#hob looks like a disney prince but I love it

[yukinojou]

The Sandman - rewatch the first...

Some notes on rewatch, to continue from previous babble:

It's amazing how good CGI can look when composited into practical sets where the light on the actors and the set bits nearest to them freaking matches. The pan towards the decayed Dream realm works because that light is there, right on the floor and the actors, and the CGI is matched to all the real textures. Can someone show it to Disney plzkthx?

The red lamps in Roderick's office being lit in the morning of Jessamy's death are a Thing.

Cain and Abel are so perfectly in sync.

I like the rapid cutting in the Hecatae scene much better on second watch, though I still wish we had a close-up on the last shot, the CGI would hit more.

Joanna is really both more practical and more quietly self-destructive than John. Less picturesque, more despairing in a way. More closed off. I still love her messy flat and office.

We don't get Rachel's dad plastered all over the walls, but we do get security guards plastered all over an elevator. That is one picturesque effect.

I do wonder whether the Corinthian didn't push Ethel into her sacrifice play, just a little. But I suspect he was planning on John taking the amulet, not this. Still, he always rolls along with the changes in the plot.

The choice for white light drifting from above in Lucifer's reception room is Something. It does make for moments when live actors and practical sets look like CGI alas, and even worse when there's actual CGI of Satanic St Peter's Square.

That last shot of Lucifer in episode 4 is freaking perfect. So much pride, which is all Lucifer should be about.

There's a doctoral thesis in how much the 24 Hours rewrite focuses on Bette as a writer and writers' fears and stories in general. Morpheus is the Prince of Stories, he's basically the God of Writers, and gods the burning manuscript thing still hurts, the way it's an equivalent to everyone else mutilating and killing themselves.

Lighting two people with skin tones as different as Tom and Kirby must have been a pain. Look at the bench scene, in shots where there's only Tom his skin looks like three tones darker because the camera isn't compensating for all that range.

Tom absolutely nails "younger brother with embarrassing older sister" acting. Like, whoa, the eyerolls alone. They have a perfect sibling vibe.

Come to think of it, Mason and Donna nail it too. The moment where Desire cuddles Despair's crocs is to die for.

Dear Hob, you have a serious case of heart eyes for your friend. And nope, the song choices in the 80s scene aren't helping.

Liking Rose much better this time around, because she does have that writer's remove from the events, that analysing touch. She's usually very in control of herself.

Oh gods, Carl isn't a new character. He's a genderswapped Carla, Lyta's friend who appears in both The Doll's House (like, one panel while Lyta learns that Daniel is Dream's) and The Kindly Ones. So when the Corinthian finds Lyta's home burned to the ground, it's going to be that little bit more personal for him.

In the Doll House arc, Dream suddenly gets texture to his face. It does correspond to his frequently unshaven state in the comics, but I think it’s also a factor of how he’s seen by Rose, who does not expect fae-like perfection. Compare and contrast his skin/makeup in A Hope in Hell for peak inhumanity.

Still utterly amused by the riff on SFF lit conventions. They are exactly like that, complete with the deep hobby conversations with people you've just met.

I love the fact Unity's last sequence has her in a nightie with her upper arms bare - very often a societal taboo for a woman of her age and shape - and no bra. She has the shape of family members of mine❤️

I love the fact someone finally noticed that Gwendolyne Christie has a very renaissance face. Can't wait for season two.

Skipping Dream of a Thousand Cats until I can watch it with my cats, who are still on holidays.

Calliope story / presentation upgrades are good, but dear gods the CASTING. That show should get the best-casting-of-all-time award, because Arthur Darville just disappears into book!Madoc and at the same time gives him so much nuance. Sir Derek Jacobi is having so much fun being sleazy. And then you have Amita Suman, whose deep beautiful eyes steal every scene she's in. Which isn't even touching on Mellisanthi Mahut and how she's a muse statue come to life. (That hair at the end, too!)

[sidhewrites]

what is something about fairies you want to see represented more often? and also, what is something about fairies you're tired of seeing? any tropes or cliches about fairies you want to see gone or used more often?

hmmmmMMm I’m omitting the disney-esque fairies which aren’t inherently bad and not part of the literature I actively seek out to read. Let’s go with some Fair Folk fairies instead:

Honestly, I’m tired of them being portrayed as either Tolkeinesque elves or all chaotic neutral all the time, or both, in a lot of YA fiction. I love the trope to bits, , and I’d really love to see them as more nonhumans in every sense of the word, but I’d also like more true neutral or even benevolent fairies that definitely existed in literature. 

I died for the fae in Margaret Robertson’s An Enchantment of Ravens and how it dealt with their inability to feel human emotions and how they didn’t mind reciprocity or even outright gifting things to the humans they like. It’s something a lot of fantasy writers don’t address -- that the fair folk aren’t human, even if they look it, and we can’t forget that. 

Holly Black’s Cruel Prince series on the other hand, has a lot of great fae with nonhuman appearances and species diversity, but with a lot of humanistic emotions. I love seeing hobs and pigsies and other non-fairy faeries and they just aren’t utilized enough in fiction. I also think changelings as a concept aren’t dealt with properly, and fairy changelings end up being depicted as too normal when the lore states they’re sickly and screaming and Strange -- and while I know there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not it was a depiction neutral-atypical behaviors in people (Eg mutism, autism, etc etc) -- I do think it can be utilized in a way that doesn’t harm anyone. Moreover -- the humans in a faerie world are usually chosen for their beauty and good behavior. It does some funny stuff to a person’s personality and I have yet to see it depicted in a way that, in my opinion, blends the original lore and modern understanding of human psyche and behaviors AND inhumanistic fae in a clever and compelling way.

I would also really like more with Smallfolk rather than just fae and fairies and fair folk. Let them live in mushrooms and sleep on flower petals! Let them ride corgis into battle! There’s a few childrens/young readers’ books with some great smallfolk premises I remember reading, but not enough YA and adult novels for my liking.

[teejaystumbles]

The Storms of Life PART 10 of 10 is up!

This is the end! Thank you for all your love!