#the fucking budget cuts and the cost of every scene

[blakbonnet]

to think they'd have kept the underwater bts of Ed taking Stede's face in his hands if his hair hadn't floated forward and covered the camera 🫠

[weirdgenetic-fuckup]

Sixty Bucks?

A/n: Not sure how I feel about this one, started writing it but lost motivation so hope it's not too bad lol

Warnings: Not proof read, smut and fluff, fingering, squirting, let me know if there's any more you think I should add :3

Guns had been on tour for about a month now and this was their first day off. You were touring with the band as Slash’s guitar tech, he was nice enough but fairly quiet.

The hotel you were staying in was pretty cheap, nothing fancy with the managers wanting to try and cut costs after Axl’s oblivious spending. One thing that’s started to change since the new budget was instated was that you and Slash now had to share a room. There were two beds, so you never worried in that regard, as long as you stayed out of his way and kept to yourself things went smoothly.

This particular place was right on the beach and a more tropical scene. You woke up and the warm golden glow of the sun was flooding in through the window that was open just a crack to get some cool air flowing. You woke up fully refreshed and wide awake, Slash was still crashed from last night's partying. He was sprawled out on his bed, in nothing but his jeans since that’s what he toppled into bed in. A pillow was held over his head with a small window so he could still breathe, his head facing you so he wouldn’t be blinded by the light.

You got out of bed, stretching and cracking your joints. Out the window you saw some flamingos around, beautiful pink birds poking around the small beach outside your room. You quickly went to Slash, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a shake. “Slash!” You called, trying to get him up. “Slash, come on! There’s flamingos outside!”

“Fuck. Off.” He grumbled, shifting away from you.

“Slash, come one! You’ll regret not looking at them now and you know it!” You kept shaking him and he threw the pillow covering his head at you. “Oh, pfft.” You groaned as it hit you in the face.

“Let me sleep, it’s my day off.” You rolled your eyes at his stubbornness.

“Come on! They’re so pretty!”

“You know what else is pretty? Sleep!” Slash stated, lifting himself off the bed just enough to glare at you. You chewed your cheek, crossing your arms and turning away from him to look back at the flamingos out the window. “Flamingos aren’t even interesting.” Slash mumbled, grabbing the pillow he threw back and getting comfortable again. “Fat fucking chicken wings.”

“You’re just mad you’re not as pretty.” You retorted, not even bothering to look at him.

“What was that?” He demanded.

“You heard me.” Slash didn’t say anything after that but you could feel him glaring daggers at you. You kept watching the flamingos, enjoying viewing their daily life. So calm and peaceful, they don’t have to deal with Slash when he’s just woken up.

“Hey,” Slash started, pulling you from your thoughts, “you know, if you’re already up why don’t you help me out real quick?” You raised a brow and turned to look at him. He’d rolled onto his back, the blanket pushed away from him as he lay stretched out before you.

“Help you with what?” You asked. He didn’t respond, just shrugged and rolled his body to be comfortable. Slash let out a soft groan and that’s when you noticed the not so hidden bulge in his jeans. His fly was down and basically framing it. “I-I don’t get paid for that kind of service.” You stumbled out, eyes glued to his clothed member.

“I could pay you.” He said as if this was an everyday thing. Though, for him you suppose it kind of was. “Come on, I’ll make it worth your while.” You can’t say you didn’t like the idea. Since you were hired to be Slash’s tech you thought he looked good, you were sleeping in the same room with him and can’t count how many times you’d thought about crawling into bed with him. You’d seen him with every other girl around and you were waiting for your turn.

“How much?” You asked, taking a step closer to the bed and sitting on the end. The mattress dips under you. Slash reaches a hand out to you, lightly tracing shapes on your thigh.

“How much do you think you’re worth?” He asked, looking up at you and waiting for a genuine answer.

You thought about it, glancing to the ceiling as you pondered. “Sixty?” You finally said.

“Sixty?” He asked. “Sixty what?”

“Sixty bucks?” You replied.

He stared at you for a moment before sitting up. “You think you’re only worth 60 bucks?” You thought about it and shrugged. “Jesus, I’ll give you a hundred right now if you tell me you're kidding.”

You thought about it some more. “Well, how much do you usually pay?”

“Nothing, girls throw themselves at us.”

“So, what’s different between me and those girls?” He paused, taking some time to think about it himself.

Slash shrugged and shook his head. “Come here.” He patted the bed beside him. You didn’t move and just stared at the open space. “Come.” He repeated in a more stern tone. You listened and sat beside him, leaning back against the headboard. Slash’s hand immediately found your thigh, rubbing it and teasing the sensitive inside. He tugged on your fuzzy pyjama pants. “Take these off.” His voice dropped to a whisper, raspy and deep. His breath smelled of whiskey and cigarettes and you wanted to taste it so bad.

You listened to his demand and pushed your pants off, leaving just your panties. They were a nice pair, red and lacey because they make you feel special, like a present no one gets to unwrap. Until now, when Slash slides a finger over you, pushing down at certain points just to watch you squirm. Slash pressed his lips to your cheek, trailing a few more soft kisses to your ear. “You need to know your worth, darling.” He whispered, sticking his tongue out a little and licking around the shell of your ear.

Slash moved your panties to the side and slid a finger through your wet folds. You let out a soft gasp at the feeling, hips already starting to buck into his hand. “Slash.” You whined.

“Yeah? What is it?” He didn’t give you a chance to answer before he pushed a finger into you, drawing a moan out of you. “Is that what you wanted?” He asked with a chuckle, you nodded. His finger worked in and out of you, starting slow and curling into your gummy walls. He pushed another in, stretching you out. “So tight, just for me?” He teased, speeding up his movements.

“Hah- fuck, Slash, I-I can’t-” You tried to keep your head up but it kept falling back at the feeling of his thick, calloused fingers inside of you. He put an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer so you could rest your head on him.

“Can’t what?” He asked in a teasing tone, kissing your cheek, then jaw and down to your neck. “Gotta use your words, love.”

You let out a loud whine at the name. “Can’t-can’t take it anymore!” Your legs started shaking and your back was arching. The knot in your gut was building in a way you hadn’t felt before.

Slash chuckled. “Cum on my fingers, then, I’ll lick it off.” And with that the knot snapped. Your head rolled back and so did your eyes, moans slipping past your lips without a thought going through your fucked out mind. Your legs shook uncontrollably as you squirted all over Slash’s hand and the pristine white sheets. Slash didn’t stop his hand, instead helping you ride out your high on his fingers. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the scene. “Fuck, didn’t know you’d do that for me.” He praised when you started coming down from the high.

You looked down at the mess you made, wide-eyed, Slash chuckles at your expression. Your breathing was fast and heavy. Slash’s fingers were still buried deep inside you, he kissed your temple and whispered in your ear. “Felt that good, huh?” He curled his fingers, pressing into you.

“Fuck! Slash, no more, no more.” You whined, weakly pushing his hand away.

“No more?” He asked. “We haven’t even gotten to me, yet.”

[bettsfic]

i can't stay quiet about this anymore. for weeks now i've thought, noo i won't write about knights of the zodiac on my blog. nobody cares. BUT it is the weirdest fucking movie i've ever seen and i need to tell you about it.

knights of the zodiac is an american made live action adaptation of the anime/manga saint seiya. before this film, i'd never even heard of it, but that doesn't matter, because i watched an interview with mackenyu (who plays seiya) who said that the director told him not to bother watching the anime or reading the manga, because he wanted this movie to be its own thing. you know, which is always a great way to bring in your core audience.

with that said, i'm viewing this film entirely on its own merit, with no context of the source material. so saint seiya fans may not want to read this.

the movie came out this past may. i was excited about it for no other reason than mackenyu starring in an american action movie. i'm honestly a little surprised people weren't more jazzed about that. there aren't a lot of japanese actors starring in big budget american action movies.

other cast members include sean bean (who, spoiler alert, dies), famke janssen, and mark dacascos. in case you don't recognize those names, they are, respectively, boromir/ned stark, jean grey from x-men, and the iron chef. if nothing else, i think it's worth watching for the utterly bizarre casting.

the premise, sort of: mackenyu, who appears to be contractually obligated to play angsty younger brother characters (i think this is the 7th thing i've seen him in where he is an angsty younger brother), has an older sister who is missing. he's a poor orphan boy who gets by on winning cage fights. or something. so boromir finds him and tells him he's destined to be athena's bodyguard, and he gets on board with this alarmingly fast, but not after antagonizing athena (who is not yet athena) and throwing out some snarky one-liners. he trains in the middle of nowhere with a masked lady who repeatedly kicks his ass, and he never changes clothes the entire time. there's other stuff too but it's secondary to the absolute batshittery of this movie.

i saw it on premiere night, which was also the premiere night of the new guardians of the galaxy movie. again, A+ move by the promotional team. so there i was on a saturday at 7pm. prime movie going time. and my best friend and i were the only ones in the theater.

although i had no real expectations for this movie beyond Mackenyu Hits Things And Is Sad, i believed one of two things would happen: it would be as terrible as it sounded, or it would actually be phenomenal. but no, it was neither bad, nor good, but a secret third thing: it scratched a deep and rabid part of my id.

and by that i mean, it appeared to be a very high budget love letter to glaringly submissive men.

here's my letterboxd review that i wrote in the brief hypomanic episode succeeding my initial viewing:

okay so first and most importantly, this scene made me actually scream:

it's a joke line, sure, but 1) he definitely means it, and 2) he immediately calls her "princess," which if you've ever read my fic, you'll know that that's a one-hit KO for me.

(putting this under a cut because it's already long)

you see how athena is framed above seiya? that is one of approximately 1000 shots where this occurs. to every male character. at one point, mackenyu perches gingerly on the back of athena's motorcycle. in fact the only male character who attempts to be dominant aggressive and toxically masculine becomes the punching bag of the film.

in the beginning, seiya is in a cage match where people are getting angry at him for "dancing," which means he doesn't fight so much as avoids getting hit and looks pretty doing it. a solid third of the movie involves a very large lady beating the crap out of him. the premise of the film is getting him to devote his entire life to a goddess and obey protect her at all costs.

i'm probably the only one who watched this movie and was like, hmm is this kink coded? am i insane for seeing this? usually when i think of kink coding i think of quentin tarantino's foot fetish, these long gaudy shots of women's feet hanging out of car windows. it's in the imagery and shot composition and power dynamics.

here, the imagery is a lot of kneeling men, the shot compositions repeatedly place the men lower than the women, and the power dynamics are simply that the women have all the power, and the men have a little, as a treat. jean grey is a straight-up femdom, leather and all.

by the end of the climax, seiya is naked, having been stripped of his (magical and very powerful) armor as pre-athena becomes athena and uh, blasts his clothes off in the process. there's probably something to be said there about, you know, literally stripping him of his power.

i think what i find particularly remarkable about this is that the repeated feminization of the male lead is treated as a good thing. a self-actualizing thing. it's the process through which he accepts himself and his destiny. that's the reason i say it's a love letter--i've known a lot of submissive men and many of them really struggle to accept that part of themselves. i had a friend once who was so ashamed of himself--not just that he was submissive, but that submission was an integral part of his identity--that he had a breakdown in my car over it. so i think it's nice seeing a vaguely positive portrayal of finding oneself through (textually) devotion and (subtextually) submission.

god help me, seiya spends the entire film being irritating and bratty. this movie is my personal kryptonite.

don't get me wrong, it's a terrible movie. the writing is awful, the direction is awful, and if it gets a second film, i'll be shocked. it received a 1.9 (out of 5) on letterboxd and a 4.4 (out of 10) on imdb.

but i've also always been a lover of the star wars prequels (and oh boy there's a lot to be said there about submissive men) and so my patience for bad writing is infinite in the face of interesting things happening on a character level. in a world of disneyfied stock plots and bloated marvel franchises, i appreciate when a movie tries to do something different, even if it doesn't do it very well.

anyway, i can't in good conscience recommend it, but i for one plan to watch it at least a hundred more times.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

Ah yes! And let’s not forget PFI! That’s not gone anywhere!

My favourite part is the counterpoint argument from those benefitting from the ever-ballooning costs of the PFI contracts. They make fantastic reading because they are fucking shameless. The brass! You could see your face in it!

Basically, many schools (and other places, but the news today is specifically about schools) are locking into contracts with private firms to provide, well, a bunch of stuff – catering, ground maintenance, building maintenance, whatever. But like I say, they’re locked in, and the cost of these contracts has gone up and up and up. Above inflation, no less! And you’re locked in! You got no choice! You pay, and you obey the rules! You keep the grass on those playing pitches at two and a half centremetres even in the middle of winter when they’re waterlogged and they’re not using them!

What’s that? You think we’re doing a bad job maintaining the building? Radiators keep bursting and sending scalding jets of water arcing across the room? Half the school is locked off because of this? Ceilings are collapsing? Fuck you, pay us! We’ll fix it! Maybe. Eventually.

What’s that? Someone cheaper? No! Fuck you! We have a contracts, fuckers! And it’s just gone up!

But yes, that’s my hyperbolic setting the scene. Here’s a slightly more concrete example: Middlefield Primary in Speke. Cost of their PFI contract for this year? £470,000, which is up by £151,000 since 2021. This is such a burden that the school has been unable to replace four members of classroom staff since 2020. So that’s four teachers who should be there who aren’t, because someone wants their cut.

Ah! But the company in question would be willing to renegotiate the grass length. That’s nice of them, eh? Oh wait, the legal fees would make it pointless. Whoops.

Oh, also, as a bonus, a lot of these PFI contracts come with NDA’s built into them. Why might that be? Why would you not want people talking about this, I wonder? Hmm…

But yes, the brass. The brass is that, faced with all of this – none of which is new, by the way, it’s just got much worse – those defending these contracts are adamant they represent good value of money for the taxpayer. They are resolute on this! This is value for money! It might not look like it, but it is! It might look like thousands and thousands of pounds of public money is going into the pockets of people doing a shitty job and charging more for the privilege every year, but it is good value! Honest!

The real problem is that school budgets haven’t kept up with PFI contracts! Hear that? The real problem is that the budgets haven’t kept up with OUR EXTORTIONATE FUCKING DEMANDS! That’s the problem! We’re milking the taxpayer TOO QUICKLY! The government can’t keep up even if it wanted to, AND IT DOESN’T!

Fuck you all with a broom.

[allzelemonz]

Armitage Hux X Male Reader X Kylo Ren

Kinktober Day 1: Multi (Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren)

There was no mistaking that eerie feeling. The Supreme Leader was on board. It always put everyone on edge when he arrived. When he wasn’t out searching for that Jedi girl he was throwing a tantrum somewhere on the ship.

You always considered yourself unlucky that you happened to be the Admiral in charge of his flagship. Most of your time was taken up by dealing with the results of his tantrums. However, since he stopped wearing his helmet he’s been easier to deal with.

It was the presence of Hux in your office that put you on edge for this particular visit. Something must have been bothering him about Ren’s arrival.

“He’s back.” Hux looked out of your office window at the arriving ship.

“I know.” You turned and followed his gaze downward.

Kylo Ren walked along with an officer, likely on his way to meet with the Generals.

“How much do you think he’ll cost us this time?”

You turned to Hux. He was always one for snide comments, especially at Ren’s expense.

“The damage report last time had so many digits I had to break it down piece by piece to read it.”

Hux chuckled lightly, but it didn’t last. Something really was bothering him.

“Pryde again?”

Hux crinkled his nose at the name and let out a sigh.

“If I get the chance I’ll throw him out an airlock.”

Another short lived laugh came from the General.

A beep from both of your communicators confirmed your suspicions about Ren’s destination. Hux led the way out and to the meeting room. Meetings with the officers were always tense.

Ren wasn’t exactly a great military and political leader, but he always acted like he was. It was one thing to pick up his slack behind the scenes, but having to answer to him directly was annoying. But, it was also the best part of the meetings. Watching a bunch of older experienced officers have to scramble to please their superior who had thirty years less experience was pretty funny.

When you arrived at the meeting room you took your seats to wait for Ren. Pryde kept giving Hux odd looks and it made you want to throw him out to space right then. Before you could take any further action, Ren arrived.

He went straight to the area where he usually stood menacingly while the officers tried to appease him. As always, his focus was elsewhere. Pryde brought up the issue in dealing with Raxus and one of the Captains mentioned the budget constraints the armor department was dealing with.

All Ren did was stand, staring out the window, only occasionally looking back at the table. Just as Pryde brought up the need to up recruitment numbers Ren cut him off.

“Out,” He ordered simply.

“Supreme Leader?” Pryde questioned.

“(Y/l/n), Hux stay. Everyone else, out,” Ren spoke with an eerie calmness that made you even more worried as to why you were staying in the room.

The other officers wasted no time in leaving the meeting. Hux stayed stiff in his seat, looking at you and silently asking if you knew what was going on. You gave him a look to let him know you were just as confused.

When the last of the officers had left the three of you sat in silence for a few minutes. The loud sound of the door manually locking made you jump a bit.

“Tell him what you’ve been thinking about, General.” Ren continued to stare out of the window, not paying attention to either you or Hux.

“I don’t know what you m-” Hux was cut off and began to choke on what you guessed was Ren’s force use.

“Tell him,” Ren’s voice rose only slightly.

He let Hux go and turned to face the table. He moved and stood behind Hux’s chair. You could see the discomfort on Hux’s face.

“Tell him,” Ren commanded again.

“I was, uh, I was thinking of you.”

“Keep going.” Ren leaned down and placed a hand on the table, only the chair’s back was between them.

“Inappropriately.” Hux fidgeted in his seat, trying not to look at you. “I was thinking about you in an inappropriate manner.”

“An understatement if you ask me,” Ren said, looking between you and Hux. “The things I saw in the General’s head were far beyond just inappropriate.”

Your heart raced at the information. Hux had always been a friend, but this was news to you.

“I-I’m sorry, I-” Hux stammered to apologize.

“Don’t apologize, General.” Ren stood up straight. “He’s starting to think the same things.”

Blood rushed to your cheeks as your eyes darted between the two. The image of the ginger General getting bent over the table by the Supreme Leader entered your head before you could even think to keep it out.

“Oh, Admiral,” Ren chuckled. “I had the same idea.”

Hux didn’t dare move, but his eyes went between you and Ren as he tried to read the situation. He stiffened in his seat as Ren leaned down and let his nose brush against the General’s ear.

Ren whispered something to Hux that made him go redder than the hexagon border on his sleeve. The General’s arm moved slightly, but you couldn’t see what he was doing. Ren chuckled at whatever it was.

“Come here, Admiral.” Ren looked up at you with a hint of a smirk.

“Supreme Leader, I-”

“Now, Admiral, “ Ren ordered.

You shakily stood up from your chair and made your way around the table. You stopped a few feet away from the two. Ren stood and faced you.

“We’re all thinking the same thing,” He stated plainly. “The only real predicament is deciding who starts.”

Hux stayed in his seat, staring a hole into the table in front of him. You couldn’t look Ren in the eye. That didn’t stop him from taking a few steps towards you. He tilted your head up to meet his gaze and you could tell he was peering into your mind again. And, just like before, your thoughts betrayed you.

Ren smiled and pulled you closer to him. He brought his lips to yours as his arms found their way around you. You shut your eyes and let yourself fall into the kiss. Ren’s hand went up to grip at your hair while his leg pressed between your own.

He pulled away for a moment and turned to the General, “Care to try your hand, Hux?”

Armitage didn’t move at first. His head dipped slightly as he thought for a moment. Ren’s hand absentmindedly fiddled with your uniform’s belt as you both watched the General.

Hux stood up in a fluid motion and paused for a moment, thinking his actions over. He licked his lips out if nerves then turned and made his way over to you and Ren. Hux pressed his lips to Ren’s and the Supreme Leader moved his hand to pull him in.

Hux wrapped one arm around Ren and the other reached around you. He left Ren and brought you into a kiss. Both of his hands come up to cup your face and you feel Ren back away for a moment, only for him to return behind you a moment later.

As Hux kissed you deeply, his hands finding your hair, Ren removed your belt and started working on the rest of your uniform. Hux felt Ren take off your jacket and undid his own, breaking the kiss. The three of you undressed in a hurry, eager to move things along.

Just as you got your underwear off Ren spun you around and backed you into the table. His lips found your neck and began kissing down to your collarbone. Hux was stuck in place, just admiring the two of you.

“Get over here, Hux.” Ren motioned Hux over.

Hux jumped at the order, something you’d never seen him do for Ren. The Supreme Leader wasted no time in pulling Hux close and whispering something in his ear that seemed to please the General.

Hux looked to you, “(Y/l/n), bend over the table.”

Your throat went dry at the command, but you moved to comply nonetheless. You felt Hux press up against you from behind, his cock digging into your ass. The feeling reminded you of just how hard you were yourself. Hux pushed you down, flat against the table and started to grind against you.

You let out a broken moan as Hux got pushed into you as Ren bent him over. Hux’s face was buried in your shoulder while Ren entered him slowly. Once Ren was fully inside, Hux moved to enter you. It pushed you into the table, Hux trusted hard inserting himself into you.

Ren began to thrust and Hux bounced between you as he tried to find a matching rhythm. You steadied yourself against the table and Hux grabbed at your hips to start his thrusting. You could hear Ren grunting as he started to pull himself out and slam back into the General. Hux’s nails dug into your hips as he picked up his pace, slamming into you and Ren did him.

The General slowly reached around to your hardened cock and gripped it harshly. You cried out at the action and Hux began his handiwork. His movements faltered as he came in the next few minutes. He thrusted faster through his orgasm and his grip on your cock tightened.

Ren continued to ram into him, which made him fuck you harder. You grunted as you came onto Hux’s hand, the pleasure rushing through every part of your body. Ren’s movements had slowed as you came down from the high, probably having cum as well.

The Supreme Leader was pulled out of Hux and the General followed suit. You kept your hands on the table, steadying yourself. Hux joined you at the table, his legs shaking rapidly. The smirk on Ren’s face told you he was enjoying how you both trembled. Ren gathered his clothes and got dressed as Hux and you tried to regain your composure.

“Don’t think this is the only time we’ll be doing this.” Ren watched as Hux failed to stand on his own. “I got a lot more ideas after looking in your minds.”

[duncebento]

what’s bad about it

yeah so much…the sets look cheap honestly. i hate to say it. but the main street literally read as a set in my head like i could not suspend my disbelief. and u might think “welll maybe they just had a strict budget” but even the decisions that would have cost no money were made poorly. the aforementioned gambling scene takes place in one of the men’s houses i guess? but the room looks like a fucking wayfair commercial. no knick-knacks, no family photos, no untidy corners, no movement, light, or noise from the other room? the main lightskin is pretty but he can’t act, at least not in this role. he had me feening for the BLONDE vampire instead. sad. side note i despise the vampire special effects bc they literally just gave them bright blue eyes and the pupils look like they were superimposed on. blondie talkin about “i love that the women here are in every shade” meanwhile none of the actual women they cast as interests pass the paper bag test. why only lightskin women in new orleans? why does the music suck in new orleans? why is the white dude the only one who can speak french like what the fuck? it’s like casting a movie in DR and making it so that only the spaniards soeak spanish but all the black islanders are like we dk what youre saying….what. these ppl would speak french. vampire jumpscares are not scary. narration is necessary (it’s an interview!) but they make such poor use of it as a device i found myself wishing they’d cut it. all he does is state exactly what’s happening. the narration in fucking everybody hates chris is more subtle. french dude cant really be racist because he’s european white trope (but i hope to god they address that later in the series. same with the white saviorism and insistently interracial relationship.) why are the religious themes so sloppy and flat when your show is set in new orleans? why didn’t your actors have (enough) accent training? because they all have different accents. i find the main character incredibly unsexy which is a crime since you all saw me decide to watch the show purely for the apparent sexiness of the main character! but he’s an unwittingly unlikeable protagonist. and the “immortal in the modern age” theme is so half-assed like at the beginning he writes this cursive letter on handmade paper and youre like ohh this guy’s old-fashioned! but then his duplex modern apartment (boring might i add, and modern decor CAN be quite interesting and characterized) and zip-front black turtleneck are a modernization in the worst, most lazy way possible. i honestly laughed when he got called n word in the first episode because of how little weight it bore within the writing, just like i laughed (and turned the show off) when lioncourt went on his rant abt how he memorized the entire bible but then forgot it because he became an atheist after his dad beat him. wow this is really heavy subject matter. basically it’s kitsch as hell and the white boy was the best thing about it. sad

[klysanderelias]

Okay so after about 16 pages, I'm finally starting to run down on the Ringposting, so let's go ahead and wrap it all up

The problem I have with The Ring, like most other American horror movies, is that the strength of the idea behind it is weakened by the industry's heavy reliance on gore, shock, and mindless action. It's technically well executed, with good cinematography, passable lighting (i'm still irritated by the blue-green filter over everything), and a decent budget, but I can't help but see the same problems I've had with every other headline horror film in the last twenty years.

The problem is that these movies need to sell, and especially as horror is a smaller, more niche genre, they need to appeal to the widest spread audience they can. Which means, really, they have to balance the dread and the psychological build with the shock and awe of cheap gore shots. Ringu wouldn't sell in the US, because even I found it meandering and slow, and the big payoffs of the film (at least to me) aren't the sort that you'd get pumped up in your seat about, it's the moments that you get to chew over on the drive home.

And it's not like there isn't an audience for that, it's not like US audiences are all brainless and unable to process nuance, but it's that... it doesn't sell as much. The Thing is a classic horror movie, still constantly referenced, and it failed so badly that John Carpenter career nearly blew up. And the problem isn't that it FAILED, but that when a movie costs 15 million dollars and makes 20 million, that's a failure.

Hell, Morbius cost 75 million and made twice that, and it's been universally panned as a bomb.

If you're going to make a movie, it doesn't matter how good it is, how much it endures as a legacy, how seminal or influential, only how much it sells.

Avatar made three fuckin' billion, and it was a cultural blip.

And I'm getting a little far afield complaining about capitalism, but that's the root issue I see about The Ring. And I'm not saying that the Japanese film industry is some sort of paradise where the only standard is whether a movie is good, to be clear. It's just that when I watched the Ring, I felt like it was made by committee. Like they said 'well, we're remaking Ringu, so it needs to be like that, but we need three gore scenes, a romance subplot, the creepy child factor...' and things like that.

And I don't know much about the original novel (and what I do know, I'm not sure I like) but it's not like the Ring draws additional inspiration or scenes from the source material, either.

They cut the psychic stuff basically entirely, which meant they had to rewrite a big chunk of the plot because Ryuji's psychic abilities drove the big reveal, and it also meant that all the stuff with Rachel's kid fell flat. They added a few shock scenes like Rachel pulling the electrode out of her mouth, and-

AND!

The fucking old man!

Sadako's uncle in Ringu felt so good to me because I could feel the guilt and shame radiating off him. He agrees to take Ryuji and Reiko back to the mainland, in the middle of a fuckin' typhoon, because if Sadako wants him dead, he'll make it easy on her. There's a level of pathos around that never gets paid off, and I like that, because it leaves it ambiguous. Does Sadako want him dead? Is she still even able to act in that way, or is the VHS tape the only way she can reach into the world of the living?

And, more importantly, is Sadako even ACTING throughout the movie? Or is the VHS some snapshot of Sadako frozen in time, an imprint of her power without any intention or agency? Is that why despite finding Sadako's body and putting her to rest properly, the curse lives on? Or is it just not enough? Is her death in the well even RELATED to the video? Because most of the video has nothing to do with her death, it's having to do with the suicide of her mother.

And before we even get into the character of Richard, Samara's father, it's important to note that The Ring implies that Samara's doing all this because she's a fucked up evil kid who likes killing.

But Richard! Oh, fuck, Richard, what a poorly used character. I'm not honestly even sure what he does in the movie! He's not even a source of information! I guess he does have that one good line, "What is it with reporters? You take one person's tragedy and force the world to experience it, spread it like sickness" but he's-

He's not even the one who kills Samara

I don't know why they chose to make ANNA the one who kills Samara. In Ringu, it's the doctor she was having an affair with, who's also implied to be Sadako's father.

Here, Richard is directly responsible for a lot of the abuse, but they backed away from having him be the one to do it? I could easily see the decision being to have Anna jump and kill herself, and have Richard kill Samara as some sort of 'you drove your mother to death and I'm going to end this before you do the same to me' plot, even without calling it the grief of losing his wife (because again, no one in this movie likes each other, and if you told me he killed Samara because of how much he loved his wife I'd laugh in your fuckin' face).

And I'm not saying that he SHOULD have, but that it really would make much more sense for him to exist if he DID.

As it is, he's mostly just another cheap thrill of attacking Rachel (but also why does he do that? he's not interested in stopping her, or killing her, he just brains her with a power strip for shits and giggles?) and then goes upstairs and fries himself in the bath.

And like, why does he kill himself? He knows about the tape! He should know that he's safe! But he kills himself as some sort of escape, but I have no idea from what.

And again, I know why they put it in the movie, it's because they needed a shock moment and something to raise the tension by going 'see? the little girl is eeeeevil' but it doesn't work!

And again again, by this point in the movie there's SUPPOSED TO be tension around the nearing deadline for Rachel's death, but it's just not used at all, so they need something else to frighten you!

Anyway.

The well scene.

In Ringu it's so deliberate. It's so important, that they've come here with the intention and purpose of going in and getting Sadako. It's important, that they spend hours and hours working to try and drain the well enough to find her remains. It's so important, that as the time begins to run down and Reiko is hauling bucket after bucket of water up, that she's beginning to despair and her strength is failing.

And it's so, so important that when she goes down into the water and Ryuji is the one hauling the buckets up, that she finds Sadako's corpse and lifts it gently from the water, and cradles it to her.

I'll never stop being mad about the way the Ring handles it.

When Samara's body rises out of the water, it's a normal looking human child. That's important. She's not decayed, she's not bloated, she doesn't look like any of her victims, or even how she looks at the end of the movie. She looks like she could be sleeping. And when Rachel lifts her out of the water, the really bad special effect plays out where her flesh melts away to show a skeleton...

and Rachel drops her.

And partially what makes me so mad is that in Ringu, as Reiko lifts Sadako's body out, it's just her head out of the water, with the long stringy black hair, and as Reiko touches it, the hair slides away to show the skull flooded with green brackish water, draining away through the empty eye sockets.

And then she holds it close.

I will die fucking mad about this.

And part of the reason why I'm furious about it is that it's boring. It's uninteresting, especially with the unintentional way Rachel enters the well, but it's also like... there's no compassion. There's no sympathy for the monster. It's the chalice scene from Indiana jones but everyone is too tired to react.

And like, that compassion is so important, and there's just none of it in the Ring. There's no compassion, no love, no respect between ANY of the characters in the Ring. Rachel is kind of explicitly shown to be a bad mom.

Yeah, we need to talk about that.

In Ringu, Reiko's relationship with her son is strained because she's a single mother, but she's not a bad mother. She cooks dinner for her son when she's going to be gone. She relies on him to be a certain level of self-sufficient, but it wasn't like he was forced to do everything himself. She's distant and she relies on her father to help take care of him, but it's clear that she's still present in his life as much as possible.

Fuckin' Rachel is introduced being late to picking up her son, and kind of explicitly is called out as being a bad parent a lot through the movie. She sits in her room with the door closed while her son makes himself lunch and goes to school. She ignores the teacher's concerns about her son, and the way her son appears to be expressing his grief. She keeps basically going 'yeah Aidan takes care of himself, isn't that great' and not putting the pieces together that he's so self-sufficient because she's entirely unreliable. And like, the way she acts around him... it's so weird and off-putting and not in the way they intend. They make him a strange little kid, with this intense stare and weird way of speaking, but it doesn't read as like, an autistic kid, or a psychic kid. It reads like a stranger.

Throughout the movie, he never calls her mom. He always calls her Rachel. And like, yeah, again, it's supposed to be a weird-kid-thing, but it doesn't feel that way, especially given how self-sufficient he has to be, and how little the two of them interact. It feels like she's not his mom. It feels like a kid you just adopted, who doesn't feel comfortable around you yet. It feels like he says 'Rachel' and not 'mom' or 'mother' or anything, because he doesn't know who she is.

And with the choice to make Samara a little girl and not a grown woman, it just hits so much harder because we see Samara being abused, and the way she's treated, and I don't think we're supposed to draw comparisons between her and Rachel's son, at least not in the way I did.

Rachel neglects her son. She doesn't make him sleep in a barn or whatever, but it's hard not to be like, damn, the only thing you praise your son for is NOT BEING A KID. You like him because he's not a burden on you, and if he was, I wouldn't be fuckin' surprised if you also started putting him in mental health hospitals or hell, even just getting rid of him.

And like, Noah in the Ring, as Rachel's ex-boyfriend, explicitly says that he ran out on the two of them because he thought he'd be a shitty father. He ALSO has a line about how he doesn't want anyone else to be the kid's father, either, in some weird sort of possessive jealousy about Rachel. And like, I said it before, but you could see him as a foil to Anna as someone who didn't want a child and fled when he ended up with one, as opposed to Anna who so desperately wanted one and worked so hard between fertility treatments and miscarriages and eventually adoption.

I think a lot of parallels I'm drawing between characters in the Ring aren't intentional.

Anyway, I don't think I can say things like 'the Ring doesn't understand what made Ringu so good' because I'm not sure I understand what makes Ringu so good. I'm not sure that there's some deep overarching theme that the entire story is working towards. I know it differs pretty significantly from the novel, and so there's always going to be a level of disconnect between the plot and the beats. Like, Reiko's character was a guy (and thus, not divorced from Ryuji) in the novel. The way people die in the novel is from some mutated smallpox virus that makes a tumor grow in your heart over seven days exactly. There's a lot of stuff where I'm like... I don't think I'm going to waste my time reading the book.

But whatever the director and scriptwriter did with Ringu, it worked, and it worked well. There's a lot to chew on in ways that feel good, and that don't feel like there's an obvious answer. I saw someone talking about the ending of Ringu as heroic and I was like 'what the fuuuuuuuuck' before I realized that they interpreted the final phone call as Reiko explaining everything to her father

And thus, her father had agreed to watch the video to save her son, to sacrifice himself for his family.

Which is like! Yeah, that's a possible read! And I like the fact that you could read it that way! I don't think I believe it, but that's okay.

And that level of ambiguity hits, where the Ring's 'who are we going to show the video to' ambiguity falls flat because whoever Rachel gives it to, they're not anyone we care about. She's going to be murdering some rando, and it's not some major shift in who she's been the entire movie to decide to murder some rando. I'm perfectly willing to believe that Rachel from the beginning of the movie would condemn someone else to die if it was convenient for her. She's too selfish and isolated.

I said Ringu was unpolished, and I think it's true, because there's a lot I could suggest to clean up, but at the end of the day, the movie feels good to watch. I was drawn in by the plot and the characters and the suspense and the payoff. Even the parts where I think it started to drag, no it didn't, because the experience I had thinking about the movie brought me back around to argue in favor of it. Yeah, the well sequence in Ringu is too long, and it's too slow, and it could have been cut down and tightened up, and I'm glad they didn't because it's perfect.

The more I think about the Ring, the more irritated I get with it.

I think we should stop remaking foreign movies.

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Barbarian (2022)

by Don Hall

Both Tarantino and Scorsese have bemoaned the lack of imagination throttling film these days. Their argument is that Hollywood behemoths like Marvel and the proliferation of tentpole green screen filmmaking, with the amount of money at stake even to get a project green lit, the risk taking required for innovation is squashed. I hear that and, despite my love for all things super-powered beings on screen, I'd further argue that a solid portion of the blame falls on the amazing democratization of filmmaking via streaming.

In the rush for more to watch (hastened by the pandemic), movies have become content and content requires less in terms of innovation and more in terms of, well, more. The result is a parade of half-baked star vehicles that look phenomenal but ask someone to tell you what it was they saw the night before on Netflix and most can't recount the story just the star power. What was the plot of The Grey Man? Or Red Notice? Or any of the Chris's movies about Navy Seals and CIA agents combatting a corrupt system? A benefit of more money shoved into streaming is that we get more film and television created and directed by and featuring Black, Asian, and Latino talent but with more comes the inevitable leveling stick that increased projects from these communities automatically equals more crap, too.

For every One Night in Miami, there's a Till, the first a highly imaginative take on historical fiction, the other a soap opera of long portrait shots of grief surrounded by a story we already knew. For every Parasite we are forced to sit through some other Netflix show from Korea that is mostly an ape of other, better shows but are seriously difficult to distinguish from four others pumped out of the content machine.

The one genre that finds some purchase in the territory of risk (because it simply costs less to make) is horror. Since before the 1980's, horror filmmakers have worked with less resource to create more memories than nearly any other. John Carpenter revolutionized things by cranking out genuinely scary, incredibly successful horror movies, on a shoestring budget. Plainly, horror is the genre where risk is rewarded time and time again.

I'd heard the rumblings about Zach Cregger's directorial debut Barbarian. I saw the trailer with Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgård dancing around the Fincheresque premise of two people accidentally being booked in the same AirBnB at night in the rain. I didn't read much about it but the buzz was there and, from my vantage, no one was revealing much except that Justin Long was in there somewhere and the third act was fucking nuts. I put it on my list (but first I needed to watch Andor, The Peripheral, Tulsa King, something amazing with Gerard Butler and his missing wife, and another Netflix show about a true crime.

I did find time for Ty West's X and found it to be a great ride, smartly imitating the grind house movies of the 1970's and an unusual villain boiled down to an old horny lady who murders the young cast of porn stars because they make her feel undesired as if my third ex-wife was 90-years old demanding orgasms from an decreasingly interested pool of clients until killing them is just better than a dildo. Mia Goth surprised me as both the starry-eyed porn ingenue and the homicidal Pearl but I knew going in that it was the old broad doing the murders. It was still incredibly creative and used the now cookie cut tropes of modern horror with a spin and a dip that made it fresh, gross, funny, and unlike many other content available.

According to interviews, Cregger was inspired by the idea that women should trust their intuition when it comes to red flags in their everyday interactions with men. He wrote one scene that used as many of those red flags as possible, settling on the premise of a young woman in Detroit for a job interview who finds herself sharing a rental with a complete stranger. Again, a premise Fincher would run with but Cregger hit a wall. Where to go with this slice of potential toxic maleness that wasn't obvious? He then changed it up and decided that the first act would Fincher and the third act would be Raimi. The result is a movie that comes off as one-third thriller, one-third set up, and one-third monster movie.

In a recent I Like to Watch Podcast, co-host Donnie Smith and I talk at length about one of my favorite scary movies, Victor Salva's 2001 Jeepers Creepers. The first half feels like a standard slasher film, following cliches of that specific narrative but then makes a left turn into straight up monster movie and the switch makes it truly fun. Also starring Justin Long, it remains an annual viewing for me.

Barbarian leaves me with a similar WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE? feeling that I love. Like X, the monster revealed is an old woman but she is preverbal and instead of wanting to get busy with her victims and kills those who deny her this, she wants her victims to be her children and, when they reject her maternal instincts by refusing to be breastfed by a grotesque teet, well, the kid has to die, right? Adding to the second act is Long as a sitcom star recently accused of raping a co-star (and, unambiguously was definitively guilty of the crime) who owns the AirBnB. Cregger thus presents us with a heroine who discovers the horror followed by an idiot who then rediscovers the same horror, the first we're routing for, the second we want to see some comeuppance.

This is a truly imaginative, risky film. The script is great, the performances (especially Campbell) are stellar, and nothing about this smart, idea-driven monster movie is anything but outside the box. I finished it and, instead of then moving on to another movie or streaming show, I just wanted to sit with it, stewing on the concepts, reliving the moments I didn't expect (one of my favorite scenes involves Campbell, having escaped and calling the Detroit police only to have the cops look at her as if she were on crack or nuts rather than rush into the breach like movie cops usually do—her shock at their disbelief feels like reality which is always a solid surprise in a story of fantastical twists), and wishing I could rewatch it for the first time.

Tarantino and Scorsese have a point but it isn't that there is no more imagination happening. With the glut of content, like Nick Cage's pig in the brilliant (and unexpected) Pig, you have to dig in the mud to find those truffles, gang.

[thatsjustsupergirl]

rewatching 6x11 for podcast prep so let’s have some fun this beat is sick

no really, the score for this magic battle is great i love it

we had originally planned to do an episode about all the series references to harry potter over the hiatus and now i’m so very sad we didn’t bECAUSE,,,,,,

mxy is laying out this ye olde folktale like we’re about to get deathly hallow’d

anyway then we get some speedy setup for the main question of the season, which is: what ultimately gives us power— our abilities or what we choose to do with them?

fun fact this concept was also relevant to kara’s arc in season 3 when she was stuck in her mind palace and that was also a harry potter nod [x]

you all have no idea how many unprompted musical interludes we cut from our show but mxy attempting to sing his exposition here truly sparked joy

Every time they mention that Nyxly’s brother is named “Jared,” my brain immediately cuts to this SNL sketch:

who are you, nyxly?

ANYWAY,

we’re also going to search for horcruxes i guess because there are seven totems but apparently they can be anything so i really hope they go for a visual gag like the pieces of eight from pirates of the caribbean world’s end because those were literal pocket litter

hey neat mxy explaining this whole blood requirement for magic that will definitely not be relevant again later in this episode 😈🧙🏻

and then, what’s this? a golden child and a scapegoat? surely that’s not a thing that happens in families with narcissistic parents and we are in no way being set up for more foil character stuff 👀

oh nia, your mom was right about the level of screw-up you did, but also your hair looks amazing

also the show has been going hard on Into the Woods motifs since 6x09 and here we have a cool subversion of Your Fault in which everyone feels overly responsible for what’s happened instead of trying to deflect the blame onto each other

a song that is, delightfully, interrupted by the Witch so she can gloat about how they’re all going to be squashed flat by a giant so i mean. giant cat works?

awww, this whole storyline with brainy and nia was so good we love healthy communication

also, the scene with nia and kara??? HEART EYES

hey look it’s those two friends who thought that using the most romantic line in "titanic" to seal their bond was somehow not even a little bit gay but this episode written by queer people knows exactly how gay it was and i just think that’s beautiful

i have been joking for literally three years about how they’ve been using elements of Wicked in this series and it’s always been tied to lena, so i am fucking rolling with laughter at this having a sudden and unexpected payoff

okay so that scene with kara jumping back afraid @ the phantom zone projector was was such a good reveal of how very Not Okay she is (and how not okay alex is either), and then her determination to Fix Everything even though she can’t is another part of that :(

really loving nyxly being like SOCIAL DISTANCING! with every zap of magic at her minion pal

was a cat the cheapest render they could get??? like. don’t get me wrong it’s so damn chaotic and weird and a way nyxly would get under kara’s skin but also it screams "i am conserving my budget"

nia has such fun mix of both kara and alex’s worst self-sacrificing qualities; also we love brainy using his unfortunate family legacy powers for good

nyxly is out here looking like a female jack sparrow and i so want this now

andrea like "the unknown is always scarier than the truth" tHIS IS ALSO RELEVANT TO INTO THE WOODS so i’m glad we’re leaning into all the witch stories all at once

speaking of which, they have held out for so long on doing a typically dramatic adoption-oriented storyline about birth parents and i’m frankly so glad they just went all in on making it as ridiculously campy as silver banshee’s origin story in season one i am hERE FOR IT

bonus points for the super 90s Practical Magic vibe to all the "lena’s mom" images and also for you have your mother’s eyes but to the extreme

nyxly @ mxy like

i really loved the conclusion to mxy’s arc that they put in this episode??? he’s so touched that they all want to help him and then he decides to help them in return even though it comes at great personal cost we love to see this continued depiction of kara’s legacy as a hero and that it’s really her compassion and willingness to Hope that are the winning factors

also, nia. my beautiful daughter. please hire me to interpret your dreams because i’m pretty sure you’re seeing a hint that you need lena to destroy that orb

[sebbybooks]

War of Hearts

Sebastian Stan x Fanfiction

"For some reason, the two of us arguing was

like some sick form of foreplay."

c.l

"It is settled. . . I can't ever leave my house again in the daytime!" I say feeling winded as though I've run a marathon without stopping for any sort of break. I pulled my fingers from out between the blinds as I quickly stepped away from the window. Fearing that he would spot me any second if I stood there any longer. I felt a growing sense of dread rise in the pit of my stomach. It started to tangle itself into all sorts of knots while the sense of realization began to kick in. That paired with a chaotic feeling of rage and excitement flowed through my veins causing a web of mixed emotions as I made my way out of the sunroom. I must have manifested him without even knowing what I was even doing. Or maybe the universe was playing some cosmic cruel prank on me? A tiny part of me just accepted the fact that I was simply destined to have unconventional awkward moments for the rest of my adult life.

"I mean what are the odds Leona?" Sonny called out in amazement from inside of the sunroom as she continued to gaze at the horror scene continue to play out while the movers carried more boxes into the house next door.

"Next to fucking impossible!" My voice rose in a nervous pitch. I wandered over to my sofa and purposely fell face forward on to it. Perhaps if I laid there long enough it would swallow me into it? I would have take any given option offered to me at this point if it meant I wouldn't have to come face to face with Sebastian. It wasn't suppose to happen like this or at all for that matter. It's been two months since I've last spoken to him and after our last conversation I knew that was the final nail in the coffin. I was certain that our paths were never going to cross again. If they did that meant I had made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in hell.

"Don't you think you are being a tad bit dramatic babe?" I could hear it in the cadence of my best friend's voice that she didn't fully understand the severity of my problem. Boredom on top of being drunk off of wine is a powerful combination that will most likely definitely drag you down a dark and twisted rabbit hole. Signing up for a dating app for example and talking to guys I had zero intention of talking to after a twenty four hour period. But, atlas one had to slip through the cracks and make me fall completely apart over him. I turned my head to face Sonny, "He hates me and to be quite honest the feeling is mutual!"

Clearly glossing over what I had just said to her she continued on, "Look on the bright side at least he wasn't a catfish!"

I released a guttural sound into the pillow. "Terrific. I'll shoot Max and Nev an email to tell them to call off the camera crew." I could hear that she was muttering witty comebacks underneath her breath, however my brain simply chose to block them all out.

I was too busy recounting all the endless nights I lost sleep over talking to Sebastian, making plans that would never see the light. The guy completely interrupted my life. There were moments where I caught myself smiling at my phone when I saw his name flash across my screen. My heart felt like it was going to implode and I got high off of that feeling to the point I became addicted. At night it amplified when I would pace my bedroom floor back and forth like a love struck girl anticipating on what Sebastian would say next. I wish I had a time machine, because I would use it to go back and break my phone into a million little pieces. Foolish, gullible, naive are just a few of the words I would use to describe myself for allowing myself to think that just for a moment any of that was real. So the second I start to move on and phase him out of system completely he moves into the house right next to mine. There was no denying that fate was certainly screwing with me.

"You never even gave me all of the dirty details of what exactly happened between you and sexy jeans." She said wistfully, still drinking him in from the where she stood.

I laughed despite myself. I looked to my friend and said, "Because I would rather picture him falling off of a cliff." I broke into a wide grin before slamming my face back down into the couch cushion.

"I don't believe you." She feigned a sigh, "He is flawless." I could hear the heels of her Jimmy Choos clack louder and louder against the floor as she joined in me in the living room.

"He keeps his flaws well hidden." I said, my voice barely audible with it being pressed into a sofa cushion. Cutting off any air circulation.

"One day you liked him then out of the clear blue sky you didn't.The guy told you he wanted to fuck you in front of a mirror to see every inch of you!" She said in amazement.

"No comment." I muttered.

Sonny huffed. "Well you certainly can not hide from him for long."

I pulled myself upright and slouched back on the couch in a more relaxed position. "Watch me." I said with full confidence.

The rest of the day flew on by in a slow pace. The transition in the sky gave away to its tell tale signs that the time was changing. Sonny and I spent our afternoon mindlessly scrolling through high fashion mood boards on Pinterest. Salivating over the vintage couture and places that were way out of our travel budgets as of right now. Together we planned a hypothetical trip to Northern France so that Sonny and I could visit Claude Monet's garden in Giverny.

It opened up a window of conversation for me to go into a spiel about Monet's love for art and botany. Not even for a second could I mask my fascination for art history. Which costed me a Milano cookie getting thrown in my direction, taking it as my cue to stop my blabbering. I couldn't help myself if I wanted to I had a weak spot for the subject. After all I did need a positive distraction so that my brain could cancel out any and all thoughts of Sebastian that crept into my head.

Usually when the mere thought of him invaded my mind it was very difficult to remove him. I was hardly paying any attention to what my friend was talking about for the last two hours. Though frankly I don't believe she noticed. It took the chiming sound of my doorbell to wake me from my trance.

Sonny stretched her arm out to stop me from getting up." Ahh let me get it! It's time for me to go anyway." She bent down and within a few seconds she retrieved her pumps and swiftly put them on her feet.

"I'm not expecting anyone it's probably just a delivery guy. I'm waiting on a package to arrive today." I tried turning my neck like an owl to get a better view out of the window behind me. I didn't see a postal truck or anyone dressed in uniform for that matter, fleeing like they just lit a fire on my steps. I never fully grasped the concept of why a delivery worker sprinted away like they were in a game of tag.

"Did you by any chance order a man?" She asked with humor laced in her voice.

"What?" I asked in utter confusion, seconds went by and she never responded with an actual answer. I called her name again. Still nothing, I focused my hearing and I could make out the sound of two muffled voiced mingling together from my front door. Curiosity driving my actions I quickly hopped up from the couch tiptoeing around the corner with a smirk on my face. Because I was under the guise that Sonny was flirting with the guy delivering my packages. Like a bad sketch from a variety show I was quickly faced with the reality of the joke. Soon as our eyes locked the charming smile he wore on his face dropped as quickly as mine did.

Sonny leaned her back against the door widening it just enough so that we could see each other. "Damn. Well this should be interesting."

[aerospace-agenda]

Ok, so, just... since the “ao3 is bad for asking for donations” bs is going around again, theres a bit of new stuff mixed in, but it seems to largely be the same “why dont they pay the authors” type stuff, with the usual insinuations of the people running the site just pocketing the money and doing nothing.

they made a bit over $700k in donations last year, but let’s bump that up to $750k for estimation purposes.

As of several years ago, they were running with about 750 volunteers, on ao3 alone.

there’s also 18 committees that they run, which are headed by a total of about 30 people, and let’s say there are 3 or 4 other people on each committee on average.

on top of that, they’re one of the most visited and active sites in the world, with almost 6 million fics stored there, and they regularly hit in the region of 250,000,000 distinct visitors a month. these numbers are very significant, because to operate smoothly servers need to be able to quickly access the data for a page, and then pass that data to you. 

lets say there are... hm. about 60kb of data that they need to pass to you in order to generate a page. at 250 million visitors, if each person loads a single page and does nothing else, that’s 15TB a month, easily, since i’m taking that estimate from directly loading a single short chapter, no searching or browsing or visiting different author pages or looking through bookmarks. which most people will probably do to some degree each time they visit, each of which is another system that needs to be queried, and is reliable and fast about it.

for reference, i can’t get an estimate on how much this must cost, because i havent been able to find any hosts to compare against that even have hosting schemes that allow numbers as high as ao3 delivers reliably and efficiently.

i work with databases for my job, and i frankly have no idea how the fuck ao3 manages to be what it is on the budget that it gets, im half-convinced there are fucking wizards back there or something.

purchasing the kinds of servers that they need to be using must be costing them well into the tens of thousands on the up-front price, server maintanence costs can run well into the thousands per month, and their reliability must mean they have sufficient redudancy to take them out of commission on the regular.

anyway. let’s say that the hosting, maintanence, and replacement costs for all this only cost them $150k a year. based on everything i know, this is an absolutely absurd underestimate to the extent that it’s frankly laughable.

anyway, that then leaves $600k. 

no matter where you assume that goes into the pockets of people behind the scenes, this would require complete complicity of everyone behind the scenes to keep under cover, as well as passing their false financial statements through audits and such. by and large, conspiracies like this don’t work very well!

so, that $600k should go to the people who “actually” bring value to ao3, the writers, then?

does everyone just get an even share of it? in that case, as there are about 2.6 million accounts- everybody gets about 23 cents a year. sound worth it? 

no? ok then, what about for each fic someone writes, they get an even share of it? after all, there were “only” about a million fics published in 2019. that’s about 60, maybe 70 cents per fic, doesn’t that sound good to you?

im guessing you think that’s still a bit low. in that case, should it be based on "quality” of fics? how should that quality be determined? kudos, hits, reader interaction? should that be an ongoing thing, or assessed at a particular time since publication? what about very long-running fics, how should that be assessed? should people just get paid a flat amount per chapter?

if the metrics to determine how much a fic is “worth” are transparent, then they’ll be abused- how should that be be determined? poor language quality? short chapter length? if they’re not transparent, how do you justify to authors why they aren’t paid more?

what about disputes regarding fanfics being “stolen”? right now, i dont think many people care much about if someone else writes a very similar fic to theirs. but would they feel the same way if someone else writes something inspired by, or with the same premise, or generally similar, to one of yours? what about if someone writes a story and incorporates someone elses OC? should the person who created that OC get a cut? 

if you want to increase funds to pay authors, how should you approach that? ask for donations? if payment metrics are transparent, then that means that anybody who performs well on them are likely to actively drive away donors. make it a subscription site? would you pay a monthly subscription fee just to access the site?

and so on, and so on. and that’s before any issues with backlog and such should be resolved. tbh, there are so many precedents that’d need to be set and potential issues that this would raise that even if ao3 responded with “fuck you” to every person who currently aren’t happy with the system, it would still probably be less unpopular than literally any change to allow them to pay authors.

honestly, at the end of the day, most people who are actually interested in financial support and who write fanfic? generally have a blog with a donation button. or a patreon. or something similar, along those lines. and there’s nothing stopping you from just going and doing that directly if you’re actually interested in supporting them.

it’s worth noting that there’s also a legal aspect to this, which im not particularly familiar with, but, for starters- a commercial aspect to works can make a big difference in whether or not something is considered “fair use”. whether or not something is, indeed, fair use, can also be pretty subjective. do you want to toss that litigational coin? and do you have the money and lawyers to press the issue? 

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: Catching Feelings 9/10 (Keanu x OFC)

Summary: AU in which Keanu is down on his luck after he comes to Hollywood trying to be an actor. To earn some money, he joins this app for escorts and meets Steph, a rising star who hires him to try to forget her ex. Neither of them is expecting to fall in love and all the problems it brings. Previous chapters:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Author’s Notes: This might be my favorite chapter so far. I’m very proud of how it turned out. Just to be safe, keep your tissues close.

Wordcount: 3377

Warnings: angst and mentions of alcohol 

“So, I heard back from the producers,” Jean started tone just a little hesitant and Steph got up from her seat, rolling her eyes.

She already knew what the next words would be. He had been her agent and publicist for a few months and she learned to recognize when he was about to break the news of another no.

“They said you great but…”

“Not what they’re looking for?” she completed with a bitter snort and Jean nodded, grimacing. “In other words, you’re radioactive and we want nothing to do with you. I don’t know why I even bother anymore.”

“Steph…” he started with that unsufferable sympathetic tone and she could feel his gaze on her as she paced in his office. “We gonna get through this. You just need…”

“To be patient and persevere,” she cut him off, repeating the words she had been hearing for the past six months. Even since her career imploded with the whole Keanu fiasco.

For weeks her face had been plastered in every trashy magazine that existed, her name associated with a sex scandal. Because she dared to fall in love with a man that happened to be an escort.

The first blow she suffered was the call from Judy, the woman had been with Steph since the beginning of her career. She ranted at Steph for being stupid enough to put herself in that position and offered a solution that was basically throwing Keanu under the bus. Tell the press that she had no idea he was an escort. Steph wouldn’t do it. This was her mess, not his.

Judy quitted after that, leaving Steph without an agent or publicist to help her navigate through this mess. Fortunately, Jean had been a lifesaver and took Steph under his wing, working out all the necessary statements and helping her dodge most of the press.

The second blow came on Monday when Fincher was waiting for Steph at the set with an added scene on his script. They were killing off her character. To keep the integrity of the work, he said. It made more sense…

Even he didn’t believe his own words and Steph just wanted to scream and hit someone. This had been a dream project for her, and they were casting her aside like she was nothing. And even though it cost her a hefty penalty for contract breach, Steph never regretted walking out of the set and refusing to shoot the metaphorical death of her career.

Instead, she flew back home and discovered it was true what they said: you only knew your real friends when shit hit the fan. Ad companies ended contracts with her; production companies that had offered her parts in upcoming movies pulled back their offers; people she had worked before, that knew her, and that Steph always considered close friends, and cut off communication with her. Only a handful remained in the end, among them Vincent, Jean, and Gwen. Everyone else bailed and Steph couldn’t believe how naïve she was to believe that they were her friends.

“Maybe it’s time I face the truth, Jean,” she sighed, looking out the window in his office. In the distance, she could see the Hollywood sign in the Hills she called home. “If I can’t even get a secondary character in a cheesy rom-com, my career is over.”

“No!” he protested, getting up to stand beside her. “You made only one mistake in this whole thing,” Jean said, laying his hands on her arms, making Steph look at him. “You pushed away the man you love. Everything else? That’s judgmental bullshit from a hypocritical business and I’m not gonna let them punish you for falling in love.”

There was determination in his handsome face. His eyes shone with it as he let go of Steph and moved back to his desk, shifting things around until he came up with a stack of papers and handed it Steph. It was a script and she recognized the writer and director’s name: Katheryn Gerwig.

“They sent it in for another actress I’m representing,” he explained. “It’s an independent movie, very low budget, unlike anything you’ve ever done, but it is the main character and Gerwig is a genius.”

“What about your other client?” Steph asked, looking back to Jean.

“I’ll just make sure she had a schedule conflict,” he assured with a wink, making Steph smile thankfully, before pulling him into a hug. “You might want to give up on yourself, darling, but I’m not there yet. So, read it and if you like it, I’ll set up a meeting with Gerwig.”

---

Steph changed positions on her chair for the sixth time in the last five minutes, her fingers restlessly rearranging every single item there was in the table, trying to work out the energy thrumming through her.

She hadn’t felt this nervous since her first audition ten years ago, coming back to acting after dropping out at age 13. At least back then the only reputation she had was of child starlet that gave up the spotlight for a normal teenager life. Now, even months later, she knew they still referred to her as the former raising star that had to pay for love.

Steph was tired of it; the whispers and snide comments, but she was determinate to keep her head high. That was why this meeting was so important. If this didn’t work, if Gerwig wouldn’t take her, she would be done. Steph would rather get out in her own terms than everyone else’s.

Checking the time again, Steph considered asking the waiter for something stronger than orange juice. Even if it was 10 in the morning. Maybe decided against it. Her worst decisions had been made thanks to alcohol. Instead, she looked out at the view, trying to see it the rhythmic movements of the waves would soothe her racing heart.

Gerwig had scheduled this meeting at a seaside restaurant Steph had never heard of before. It was small and intimate and more importantly, out of the way enough that most people around had better things to do than worry about potential celebrities hanging around. Aside from that, the view was fantastic and if the smell waffling from the kitchen was any indication, the food was too. This could easily become Steph’s new favorite spot. If this meeting went well.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, dear,” Gerwig spoke, startling Steph. “No need to get up,” she said before dropping on the chair in front of her, taking off her hat.

The woman that sat before Steph was impressive. Not only because she was stunning; Her sand blonde hair waving in the soft breeze, a few grey strands shining against the sun. Her blue eyes were startling bright and showed a sort of keen intelligence that seemed to pierce through her. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth spoke of a life well-lived, full of laughter and challenges.

Steph didn’t know why, but she immediately liked Gerwig. It was almost as if she had found a kindred spirit and something inside her connected at a deeper level with the older woman before her.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Steph said, suddenly feeling like a beginner meeting their idol. “Thank you so much for meeting me, Mrs. Gerwig.”

“Of course,” she replied with a kind smile. “Call me Katheryn. I’ve always hated Gerwig. It’s my ex-husband's name.”

“Sure.” Steph nodded quickly, her own smile nervous and hesitant as Katheryn asked for a mimosa. Apparently, unlike Steph, the older woman had no qualms on drinking before noon.

“I have to say, dear, a lot of people advised me against taking this meeting,” Katheryn declared, sipping her drink. “So, before we talk about my movie, I want to understand why.” She set her glass aside, entwining her fingers together and resting her chin on top of them, watching Steph with her full attention. “Tell me everything.”

And Steph did. Much like she had done to Vincent, she shared every detail of what happened between her and Keanu and the aftermath of it until they reached that particular moment of her life, struggling to get a role in anything worth wanting to be part of.

“That’s it?” Katheryn asked once Steph fell silent, and the young actress nodded. “For fuck sake! The way my producer was speaking, I thought you murdered someone or something. Definitely something more serious than falling in love with a hooker.”

She clicked her tongue in something like disappointment. If with the fact that Steph’s story wasn’t as juicy as she expected or that her producer made a bigger deal of it than necessary, Steph couldn’t tell.

“Honestly, if the roles were reversed, it would be a fairytale. He would be Richard Gere and you Julia Roberts,” Katheryn continued with an eye-roll. “This is why I hate Hollywood.”

“You don’t care, then?” Steph asked hopefully and Katheryn shook her head, gesturing to for the waiter to bring her another mimosa. “So, you let me audition for the role of Sarah?”

“That’s another matter entirely, dear,” Katheryn replied, looking back at Steph. “I took a look at your work and you weren’t exactly what I was envisioning for the role. Don’t get me wrong, you’re great, but I was thinking of something more subtle.”

“Oh.” It was all Steph could say. She really didn’t expect that it would be her career itself that would take this role from her and not what happened.

“I hope you understand,” Katheryn said with a sympathetic smile. “I need raw emotion, but not something too overt or explicit. I need…” she paused, deep I thought. “You know what the title of my movie means?” She asked and Steph shook her head. “That word, Saudade, it’s Portuguese. There’s no translation to English, but it conveys a sort of nostalgic longing for a place, a memory, a person. Like…”

“Like it’s a part of you that you’re missing?” Steph said, her gaze looking away from the woman in front of her.

To an onlooker, it would seem like she was just admiring the ocean extending in front of her. The blue waters that seemed to mix with the bright skies. The fluffy white bubbles whenever the waves crashed on the shore. The boats in the distance and the couples walking hand in hands through the wet sand… It made the scene look like a painting.  However, Steph’s gaze was actually lost, unseeing as she searched for the words to describe the feeling Katheryn was talking about.

“It feels almost as if they left a hole in your soul, shaped like them and that never full heals,” she sighed, feeling the tears brimming in her eyes. “Most days, it just a dull ache and you can actually trick yourself into forgetting and not noticing. If you’re busy enough if you work hard enough, it makes you believe that maybe… maybe one day… you’ll be fine and it will be over. But then…” her voice broke as the lump in her throat grew, making it harder for Steph to bring the words forth, but she had to do this. Digging her fingers on her knees under the table, she wetted her lips and continued.

“Then you see something that belonged to them or heard their name or smell their scent and… Sometimes I believe that’s what time travel must be like because you’re there. Back at that place with them and it’s so sweet because you can feel how happy you used to be, but at the same time, God! It hurts. That kind of throbbing, pulsing pain. All compassing and consuming. Suddenly, it’s all you know again, and you can’t believe how you thought, even for a second, that it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Because it’s a piece of you that’s missing and it’s the most human thing to want to feel complete, but you can’t. Not anymore. Not without him.”

Steph let out a shuddering exhale, ducking her head to wipe away the tears that managed to escape while she swallowed around the knot on her throat before she turned to look at Katheryn and the other woman had tear tracks marking her cheeks as she watched Steph.

“Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Katheryn nodded, a smile gracing her lips as she reached across the table, catching Steph’s hand and squeezing lightly. “You understand. I think you understand Sarah better than I could ever hope to write her. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re exactly what I need.”

“Thank you.” Steph’s lips tilted into a smile too. Katheryn had a point. She never felt this connected to a character before.

“We’ll start shooting in Toronto in two weeks. Think you can be ready by then?”

“Yes.” Steph nodded, satisfaction and happiness filling her heart. “I’ll be there.”

----

Steph never had an experience quite like this shooting a movie, but she loved it. Jean wasn’t kidding when he said it was a low budget independent movie. Katheryn crew was tiny and the entire thing was shot in a single location, this two-store house in Toronto, using one single camera.

All of it meant long hours of shooting, especially since Katheryn liked wide angles and long takes so Steph felt this incredible pressure not to screw up. She was the protagonist. The entire concept of the movie depended on her doing her job right.

In the end, it was an incredible thing. After a month of working intensely and living in close quarters with the rest of the cast and crew, Steph grew close with all of them. She knew the names and birthdays of the DP’s children and all the cameraman allergies… They had become a second family to her and when they finally wrapped up filming, even though Steph was exhausted and in desperate need for long hours of sleep, she accompanied them to this local club so they could celebrate.

It wasn’t an official wrap party, then didn’t have the funds for that. Just a bunch of friends trying to find a way to fit at a too-small table in an overcrowded club with overpriced beer and some nice rock tunes.

Basically, it was all Steph needed after the dreadful year she was having. No one could blame her for letting lose, drinking a tiny bit too much – not quite like the night with Jean, Vincent, and Keanu – but just enough to make her tipsy and overfriendly, hugging people left and right, much to Katheryn’s amusement.  

She danced to the music played by the band on the stage and even agreed to a couple of selfies from one or two people that recognized her, before retreating to the table, tired, sweaty and dizzy, but very happy.

“When we back to LA, we need to do this in a proper bar,” she commented to Katheryn, who had kept up with her the entire night and the older woman laughed and nodded, clinking her beer bottle against Steph’s.

She drained her beer, before getting to her feet again and stumbling towards the restroom, getting stuck in line for ten minutes, until she could finally step out of the warm, smoky bar, into the slightly cooler air of the restroom, which was a reprieve despite the faint smell of urine and disinfectant.

Steph took her time relieving herself, washing her hands and retouching her makeup, faintly hearing the muffled sounds of the new band presenting themselves before they started to play. She bobbed her head a bit at the very little she could hear while she applied another layer of lipstick and stepped out just as they finished the first song.

She didn’t know why she didn’t glance at the stage on her way to the bar to pick up a new beer, even if the first accords of the new song was so pleasing. She was happy she didn’t because when a familiar voice reached her ears, one that Steph never thought she would hear in a million years, she froze, beer bottle halfway to her lips, eyes wide, staring at nothing.

She didn’t know the song itself, but she had heard enough Dogstar before the entire mess with Keanu that Steph could recognize Brett’s voice. Shaking, she turned around to face the stage, her gaze instinctively finding Keanu and her breath caught in her throat as she watched him.

His hair was longer again, curling by his nape, sticking to his sweaty forehead. His jaw was covered with a spotty beard that shouldn’t look that charming. His broad shoulders ripped and moved as he played, making the black t-shirt he was wearing stretch over his strong chest and biceps. His jeans, as usual, were tighter than needed, displaying muscular legs and, if his red bass wasn’t positioned right in front of his crotch, Steph knew she would be able to see the generous volume of his cock too.

Somehow she much had forgotten how gorgeous he was because Steph couldn’t bear to look away from him as her heart rabbited in her chest as if trying to burst from her ribcage and butterflies fluttered in her stomach, especially when he joined on the back vocal, his voice barely audible, but enough to make her knees weak.

She leaned against the bar, gaze fixed on the band in front of her, completely oblivious to Katheryn approaching her, calling her name. Not until the woman shook her shoulder and Steph finally tore her eyes away, blinking away the wetness in them. Katheryn looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on her and she glanced back at the stage.

“It’s him?” she asked, and Steph nodded, holding her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from quivering. “Which one?”

“The bassist,” she whispered, eyes returning to him, watching the wide smile in his face, the one she had only seen when he was on his bike or with her.

“Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Steph gasped, once again unable to take her eyes away from him. “I’ve always wanted to watch him play.”

Katheryn nodded, squeezing her arm gently before retreating to the table, leaving Steph alone to watch the band, but mostly Keanu. The way he bounced over the stage, grinning like a manic, playing around with his mates and some of the audience. He was a natural, completely in his element, like he was born to be there and Steph was so happy he had found a way to make this work.

At the end of their set, Dogstar thanked everyone and announced that they had CDs for sale in the back before disappearing into the bowels of the club. Part of Steph was sad that it was over. She could spend the entire day listening to them, so she located the table with the merchandising, grabbing a CD and a t-shirt, before stepping outside for some fresh air and to recompose herself.

It was one thing Katheryn to see her like this, shaking and troubled. She knew the entire story, but the rest of the cast and crew only knew bits and pieces. Not because she was ashamed, but because it was still too hard to talk about it.

Steph exhaled slowly, the cold air grounding her to the present, keeping her from getting lost into memories of Keanu. And as long as she was grounded and kept a level head, she could stop herself from seeking him out. He didn’t want to see her. He made that very clear in that hotel in Paris.

“Steph?” She shivered at the sound of his voice saying her name. She missed that. She missed him. So, so much.

Slowly, Steph turned to look at him, her hands shaking so much the plastic case of the CD rattled a little. There he was, tall and strong and perfect and she couldn’t help but think about the title of the movie she just finished shoot: Saudade. That was what she felt, her insides yearning for that lost piece of her and she wished there was a way to tell him.

“Hi Keanu,” she said instead. What else could she say when there were so much, but not enough words?

xxx (tbc) xxx

Go to chapter 10

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[vaguely-concerned]

The Untamed Liveblog

Yes hello I watched the whole thing and wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings along the way so I wouldn’t fuckign EXPLODE! Only look under the cut if you’re prepared for a truly outrageous amount of rambling (...no really)  

- I am elated to find that so far every adaptation I’ve seen has faithfully preserved the absolutely bizarre structure of the original book, I am appreciating the dedication haha

- the actor lends this version of lan wangji such an edge of youth and vulnerability right from the beginning, it breaks my heart. I don’t care how good he is with a sword, you can’t expose this pure sweet boy to the horrors of war!!! 

- I am so glad I already know who all these characters are and wtf is going on, I can’t imagine watching this first time without that knowledge lol 

- I love how they’ve made nie huaisang look so small and soft next to all the other cultivator, he looks like a floofy and eternally confused baby birb ;______;

- nhs citing the goldfinch as the reason he doesn’t want to die (presumably because no one will know to take care of it) TOT ur meant to be comic relief in this part of the story buddy you can’t make me cry like this yet!!!

(also the actor for wwx effortlessly sliding into being protective and reassuring and Good in a crisis. wonderful!)

- the actor for xue yang has chosen to go with the sexy baby school of evil acting normally associated with female villains and for that I can only applaud him

also setting up characters who are going to be important later on is something this show is doing better than the original haha, both the extra wen quing & ning and song lan & xiao xingcheng content is appreciated. (especially the latter suffered from ‘oh yeah those two -- actually wait who the fuck are these two again’ syndrome for me when I read the book. additional note: I am very sorry but clearly they are gay there’s no other explanation here)  

- poor jiang cheng, they really haven’t given him much help in this huh. I would sort of have preferred it if they let him be ever so slightly less abrasive in the beginning, like in the book and the animated version; I’m not feeling quite as devastated over this relationship as I did in either of those.

- lan xichen’s soft knowing smile is a blessing every time. just a nice man. did not deserve this. protect.  

- kudos to the actor for jin guangyao for the instinctive creeping unease I feel whenever he talks, even at this stage. he’s a wrong ‘un sir he’s a wrong ‘un

- y’know both the fact that nhs spent three days catching a bird and kept it with him undetected and that he’s the friend you go to for the good porn and managed to not only smuggle it into the cloud recesses but did so without getting caught... some wonderful subtle foreshadowing here (to make up for the very blatant visual foreshadowing that’s already been given out I assume lol)

- anyway lan ancestor lady and baoshan-sanren? gay. sad and gay. (I love how thoroughly wwx is getting to meet the in-laws btw lol how often do you have to meet your future spouse’s family from like three generations ago and take care of her rabbits for her after she’s gone, all before you even get to second base)

- fkadshfkasjdlhfsdjkfh the sheer consistency of nhs wistfully commenting on all the beautiful men surrounding him fsadfkjsdhfksd I think they might oh so subtly be hinting at some stuff here. HILARIOUS that this version, which has to maintain at least the veneer of some plausible homoerotic deniability, is a lot more overt about it than the book, which is free to be balls to the wall as gay as you please  

- oh no nie mingjue just showed up my entire heart is on fire. BIG BROTHER!! so stern yet fair, so righteous, so worried y______y also can we talk about how his ‘hmmm I think imma stab it?’ approach to evil in general and xue yang in particular would have saved everyone a lot of grief later on? and he tells wwx the whole necromancy thing is probably not a good idea? (I really like how he does it too, he has so much Older Brother Energy it spills over when he talks to other kids around huaisang’s age lol. it’s good that they show his temper isn’t indiscriminate at all, he’s not angry at wwx even though his idea is provably incredibly dangerous) sole ornery voice of reason nie mingjue, also did not deserve what’s about to happen, I cry and my tears are blood  

- ‘yeah okay I get that you’re mad but have you maybe considered... I didn’t do it?’ is an unusually weak opening move from jgy considering nmj literally did just see him absolutely 100% do it

- there should be a WARNING at the beginning of episodes where nmj cries so one could be PREPARED for the emotional devastation!!!!! tollest & stronkest man of the cast also stupidly pretty and heartbreaking while crying, it’s not fair

- I love how every cultivation sect’s home (except for the wens b/c they’re cartoon villains) is refined and beautiful and luxurious, even when it’s in a restrained way like the lans’... and then there’s the nie place which is like ‘please understand that this is a fuckn fortress’

- aww this doomed jiang cheng/wen quing thing is cute! too bad about... everything that’s about to happen happening huh

- oh wen ning.  very hilarious that he’s known as the ~*ghost general*~ forevermore when actually... he is baby... cinnamon roll baby... too good for this world, too pure...

- how is this cgi turtle somehow less egregious than the one in the animated version lol. I quite like this bad little friend! long neck.

- oh NO lan wangji finally letting himself show that he’s in pain when they’re in private... i’m uwu  

this beautiful boy is so long and lanky tho, I must admit he triggers my parental instinct more than the hot boy alert at this stage (but that’s fine I’m not the one who’s going to smooch him that’s wwx’s job lol)

the look of absolute disbelief and despair lwj gives when wwx thinks he’s in love with mianmian... this show is a cinematic masterpiece and I will hear no other opinion  

- lwj looking at the love of his life completely missing the point: are you a joke to you (the answer is yeah)

- okay we’ve officially hit the point where everything’s about to go to hell for real, pray for me I’m not sure I can handle this again

- jiang fengmian acknowledge your other son who desperately wants your attention and affection challenge (unfinished)

- watching this scene knowing exactly what this promise means to jiang cheng and that wwx is going to break it... this is fINE

why the fuck did I do this to myself I know what’s about to happen when will I learn to quit while I’m ahead lol

- the change in subtext from the novel that EVERYONE sees wangxian coming from day one is so painful from jiang cheng’s side. this poor boy really has abandonment issues pelting him from every direction huh. tfw your idiot genius brother doesn’t even fucking realize he’s basically announcing he’s leaving your clan and your side to get married one day ;______;

- man mxtx is just so GOOD at peppering in the small private tragedies that somehow sting even worse than huge atrocities going on. the fact that madam yu and papa jiang never manage to reconcile and communicate except possibly in death... oof my friends. oooof.

- WAIT WHAT NO DON’T SHOW ME THE CHILDREN WHO’RE ABOUT TO DIE WHAT THE FUCK YOU MONSTERS

- like we’re right at the worst part now and she is an asshole... but damn madam yu’s last stand is epic tho. like a champ to the end

- wen zhuliu’s actor being able to uphold a look of tremendous boredom at all times regardless of what’s going on around him is Poetic Cinema Bitches

- jiang cheng and wei ying are holding hands on the boat... stab me in the heart... end my suffering

- you know what in this version we get to see that madam yu knew her husband came back for her and they died holding hands and not everything’s on fire yet, so far this isn’t quite as harrowing as the animated version. the dead children are fucking me up but the tone of the animated version is like a nightmare, this is less disturbing to me

also can we talk about how madam yu fought them off the whole day and night and her husband gets his ass owned within five minutes 😔 oh papa jiang

- oh okay turns out jiang cheng’s ‘I want my mom and dad’ gets to me in every adaptation good to know

they’re so young they’re bbs I don’t want to be here anymore haha

- wen ning. a sweet angel. just the goodest of boys. his sister raised him so well ;______:

- wen quing is so ethereally beautiful and also looks like she could stop a train with the force of one glance. like she’s my height but her presence is immense

- oh I see we’ve arrived at the tiny adorable flashback bbs part of this journey, let me just... just lie down somewhere huh

- outside of the central romance this is a tale about people who love their brothers very very much and it’s real sad for everyone involved

- me watching nie mingjue kicking down the doors to reclaim his own dang fortress: YEEEEAAAAH GO OFF DAGE!!! i um love him and his very handsome face

- jiang cheng dreaming about his family is EMOTIONAL WARFARE!!! how fucking dare!!!

- y’know what this isn’t a bad way of adapting the burial grounds thing! also pretty cost effective I imagine, gotta think about the budget when so much of it goes into fabulous wigs and robes

- credit where it’s due, the actor for wen chao makes his face do some shit I didn’t know human faces could do and he’s enjoyable to watch in the capacity as your friendly neighbourhood hate sink

- lwj consistently using wwx’s personal name even when talking to total strangers now... mhm this is also fine

- I can’t beliEVE this show is somehow less subtle about the gay stuff than the book, jin zixuan basically just asked lwj if he and wwx were... y’know... I guess cultivation partners would be the way to go here lol. between that and nhs more or less asking them if they were off fucking after the whole cold cave debacle... what a time to be alive even if they’re not going to kiss on-screen  

- huaisang I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but your brother is an entire snacc. and yet I respect him way too much to ever proposition him, I know he is busy winning a war and being Righteous and slowly being driven mad by the ghost in his sword on top of raising his little brother, I’m not here to complicate things for him any further

I love this version of nmj so much though. this sense that he also sees the stuff that is genuinely good in jgy and has a real moment of grief that the dude just can’t seem to get away from his basic insecurity that causes him to do horrific things, even when handed other opportunities... the fact that he seems regretful and worried when asking jin zixuan how jgy is doing with the jin....... everything to do with his little brother...................... oh no he’s Soft in his private life this is awful

- poor lwj’s ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ face in this scene haha, he’s staring at this talisman like ‘I only know one person smart and dumb enough to pull this off’

- can’t wen quing just get one nice thing. one nice thing just for her. hasn’t she been through enough. give her her brother back and a nice quiet place to practice medicine and maybe some soft romance with jiang cheng eventually this show is kind of selling me on this.  

- unexpectedly my favourite part of the revenge scene is just the camera switching back to lwj and jc watching in horrified silence like ‘...O___o dude this is fucked up tho right?? it’s not just me that’s messed up??’

- one is forced to wonder about wen zhuliu tho. this version reads as pretty explicitly depressed/suicidal to me, he’s kind of an interesting villain since his main traits are unquestioning loyalty mixed with unending indifference and also seemingly not too pressing a will to live

- oh nhs desperately trying to keep it together and pretend nothing’s different ;_____; this version is really driving it home that wwx is a lot of people’s only friend -- jiang cheng is mentioned to not have anyone but his sister to play with before he arrived, lwj was raised primarily on books and rules and his brother is ELATED that he has one (1) friend now, from the sheer depth of the attachment I’m willing to bet nhs hasn’t had many real friends in his life either. wwx gives and gives of himself and doesn’t know how to take help in return.    

- foreknowledge is a beautiful thing; if you look at nhs when it’s revealed wwx didn’t bring his sword you can visibly see his brain kicking into overdrive haha. smart boy.

- big sister ;_______; I am an older sibling so I haven’t really had the feeling of having an older sister to look to, I see why it might be comforting now

- oh this is some real uruk-hai shit!! honestly the special effects in this aren’t half as bad as I’d been lead to fear, some of you guys just weren’t forged in the crucible of shitty sci-fi channel cgi at an early age and it shows  

(honestly the weird fight stuff threw me much worse in nirvana in fire, because that series has such intricate, credible and realistic political world building and then people are flying all over the place through wire fu and it is so disorienting haha)

- oh nhs looking up at his brother like a puppy during the war council T______T baby bird boy

(between this point in the main story and fatal journey it’s very interesting how clearly nhs needs the emotional stability and safety of his brother -- who also seems to be his parental figure -- to function properly, even in his late teens. it looks like he needed more time to grow up than the rest of them even before they were all thrown into this awful bullshit. well he does have a lot of murderkitten brain to grow I guess that’s fair enough lol. wwx has some of the same thing with his sister too)

- whenever lxc and nmj look at each other it feels like the only two adults in the room meeting each other’s eyes like ‘...oh dear’

- aww lwj getting some advice from his brother. this poor kid really hasn’t been raised to handle the moral complexity of the real world huh, good thing lxc is here to lend some nuance to lan qiren’s unforgiving dogma

- oh lan zhan

- nmj’s plan to just idk somehow go in alone and fight the wen overlord mano a mano to avoid any more casualties... a spine made of steel, a heart made of gold, a head made of wood :’) truly a perfect man, good thing his brother got the brains in that family and he has some more sensible people around him

- in the face of inevitability I plead... jiang yanli... please don’t marry this asshole your son is going to be predictably insufferable

wwx has suffered through so much the last four months or so and yet his real breaking point is seeing his sister cry and can I just say -- relatable content

- NO! NO STOP HURTING HIM HE’S JUST GOOD AND HANDSOME AND DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

(could be applied to like 98% of these characters but in this case it’s nmj b/c I love him)

I do find it very funny and oddly comforting that nmj is literally so fuckn mad that it takes three times as many attacks for the evil sorcery stuff to take him down than we’ve seen used on anyone else fsdkfhasdkj too angry to die  

wHY has my brain chosen for me to attach so deeply to perhaps The single most inevitably doomed person in this entire cast, at this point I’m just being cruel to myself lol

- I can’t describe how much I love the fanficiness of this story, in the best ways. the emotional fallout from the destruction of the lotus pier gets more screentime and attention than the entire sunshot campaign, and that’s exactly how I want it to be.  

- they’ve been doing some great work to establish that the jin are also jeeeeeerks for such a long time, how’s that for foreshadowing

- equal opportunity traitor jgy gets his stab in lol one must respect the grift, though, he’s set himself up pretty darn good

*lxc stops nmj from killing jgy, hello darkness my old friend starts playing in the background*

fatal journey builds nicely on this fundamental thing that the nie boys take their responsibility to their people extremely seriously, it seems to be the fact that jgy so blithely talks about them as necessary casualties that really sets him off

- adlfsdfhsdkjh lxc and nmj meekly being like ‘...we could maybe... not commit war crimes? if that’s at all possible? no?’

*slaps ‘I don’t think you even tried at all’ stars on both of them* (I mean I actually do kind of see where they’re coming from a bit, they just came out of a pretty costly war and I wouldn’t feel too comfortable getting right back into it with arguably the wealthiest faction, who’s also been keeping back a bit and thus kept a lot more reserves. well played jin bastards well played)

- I could stop here. if I stopped here everything would basically be as okay as they could be and the world full of hope still. I suppose the question here is... do I love myself enough to quit while the going is good. and the answer is no I already started the next episode

- I think one incredibly endearing aspect of this version of nmj is that he has a look of faint but permanent worry about him. he walked onto the screen with a vibe of ‘...oh boy I don’t like where this is going’ and he’s just kept going ever since

in the book he’s kind of a flat character (whose one trait is Mad), I love that they’ve given him some depth and nuance here! probably partly down to the actor doing a great job, but this version has a real sort of warmth to him and also seems downright uncertain at times -- he thrives when there’s a clear goal and black and white sides, and is probably not  t h r i l l e d with the weird tentative political situation after they take down the wens lol. thank god he has his little brother to make ‘bitch please’ faces over his shoulder when the jin get weird about things

anyway I’m always on the ‘nhs you are SO valid’ train, but in this version nhs is quadruple valid, in fact only mianmian is more valid in this entire world

- one of my favourite parts of this show is when wwx enters a situation and the camera takes some time to zoom in on the faces of his family and friends to convey their sense of ‘oh god what the fuck is he about to say now’ dread    

- jiang yanli asking her little brother if he doesn’t want to stay with them anymore while crying is emotional kryptonite, help

this poor woman, she had to put all her points into emotional intelligence b/c god knows no one else in this family did

- hell YEAH lan zhan go break some rules!! treat yourself my guy

- hey sis if, theoretically, one hypothetically found oneself in -- for the sake of argument -- love with, as the case may or may not be, someone... how would one tell?? asking for a friend

- the whole summary of this fucking show is just ‘weaponized sibling feels’ everything hurts with foreknowledge why did I keep going

- aw no blindfolded kiss scene but here’s a scene with real earnest emotional intimacy stuff going on instead... I will joyfully take it your honor

- I do value and respect the translators giving us these subtitles so much... but they did also force me to read the words ‘bosom friend’ with my own two eyes right there and that was not very cool of them

- why oh WHY must jiang yanli, best person in the world, have been cursed with the horrible fate of being in love with the dumbest man on the planet

*jiang yanli juggling all the idiot men in her life* oh god my little brother is causing an international diplomatic incident again time to bUCKLE UP

oh ho ho you know shit is getting real when big sister gets mad I LOVE HER. suddenly you see she definitely her mother’s daughter after all lol

wwx crying because his sister just fiercely defended him in public... im uwu

- I hate jgy with all my heart but I do feel bad for him too. his barely faltering :) look while all his asshole relatives gang up on him sdfhskahf

- again the jin are dicks but when it comes to aesthetics they do go off, that’s such a beautiful shade of blue

- dsflhsdakjlfhsdakjfl sd this shot of lwj and nmj right before lxc drinks is the funniest framing imaginable b/c lwj is wearing a look of complete stonefaced

-___________-

and meanwhile nmj, who presumably has seen lxc drunk before since they’re longstanding bros, looks worried as fUCK

- awwwww I do love nhs capitalizing all of jc’s attention so the others won’t start shit with him/so he won’t get to say something publicly he’ll regret later because he’s (understandably honestly) mad at his brother for making his life even more difficult than it has to be (I have every sympathy with wwx but buddy... buddy must you make everything more complicated for your bro every darn time this is a real delicate political situation and he’s not suited for that even without your antics)

it’s a very nhs move because he comes across as slightly boorish and rude and thus leaves jc blameless and thus protected, you can get so far if you have no self respect lol  

- showing us exactly how wen ning died is honestly a little too mean this is not fun

- good god this poor grandma has been through the wringer hasn’t she

- oh. oh wen ning, who never meant hurt anyone in his entire life :(

- listen okay the end is in sight just a couple more horrific tragedies to get through and then it’s the weird romantic comedy buddy cop antics of the current day timeline to ride to the end

- it cannot be overemphasized how much this lan zhan is Baby, I so desperately want to help and protect him

- I’m going to stop shouting out individual actors on this show they’re all goddamn brilliant haha (but am I tho)

- most valid person in the cultivation world mianmian

also enjoying the exemplification of nmj’s character that is ‘not sure how I feel about this dumb kid with the big mouth digging his own grave ever deeper but that girl’s got guts and I respect that’

- wen quing is getting a taste of the dangers and pitfalls of having wwx as a little brother dfhskdalfhsdaklj she and jyl should compare notes (he’s so good tho T-----T)

- how does wwx’s actor have such natural dad energy at such a young age, too powerful

- people give so little thought to how fucked up jc’s situation really is here, like he’s just being an asshole for the sake of it. spend three fucking seconds looking at it with some realpolitik in mind and realize that the clans around him have just shown that they can and will wipe out an enemy clan together if need be, and that his own sect hasn’t even gotten back on its feet after the war that almost wiped it out. like wwx is unquestionably morally right but has gone about it in such a way that it’s real fucking hard to support him without going down with him and how do you calculate that risk when you’re responsible for so many more lives than your own

also so sad about jc being so afraid this entire time that wwx would leave him like everyone else... and now he has :( jc doesn’t handle it well but then who would at this stage

- there is something so pure about a quietly horrified lan zhan getting Dad Advice from these guys (well he’s going to be needing it soon enough so)

oh the utter softness of his face looking at wwx and ah yuan ;_______; thank god, some fluff to bolster my heart before we set off into the last harrowing ordeal here

LAN ZHAN’S ENTIRE FACE LIGHTING UP AT WEI YING ASKING HIM OUT thank fuck there’s still some joy left in the universe

this poor love struck man, someone help him  

lan zhan conscientiously grabbing ah yuan’s toys is fskhdfksjdlfhskjdhf

- lan zhan looking around the demon subduing cave: babe I love you more than life itself but this is tacky as hell

- crying because wen niiiiiing

- crying because sibliiiiiings

okay this is the last time the three of them will be together and nominally happy, need to appreciate it through my tears

- actually I take it back please just let the bad thing happen now so I don’t have to live in suspense anymore lol (...this probably says a lot more about me as a person than I’m strictly comfortable with)

- the fact that none of wwx’s little adopted wen family are AT ALL intimidated by him anymore is just... it’s too much to bear

again tho this book/show is so willing to let you dwell in the emotional stages of things in a very fanfic sort of way, I think it’s what makes the sad parts so much worse (and makes you feel so incredibly attached to these characters)

- I gUESS it’s a testament to jin zixuan’s character that he has any decency at all, considering who his dad is and where he was raised

I’m cracking up at their dad being the one who still doesn’t trust jgy tho lol snake recognizes snake

- jgy’s faint look of ‘are you fucking kIdDiNg me rn’ whenever all these jin douchebags talk is very entertaining. if he didn’t go on to do all that murder and incest and (probably) infanticide I’d sort of cheer for him no matter what kind of sociopath he is

- not to be a downer or anything but isn’t one month a little premature to be celebrating the survival of a baby in fantasy old timey china tho

sometimes I feel like looking back at history is just seeing a whole lot of dead children (and this is why I think that even if god did exist it would be morally inconceivable to worship him! sorry just a quick detour into my personal grudge against the inherent cruelty of the world there, let’s move on)

- it’s uncomfortable to watch even the outlines of the jin sect’s slow insidious stranglehold on power. even these random shopgoing nobodies know that nmj is Not Happy about these watchtowers and that it’s probably going to happen anyway. the jin are snakes but at least they’re clever about it and I do kind of respect that

- oh everything’s about to go so wrong I hate it

NOOOOO don’t make the zombie baby fight, nothing good will come of this

- man this is hitting me worse than lotus pier actually I’m just... crying haha

it’s almost cathartic tho... there’s something about wen quing’s dignity and certainty that really helps? I just really wish they hadn’t brought the whole little group, god I want them to be okay so badly and ah yuan will be all that’s left and. and just throw me into the ocean and let me sink tbh

- I know this is all so much black cgi smoke (pls let us see the red version again at some point btw that was cool as shit) but the emotional metaphor of wwx that you can’t take on more and more of other people’s suffering and trauma and not care for yourself because you will lose control of that at some point is just. very nicely done. (he’s a bit of an odd serial codependent for a lot of the story, isn’t he. thank god lan zhan is not a quitter)

- jin zixuan’s mom is breaking my heart a little here. this lady has been married to THAT GUY all this time and now this as well. sorry lady, I guess jgy probably Took Care Of You at some stage after this

- a) this is just real good acting for wwx. this is the perfect level of unhinged for this, even though I’m always like ‘just. just shut your mouth for one time in your life and stop digging this grave any deeper six feet should be enough for anyone huh’ at this stage of the story and b) I am cackling inappropriately at the shot-reverse-shots between wwx, jiang cheng and jgy. jiang cheng looks like everything he ever loved is falling apart around him and jgy is like ‘oh wow I didn’t even have to provide him any rope he’s doing an excellent job at hanging himself without me’

I love wwx so much but it did take him an unconscionable length of time to realize that when you set big enough things into motion you will not be able to control who it crushes along the way or who might steer it in the wrong direction. other people exist and have agency and a lot of those people are bad honey :(

- ah yes lwj being stopped by a barrier made of the physical manifestation of wwx’s trauma when he tries to reach him :’) this is okay and cool and fine    

- it’s admirably obtuse of everyone to look at wwx at this stage and still think he’s in control of uh anything lol

- oh okay that went better than expected I don’t know if I’m just inured to sadness at this point

jiang cheng looking like a little boy clutching his big sister’s body is tugging at my heartstrings a bit tho

- ooooh this battle hardened intense lwj!!! I guess I can sort of see it now

- oh lan zhan 2, electric boogaloo

- finally! time for some comfort up in this hurt

- my man nmj still so fucking angry in the afterlife that anything even remotely connected to him is shaking with rage in sympathy in the real world. a mood

- fdsahfsjdklfhsdajk wwx being like ‘I can take everyone saying I was evil but how DARE you not mention I was also a snacc’

- when do you think nie huaisang really realized that his brother wouldn’t have children and that he was up for the sect leader seat next? nie mingjue seems to have known pretty far in advance himself and tried to prepare his brother accordingly, but that kid really didn’t want the job so I imagine he’d try to live in denial as long as possible

vaguely related: no other family is ever mentioned by either brother or anyone else, and nie huaisang straight out says that he is the only main disciple (I seem to remember and with the caveat that I might have misunderstood the translation) when there’s the talk of them being sent to the wen as hostages -- I suppose you sort of have to be very selective when your ancestral cultivation method is sketchy enough that you should keep that shit on the down low and you know people die young from it. so I think it’s possible if not probable that huaisang is the last of his family. isn’t that a fun little thing to think about? haha. ha. help me  

- this random street vendor is an unexpected strong comedy performance, every face he makes is pure gold

- fkshafkjsdhfasd best introduction of adult nhs

- the quiet luminous love on lwj’s face whenever he looks at wwx in the present... give this man all the awards. it’s nice that wwx gets to be scared and childish and vulnerable with someone who loves him no matter what too, he’s been through some shit

- oh okay I see so the reason they chose to make fatal journey the way they did was because they already had the set built

- *nhs dropping one set of robes like that one gif from anastasia to reveal another even more luxuriously dandy-ish set under it* oh wow what a surprise to see you two down here, coincidences amirite (anyway here’s the testament to all the sins of my ancestors & a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to the murderer of my brother)

no wait that’s slightly later isn’t it. well the point still stands

- dead!nmj is truly a mood -- “I don’t know where I am, who I am or what the fuck just happened but I do know that I am PISSED OFF”

(actually in the book I found that almost comforting -- at least the dude got to spend his afterlife doing what he loved (i.e. being angry), but this more nuanced and sympathetic version being trapped like that just. makes me very very sad)

nice of him to stick around to play a few rounds of hot or cold with his little bro’s friends tho lol. I mean from what I understand of this take on canon it’s actually the spirit of his sword and not him in person? but close enough, let me keep him as long as I can okay

- jin ling getting his dumb ass cask of amontillado’d within ten minutes of entering the tomb smh

look at your ROBES young man what is your (other) uncle going to say??

- hAH what did I say. pedagogic mastermind jiang cheng at it again

enjoying the fact that they chose the floofiest most benign-looking of dogs to play this ~*terrifying hound*~ so much

I have a lot of sympathy for jiang cheng, and the actor is doing a good job at aging him up here (not as good as lwj’s but then you can’t beat perfection). the way he’s calcified into bitterness and anger b/c he can’t express his emotions in a healthy nuanced way feels very... real I guess, people get like that sometimes

- I am somehow really endeared to this version of jin ling. a dumb baby, but a baby

- poor lan zhan lol “I LEFT YOU ON YOUR OWN FOR TWO HOURS AND YOU ALREADY MANAGED TO TAKE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CURSE??? BABE!!!!!!!”

he consistently uses jiang cheng’s personal name too huh. well it is his brother in law I guess ETA: actually I’m an idiot ignore/forgive me, that’s jiang cheng’s courtesy name isn’t it. lan wangji is being salty/maybe-deliberately-maybe-not-(but-definitely-tho) distant/polite with him I think 

- y’know... as I watch lwj carry the love of his life around on his back with all the tenderness in the world and I see people in the comments yell about why do you always need everything to be gay they’re just good friends you’re all crazy... I realize all over again that there really is no level of queerness they’ll ever find legitimate or acceptable. which like. feels bad, but there’s also the freedom in remembering they are always going to be assholes no matter what I do, there’s literally no need to listen to them at any time.

- I am CRACKING UP; watching this episode right after seeing fatal journey sure is a treat hahaha. nhs really must enjoy the acting on a deep level because he is hamming it up and I am living for it    

“It’s nothing at all like unorthodox demonic cultivation methods!” he protests with his big innocent doe eyes, having yelled the exact same accusation at his brother within ten seconds of finding out about it dsfdskjha

- awww that’s such a sweet way of telling nhs who he is while both of them still get plausible deniability :’)

this show is making it a LOT easier to figure out nhs’ deal earlier just through visual storytelling and his reactions when lwj and wwx aren’t looking, but I guess you sort of have to do that without the benefits of selective POVs that you can do in written stories

- lan zhan’s little smirks are such a blessing

- can we talk about how INCREDIBLY rude lwj and wwx are being barging into other people’s ancestral tombs like they own the place. I know I said break some rules lan zhan but there’s such a thing as common decency too at least wipe your feet at the entrance or something

stop being big bullies!!! (nhs actually sounds a little salty at how debonair they are being lol he’s like yeah you’re doing what I want you to but you don’t have to be such dicks about it)

- nooooooo nmj don’t die ur so sexy ahaha (I jest so I do not cry godddddd my heart big brother come baaaaaaack)

I’m honestly finding it very hard to live with knowing that the last thing nmj saw in life was jgy having his little brother in his clutches D:D:D: looking at it like that... of course he came back mad as fuck, I’d probably do the same thing

- boys boys I love and support you but could you maybe not stand around talking about how this was totally a horrific murder like the murderee’s little brother isn’t standing right there?? i mean it’s useful for him but it’s kind of mean of you, I know neither of you were raised in a barn  

okay there’s wwx irrepressible protective instinct that’s better. I just... nhs standing there looking small and sad and soft and lonely isn’t the whole truth but it is part of the whole truth, it’s nice to see wwx being like this even after all those years. (the physical closeness in their friendship in their youth in this version is so gooood. outside of wwx the only two people we see nhs consistently allow close or seek out closeness from is his brother and MENG YAO, who can frankly burn in hell even more than usual for the flute thing in fatal journey.)

- lan zhan contemplating the inherent impermanence of everything good in the world and then immediately getting blackout drunk -- MOOD. also I have never seen a scene where someone so obviously was about to press a soft kiss to someone’s forehead or cheek, don’t worry wwx I see you through the censorship lol

(it’s incredible how well they’ve adapted the love story considering the fact that they technically uh can’t)  

- wen ning: shambles, zombie-like and disheveled with horror movie monster eyes, into frame

all of us: omg a BABY ToT

- live action drunk lan zhan is living up to the hype I am  d y i n g

this poor repressed man

fjskdfsdkjhf he could do sword fighting in his damn sleep probably

I will say that leaving ‘wei wuxian was also here’ is going to scare the crap out of these poor people whose only crime was keeping well fed chickens

- they r so in love someone hold me

- this nmj!kid I am LOSING IT, this is so cute I want to lie face down on the floor and cry

- the yi city arc is my least favourite part of this story, so I’m fortifying myself to get through a couple of hours of sexy baby xue yang here

- Dad/troll teacher!wwx is in fact everything

- oooh wwx has the same weird crooked fingers as me when they’re extended! just some small Facts About Your Friendly Neighbourhood Blogger there

- this is not at all a bad take on ah quing! she qte

- ‘what’s your husband look like?’ song lan, crying: beautiful

- xxc you didn’t think it was a little weird the dude wouldn’t tell you his name -- even a name -- all this time. honestly

I know you’re in a bad place and this is sort of a rebound thing from your actual true love but stop letting him gaslight you like this buddy :(

- time for some MASSIVELY FORESHADOWING PARALLELS my friends

- I don’t know if I’m just a heartless monster but I honestly don’t care that much about anyone but ah quing in this little sideplot lol (probably my complete disinterest in xue yang tainting everything else)  

- xue yang and jgy: the ‘sad backstory dude still inexplicably extra mass murder’ club

- godddd I’m so bored I’ve listened to this guy cackle ~*madly and evilly*~ for three episodes now when will it fucking end

- lan jingjy you are VALID

- fhsdkfhsdkj can’t get over baxia being like ‘OI you two stop gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes for five seconds and get on with avenging me’

must be annoying spending your afterlife in a pouch third wheeling the two most obnoxiously in love people in the world, I think this spirit sword is being admirably restrained and patient all things considered

- big brother I am so sorry you had to hang out under there all this time while this boring bullshit plot happened above you ;________________________;

I’m actually not clear on what the nie sect does with the bodies of the dead -- the saber tomb seems to be exclusively for the weapons/we see that some of the cultivators will go down there while they’re still alive to sacrifice themselves... maybe they go in the walls? I guess nhs is breaking tradition in a lot of ways tho so who knows!

- ‘from what I’ve seen he’s not so bad’ wei ying he smilingly asked you to use POWs for target practice I’ll allow lxc to be this dumb but you really have no excuse

- this duckling in red is a gentleman and a bro, one to watch

- wwx seductively arranging himself in the open window to cover his panic fsdkjfhsda

- lot’s wife WISHES she had the level of salt jiang cheng does

- ‘if they ask me any weird questions I don’t know the answers to I’ll have to pretend to be a total psycho’

lan zhan, dragging his husband with one deadpan face: I’m sure that is going to be a huge feat of acting for you babe

- NIE HUAISANG FALLING INTO FRAME AND LAUNCHING HIMSELF FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER LIKE A GORMLESS WET RAG, I STAN ONE (1) BOY

‘but new problems appeared’  how is he such a mood

again tho you can give your unknowing accomplices so much space to investigate if you just don’t bother with self respect or dignity at any stage of the journey lol

- fjshdfkjlsahd that beat of lan zhan clearly taking a moment to contemplate the idea of wei ying confessing his love naked in public there

- uncle and nephew bonding time T________________T  

- fsakfhsadkjlfhsad I can’t deal with this mission impossible ass music in the background as a little paper gingerbread man scoots around the palace

whoever animated this was clearly having a lot of fun, I love the little details like his dangling legs and him rubbing his lil paper bum after landing

- poor qin su, one of the most screwed over people in this whole show. at least in the book he didn’t mean to

- ah su, you’re being very unreasonable about this, what is a little incest between friends

- straight culture is this being chill to keep in the adaptation but god forbid anyone got a loving queer kiss at any point (not blaming the showrunners at all, they’re clearly stretching the limits as far as they will go and maybe a bit more at a few points)

- YES SISTER CALL HIM THE FUCK OUT I always felt like she’s known something was a little off for a long time but never could put her finger on what exactly

- ‘can you still not let me go’ hey jgy you piece of shit who’s keeping whose head in a weird serial killer cabinet here

- THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HIS HANDSOME ALIVE FACE BACK TO MY SCREEN IF ONLY TO MAKE ME SAD

- he’s so beautiful and righteous and strong 😭😭😭😭 dage come back to us

(makes even more sense that he’s so pissed off about what jgy did if he’s already shown clearly that he’ll shut down the people fucking with him if it’s brought to his attention. he gave you every opportunity you little oh-it’s-never-really-my-fault worm of a man)

- another nmj about to cry warning needed here help me

dON’T FUCKING TOUCH HIM YOU SLIMY FSKJLDHFKSJDHFSKDJLHF

the nie traits are undying loyalty, rage, and the intergenerational trauma of watching your parental figures succumb to death and madness through the same cultivation path you practice

- my cause of death: nmj’s eyes shining with unshed tears

this version has that edge of vulnerability to him, you suddenly do realize he was once just a kid watching his dad die a horrifying death and then having to take on all that responsibility and raising his brother

nie boys unfailingly devoted to the people under their protection I’m gonna go bury myself under a tree or something

- I’ve had to turn the volume down so I can barely hear anything b/c my emotions are too big to for my dumb body to contain already I can’t listen to this

- extremely sad but also a little funny that part of the reason nmj died was that he had no interest whatsoever in the arts. ‘music is music right?’ says local jock

- I’ve just been whimpering the last twenty minutes this is awful

- huaisang’s voice breaking on ‘big brother, it’s me’... sdlakhgsdjklfhsadjkghsdkjlfhdskljhgsdalkhgsdklgjhsdjklhgkdjslhgjskd I’m going to the bottom of the mariana trench and I’m staying there goodbye

- I can’t wait to watch nie huaisang end this putrid trash man’s whole career in the most devastating way possible tbh

- I’m just so SAD T______________________________T I hate jgy so much my heart burns with it I’m so glad he’s about to get some dramatic irony shoved up his -- but I digress

- haha poor jin ling standing there watching all this messed up shit like ‘O.O thanks i’m nine’

- I wish I was as good at passing the fuck out on command as nhs, I feel like it would solve a lot of my problems

- just some low key soulmate shit no biggie

- wwx is basically fantasy old timey naked again here the SCANDAL except no scandal they’re clearly married

- wwx is being so much more patient with lxc than I would have found it in my heart to be at this stage. he’s like ‘lxc you are my brother in law and I truly appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me but it’s sadly up to me to gently confront you with all the ways you’ve been a dumb ho just b/c you think jgy has pretty dimples 😔’

- “You’re not qualified to talk to me” oh lwj I love you so much. I thought committing murder was forbidden by the lan sect rules but there you go  

- it honestly baffles me that some people think nmj would be the strictest parental figure in this universe when a) everything about huaisang suggests otherwise and b) lan qiren is right there

madam yu has that ‘super unforgiving to her son’s face but will also tear anyone criticizing him a new one’ mixed energy too  

- lqr: I raised a perfect obedient righteous cultivator

me & wei ying: you’ve ruined a perfectly good boy is what you did look at him he’s too repressed to breathe

- well their dad clearly paid enough attention to worldly matters that two kids resulted from it, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this lxc

one’s an accident two’s a pattern etc.

- wow I was so confused about ‘confidante’ being used here b/c it makes absolutely no sense in context, and the comments helpfully informed me that it’s more accurately translated to ‘soulmate’ or something like that; that does make a whole lot more sense yeah

- bb!lan zhan kneeling in the snow is more than anyone’s supposed to have to live with tbh

- lxc being like ‘so yeah my brother will keep loving people long after they’re gone and unable to give him love back! just a fun fact there, something to think about anyway here’s wonderwall’

- soft, ever-so-slightly messy haired at home lan zhan deserves the world

- oh wwx’s shift away from thinking the truth doesn’t matter at all to realizing the truth of you being held fully and with love by one person in your life is enough as lwj plays their song ;______________________________; this is almost more romantic than a kiss scene would be honestly jesus christ  

- little apple is the best of us tbh

- apologies but they have 100% started to fuck off-screen at this stage, the looks wei ying is giving him dsafasdfhsjkd

- I take it back mianmian and little apple are the best of us

- imagine just finding the light bearing lord, second peerless jade of lan in his immaculate white clothes, peeking out from between your hay bales one day

- the exponential increase in lan zhan’s blessed little smiles lately: my oh-they-fawking thesis is validated yet again

- wei ying lying through his teeth: of course I remembered your face at once who do you take me for  

(lan zhan: smirks in quiet satisfaction)

- walejhgskdjhgsjdaklfhsadjkflafhsjakdsf wen ning is so cute I don’t know what to do with myself

- wei ying this is where you first asked him out of course he remembers

- lan zhan is like ‘oh shit I forgot to tell him about our son and at this point I’m kind of embarrassed to bring it up’

- I am NOT thinking about the lotus pond they made for him here, you can’t make me

- ‘the worst time in their lives’ yeah, but there was such love there too. it  h u r t s 

- the actor for wen ning is so good at making his expressions look deeply earnest but also a little uncanny, like moving his face doesn’t come naturally to him anymore but his Good Boyness shines through

- DRAGGED in public by his own son. rip wwx he had a good run of it before his untimely murder

- wow thank goodness sect leader yao survived all this time, his death would as we all know have been a huge loss to society as a whole

- “I’m just here to round up the numbers” I love him more than I can convey to you in words

I’m a simple person, I hear nhs’ chronically befuddled voice and a burst of pure joy is released in my heart

sdfhjksadhfsad his soft little 😕 face peeking out from behind people’s shoulders fkjsdhfsdjal

- will I ever get enough of nhs masterfully manipulating a situation through his own apparent cowardliness and uselessness? no is the answer to that it’s always entrancing to watch

nhs as a teacher, nodding sagely as his disciples exchange glances: it’s never too late to go home instead of going big. saying ‘fuck this i’m outta here’ is always an option

- also nhs seemingly doesn’t use a saber at all anymore, where he at least used to have one back in fatal journey times. I’m very happy he’s trying some new things, time to break that very sad traumatic chain of dying young and furious

also him getting someone else to do the work of fixing the ward or whatever fskdfhaskdlf

teacher nhs, waving his pupils away b/c he’s busy painting or something: class dismissed. and remember, if at all possible, get someone else to do your homework for you. as long as you don’t get caught that’s an automatic A

- wwx is literally the cat surrounded by knives meme here lol

- lol lol lol wwx just removed his outer tunic thing to reveal lan zhan’s undershirt still under there and you can see lan qiren silently seethe with ‘that little hussy has seduced my nephew away from the righteous path’

(do I personally believe in slut shaming of any kind? nah it’s dumb as fuck. do I think lqr does? yeah)

- hahaha I can’t tell if nhs’ slightly glazed look here is b/c wwx did something he didn’t plan for him to do or if it’s because he’s for all intents and purposes half naked in front of them. (tbh I think there’s a case to be made in this version that he has a sort of wistful would-never-act-on-it-for-a-million-different-reasons-lan-zhan’s-furious-jealous-stare-being-foremost-of-them crush on both wwx and lwj from back when they were teens)

- WOW all these dicks inviting themselves to lotus pier!!! r u d e

- lan zhan flexing on lan qiren by raising a happy well adjusted child even while he’s mourning the love of his life: what like it’s hard

- wen ning kept that toy for sixteen goddamn years don’t touch me

- I’m crying about jin ling give me a moment. he is baby okay he’s even younger than ah yuan by at least four years

the image of him hugging the only thing he’s got left of his dad... fsdalkfhasdjlkfhsjdakhfsjdk

- lan sizhui has a crowd of good uncles/dads and poor jin ling has a crowd of utter disaster uncles and it’s very unfortunate (yes wwx is on both of those lists)

it is very sweet that it’s jiang cheng who consistently actually looks out for him, even in his feelings-wtf-are-feelings sort of way. the least disaster uncle, but only by comparison lol

- I think this ouyang kid might be duckling in red from before? LOVING the interspersed nhs reaction shots to him, anyway fsakdfh (I’m going to make it sad: how many conversations like this do you think he had with his brother as a kid? that’s fine we can both cry now I don’t want to be alone in this)

- ‘mr ning’ im Y___________________________________Y

- extremely Here for yet another full costume change from nhs hahaha (he’s changed at the boat already, god knows how he pulled that off but I’d expect no less from him)

- nhs must have been a sect leader for at least a decade at this point, and he still manages to exude such a powerful ‘kid at the adult’s table’ aura. incredible. mindblowing, inspirational

- ...oh they went with the same version of the previous jin leader’s death huh (but GOD FORBID that anyone should be openly gay amirite lol) O___O again though WHY is jin ling here, jiang cheng??????? he’s like sixteen, he’s never going to dare to even kiss anyone after this

- nhs has the look of a man who’s had to sit on this disgusting knowledge alone for years and finally gets to share that icky burden around, merry christmas everyone if I have to know about this so do you

- I don’t know if this is just me imagining things or reading more into it than what’s there, but I think nhs is actually sitting in the same pose his brother used to a lot in this part of the scene (the upright posture with palms resting at the top of the thighs/hips, fingers turned inwards/towards each other; it looks sort of... solid and self-contained, I guess)

- I would call jgy knowingly committing the incest character assassination if he’d had enough character to assassinate even in the book, I would never have put it past him

- y’know... god knows nmj had flaws (I think my immense depth of love for him in this version comes precisely from how hard he tries even while being deeply flawed. him dumb but him always trying :’) well actually he’s not dumb at all, he’s shown to be pretty darn politically savvy, I’m just having a hard time finding the right word here. ‘inflexible’ is maybe closer ), but the big defining difference between him and jin guangyao (and consequently xue yang) is that both of the latter are completely open about the fact that they see themselves as more important than anyone else -- xue yang considers one of his fingers worth more than fifty people’s lives, jgy kills twenty sex workers as a mere afterthought to his own revenge on his father. meanwhile nmj gets Messed Up by people dying under his protection to the degree that he came up with one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard just so he’d be the only one at risk, just so no one else would get hurt anymore. hmnghsjhfs.   

- wen ning, proudly: my sister was the best doctor in the world 

me, openly crying: she sure was buddy

- wwx: hey lan zhan are there any sweet patient lan ladies with an open mind around

lwj: ...why

wwx: I just think our zombie son should start thinking about getting friends, maybe even a real home

lwj, subtly relieved: oh

- JIN LING BABY BOY NOOOO D:D:D:

- nhs I need you to come in and end this man I cannot look at his awful face anymore

- ugh this garrotte sound effect is really unpleasant actually well done

- THERE HE IS!!! conveniently swooning his way into the scene again, my guy ;_______; smol and soft-looking and about to utterly obliterate a man on every conceivable level 

I love every moment of the camera dwelling meaningfully on his innocent vulnerable face, this is going to be so great 

it’s too bad he’s a behind the curtain sort of dude, I would kill for a poirot-style ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here in the library’ moment here lol

- tbh jiang cheng’s got a point about that whole ‘making huge sweeping decisions about someone else’s life and never telling them about it’ thing

wwx has sort of structured himself as a person so that you’ll never be allowed to really reciprocate his dedication and sacrifices (unless you’re lz lol), and while that is a very sympathetic trauma reaction essentially it is sort of a dick move interpersonally.

- the weight and wisdom that comes along with the scars of older wwx... you love to see it

- nhs, with effortless grace, rousing from his disney princess slumber just as the real drama’s about to begin... your honor he is simply the best

-  T__________________________________________________________T big brother 

- the tinge of coldness in nhs’ eyes while he watches jgy through this whole scene even as he keeps up the ‘im baby don’t worry about me’ act.............. fashdfjlksdahfslkadj, not to say askfksjhafkjsldhfkjsalhfksjaldhfkls

- to say that jgy has perhaps ‘gone overboard with this’ might be the biggest understatement of any century lxc

- watching him kneel by his brother’s coffin here I’d like to propose that Nie Huaisang has exactly the same capacity for all-consuming rage as the rest of his family, except he can’t just vent it by hitting something real hard with a haunted murder saber so he has to get creative and that was real unfortunate for Jin Guangyao  

- one thing that’s always tickled me is that nhs did give jgy the choice. the people around him -- the people he claims to love -- could have been left out of it, no dishonor being brought to either his name or any of theirs... if he’d been willing to sacrifice himself. (probably a gambit where he knew that was never going to happen, but still!)

- nhs standing there in the background like ‘yeah yeah we all have horrifying family legacies buddy, we just don’t knowingly marry our sisters or arrange for mass murders over it’  

- arguably killing the previous jin leader could actually count as a good deed if not for the horrifying way he did it lol. jgy all over, he could have done something helpful, *john mulaney voice* and then he didn’t he just killed nineteen innocent women while he was on a roll instead

- while it’s sort of bullshit that some responsibility is taken away from wwx in jin zixuan’s death here it’s also making a bit more sense to me like this -- seems like an uncharacteristic gamble from jgy to just idk hope wwx would lose control at exactly the right/wrong moment. wwx is still at fault for how casually he treated wen ning as a weapon when he didn’t know what the consequences could be, I’m okay with this

- jin ling and the terrible horrible no good very bad week :( protect him

wow lan xicheng let’s stand around some more letting this awful excuse for a person tell this sixteen year old boy that his parents deserved to be murdered basically, I’m sure there’s a lot more fruitful discussion still left to be had here  

- talk shit about nie mingjue’s brother get hit su she hell YEAHHHHHH

big brother still looking out for him I’m fsdklfhajsdlhf 😭😭😭

- I’M SO FULL OF FEELINGS ;________________________________; at least in this version the implication feels more like he’s finally at peace? (hilariously wwx managed to purge/cleanse the saber spirit, which is the entire conflict of fatal journey haha, nhs really did get his best friend to do his homework for him yet again, INSPIRATIONAL)

- HELL YEAH FINALLY GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! PRESS F TO PAY RESPECT EXCEPT JOKE’S ON YOU I’VE GOT NO RESPECT TO PAY

They did do away with any and all ambiguity around nhs here and I’m totally cool with it, that was awesome

- I’m playing the world’s tiniest little violin right now, wow much sad fuck you and your dumb hat

- may I just say that the fact that jgy uses his last moments on earth to make lxc, a person he proclaims to love, feel as bad as possible about his now inevitable death even though it clearly wasn’t really his fault... is just proof that he has never actually loved anyone at all except possibly himself 

contrast with wwx, who tells jc that he’s sorry, dries his tears in the here and now and says to let the past go because there’s nothing either of them can do about it now and there’s no point in hurting themselves over it again and again anymore. jgy has the opportunity to give a similar kindness here and instead twists and twists the knife, so lxc will be in as much pain as possible when he’s gone. he’d rather be kept alive in lxc’s suffering than let him, someone he ‘loves’, ever heal and be happy. anyway I hope hell is real shitty for you jgy

- jgy you absolute piece of shit you couldn’t let my man have TEN FUCKING MINUTES to nap in peace? after sixteen years of your fuckery? urgh bye  

- nhs looking at lxc sadly when lxc can’t see him... one last ‘I don’t know’ finally closing out his arc... I love all of this so much, there’s such a nuance of... he is genuinely a bit sad about causing lxc pain but he also doesn’t regret what he did At All. (I guess most of what he’s done must be pretty easy to rationalize/justify to himself, since the vast majority of his work went into finding the horrible shit jgy has done and showing them the way home to roost, rather than creating fresh suffering from scratch. and then there’s also the whole mo family but uh well eggs omelettes amirite lol)   

- lan qiren telling people not to run or talk loudly b/c they’re at a temple, even under these circumstances fhakjsldfhkjsdafhkjsaldhf 

- god the casting people for this show have a perfect track record of finding heartwrenchingly cute kids my GOD

- jfdsafhaskdjfh I love how they’ve done the moment with the hat -- the way the flashback sort of indicates that nhs does recognize on a deep level that the dude he just killed was someone’s son, was after all once an innocent child, like anyone... and again, it doesn’t make him regret it. he looks tired and sort of empty, but not like he’d take any of it back. he’s seen jgy for all that he was, good and bad, and made his decision. his reaction to seeing his hands ever so slightly stained with blood is mostly ‘...eh sure’ (and he knows none of this will ever bring his brother back and I am HURTING) . just. I love him so much what an interesting character 

- lan zhan raised a child who can talk about his feelings, unprecedented & wondrous 

who’s chopping onions in here

- never getting over ah yuan being the best person in the world at roasting his dad 

- okay okay okay I’m going to have some incoherent feelings here -- the expression on nhs’ face right after wwx asks him if he intends to be chief cultivator is just... hm. how do I describe this. it looks almost like he’s thinking ‘oh yeah I forgot you don’t actually know me anymore (yeah okay that’s my bad)’? the previous scene is about lwj and wwx, The symbolic representation of true love in this world, naming each other/knowing each other for exactly who and what they are. that’s the thematic victory in this story; to be truly known, accepted and loved for the entirety of who you are, if only by one person in your whole life. (notably all sorts of love, parental, familial, platonic etc., not just romantic/sexual) and to get his victory, nhs has had to completely forsake that because his whole plan hinged on it; he hasn’t been emotionally honest with anyone for well over a decade at this point. no one really knows or understands him, and if someone ever did he’s long dead now and never coming back. and in this one moment both wwx and nhs seem to come to the quiet understanding that neither of them are who they used to be as kids and it’ll never be like it used to be again, and reach a sort of live-and-let-live truce about it.  d u d e this goddamn story 

(after all part of the reason jgy is so incredibly terrified of nmj is that he’s the first person to see straight through his bullshit to who he is behind it, and that it’s u g l y  back there. jgy + nmj = being known without being accepted or loved (b/c honestly he doesn’t deserve to be loved or accepted yeah there we go I said it), jgy + lxc = being accepted and loved without being known, which turns into disaster all around.)

- man this was actually a really solid adaptation, it was excellently done! they did rush a bit towards the end there (it was never explained why jgy didn’t kill sissi along with all the other sex workers in this version, for example, leaving a rather substantial plot hole, and they never reveal why exactly lan zhan had to take over as sect leader which breaks off lxc’s arc at the end), but all in all that was wonderful and even added some stuff I liked better than in the book! now please god never let mtxt write a sequel, just let them be in this happily ever after, all of them have been through enough ;________;

- also the music was truly epic! I don’t even begrudge them using some parts more often and blatantly than what’s probably necessary, I want to wallow in this love theme as much as the next person lol

- what am I going to do with hours upon hours of my life now? I don’t know either, I suppose I will just have to find some way to hobble on 

[domeyashiro]

Do you have a prediction of how many volumes the movie will cover or if the movie will skip some scenes? Compared to an episodic anime, I'm kind of worried the movie will skip some scenes since theres only so much a movie (1 to 1 1/2hours) can cover.

As much as I’d love to see every scene animated, I’m afraid it will be inevitable to cut scenes in the movie. Sensei’s storytelling is so condensed that even one volume would be difficult to cover completely in 1 1/2 hours. And we already saw Doumeki with a scar on his cheek in the trailer, which he got in volume 4, so there’s no way we’ll see the full story that led up to that scene.

This is what will probably happen: The movie will not retell the story in the order we know from the manga, but will focus on certain events to capture the atmosphere and spirit of the original work. There was an interview with BLUE LYNX producer Okayasu Yuka in the latest issue of PASH (an anime magazine) where she said that the theme the movie will focus on is “the man named Yashiro”. So we’ll likely see a character portrayal where important events of Yashiro’s life are shown from his perspective and not necessarily in the order they happened in. But Okayasu assures the fans that everyone working on the movie is or already was a Saezuru fan and that the whole workplace is overflowing with Saezuru love.

Yoneda-sensei was also interviewed in the same magazine and said she loves the script screenwriter Seko Koji (Banana Fish, Attack on Titan, Kakegurui, Ajin, Mob Psycho 100) came up with so much that she wishes she could have drawn the manga like that. She got to supervise the character designs, and the studio makes sure to check back with her frequently. She also mentioned several times in the past that different mediums work differently and that she hopes adaptations of her work make full use of the potential of the medium in question instead of being too concerned about sticking to the source material at all cost.

Last but not least, it’s the first movie that will come out under the new BLUE LYNX label. They really can’t afford to fuck it up, so let’s just trust Sensei and everyone working on it to create something that, although it might stray from the original timeline here and there, will nonetheless fully capture the fascination of Saezuru by playing out all the strengths of an anime movie adaptation.

(But to be honest, I’m already extremely happy that we’re getting an anime movie instead of a live action one, because it means the budget is way higher and I won’t have to worry about stiff acting causing me secondhand embarrassment. The only thing that could possibly ruin the movie for me would be a different voice cast. Apart from that one fear I’ll be fully content just seeing a collage of my favorite scenes animated.)

[izzymalec]

why don’t you see how “clary the god” negatively affected magnus? in s1, 2a they only let magnus be part of the group when he was doing things for the shadowhunters. and so in 2b, 3a, 3b when she was god, he was cut off from everyone but alec cuz they didn’t need him anymore (and god forbid he gets to be actual friends with anyone. cuz no, only saying “biscuit” to clary, nada to jace, and 1 scene with izzy per half isn’t friendship when the shadowhunters and simon are being pals every single ep

magnus literally didn’t say even 1 word to clace- you know the main characters of the show- in 2b. not 1 word. and you can count his lines of dialogue with them in s3 on 1 hand, literally. meanwhile alec’s out here getting arcs with both of them every single half. i mean, you claim to like magnus so why you don’t care about him as part of the group? cuz everytime i see you hype “clary the god” it feels like a punch in the face cuz that choice cost magnus all his screentime with the other mains.

why doesn’t it make you uncomfortable that they gave a white character (1/3 of the mains) powers just to cut the only asian main from the group dynamic so that it really just became only the 3 whites and 2 hispanics spending time together at the center of the show, while the 1 asian and 2 black mains were always cut off and on the outside (and not allowed to connect to each other, cuz god forbid POC mains connect to each other instead of merely being “spokes” on the whites “hubs of the wheel”.

it is such a joke that so many fans are crying “clary deserved better” in the finale and that it was bad to derune her- WHERE was that energy when magnus gave up his magic for all of 3b? no fans cared cuz “oh he’ll get it back.” so would she, her last scene with jace showed she may not be a god anymore but she was still a shadowhunter. he suffered all of 3b and not 1 single character outside of alec and his mom said even 1 word of comfort to magnus. not one!! why do only white tears matter?

“clary the god” ain’t as cute as you’re acting like it is unless you only care about her, in which case your username is misleading. also doesn’t it bother you that an asian’s man accomplishment (creating the portal) is dismissed when the white girl can do it with zero effort on a whim? you can tell this show is run by whites. or that they barely let magnus do magic in s2/ s3 cuz they didn’t want to spent their cgi budget on him but they had no problem blowing it on her playing god? yikes.

there are a lot of very valid points here and i’m glad u got it all out, let me answer thoroughly!!

point 1: magnus doesn’t get enough screentime

agreed. the writers don’t appreciate him at all. he does get more screentime as the show goes on though, he isn’t part of some episodes in season 1 and 2a, they change that later

point 2: magnus doesn’t get to interact with the other mains and doesn’t get friends because of clary’s powers

i partially agree with this, i never made the connection to clary’s powers but it does make sense since magnus was often used as a plot device in the beginning. however, i don’t think he even is meant to be friends with some of the group (or maybe he is, the show generally is really bad at building family and friendships because they don’t really let characters interact) so i don’t think it’s /horrible/, however i do think that he should be getting more of his own storylines and that the storylines he does get should be more explored and he should be allowed to get more scenes with dot or catarina

point 3: clary having god like powers is racist

first things first: clary is the main character of the show, the show is meant to be about her. she is supposed to have more screentime than everyone else, it’s her storyi don’t think that they gave clary her powers with the intention of cutting out magnus’ screentime, i think they gave her those powers to move the story forward. that doesn’t change that they give far less screen time to poc, and i agree that they shouldn’t have done that. 

point 4: no one cares about magnus, everyone just cares about clary

this is the point i gotta say i disagree the most with, maybe it’s perception, maybe it’s because of the people i follow, but i had a completely different experience for this. i remember several posts about magnus losing his magic and how it must have affected him and metas and fafics and everything revolving around this topic. i personally have rarely seen anything about clary.but that’s the fandom, i do agree that the writers should have let many more characters who supposedly care about magnus talk to him about his magic loss (refer to point 2)

point 5: the last message

“clary the god” ain’t as cute as you’re acting like it is unless you only care about her, in which case your username is misleading.

i clearly care about clary and i’m not really making anyone think that i don’t, my icon, title and description all reference her. i don’t exclusively care about clary, otherwise i’d exclusively blog about her. i understand how from your point of view the clary is god concept is bad, but for me it’s a fun theory, i just like it, i don’t think about how clary having some of her powers could have maybe potentially lost magnus some screentime, i think about how amazing it would be to see clary with glowing eyes and flying hair ripping raziel apart. i think about how funny it is that clary came into a new world and a two months later was like “yeah i can bring people back from the dead, what about it?”. i think about how due to the writers having given clary those powers, whether they should or shouldn’t have is open for question, clary is about as powerful as warlocks, the most imo most powerful beings in the shadowworld, and due to clary defying the angel’s will she’s more powerful than the angels, so? clary is god. 

i like to focus on the story, because yes, shadowhunters is deeply problematic, i never doubted that, but i’m honestly here to have fun with it and i enjoy talking about the concept, if i only ever focused on the stuff i don’t like about the show, the stuff i disagree with there’s no point in having this blog

also doesn’t it bother you that an asian’s man accomplishment (creating the portal) is dismissed when the white girl can do it with zero effort on a whim?

sure that’s p fucked up, when it comes to clary the writers just make her be able to do anything, which is a flaw, i know that’s what your entire message is. yes. it is wrong that clary can just do things that push magnus out of the picture, it is something that shouldn’t be done. but clary being able to do anything at any given time is also a bit funny, because it’s bad writing and that bad writing is what makes her god, you know?

or that they barely let magnus do magic in s2/ s3 cuz they didn’t want to spent their cgi budget on him but they had no problem blowing it on her playing god?

maybe it’s due to my lack of perception but i really never noticed that, i can think of many instances where magnus uses magic, in fact there’s a lot more (or at least better) cgi in season 2 and 3 than there is in season 1, so i’m not sure that statement is factual

so! in conclusion: thank you for your message, it really gave me a great insight on why someone might not like the theory and it’s understandable! but for me it really is just something to have fun with because it lets me make fun of the show due to its ridiculous writing and lets me appreciate clary, two things i love doing. you took things a lot deeper than i ever intended them to be, but we all love the show while complaining about things that were problematiqué. i don’t see how my god clary theory is really harmful as it is only based on things that are shown in the show. things that maybe shouldn’t have happened, yes, but in the end they did and all we can do is get angry at them, ignore them, or make something with them. 

conclusion: the god clary theory is just meant to be dumb fun, it’s completely okay if you don’t like it, or can’t like it if you feel like it’s based on injustice or for any other reason

thanks again! have a nice day!!

[rwbyconversations]

Seeing Red, or: The Assassination of Adam Taurus(’s character) by the Coward Blake Belladonna

Adam Taurus. The RWBY fandom’s preferred punching bag, Adam is often dismissed as an emo turbo edgelord thanks to his design, dialogue and somewhat shaky voice acting from Garrett Hunter. But regardless, thanks to his depiction in the Black Trailer and an impressive showing in Volume 3 that led to a... notable moment in the show’s tonal shift-

Adam managed to earn a fan following, and after a lack of real appearances in Volume 4 outside of the OP and Yang’s nightmare, his fanbase were chomping at the bit to see their favorite abusive bull-headed jerk show up again. Volume 3 and 4 set the stakes for Adam’s comeback, and the inevitable rematch between himself, Blake and Yang. Heck, Yang’s focus song in Volume 4 was essentially all about what Adam’s attack did to her and how she was going to reciprocate the pain she felt on Adam’s skull stupid face. 

Regardless of how you looked at Adam, his rematch was anticipated. People were dreading and looking forward to it in equal measure, you could drown in the amount of fanart imagining the rematch. And then...

Well...

Yeah. 

So Adam’s portrayal at the end of Volume 5 was a bit poorly received. I personally take the most umbrage with “Blake teleporting into his sword strike” and “Adam going down and staying down for a good minute before getting back up from a strike that didn’t even get past his Aura.” But it wasn’t just Adam’s fanbase who were let down by the fight. Among Volume 5′s many, many fight letdowns (I will never not be over the blueballing that was Ruby, Blake and Weiss vs Hazel, Mercury and Emerald), this ranked high on the list since it combined so thoroughly with what can be generously described as a character derailment. Adam went from the cool, composed and utterly vicious juggernaut that crippled half of our protagonist team to... well just look up at those GIFs.

So what happened? Well, that’s what I’m going to try and answer. But first, we have to set the stage.

Adam in Volumes 1 through 3 was generally liked by the fandom. Tauradonna (the ship name for him and Blake) was a moderately appreciated ship at the time, and even among people who didn’t ship it, it provided some good old Angst for Blake in whatever ship people actually wanted her to be in. Adam was appreciated for his cool design (I’m a slut for men in suits), the mystery of his mask and his impressive weapon and fighting style. Coming off Metal Gear Rising, seeing Iadio in practice was a treat. And after Volume 3, Adam was in the “Love to hate” range. His reputation had been established in the fandom as an abusive monster, but one who was a terrifying nightmare to face on the battlefield and on his own, neutralized half of Team RWBY. Were it not for a lucky save by Blake, he’d have taken her scalp home with him. 

What’s especially important about his scene in Volume 3 is that while it establishes Adam as a deranged psychopath, he’s one that doesn’t lose his cool. The one time he raises his voice to Blake, it’s when he denounces her beliefs. “What you thought is impossible!” For the rest of the battle, Adam is chillingly calm, even in the face of defeat. When Blake tricks him with her Semblance, does Adam fly into a rage, start screaming and shooting at them as they run?

No. Adam just frowns and strides away, not even stopping to kill a Grimm that tries to kill him. His composure remains unbroken even as Blake flees away with Yang. He’s so sure in his victory that he turns his back to them and lets them run away, even when he could easily chase them and get the kill.

This is Adam’s last scene in Volume 3. It’s the last we see of him in person until Volume 5. That last shot stuck with the fans, Adam just... walking away, barely affected by what he had done while Yang would fall into the depths of PTSD and Blake would run with her tail between her legs, jumping at her own shadow. Like him or hate him, Adam was nonetheless a terrifying villain, mocked as he was for his edgy voice.

That’s the image that had settled in the eyes of the fandom, and would for nearly eighteen months. An abusive, cold, calculating, vicious, but composed and effective monster. One who wouldn’t even shout as he declared “I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love.” 

So jump cut to late 2017/early 2018. And, uh...

Adam, sweetie, what happened to you? You went from a person who barely frowned as the object of your twisted affections ran away to someone who screamed into your Facetime chats like a low-budget Kylo Ren. The hiatus has been mostly kind to Adam until Volume 5. Sienna says that he is seen as a symbol by many of the younger members of the Fang, Salem approaches him personally and sends an envoy in Hazel so he can gain more power. Two episodes into Volume 5, and Adam has nearly everything he could want except for Blake’s corpse at his feet. 

And yet despite Adam being one of, if not the only characters to come out of the hiatus smelling like roses, he’s been reduced to a child throwing a tantrum when in private. The cold, calculating figure stages a brazen coup in the heart of the White Fang when Sienna won’t play ball. Ideally, Adam shouldn’t be angry. He should be smug. And wouldn’t that make you, the viewer, hate him more than Adam just yelling about the Belladonna name? The one guy to walk out of Beacon better off than when he walked in being inconsolably smug about the events, that would make anyone loathe him. 

But instead, he’s lost it. 

So yeah, let’s stop beating around the bush, Adam’s character does a nearly complete 180 in terms of his depiction personality wise (not to mention fighting wise) and it’s a character shift that doesn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things. That much is obvious, Adam’s downfall was one of the more criticized moments in Volume 5′s... eh, let’s call them contentious... batch of finale episodes. Adam takes a nosedive in intelligence and falls for the same trick Blake played on him at Beacon with her shadowclone (nevermind that Adam and Blake worked together for years so that trick shouldn’t work once let alone twice)

So why did Adam suffer the cruelest fate of all, in character derailment? Why did he specifically go from his A-game to a joke in just one season?

Well, this is just theorycrafting, and I might make a full post about this one day, but I believe it’s because The Battle of Haven was rushed to fit in Volume 5 due to Miles and Kerry over-reacting to the backlash from Volume 4. 

Adam’s character derailment is actually part of the theory. I believe in the original draft for Volume 5 (which we know got a heavy rewrite close to the end of the production cycle) that the Battle of Haven was never going to be part of the volume, and that instead Volume 5 would focus on getting the pieces set up for the battle over Haven. We’d get moments like JNR meeting Pyrrha’s parents, Yang dealing with being a pariah since people still thought she maimed Mercury, and most importantly, Blake getting over Adam.

Outside of her scene with Sun where she personifies him as wrath, Blake never mentions Adam in Volume 5 while she’s in Menagerie. She never has a scene where she acknowledges that Adam essentially groomed her to be his lover or that he abused her. Think of how powerful it would be to see her not so much getting over Adam, as learning to swallow her fear so she could face him head-on next time they met (also it would give Kali something to do outside of  smashing Lanipator’s face in with a tray). Hell, think of what a great scene it would be between Blake and Ilia where Ilia learns just how depraved Adam truly is.  

But instead, Blake never acknowledges Adam. When they meet in Haven, she’s just over him, because “I have better things to do.” She’s content to just let Adam run away after lightly smacking him upside the head. Villain exit stage left, audience is too busy applauding Miles and Kerry for letting Blake just noclip through an entire character arc like a speedrunner. 

There’s a great post by @y8ay8a about how Adam’s downfall feels cheap because it feels like Miles and Kerry engaging in self-gratification at the cost of the story at large. Adam as a consequence of this rush to write a “Fuck Adam Taurus” moment has been weakened. He’s not a scary threat anymore, he’s not someone whose presence inspires dread like the old Adam was. And I feel like Adam can’t really be saved. Letting Blake beat him so thoroughly, and having Adam leave Haven by running with his tail between his legs has neutered him, and now I feel like the Yang and Adam rematch won’t have the impact, that moment of visceral satisfaction that it would have had Adam not even been at Haven. For the sake of a cheap “hell yeah!” moment that Blake never earned beyond “the plot says so,” Miles and Kerry have made Adam Taurus almost a caricature, a yandere that isn’t even good at being that. And that saddens me, Adam had so much potential as a villain that I don’t really get with the rest of WTCH or even Salem. He had presence, a personal connection with our heroes, and had the strength to back up his claims and be a genuinely scary threat- moreso than Hazel “How many children must die as I crush a child’s skull” Reinart. And now with Volume 5... he has a zipper. Was it worth it, Miles and Kerry? Was it worth ruining Adam’s potential so he could get some zippers like he’s guesting in Kingdom Hearts? 

Could Adam pull himself back from the brink? Maybe, but at this point Volume 5 would remain a black spot on Adam’s track record, one that his fans would never let him live down.

To close this post with an analogy, Blake beating Adam now is like eating candy every day. You get the sugar rush but it becomes predictable after enough time. But if you go a few days without indulging, earn it by hitting the gym and shaving off the pounds, when you finally treat yourself it feels all the better than just having it right there. 

Thank you for reading.