#its not an adaption its a retelling

[moss-sprouted]

im kinda mad for leigh bardugo with how much the netflix shadow and bone adaption just,

put all her plots and characters in a bag and shook it up and went ah yes! an adaption! like so much is different and for what?? and no this is not about alina and mal being mixed race, that i like it adds something but

six of crows has been done extremely fucking dirty and im really sad about it, even if the casting is pretty good

why throw them in because you know its more popular, but not go for the plot which i think is one of the reasons its very popular

because leigh bardugo is an excellent writer and i think this so far and im only on ep 3 just, isnt doing her justice

its not looking great

[marxistgnome]

The greek myth inaccuracies in kaos are actually brilliant if you know how to have fun and can appreciate the impeccable rapunzelxmavis im lesbo meme vibes they have going on. It is about time someone brought the spirit of those 2010s videos where people would edit disney princesses from different films interacting and being friends to a greek mythology adaptation and I for one am glad it resulted in me watching old men have sex

[sketching-shark]

I was curious to know, is there a specific adaptation of JTTW that you particularly enjoy? Whether its good or accurate isnt important but more like in your personal taste

AUGH going to be honest @seasonalsummers in that I don't feel like I can pick just one...there's so many excellent retellings! But I will take this opportunity to present some of my favorites.

So first up we have the 1986 Journey to the West tv series. It is in many ways very goofy and gaudy, but there's just as many reasons why it's considered one of the best retellings out there, from its genuine heart to the adherence to the og classic. And needless to say its Sun Wukong really set a standard for cheeky scheming monkey behavior. You can start watching it here:

Next up is 2016s The Monkey King 2. While this film is one of those retellings that gives the White Bone Demon a lot more prominence than she has in the og classic--and definitely has its own silly stupid moments--it also stands as one of the very few retellings that directly addresses the paradox of Tang Sanzang's mission: that he's trying to get the sutras to help mortals achieve a state of peace all while abhorring violence, and yet its only because of the violence of his disciples, especially Sun Wukong, that he's able to right a number of wrongs or simply go from day to day uneaten. You can watch it here:

And now it's time to give kudos to 2015's Monkey King: Hero Is Back. While this film is FAR from a faithful retelling and (usual refrain) has its own silliness, pretty simple plot, and gross-out humor, it also has so much heart and stands as a wonderful embodiment of the dad Wukong characterization. One also has to give it credit for its main child character, Jiang Liuer, being a genuinely charming kid who's wonder at the world and desire to do good drives the story forward in a sincerely lovely way. You can watch it here:

More recently--and in a work that is at best only loosely following the plot of Xiyouji--is 2022's Lighting Up the Stars. This film follows the story of a Li Nezha coded little orphan girl Wu Xiaowen and a Sun Wukong coded funeral director Mo Sanmei as they go from a very tense relationship to a genuinely loving father-daughter relationship. While there are moments of this film that feel kind of overwrought, it's an honestly wonderful exploration of what goes into dealing with death and the importance of love in all its many forms during life. I also have a soft spot for Mo Sanmei, who from what I've seen is the very peak of explicitly shitty cringefail loser who then genuinely works hard to become a better person Sun Wukong out there. It can be watched here:

Turning away from film and animation for a moment, I simply have to give proper kudos to Chaiko Tsai's comic The Monkey King. Between the gorgeous art, fun character designs, a good sense of how to translate many of the stories of Xiyouji into comic format, and a resolution to the Sun Wukong vs. Niu Mowang fight that I actually prefer above that in Journey to the West itself, this is definitely a comic worth going through! You can purchase it here for about $30.00

And last but certainly not least, one simply has to give due credit to 1964's Uproar in Heaven. It's an absolute gem of stylized Chinese animation, a work with the very rare allowance on the Monkey King getting to go full grandpa for tons upon tons of monkeys at Mt. Huaguoshan, and it's very faithful to the first half of the og classic with the difference that here Sun Wukong does his havoc in heaven and gets away with it. All around its a really fun work to watch and does have a lot of importance from both an animation and a historical perspective. You can watch it here:

So those are my favorite adaptations of Journey to the West! It's but a fraction of the adaptations out there, but I hope other people found these as fun as I do.

[numbuh424]

death note adaptations peaked in 2015 when these two came out months apart from each other.

[meghiemoo]

You know adaptations are fun and I especially love to see retellings of the same story but not in a boring beat for beat live action of animated Disney movie way but in "hey, here's this thing you love, and we've told the same story with a similar theme and message but we've also added commentary on that theme and messages of our own and random cool shit that wasn't there the first time" and that's so cool tbh

Or like i picked a side character or other background thing or setting from this thing you love and completely expanded and played with it until its a new thing entirely. Here's backstory and character development no one asked for and it's great

This actually does happen with older stories. You can make Black Sails and Treasure Planet because Treasure Island is Old. But you can't play in the sandbox if the story is newer. No that sandbox is for some corporation, probably disney, and no one else.

So anyway Fuck copyright law and let more people make more random adaptations of stories. Let's all retell the same stories over and over in fresh ways. We're all meant to be playing in the same sandbox here. Let the stories be free. It's what God intended.

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[creatively-cosmic]

missing numbers was secretly a ploy to get really really into doing worldbuilding based on this extremely specific in-universe pseudo-meta horror based in the pokemon franchise. a lot of stuff we're cooking past gens 1+2 is original content based in the spirit of the classic trainerpastas based on those games... something something its all about the natural next step and the world of Pokemon is so fundamentally fucked. idkkkk smiles

[wellzofyouth]

That one post of my mine predictably aged like fine wine. Never let somebody on comic twitter in the writer's room😭😭😭 Like imagine a 1 to 1 adaptation of literally any event?? -1b at the box office. "Who are these people???"

[crunchycrystals]

i was just wondering how they adapted the huntsman plot line in the lunar chronicles and then i turned the page and actually screamed in real life

[lepurcinus]

Sometimes I wish Watership Down fandom were bigger, but at the same time I'm grateful that it's relatively small because that means we're a calmer community where we can settle and voice our opinions on various topics in a civilized manner. Like normal people, wow.

[dykesynthezoid]

Not to immediately alienate the majority of the tumblr arthuriana community but it is soooo weird to me how most people talk about it on here. Like it’s a franchise, and not a literary tradition. For a website that loves analysis and web weaving and motifs there’s always surprisingly little of that going on in any of the arthuriana tags. Instead it’s all just like. “Which knight is your blorbo.”

And that’s not to say we shouldn’t be connecting to those characters, bc after all, they’re how we’re able to experience the story in the first place. But it is strange to act like it’s some sort of marvel universe of knights, or like any of said knights have ever had one, singular pan-characterization. “Well MY favorite is Sir Skrunckleunklepuss” girl that’s 50 different people! That’s an archetype!

And then those people watch or read some specific modern adaptation and get all pissed because “that’s not MY Sir Skrunckleunklepuss!” Ok, well, your Sir Skrunckleunklepuss is somebody that literally only exists inside your own head. You gotta let it go

[lycanr0t]

the further into trimax i get the more stampede just falls... totally flat for me lol. tristamps placement of events is just odd and makes the characters come off entirely different and it does a huge disservice to the story overall. it focuses too much on all the wrong parts of the characters while leaving out important aspects that the whole story is built on.

eurgh. idk. theres just so much about stampede that leaves much to be desired. i wish it wasnt so rushed feeling. i wish they were doing a proper trimax adaption rather than retelling. i wish it didnt shuffle around events. the claims that its "more like" trimax than the 90s anime are so far total BS. (both animes are inaccurate and only take pieces from the manga but the 98 anime is... more 1:1 actually)

I'm still working my way through trimax (5 volumes left) but i kinda dont care if stampede gets more or not ngl lol

(also dont try to like "convince me" that stampede is good or argue w/ me or whatever i do not care. i dont care! im saying my opinions on my blog its untagged and you can just mind your own damn business its as easy as clicking away try it sometime)

[mrbluesummers-moved]

I feel the need to clarify seeing some of the notes on my last post, but I don't think Stampede is a bad show and I really enjoy it. It's just not a perfect adaption and feels like Orange knows enough about the source material to have done better.

[kindred-spirit-93]

HALELLUJAH AMEN

Unpopular Iliad & Odyssey opinions that I have/need to be said

Iliad:

Hector/Hektor did nothing wrong

Achilles was (at least) sexually attracted to Men and women and we need to acknowledge this fact on both counts

Achilles is infuriating

Odyssey

Odysseus never cheated on his wife he was forced (which is SA) by Calypso and Crice

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk

[arinnandout]

i was rewatching the half-blood prince the other day and, god, the decision to put in the caged bird imagery for draco was such a masterful one. having draco take the bird from its cage and use it to test the cabinet as an allegory for himself stuck in his current pointless situation AND THEN the bird dying due to his actions, symbolizing the blood he'll have on his hands and the loss of innocence and naiveté. it's simply chef's kiss.

[floralovebot]

so it’s been a while since ive been on winx tumblr but even scrolling through your page a little bit reminded me of how many random ideas i had about how i would’ve rewritten netwinx lmfao

anyway HI how are you

DUDE everyone knows how much i Hate netwinx but there were still so many missed opportunities and just better paths they could've taken like WHAT

i feel like the really cool things they could've done but Didn't really highlight just how much they didn't know or care about winx yknow? so many things!! that would genuinely make it mature and darker without taking away from The Winx Story but no !! they didn't focus on the fucking domino or fairy genocide. didn't even keep the One thing that made sky interesting and redeemable. sky and riven's "frenemyship" not making any fucking sense and just being Two Guy Fight. literally aisha's entire fucking character like what do you mean she's there from the beginning but NOT IMPORTANT FUCK YOU