#bluedaggers-lewis

[lynxgriffin]

taranis: hey mother, look at this! *throws the fine china on the ground, breaking it* *points at other drakeside* they did it.

Probably a good thing that the Siders don’t have any furniture on the Skybox, or I could see that happening. 

[weremagnus]

shit dude, your werewolves are fucking awesome

Thanks very much!! I’m hoping to print a collection of some werewolf stuff in the future. It’s on my project list for sure!

[tyrantisterror]

yo, this is probs out of the blue, but what werewolf design from films you've seen do you like best? (personally i like the design of professor lupin's weewolf form in harry potter one of the best i've seen)

This good sweet boy is probably my favorite.  God I love An American Werewolf in London.

The Werewolves from Van Helsing are pretty good too, especially this greasy fella.

Finally, while they’re both admittedly a little dated, I still think there’s something charming in the designs of the Wolf Man and Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf werewolf.

[irishthings]

if i ever go to ireland. imma mess with the fairies. not cos i think it's bull, but because i wanna taunt the shit outta them

Lad they will fuck your shit up so bad don’t do it

[transsafeuserboxes]

seeing as terfs usually only work in the binary, saying that trans women aren't women but still valid, is actually saying trans women are men.

oh good point !! and i’ve seen several ((most)) terfs actually say that trans woman are men and vice versa so :// -💐

[discourse-dryad-blog]

bluedaggers-lewis replied to your post “Peak exclusionism is:”

i guess my parents are in my imagination then

Listen, I don’t disbelieve that your parents are assholes when it comes to your identity/ies. I don’t think anyone does. But people being insensitive jerks isn’t an axis of oppression.

[thebee2man]

is sollux finally destroying the hornpile?

the true story behind how feferi died

[moonpaw]

*looks at ur blog* furry spotted

leave me olone

[theload]

i'd challenge several biologists each specialized in different kinds of animals to work together to make a biologically possible dragon. he doesn't have to breathe fire, i just want a cool wyrm

Snakes.

The solution you are looking for is snakes.

Or Monitor Lizards, if you want a Drake.

[xxthesmittenkittenxx--2]

Becky's smashing Ben now. Ben is a hoe

[saveandreset]

bringing in the sadness with: magnus will outlive alec, guaranteed. i mean, he's already 400+ years old, and i don't think he'll get himself killed anytime soon

Oooooh my goooooood whyyyyyyy Dx whyyyy would you- omg O.OHiiii, hello there, but noooh omg..

ok but can you just imagine how heartbroken Magnus will be for the years to come? After all the years he would’ve given up any hope for being with ANYONE and then he meets Alec, his amazing Alec and he can’t help but love him. And they’ll live happily, until the day Alec dies. 

And he’ll be so heartbroken

[lynxgriffin]

the lion portal could take a while tho. like, lion had a long time alone in the desert to discover his powers. lars only just got them.

Also true. That, and it took a ton of lion’s energy just to warp them to the moon...it’d probably take an insane amount of energy to travel across hundreds of light years. So they may have to figure out a way around that!

[librius]

indulge us. (idk what that means, it just sounds fancy)

ok so consider this…

(sue me theres only a certain amount of guys here)

[tyrantisterror]

^hey yo! what do you think of Van Helsing (2004)?

I made a whole post a while back about how I’d absolutely fuck up writing a Batman story despite the fact that I love Batman.  It was predicated on the idea that a person can love and genuinely understand a story in great depth and still fuck it up because they’re just not the right storyteller for the job - that being a fan of a story doesn’t mean you’re the right person to adapt it.

I mention this because Van Helsing is that idea in action.  It is Stephen Sommers’s “How I’d Ruin It” blog post, only in film form.

I was super psyched for that movie before it came out for a somewhat strange reason.  Universal released DVD box sets of all the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man movies a few months before its release, and they all had promotional videos for Van Helsing in them.  The videos weren’t JUST giant ads, though - they were retrospectives about the characters, one for each box set.  Those retrospectives just happened to be hosted by Stephen Sommers, and also just happened to talk about how those characters would be appearing again on the silver screen for the first time in years in this new movie called Van Helsing.  And while this does mean the retrospectives were kind of there to shill a new blockbuster, well, they still feel remarkably genuine and informative.  Stephen Sommers loves those characters, and he loves them in a very deep, analytical way.  When he talks about them in the retrospectives, he doesn’t just talk about surface details - he goes into the psychology of the characters, their pathos, their dimensions, the core conflicts at the heart of each of them, etc.  A lot of directors handling a remake will say really surface level shit - “Optimus Prime is so cool, he’s an icon, lots of people love him, I’m so proud to bring this character to the big screen.”  Stephen Sommers isn’t like that - he actually has insightful thoughts on what makes the Universal Monsters work as characters.  And they extend beyond the original movies, too - he references the book versions of Dracula and Frankenstein in a good amount of detail as well, and has some comments that show awareness of the non-Universal film takes on the characters.  He’s both done his research, understood it, and clearly loves the property.  It’s everything you want the adapter of a property you love to do.

But then you have the end product.  And that’s when you come to the realization: no matter how much an artist may love and understand another artist’s work, there is no guarantee they can do it justice.  Sometimes, no matter how much thought and admiration is put into the act, the artist is just wrong for the material.  This, sadly, is the case for Stephen Sommers.

Don’t get me wrong - he doesn’t completely fuck it up.  Van Helsing has some genuinely great ideas mixed into it.  Sommers’s idea for werewolf transformations is a particular stand out to me - rather than simply growing hair and claws, his werewolves tear their skin open to reveal the wolf form beneath, and vice versa for their transformations back into humans.  Lycanthropy literally involves tearing yourself apart - a visual that is apt for a character who is defined by their violent internal conflict, which is exactly what makes the Wolf Man/Larry Talbot so compelling.  And Sommers knew that - he says it explicitly in the Wolf Man retrospective featurette.  It was an intentional, intelligent, well thought out artistic choice.

There are other, less “deep” choices that also work too - like making Dracula’s bat form human-sized so it’s more terrifying to modern audiences, while also reinforcing his demonic nature with the whole “giant bat winged humanoid” imagery.  That’s a very typical Hollywood style change, but it’s one that works.

However, these good ideas are hampered by the fact that Sommers just isn’t built to tell the kind of story Dracula and the others thrive in.  The Universal Monsters are Gothic Horror stars - they belong in a horror story, in a story with dread and tension and atmosphere.  Sommers, on the other hand, thrives with big, fast paced action set pieces, quippy dialogue, and an irreverent tone.  He’s an action movie guy, not a Gothic Horror guy.  He can understand the Gothic Horror, but he can’t replicate it.

He tries - he gives Dracula, Frankenstein, and Van Helsing a lot of philosophic monologues in an attempt to capture their character depth, but he’s clearly not comfortable enough with that to pull it off.   What was intended to be “deep” ends up just being a long violation of the “show, don’t tell” rule.

An example: in the Dracula retrospective, Sommers talks about how Dracula, for all his evil and wickedness, is ultimately tragic because he doesn’t enjoy any of it.  He is lacking in any feeling and he knows that - he’s hollow and he can feel the gap and it disturbs him how little substance there is to him in his un-ending existence.  That’s straight from the book and it’s an accurate reading of Dracula’s character.  Unlike the book, however, Sommers doesn’t show us this information - instead, Dracula has a big motive rant that basically feels like he’s reading us Sommers’ college thesis paper analysis of Dracula’s character, rather than, y’know, saying words an actual human would say.  It is not the only time this happens.

On the flip side, the scenes where Sommers is in his element - the action scenes with quippy dialogue and big set pieces and all that - are really not well suited to these characters.  Vampires and werewolves and frankensteins aren’t necessarily ill suited to action - but Dracula and the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster are.  A werewolf who hurdles over an exploding cart is fine, but the Wolf Man isn’t supposed to, y’know, have fun doing exciting action sequences.  The Wolf Man is supposed to be emotionally disturbed by the fact that he keeps killing people against his own will.

And sure, these characters have been placed in other genres before - but those stories have always been parodies, and the good ones still keep the characters themselves in tact.  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is funny because you have the juxtaposition of Dracula acting exactly like Dracula despite the fact that his victims are two ridiculous clowns instead of your typical horror protagonists.  Putting Dracula in a situation where Dracula normally isn’t present is inherently hilarious - which works fine in a comedy, but not so fine in an action movie, which requires you to be able to take the stakes seriously, but is structured in a way where a character like Dracula feels too out of place to be taken seriously.

It’d be like if Sauron showed up in Die Hard - Sauron is a credible threat in Middle Earth, but he’s a fucking joke when he’s next to John McClane because those two should not be sharing a story together.  Unless you’re intending to play this for comedy, it will not work.

And that’s the problem with Van Helsing - it’s an action movie made with characters who don’t belong in an action movie, and no matter how much love and thought the creator poured into it, that recipe was not going to work.  And a lot of love and thought was put into it - Sommers wasn’t just trying his best, he was trying his best with an absolute passion project.  But passion wasn’t enough - in the end, they just weren’t right for each other.

[irishthings]

why would you put milk in tea? milk in coffee is already weird but why would you put it in tea?

It takes the bitter edge off the black tea and gives it a slightly creamier flavour. It’s not for everyone but most tea with milk is very comforting.

[ask-the-smols]

i am so mad at swapfell. like, so mad.

Swapfell: This is for his own good, you all will understand soon!