#and that sense of character is big time via will's acting. definitely got that foundation in that the Writing = quant kid 2; one-off joke

[bigskydreaming]

I’m writing this scene between Lilith and Bruce right now, and I just cut a whole segue their conversation took because it derailed it too far from where I meant to take it and was more of a meta thought anyway.

So I’m just gonna verbalize it here so as not to waste that thought. You’re welcome!

But purely on a pet peeve note (and this seriously isn’t a response to something I read lately, I feel like people always think that’s what prompts everything I say but honestly, sometimes shit just pops into my head and this is one such instance lol) - anyway like, lemme just express real quick how much I LOATHE the term ‘mindrape.’

Like. Please stop forever with that, sci-fi and fantasy themed media and entertainment. That’s not a thing. Stop trying to make it a thing.

To be perfectly clear, like, the idea of a telepath or someone via some technology or magic being able to go into your head and view or pluck out your most private, carefully guarded thoughts? Abso-fucking-lutely something that can and should be viewed as a violation, in universe.

Its just....not rape. Its literally not.

I honestly do think that the rise of this particular term was because people thought about it and just HOW intimate and personal one’s thoughts can be, especially someone who is used to being closed-off and emotionally guarded, and when trying to come up with a way to describe this that captured the INTENSITY of the violation people were picturing when they imagined this.....that’s how people ended up linking it to rape as a way of conveying just how awful a violation it was?

But like.....rape is a very specific act, is the thing. It has specific context, it has specific catalysts, framing, fallout. Rape has its own name rather than just being described as a violating assault or an act of violation, because rape is a SPECIFIC act that carries its own connotations in our society. And those connotations aren’t something that entertainment should feel comfortable borrowing just to use as like, a benchmark for how awful a completely fictitious concept might be.

Because that dilutes the very purpose of giving rape its own name in the first place. The more its likened to an abstract sense of violation that feasibly encompasses pretty much anything that falls under the umbrella of personal violation.....the less it stands out as notably different from other forms of violation and calls to mind the things that MAKE it different, and thus warrant it being treated differently or approached in a specific way.

And here’s the thing about WHY rape has its own terminology:

First....there’s the fact that whether we like it or not, the simple reality is our society is obsessed with sex. We live in a very heavily sexualized world, where its often difficult to completely separate ANYTHING from sexual connotations. Its easier to make just about anything ABOUT sex than it is to make anything that’s remotely sex-adjacent about something OTHER than sex.

Now combine that with the fact that while rape is about power, and taking it from a victim or exerting it over a victim.....rape is INTRINSICALLY connected to sex. True, rape is not sex, its an act of aggression, not a sexual act. There is no way to engage in rape without simultaneously engaging in violence. There is no way for someone to consent to what is inherently by definition a stripping away of consent.

Rape is not sex. But sex is the VEHICLE by which a rapist takes or exerts power SPECIFICALLY. While at the exact same time, a HUGE part of why survivors struggle so much with getting the support they need in recovery.....is because due to how SEXUALIZED rape is in our society, in our media and just our very conversations of it, most rape survivors face the stumbling block of their assault and violation being viewed as more about sex than it was power.

Essentially, even though on the surface even most people ‘know’ that rape isn’t sex and rape is about power.....lots of people fall into the trap of looking at rape and thinking of it as sex gone wrong, or sex someone regrets, or tons of other thoughts that have more to do with sex than rape. Because from a pretty early age, anyone who doesn’t ALREADY have their own view and awareness of rape....has their view of rape then informed pretty much just by how its depicted and presented in media and entertainment. Where its of course heavily filtered through a very sexual lens.

So even while consciously KNOWING that rape isn’t an act of sex but one strictly of violence, entitlement and power....lots of people still have to contend with and push back against a foundation of it being more closely associated with sex in their minds, as the easily visualized IMAGE of what rape LOOKS like on the surface.....than other things it has more in common with once you look at anything OTHER than the visual of it, such as focusing on the motivating factors for rape and WHY rapists do what they do.

Theft, coercion, other crimes and concepts that more accurately reflect a rapist’s desire to TAKE what they were told was not theirs to take or to just degrade or humiliate someone in the most intimate way possible, or to turn a person’s very body into a weapon against them or to injure someone in a way that is meant to be more lasting or permanent in its effect on a person than just inflicting a physical wound.....any and all of these things have far more to do with why rapists rape than a simple desire for sex.

Rapists don’t rape because its the only way for them to have sex, even. Because even when rape is very much attraction based....its STILL not about just wanting to have sex with the person of their focus....its about wanting to have sex with them even despite being told no, or without giving them even the chance to say no. Even when a rapist ONLY targets a person because of their specific physical attraction to that person and their desires/fantasy to have sex with that specific person and not someone else.....the crime itself is still ABOUT stripping that person of their personhood in order to simply act upon them as the OBJECT of their focus/attraction...rather than any kind of a partner in a mutually beneficial or engaged-in act.

But despite all of that.....ask any non-survivor what springs to mind first when they hear the word ‘rape’....and chances are the resulting thoughts are more instinctively geared towards sex than power.

All of this is directly linked to our tendency as a society to view and treat and even talk about rape in terms of it most commonly being sex that got out of control. Despite the fact that no act of rape was EVER going to be an act of sexual partnership......because the very thing that turns something FROM sex INTO rape....is the MOMENT a rapist determines or feels that sex with a person is off the table or simply not what they’re interested in.....because they either don’t have or don’t WANT their victim’s partnership in what happens. They simply want to take. To steal. To use. To abuse.

Without exception.

Honestly, this got a lot more indepth than I was intending to go when I was just riffing off of a thought that popped into my mind about how I just really don’t like the term mindrape.....but a big part of the problem I have with the term is how indepth you basically HAVE to go in order to fully convey just why the term is so.....not a valid comparison to make to rape, with anyone who doesn’t already have an instinctive or reactive understanding of rape that’s more based on what rape TAKES than with how its usually depicted or talked about, where its in terms of what rape LOOKS like.

Because alllll of the above connotations and how important and central they are to any actual examination or discussion of rape....they simply do not carry over into a concept like someone reading your mind without permission.

Again, its not that such a thing wouldn’t be extremely violating IMO. It absolutely would be.

My point is simply that rape is always a violation, but violations are not always rape. SEXUAL violations are rape. But there’s a ton of ways a person or even something like a law or concept or even a freaking BUSINESS contract can be violated. And these aren’t interchangeable.

Are a person’s most intimate thoughts something incredibly personal, something no one should be allowed to take without permission? Sure. Absolutely. But imagine how else such a scenario could take place even in our real world, without needing a concept such as telepathy to make it feasible. Think about anything from someone reading a person’s carefully guarded or hidden diary or journal where they record thoughts they NEVER expect or want someone else to be privy to. Think about someone being tortured to give up information they’d be willing to give up their life to keep secret. Think about a burglar breaking into someone’s home when they’re not there and going through all their most personal belongings, leaving evidence that some stranger has been there and seen and touched all of that and you now don’t feel like you have the ability to keep anything safe and hidden from others, even in the safety and security of your own home.

Are all of these things different kinds of violation, most of which carry a great degree of intensity and personal betrayal or harm?

Absolutely.

But are any of them interchangeable with RAPE?

Or are they a bit easier to separate from from that concept once laid out to this degree, to see as completely separate and distinct things that may have some overlap but not necessarily even in the same ways or places they’re usually viewed as overlapping with rape as a concept?

Since I began this as a fandom related concept, lemme bring that back for a final thought.

Instead of likening other things TO rape, imagine if we did the same thing in reverse, and likened rape TO other things instead.

In terms of even just Batcharacters.....think about how often its been raised as an actual STORY point, that many Bat characters have shown a willingness or even tendency to cross all kinds of ethical boundaries and illegally surveil someone or intrude upon boundaries in the name of ‘the greater good’ or because they feel the ends justify the means.

Now imagine if all of those instances, no matter how large or small a violation....from a simple breaking and entering job to get inside a Rogue’s secret hideout in order to steal the location of their next crime....to putting bugs and cameras into someone’s home without their knowledge or permission and even just being able to spy on them naked or when revealing extremely personal information while thinking there’s no one else around to hear it, regardless of whether or not that’s what the character intends those to be used for or never actually uses them in that way.....

Imagine if all of THOSE violations were considered, viewed and talked about as not just breaches of privacy but as RAPE, specifically....with any relevant Bat-characters thus by extension specifically being rapists for having engaged in such violations.

And then, let’s flip the script back AGAIN, and now look at those instances where characters intrude, surveil, cross boundaries or invade privacies in the name of trying to save people or prevent tragedies or in the name of that always handy alleged ‘greater good.’

Try using that ‘in the name of [...]’ clause in regards to when and why a rapist rapes, and see how......not good that is. Has any of the above EVER been an ACTUAL justification for why someone rapes someone else? COULD it ever be? I know there’s the fuck or die trope and there’s more than a few variations of it in which one hero is forced to essentially rape another one or someone innocent or else the villain will kill them both, or kill the other person, or something like that....but even then, the actual RAPE is still on the villain or person exerting coercion, so no, not even then is rape being done in the name of saving/protecting someone or some supposed greater good. Its still the villain that’s doing the actual violating, that’s making the CHOICE to set up this scenario and limit the hero’s options to either ‘participating’ or signing someone’s death warrant....and just like sex is the vehicle by which rape occurs, the ‘raping’ hero is in this kind of scenario STILL just being used as a proxy by the actual person with the actual intent and desire to violate and assault the other person, and in being used in such a way, and in an inherently sexualized way themself.....it simply makes the ‘raping’ hero still not an actual rapist, but an additional rape victim of the ultimate villain as well.

See how complicated and messy this all gets, and how quickly?

And especially given that it doesn’t ever NEED to get there, in either direction, since there’s plenty of ways to describe varying types and degrees of violation with specificity, without resorting to ‘rounding up’ to refer to them as rape as a shorthand for expressing it was a particularly intimate or sensitive violation - and without losing sight of the fact that violations that result even in the THEFT of sensitive, personal information or secrets.....still only result in things like pieces of INFORMATION being what’s stolen, rather than someone’s entire bodily autonomy and personal agency.

Anyway, in conclusion the point is really just that we come up with the terms we do for specific reasons, and while language and contexts do evolve, grow, and even wholly change over time for a variety of reasons, it is important to take note of when that happens so we can determine if that change SHOULD be happening or if key contexts or connotations are being left out or overlooked in the process or wake of language changing.

And while I kept my point here limited to the example of rape and ‘mind rape,’ it applies to a ton of other stuff and topics as well. This just happened to be the one on my mind at the moment, but this kind of awareness can and should definitely be applied to a lot of other discussions involving sensitive or emotionally charged topics as well.

We come up with specific words and terms with INTENT. The creation of a specific term or phrase almost always involves having seen a NEED for such specificity in the first place, in order to denote key differences between something and other things it might be similar to but not fully described or encompassed by previously existing words or phrases.

Before treating concepts as interchangeable, we should always take care to make sure that they are, in fact, actually interchangeable.

[ratingtheframe]

Everything That Happened at the 2021 Golden Globes

The first two months of the year are finally over and as the days grow longer, we can start to see the early signs of spring. With spring comes summer and with summer comes an influx of movie releases, with the majority of films that were put on hold last year scheduled to be released in the following months in cinemas across the world. You know, cinemas, as in those big rooms where you pay to sit and watch movies from start to finish without pausing it? Gosh have I missed the pre movie adverts, comfy chairs and super wide screens. It's not the same at home and despite Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime thriving, we shouldn’t set anything in stone when it comes to the quality and accessibility of film. 

Cinema is tradition whereas On Demand is convenience and usually choosing convenience over tradition does impact the quality of work being distributed. There are a bunch of films on streaming platforms that would be too inappropriate for cinemas, seeing as they lack a cinematic or dramatic feel to them to be good enough for a big screen. This allows mediocre to downright awful films to find an audience via streaming platforms. All well and good, seeing as these platforms are great exposure for upcoming filmmakers but at the same time it's a capitalistic system that puts views above the quality of content. It doesn’t matter if what you’re watching on Netflix is bad, they just want you to keep coming back for more. This can be said for mainstream cinema too, but to a lesser degree seeing as cinemas typically release around 68 movies per month, whereas Netflix has the ability to add up to 200 releases on their platform per month. It makes perfect sense that Netflix has the viewers that it does, as we can see that it releases almost twice the content of cinemas per month. For the avid cinephiles, this leaves us wanting a lot more as we’re only able to enjoy maybe one or two films a month from online streaming services, because the quality is so inconsistent. I hope that cinemas open soon so that I can relax knowing that the film I’ve paid money for will be of a good quality. 

Speaking of good quality films, Chloé Zhao, director of Nomadland (2021) became the second woman in the 78 year history of the Golden Globes to win an award for directing. This is an exceptional triumph and from the moment I saw Nomadland, I knew that it would have an incredible impact on awards circuits this year. Nomadland also won Best Picture, which proves something that up and coming filmmakers may need to start getting their heads around. People may not necessarily be gravitating towards cinema for a chance of escapism any more. I thoroughly believe those days are behind us, buried in the 70s and 80s with films that defied the laws of filmmaking and went to extreme lengths to serve us an entire universe that we couldn’t even comprehend. However, as the world grows more fragile and people start to realise the fragility of life, we want to connect with one another authentically and realistically. 

The way that film can do this is by showing our real selves on screen, showing our pain, redemption, emotions, fear, honesty, laughter, race, gender, humanity, darkest secrets and biggest dreams using the backdrop of cinema to sell us a story. People want films that are honest and are a reflection of humanity as well as the current society we’re living in. Not necessarily “a slice of life”, but a slice of humanity that we never see because it’s never impacted us directly, yet we still want to be made to feel like it has through film. That’s the key to success in any film, making the viewer feel like they’ve experienced something on screen even when they haven’t. If the film is too far away from our own psyche or humanity, we switch off, as we can no longer relate or even want to relate to something so obtuse and boring. Nomadland was the complete opposite to this theory, bringing us humanity in all its glory; its sadness and pure emotion that affects millions everyday, especially in such a time when loneliness is rife.

This is why Mank (2020) lost out. In a time where the world is in a sensitive disposition, Mank came as ineffective to the world of film. Though triumphant in it’s making, the film proves the fundamental foundation of film that Mank failed to do; have a good story. Mank just wasn’t the story people wanted or needed to see and one can appreciate a filmmaker’s efforts to make films but at the end of the day, the story is truly the only thing that’ll carry a film and if it's uninteresting and impersonal, people switch off. And they clearly did, seeing as Mank lost out to all SIX of its nominations. Less is more, I suppose, seeing as Nomadland won two out of four awards, including the top prize of Best Picture. David Fincher even took a shot every time he lost a category. Better luck next time.Other snubs included Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2021) starring Carey Mulligan ,which was released on VOD last month. The film was nominated for four prizes and I suppose the lack of release in cinemas worldwide or at a Film Festival meant the lack of hype for the film. Regina King’s One Night In Miami...failed to pick up a prize, having been nominated for three awards. King shouldn’t be too disheartened, seeing as her debut definitely got her the recognition she deserved.

Aaron Sorkin most notably won Best Screenplay for his amazing picture, The Trial of the Chicago 7. I had the fortune of catching this in cinemas and the musicality of this screenplay was unreal. An incredibly authentic, riveting and honest piece of work, I believe we can safely say that Aaron Sorkin is the greatest writer for cinema and TV in our day and age. Sorkin is used to being showered with accolades, from Primetime Emmys with The West Wing, to an Oscar with David Fincher’s The Social Network.

The late Chadwick Boseman was honoured in full glory, having won the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his role as Levee in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. An exceptional performance that reeks with Oscar success, Boseman is the first actor to be awarded the prize posthumously.

What’s also to be noted is the amount of British nominees and winners at this year’s ceremony. It seems like the American Film & TV market is wide open for Brits, seeing as Emma Corrin, Josh O'Connor, Daniel Kaluuya, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rosamund Pike, John Boyega and Anya Taylor Joy all won awards for acting. Helen Bonham Carter, Olivia Coleman, Vanessa Kirby, Riz Ahmed, Gary Oldman, Antony Hopkins, Dev Patel, James Corden, Hugh Grant, Jodie Comer, Lilly Collins and Nicolas Hoult all received nominations and were all born in the UK. The Crown in particular just seems to be getting more successful with each year and despite its controversy, the show has won Netflix 7 Golden Globes and 10 Emmys. What does this tell us about our actors and their ability in comparison to our friends overseas? Is it just a stroke of luck that the majority of actors who won this year are British or are we doing something different? Only time will tell as more British actors begin to be recognised for their flare over in the US.

If anything, we’ve learnt that The Golden Globes is for everyone. Anyone can win an award despite their background as long as those who control the awards ceremony are willing to give a variety of films a chance, not just ones directed by David Fincher. Nomadland is certainly an underdog for cinema, one that may not have done as well had other films been released last year. COVID-19 created space for this film to be seen and has truly been taken in as a work of art, proving that films of the same kind deserve to be seen in the up and coming future. British actors can and have made it big in Hollywood and it seems like American audiences welcome them with open arms. Sacha Baron’s Cohen’s humour in Borat Subsequent MovieFilm wasn’t unrequited, seeing as it won Best Musical / Comedy at this year’s award season, meaning every moment of that film (incriminating or not) WAS WORTH IT. Even though Regina King and Emerald Fennell lost out on their respective films, their work has been courageous and profound in helping to give space to women in the film industry. The fact that they were even nominated along with Chloé Zhao, was an achievement in itself and has women like me looking up to the success of these three women and realising that I could have the same shot. Mank came at the wrong time, and though good visually, it lacked a beating heart that the Golden Globes could identify with enough to give it at least one award. Soul was named Best Animation Feature Film of the year, also winning an award for music with a beautiful score by Atticus Ross, Trent Reznor and Jon Batiste. The Queen’s Gambit also reigned supreme, as Anya Taylor Joy won Best Actress for a performance in a mini series / tv film and the overall series won Best Television Mini Series / Television Film.

This has to be the best Golden Globes I’ve ever witnessed. Not only did it champion diversity in the film categories, British Actors and female directors, it actually gave consumers as well as judges, something that actually wanted, which was to see underdogs thrive in an environment that’s usually laid bare for the same characters. Let’s keep this up for the next ceremony !

ig @ratingtheframe

[vanessakirbyfans]

After breaking out in Netflix’s hit global series and stealing scenes in 'Mission:  Impossible' and 'Hobbs & Shaw,' the British actresses about to display her range with frontier romance 'The World to Come' and gut-wrenching drama 'Pieces of a Woman.'

Vanessa Kirby was two days away from shooting Mission: Impossible 7 in Venice — reprising her role as the glamorous gunrunner known as the White Widow — when Paramount halted production. It was late February, and Italy had just recorded Europe’s then-worst outbreak of the novel coronavirus, at the time not officially labeled a pandemic. Tom Cruise’s billion-dollar blockbuster franchise had become the first major Hollywood casualty.

Seven months on, and with the film industry appearing irreversibly changed, Kirby is preparing her return to Venice. But it’s not for Mission: Impossible (she starts shooting that later in September). With The World to Come and Pieces of a Woman, filmed almost back-to-back in late 2019 and early 2020, the British star, 32, has the rare honor of having two films compete against each other in the Biennale, the first A-list film festival to physically take place since cinemas — and much beyond — shut their doors.

Appearing alongside Katherine Waterston and Casey Affleck in The World to Come — a frontier romance set against the rugged and patriarchal terrain of the mid-19th century American Northeast — Kirby plays flame-haired Tallie, who sparks an intense and liberating affair with a farmer’s wife, played by Waterston.

But it’s Pieces of a Woman — also heading to Toronto — and her quietly powerful and gut-wrenching turn as Martha, a woman dealing with towering loss after a home birth that goes wrong (shot in one hugely impressive yet frequently hard-to-watch half-hour take), that marks yet another new chapter for the actress, who already has condensed what many would consider a lifetime’s worth of career milestones into just a few years. A critics’ favorite on the British stage; Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning for her global screen breakout as Princess Margaret in the opening seasons of Netflix’s smash hit The Crown; part of two of the biggest action franchises around (she also appeared in Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw last year); and, for her next act, independent cinema’s newest leading lady.

Even before the reviews come in, Pieces of a Woman — also starring Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn and Sarah Snook — has found a fan in Martin Scorsese, who recently came aboard as executive producer.

“I haven’t stopped smiling,” says Kirby, speaking from the south London home she shares with her sister Juliet (a theatrical agent) and two close friends. “It’s such a mind-blowing thing.”

The actress was originally shown the script in L.A. by filmmaking couple Sam and Ashley Levinson (Ashley is producing the film for Bron Studios). Within 24 hours, she'd jumped on a plane to London, then Budapest, to meet director Kornél Mundruczó. “You know when you’re supposed to do something. ... It felt so right,” she says. “I wanted to show up and tell Kornél face-to-face how much I loved it and how much it touched me.”

Mundruczó, a Cannes regular who won the top prize in the 2014 Un Certain Regard sidebar for White God, also was taking something of a career leap, Pieces of a Woman marking his first English-language feature. But he found the right partner with whom to “take the big risk together,” likening Kirby to his favorite screen siren, Catherine Deneuve. “She’s someone who can express emotion for the unseen, and that’s very difficult,” he says. The World to Come director Mona Fastvold is equally praising of her star, describing her as an actor “who can truly disarm us” and their work together “one of most fulfilling creative partnerships I've had so far.”

Kirby, who cites Gena Rowlands as her cinematic idol (she has a photo from Rowlands’ 1980 drama Gloria in her room), says she had been “biding her time” waiting for such an opportunity: “I felt ready to lead a movie for a long time, but to actually do it was such a gift. Now that I’ve done it, it feels like a new stage for me.”

While there were few thespian genes in her family (her father is a top prostrate surgeon and her mother once edited Country Living), an 11-year-old Kirby caught the bug after watching a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. “I suddenly realized the power of telling these stories is that they can make you feel differently about yourself when you leave,” she says. “And I think that’s always been a goal for me since.”

Countless school plays — including an all-girl Hamlet (Kirby as Gertrude) — would follow, continuing on into college, where spare periods and evenings would be spent relentlessly rehearsing and putting on shows with friends (including Alice Birch, who recently adapted Normal People for TV). Audience numbers didn’t matter – several struggled to make it through a four-hour Eugene O’Neill adaptation, while there were definite walkouts when a group of them took Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to Edinburgh (“Why would you take Julius Caesar to a comedy festival?” she laughs).

It was all for the discovery, experience and thrill, which is why — just a few years later — when Kirby received her first paycheck, having picked up an agent and signed on for her first three professional productions, it felt strange.

“I still have the vision in my mind of holding that white paper and being like, why are you paying me? Someone’s paying me for this? Because I’ve done it so much.”

Performances of As You Like It, Edward II and A Streetcar Named Desire and collaborations with directors like Benedict Andrews would quickly establish Kirby as one of the U.K.’s hottest stage talents in the early 2010s. But by this point, screen had already come calling. BBC drama The Hour — a small part as a troubled young aristocrat alongside a pre-Bond Ben Whishaw — was her TV debut in 2011, landing four years before being cast in her most famous role to date.

The Crown creator Peter Morgan recalls going “rogue�� when he chose Kirby, overruling the other show execs’ preferred choice for Princess Margaret. She had turned up to the audition looking like what he describes as a “catastrophic mess”; fake tan smeared haphazardly on her shins and hands stained orange (she’d forgotten to wash them after applying the tan).

“But she had an electrifying presence. ... You realized you were in the company of a rare and special talent,” he says, adding that her chaotic appearance plus visible nerves evoked the essential vulnerability he was looking for. “It was very Annie Hall.”

Subsequent screen tests — and the public reaction — confirmed what Morgan first saw, that Kirby was a “high-impact booking,” much like the royal she was taking on. “There was no room in which you were not conscious that Princess Margaret was there.”

To craft her Margaret, in which Kirby laid the largely unknown foundations that would support the royal’s more brash and defiant public persona in later life, she absorbed everything she could, seeking out footage where the princess thought cameras had stopped rolling, plastering her walls in photos and even listening to her favorite music on repeat (including a version of “Scotland the Brave” played on the bagpipes, much to her housemates' dismay).

“It was so exciting to play someone that was so complicated and so conflicted, who was really struggling with a sense of who she was,” she says. “But I also had to chart this journey carefully, across 20 years of a person's life, and try to make it believable and also set her up for the rest of the seasons that were coming.”

Mission: Impossible came off the back of The Crown, sometime in the middle of season two. “I think Tom had watched it, because he watches everything,” says Kirby, who was surprised to be warmly welcomed into the “Mission Family” during her first meeting with Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie. “On my way home I rang my agent going, ‘I think I got the job, I’m not sure.’”

Hobbs & Shaw arrived via another route, Kirby approached by creative duo David Leitch and Kelly McCormick after she led a 2018 summer run of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie at the National Theatre.

While different adrenaline-fuelled vehicles, Kirby used both blockbusters to creatively “subvert” the usual expectations for female characters in action films, particularly within the typically masculine Fast & Furious world. “I was like, I don’t want to have to be saved ever, I don’t want to have to wear anything compromising, I want her to have her own emotional journey.” Her efforts were rewarded when a journalist wrote that Hattie — Kirby’s fearless MI6 operative in Hobbs & Shaw — had been her son’s favorite character. “How cool is that?” (She found the writer’s email to thank her).

As Kirby waits to start on Mission: Impossible 7 (and also 8 — she says the White Widow will likely “float in and out” of upcoming storylines), and for audiences in Venice and Toronto to see her first lead role, this philosophy is set to continue into what could be yet another career progression.

Alongside a daily film club with her housemates (with titles ranging from a list she found of the Dardenne Brothers’ favourite films to the cult so-bad-it’s-good hit The Room), Kirby has also used the months of lockdown to consider her next creative step and dream: setting up her own production company.

“I feel so excited by the thought that there’s so many female stories that haven’t been told. And so many that have examined the psychology of a man in a particular situation, but not the woman,” she says. “I feel like there’s so much opportunity for that and that we do actually have a responsibility. Changing that space is very important to me.”

[adonis-koo]

Sorry my asks was too long I had to make an acc and I hope you don’t mind I just re post all my asks as submit instead coz it’s long!

1-9 after reading ch 11 and prob unpopular opinion but I kinda felt like sometimes tease!jk behavior comes across as emotional manipulative with how he tends to guilt trip mc with his double standards when he’s angry.

He makes her feel bad for things he’s doing the same. And what he said was crossing the line and downright cruel. I understand the reasoning but I have to agree with that anon who said he was let off easy

2-9 I feel like he’s so far given a lot of excuse and pass for his toxic behaviour just because he has a messed up past. When I look at the conflict between mc, he tends to lash out towards her a lot when he can’t express his emotions properly or is jealous. It makes mc look like his emotional punching bag at times and coz he’s more aggressive than her, she ends up get dragged by or is affected by his emotions a lot more than hers does his in a negative way. Mc ain’t right too but she never lashed out the way he did.

3-9 Mc ain’t right too but she never lashed out the way he did. Sure he apologized but I feel like it was dismissed and that behavior wasn’t addressed more seriously. him being forgiven so easily doesn’t seem to allow him the chance to experience the full consequences of his actions and he needs to learn he can’t always deal with his pain by self-harm if he did happen to lose mc.

4-9 and mc seems a little over depend on jk’s approval. If him not apologizing would be enough for her to shut down that bad, than it shows her dependence on him might be bordering on unhealthy. It feels like all her approval and acceptance of herself at this point stems from jk’s behavior and words towards her because as you mentioned, her friends wouldn’t be able to pull her out of that situation if she did shut down.

5-9 She seem to feel insecure when he’s not giving her the attention she wants coz of her insecurities of not measuring up. I’m not sure if she’s aware of that and if she is it’s not addressed as much. Her accepting his apologies feels like a temporary bandage to her deeper issues and enabling herself to be more dependent on him instead of a chance for her to face it alone and grow.

6-9 I feel mc needs more chances to find her own worth and love outside of jk. To know she don’t need his love to feel lovable and worthy since he’s not the best person to get it from. She also needs the chance to be stronger and take more assertion and power as well, to balance the power in their relationship because it feels v imbalance now.

7-9 She needs a bit more equal grounds and feel in control and know she has as much power as him. She’s missing this in both sex and her relationship with him since the type of man she likes - the dominant and caretaker type like jk who has a tendency to be in control, can hinder her from growing stronger and independent.

8-9 And jk kinda needs someone more assertive and put him in his place and don’t take no bs from him. Someone who’ll be willing to walk away and have a time out when needed instead of always accepting him back so easily after he apologizes when he messes up. I’m actually glad mc walked out & I wouldn’t blame her if she did decide to time out from him in this ch. I mean he needs to be treated w/ understanding but too much dismissing his behavior will only enable him to continue excuse his problematic side.

9-9 Change requires quite some time and I’m glad they talked it over. But I just felt the way it ended didn’t really addressed fully those toxic sides to their relationship when the negative influences they have on each other outweighs the positive so far. I don’t know if I’m making sense I’m not the best at explaining stuff. But of course they have a lot more room to grow too since the story is not over and I’m excited to see their relationship grow more. I honestly really love your writings and I’m so invested in the characters so I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m being hateful because your writing is amazing.

~~~

(edit: PC tumblr won’t let me use my pink font >:( )

So I’ve read over this very carefully multiple times and gave it a lot of thought because you pointed out a few things I hadn’t quite thought of or saw it in that type of angle before, so first of all, thank you! I NEVER want to portrayal a relationship that is toxic in a non intentional way, so let’s go ahead and dive on in.

Something I’ve tried to avoid is giving ‘excuses’ especially in the sense of using Jungkook’s background for it. Something I used to constantly say (and I should probably start saying again) yes he has a reason to act out the way he does, it does NOT mean it’s okay by any means. But in a way, we use our past experiences as human beings to guide us, bad experiences leave negative effects.

While we could argue Jungkook ‘needs to learn’ by suffering consequences (which to a degree I do agree because as a previous anon said he needs to be held accountable for his actions) it wouldn’t necessarily be effective in this situation because Jungkook is actually very self aware he can’t escape through self-harm or self destruction, he does understand his actions and what he is doing isn’t okay.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t make mistakes- or fuck up big time he’s extremely hotheaded and impulsive and it’s something he CONSTANTLY battles with, something I wanted to portray when writing tease is the very essence of humans, we can be self aware of our destructive tendencies and yet still do them without realizing it in the moment- only to catch ourselves realizing we did it later on. Which is what happened after their fight.

It’s a war between wanting to heal and become healthy while still struggling to let go of his ego and anger that get the better of him. It’s what makes him human, it doesn’t make it right by ANY means, but it’s a struggle of growth, and no matter how much we grow there will always be ups and downs and set backs. That was definitely something I wanted to portray in my writing, while we don’t see this internal battle in Jungkook as the fic isn’t in his POV we do get to see a lot of this in his journal entries.

This is however something we get to explore a little in the upcoming arc and it’s something we heavily explore after the upcoming arc.

Let me state again this probably still sounds like an excuse and it does not in ANY way mean to be, the only thing I can really do is just explain why I’ve written him this way. I can’t justify his actions or defend him (other then his charactization which still isn’t really defending him because it’s more to do in technicality of writing, if that makes sense?) because that would be enabling him and glorifying unhealthy relationships which we don’t do in this house 🤢

So let’s discuss a little about MC’s behavior, she is 100% dependent of Jungkook’s approval and praise and in a more unconscious way, that was pretty much what I was aiming for. But let’s take a look at their entire relationship through the eyes of the story, Jungkook and MC, in reality, set themselves up for this. Ever since they met they accidentally established a power dynamic-

(via mentor/trainee taken a little too seriously even Jimin states in chapter 2 ‘“You don’t see any of us grinding on our trainee’s, so what’s the difference Guk, hm?” Your lips parted at his words slightly, was he insinuating this wasn’t normal?’ This was the first clue that their mentor trainee relationship was not  normal compared to all of the others soloists who had trainee’s)

-that should have never been allowed to flourish before they really got to know one another. Because that’s the first step to what lead to all of this.

It first started innocently, MC just wanting to be seen as desirable by someone cute like Jungkook, and him being her mentor she wanted his approval on knowing she was doing well. But due to their natural tendency to fall into dom and sub combined with their already established mentor trainee without the foundation of a steady platonic friendship beforehand, it quickly descended more and more into MC needing his attention all the time, needing to know she was good enough and etc.

Really, this goes back to a previous ask I answered: Jungkook and MC have a lack of respect and knowledge for/of one another as people, as two individuals outside of the crumbling dynamic they established when they first met. I mean, sitting here thinking about it, I’m really not surprised it became such a toxic fest between them. They completely set themselves up for this unintentionally and now they’re going to have to learn is how to be a couple (and friends) without the power dynamic or else things are bound to fall apart.

Like you said change does take time and it’s something we’ll begin too see slowly developing between them both in the upcoming arc, but the one question that really struck me was your main one. We’re all aware of these toxic dynamics going on between them both, but why weren’t they addressed and talked about? I feel a little dumb for having to think about it when it feels so clear to me now. They themselves, don’t realize just how toxic their relationship has become, how are they supposed to when it’s been set up this way from the beginning? Their (unfair and unhealthy) power dynamic is all they’ve ever experienced one another through.

MC jumped out of one controlling relationship only to enter another more appealing one without realizing it and Jungkook has never even seen a healthy relationship let alone experience one. The only unhealthy aspect they are both aware of are the ridiculous double standards Jungkook had put on her in the past, because it’s the most blatant and dominant problem between them both. All of these other issues are more underlying and they are both oblivious too.

We’ve both said change takes time, but I think as Jungkook and MC begin to see each other as people outside of the power dynamic, and as they get to know each other as people and no longer as caretaker/little, sub/dom, mentor/trainee, these problems will eventually fix themselves, that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be orally addressed in the story. But from a writing perspective it leaves me to wonder how do I address this when they the characters aren’t even aware of how unhealthy their relationship is? That’s not really a question for you guys too worry about though lmao.

Anyways I’ll start wrapping things up but one last thing I really liked was your opinion on MC needing more independence and growth on her own. I can’t say for sure that’s what we’ll see in this upcoming arc but it’s something I’m definitely aiming for. As someone who though likes to submit I need a sense of autonomy and identity outside of someone else, so I can appreciate your words for MC!

I genuinely think they can be what they need for one another, but it’s always going to be a work in progress because as humans no one is perfect! It all boils down to what you’re willing to deal with in a relationship and what you aren’t, that of course isn’t an excuse to not work to become a better person or the best you can be! But a natural understanding. Anyways I hope I answered to the best of my ability, I said it once and I’ll say it again, I never ever ever want to portray a relationship that isn’t purposely set up toxically.

And that’s not too say I thought for a moment I had, because I’ve clearly stated in the past that this arc was specifically aimed at their toxicity, but it was more of a moment of panic that: ‘oh shit, I can NOT let this go on in the future of the story’ because like I’ve said before tease is all about character development, it won’t make them perfect but I want them to be a THOUSAND times better at the end of the story then where they are now.

Anyways no worries hun! I just hope this clarified a little bit! MC and Jungkook’s real relationship is only now just beginning to unfold in the upcoming arc, we’re only 1/3 of the way through the story so there’s still plenty of time! Thank you for sticking with it though no matter how frustrating the characters may be! I love getting asks that keep me on my toes, it helps keep me grounded and make sure I don’t accidentally become too biased to one narrative.

Thank you so much for sending in hun! ~~

[drink-n-watch]

Another week, another brand-new episode of Psycho Pass. I’m going to hold back and be all mysterious and stuff. Because that’s how I do. I definitely don’t blurt out exactly how I feel about a show in the very first line of every post and then there’s no point in reading the rest. Nuh-huh. No siree. I gots some restraint! Who do you take me for! So instead, Matt, how are you enjoying season 3 so far. It may just be 3 episodes in but as they are double length, it’s now longer than most movies!

Oh, so does that mean it’s my turn to blurt out my thoughts in a single sentence? Okay, um, err, this show is still as consistently excellent as I thought it was based on the previous two episodes! Oh no, I hope I’ll have something to write for the rest of the review now!

Is that so? Fascinating. I can see how you would think and/or feel that way! (I write my part first… I have no clue what Matt said at this point…

So let’s get right into it. First I just a few general comments on my part. I enjoy high stakes corruption stories and although that’s also what season 1 was, the fact that this allows us to look into the public face of Sybil a bit more, through the device of gubernatorial elections is a great angle in my opinion. Diving into what has to be extremely complex and unique politics of a Sybil controlled society has so much potential.

I had to look up what “gubernatorial” meant (we don’t have anything like that in Australia, so forgive my ignorance), but yes I think politics and the world of ‘Psycho Pass’ is a perfect fit. 

I mean what powers do politicians even hold in such circumstances. Are elections largely a population suppression tactics. Something to keep the masses happy? If so, why are they so incredibly high stakes. Seems ridiculous to be going through all this for what amounts to a reality show (which might explain why both candidates are entertainers). So much potential!

What do you think?

I mean, if I know anything about politics and people its that ambitious people will always be ambitious and wanting to be ‘the best’ regardless of the world they live in–so even if politics amount to nothing more than a popularity contest without any real power or ability to change anything outside of Sybil’s system–people are still going to strive for that, people are going to kill for that even. We’ve seen time and time again in the real world that people do extreme things to get what they want, even if to ‘outsiders’ their goals seem ridiculous or pointless.

 Yakusuji really surprised me as a character this week. For a second there I thought they were going with a “bad guy is bad” sort of characterization but then it all took a very sharp right turn! I still don’t know if his character is sincere or if it’s all a big act. Either way, I didn’t expect it and I like it! Maybe it’s my suspicious nature that leads me to think he’s less than sincere but Psycho Pass did teach me not to trust anyone!

He’s definitely an interesting character but the way his character ties into Enforcer Todoroki’s subplot makes for a compelling bit of character development. As for whether he’s ‘on the level’ I don’t buy it…

I did find the assault scene a bit blunt. Not as in too brutal (mind you I thought it was hilarious that someone could kick a skull in so hard as to actually make it explode!) but just a little too straight forward. At least that’s what I thought as I was watching it. In hindsight though, if this was a political machination and not just the random terrorist attack they are making it out to be on the surface, then this type of direct and flamboyant assault is exactly what would be the most effective!

Yeah I took it to be that they were being intentionally flashy, down to the attackers wearing the same clothes, I found it to be a very intimidating scene.

How does anyone in this universe manage to keep their hue clear? I was only watching those little holo assistant thingies pop up for a few minutes (like the old Clippy office assistant) and I already felt my urge to murder rise. I wouldn’t last a day if I had to deal with those things and keep my thoughts in check!

I loved the idea of someone being physically assaulted and then a little pop-up comes up warning them that they were receiving injuries in-line with someone being assaulted, it’s that kind of AI assistant mentality that makes me hate AI assistants like ‘Alexa’ and ‘Siri’ all the more (but that’s a rant for another day).

As our heroes were chasing the attackers down, we got some surprising bit of universe building and musing on the dual nature of justice and law. One of my very favourite lines from the first season was said in a similar context. As Akane was chasing down criminals she said something to the effect that there’s a misconception that laws are there to protect people but it’s really up to people to protect the laws. I love that idea. It really epitomized Akane’s character and the fact that that’s what’s going through her mind in a high-pressure situation was just perfect.

We got something similar this week with Arata capping off a chase explaining that even in a Sybil controlled society it is imperative to exercise human judgement “that’s why dominators have triggers”. It’s a great line! And one that solidifies Arata’s devotion to ideals rather than establishments.

I’m glad you brought it up, that line really stood out to me too, the importance of the human aspect in an (at times) inhumane system.

Matt, you mentioned last week that you felt the writers of Psycho Pass season 3 had gotten around to reading old US news, it seems that they’ve moved on to more recent fare as the general depiction of the mudslinging politics does seem very familiar to what has been happening not too far south from my own home in the past few years!

Immigration’s a tricky thing, ain’t it?

Although, aside from the winky topical references, it does make a lot of sense that a society as portrayed in Psycho Pass would be particularly xenophobic. To be honest, I was really surprised they even had large scale immigration. I figured the country would have been largely sealed off!

So far, the themes of racial/cultural tension are handled a little naively and way too simplified for my tastes. However, I do realize that with everything going on in this narrative, you got to take some shortcuts.

I suppose there’s still time for a more nuanced discussion on immigration from this show, I imagine someone like you Irina, an immigrant yourself, would have a lot more to say on the subject than most people?

What did you think of Haruki Enomyia? I’m asking cause I have no clue what to make of them.

Difficult to say, for a second I thought they might be setting them up as a bigger villain for this story but I think they’re probably going to end up just another pawn in the bigger game being played. I think they were more just here to give us an idea of what kind of life Kazumichi had in the slums before joining the force. Though I think him just walking around the town with Arata did that well enough.

Am I the only one who noticed all the food in this episode? Maybe I was just hungry, but everything looked delicious!

C’mon Irina, all anime food looks delicious!

Ok back to more serious stuff, we got some very decent character-building backstory for both Kei and Arata. Now normally, this would not be my thing. It was delivered in straight exposition and boy oh boy was it all tragic! Taken independently, both of their backgrounds would have had me gently rolling my eyes and moving on without a second thought. Oh my, an anime protag with a tragic backstory! But it’s in how these stories intertwine to create such a bizarre picture of their relationship that brings the whole thing to a higher level.

It’s kind of interesting that they chose to more or less have our entire supporting cast learn this complicated backstory at the same time via the expositional method you mentioned. On the one hand I guess it helps to have everyone on the same page with their history but it makes me wonder if it was done for a more specific reason. Like one of the Enforcers using this information against our dynamic duo or the opposite and it puts more faith in them and brings closer as a team–who can say for sure?

In fact, the peculiar dynamic between Kei and Arata is truly fascinating and so far, a strong point of the season for me.

Agreed.

A few little random thoughts:

I quite like both the OP and ED. I like the visuals in the OP better, in fact, I like them a lot, but I prefer the ED song!

The interiors are really beautiful this season. I’m not so taken by the architecture, but room designs consistently catch my eye.

Also, I didn’t know where to fit it in the review, but I liked the statement that acting weak releases cortisol making you feel more relaxed. The behavioural neuroscience angle is one I like a lot and I hope they develop it more as Psycho Pass is the perfect universe to explore this in.

I thought it was interesting–if briefly mentioned–but I have to wonder if it was just the writer showing off some fancy things he learned on wikipedia and wanting to put it into the show (okay that was a bit catty of me, apologies to the writer of Psycho Pass).

Oh I guess I should finally admit it. I really liked this episode. More than the last. So far, I think the writing may be a touch weaker than I had hoped. There’s a lot of slightly clumsy exposition. But I’m also starting to see the foundations of a potentially fascinating story with some very intriguing dynamics. I’m excited. When the episode ended I was both surprised by how quickly it had gone by and a little bummed I couldn’t watch the next one right away!

I have to agree (we seem to agreeing a lot this time!) our new characters feel like they’re living up to the potential of this show’s world while adding interesting things to it too. Political corruption, a shadow organisation called ‘Bifrost’ pulling the strings (cool name by the way) plus all the internal machinations at the various levels of law enforcement and interpersonal relationships too makes for a rich and compelling tapestry. If you’re a person who adheres to the 3 episode rule and you haven’t given this show a chance yet then 3 excellent episodes in a row should be proof enough that Psycho Pass is back and firing on all cylinders!

Psycho Pass s3 ep3 – Tensions Flare Another week, another brand-new episode of Psycho Pass. I’m going to hold back and be all mysterious and stuff.

[teagrl]

Some more on Inferno Squadron, Lost Stars, Imperial culture, and cultures of terror

There was no time for this, no time to explain to the poor grunt just doing his job that she was cleared, no time to do anything just shove Gideon forward to run to the ship while Iden whirled switching her blaster to stun, to hold off her “fellow” stormtroopers.

-Inferno Squadron

This in a nutshell is my problem. If there is truly no time, if things are that dire, the Imperial thing to do is to waste your “fellow” stormtroopers. Even in Lost Stars they made a big to do about mission objectives being enshrined over people and the end plays it out excellently. 

But it’s not really wasting your own troops per se that I want to think about. It’s that as symptomatic of Imperial thinking as in the convo here. Where I brought up that link to what has been called a “culture of terror.”

This was a neat quote in Lost Stars:

Good people can start to serve the Empire. But if they stay, they stop being good. You do one think you thought you’d never do-- follow one order that makes you feel sick inside-- and you tell yourself it’s the only time. This is an exception. This isn’t the way it’s always going to be... But you keep going, you make one more compromise, and then another, and by the time you realize what the Empire really is, you’re almost too far down that road to turn back.

It echoes all the dark side hullabaloo. But I personally don’t find the dark side as relevant (I know SACRILEGE) as I do fascism, dictatorship, colonialism, and general cultures of terror. So again let’s keep in mind that Lost Stars is YA, so we’re not expecting a lot of specificity. Still I love drawing connections and this is from that book which got me thinking about cultures of terror via an incredible quote by Ariel Dorfman (a writer and human rights activist):

The control enforced by the dictatorship [Ariel Dorfman, writing about Pinochet’s regime in Chile,] points out, “is as arbitrary as it tends to be at times absurd.” A child’s dictionary was removed from newsstands as the censors did not agree with its definition of the word “soldier.” Officialdom strives to create a magical reality. When 5,000 slum dwellers were rounded up and held in a stadium, a high official denied that the event had even happened. “What stadium? What slum-dwellers?” What is endangered, concludes Dorfman is the existence of the society’s moral foundations.

What I’m trying to get at is how these cultures of terror take everything away from the populace -- most notably their grasp of reality (which then if we take Dorfman at his word shakes the sense of right and wrong). 

That is to say, if people sucked into the Empire can’t turn back, it’s because their grasp of reality has been thoroughly shattered (through propaganda, censorship, and repressive state violence) and remade into something else, something paranoid and terrified. The only answer then is violence and more terror (in complicity with the state regime).

The expendability and interchangeability of lives under the Imperial regime plays into this, I think.

I feel like pointing to Vader’s completely extraneous wasting clone troopers when he goes to find the location of  Kirak Infil'a, apart from all those public executions he’s done of underlings who’ve disappointed him. Sure, an argument can go, that’s Vader being extra and we can laugh at the OTT aesthetics. But no, that’s my point, Vader isn’t the exception to the Imperial culture of terror. He’s the motherfucking norm under the big pile of lies about order, etc. He is Imperial ideology’s personification pretty much. Which btw is the brilliance of a character like that.

To return to the Inferno Squadron quote. Iden Versio isn’t acting like an Imperial here, she’s acting like the fundamentally “good”/decent person we’re supposed to take her for when she finally switches sides. I see what you did there. And it bores me. 

Maybe I should ditch Inferno Squadron and go to Phasma, see if that one is less tepid.  

[casualarsonist]

Dune (novel) review and analysis

In commemoration to Frank Herbert’s epic novel, I’ve decided to make this review 10,000 words long.

Frank Herbert’s Dune has long stood as one of science fiction’s towering giants - a monolithic feat of imagination and a landmark science fiction novel. And as a work of fiction, this it true. Over the greater part of a thousand pages lay stories of sprawling civilisations, with dozens of unique characters engaging in complex power-plays whilst battling the brutality of the ecology of the sand-planet Arrakis. Following it’s release in 1965, it was (and still is) regarded as a masterwork in world-building - a milestone for the genre, and the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones of its time. As a work of fiction, it’s a triumph. As a piece of literature…well…

Frank Herbert was great at many things in his life. Writing was not one of them. And while Dune is a standout novel that, all things considered, has aged better than many novels (particularly of the sci-fi genre) of a similar time, it is, at least in my humble opinion, a spectacularly average work of prose. But I say this with the works of Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kurt Vonnegut, and others in mind, so I am probably doing him a disservice in comparing his work to what I believe to be the cream of the crop. But if you’re going to tout a novel as ‘one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time’, I think you have to allow it to undergo rigourous scrutiny from all angles. So with that in mind, let’s scrutinise this motherfucker.

Spoilers abound, including a spoiler for Metro 2033.

It is thousands of years in the future, and mankind has conquered the stars. Dune centres around the Atreides family - one of a number of Great Houses united under the pseudo-feudal collective ‘Lansraad’, owing allegiance to the Emperor Shaddam IV. Duke Leto Atreides - a hard but compassionate man and a competent leader - has been given charge over the desert planet Arrakis, displacing House Harkonnen - the Atreides’ mortal enemies. Leto senses correctly that this dangerous exchange of power is an intentional move by the Emperor to set his family up on the losing side of an inter-House rivalry, and with the help of the traitorous Yueh - the Atreides doctor - and the armies of the Emperor, the Harkonnen’s capture and kill Leto, whilst his son Paul and pregnant concubine Jessica disappear into the desert. There they encounter Arrakis’ indigenous inhabitants - the Fremen - and are accepted amongst them after proving their worth through combat and their uncanny abilities of deduction and prescience, abilities taught to Jessica and Paul by the Bene Gesserit, a powerful sisterhood who wield abilities of superhuman physical and mental conditioning to influence and manipulate society.

Paul, for his part, has been prophesied to be the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ - the name for a messianic male Bene Gesserit, a child born of generations of genetic manipulation with the power to see through time and space. And when I say he is ‘prophesied’ to be the Kwisatz Haderach, I mean that he is the Kwisatz Haderach, and this, like most questions and mysteries the novel establishes, are answered immediately and conclusively without exception.

But anyway, after their escape the book jumps a number of years ahead, and Paul has had a son with a Fremen woman, while Jessica has given birth to Paul’s sister, Alia, a child imbued with all of Jessica’s Bene Gesserit powers in the womb, who speaks and acts like a grown adult despite looking and sounding like an infant.

Under Paul’s command, the Fremen tribes have been performing successful raids against the Harkonnen forces and reducing the flow of the addictive spice Melange - the galaxy’s most valuable trade commodity, and one that occurs only on Arrakis. This brings the Emperor to the planet, followed by the armies of every house in the Lansraad, and with the Fremen tribes at his back, Paul drives over them like a steamroller, taking back control of Arrakis with little to no complications because he’s the Kwisatz fucking Haderach, as we were told in the first chapter. His infant sister knifes the Baron Harkonnen to death, and Paul forces the daughter of the Emperor - Princess Irulan - to marry him while promising that he will never love her or otherwise show her affection. Jessica celebrates this. The end.   So, I hope you could keep up with all the terms; my spellcheck was going absolutely mental as I was writing that.

But where to begin? Firstly, despite some of the criticisms I’ve read (as well as some of the criticisms I will make), I should note that I didn’t find Dune to be a particularly laborious read. Its length is obscene, yes, but my Tube rides would pass by in a flash when I was buried in the text. And although I personally don’t understand the decades-long literary trend of putting fake songs into a text (I’m looking at you, Lord of the Rings), I never found the numerous pages of songs in Dune to be as big an impediment to my interest as I did in, say, Lord of the fucking Rings (and skipping over reading them sped the whole process up considerably). I understand that saying that Dune ‘isn’t unreadable’ isn’t exactly high praise, but I think it’s worth at least outlining the extent of my criticisms of the text, because I’m going to tear into Herbert’s writing as we go on, but I don’t want you to think that sub-par prose necessarily translates into an odious reading experience. And in any case, Dune didn’t become one of the biggest selling sci-fi novels entirely without reason. The one thing that it does unquestionably well is exercise Herbert’s imagination.

Rarely has a imagined universe been so clearly realised before or since Frank Herbert’s seminal series, and this can be ascribed chiefly to one particular detail: his research and preparation. In reading George Arr-Arr Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, for example, one can detect in the convoluted and meandering text the fact that he doesn’t actually know where his novels are going when he starts writing them. The swelling word count of each successive entry in the series also bears testament to an increasingly relaxed editorial oversight, and this has resulted in each book becoming more bloated and complicated than the last. And while Dune itself is bloated terms of its length and complicated in terms of the language it introduces to the reader, there is a specific and unerring clarity in Herbert’s vision of the Dune universe that one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, and this is because the world itself was layed out by Herbert in detail, and years in advance, of the final writing and publishing of the novel. One can get a taste of this preparation and backstory in the supplementary appendices in the back of the book, as well as the accompanying glossary, which offers a definition of every single alien term that appears in the course of the preceding nine-hundred pages, and whilst not every creature or machine is described in minute detail, all the pieces of this puzzle fit together in the greater context of the novel.

There is also a sense of uncanny timelessness in the world of Dune, and Herbert has achieved this via a number of paths - the first being that he drew from real-world sciences as a foundation upon which the ecology and engineering of his universe is built. Rooting his fantasy work in a bed of modern fact (and remaining restrained enough in his vision to avoid sending his characters to absurd destinations such as planets made of cheese, or inhabited by talking animals, for instance) bestows a tangibility in one’s mind’s eye to the people, places, and things, and interestingly leaves Dune feeling relevant even to an audience for whom the technologies of the Sixties seem archaic and obsolete. The second factor that gives the novel life is its appropriation of Middle Eastern cultures as inspiration for that of the Fremen. This is obviously an accidental boon, but as with the surge of Middle Eastern cultural influences spreading throughout the Western world in the Sixties, so too has the region, its people, and its customs come to the forefront of Western attention in the last few decades. People are far more common with the word ‘jihad’ now than they would likely have been at the turn of the millenium, and this coincidental familiarity left me feeling a greater understanding of the desert-dwelling Fremen than I might otherwise have had, had I read the book as a teenager, for instance.

So before I launch into a diatribe, it’s worth pointing out that Dune IS a genuine landmark work, and with good reason, but it has its limits. And now that I’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, I can begin the fun part: talking about all the reasons Dune shits me off.

1: It starts each chapter with a spoiler for the rest of the novel.

Now I don’t know how you feel, but if I had to guess, I’d say that one of the main things that keeps an audience engaged in the plot of a piece of fiction is the fact that they don’t know what’s going to come next. Hell - this is why we engage in fictional stories at all, and why every series of Game of Thrones is preceded by an onslaught of social media statuses proclaiming that someone is going to get their eyes gouged out if they reveal whether the Immodium cures Daeneryus’ chronic diarrhea at the end of S03E05.

Frank Herbert has other things in mind, though, for every chapter in the novel begins with an excerpt from a piece of in-universe fiction - usually written by the Emperor’s daughter, and almost always regarding Paul’s actions in the future. Through these excerpts we get a glimpse into the world beyond the novel, specifically, into a world in which Paul is both a god, and not dead. This didn’t seem to perturb Herbert though, and he soldiers on admirably in his endeavor to supply multitudes of cliffhangers, the outcome of which have either already been revealed to us, or are revealed in the paragraph following the incident itself. Tracts of text are rendered wasted and pointless by Herbert’s own premature narrative ejaculation, and the trials that Paul undergoes on his journey towards godliness hold no weight because we know the outcome of his character from the opening of the very first chapter. In the most egregious instance, one chapter ends with Paul near death after poisoning himself. 'Will he survive?' I asked myself, 'Maybe the prophecy is wrong! Maybe something, anything, that hasn't already been revealed to us is about to happen!' In the very first sentence of the next chapter, an excerpt written far in the future that tells us specifically that Paul lives and gains the powers of the Kwisatz Haderach, like a time-travelling dickhead who has come back to the past to spoil your good time. Herbert then decides that blowing his load is no impediment to making the reader sit through six pages in the eyes of a character that doesn’t know of Paul’s situation, and we watch them trip clumsily over their own emotions and agonise over a question of his survival that was answered for us literally as soon as it was posed.This moment is so utterly confounding in its dramatic ineptitude that I was agape, staring at the page in disbelief. It’s as if The Usual Suspects began with a Kevin Spacey monologue directly to the camera talking about how he is Kaiser Soze, and then the rest of the film conducted itself as if it were still a mystery. It’s as if the opening crawl of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ told the audience that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, and then still tried to pull off the reveal. And this pattern is repeated from start to finish - every time you reach a point in which you wonder ‘will they make it out of this?’ Herbert comes back from the dead, strips the book from your hand, smacks you in the face with it, and emphatically replies ‘YES’.

2: Its inner monologues are prolific, and terrible.

No-one thinks to themselves like the characters in Dune think to themselves. If you are at McDonalds and you want to buy a burger, you don’t stand in line thinking to yourself ‘I am at McDonalds, and I am hungry. I wish to buy a burger, and I can see the burger menu in front of me, but I don’t know which to choose. I must hurry because I am almost at the front of the line - if I cannot choose in time, I will end up at the front of the line having not made a choice, and everyone around me will be inconvenienced!’

But Frank Herbert thinks people think like that.

He uses the character’s inner monologues as a medium for clumsy exposition, and eradicates any sense of realism or immersion they may hold. Now that’s not to say that one can’t use an inner monologue for that purpose, but the characters of Dune project a constant and unfiltered analysis of even the most basic social interactions, redundantly vocalising things made obvious in the text. Paul will do a thing, and Jessica will think that ‘Paul is doing that thing!’, and it will all be presented so dramatically that it makes you want to hurl the book into traffic. Herbert takes swathes of description that most writers would simply frame from a third person perspective about the characters and the world, and presents them instead as unedited, actual thoughts that the characters think in real time. In the midst of action and a threat to his mother’s life, Paul stops and takes a minute to recite this in his head: ‘They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle them. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to escape.’ No-one alive has ever had a thought that forms itself like that, and this actually ends up having a tangible discriminatory effect on the reader, for whom all of the characters whose thoughts we don’t hear seem like pretty normal people, and all the central characters end up coming across as fucking weirdos, and one finds oneself subconsciously disliking them. Which brings me to my next point…

3: The Atreides are fools, assholes, or both, and the writing doesn’t help.

Now to be fair, it’s important to note that one of the key themes of Dune, according to Frank Herbert, is the danger of the ‘superhero’ myth. Through his genetic talents, his lifetime of training, and the legends and prophecies sewn into the Fremen culture, Paul takes a straight-line trajectory towards becoming the foretold Kwisatz Haderach, but despite his triumph over every challenge and his ultimate and all-encompassing victory over his enemies, he is not a character to be envied - he seemingly loses his attachment to the people around him and is consumed by his own myth, becoming more of a dictator than anything else. However, there are two problems with the portrayal of Paul et al. that confuses the intended message. The first is that a large proportion of the Atreides’ characterisation goes into establishing their constant control over their emotions, reactions, and decision-making processes; the effect being that from the very beginning of the novel the Atreides’ all seem to exist in their own little bubble, separated from the world at large as well as those around them by their own singular brilliance - Leto is a ‘great’ commander bearing the burden of the his people on his shoulders; Jessica is a Bene Gesserit and a concubine, viewed with suspicion by many around her due to her powers and her unofficial place within the family; and Paul is a demi-god in training. And since the tone of Herbert’s prose is so lacking in emotional nuance and resonance, it becomes difficult to discern whether he is intending to convey that, in any given situation, a character is displaying an intentional control over his or her reactions, or whether they are actually supposed to be displaying an unhealthy emotional disconnect. Within the text both instances appear the same, and it is only whether the control or the disconnect are explicitly stated that I, for one, could decipher the points in which it was intentional. Such as it is, the off-screen death of Paul’s son reads like a footnote for all the pause it gives him, and I still can’t figure out whether that’s because Herbert is trying to indicate the depth of Paul’s depravity, or whether he’s just a shitty writer who failed to properly demonstrate his character’s emotions, because honestly, it could be either.  

And this brings me to the second problem, which is that the prose itself is complicit in the confusion. As stated, Herbert’s grasp of dramatic tension is so feeble, his demonstrated understanding of interpersonal emotions so poor, and his writing so matter-of-fact and lacking in colour, that it buries whatever philosophical subtext it may have and confuses speculation on its themes by virtue of the simple fact that any supposed ‘mystique’ could just as easily be chalked up to the author’s failed hold over his own material. The way Herbert fumbles with the tension he tries to invoke and the clumsiness of his writing when he gets inside his characters heads leaves it equally possible in my mind that his characters are complex as it is that they are simple - a situation I’ve never witnessed before - and in any other circumstance I’d admit that there was a kind of brilliance to this, if it wasn’t for the fact that the general tone of his writing clearly conveys the infancy of his talents as an author. My inclination, then, was simply to take everything at face value because the novel is written so explicitly. Which finally brings me to my actual point here:

If the novel is to be taken as it is written, then all of the main characters are giant idiot dickheads.

Let’s begin with Duke Leto. It’s kind of strange that everyone in Leto’s shadow exhibits an explicit and almost unfathomable loyalty to someone who’s temperament is almost exclusively characterised by flushes of anger, harsh words, and a deep belief in the feudal hierarchy - the idea of ‘right by birth’ being an absurd inflation of self-importance that Paul himself adopts as an awful character trait later on. Most of Leto’s subordinates seem to display symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, seeing brief moments of kindness following a rebuke or an outburst as a sign of his famed benevolence and compassion. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is an adage that comes to mind when pondering the writing of this character, and for all the tales of a 'great leader' that surround him, we see little of this in the timeline of the novel itself. A man whose idea of ‘strong leadership’ is a calm word after an outburst isn’t a figure of worship, he’s a cunt. And I can see the typing fingers of fans a-flurry as they rush to point out that Leto is supposedly uncharacteristically stressed by the danger his family has been put in - an excuse that would hold far more weight if Herbert had found time to actually demonstrate this somewhere within his novel’s nine-hundred pages, but he didn’t. Instead, we’re simply told that he’s not usually like that, which has as much meaning to a reader as being told your neighbour’s shithead Chihuahua ‘isn’t usually like that’, right after it bites the tip of your dick (true story, don’t ask). And after all this - after all his bluster and bullshit, and after spending a good deal of his story ostracizing the mother of his child in an effort to supposedly fake out the true traitor in his family’s midst - he succeeds in exactly none of his efforts, and the Harkonnen plot plays out without a hitch. To make matters worse, his final living act is to activate a poison gas capsule hidden in his tooth in an attempt to kill the Baron Harkonnen, and he even fucks this up, killing only himself and one of the Baron’s disposable offsiders. His capabilities as a leader are nil, and his compassion limited, at best.

Meanwhile, for her part, Jessica spends the majority of Dune pinballing between disgust and fear of her son because he is turning into the very thing she has been training him to be for the entirety of his existence, and vengeful joy as he rains destruction down upon their mutual enemies. In what you’ll come to see is a pattern amongst the Atreides, any sense of genuineness one may garner from her faint echoes of self-awareness is reversed and erased by the fact that she continually makes the same decisions she spends so much time regretting, and then comes to regret those decisions as well - simply put, she's written to be self-aware, but not written to learn. For instance, as the focus on her dwindling attachment to Paul begins to grow as he gets more powerful, she willingly undergoes a ritual whilst pregnant that bestows all her powers upon her unborn daughter, resulting in the birth of what the Bene Gesserit call an ‘Abomination’ - a child that she once again finds disconcerting. Typically the Bene Gesserit kill these children as they risk being dangerously possessed by the spirits of dead Bene Gesserit, but Jessica doesn’t care about that because she is the mother of Paul Atreides and she can do whatever the fuck she wants. And far be it from me to say that a mother shouldn’t be able to keep her child if she wants to, but there’s a distinct difference between wanting to keep your unborn daughter; and forcing upon her powers that she cannot refuse, making her a target for a powerful order, and then having the audacity to look down upon her as something unnatural simply because she is what you made her to be. The point I’m making is that whilst the character of Jessica constantly reminds the reader that she is disenfranchised or a passive observer amongst the events that take place around her, such claims are a hard pill to swallow coming from a character for whom a core motivation of their order is the pursuit of power, and particularly the desire to manipulate it from behind the scenes. Jessica is demonstrably one of the most influential and powerful people in the universe - she is a master of wits and observation, outsmarting even Leto’s security expert (who, it should be mentioned, is a human computer), and a master of combat, easily besting the chieftan of the first Freman tribe they encounter. She even has the power to force others into doing her bidding by the use of ‘The Voice’ - an ability she uses at least half a dozen times. And yet what is the one thing that gives her solace? The fact that her son plans to marry an innocent girl for political reasons, and then torture her for the rest of her life by withholding any kind of affection in favour of his concubine. These are the last words of Dune:

“Do you know so little of my son?” Jessica whispered. “See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace; she’ll have little else.” A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. “Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

After everything that has happened, to the end, Jessica’s one gripe is that she was never treated with the respect of a Queen all those years ago when Leto was alive. Great. What a wonderful person. And make no mistake - she is talking about the innocent daughter of their enemy here; a girl who only wants to be a writer and scholar and will spend the rest of her life recording the history of this woman’s fucking son. And for some incomprehensible reason, Herbert decided that this, a petty display of spite that boils the most powerful female character in the novel down to the desire to be 'a wife', that this would be the perfect way to end his epic science fiction novel.

So what about Paul? We’ve already discussed in brief his descent into war mongering and self-absorption that makes him one of the most singularly unlikable characters in the book, but what makes it worse is that, once again, every single decision he makes leads him directly to the one point that he swears he never wants to go. His one steadfast moral handhold is his understanding of the fact that encouraging the Fremen to worship him and playing into the prophecy of the Kwisatz Haderach runs the risk of drawing these people to the edge of waging a religious war. But he also knows that their military might united under his leadership is his one way of winning back his seat as the ruler of Arrakis. So what does he decide to do?

We already know the answer to that.

Time and again Paul fans the flames of religious fervour and further asserts his singular command over everyone, ultimately leading his army to the brink of jihad. At various points he sets out to demonstrate that he fulfills the requirements of the prophecy, at others he demands fealty based on his birthright as son of the former Leto Atreides. By the end of the novel he literally says that he lives by two separate moral codes - that of a noble family, and that of the Fremen - and that a course of action illegal for an Atreides (i.e. the murder of the fucking Emperor) is not illegal for a Freman. You understand what this means, right? Paul is making the argument of a crazy person - he genuinely ascribes the blame for an illegal murder at the feet of a different version of himself. And while it’s true that Frank Herbert came out a decade after the release of the novel and talked about how it’s supposed to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of hero worship, it’s also true that Tommy Wiseau asserted that The Room was a drama, right up until he realised that everyone was laughing at it.

Dimitri Glukhovsky’s ‘Metro 2033’, for instance, ends with the protagonist realising at the last moment that the assumption upon which his last mission rests is incorrect, and that the race of beings that he is about to destroy are actually intelligent and benevolent, rather than the violent demons they are thought to be. This climax is a crescendo of swelling emotion and tragedy that leaves the main character broken and disillusioned, and it is one of the few times I’ve cried whilst reading a novel. Glukhovsky devotes the entire final section of the book to the failure of his protagonist, and of humanity at large, to realise what they have done until it’s too late, and the emotional repercussions of this.

Frank Herbert devotes a couple of lines to Paul's awareness of his ultimate failure.

And much like the death of the Paul’s son, this too reads like a footnote. So how are we supposed to understand the intentions of a novel that presents itself so dispassionately? One that portrays enormous and important events in such an off-hand manner? I’m not entirely sure to be honest. For certain, I could delve into a debate about the possible meaning of this and that and dive into the encyclopaedia of interpretations, and again, perhaps a certain amount of merit should be given to Dune for opening itself up to that kind of discussion. But I could also just take it for what it is, rather than what it accidentally might be, and that is a very imaginative but flatly-written tome, with passionless two-dimensional characters, and a storytelling style that constantly undermines its own drama. I bought the sequel - Dune Messiah - because it’s about one fifth of the length, and I was keen to see exactly how Herbert expands on the foundation he has laid here. Perhaps it has all the answers? Perhaps it will confirm that every assertion I have made in this turgid article is incorrect? If so, I’ll be sure to let you know. But for now, I only know what I know, and that is that Dune is a phenomenal work of imagination, a great fiction, and a poor, poor text.

6/10

Just Okay

[haydennation]

Man About Town Magazine Interview

He may have arrived on the major movie scene via the dark side playing the young Darth Vader, but as Hayden Christensen rolls out a varied and impressive line-up of roles-opposite a bevy of beautiful Hollywood starlets including Misha Barton in Virgin territory, Jessica Alba in Awake and Rachel Bilson in Jumper no less, it’s safe to say there’s a bright future ahead of this young Hollywood actor…even if he ends up as a farmer.

LCW: It’s 5pm on a Friday night. Where are you? HC: I’m in LA right now. LCW: Your latest film Jumper is all about teleportation, do you think there are pros and cons to be able to teleport yourself around? HC: Nothing but pros. LCW: Where would you want to go? HC: I’d be everywhere but if I had to pick one place to go first, probably back home to Toronto really quick. LCW: Do you think the novelty would wear off? HC: I don’t know if I’d ever lose the novelty of being able to teleport but it also depends on whether it’s just you or if everyone else can teleport too. LCW: would that be your special power? HC: Definitely. LCW: What did you think when you first hear the idea for the film? HC: The idea of teleportation appealed to me right away and I didn’t really need to think about it too much to get into it. Especially because I travel a lot, being able to cut out the need for transportation, cut out traffic, etc would be amazing. LCW: Do you like traveling? HC: I like ending up where I’m traveling to. The process of traveling itself isn’t that great. LCW: Where was the last place you went on holiday? HC: The Bahamas six weeks ago where I really got into free diving. LCW: Do you tend to go away in between films to recharge? HC: I tend to not stay in one place for that long or go away to the same place every time. I try to go back home as much as possible…home being Toronto. LCW: Do you ski or snowboard? HC: I do both. In fact I was born in British Columbia. LCW: What’s your favorite mountain? HC: I probably prefer [Whistler] Blackcomb. LCW; I heard you recently bought a farm north of Toronto, tell me more about that and how it’s going. HC: I got the farm about a year ago and just really turned my hand to it. Organic farming interests me. Although, so far I’ve only planted a small vegetable patch but I definitely want to get the pugs, cattle, and horses.

LCW: Do you have a big red barn? HC: No, but I’m building one where the old barn burnt down and using the foundations to build a new one. LCW: Is carpentry something you enjoy? HC: It’s a new endeavor and I’m not very good at it yet but I’m trying to figure it out. I’m learning new things and it’s a great challenge. It’s also really pleasurable. There’s throwing the dirt around, getting your hands dirty and watching things grow. But mostly, I have to admit, I’ve been collecting toys. LCW: What kind of toys? HC: Like big, big toys. LCW: I’m noticing a theme of dirt with you. HC: Yeah I like getting dirty. LCW: What does your toy collection include? HC: Right now I have a Bobcat, which is really cool, then there’s the dumper truck and the excavator, which is a big proper piece of equipment. LCW: Is it a John Deere? HC: No, it’s not, but it’s a big yellow monster and that’s the most important thing. LCW: Bobcats are quite small and can whiz around a lot, right? HC: Oh sure, they have a lot of different attachments and I love changing them. They have like, nine different attachments! It’s great fun, like, the best time ever. LCW: What are your thoughts on theatre? HC: I like the theatre. I just don’t go see it that much. Although I did a play and really liked it. LCW: Are you into music? HC: I’m very much into music. LCW: Who is in your top five favorite artists? HC: Bob Dylan. LCW; Have you always been a Dylan fan or did Factory Girl influence that? HC: No I’ve always been/ I’d say Nick Drake as well. Neil Young, definitely. And not to be giving friends the shameless plug, but Dhani Harrison-he’s George Harrison’s son, is excellent. LCW: What’s your favorite Dylan song? HC: I can’t just pick one of them. There’s too many. LCW; Do you play the guitar? HC: Very poorly. LCW: What about the harmonica? HC: Harmonica? Even worse. But I played the piano for a bit. LCW: Would you say you’re into fashion? HC: No, not really. I like to wear sweatpants and Wellingtons over fashion but you know there are certain things that catch my eye. LCW: What color are your Wellies? HC: I have black and grey ones. LCW: What was your worst fashion disaster or fashion phase? HC: Firstly, I think my fashion sense was awesome (sarcastically). When I was about six I was running around in parachute pants, like the MC Hammer ones, which some might consider to be a fashion mistake, but I loved them. LCW: What are the first three things you do in the morning? HC: I usually make myself a cup of tea. LCW: What kind of tea? HC: Breakfast tea. And then I go take a shower and get back into bed. It’s the best feeling ever to get back into bed after you’ve taken a shower and go back to sleep again. LCW: I suppose it depends on how dirty you get in bed before the initial wake up. LCW: Do you exercise a lot? HC: Well, I like sport. I like to play tennis and I like to kick a soccer ball around. LCW; Do you support a football (soccer) team? HC: I’d have to with Man U (Manchester United). LCW: Why? HC: My friend is a huge Man U fan. LCW: Can you tell me something interesting about Canada? HC: Well it depends on what you think is interesting. It’s a big bilingual country. LCW: Has your role as Darth Vader been a blessing or a curse? HC: I wouldn’t say it’s been a curse on my acting career, it is what it is. But one of the things I’ve been amazed by is the effect that playing that kind of character has on kids. I remember I was with George one time and these two seven year old kids walked up and looked at me with widest eyes of disbelief. LCW: Who were your childhood heroes? HC: My heroes were more like hockey players. LCW: But Darth Vader wasn’t the hero you dreamt of being when you were older? HC: It didn’t seem plausible. I didn’t have a weird connection with my character or anything like that. But you know it’s one of those things that happened and it did. It was such a crazy, surreal thing to adjust to. LCW: Do you think you were prepared for this kind of juggernaut of a role? HC: Definitely not prepared. I don’t know that I could have prepared for it because I was nineteen and it was my first sort of real film role. LCW: Are you comfortable with fame and the fact that you are now being recognized? HC: I’m getting more comfortable with it. It was a really difficult thing to try to acclimate at first. And it has its effect on my life, but now I’m just more comfortable in that skin. LCW: What do you think keeps you grounded and in touch with reality? HC: My life. I know good people and I have a very good family. I think I have perspective on what’s happened to me, which is an obvious way to stay grounded. When you consider the fact that it all sort of came about and changed around Star Wars, I could track it fairly easily. When it was announced that I got the part and I stated working on the movie everything changed because I went to an audition and some guy (George Lucas) liked the way I was reading the lines. But because of that I was able to associate everything in my life that had changed with the Star Wars franchise. I was able to sort of distance myself from it a little bit, especially the attention I was getting because it wasn’t about what I was doing per se, it was very clearly Star Wars related. It had more to do with what George Lucas had done, thirty years ago. I was more of an innocent bystander along for the ride. And it was an amazing ride. LCW: Do you feel there is a Darth Vader/star wars shadow being cast on your career or something you want to move away from? HC: I don’t know that I ever consciously fighting my Star Wars perception. I’m just doing what I want to do, whether that be taking time off, hanging out with friends and family, traveling or doing more films…working on the farm. LCW: What makes you decide to do a film role? HC: If I like the story and the character needs to be interesting. I look for characters that are complex and who have some sort of experience as a result of thing things that are going on in the story, ones where they change and grow with the story. It has to be something that I can sink my teeth into. LCW: Would you say you’re quite a reflective person? HC: Erm, actually I am. LCW: Which character did you learn the most from? HC:  I think Shattered Glass. I walked away with an understanding of how a person may not be a reflection of their capabilities or their end contention. LCW: What do you most despise about Hollywood? HC: I think just the overwhelming ambition that’s around. LCW: Would you say you’re ambitious? HC: No, no. I would say I have an ambition, but not an ambition that fits with any sort of greater endeavor, you know. You might achieve a lot, but I gauge it by the experience I have on set. LCW; Are you competitive? HC: I’m very competitive. LCW: Are you a bad loser? HC: A very bad loser. It would be very difficult to beat me at a game of tennis. There might be the odd obscenity shouted. I also like to play Cranium around Christmas time with my sister and I normally make sure we’re playing together so we can cheat. Every way we can, we cheat. Part of the game is just how well you can cheat and get away with it. LCW: What kind of dirtbike do you own? HC: Yamaha 1D30 LCW: Where do you ride? HC: Mostly I ride up at the farm but my brother and I used to take trips down to Mexico and places like that. LCW: Have you built a kicker or anything like that? HC: No, I haven’t yet but I’ve got all the equipment for it. LCW: What’s your guilty pleasure? HC: I smoke. LCW: What do you smoke? HC: Reds. LCW: What would you say is your greatest extravagance? HC: My greatest extravagance? I bought a Ferrari once. But then I crashed it. LCW: And now what do you drive? HC: A real big pick-up truck. LCW: What kind of one. Is it a Dodge? Is it a Ford? HC: It’s a Ford 350, supped up, super duty, duly. It’s great because I like driving a truck into the city and having people looking up at you. I was staying at this one hotel and when I took the truck there the parking attendant guy had to validate the ticket and he just looked at me dumbfounded, he didn’t know what to do with it and the next day when we came back he was like ‘don’t bring that truck in here.’ LCW: I think you should go to a premiere with it. HC: Yes, definitely. LCW: Do you like that kind of side to what you do? Premieres and stuff? HC: Yes, the film promotion side, the press junkets, etc. It’s not necessarily the fun part, hat’s the acting bit. [laughs] LCW: What about producing? HC: Producing I enjoy. I like putting the team together, bringing together the different elements and being a part of the process from concept to end product. LCW: Why is it called Forest Park Pictures? HC: That’s the street I grew up on. LCW: Who was the last person to have made an impression on you? HC: Doug Liman. I spent so much time around him and have learned incredible amounts. He’s made a really good impression on me. And I enjoyed every day of work with the guy. He’s a huge pro with the choices he was making, and how much he cares about the characters, the script. He’s a true artist. LCW: Are you aware that there’s a fansite section devoted entirely to your Adam’s apple? HC: There’s a what?! A fan site that’s devoted to my Adam’s apple? No. Now I’m going to be really insecure of it. <--- LMFAOOOOO LCW: Have you ever had any stalkers or anything like that? HC: Yeah, I’ve had a few weirdos. I blame it all on Star Wars! Most recently I got a call from US Customs saying that they just had this guy coming in from the UK who had legally changed their name to Hayden Christensen, and there was documentation that confirmed that they had hired a private investigator to follow me around but there was nothing they could do so they were just giving me a heads up. LCW: How would you spend 3 Euros? HC: I don’t know. I guess I’d head to the bar and get a Pepsi. LCW: How would you spend 3000 Euros? HC: I would get myself a snowplow attachment for the Bobcat. LCW: And how would you spend 300,000 Euros? HC: I could get myself a place in Brighton. I definitely like Brighton…I really like the pier. LCW: Do you read much? HC: I try. LCW: Do you have a book on your bed stand? HC: No, I don’t I have scripts at the moment. LCW: Do you think you’re good looking? HC: That’s a loaded question. LCW: If you could change one thing about your appearance. What would it be? HC: I’d be a foot taller. LCW: How tall are you? HC: 6 foot. LCW: You want to be seven feet tall? HC: Yeah, why not? LCW: I saw a quote that said you want to study architecture? HC: There was a period where I was really kind of eager to go study architecture. I’d say I have an interest in architecture. LCW: What are some of your favorite buildings or periods? HC: Probably the Renaissance period. LCW: I hear you’re off to Dubai tomorrow. Have you ever been? HC: No, I’ve never been before. LCW: It’s a bizarre place. HC: Yeah, I mean I’ve seen lots of pictures, it looks like there’s some interesting architecture there. LCW: Are you filming or is it work? HC: There’s a film festival there. LCW: Are you going as an actor or for other sides of what you do? HC: I’m going as a patron of cinema. I’m just going to watch the movies really more as a tourist. But usually I do them, especially if it’s a place I haven’t been to. LCW: Is there anywhere you haven’t been that you want to go to? HC: India. LCW: Your sister was a trampoline champion, do you have any similar claims to fame outside the ball boy incident? Do you have a party trick? HC: Erm…I don’t. [laughs] LCW: What’s your perfect idea of perfect happiness? HC: Happiness is such a hard thing to describe. I suppose perfect happiness would have something to do with nature. Maybe living in a log cabin with a wife and kids.

[gleelistrp]

Welcome to the GLEE LIST RP !! Thank you so much for applying to the group, DAISY.  We are extremely excited to have you playing, SEBASTIAN SMYTHE and bringing them to our dash. After reading over your audition, we think THE IMPASSIVE, will totally fit them. However, if you aren’t so sure of that we can gladly discuss a change. You have also successfully earned the base point level of 100 points !!

        GRANT GUSTIN is now taken and has 0 slots open.

You’ve got 48 HOURS to get your characters page ready and don’t forget to look over the GUIDE. Remember to have fun and never hesitate to come to us if you have questions, comments, concerns or even ideas !

Out Of Character Information.

Name/Alias: Daisy Age: 27 Timezone: EST Activity Level: Probably an 8/9, I’m online almost everyday for a number of hours at a time. Anything Else: That is definitely an idea we will be using in the future! Thanks for that :)

In Character Information

Desired Character: Sebastian Alexander Smythe Ships: Huntbastian, Sambastian, Chemistry Anti-Ships: Sebastian/Females, Forced. Age/Grade: 16/sophomore Sexuality: Homosexual Traits: Arrogant, Promiscuous, Reckless, Loyal, Intelligent, Adaptable Relationship Status: Single Label: The Impassive. Secrets: TW sexual abuse of a minor, self-hatred, self harm (by means of compliance to physical violence)

Sebastian was always a wild child, reckless and carefree in all his exploits, but a particular moment in time has stayed with him forever. Scarring him indelibly, and leaving him with a feeling of emptiness he’s yet to fill. It all began when a 14 year old Sebastian, desperate for affection and attention from his nearly absent parents went out of his way to grab it from them - by any means possible. While his twin brother Parker was content to blend in, to be obedient and gain attention through positive action, Sebastian had always bent to trouble, truly a believe in the the old say ‘there's not such thing as 'bad’ attention’. On this particular occasion, Sebastian, having just come into his own, out and proud and looking for release he found hard to find in others his age, found it in a particular co-worker of his fathers, an older man, married and one who had a reputation for having a temper. The plan was simple, flirt and tempt, just enough to get his fill and make sure the message was relayed back to his parents. Only he soon found out he was in over his head, and left violated, feeling foolish and alone. This event marked the start of Sebastian’s downhill spiral, the once vibrant young man turning to something far more cynical, masking his fear and emptiness with sarcasm and biting words that threatened to hurt anyone that got to close. It’s a secret he still holds close determined to take it to his grave.

Sebastian has always been the one with all the answers. From a young age he knew who he was and what he wanted and he was confident and assertive enough to go out and grab it. That’s always followed him through life, although lately, they question of who exactly he is has begun to nag at him. Goals, aspirations, dreams. It seems as though everyone around him has them, he on the other hand lacks direction in his life. At first it was the little things, not knowing what career to pursue - which wasn’t a big deal at 15 - but lately it’s turned into more, and Sebastian’s been feeling as though the ground is slipping out from under him and spinning out of control and there's no way for him to stop it. Add onto that Sebastian’s feelings of inadequacy and a self hatred that’s rooted deep in his core and he was well on his way to self destruction. That was when he began to look for ways to regain that control and joined the very rumored and little known Dalton Academy Fight Club. It was almost a joke at first, a way for him to make fun of the losers that would take part in something so neanderthalic. But one fight, one rush of adrenaline from the raw power that came with winning a fight and he was hooked. He knows it’s stupid and dangerous, but he’s been showing up with more and more mysterious bruises riddling his body and his excuses aren’t going to cut it for much longer. Still, he keeps going back for more. Determined to come out on top, and lying to himself that this was harmless, just a raw physical need and not something much, much deeper.

Headcanons

Sebastian isn’t someone who has a lot of friends, sure there are acquaintances and peers at school that he may call a friend, even hook ups met at bars or on social media/dating apps. But in reality there is very few people that actually play the role of friend in his life. The foremost being his twin brother Parker. Sebastian likes to play it off, but when it comes to Parker there is no one more important to him. Parker is not just his twin, he’s his soulmate - in that there is no one who understand him like his brother, and there is no one he loves more. For his brother he’d give his life, protecting him no matter what, and hopefully shielding Parker from the evils of the world - though he's not sure he’s succeeded in doing so.

Sebastian was always the child that stood out in the Smythe family. From a young age he stole the show, talented and smart and charming to boot, he was outspoken and passionate and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, often using colorful expressions and words that both impressed and horrified his parents, nannies and teachers. It was this foundation that his need for attention began, and he soon found music to be one of the best ways to grab it. He excelled with his music direction, singing and dancing came easily too and when he grew into his looks, it only made things far easier. in adolesence Sebastian still enjoys the attention he receives through his music, but his focus has shifted, finding his sexual prowess to be one of, if not the most powerful tool in his arsenal of attention seeking. Sebastian puts a lot of stock into his merit as a sexual being to the point that he finds he holds very little value outside of that, which is why other than sarcasm, his sexuality is his main method of coping, defense and humor.

Because of the environment in which Sebastian as raised, he developed of sense of entitlement that has followed him into his teen years. Deep down he knows that only hard work pays off in the end, but he still expects to get the best of everything simply because he believes he deserves it more than others. He does try to bring himself down to earth, but with so little guidance from authority in his life, there’s very scarcely anything to talk him down when he begins to behave badly or acts like a spoil brat. Sebastian LOVES the finer things in life Expensive food, designer clothes, trips abroad and the exclusivity of being elite and he isn’t afraid to broadcast it via social media, loud biting comments or simply in the clothes he wears, people he associates with or the way he holds himself in the public eye.