#allan ex machina

[little-peril-stories]

Happy STS! What’s a random piece of backstory about one of your OCs that you’ve never shared, either in the story or elsewhere?

Oooh thank you for the ask! Happy STS!

Good question!! Umm, however... I honestly have zero good answers here. I'm sorry in advance!

Let's talk about Allan Armstrong Dale because, with the exception of Geoff, the backstories of the TPOT characters have been explored and I stuffed them all into the story, lol.

(Geoff still won't tell me anything about his history, so...)

Allan isn't exactly from a rich background like Colette (or, early in her life, Bree), but his family was relatively secure in terms of finances when he was growing up.

He can sing and play piano!

He has living parents somewhere in the unnamed TPOT city, but I'm not sure if they're on good terms. I think it might be a "no"? Or maybe they're just not that close? Who knows.

Sorry it's kind of a ridonkulously boring answer!

[beansprouts]

barbie (2023) thoughts

spoilers under cut

Margot Robbie's acting was utterly incredible and worth the price of entry alone

My favourite scene was Ken's song and dance number, no notes. Ryan's gotten so much better since La La Land.

on the topic of Ken... let him kiss boys

Like for a film so couched in queer references and jokes, it could have used some actual gay text. It's 2023, let Ken be actually bisexual, not just subtextually.

On the other hand, though, aroace Barbie was important and powerful

Especially as a subversion of the default happy ending where the man wins the woman he has spent the whole film pestering

Most disappointing part of the film: everything about the Great (wo)Man Theory Ex Machina

For God to be Ruth the actual creator of Barbie, some middle-aged woman in a 1950s kitchen, who stepped in to tie up the narrative threads, totally undermined the film's attempt at a feminist message for me

Especially since Barbie apparently had to seek Ruth's permission to enter the real world.

would have strongly preferred if Ruth was framed less as god and more as a mother, parallel to Gloria's character arc with her daughter

also Ruth ('s ghost?) doesn't appear to have any actual agency at Mattel? Why is she stuck in the basement???

Speaking of Mattel in this film: you can't contrast the real world with the hypermaximalist Barbieland if all the Mattel employees in the real world are also cartoonish.

It's such a transparent way to avoid any actual narrative accountability for Mattel the company within the film and it rings really hollow

like this film is so brilliant at portraying the construction of gender (I feel like those essays have been written already, probably, so I won't bother explaining it here). But then you take off your Gender Lens and put on your Labor Lens and realize it's actually kind of regressive?

To be fair I was primed for paying closer attention to its treatment of class and labor because Barbie's journey begins with a song by Lizzo, who has been in the news for also (allegedly) fueling her narrative of female empowerment via labor exploitation. and that was so recent the film can't have known that. But we are in the midst of a labor movement in the US and that also makes this film's politics seem even weirder

Characters in this film are defined by their job. Both in Barbieland and in the real world.

We know Gloria is a mom, and she certainly has personality, but her other defining trait is that she plays with Barbies and then draws them... which ties into her identity as someone who works at Mattel.

Every other Mattel employee is so wholly characterized by their profession as Mattel employee it's a little ridiculous.

When the Barbies are freed from their brainwashing they remember their job titles as their senses of self: author, physicist, president, and in returning to that profession-self they are depicted as healed.

The characters who are dissatisfied with life in Barbieland are also the ones who don't have titles that equate to employment: (Stereotypical) Barbie, Beach Ken, Allan. You could make an argument for Weird Barbie as well

Mermaid Barbie's profession is Mermaid I guess

The film resolves the struggles of these characters by telling them to go find themselves. Literally in the case of Beach Ken. But through the film's language, that means constructing a self through capitalist labor. For example, Weird Barbie is given a political position with President Barbie. As Barbie enters the real world (where each named person is also associated with a job even to Gloria's daughter whose job is Student) this presumably extends to her.

It's this very capitalism-friendly (neoliberal maybe?) depiction of self-actualization through capitalist profession that feels out of place in a film that's otherwise trying to get you to read it as leftist

at least if you think the asides about consumerism or the interplay between emotion and logic were meant to be seen as commentary and not just jokes belittling radicalism

anyway if you liked the satirical and sometimes absurd vibe of Barbie but want something that commits to its kernels of commentary a little more, I'd recommend Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. They are like sibling works.

This post has come across as mostly negative but to be clear I did like the film. It's to its credit that there's enough of a philosophical stance being established to critique like this in the first place.

How many other comedies have a blue link to Siddhartha Gautama on their wikipedia page??

[ravenkings]

“She rises when the sun sets and goes immediately to her table where she plays her game of patience until she grows hungry, until she becomes ravenous. She is so beautiful she is unnatural; her beauty is an abnormality, a deformity, for none of her features exhibit any of those touching imperfections that reconcile us to the imperfection of the human condition. Her beauty is a symptom of her disorder, of her soullessness.”

–Angela Carter, “The Lady of the House of Love”

Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

“Her figure is regular, certainly, and so is her face. She would be beautiful, but her eyes seem to have no ray of life; they almost seem to lack the power of sight. Her gait is curiously measured, as though her every movement were produced by some mechanism like clockwork. She plays and sings with the disagreeably perfect, soulless timing of a machine, and she dances similarly. Olimpia gave us a very weird feeling; we wanted nothing to do with her; we felt that she was only pretending to be a living being, and that there was something very strange about her.”

–E.T.A. Hoffmann, “The Sandman” (Trans. Ritchie Robertson)

Moira Shearer as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann (1954)

“The uncanny can be a matter of something gruesome or terrible, above all death and corpses, cannibalism, live burial, the return of the dead. But it can also be a matter of something strangely beautiful, bordering on ecstasy, or eerily reminding us of something, like déjà vu. It can involve a feeling of something beautiful but at the same time frightening, as in the figure of the double or telepathy. It comes above all, perhaps, in the uncertainties of silence, solitude, and darkness. The uncanny has to do with the sense of a secret encounter: it is perhaps inseparable from an apprehension, however fleeting, of something that should have remained secret and hidden but has come to life.”

–Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny

From The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death, and the Ecstatic by Joanna Ebenstein

“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”

–Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Composition

Sonoya Mizuno as Kyoko in Ex Machina (2014)

[maleyanderecafe]

Desert Nightmare (RPG)

Created by: Kelven

Genre: Horror/Puzzle

Desert Nightmare was a game that I saw on @yandere-dictionary a long time ago, but I didn't actually have time to play it at least until I wrote this recommendation ask list. The premise of it is surprisingly good, but it is pretty spotty with the story itself. Jake is the yandere in this one, but it's not something that I would play exclusively for the yandere since he sort of comes in and out of it.

The story starts out with Sandra and her family going on a trip in California, only for Sandra to be abandoned in a rest stop. She ends up hitch hiking until she hits a town called Desert Rose. There she rents out a room and finds out there's something wrong with the town, having seen random monsters throughout and dealing with the unfriendly townsfolk there. At the bar, she meets another person stranded there named Jake, as well as another person named Allan. She tries to leave the next day but finds the town surrounded by giant scorpion. As each day goes by, she gets nightmares of Jake attempting to imprison her, and even gets arrested and almost killed by the police officers there, at least until Jake is able to save her. She also meets a Native American who gives her a dream catcher, making it so that she doesn't have these nightmares again. The town captures her and Alan in some sort of cult fashion, but luckily she is able to escape with him before they perform experiments on her. With the help of him and Alan, the three of them manage to fix Alan's car. However, the car breaks down, forcing the three to meet the Native American that gave Sandra her dream catcher. They end up at an abandoned Native American ground where they learn about the curse that befell Desert Rose. It seems that the place used to be a place where Natives lived, with some sort of abnormality that would cause the animals and children there to grow deformities. The people of Desert Rose would eventually be trapped in the town, growing more agitated over any new people that came before them. As Sandra goes deeper into the town, Jake becomes more agitated and obsessed with her, to the point of even killing Alan. Jake chases Sandra into the mines, but is eventually killed by the spirits of the natives that the town was built on. Sandra is able to make piece at the alter, where afterwards she escapes, leading to the destruction of Desert Rose as a result. She sees the remains of the charred up bodies of Alan and Jake and goes home after fixing Alan's car. She's successfully able to go home but is scarred forever by the events of which she's witnessed.

For an old game, it is actually is very well made, it has a lot of unique assets to it and was originally made in German. Apparently, there was a remake called Desert Nightmare R, but it was never translated, so I will simply have to go off of the older version. I will say that while the story in concept is good in the beginning, it sort of feels like it loses steam at the end and that the story sort of gets off the rails and loses track of where it was. A lot of the characters sort of exist in and out and turn insane with no real reason. It makes sense for the citizens that live in the town (like the shopkeeper or the police), but for characters like Alan and Jake especially, who haven't really been in town much longer than Sandra, the sudden change doesn't really make a lot of sense. The town really seems to hate outsiders, even going so far as to capturing them and torturing them if they get trapped in the town for too long. The Native American that comes in seems a bit like a Deus Ex Machina, even with the foreshadowing of the different symbols that are found in the game before meeting him, especially since the first time we meet him, he's somehow able to find us in a cave. The way Alan and Jake die seem really last minute too. Alan especially, considering for the most part he seemed to generally like Sandra before (even if he never really believed her about the monsters she saw) the end insulting her for no real reason. It makes for great meme material, but not so great story telling. Then there's Jake, who while is the first outsider we meet is also someone we barely see. The yandere moment seems to really come out of nowhere especially since his reasoning was simply that he saw her and fell in love. It's not especially clear if he was influenced by the curse (though I believe it's heavily implied to be), though we never see the process of how it happens. He does attempt to kiss Sandra, gets jealous when she spends too much time with Alan (and even starts to argue with him) and of course in one of the bad endings, he captures and chains her if Sandra doesn't use the dream catcher. His death is pretty anticlimactic too because after he kills Alan, he chases Sandra, only to be killed by the haunted monster. He has some nice moments of being a yandere, from chase sequences to jealousy to protecting Sandra from the towns people when they try to kill her but with how in and out he is from the game, we barely get to know him at all.

Sandra as a protagonist is pretty good for the situation she’s been thrusted onto. She is pretty unlucky though having only gone to Desert Nightmares town because she was left behind during her road trip and had to encounter monsters that appeared during the trip. She does her best to survive it, and she does, being the only survivor. It’s something that traumatizes her for the rest of her life.

Overall Desert Nightmare is a pretty decent game, at least in concept. While I think the game sort of loses steam near the end, it was still enjoyable to play and not bad for someone’s first game. Like I said, this isn’t really the game to play for a yandere character but more of yandere moments, as the moments separately is fairly good. If you are interested, give it a try!

[sincerelylaurel]

how to write a detective story

@writingwithacutlasss on instagram <3

source: masterclass

hello and welcome back, this post was requested at some point i think? anyways. first of all what is a detective story? a detective story is one whose plot hinges on a crime that the characters investigate and attempt to solve. also called “whodunnit” stories or crime stories, most detective stories are written from the point of view of a detective, and many detective-story writers feature the same detective throughout a large body of work. some popular detective story writers are edgar allan poe, sir arthur conan doyle, and agatha christie.

5 basic elements of a good detective story

a detective: in order to write a unique detective, you’ll have to spend time thinking about their personality, their strengths and weaknesses, their motivations, and their background.

a crime: since the crime will be the catalyst of your story, it should be interesting, memorable, and seemingly unsolvable in order to keep the readers so tantalized by the mystery that they’ll want to keep reading. some common crimes are dead bodies, robberies, and disappearances.

suspects: your suspects serve as red herrings that keep the reader’s attention away from the true culprit.

an antagonist: your antagonist could be the true culprit, another detective trying to solve the case first, a sidekick of the culprit, etc. their goals conflict directly with the protagonist’s goals.

a setting: detective stories are linked to the time and place they are set in and are memorable because of those details.

give your characters interesting motivation

the motivation of the culprit is one of the most crucial and prominent parts of detective work—what readers want to know even more than who committed the crime is why they committed it. nothing spoils a good detective story more than an uninteresting or unbelievable motivation (for instance, a serial killer who is just “pure evil” and has no discernable reasons for murdering) or an unmotivated confession. similarly, your detective should also have a strong motivation for being in this line of work—it’s not easy, and many people wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

learn about detective work

readers want to feel immersed in the world of your detective story—whether it’s the world of the law or the seedy underbelly of a small town. that’s why it’s so important to get the details right when crime writing—so you can keep the reader’s attention with believable plot points. do the research to make sure that you know who would be the first to make it to the scene of a crime, how detectives would go about tracking people down or questioning them, and what role forensics would play in your crime scene, so that your readers don’t spend any time wondering if what they’re reading is accurate to real life.

don’t make it too easy

readers pick up detective fiction because they want to be intrigued by a good mystery—so if your crime is too easy for them to solve, they’ll get bored and likely not finish the story. trust in your readers’ ability for logical deduction and don’t give too much away, leaving them guessing and really shocking them.

make sure there’s a payoff

try to avoid an outcome where readers will feel let down by the answer to your novel’s mystery. in the words of S. S. Van Dine, a famous mystery-novel-writing art critic, “a crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. to end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.” by that same logic, try to avoid any “deus ex machina” storytelling—in which an impossible-to-solve situation is suddenly resolved with little or no effort from the characters.

experiment and innovate

read lots of detective fiction and then subvert the tropes—what if your main character is the person who committed the crime, and your bad guy is the detective or official investigator working to solve it? or what if your character’s love interest was the victim?

[uomo-accattivante]

Yay! Oscar Isaac as Solid Snake has finally been confirmed!

EXCLUSIVE: Sony’s long awaited Metal Gear Solid adaptation looks to have gained some major momentum as sources tell Deadline that Oscar Isaac is attached to play Solid Snake in Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Metal Gear Solid. The film is currently in development at Sony Pictures with Vogt-Roberts on board to direct.

The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game created by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. The script is written by Derek Connolly. Avi Arad is producing. Peter Kang is the executive overseeing for the studio.

The game was first launched on PlayStation in 1987 and follows Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit. The game has received acclaimed on many fronts but its story telling that has a cinematic feeling always made it seem like a movie adaptation was inevitable.

Given Isaac’s extremely busy schedule, a production start date is still unknown but his involvement makes this property a high priority for the studio going forward. As for Isaac, Metal Gear Solid could give him another major franchise having already starred in the most recent Star Wars franchise.

Even as the industry slowly gets back into production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Isaac has been busy setting his future slate in recent months. He is set to star in HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage opposite Jessica Chastain, followed by playing the title role in Marvel’s Moon Knight for Disney+.

Isaac will next be seen in the much-anticipated reboot of Dune and Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter. He is also set to star in and produce the adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina comic retitled The Great Machine and star in Barry Levinson’s Francis And The Godfather, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.

Isaac is repped by WME, Inspire Entertainment and Mitch Smelkinson at GGSSC. Vogt-Roberts is repped by UTA, manager Tom Lassally at 3 Arts, and attorneys Allan Werthiemer and Andy Gawker.

###

[writing-in-april]

Oscar Isaac Characters Masterlist

This is my Masterlist for characters that Oscar Isaac portrays. They are sorted by fluff, angst and smut and from first posted to last. Requests are open for this actor. Upcoming fics are on my Main Masterlist.

♥️=Author’s Favorite⚠️=Major trigger warning Main Masterlist

Poe Dameron x Reader

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- A Tale of Two Poe’s: Poe Dameron x Gender Neutral Reader: AU where Poe Dameron and Edgar Allan Poe both exist in the Star Wars universe. Reader finds a book containing the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and just can’t wait to show her Poe. ♥️ —1000 follower celebration—

Angst:

Oneshots:

- Last Name : Vague Poe Dameron x Gender Neutral Reader : Reader is captured by Hux and has to make it back home to Poe.

- I Know. : Poe Dameron x Gender Neutral Reader : Poe has a confession to make to Reader during the heat of the battle of Exegol. —Oscar Isaac Week—

Blurbs/Ficlets:

- Safe: Poe Dameron x Gender Neutral Reader: Poe comforts reader after a mission goes wrong. —1000 follower celebration—

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Poe:

- Souvenir: Sub!Poe: Poe Dameron x Sex Worker Female Reader: Poe’s found himself in a tight spot after a run in with the first order. Reader helps him out by lending him some clothes, though they aren’t exactly the proper attire. ♥️—500 follower celebration—

- Kid: Sub!Poe: Poe Dameron x Female Reader: Reader can’t get Poe to stop calling her kid so she’s tries a new method while they’re arguing ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Santiago Garcia x Reader (Oscar Isaac in Triple Frontier)

Fluff:

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

- Woodland Adventures: Dom!Santiago: Santiago Garcia x Female Reader: Santiago and Reader go on a camping trip to relax after everything that happened in South America. -30 fics in 30 days-

Nathan Bateman x Reader (Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Happy Birthday Old Man: Nathan Bateman x Gender Neutral Reader: Nathan’s feeling nihilistic on his birthday— mostly hating on his looks. You show him how wrong he is. —hurt/comfort— —request—-

Angst:

Smut:

Llewyn Davis x Reader (Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- The Key: Llewyn Davis x Female Reader: Reader gifts Llewyn a special gift on Valentine’s Day. —1000 follower celebration— —fic swap—

Angst:

Smut:

Abel Morales x Reader (Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year)

Fluff:

Angst:

Smut:

- Punishment Deserved: Dom!Abel: Abel Morales x Female Reader: Reader won’t stop bothering Abel while he’s doing his paperwork -30 fics in 30 days-

Laurent Leclaire x Reader (Oscar Isaac in In Secret)

Fluff:

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

- Paint me: Dom!Laurent: Laurent Leclaire x Reader: Reader finally has enough money to splurge on getting herself painted for the first time in her life. When she meets her painter, Laurent, she wonders whether she got more than what she bargained for. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

-Will be adding more characters in the future-

[collectorscorner]

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[eternlle]

𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒

use tv tropes to associate 10 tropes with your muse that you think are important  (tip: your character is likely to have some tropes already listed if they are part of a recognized canon!)  feel free to copy-paste the definitions of the tropes, or explain their relevance by identifying them on your own. repost, don’t reblog.  (and tw for possible imagery / triggers on some tv tropes pages.)

i.   the ingenue :    “ The Ingenue is a young virginal woman with the purity of a child. she is kind, sweet-natured, polite, and optimistic, and on the sliding scale of idealism vs. cynicism, she falls very much on the idealistic side. her innocence will often inspire protective feelings in heroic characters, and she is frequently one of the more beautiful characters because of the convention that beauty = goodness. unfortunately, her innocence also often makes her woefully naive, making her a prime target for a villain seeking to take advantage of her, often in an I Have You Now, My Pretty fashion. ”

ii.   who wants to live forever  ( averted )  :    “ the worst fate possible might well be immortality. sure, you might like the idea that you get to live forever and see what the world's like hundreds of years from now, but what's eternal life compared to the pain of life in general?   from eventual boredom to eternal entrapment and torture to the emotional anguish of seeing your loved ones die, one by one, as you stay fixed in time.  then let's not forget that the earth might be destroyed by the expanding sun in a few billion years, so if you haven't a way to leave by then you can look forward to spending eternity in space, orbiting the dying core of the sun.  this attitude toward immortality is older than feudalism, going back at least as far as the greek myths. ”

evelyn has the opposite attitude  ;   she enjoys her immortality for all it’s worth.  at least, she definitely doesn’t see it as a curse.   though she has no idea how it happened, she also doesn’t know how to reverse it, so she figures she may as well enjoy the benefits.

iii.   older than they look :   “ sometimes characters don't look their age. whether it was a deliberate artistic choice on the behalf of the creator (usually to make the character more attractive or to legally fulfill a fetish) or something much deeper and linked to their characterization and the plot, this character will be older than they look. although usually still within the normal range of the human lifespan (for that setting, anyway), this character will look noticeably younger than their age. sometimes even improbably younger; it's not unheard of for a seeming teenager to be over the hill chronologically. ”

iv.   cope by pretending :    “ a character is currently (or has been )  in a very stressful situation. it might be that they're dealing with the loss of someone dear to them, an event that traumatized them.  as a means of coping, they quite literally pretend that things are not as bad as they are.  perhaps by making up imaginary people, or pretending that, in-between scavenging for food and running from monsters, the morning paper is still running.  it could go as far as to pretend that the event that hurt them so never happened at all.  someone who is aware that they are Coping by Pretending knows how bad their situation truly is, and knows that the pretending is just that.  but it just makes things easier, so they keep doing it. ”

v.   healing factor :    “ a character is hard to kill, not because he doesn't get hurt, but because he has the ability to rapidly recover from serious damage. although it depends on how fast he can heal and how much of a beating his body can take, a character with healing factor will bounce back from severe injuries that other beings can't, often with no scars or medical treatment   rarely will a character need to worry about infection, as a super immune system is most often packaged in, but they may need to worry about setting broken bones. ”

vi.   the lost lenore   ( inverted ) :    “  The Lost Lenore, aka the dead love interest — not parent, not sibling, not offspring, love interest. one of the oldest ones in the book, named for the famous deceased in edgar allan poe's "the raven".    in order to qualify for this trope, it must be clear that the characters who lose their Lost Lenore grieve strongly for her, and that overcoming their grief and learning to love again is a significant part of character/plot development.  sometimes subsequent love interests never entirely replace Lenore.  if she left children behind, the children often have considerable emotional baggage to deal with, including a father (or father-figure equivalent) whose grief can render him overprotective, neglectful, abusive, or absent. the children may feel, or even be told explicitly, that they are either too much like the Lost Lenore, or else not enough like her. angst ensues. ”

evelyn is the lost lenore to her husband, who presumes her dead.   after a search of the woods could reveal no sign of his wife beyond the place where her footprints ended, mr. ferriday was driven to distraction by grief.   he took the entire household and fled to london, where he established himself permanently   ;   he could never bear to return to the place where his wife died.   though he was not deeply in love with evelyn, her loss haunted him nonetheless, and he sank into brooding despair for many years.

vii.   mad dreamer :    “  if the reason that humans don't deal with creative sterility is that humanity is insane, then this character is just that extra bit more insane than the rest of humanity. they not only make up fantastic art and stories, they then live them. expect them to be the odd ones out in any kind of group, since they're the only ones talking about the adventures they had last night hunting dragons. however, rather than be held in lower esteem for being unable to take reality (or cope with the way that society creates it), they are held in higher esteem within the work for the imagination and vivacity (for these characters are almost always very energetic and emotional) with which they live life. ”

viii.   nature lover :    " this is about those who love the great outdoors and all that dwell therein. they may be a forest dweller themselves, or live in the countryside where they commune with nature. it's also a safe bet that they'll either have a close bond with the local fauna, or at least have extensive knowledge of them. In their view, the world is just awesome so they want to spend as much time with it as possible and share it with others. whereas ones who live in the city may often spend time at the park, or just watching the sunset. usually a sign of goodness, indicating a wholesome character uncorrupted by secularism. ”

ix.   back from the dead :    “ a major character has been killed, pronounced dead and buried. however, the established laws of the universe allow for functional magic, a sufficiently advanced alien, applied phlebotinum, deus ex machina or similar agency to intervene and subvert what naturally follows dying.  namely, staying dead. (In some cases, an explanation isn't even bothered with.) ”

x.   spirited young lady :   “ a certain kind of character commonly found in historical fiction set in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  she is the girl who bends the rules just a little. oh, she can dance a country dance or pour tea with the best of them, but she may also be a good walker or horseback rider....  the Spirited Young Lady has the same grace and style as the proper ladies, plus an added spark of attitude or rebellion...  she may not speak out for women's rights generally (a few examples do), but she will speak out for her rights pretty clearly. Her willingness to say what she wants is part of what makes her stand out. In unskillful hands, such a character may seem anachronistic, though there are many examples that are both believable and well-rounded. ”

tagged by :  borrowed from @westenyra​ tagging :  anyone who wants it!!

[alvadee]

um Elizabeth Harvest (2018) was really good! the beginning of the movie has big bluebeard vibes, then i thought it would go the stepford wives direction but then it went batman’s mr. freeze and it also had ex machina vibes/aesthetic. in the second half it actually felt like modern gothic horror to me, something edgar allan poe-ish. just in a modern sleek mansion instead of victorian one or a castle. and the visuals are not fucked up (not gore heavy, which i liked) but the implications of it all. it was also written pretty well, i thought there were some really good lines.

[little-peril-stories]

no one: absolutely no one: Colette: so I hear we all wanted more Allan whump Allan: oh please no Colette: but what if it was kind of funny. like just a little. and we all had a good laugh at your expense. Allan: OH PLEASE NO

[dccomicsnews]

Directed by: Matt Peters, Christina Sotta

Written by: Ernie Altbacker, Mairghread Scott

Starring: Matt Ryan, Taissa Farmiga, Tony Todd, Stuart Allan, Jerry O’Connell, Jason O’Mara, Rosario Dawson, Rainn Wilson, Christopher Gorham, Shemar Moore, Hynden Walch, Roger Cross

Reviewed by: Eric Joseph

Summary

Although DC animated movies are certainly nothing new, we’ve recently been witness to a particularly special era influenced directly by New 52 comics since Justice League: War debuted in 2014 (2013, if you were to count Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox). In addition to DC’s premier superhero team enjoying their own group outings, we’ve also been treated to loose adaptations of classics such as Batman: Hush, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract and The Death of Superman.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.

And that’s where Justice League Dark: Apokolips War comes in. Initially assumed to be an adaptation of Darkseid War, it’s nothing of the sort. Some influence from Futures End seems to be in there, but I’d describe this as being an original story for the most part. For all intents and purposes, this is the Avengers: Endgame of the New 52-inspired DC Animated Universe. However, there’s one major difference: Apokolips War isn’t getting a sequel or continuation. This is it.

(Don’t worry. More DC animated films are on the way, with Superman: Man of Tomorrow releasing this summer. To be clear, nothing released beyond this point will tie in to the New 52 stuff. My hypothesis is that the focus will be shifted to standalone graphic novel adaptations and original stories.)

Positives

Much like the aforementioned Endgame – and unlike Infinity War – Apokolips War isn’t an overcrowded affair, even though it features guest appearances by various members of the Justice League, Justice League Dark, Suicide Squad, Teen Titans and Bat-family. For the most part, the narrative is pared down to following John Constantine, Clark Kent, Raven, Etrigan and Damian Wayne as they try to salvage what’s left after Darkseid has devastated the Earth.

To backtrack for a moment, the movie starts off with the Justice League’s heaviest of hitters taking the fight to Apokolips, but then everything goes horribly awry. Yes, this could be categorized as somewhat of a spoiler, although anyone who’s watched the first look featurette or kept up with news pertaining to the flick already knows this to be one of the basics. After that, there’s a two-year time jump that brings us to the ragtag group coming together.

If anything, I have to applaud the filmmakers for taking some serious risks. I can’t believe they got away with a lot of the stuff on display, and I’m not exactly talking about the R-rating and subsequent F-bombs. Instead, expect to see some gargantuan swings taken, with notable heroes you love dying in terribly gruesome ways. In fact, one fan favorite from the Bat-family gets eaten alive by a swarm of “Paradooms” (Parademon/Doomsday hybrids).

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This may be too much for some to digest (pun intended), but those who’ve wanted to see what it’s like when superheroes who seemingly have nothing left to lose make one last effort to overcome the ultimate evil in a post-apocalyptic world will dig what’s on hand. Also, expect for some other heroes to be, um, repurposed and serving Darkseid.

Overall, I found the plot to be quite engaging and never thought the action to be overdone or extensive. The latter notion was found all too often in some previous flicks, what with Justice League: War feeling like one endless action scene. But here, characters actually get a chance to breathe and I was at attention the entire time, knowing this was the end of the journey.

Negatives

Actually, I don’t have much to say on the negative side this time around. Although I’m admittedly not fond of seeing superheroes get massacred, the death toll worked in this context. Still, this aspect could potentially shock some viewers who may have gone in looking for the happiest of endings. So far, I think most took it in stride, as I’ve seen some very enthusiastic online reaction that I wasn’t able to avoid. (I try going in without outside influence as much as humanly possible.)

One other thing I’d like to mention in the vaguest way – because I’m trying to spare major spoilers – is what occurs at the very end. I wouldn’t exactly call it a “Deus ex Machina” in the purest sense, but you may find yourself asking “why didn’t they do that thirty minutes ago?” Regardless, it makes for a beautifully bittersweet conclusion to this saga.

Verdict

Now, I’m not going to say Justice League Dark: Apokolips War is the best animated DC movie ever made like some are, but it’s pretty damn good nonetheless. If you’ve come this far, you have no fathomable reason not to check it out. Here’s hoping the folks in the animation wing keep it up with whatever comes next.

Review: Justice League Dark: Apokolips War Directed by: Matt Peters, Christina Sotta Written by: Ernie Altbacker, Mairghread Scott Starring: Matt Ryan, Taissa Farmiga, Tony Todd, Stuart Allan, Jerry O'Connell, Jason O'Mara, Rosario Dawson, Rainn Wilson, Christopher Gorham, Shemar Moore, Hynden Walch, Roger Cross…

[weirdletter]

Horror: A Companion (Genre Fiction and Film Companions), edited by Simon Bacon, Peter Lang Ltd., 2019. Info: peterlang.com.

What is Horror? Horror is an inherently sensational and popular phenomenon. Extreme violence, terrifying monsters and jarring music shock, scare and excite us out of our everyday lives. The horror genre gives shape to the particular anxieties of society but also reveals the fundamental nature of what it is to be human. This volume provides an introduction to horror in compact and accessible essays, from classics such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to contemporary throwbacks like the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things. Beginning with the philosophical and historical background of horror, this book touches upon seminal figures such as Poe, Lovecraft, Quiroga, Jackson, King and Suzuki and engages with the evolution of the genre across old and new media from literature, art and comics to film, gaming and social media. Alongside this is a consideration of established and emerging areas like smart horror (Jordan Peele’s Get Out), queer horror (Brad Falchuk’s American Horror Story), eco-horror (Alex Garland’s Annihilation), horror video games (P.T.) and African American horror (Tananarive Due’s Ghost Summer: Stories). This volume provides an invaluable resource for experts, students and general readers alike for further understanding the horror genre and the ways it is developing into the future.

Contents: Acknowledgements Introduction – Simon Bacon     Part I. Approaches to Horror David Robert Mitchell’s It Follws (2014) — The Limits of Knowledge – Murray Leeder Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Clverfield Lane (2016) — Inconceivable Horror  – Gerry Canavan Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC](2007) — The Affective Approach to Horror – Xavier Aldana Reyes Brad Falchuk’s American Horror Story (2011-present) — Queer Horror and Performative Pleasure – Darren Elliott-Smith     Part II. Media and Mediums of Horror Victor Fresco’s Santa Clarita Diet (2017-present) — Television Horror – Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key (2008-2013) — Horror Comics –Julia Round Kojima Production’s P.T. (2014) — The Game of Horror – Christian McCrea Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ (1982) and Stanley Kubrick’ The Shining (1980) — The Sound of Horror – Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock Joseph DeLage and Troy Wagner’s Marble Hornets (2009-2014) — New Media Horror – Alexandra Heller-Nicholas     Part III. Categories of Contemporary Horror Spierig Brothers’ Jigsaw (2017) — Torture Porn Rebooted? – Steve Jones Alex Garland’s Annihilation (2018) — Eco Horror — Elizabeth Parker The Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things (2016-present) — Horror and Nostalgia – Thomas Fahy Alex Garland’s Ex-Machina (2014) — Science Fiction and Horror – Steffen Hantke James DeMonaco’s The Purge: Anarchy (2014) — Post-millennial Horror – Stacey Abbott Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) — Smart Horror – Stephanie A. Graves     Part IV. National and Cross-Cultural Horror in the Twenty-first Century Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’ The League of Gentlemen (1999-2017) — Contemporary Folk Horror – Tracy Fahey Julia Ducournau’s Raw (2016) — Euro Horror – Ian Olney Sadako Yamamura and the Ring Cycle (1991-present) — Asian Horror – Katarzyna Ancuta Mariana Henriquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire (2009-2017) — Argentinian Horror – Cristina Santos Tananarive Due’s Ghost Summer: Stories (2015) — African-American Horror – Gina Wisker Cowboy Smithx’ The Candy Meister (2014) — First Nations Horror – Gail de Vos and Kayla Lar-Son Prosit Roy’s Pari (2018) — Bollywood Horror – Meheli Sen Jalmari Helander’s Rare Exports (2003-2010) — Transnational Horror – Dana Och     Part V. Horror Authors and their Contemporary Afterlives Laeta Kalogridis’ Altered Carbon (2018-present) — Edgar Allan Poe – Dara Downey Crafteons’s Cosmic Reawakening (2017) — H.P. Lovecraft – Carl H. Sederholm Damián Szifron’s Relatos salvajes (2014) — Horacio Quiroga Caitlín R. Kiernarn’s The Drowning Girl (2012) — Shirley Jackson – Kristopher Woofter Stephen King’s Full Dark No Stars (2010) — Stephen King – Simon Brown Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

[lunariancrow]

[ID: an article form a site called Deadline written by Justin Kroll. The headline says "Oscar Isaac To Star As Solid Snake In Sony's 'Metal Gear Solid' Movie". There are then two pictures side by side, one of Oscar Isaac, and one of Solid Snake.

The article says "EXCLUSIVE: Sony's long awaited Metal Gear Solid adaptation looks to have gained some major momentum as sources tell Deadline that Oscar Isaac is attached to play Solid Snake in the Jordan Vogt-Roberts film. The movie is currently in development with Vogt-Roberts on board to direct.

The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game created by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. The script is written by David Connolly. Avi Arad is producing. Peter Kang is the executive overseeing for the studio.

The game was first launched on Playstation in 1987 and follows Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit. The game has received acclaim on many fronts but its story telling that has a cinematic feeling always made it seem like a movie adaptation was inevitable.

Given Isaac's extremely busy schedule, a production start date is still unknown but his involvement makes this property a high priority for the studio going forward. As for Isaac, the Metal Gear Solid could give him another major franchise having already starred in the most recent Star Wars franchise.

Even as the industry slowly gets back into production due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Isaac has been busy setting his future slate in months. He is set to star in HBO's Scenes From a Marriage opposite Jessica Chastain, followed by playing the title role in Marvel's Moon Knight for Disney+.

Isaac will next be seen in the much-anticipated reboot of Dune, and Paul Schrader's The Card Counter. He is also set to star in and produce the adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's Ex Machina comic retitled The Great Machine, and star in Barry Levinson's Francis and The Godfather, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.

Isaac is rapped by WME, Inspire Entertainment and Mitch Smelkinson at GGSSC. Vogt-Roberts is rapped by UTA, manager Tom Lassally at 3 Art, and attorneys Allan Wertheimer and Andy Gawker". End ID]

[fathersonholygore]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina—Chapter Thirty-Two: "The Imp of the Perverse"

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina—Chapter Thirty-Two: “The Imp of the Perverse”

Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Chapter Thirty-Two: “The Imp of the Perverse” Directed by Antonio Negret Written by Christianne Hedtke * For a recap & review of Chapter Thirty-One: “The Weird,” click here. * For a recap & review of Chapter Thirty-Three: “Deus Ex Machina,” click here. The title of this episode is based on an 1845 short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Sabrina’s giving a dry run…

[dorianfiftyshadesof-gray]

films in colour → red - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry), The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson), We Need To Talk About Kevin (dir. Lynne Ramsay), The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick), Amélie (dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet), Stoker (dir. Park Chan-wook), Heathers (dir. Michael Lehmann), Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland), Pump Up The Volume (dir. Allan Moyle), The Deep Blue Sea (dir. Terence Davies).