to rectify the situation with Luke.

George Lucas on Qui- Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi in STAR WARS ARCHIVES, the making of the phantom menace.

Obi-Wan truly wasn´t meant to be Anakin´s master not because Qui-Gon was a lot better but because he simply didn´t have the empathy to understand the kids needs at the age he started training him, he also thought he could train Anakin as well as other Jedi like Yoda but he was wrong because his perspective was wrong from the beggining.

He saw Anakin as a burden at first, then as someone dangerous because the Jedi Council believed him to be dangerous and later as an obligation but he didn´t see the value in Anakin as himself, separated from the chosen one prophecy or Qui-Gon´s promise so he could not train him as a master would to help him guide him towards a good development and this is the origin of Obi-Wan´s guilt towards Anakin´s fall to the darkside and later why he tries to correct this by sending Luke to train with Yoda so he would be able to kill his father.

I wish fandom could understand this part of Obi-Wan´s character because it´s an essential part of the story, ObiWan isn´t a bad jedi in fact he is one of the best but being good in something doesn´t mean you can be good teaching it which was the case with Obi-Wan.

In Anakin´s case he had a really strong foundation towards goodness from his mother but once he went to the Jedi Council and was rejected, he needed someone who could care for him in a way he understood this wasn´t the end of the world and that his value as a person wasn´t compromised for this rejection and the choice was his on how he would grow up like Shmi and Qui-Gon did but Obi-Wan could not be this for him because his faith in the jedi order is first and he would always take the council side over Anakin, be it when he was 9 or in later years, we also see him doing this with Ahsoka in the clone wars and imo this was why their relationship, while did grow and change and had real love, was going to end badly even without Palpatine´s grooming. Without Palpatine I see them growing distant unless they confronted the origin of their problems.

In short I believe Obi-Wan is someone who believes in the need of the many overcome the needs of the few while Qui-Gon/Shmi/Anakin when he trained Ahsoka are like: Attending, caring for the needs of the one can help us sustain the needs of the many, because if we just support the needs of the abstract many over the few real individuals we meet, we are going to end failing everybody.

[juni-ravenhall]

whats ur non mainstream film taste then? genuinly curious to hear. as someone whos ended up in some weird ass corners of the film world like Neil breen Zachary Oberzan 0 budget stuff i love hearing what kind of weird indie corners other people have gotten into :3

i will talk a lot below that prob wont be interesting anyway, but i have to say first that i mostly stopped watching movies and now i mostly watch things @yasminewestbank chooses (not all the time but mostly) bc shes a movie nerd, so she picks movies that are usually either genuinely good or at least watchable, and if it was just me alone id prob not be bothering to watch those anyway, bc even a great movie just doesnt give me that much. i suffer from pretty severe apathy :( so if u want someone who hypes up genuinely good movies rather than me who is like "this is genuinely good but im still apathetic and dont really care" then yasmin is better to talk to. (im also generally more of a nonfiction type when it comes to video content, i could hype up Tasting History on youtube most days of the week but i struggle to hype up any movie at all. oh, and animated shorts, there are always some interesting student films and stuff.) the rest ⬇

my taste is usually "its [symbolic or not] critical commentary on something i care about" (feminism and misogyny, classism, bigotry, racism, the queer experience, abuse, trauma, violence, human self development, etc etc) or "its portraying human experiences [internal and external] in an interesting or just realistic way", like. realistic but in a highly specific meaning of realistic. i dont care about realism as a concept itself in art (realistic visuals or realistic setting or realistic costume etc i rly do not care about), what i mean is just about capturing a real essence of human brains and experiences, not copypasting stereotypical ideas without meaning. i can also enjoy some more abstract like david lynch bc its expressing human feelings and experiences in an appealing way. im really big on symbolic stuff and will just keep talking about what different parts of the movie meant or represented after i watch something w yasmin.

(edit to add... i should prob note that many of the movies i mention have adult content and heavy topics depending on who you ask? but i assume ppl who read this would already know to check ratings and warnings)

on the criticising / teaching side of meaningful, it would be for example, Poor Things [2023].... on the realistic / documenting side, for example Burning [2018] or Naked [1993], and i liked ryuusuke hamaguchi's movies Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and Drive My Car (tho that one has a really badly written scene in it by the end that i hated) for the characters too. i dont know if those are the best examples its more just off the top of my head. theres also mainstream movies that fit my criteria, so for that criticising / teaching side, there's for example Pleasantville [1998], and Pretty Woman, which yasmin told me ppl tend to hate, but if thats the case i think ppl really didnt understand what it was about (it showed so much about misogyny and class issues, coated in such a way that you could get average boomers to watch it as a "romantic" movie without being aware of the actual meaning of what youre going into, the same way pleasantville can be watched as a goofy gimmick movie without being aware of the meaning youre going into, tho pleasantville is heavyhanded by the end, and i guess pretty woman manages to still fly over ppls heads? but not too surprising considering all those mainstream things now will literally just explain every joke and every meaning.... its like all of media is mickey mouse clubhouse, you know?)

i more or less prefer to watch an animated short or a weird animation on youtube/social media than watching a good live action movie. some animated shorts i really liked recently are Au Revoir Jerome, GLOIRE AMERE 40000, and BOLAVLK/WEREAWOLF, and vewn stuff. and i like those Molly Moon game tiktoks, as an example of like, low production stuff…. i dont care at all how much money or time went into something, but bc im usually not actively seeking fiction video content on my own, its more about what falls into my lap by chance, or yasmin/someone shows me.

i thought of listing more movies but its kinda hard for me to remember them after a while (re: apathy). i remember i liked another one from the Poor Things guy called The Favourite but i barely remember what happens in it. I liked one called This Must Be The Place, and one called Annette. those are movies yasmin showed me or that she picked for us to try together.

oh, one movie i saw on my own that i liked a lot is And Then We Danced. it has some less good parts, but overall it for some reason really lives rent free in my head. it felt like i went and lived in georgia with the characters for an hour, idk, it was done in an immersive way that impressed me and i found appealing. another one i remember from years ago is Lille Soldat (little soldier) which i really enjoyed the main character in. that stuck with me. ive tried to find this movie to show to yasmin, but its been hard to find.

i used to watch lots of random movies (from different countries, different times in history, i had a phase where i watched a bunch of really old horror movies) but most of its been forgotten and then i just stopped watching movies whatsoever bc the mainstream ones are generally unwatchably bad and i didnt have motivation to go out of my way to find good movies anymore. its still hard even with good ones. like, The Square, and Triangle of Sadness, i watched with yasmin and it was fine, but i had already tried watching The Square alone and had to stop after a minute bc it just made me cringe and feel bored. but watching it together with her was fine and i did enjoy the meaning. so thats why i say i might not even be watching good movies if it was up to me alone....

if u werent interested in that ramble i hope u stopped reading before now for ur own good :D i have an opportunity to express myself in rambles -> i will express myself in rambles

[denimbex1986]

'An oft-quoted piece of advice for writers is to write what you know. What does a lonely person know except loneliness? All of Us Strangers opens on Adam (Andrew Scott), amber flesh reflected against an empty London. He lives in a polite new build, with sharp edges, rich coloured furniture and a humourless reception. Adam’s friends have largely moved out of London to raise kids and be close to their families, while he has neither. Orphaned at twelve, he finds himself alone, eating biscuits and attempting to write a script.

Andrew Haigh adapts Taichi Yamada’s 1997 novel Strangers dispensing with the viciousness of the book’s ghosts to distil a much more primal idea: how impossible it feels to solve loneliness. In her book The Lonely City, Olivia Laing writes that there is a “particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of other people”. She is writing about New York, a city she moved to for a man who quickly abandoned their relationship. Adam’s lonely city is London, cold and abstract. His building is empty, or at least it feels empty. David Foster Wallace’s short story The Depressed Person opens asserting that “the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain”. The shapelessness of loneliness is addressed by Laing too. She writes about it as a “state of lack”, a state of being defined by a sharp absence, something “difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise.” What to do then, except to stay quiet.

I bring up Wallace’s story because it gets to its vicious point very quickly: the cyclical, self-cannibalising experience of being depressed. It’s easier, it seems, to write about feeling something. Much harder to write about, let alone visualise, the experience of a void, which All of Us Strangers does elegantly, holding loneliness in its colours, heartless cityscapes and the faces of its protagonists. And reflections, everywhere, as reminders of its protagonist’s aloneness.

When visiting his parents’ old house on a whim, or perhaps to seek writerly inspiration, Adam finds them alive. Memory and reality collapse into one another when he meets his mother (Claire Foy) and father (Jamie Bell), aged and dressed and sounding the same as they did the year they died, preserved, as they were when Adam was a kid, and made flesh once more. Back in their house, in his childhood home, the illusion of fullness is so seductive for a lonely person. All of Us Strangers doesn’t care much for supernatural explanations, and is all the better for it. Memories are their own ghosts.

No amount of therapy will be able to solve the insurmountable divide between parent and child, neither able to accept the other as a creature independent of oneself. All of Strangers’ most fanciful conceit is the possibility of a conversation of equals between parent and child: painful and true, sometimes full of mutual disappointment. The film, at its most poignant, imagines this conversation as a conduit for the closing of a wound that’s long scarred over. When Adam speaks to his parents, there is a tepid resentment that vibrates just under the surface of Andrew Scott’s performance. How sad and how lovely things can be in the same instant.

Until this encounter, Adam kept his memories in a small box, a litter of photos of the parents never saw him grow up. The structures we are told are antithetical to a lonely life – family, romance, friendship – seemed out of reach. When Harry (Paul Mescal) knocks at his door, boozy and lusty-eyed, it’s no surprise Adam is terrified. In this first meeting in the doorway, they both seem mildly feral, their words scratchy like they haven’t spoken to anyone in months. How to describe an absence? What is its texture? From a lonely perspective, everyone else’s life is full and vibrant and pain-free. Loneliness always feels exclusive to the lonely. While Adam is not depressed, he is resigned. “How do you cope?” Harry asks him, and he doesn’t give an answer because there is none. Adam and Harry, each in their own apartment, which might as well be different planets, incapable of articulating the shape of their lack. Not at first. The only choice available, it seems, is to remain alone, lacking.

When you find yourself lacking, you try to fill that obsessive emptiness inside. Maybe booze, drugs, sex, or work. People, too. When Harry shows up clutching a bottle of Japanese whisky, the stink of desolation is felt through the screen. He is made up of rough edges, a sketch of a character who would be inaccessible and cold if played by someone other than Mescal, who is able to map terrible pathos onto Harry’s jittery, needy movements. Harry, though younger than Adam, is weighed by a similar shame, that of not mattering. Neither of them blame anyone in particular for their feelings of un-belonging. Crushingly, they just accept it. In a Q&A, Paul Mescal described his character as having “a great capacity for love with a great tolerance for his own pain.” Harry is a deeply lonely creature who has become used to dismissing his own importance. One single detail in the film sends me over the edge: Harry’s hand, placed on his own side, hugging himself.

Loneliness sticks to your skin. But one person’s loneliness does not, necessarily, solve another’s. After Adam eventually does let Harry in, literally, into his house, and figuratively, into his life. When they kiss, Adam forgets how to breathe. He needs coaching back into touch, which Harry provides with careful tenderness. Harry’s presence becomes a gateway out of the lack for Adam: his insistence on being present, on talking to and touching him, on asking questions. There are less reflections. Less abstracted, lonely cities. He slowly guides Adam back into feeling things - touch, desire, fun - even when he could not do that for himself.

Laing writes that loneliness creates a “self-protective amnesia”. That, once no longer lonely, the lonely person won’t be able to remember (or empathise with) loneliness. At the end of All of Us Strangers, Adam is still alone, just like at the start, but he will remember Harry - and he will remember the shape of loneliness.'

[steampunkforever]

In the video game world there's an argument that looks at Indie productions that push the limits of the medium through text based or walking sim mechanics and goes something like "this isn't a game this is a book" or "this is more of a theme park ride than an actual game" while still acknowledging the ambition/quality of said production. Obviously there will be people on one side or the other, but I like the fact that there can exist a solid consensus that says "this really isn't a good game if you're setting out to play one, but has merit outside this that should be acknowledged anyway. Applying this idea to film, we get Skinamarink.

Analog horror itself is an oddity. It's a horror genre stemming from millennial and gen z nostalgia for when things used to be shot on VHS mixed with a culture of SCP adjacent horror games, reddit creepypasta threads, slenderman youtube videos, and the early 2000s found footage boom. Though I think it's definitely an interesting offshoot of horror and currently underground enough to feel fresh, Analog horror largely lacks the tenets of a good scare, and the fact that most of it stems from the youtube content mill doesn't help the genre's quality either. That said, there is potential for some good horror cinema there. It just isn't Skinamarink.

Which isn't to say Skinamarink isn't a good film, it's just not a *good film*. I think it's very artistic in its experimentation and deserves its flowers, but it struck me more as a horror audioplay with supplemental imagery than a film. Read: most of this film is shots of odd angles of the directors childhood home with occasional shots of people legs or the back of peoples heads. You get a grainy jumpscare every now and then too, but the entirety of the film happens offscreen, and what partial shots we get are obscured by the dark and overly grainy film overlays to the point of being unintelligible in ways that cant more toward eyestrain than lovecraftian fear of the unknown.

This sounds like I'm hating on Skinamarink, but I'm really not. This is a no budget experimental horror feature and I respect it for that. But experiments sometimes fail, and I think it's important to note that. Just like how the Exorcist is two hours of nothing followed by the best 30 minute short film you've ever seen in your life, Skinamarink really only started working for me at about 3/4th through the film. Some of this is due to the experimental nature of the film, but I've seen my share of experimental films that are more cohesive and artful about it too.

Part of this comes from the movie's insistence on telling a cohesive story rather than leaning into the abstract, leaving you attempting to make sense of things in less of a "fun puzzle" way and more of a "lost an allenhead screw integral to the construction of this ikea couch" way (I eventually broke down and pulled up the wikipedia page for a plot summary just to figure out what was happening offscreen). Which is to say this film lives in the limbo between the conventional and the ambiguous, too focused on a tangible story to fully dive into the fully experimental vibe and leave the concrete behind.

Skinamarink is a film you may like if you appreciate those movies that are just one-takes of a guy taking phone calls in his car inasmuch as neither sort of film really uses the medium to its greatest extent, but are interesting for how they play with the restrictions, even if the execution doesn't 100% land.

While Skinamarink isn't necessarily scary (though unsettling in some sections) many conventional horror films aren't either, and those don't even try anything different. That said, this film still isn't a modern Blair Witch by any means.

[haveyoureadthistoo]

Unpopular opinions

If you're human and living on this planet, you have certainly at least once got into a heated debate with somebody over something that was entirely up to taste. When it comes to culture, especially books, other aspects such as high expectations, political views and personal life experiences can also play a part, to the point where it's sometimes difficult to figure out why you didn't like that novel that everybody else is praising so hard.

My first big disappointment came from where I least expected it to. My queen Jane Austen. How could such a witty, talented author have penned something as dull as “Mansfield Park”? I could barely find any of the traits I so loved about her other novels, apart from maybe Lady Bertram and her impossible pug. It took me ages to finish and by the end of it I almost wished I hadn’t read it. But the following year I read “Emma” and reread “Pride and Prejudice” for the zillionth time, and my sense of wonder was restored.

In 2016, I finally decided to read “The Little Prince”, ready for a comfort book. Instead, I found a manual for sexist behaviour and unhealthy codependency disguised as sweet words and a love story. It took me so much by surprise that I could barely register the beautiful writing and the clever metaphors. All I could think was - how is this a timeless children’s classic when it glorifies egocentrism and self harm? Unlike many of the books I wish I had read at a younger age, this time I was relieved to be dealing with it at the end of my prefrontal cortex development, when I at least knew better.

Not long after that, I picked up another classic, “Lord of the Flies”. This time, I didn’t have strong feelings about it, I just failed to connect - and to believe. The writing bothered me, the excessive descriptions threw me off and the concept just didn’t ring true. The idea that we’re all just wild animals deep inside, ready to behave irrationally at the lowest provocation is just too convenient. It kills any productive discussion. But Piggy was such a cutie, poor guy.

My next bad ride was “1Q84”, which marred my admiration for Haruki Murakami. From that point onwards, I started perceiving flaws that didn’t seem to be there before, as though with every new book I was always reading the same thing with small adjustments. Woody Allen comes to mind. I could suddenly see the man behind the author. So many things displeased me, from bad character development to lazy narrative structure, not to mention all the unsexy sex scenes and the attempt at justifying sexual assault with religion. By the time I was done with the trilogy, I just knew I could never read again the books I had already read and loved because it might taint my beautiful memories.

2019 was the last time I faced a beloved classic and was left with a bitter taste. As a nature lover and philosophy admirer, it had always been a given that I would fall head over heels with “Walden”. I was writing a short film that was all about wilderness and community life, so it seemed like the perfect time to finally embrace my beautiful hardcover copy of the book. I certainly did not expect to find what a Goodreads user defined as: “The tale of a man who dared to live in his parents backyard and eat dinner with them, and then lived to write about it.” I felt cheated on. Ideologically and financially.

I might sound harsh in my comments, but I still rated all these books 2 stars out of 5. They’re books. Full books. Written by real people - something we take for granted now, but might live to miss one day. And it’s perfectly fine that some people worship them. Well, to some extent.

The bottom line is, I disliked them for different reasons. I take no issue with people enjoying “Mansfield Park” or “Lord of the Flies”, whose faults listed here are of a very personal nature. You can also choose to ignore the author’s privilege in “Walden” and manage to focus on the positive, if abstract conclusions. Even “1Q84” can hold a reverential place to somebody who sees it as a big mysterious symbolism for something I couldn’t see. Same goes for “The Little Prince”, which might just elicit good childhood memories regardless of the actual words - though I would never in a million years give it to an actual child.

Speaking of childhood memories, it’s also perfectly ok to change your mind. Something that spoke to you when you were little can feel a little distant when you’re an adult. Even something you liked or loathed in your 20s might feel better or worse within a decade (or four). We are constantly changing. And so are our passions. You don’t have to hate something just because you didn’t love it, nor do you have to pretend you’re still passionate about something that belongs in a different time, to a different you.

And it’s so natural that we disagree. Not everything has to turn into a fight. Our opposing tastes are not supposed to elicit war, but rather to give us personality and something to talk about. They are conversation starters, idea sparkers. We shouldn’t have to hide our true opinions, the same way we shouldn’t only listen to other people with the same opinion.

So yes, praise what you like, respect what you don’t. And let’s all collectively forget “The Little Prince”.

[bobbybutterfly]

A Squirrel and Hedgehog OC. OoooooOOOooo. I was about to say it’s my second one (I’ve got a squirrel I never posted about before) but then I remembered Geumseagi’s dad. I think we could also have a philosophical discussion about how many head cannons can you lump up on a character before they become an OC. I imagine it’s when you change the character’s name. That’s just the last straw.

Changing up pre existing characters is a skill I learned from writing real people fan fiction. By the time you’re done writing your femboy pagan priest turned an immortal 20 something sparking dictator after the film market collapsed with the rise of AI, people will scratch their heads as to how this character ever started life as Tom Hanks. But most importantly you don’t get sued!

By the way this was an actual character I made. I never put out the unfinished book on the internet outside of one chapter on AO3. I was getting tired of working on it for I think over 2 years with no results.

This character though is original in that they’re not inspired by any character from Squirrel and Hedgehog specifically. I will talk about my inspiration for them later.

So. Their name is Shiho Tenshi as you can see. It means white angel. Originally they were supposed to be called Shiho Akuma, meaning white devil But it didn’t make sense to me that they would be called that by the weasels. They’re a war hero to them after all. Probably the Flower Hill animals would call them whatever the Korean translation of white devil is. Hayan Agma. Language is something that goes unaddressed in the series. It’s an idea I want to incorporate into my AU. Primary example being that the weasels kept Mulmangcho around as a translator.

Shiho Tenshi isn’t their real name. No one knows their “real name”. I should also mention that they’re gender fluid and use they/them pronouns. Also also they’re a white weasel if you didn’t notice. Growing up they were a poor orphan on the streets. They learned very quickly that by changing up how they behave and look they were gendered differently. Seeing their love for performance a traveling acting troupe took them in. They would preform for soldiers at military bases. Providing cheap entertainment.

One day though the base they’re performing at gets attacked. Using their sword skills they heroically defend the base earning them a place in the military. They rarely use guns or martial art. Preferring their elegant silver sword. The military allows it as it makes for some good propaganda posters. They absolutely despise all Flower Hill animals. Appearing ruthless and brutal. The peak of military masculinity. But when it comes to weasels and surprisingly mice they are kind almost motherly and willing to sacrifice themselves whenever it comes to it. They like mice because the acting troupe was primarily mice.

What do you think? I wanted to play with gender roles when it came to them. My main inspiration was Hoshiko Kawasima. They are a very interesting World War 2 queer historical figure. I would recommend checking them out. Then the character Lady Oscar from the manga Rose of Versailles. They were totally based off of Kawasima. There’s too many coincidences! Lastly their whole acting part was based off of the Takarazuka Revue. It’s an all female acting troupe in Japan. They’re really cool.

This picture was based off of a promotional image of Lady Oscar for their performance of Rose of Versailles. The background inspiration was from @32girassoisdevangogh I am trying to go more abstract graphic design for backgrounds of character art. Mainly because I’m just too tired after 5 hours of rendering. So prepare yourselves for more comic sands and pixelated images of puppies and kittens because graphic design is my passion as you can see from my tumblr banner!

I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with this character. They’re not going to be included in my Super Secret Project. Maybe I can write a short story about them or roleplay. We will see.

Bobby out!

[kellyscowboy]

꒰✧ᯇ✦꒱ REFLECTION OF DECEPTION

ᯇ summary ! ✦ jack kelly's mirror lies to him, and david jacobs would rather take a lifetime of bad luck than let the mirrors continue with their deceitful schemes ᯇ warnings ! ✦ lowkey just angsty, uhh i mean not too angsty ig but i think you get the idea, a single cuss word lol ᯇ vienna's thoughts ! ✦ sorry this is lowkey so short! i thought it was gonna be a lot longer but it didn't turn out that way. reblogs & notes are greatly appreciated���. also its 1 am & this was only edited once so if it doesn't make sense just pretend it isnt here. also!! this is very different from what i usually write so bear with me 823 WORDS © 2023 , 𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲

Jack Kelly was a sculpture, a gift sent from the gods. He was just as much a piece of art as he was an artist. From his calloused hands used in only the softest of ways, to the way his eyes spoke every truth of his soul. There had never been such a human to walk the earth, David Jacobs was sure of that.

David could talk about the abstract creation that was Jack Kelly until his heart stopped. About how Jack Kelly was the design of Aphrodite and Apollo, and how he would worship him as the people of Greece had worshiped his creators.

For Aphrodite blessed him love, with beauty. She pressed the dimples into his cheeks and painted the freckles on his face—the ones that only appeared when the sun shone. His laugh, that could send anyone within a twelve-mile radius into an early grave, was all her doing. Aphrodite had spent days, if not weeks (hell, Dave could argue it took years) perfecting him.

Apollo had blessed him with the sun. For his smile, the toothy smile that was so wide it could make someones jaw hurt just from seeing it, radiated more warmth than a hot New York day. And Apollo blessed him with light, for his eyes shone brighter than the brightest star. His artistic gifts had also been hand-curated by Apollo, an ability unique to Jack. Because there was nothing that anyone else could create that could compete with his works.

Jack Kelly put every bit of his being into his art. Every single stroke of paint held a little bit of his soul. His rough hands would glide over dried paint, and everything he possessed would leak into his canvases. Every line his calloused fingers traced stole its first breath from his fingertips.

He knew of beauty. He knew that beauty was everything. Beauty was a young mother holding her terrified sons' hand and pretending she wasn't just as scared as him. Beauty took form in the way of brotherhood, and beauty was ten thousand fists—ones of different background and beliefs—angrily thrown into the air.

Each and everything that blessed Jack's eyes was art. There, however, was one exception. And it was quite possibly the best piece of art in existence. Himself.

Apate, mistress of deceit, had stolen the creation of Jack Kelly just before he had been sent to bless the Earth. Though she could not undo the work of another deity, she could curse him to a life of falsity. She could change his story from one of art and blessing to one of tragedy. And she did. She took a film of insecurity and deception, and gently pressed it atop his eyes. Then, as an extra fuck you, she manipulated mirrors to whisper heinous lies to him for the rest of his life.

And the story of his creation turned from a story to a tragedy. For Jack had been blessed with the beauty, skills, and warmth of the gods; but he would never be able to admire the piece of art that changed David Jacobs' life. Himself.

While Jack Kelly had changed his life, David Jacobs had changed the other boys' fate.

"Davey," Apate—in an attempt to keep Jack Kelly's story one of tragedy—whispered to him from the clouds, "Be wary, for mirrors shall be your downfall. And with every mirror that you break, you shall be punished with seven years of badgering luck."

But Aphrodite's voice spoke to him loudly and with confidence. "It is untrue that mirrors shall be your downfall, for your story is one of great love. You will love greater than I have loved, and it will be your downfall. But for every love you love, and for every reflection shattered, you shall fix the broken. Do not be wary, for your fate is written in the stars."

And so it was told.

Jack Kelly had been stolen by the goddess of deceit and was misled by his reflection. And while David Jacobs had been the product of Athena and Momus, their tales had been curated by Zeus. Zeus, god of fate, wrote their story into the stars so that David Jacobs may save Jack Kelly from the fate that was himself.

They had been destined to save each other since the stars had been formed. While Jack Kelly drowned in the deception of his reflection, David pulled him out and broke every mirror that dared whisper into his lovers' ear.

Jack Kelly had been made to be a tragedy, an artist who would never be able find the art within himself. But David Jacobs had been made to save him. For David Jacobs' love was his downfall, and his lifetime of bad luck meant nothing when he got to feel Jack Kelly's lips against his own.

And so true was it, that the story in the stars had been their fate.

[senblades]

4, 28, 34 for the ask game!

4: Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

okay so I already gave my whole spiel about my short film (i'll upload it one day.....) but lemme talk about some of my other characters!

I've got a trio of characters in a nebulous political thriller/high fantasy/steampunk world.... uhhhh basic premise of the magic system is that everyone has a spirit tied to them that is related to an abstract concept, which gives them relavant magic abilities. The spirits can be reeeeally broad or hyper specific- the hyper specific ones actually have individual personalities, whereas the broad ones are too abstract to really keep a hold on something like that

(believe it or not, this concept was cooked up before I knew what persona was about HAHAHA any similarites are coincidental)

the characters are:

Karmen (name pending a change): she's tied to a general nature spirit- very kindhearted, and set to be the next leader of her particular city. but, there are a lot of secrets and shady business that's been going on that she's privvy to because of her position, and she does her utmost to Keep Those Things Secret (stuff that keeps the city safe, but is uh... questionable)

Azaila (...name pending... something lmao): she's tied to a spirit of shadow- very combat focused. she's kind of an asshole fhdkjshfds /affectionate. Her city is wayyyy up north in the snow, and their culture is very merit-based, often devolving into duels and shit for leadership disputes. each family tends to have a 'leader' as well, and Azaila gained this position via questionable means from her uncle (she cheated in the duel lmao- her uncle kinda sucks and she was sorta desperate)

Elias: He's tied to a fire spirit, but due to an... incident (TM) in his childhood, he pretends his spirit is too weak and hyperspecifc to be of any use. he's a knight in the capital's royal guard, as is his father (yay nepotism /j HAHAHA) his whole deal is like... dealing with shit like duty and cowardice and trauma and whatnot

soooo i've had these guys on the back burner for a Hot Second. I'll do something with them one day...... maybe i'll draw them at some point too

28: Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

I once again have absolutely no idea what I'm doing HAHAHA- if this was like, art advice, I might be able to help more, but.... hm....

I guess: make sure you plan your plot way in advance! Even for smaller stuff! You are not immune to writing yourself into a corner!

following that, though, don't be afraid to deviate from your plan wildly! (i sure have with fftsr lmao) It's important to avoid writing yourself into a corner, but so long as you see where a potential path lies, you can often write something even better if you deviate from it once you've gotten a ways into the story

34: Do you write to improve? Or is that not a concern for you?

it's not really a concern for me, tbh. since writing is entirely a hobby for me, I don't really feel the need to hold myself to any particular standard.

that's a bit misleading, though, since I do still want the stuff I write to be good; it's like, I improve naturally the more I write, and I'm happy with that natural pace rather than pushing myself for any goal. With my writing, I'll be satisfied with what I've got pretty quickly, where I stop and start with my illustrations a lot more if I come up with a better composition or the anatomy is funky or the colours aren't working and yadda yadda (and thus, i improve at art a lot faster (the life drawing classes def helped with that too lmao (anatomy is an interesting beast to tackle)))

ty ty for the ask! <3

[splathousefiction]

I have been in the creative field since I was 18. While I am most popularly known for my work here at Splathouse, "Jack The Warlock" isn't the only face I've worn in the 16 years I've been making things in a professional space.

In no particular order, a (in)complete list of projects I either created myself or have been a part of is below the jump. Details at this time will be kept vague. You are welcome to make your guesses and DM/Comment down below. If you get it right, I'll tell you.

An actual hard-copy account with my complete involvement along with website addresses, email accounts and passwords is currently within my safe in my own hand writing. It's to be scanned and made public upon my death, serving as (if nothing else) a testament to "try everything".

I started an absurdist magician sect. I was originally inspired by chaos magic theory, but sought to refine their ideals. As such, it takes the element of the concept of belief itself as a malleable thing that can shape the world without ever being spoken or made physical via ritual work. "If you think it, it can happen"-be that in the ego or the id. The sect is still operating internationally today and has over 100 members. We're small, but we're there. None of the members have ever met me or have any idea who I am.

I've published two short-horror collections as a female author in her forties. They were released for free and are pretty openly available almost everywhere you can pirate books. The books are incredibly popular with queers, with booktok most notably covering them pretty hotly for a month. None of my readers have absolutely any idea I am behind both collections and still send emails (without hope of ever getting a response) today. Many assume I'm dead.

I released an experimental dark fantasy hip-hop EP that was inspired by this album by Earl Sweatshirt and MF DOOM. It's a five track album that totals in at 21 minutes. Much like the horror anthology collection above, each track can be enjoyed by itself, but when played in sequential order tells a Berserk-like story. The album took six months of my life and features encoded secret messages in the audio, with the "lore" being that it's a form of sigil magic. To date, it is the most popular audio project I have ever recorded and vastly surpasses anything I have ever made for Splathouse. Absolutely no one knows that the vocals, the producer and the song writer are one guy, nor do they know it's me. They've been waiting for a follow up EP for years. I will never release another one.

I have been a writer and creative director for several ARGs. One of which was a darling of the early days of Youtube Explainer videos. The project "concluded" because I was intensely disgusted by the growing cottage industry of "curators" destroying the mystery of such things. As they still do this and have careers directly profiting off the creative works of others, I see no need to join such a project ever again. Absolutely no one involved in the projects had any idea who I am, and the projects I started myself have never once been connected back to me.

I've co-wrote several webcomics. One or two of which gained middling popularity. No one working on these projects has absolutely any idea as to who I am or my larger sphere of work. I left the field because of audience treatment of webcomic creators.

I've had original artwork I created featured in multiple gallery showings that highlighted "abstract" and "outsider" art, back when I still enjoyed doing artwork. Anything you find by me on deviant art in the "Splathouse" era was me attempting to wrap my head around digital art; my neuro divergency prefers physical mediums. Every single one of these submissions was under a different name chosen at random.

I've acted in precisely two indy movies under a popular name used by directors who don't want their names attached to projects. Film buffs know the one. I was the lead character in one and the side character in another. The films are connected, but aren't sequels, a series, nor is there a prequel involved. The films were highly experimental and shot in the "guerilla"/"Gonzo" tradition. They went through the indy circuit and won [insert number of awards here]. I wasn't compensated nor were the films profitable. We didn't care and I haven't spoken with anyone from the cast since, who simply asked for a name and nothing more. Some of them are still in the industry. One of them is a reasonably successful B-movie director now.

I've created several text adventure games. Most people are familiar with the Splathouse ones, which released in the early 2010s. What they aren't familiar with are the ones I released on itchio under an different name with a disposable email address. The games were reasonably popular with that niche sector of the gaming community, and still get regularly recommended.

There's more I could add to this, but I feel I'm done for now. It's late, I've work in the morning.

If you've made it this far in the list and you're still curious-no, you aren't going to get me to tell you any details about any of these projects. Even my best friends couldn't get that out of me. If you're curious as to why I did literally any of this, the reason is two fold:

Because I could.

why not?

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-06-24

Hosting

Listening: It's important to put music on while there are people kicking around the house to fill in the gaps, a lot of that has been Vienna Teng, so, Green Island Lullaby :

Also as another note, I am closing in on the end of The Magnus Archives, and I like some of the stuff of this last season. It gets to get a lot more into absolute horror when it doesn't have to reasonably fit into the real world and I appreciate a lot of that, I've always liked my short story to veer a little abstract.

Watching: After my parents left for Amsterdam I was like "hey I should watch something" and put on Funeral Parade of Roses/Bara no Soretsu, which is such a banger of a movie if you love queer art films from five minutes after we invented the concept of editing and horrible tragedy. We should make more extremely heavy movies that include within themselves comedic making-of documentaries.

Also, courtesy of @canmom's Animation Night, Mars Express, a very beautiful robot sentience animated movie by Jérémie Périn. It follows a Space Cop who ends up working with a renegade engineer who jailbreaks sentient slave robots. Extremely space-noir. Extremely detailed world of future-tech, thoughtful design, and a by-the-numbers but well-executed plot. If you like cyber neo-noir you'll love it, also check out Animation Night on twitch.tv/canmom most Sundays at 20:00 UK time, truly a gem, the first place I watched PMMM.

Reading: All but finished with Iron Widow, it's a shame that it's not a very good book because it feels like much more aggressive editing could have saved it. There's so many words and maybe 30% of them don't have to be there, this book loves to tell instead of showing, or to show and then tell you all about what it's shown you. Again, very compelling setting and themes, the way that being in a mech transcends your material form while simultaneously making you very responsible for other people is a great idea!

Zetian is a clumsy protagonist in-world, which is fine if frustrating. She's not calculating enough to pull off Taylor Hebert long-term plans and careful considerations, but she's not impulsive enough to get into interesting problems for very long, there's lots of opportunity to create intrigue that just get snipped in the bud because she decides not to care, which means a lot of threats just aren't very credible.

Playing: Hades! I got tutored through a full clear and had the boons system laid out to me and I have now got a clear with every weapon except the fists, and that's only because I haven't gotten around to it yet. I still don't think I enjoy the way the narrative of Hades is presented, but I am appreciating the gameplay, I enjoy enginebuilder-likes like this, you know, Inscryption, Noita, that kind of thing.

Making: Not much, too busy.

Tools and Equipment: I picked up a LowePro Creator Box, which is their line of mini-camera storage cubes intended to help turn normal bags into camera bags. Transporting camera equipment is a huge pain in the ass, because you have to keep it all padded, but dedicated camera bags are frequently awful as, you know, bags. Lowepro does make some camera bags that are also okay day packs, but these boxes are really nice for just dumping into an existing backpack or carry-on to safely travel with a camera and a couple lenses. This is the Large size.

There's a line of outdoor backpacks that even let you access your box from a side hatch directly, but I don't have one of those. This makes it much easier for me to, say, hoof my camera to work when I have somewhere I want to go later in the day. There's some gigantic cubes for larger bags as well which I guess are for if you're doing wildlife photography on foot, or running a full production in a remote area.

[kimilycof]

REVIEWER

SETTING

A literary element of literature used in novels, short stories, plays, films, etc., and usually introduces the when and where of the story during the exposition (beginning).

DIALOGUE

An interchange of conversation of the characters whether in a movie or a play

FORESHADOWING

It is where the author suggests future events in a story, or outcome, before they happen or take place.

A literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.

RISING ACTION

This is when the main character is in crisis and the conflict begins to unfold.

1ST PERSON POINT OF VIEW

A type of Point of View (POV) that is usually identifiable using the pronoun "I".

PROTAGONIST

The main character, who creates the action of the plot and is often a hero or heroine of the story

PERSONIFICATION

When inanimate objects or abstract concepts are given or provided with human self-awareness or characteristics.

SETTING

EXAMPLE (One morning, from a bushy forest, a wounded came out and was seen by Ella)

CONFLICT

EXAMPLE (Her father was killed in an accident, and she was left with her evil stepmother)

ANTAGONIST

EXAMPLE (Her stepmother was a wicked witch, and she always makes her life miserable.)

THEME

EXAMPLE The story is about the importance of self-love and adventure

CONFIDANTE

EXAMPLE Benedict was his best friend. He tells him even his deepest secrets

ALLITERATION

The repetition of consonant sounds in succeeding words within the same sentence or line.

HYPERBOLE

An exaggerated description of an idea or action

METAPHOR

Applying a direct relationship to an object or idea as a substitute for another.

OXYMORON

An idea of contradicting terms

PARALLELISM

It is the use of identical language, events, structures, or ideas in different parts of a text.

SYMBOLISM

It's when objects or images are used to represent abstract ideas. It could be something tangible or visible, while the idea it's trying to symbolize is something abstract or universal.

IRONY

An absurd or mocking opposition to what is expected or appropriate.

TRANSLATION

It is the process of translating words or text from one language to another.

TEXTUALITY

This refers to all attributes that distinguish the communicative content under analysis as an object of study

PARODY

It is usually a small excerpt of a hypotext that assists in the understanding of the new hypertext's original themes, characters or contexts

Julia Kristeva

originated the theory of intertextuality

Latent Intertextuality

It pertains to everything you've ever seen or read that sticks somewhere in your memory and affects your understanding of the world.

INTERTEXTUALITY

It is the author's borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader's referencing of one text in reading another.

PASTICHE

It imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists.

QUOTATION

A written form of the oral echo. It can be in tagged or untagged form.

CALQUE

It means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating it components so as to create a new lexeme.

CONNOTATION

refers to the additional meaning or emotion that a word cames beyond its literal definition. It includes the associations, feelings, or implications that people may have about a word based on their cultural, social, or personal experiences

POSITIVE CONNOTATIONS

generally evoke favorable or desirable qualities

•Full-figured

•Amazing

•Innovative

•Original

•Playful

NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS

typically convey unfavorable or undesirable traits.

•Lie

•Radical

•Childish

•Arrogance

•Prison