#sometimes an edit absolutely refuses to look cohesive and this is one of those edits but i have decided to give up

[aredhels]

I want to see my sons again, and Helaena, my sweet girl, oh ... and King Jaehaerys. I will read to him, as I did when I was little. He used to say I had a lovely voice.

[setsfiretohistory]

ORIGINAL → EDITED

gif making process

thank you so so much to the lovely and talented @pridesobright and @supportivehusbands for tagging me :’) reading about your processes was so interesting!!

LEFT: cropped, resized (height 300px; width 540px), unedited, unsharpened, frame delay set to 0.05

RIGHT: cropped, resized (height 300px; width 540px), edited, sharpened, frame delay set to 0.05

ideally, 1080p is what i’d use for everything, but sometimes you just have to settle for what you can get (and if you’re cursed…………. you have to battle with less than 480p……….. im looking at you, miss ‘now kiss me you fool’ footage). for this post, i made gifs from ten separate videos to illustrate how even though your source materials are wildly different from each other, the resulting gifs can still be stylistically similar. this is why it’s so upsetting to see people steal gifs like it’s nothing. we put so much thought and care and time into our posts and i can’t even put into words how discouraging it is to see people act like crediting gif makers is a hardship.

i have a note filled with ideas for lyric sets, parallels, etc etc that i work from, but sometimes i’ll just sit down and pick a random video and play around with whatever idea i have in the moment. (that’s how this set came to be!)

after i’ve imported the footage to photoshop (i use cc 2019, although i first started out using cs5 and it’ll always have a soft spot in my heart), removed any redundant frames, and cropped it, i’ll resize it (to 540px more often than not), and set the frame delay to 0.05. when all that’s done, i can colour.

i colour every gifset from scratch — i’ve never had much success with using the same psd on other gifs. it totally works for gifs from the same source, but when you’re using like six different videos for the one gifset, you have to take much more care in making them all correspond to the aesthetic you’re planning for the post. i tend to choose a dominant theme or colour to work from, like blue, green, magenta, pastels, rainbow, etc.

i usually begin with curves and levels until im happy with the brightness. then i’ll move on to either selective colour or colour balance or vibrance, depending on the original colours of the footage. i almost always skew my gifs towards blues and cyans and magentas rather than yellows and greens (i lean more towards coolness or neutrals rather than warmth). and im just really fond of blue, which is apparent if you’ve ever seen anything i’ve made lmao especially if louis’ eyes are involved. this is definitely where i spend the most time messing around with different settings (like increasing cyans and blues and blacks in general / increasing cyans in whites if i want the sky to look more blue / decreasing the blacks in whites for contrast / decreasing the cyans in reds to make them really red / decreasing the yellows across the board, but most definitely in blues and cyans / decreasing magentas in greens if i want Very Bright greens). sometimes i lose my mind a little and i end up with like twelve selective colour layers and im like This Is Fine . skdjfskjf anyways, when everything looks as vibrant and colourful as i want it, i’ll go back to curves or levels or add a contrast layer to make everything look stronger. i also might go back to selective colour or vibrance with incremental changes at the end, just as a final touch. [tl;dr: curves > levels > colour balance > vibrance > selective colour > contrast > go back for any little amendments] for black and white gifs, i’ll start with a gradient map and then continue with curves, levels, etc. after all that’s done, i’ll convert to video timeline > select all layers > filter for smart objects > either sharpen with this action or use these smart sharpen settings > add text if the post calls for it (if it’s a concept/lyric gifset, i like to play around with the settings — although century gothic is my favourite font for this — and if it’s a captioned gifset my standard is arial bold italic / drop shadow to 140 degrees / grey stroke / adjust font pt according to the size of the gif) > export > save for web. et voilà!! one gif down, probably nine to go sdkfksjdfhsjdf

the double edged sword of making gifs for one direction fandom is the sheer volume of footage available to you: on the one hand, you have a whole decade’s worth of moments to gif (and that’s incredible!!!), and on the other, it’s so difficult and time consuming to colour all of these separate moments in a cohesive way that hopefully expresses your own unique creative style. so sometimes it’s frankly impossible to make certain things look the way you want them to. maybe you can’t find high quality footage (the absolute BANES of my existence are the rtl footage where they reacted to themselves playing football at boston common and the louis is loud……loud……….and……..loud footage where you can see harry’s face close up. it’s a TRAVESTY that they don’t exist in 1080p and i WILL scream it from the rooftops), or the moments you want to gif simply refuse to look good next to each other because they’re so wildly dissimilar in hue that no matter what you do, they look strange and disjointed when juxtaposed (in those moments i do tend to either give up or choose to make them black and white). but honestly? the obstacles i’ve come across while making gifs for this fandom have been amazing learning opportunities for me. i’ve grown into and experimented with my style way more than i ever did anywhere else, and i continue to feel inspired by this fandom every day, so thank you to every single creator for your ingenuity and hard work!! 💖💖💖💖

i think y’all have been tagged or done this already, so im just going to tag everyone i admire to say you’re legends and i love your content very much a lot!! @caparius @sunflowrsix @jimmytfallon @stylex @tmlnsn @cuddlerlouis @2tiedships2 @moonshinelouis @ltpolari @itsastorm @finelinee @ltwalls2020 @half-lightl @fallenwalls @tomlinsun @louisbravado @tattooedlovers@lordtomlinson @livehabit @halosboat @thepeacering @alinok

[thecorteztwins]

Alt-Marauders update! It’s pretty much the Shinobi Feels edition, so tagging @esteicy-blog in case you wanna read your boy’s bits (it’s fine if not!) and @sammysdewysensitiveeyes and @littlemeangreen since you guys are regular readers! CONTENTS “Weakness” - Shinobi/Haven “Instinct” - Sebastian/Madelyne “Nature” - Sebastian/Haven “Saturn’s Children” - Shinobi/Alice

”WEAKNESS” They’d been captured, and placed in a power-dampening cell. They being Haven and Shinobi, the latter of whom was wounded, deep in his right side. Their captors had stabilized him---they wanted them alive for now, especially since they knew that letting Shinobi die just ensured he’d be revived on Krakoa with information that could defeat them---but given him nothing for the pain before tossing him back in the cell. Literally. He did not hit the floor. Haven’s arms caught him expertly and with strength that would have surprised him if he’d been thinking about anything but how much this hurt. Not the pain in his side---but the helplessness. Shinobi did not like being trapped. Shinobi did not like being at the mercy of others. It had bad memories. Perversely, Haven’s comforting presence made it worse. Because that was part of those same memories. His mother, holding him like she was, asking if he was alright, trying to soothe the pain away. He’d treasured her as a sanctuary then, but the fact was that it always came after the pain, and thus tied to it in his mind. That was the only reason he tried, feebly, to push Haven away, even when what he wanted was to sink into her, to curl up against her, to let her stroke his hair and whisper comforting assurances. He wanted that so bad but he also couldn’t, wouldn’t, be that weak little boy again who needed Mommy, who needed Mommy because Daddy had-- “Shinobi, Shinobi it’s me,” she said, “It’s Haven, Radha, it’s alright, you’re alright, I’m here, I’m right here.” She thought the reason for his weak thrashing, his trying to push himself away, was because he was confused, disoriented, thinking he was still in the hands of their enemies. But he was somewhere far worse---in the past. “I--I know,” he finally said as he got ahold of himself, “I’m fine.” He tried to push himself up on his arms. The pain was terrible for his body. But it’d be worse inside if he failed. If he was weak. He felt her gentle hands on him again, “Don’t try to move, Shinobi. You’re still hurt. They only stopped bleeding, but the wound is still--” “Don’t!” he barked, “Don’t---don’t---I’m not a child!” As much as Haven wanted to pull him to her, she was as respectful as she was compassionate. If someone was shouting at her not to touch them, she wasn’t going to; it would only do more harm than good. A comforting embrace could turn traumatic if forced, no matter how gentle, and Shinobi had been traumatized enough today. But she did not merely abandon the issue either. She looked at him with sympathetically scrutinizing eyes as he huffed and strained in his attempt to give every appearance of strength. This was...unusual. Shinobi was someone who craved attention, and though he desired more for it to be praise, she’d seen that he would settle for negative attention if nothing else would do, such as when Claudine and Madelyne waved him away in irritation at his amorous antics. He liked to show off, and was also...Haven was too kind to ever think of him as a coward, but when he realized there was real danger afoot, he tended to run. Which Haven could hardly blame him for, she was no combatant himself. He avoided pain. He sought attention. Yet now, when she was offering attention, he put himself in pain to refuse it. Something was amiss here. There was a piece of the puzzle that she was not seeing, a piece that would explain this. People were like puzzles, in their way---you could look at two pieces that seemed like they could never fit together in the same person, but that was only because you weren’t seeing the other pieces that linked them together. And while Haven tried not to think of other human beings as something to be solved, to be analyzed, to be worked out and put under a microscope---they were so much more than that, and deserving of dignity, of privacy, of keeping their hidden pieces to themselves if they so chose---she could not help SEEING these things when they came to light for her. She could not help the pieces connecting in her own mind. As these new pieces connected with pre-existing ones in her mind, the information coming together in a cohesive whole, integrating with what she already had known or at least suspected. “Shinobi,” she said very softly, but her voice seemed to echo to him, and it wasn’t because of their small cell. “Shinobi....by your father’s standards, I’m the weakest person he knows. He’s said as much. I believe you’ve heard him.” Shinobi turned to look at her, confused where this was going, and anxious at the mention of his father, the mere mention of the man when he was already in this pained, panicked state making his skin feel like it was tightening around him in anticipation of a blow. Where was she going with this. “So therefore, Shinobi, being as that is...it should be absolutely safe, should it not, to let yourself be weak around me?” She had not EXACTLY guessed what was going on. But she had gotten close. And Shinobi let himself collapse into her lap. *** "INSTINCT” “You know, I never asked you,” said Madelyne as they walked along the beach. It was nothing romantic, they were just on their way to the ship. “How’d you know it was me?” Sebastian looked at her oddly, and she clarified, “I mean when we first met. When Selene introduced me and I pulled down that drama queen cloak and there you see, the spitting image of---you know, her. I didn’t know it at the time, but you two had quite the past. How was SHE not your first thought?” “How do you know she was not?” Madelyne rolled her eyes, “You scoffed at me and called me an “unknown being”, you knew who I was---or at least who I WASN’T. If you’d thought I was Jean you would have---I don’t know but you wouldn’t say THAT.” “Perhaps I simply didn’t recognize the face without the Black Queen costume to go with it.” “Sebastian!” “You know that’s as liable an answer as any.” “You’re dodging the question.” Madelyne held out her arms to the sides, “Look, you’re basically the most morally bankrupt person I’ve ever met who wasn’t a literal demon—and I count Mr Sinister in that category—but you also gave me the kindness of individuality even BEFORE I started treating you as my personal bone machine. And I know the k-word doesn’t come easy to you Sebastian so what gives? More specifically, what did I give away that told you instantly who I WASNT?” There was a long pause. At last, Sebastian answered, and he didn’t sound sure in it at all, which was what let Madelyne know he was being honest. “I confess, spitfire, I really don’t know. Gut instinct, perhaps. “ “So Scott had no guts. Big surprise.” “Mr. Summers knew Ms. Grey in all her incarnations. I only ever knew your hated counterpart as the Black Queen, the Dark Phoenix. We never met when she was NOT that, NOT possessed by the Phoenix Force, not radiating with that strange cosmic energy.” Shaw did not know that the ‘Jean’ he had known had actually BEEN that cosmic energy and not Jean at all, nor did Madelyne, but that was besides the point. He continued, “I am no psychic---I did not have to be, to feel that power. It was more distinct than a face or form, and you lacked it. So much a difference did that make that I did NOT recognize face nor form without it. So if you are searching for some romantic reason concerning seeing your true self or some such sentimental claptr---” “No, that’s the thing, I KNOW it’s not that,” Madelyne cut him off sharply, insulted he’d think she’d ever be so deluded, “I know you didn’t love me. And I’m fine with that, I didn’t love you---did love your dick and money though. But that’s why it was crazy to me that the man who didn’t love me, saw more than the man who was supposed to.” “Well, I do hope that satisfied your curiosity,” Sebastian said, then smirked, “Now tell me again that first thing you loved about me?” Madelyne tried to push him into the water. *** “NATURE” “That’s how it is in nature, after all,” Sebastian finished, “Adversity builds strength. Look at the animals. Red in tooth and claw. Do you know what happens to the weak ones, Ms. Dastoor? They are devoured. As it should be.” “I don’t believe looking to animals as a model for our own behavior is a very good argument, Mr. Shaw,” said Haven, setting her teacup primly on her saucer, “After all, no animals wear clothing, and while I understand you find some articles...restrictive...it seems to be something you overall practice. Animals do not use boats either. Or teasets. Or currency.” “Fair enough. But simply because not EVERYTHING from the animal kingdom should be emulated, does not mean nothing should be.” “I do agree with that. I merely suspect we would differ on what should be.” “Quite correct. I think you can guess which I find most admirable. As I can guess your preferred models of behavior. Cows and dogs and such nursing their young, am I correct?” “You are, Mr. Shaw. But I think that my preferred models are actually just as conducive to your ideals of strength.” “Explain.” he leaned forward. He sounded genuinely interested, if only mildly. “I’m no zoological expert but I can tell you...it varies with species. Some, like sharks, don’t raise their young--they’ll in fact devour them. But in mammals, the strong species all nurse and nurture their young, at least the mothers do. Sometimes both parents, I think, as with wolf packs. But, let us take tigers, one of the greatest predators on the planet, surely a species that appeals to the ‘red in tooth and claw’ paradigm of power, the apex predator who devours the ones beneath it. These creatures, mighty as they are, begin as helpless cubs, blind and barely mobile. If their mothers abandoned them to adversity as you suggest they must, or worse, hurt them in order to make them strong, the cubs would die. Even if they did manage to fend for themselves in the wild without help, they’d be malnourished as cubs, resulting in stunted adults. And they wouldn’t learn how to hunt or behave. They need to loving guidance of their mother in order to be the powerful killers they become. I don’t think the father stays, but I imagine they would not be worse for it if he contributed. Therefore, I think the most successful species in your worldview, owe their success to the greatest traits in my worldview.” “Point to you, Ms. Dastoor,” said Sebastian, lifting his cup, “Though, as you yourself state---this does not apply to ALL great predators, and the tiger still does teach the cubs to hunt what is weaker than themselves. She does not nurture them forever. Surely at some point the juveniles are driven away from her, and by her own claws?” “I believe they do, when it is time. But I would not think you approved of that aspect of their behavior.” “Whyever not?” “Your son is an adult, yet you still have him taking orders at your side, do you not?” There was a very tense silence, and then Shaw smiled. “You say you’re no zoologist. Why do you know so much about tigers?” She smiled back, “Well, Mr. Shaw, it’s actually a bit spiteful, I suppose---I heard arguments like yours over and over, using ‘survival of the fittes’, to justify hurting or neglecting others. I decided to look into just how true it actually was that this was the “natural” order.” His smile became a grin, “Ah, so it is not about love of animals, but a love of refuting me.” "No, Mr. Shaw. It’s for love of the people hurt by beliefs like yours. But,” and her own smile became a grin as well, something that, despite its technical closeness to a smile, was a far cry from anything Sebastian had ever grlimpsed on her face before, “I will level with you---it is a little fun when someone doesn’t have an answer to my tiger example." *** SATURN’S CHILDREN “She was my mom, you know,” said Alice as they approached the wall of rubble. They were in the remains of the underground children where Alice and the other children had lived with Miss Sinister. Shinobi’s mission had been to get in using his phasing abilities, gather data, and get out. Alice, of course, had not been part of the plan. But when it was just her and him, she’d begged to come, and he’d...fuck, he didn’t know why he gave in. “I loved her. I still love her. And I thought she loved me,” Alice continued, as though in a trance, as though talking to the rubble and not to Shinobi, “And she did, I guess, just---just not how I thought. Like you love a car. Something you can use. Or more like, I guess, I guess---” Her voice broke, “A set of new clothes.” Shinobi, really just wanting her to shut up, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her through with him. They were in the remains of the entryway when they went solid again, and as Shinobi tried to reconcile the digital map Claudine had given him with the ruins before him. Alice quieted down as they searched, but then something else set her off, she was touching something---a broken cloning tank. Again, she was talking to it, not to Shinobi. “She loved me for what she wanted me to be for her, she loved what I could do for her.” Shinobi stepped up behind her, “Uh, Ally?” “Alice.” “Right, Alison, listen, maybe uh talk to Madelyne or Haven or somebody about this later.” “Well they’re not here!” she shouted over her shoulder at him, and she sounded both angry and in pain, taking Shinobi aback, “They’re not here and you are and you...I know you understand me!” Shinobi froze, “The hell do you mean?” “You may be dumb but I’m not! I have eyes! All you want to do is party and have fun and get drunk with Pyro! No way you’re doing all this Black Bishop businessman stuff except for your dad!” “Hey, not true!” Shinobi returned, “The Hellfire Club is power, money is power, and power is everything! And I want everything!” “You don’t want power, you don’t even wanna get out of bed in the morning! “It’s called a hangover you stupid little snot!” “Exactly!” “Wh---what does that even mean?! Shut up, I’m not going to engage with a CHILD! And after I was nice enough to bring you here! I have half a mind to leave you now, if you love it so much! That would teach you some manners!” He just might have to, if he still didn’t need to look for the data. Alice at least was helpful with that---she had lived in this place, she knew it well, even in ruins. They walked in silence at first as she lead the way to where the supercomputer’s chamber would be, until, goddammit, she started up again. “Look I wasn’t trying to be mean to you. But I mean...you’re just a kid, really, like me. You just wanna have fun. And I see how your dad talks to you. Everybody does. Even if only Ms. Haven says anything. “And Pyro,” Shinobi pointed out. “Well, Ms. Haven covers my ears when HE says anything to your dad.” “Yeah, because you’re a kid and I’M NOT,” Shinobi said petulantly. And indeed he wasn’t a kid, he wasn’t some scared little boy anymore, he was black bishop of the hellfire club, partner to black king, his father, his father’s right hand man. Emphasis on MAN. Adult. Grown-up. Powerful. “Do you love him?” “Pyro? Nah, we’re just, uh...the adult kind of friends, you’ll understand when you’re older and more mature like m--” “Nooooo, dummy, your dad!” SHinobi tripped over the high heels of his costume, “What kind of question is that?” Alice looked down, not at Shinobi but at her sneakers, “I still love my mom. Claudine, I mean.” Shinobi didn’t answer her. He didn’t even look back at her. And she didn’t ask anymore questions, or talk about their parents anymore. They made it to the wrecked remains of the supercomputer, they got the wrecked remains of the data, and they returned to the rubble blocking the entrance. And as they phased out through it and stepped back into the outside world, Shinobi looked down at her and said, “I love what he can do for me.”

[overthinkingkdrama]

Exit Rant: Mr. Sunshine

[This is intended to be a spoiler free review of Mr. Sunshine but it may include a few minor spoilers throughout. It’s also long as all hell. Enjoy.]

Wow, here I am with my Mr. Sunshine review and it's only...*looks at wrist despite not wearing a watch* nearly three months after the final episode aired. Totally in keeping with this blog's commitment to publishing consistent and relevant content *manic laughter*.

The truth is, even if it hadn't been bad timing schedule-wise, Mr. Sunshine was going to be a difficult drama for me to review. This drama has so much to recommend it in terms of beautiful production, epic scope, unique period setting and blockbuster cast. There is something conceptually mesmerizing about Mr. Sunshine that engaged my basest fangirl and aesthetic sensibilities, but the actual experience of watching the episodes does not live up all the premise promises. What Mr. Sunshine delivers as a drama is, paradoxically, less than the sum of it's parts.

Let's focus on the positive first.

The cast in this drama is god-tier. You're rarely going to find an ensemble cast like this outside of Chungmuro. Your first, second and third leads all can and have headlined films and dramas of their own, and a lot of the stars here (like Kim Tae Ri of The Handmaiden fame) have critically acclaimed film pedigrees.

There's a lot to say about the actors and the performances, and there's no way I'm going to get to all of it. The extended cast is large and exceptionally great, and I'm not going to be able to remember and talk about everyone by name, so I'm going to have to limit myself to the main cast.

It's really the cast that moves heaven and earth to make this script work. To the degree that sometimes it felt that each actor lived in their character and lent flesh and texture where the writing let us down. Kim Tae Ri, played Ae Shin with so much fierceness and unshakable dignity that I couldn't stop cheering for her, even when the plot sidelined her character for what felt like episodes at a time.

For many people, the rousing showstopper performance of the drama was Yoo Yeon Seok as Gu Dong Mae. Early in the life cycle of the drama I recall hearing that Kim Eun Sook got herself embroiled in some controversy because people felt that the Japanese-sympathizer Dong Mae was far too likable considering his political ideology. Some hasty shuffling was done and rather than being characterized as a bald-faced fascist, Dong Mae became more of a freewheeling mercenary gangster-type. This was a positive change in my opinion. I don't want to retread what has already been said (a lot of it by me) about Dong Mae, but YYS has never been and may never be as interesting or as sexy as he was in Mr. Sunshine, in my opinion. He plays the morally grey character with edge and blazing charisma and, if nothing else does, makes the drama worth checking out.

Information broker and enigmatic owner of the Glory Hotel, Kudo Hina, as portrayed by Kim Min Jung and (my personal favorite) and the soulful Hui Seong, born into a blood-soaked privilege he can't escape, played by Byun Yo Han, wonderfully round out the cast and are, if anything, tragic underutilized by the plot. The only person here who perhaps underwhelms is Lee Byung Hun as the titular main character. I don't have strong feelings about him as an actor or as a person one way or the other. I've enjoyed some movies he's been a part of. I do feel that visually he looks too old for baby-faced Kim Tae Ri, but I'm almost used to that kind of thing in Dramaland. His performance is perhaps meant to be restrained--nigh on repressed--but it comes off as a bit bland and wooden. Which isn’t to say he’s bad, and I feel Eugene had a lot of potential to be a very interesting character just...decidedly less interesting than everyone else.

A lot of praise has been heaped on the way this drama looks, and I will agree, it’s a very pretty show. Personally, I disliked how heavily color graded certain scenes, especially outdoor scenes were. I found it a bit distracting and it took away from how otherwise gorgeous some of the scenery in this is when the sky is tan or everything in a scene is tinted blue for some reason. But the production deserves a lot of credit for creating a full and lived in feeling world, for the beauty of the sets and the costumes, the sheer attention to detail, and the way they used all four seasons to set the tone and give you a sense of the passage of time.

And let me just state that during Mr. Sunshine’s run I was decidedly obsessed with it. I posted about it, I talked about it to my friends, I talked several of those friends into watching it with me...and a few of those people still speak to me to this day. When I start criticizing it here in a few seconds, know that doesn’t mean I didn’t get a lot of hours of enjoyment out of this drama or that I think I’m too good for this show. I’ve seen 4 of Kim Eun Sook’s dramas so far and this is easily the best one. It’s not just better than Goblin, DOTS and Heirs, it’s miles better. Is that everything? I think that about covers it.

Now for the bad stuff...

I’ve said this in the past in relation to Goblin, but it bears repeating: Kim Eun Sook is good--possibly even great--at creating singular, iconic story moments and absolute rubbish at developing a cohesive plot that builds tension over multiple episodes and pays off in a logical way. At the time I said it I was basing it off of relatively little experience with her writing, but I’ve seen the pattern repeat itself two more times since then and I’m increasingly convinced that I’m a genius.

I do believe there are extenuating factors that account for the poor pacing of her dramas. The number of episodes and the episode length might not be within Kim Eun Sook’s control and she’s not responsible for poor editing either. Both Goblin and Mr. Sunshine suffer a lot because of bloated run time, and maybe that’s the network’s fault but it leaves plot feeling thin in places, even like it’s futilely spinning it’s wheels waiting for the next important event to come along.

With Mr. Sunshine the issue wasn’t even that there wasn’t enough interesting plot or character backstories to fill 24, hour plus episodes, possibly even more, it was that at times it felt like the drama flatly refused to delve into the interesting details, preferring to leave us miserably treading water in the doldrums of the story. It felt like we had to beg and wait for even morsels of backstory about certain characters--the drama was especially mum regarding Kuda Hina’s history--while the two leads endlessly mooned over one another. How many scenes did we need to watch Eugene and Ae Shin soulfully stare at one another?

Mr. Sunshine never successfully builds momentum until the last 2 or 3 episodes of the run. And while there is a lot of lip service paid to guns and glory and sad endings, but much of the drama feels like it's milling around with hands in pockets waiting for the tragic curtain call. Even the badass sniper heroine is frequently sidelined. It feels like the story remains stubbornly in the set up phase, one step forward and two steps back. It's as though Kim Eun Sook has all of these wonderful toys--great characters, huge budget, interesting time period/setting--and she simply doesn't know what to do with them.

Consistently my frustration with Mr. Sunshine was its inability to effectively incorporate the extended cast into the plot. It feels like all characters exist in separate bubbles waiting for their turn to have a scene. Those scenes are interesting but maddeningly brief, and then they are shuffled backstage once again until it's once again time for their requisite 5-10 minutes of screen time per episode. 

This problem is especially present in the main cast with Dong Mae, Hina and Hui Seong. And that is what is so deeply exasperating about this drama, because there is just enough good peppered in to keep me invested, so many great elements poorly employed. It makes one want to take KES's script away from her and take it home and fix it yourself, because you just know she's not treating it right.

When calamity comes, and it does, it feels disproportionate and somewhat unsatisfying, because the build up didn’t do it justice. The drama ends with a rousing crescendo, but it feels that the individual character arcs were never allowed to reach their full potential. I’m not one to shy away from tragedy, but it left me feeling rather empty.

I wish I could a finer point on it than that, but it’s a murky issue to me. I know I’m not connecting with the story as much as I want to, but it’s hard to put my finger on the exact reason and that just adds to my frustration with it.

I stand by my assertion that this is still the best KES drama I have watched. Thought admittedly I’ve still only seen 4 of them, this one shows the most promise and, I think, the most growth. But it’s not there yet. I don’t know if I could ever watch it again, but I’m glad I watched it once. If for nothing else for the fantastic performances of several old and new favorites. I give Mr. Sunshine an 8.5/10, which is probably too high considering everything I’ve said about it up to this point. However, it’s just too strong in terms of overall production and cast for me to feel good about rating it any lower.

[redscullyrevival]

Dragon City: Rain Wilds Chronicles Rundown

@sonnetscrewdriver

Plot/Narrative/Setting

This was kind of a quiet before the storm type of deal huh? I enjoyed it because I’m me but - okay hold on I gotta talk about this first and foremost because it’s amazing:

So, I bought a kindle edition of all four books, right? But since I don’t have a physical copy to tell me how far I am into a book and the percent number at the bottom of my kindle doesn’t depict the percentage of each book but of all four books I have ended each book so far very abruptly and confused lol!

I’m so trained to the physical thus visual understanding of when a book will end that with this series, reading exclusively on the kindle, has been so jarring! I have a very difficult time remembering where one book ends and the other begins! Rain Wilds to me is basically one novel and I have to really focus on separating the books when I do this first bit here on the plot and narrative and blah blah.

HAhahah!

Ahem, alright, cool.

Soooo this was the quiet before the storm huh? I enjoyed it greatly but I’ll be honest and admit I’ve a extreme fondness for Bingtown/The Rain Wilds as a setting and a place for me to imagine. I like the Six Duchies I suppose but my focus is most definitely on the characters who live there rather than the place holding, really, any of my attention at all. 

It’s one of those really weird things to try and explain; but basically I can envision South of the Six Duchies better than I can the Six Duchies themselves?. Maybe because I grew on a tropical island? I can just inherently “see” the jungle and water ways better? I DUNNO!

But it’s true.

How about that Thymara, Tats, and Rapskal love triangle though?

Oh, Hobb is doing her best to not make it have such shapely obvious triangle-y points but that’s what it is - at least it’s framed from the place of Thymara’s self acceptance and not just who she wants to kiss more.

That’s a bit of a relief. 

What’s mostly irritating is the triangle-non-triangle forces me to want Thymara to make a dang choice already. 

OBVIOUSLY RAPSKAL IS THE WAY TO GO -

But. You know. I want Thymara to be true to herself and I trust Hobb to explain her feelings to me adequately and honestly.

Kinda want that to happen sooner than later though and would be fabulously pleased with a third NO ONE option!  

I love love love Kelsingra! 

I know we’ve gotten glimpses of the city before in other series but the pieces are starting to fall together now! 

With the more drawn out exploration of the city comes a more cohesive understanding of the history/magic of the wider narrative, out into Fitz and the Fool and Liveships. 

Silvery Water huh? Dangerous to humans huh? Hmmm. HHMMMMMM.

The hammer is about to fall though.

OH OH Ohmygod Malta! And Reyn! gurglegurglegurgle I still love them so much. *hyperventilates* 

SAVE THAT BABY. D<

And while we’re talking about saving babies, save my tiny child Selden! Godamn. 

Alise

Rise up!

When you’re livin’ on your knees you rise up!

Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up!

Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up!

Ahem, sorry, musical moment.

Alise, Alise, Alise! Look at her go!

This woman is a powerhouse of reinvention.

She absolutely refuses to give into herself and her situations.

Alise is like a prized pig sniffling out the truffle of enlightened self-worth; sometimes down but never out.

She’s a little down right now but I know she’ll pick her self up, she has to.

She’s Alise!

She’s my hero, and she won’t let me down.

Thymara

Oh girl, just do something already.

She has come so far but she is still just standing around waiting for who knows what.

You’re in the city!

You’re away form those rules!

You are new and beautiful and free!

Make a choice on a boy if you must but mostly I want her to make a choice for herself, to choose to live!

Because when it all gets wittled down, Thymara is still just being a “Keeper”, seeing herself as someone whose purpose is tied to her Dragon, to her father’s house, to other things rather than her own self worth.

Again, she has come a long way from that first book and she’s really grown on me but I think she still has a way to go before she can fly like her dragon.

Reminder: SHE HAS WINGS.

I’m sorry I’m an idiot. 

Captain Leftrin

Continues to be a solid, sturdy, oak of a man.

I want to hug him. 

Sedric

How far you’ve come man!

I’m oddly proud lol

Sedric doesn’t have the same resolve and guts Alise has so I was a little worried he’d slip away a bit but he hasn’t!

Sedric saddled up to the hard living and struggle with as much dignity as possible, and I like that he’s still him. He still wants nice clean things but he doesn’t let that desire sully his here and now.

Doing so much better outside of Hest’s shadow and oppression!

Yay Sedric!

I’m terrified what will happen when Hest comfronts him of course but I think Sedric as he is now will be able to handle whatever horrible Hest throws at him.  

Tats

Hmm.

I’m not a fan of how Tats speaks to Thymara, how he feels he is entitled to discuss every faction of her life just because he asks.

At the same time I’m in awe how comfortable he is doing just that; he does so that he can better understand and so that they can communicate.

But it still just rubs me the wrong way!

I hate how I only seem to think of Tats in relation to Thymara and never as his own person!

He was a SLAVE!

I FEEL TERRIBLE DOING THAT!

Sigh

I hope Tats finds himself, or that Hobb helps me see what she’s doing with him, in this last book. He seems a bit of a loose thread, to me, at the moment. :(

Rapskal

My sweet precious boy - is crafty as fuuuuck.

If I’m honest I Iike Rapskal because he is positive and bright and a little dense and he laughed during sex. 

But he is also the most OTHER out of everyone in the book; we never see into his perspective so we never know what he’s going to say until he says it - and that’s odd in this narrative considering how many main characters there are.

Sure, we don’t get Jerd’s perspective or Swarge’s but they’re minor characters, right? And then there is Carson who I’d say is a major character, but he is expressed as being an open book and how Sedric see’s/understands him is how he actually is - the same can’t be said of Rapskal, not entirely.

And that’s a little unnerving in a way.

I’m still waiting for him to do something incredibly stupid and/or dangerous, and I’m a little scared because I probably won’t see it coming, if such a thing were to happen.

He’s so impulsive and not the best communicator; Rapskal rather have someone come to their own conclusions about anything then really step in, EXCET when it came to Kelsingra.  

But ya know.

I just like him lol

Sintara

Now that she is more confident she has become a little nicer and observational 

But still a massive pain in the butt lol.

Highlighted Passages

Freedom and choices. She could seize the one and make the other. “I’m staying,” she said quietly. “Not for my dragon. Not even for my friends. I’m staying here for me. To make a place where I do belong.”

“What do you want of me?” he asked. He knew they wouldn’t answer him. He spoke the words to remind himself that he was a man, not a dumb animal.

“Ah, but such a pretty little cow! One that will make us all late if she doesn’t finish her packing right away and waddle down to the boat with me.”

When they came, the old city would come to life again. The push to plunder would bring the money to rebuild the docks and bring ships and trade. A mockery of life would precede its destruction.

The next was a girl with her face and arms painted white, in a gown decorated with gilt to mimic golden thread. Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads, and in her hands a scepter that looked more like a feather duster.

Someone had started a fire in the room! And the window had been broken deliberately: the glass shards were both on the floor and also on the parapet that ran around the outer edges of the tower. There was a clear handprint in the soot on the wall beside the window. 

Hunt and feed or die, her body told her. It had no patience with her vanity or fear.

“I can do this. I have to do this and so I can do this.” 

The reality of the dragon made the ghosts seem paler in comparison. Their gaiety seemed frail and false, an echo of a past that had never lasted into a future. Whatever they celebrated, they did so with futility. Their world had not lasted, and their windblown laughter seemed to mock them.

“And, well, you’re talking as if her being with him, if she is with him, is something that she’s doing to you. Now I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but chances are that you didn’t figure at all in her decision.”

[daggerdove]

A really long ramble about rewriting SitD and why sometimes ideas just stick with you and refuse to die.

I’m going to take a break and write in first person, since this is me talking about my experiences writing this story after all, it makes sense.

To set the stage, I am fourteen years old and watching The Lost Boys for what is probably the fourth or fifth time within the month of June.  I latch on to movies sometimes, for a while it was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I remember watching How to Train your Dragon on close to repeat, sitting in front of Practical Magic for hours at a time.

In the summer of 2011 it was The Lost Boys.  You see I had come out of my twilight phase before this point, I was buried in The Tale of the Body Thief, in Daniel’s unwilling surrender, in Vampire Academy because the struggle of Rose Hathaway was so endlessly interesting to me.  In Shattered Mirror and In the Forests of Night, because Amelia Atwater-Rhodes was barely older than me when she published her first books.

I had written vampire stories before.

Christa Morgan was still the sharp tongued huntress she had always been, fighting for her life and trying not to let her best friend die like the rest of her family had.  But I had hit a rock with her story long before this point, a mountain pass I could not find my way through.  

Aria and Melody were on hold while I thought over the consequences of a world where eye color could denote whether or not you’d killed someone you were related to.

Then I was buried in fanfiction to extend this universe that there seemed to be so little of.  My obsessions grew far and I was hungry for whatever was written well, though my standards at the time were admittedly low.  I’ve revisited some of those stories lately, to find them holding up surprisingly well.  

So I sat down to extend the universe myself.

Alexandra Blackwood was born of that endeavor, and like me at this start, she was fourteen.  Turning 15 on September 9th.  She wasn’t a self insertion, how Christa started out, she was brash and scared and all around a pretty broken kid.  I’d settled on her upbringing being shit from the start and I pulled from relatives and friends lives to give life to how these things had affected her.  There wasn’t a lot to go off of at first, it was generic as they come when fanfiction sprung from this movie.  Another kid goes off to Santa Carla and falls in step with the boys.

In this case the only original Lost Boy I kept was David, since in the novelization of the movie there was a post-end scene of him having turned a handful of surf nazis, one being Shane who would move up to Luna Bay with his own crew of exceptionally violet buddies.  I liked the idea of having a new group of people, especially since while I felt comfortable in David in the way I always feel comfortable writing those of questionable morals and exceptional cruelty: I didn’t feel comfortable in my abilities to capture Marko, Paul, and Dwayne.

Making people scream over my lack of ability to do so was not something I wanted.

And thus Eric, Kyle, and Jesse were born.

Only two of them survived into this edition of the rewritten mess, only one of them stayed in his semi-original state (Jesse, my green haired ball of energy).  I wrote the story very fast for my pace at the time, I flew through chapters like it was nothing until about 14 or 15 in.

That’s when things started getting weird.

See by this point I was working simultaneously on this mess of a fanfiction, and writing a companion that had the copyrighted materials removed, hence David becoming Daniel, and Santa Carla becoming Twin Lakes (a little town barely a mile across just below Santa Cruz, in case anyone wondered).  I changed the story very little in the first rewrite, which I have since trashed and can no longer see the light of day, though it may still exist on a flash drive somewhere labeled ‘Safe - 23036’ which was the word count at the time.  Pretty impressive for a 14 year old who had never written more than 10k before and that being over the course of years rather than a handful of months.

I had a cheerleader though.  There was this woman in Australia who got very attached to both versions of my story, and needed something to read after putting her kids to bed.  So whenever I hit a rut I reminded myself I had someone waiting for this, waiting and excited, and forward I plowed.

Back to things getting, weird.  The longer Alex waited to feed the less cohesive her mind became, she had dreams that lasted days and hallucinations about real people that she hadn’t even met.  Things that, if I remember correctly, still got cut from the last-most-recent rewrite, the one before this one, the one with a little over 2 dozen chapters and a handful of alternate endings and off shoots because gods know I can’t make up my mind.

Well, scratch that, looks like I did include that weird bullshit in the last rewrite.  Go me, those chapters are absolutely a confusing pile of shit.  But apparently I wanted to keep them.  That rewrite happened in, oh I dunno, 2014 or so?  Maybe it was 2013, I think it might have been.  I don’t know for sure, but I do know it got a huge overhaul and moved further away from The Lost Boys so that it could stand better on its own.

By this time I think I had changed Alex’s age to match mine again?  16 or 17 or something around there, just because I remember going back and reading and thinking ‘What dumb fuck 14 year old lets herself join a bunch of fuckin vampires, and what vampires allow that???’  So I upped her age a bit, which I’ve done again in the current version, to match my own age, again, making her 20 going on 21.

I remember the first time I finished these stories, it was maybe halfway through January of 2012 when I started the sequel, having set up for it at the end back in December.  Kayla Raes was born of probably the least thought out romance of all time, rest assured I’ve built up Alex and Isaac’s relationship much more this time.  But at this time they were just, together, because reasons?  I guess?

Now more than half that characters in this damn book are queer, so whatever.

Anyways.

Kayla Raes, who inexplicably has David/Daniel’s eyes and doesn’t think to question it when these fuckers show up and offer her immortality.

Which she takes and then after realizing that she’s still being controlled, kills the FUCK out of David/Daniel and unfortunately Isaac dies in the process and there’s some bullshit going on there but we don’t need to go into “Free” I really don’t follow that ending anymore.

Originally Alex either killed Isaac or escaped with him in the end.

Because I didn’t even touch on the fact that her parents were worthy targets.

It didn’t even really come up until I did I one shot AU of my own damn story called “Feral” where the boys would just feed people vampire blood, drop them back in the streets, give them a week to kill someone and if they didn’t, kill them.  Alex attacked a woman in the streets, demanded answers from Daniel, originally she turned here, like she killed the woman and that was the end of it.  I wasn’t sure where I was bringing the story from that point.  But it did spawn the beginnings of this rewrite.

Of Alex becoming a vampire without killing Isaac.

Now, shoot forward to what is the very beginnings of 2017, I haven’t so much as touched this story in years, I do occasionally re-read it for the parts I enjoy.  The scene in San Francisco for the sake of cementing Alex’s fear of trying to run away from Daniel, the image of his hair soaked red and the bones of that last girl cracking under his hands.  The opening of Alex discovering the whole vampire thing, of almost killing Isaac in the shop, shaking and calling 911 and not quite knowing what else to do or what she’s done.  Jesse leaving to go find his sister Sarah after years of her being a missing persons case, finding her dead just outside Chicago with a broken arm and two bullets in her head.  Things I still loved the descriptions of, things that still flowed the way I felt they did the first time I’d written them.

But oh gods the mess that was most of the story.

I opened with a clean slate.

With one single chapter written.

Alex discussing the possibility of killing her parents with Daniel.  She’s been fighting for months now, and the pain is so bad most of the time she can barely leave bed.  Daniel is emphasizing her lack of time, and how worried they are getting about her. By this time the ‘they’ is different, still Jesse, but Eric and Kyle are gone and there is now a girl named Moira, who is small and fiery and slow to like people.  

They talk about her parents, about how nobody could blame her for wanting to see them dead and gone.  She’s afraid to go back and Daniel offers to kill them for her if it turns out she can’t bring herself to do it.

They go, she kills them, everything is fine.

That was how this rewrite started.

That was the only thing I had cemented in my mind.  The vision of her obliterating everything that had caused her pain in the past and using it to move forward.  To start a new life.

I also moved this shit to the east coast so that I was more familiar with the setting.  Since I’m a Vermonter and I know Maine and New Hampshire pretty damn well, especially the coastal parts of Maine.  She did still spend time in Santa Cruz, but I left that to memory.