#what do you mean they're no just for dramatic uncanny effect

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BSD Rewatch Fisheye Compilation!!

all posts - ep1 - ep2

Starting off with this shot that evaded me in episode 1:

Episode 2 count: 1 (inverted fisheye, used twice)

Subtotal: 3

(btw if I miss one you can tell me, my poor attention span does not help me)

[quohotos]

what's something you would want to see in an animated adaptation of the underland chronicles?

Oh BOY where to begin?

These are going to be in no particular order...

Each trailer should have the prophecy read out in a dramatic voice. The trailer for the first one will go "And eight will be left when we count up the dead" and then a quick montage of some pretty scary shit happening but the cuts are too fast to see what's actually happening. The only exception to this is the marks of secret where the fact that the song is a prophecy is a reveal (however the song plays in full in the trailer, it's just structured different from the others)

The animation should be a little edgy. Give things hard angles, stay away from the bulbous smooth (Modern) Disney look.

Really go nuts with the bat designs. Embrace the warrior cats OC-ness of it. Let all the background bats be just as vibrant and wacky as the main cast.

Everyone's bond should sorta look like them, kinda the way that dogs kinda look like their owners. Solovet's bond should look like a total villain. Euripides should look like Vikus. I mean, Aurora's got that gold thing going on which Luxa also has with the crown. The bonds gotta look like they belong together spiritually.

The nibblers need to have more of a role before the marks of secret. Have them in the background of other shots, have them actually get lines in the jungle, see if they can be more present at the council discussing the plague, write some new scenes for them, etc. I wouldn't even be against them inventing a new nibbler character and putting them on one of the earlier quests. The audience should already know and care about them before we see them being horribly brutalized in a reenactment of a real world genocide.

Ares, and all the other bats for that matter, need to have very expressive eyes. They don't always get a lot of lines so they should still have a way to have visible presence in the scene's that they're in.

Every time the bats do that thing where they detect rats and their ears shoot up it should play a musical sting

All the underland creatures/factions should have their own leitmotif. Ripred's lieitmotif should be this uncanny blending of both the rat's theme but also with hints of the Regalians and Gregor's. After Gregor think's that boots has died in the labyrinth there should be this super dramatic and gutwrenching theme, and then all the music just stops for the rest of the movie until they reunite and then the music can come back. The most you get is like a minimalist drum and base sequence, but nothing properly melodic until we know that boots is safe.

The sequence Gregor escaping with Ares and Pearlpelt from the labyrinth should be all in one take.

Every time Gregor slips into the Rager state it should be accompanied by a recognizable sound effect sting and have it's own sound effect and muscial sting. Something like glass shattering mixed with reverb and pitch shifted down. Rager sequences should be in first person and show just how much he's dissociated from the violence he's doing. The audience just sees that split vision with all the weak points highlighted and one by one they get crossed out.

I hope they cast someone appropriately nasally to play Ripred, I think he should be a little high pitched and scrungly. However, I would make an exception if they somehow got Kieth David to voice him. I would be very unsatisfied if they cast Ryan Reynolds

I hope they cast someone with a deep voice to play Ares. He needs to be big and imposing and scary. He needs to be like the big kid at the playground. The fact that there's a more pained sensitive side to him needs to be a revelation. He needs to be a bit monstrous so you can understand why everyone sees him that way, and why he's dying not to be seen that way but has basically given up and accepted how the world sees him. I would be very Unsatisfied if they cast Ryan Reynolds. It would be fucking hilarious if they cast Chris Pratt... I would hate it but it would probably work and that makes me very mad.

I don't really care how Gregor is cast. Caleb McLaughlin would be a perfect Gregor, but he's all grown up now. He could probably still voice him but it wouldn't be the same. I do not care so long as it's not Ryan Reynolds.

Please don't have anyone call Gregor "Greg"... that just feels wrong. Well maybe Ripred would do it specifically to piss him off.

Henry needs to have a dumb haircut, like... it has to be stupid and ostentatious.

The audience should get to see Ripred from close to Gregor's perspective often. Have the camera right over his shoulder and tilted up to see just how tall this beast is.

Let us see more of the happy times that are alluded to at the start of the marks of secret. Even if it's just a montage, let us see them being normal. Let us see Gregor and Ares play that ball game and see the kids just hanging out. Please 😭

Make Gregor more talkative. There's great moments of internal monologue that could be lost in a screen adaptation, let him talk to Ares or Luxa or even temp about it.

In the code of claw Ares should go with him to the prophecy room to learn that he's going to die. Gregor should tell him about the stone knight and it can be something they share. You can even set it up with them doing the bond handshake there while laying on the floor so that it's a visual callback later (Fuck, I just thought of that and now I'm destroyed again).

I mentioned this in another post, but I think it would be cool to have Gregor get a walkman or other battery powered music player from the museum. They can have a few tunes to bond over, but eventually they have to take the batteries out to put them into flashlights.

A huge missed opportunity in the books is how basically every single human in the Underland we see is royalty or part of the military. I think it would be cool to let us see a bit more of how the regular people live. Maybe have one or two characters who aren't royal or soldiers.

Earlier entries should try to cut away from the violence, simply showing the character's reactions to the horrible things happening around them. Later entries should stop hiding it, paralleling the loss of innocence of the characters. By the code of claw Gregor and Ares, or at the very least Ripred, should be allowed to swear. There's no way you're getting that story on screen without at least a PG 13 rating, and these people just witnessed a genocide and are about to kill a bunch of people in a war. Gregor can say "Holy shit" instead of "aww Jeez" at least once. I also just think "What's your plaaaaaaan" is great but "What's your fucking plan?" lands pretty hard as well.

Don't make the underland too visible. Don't add global illumination. Let there be darkness, let there be long shadows, let us only barely see distant things. When Gregor finally gets echolocation then make the distant things visible through a strange shader... but cut out the bit where he can echolocate heat that makes no sense.

Ms. Cormaci needs to sound exactly like how she did in the audiobook, this isn't up for debate.

When the Bane calls Gregor and Ares to battle it needs to be one of the most disturbing, blood chilling things the audience has ever heard. It needs to be loud, and painful, and monstrous. You gotta see that the pup we all loved and coddled has fully lost it and become this fascist ball of hatred and murder and violence. It should cut through the audience's core and silence everything else in the scene. Just have it hold there after he's shouted, showing them locking eyes on each-other and cutting back in between the two. Yes, the Bane has completely been subsumed as a symbol of his side, but so has Gregor. He's in the black armor, he's the figurehead as well. There are parallels, y'all.

Let the Shiners be at least 20% less awful. They're funny, but let them have their hero moment where they're redeemed in the marks of secret rather than saving it for the end of code of claw.

Old Hamnet in the flashbacks to the flooding of the garden should be hot. Flashback Ripred who was there is of course also hot. He remains so in the present as well.

The narrative that Gregor is told in the first book, that the natives just let Sandwitch have the Underland because they weren't really using it... it's heavily implied that's a lie, especially after we learn about the Diggers and how they were genocided and basically expunged from history. I think there should be a direct callback to it, make this implication an explicit part of the story.

Give my girl Aurora some more lines. She goes on all these adventures and never gets to be more than "Luxa's bat".

Oh no I hit character limit for this post... uh... I have a lot of thoughts and I probably will have more in the future 😅. Probably way more than you asked for but you opened the floodgates and this was the result.

Thank you for the ask!

[cineflections]

Long post incoming

Some thoughts I had while watching ep4 of the Uncanny Counter season 1 (in a bulleted list):

• Man I've heard stories on how brutal bullies are in Korea, while I guess this particular "ganging up on 1 guy" isn't exclusive to Korea, the prevalence of bullying in kdramas is quite abundant.

• Cool fight sequence, all in first person. Could it perhaps be meant to indicate Wi-Gen's lack of control and seeing things from his perspective? It's cool, but is that all there is? I mean, is it there to just be a cool and unusual sequence, or is it symbolism? I remember that old Doom movie has a similar sequence, but that was to mimic and give homage to the video game it adapted. If it was to showcase Mun's rage, I kinda fail to see it. Yes, it is a brutal beat-up, but there's not enough visually showing it in the cinematography. There's a blur effect, but maybe they should've made it more pronounced like a tunnel vision or made him see red (literally)?

• And like I suspected, So Mun's power is to create a "territory". Just what was needed, seeing that his predecessor died because it disappeared.

• Of course, the rich parents come in and will not accept that their children should be punished. As if they're literally a "better man" than their "poor" peers. And Sugar Daddy comes to save the day again!

• "I bet you don't have a trillion won in your bank!

• Justice for all victims of bullies!

• That bully, the mayor's son, will definitely become possessed by a wandering soul. Or maaaaybe he will get powers from like a counter-like group but evil? He has too much screen-time by now that he will for sure play a bigger role as our boy's rival.

• The police are corrupt, the mayor and possibly others are corrupt. We do get the good cop woman, who faces obstacles at every turn.

• The plot regarding Mo-Tak's (attempted) murder and So Mun's parents' death is intriguing, and they were definitely involved with something. But what could that be? Has it to do with the counters? Or is it a plot separate from the main plot (although, since it's currently the only plot, I find that implausible)

• Hahah, Mo-Tak's face when finding out him and the girl cop were together once.

• "I can't lose the counter job. Wi-Gen promised I'd meet my parents if I did good as a counter" - boy, 🤦‍♀️ you violated one of their rules, that "if" is no longer in play..... you did not do good, lmao.

• Hahahah everyone just fainting by transferring to the other side. But man, Chu Mae Ok mvp: "Don't mess with my baby!" Paraphrasing, but YES!

• Hahaha, Mo-Tak doing a superhero landing on their table 🤣 😂

• I'm pretty sure Wi-Gen has already decided. She's just keeping her mouth shut for dramatic effect. She's probably dying inside from all the drama around her.

• Like why is that lady there. Why is she so disagreeable? (Talking about Mo-Tak's afterlife partner)

• The afterlife group. Is that like a family? Grandma, and three grandchildren??

• Netflix should really fix the subtitles. Sometimes they are late to show up and then, they disappear in a flash to make room for the next sentence... if the show had been in Japanese I might have been able to understand some of what they're saying, but Korean is beyond me except for certain words, so I'm afraid I'm missing out on key info sometimes.

• Wait wait wait. Omg really. So the mayor or whoever is in a sauna? Looks like one. I was wondering why the fuck they still look so wet? Like even if you immediately get into it after a shower your skin dries in like a minute or two. But these guys are still dripping. (Pls excuse the literal screenshots)

• Lmao they really be doing sauna in 43 degrees Celsius?? You mofos are weak af. 🤣🤣🤣🤣. My parents have a sauna in their house, and we never use it under 75 degrees, and that is low by our standards. My dad goes up to 90 degrees at times!

• And they keep the door open and let all the warmth out!

• So the mayor is renting land from another rich old dude, who thinks they are hiding something illegal? He doesn't seem to be a good guy either since he probably has connections to the corrupt cops. That old man will for sure die by the mayor's hand.

• Wow that was quick. Getting a hitman?

• Oh wait, the "hitman" is the guy's son? Adopted? Guardian relationship? Cuz that relationship is one sided. Daddy issues galore.

• Wuuuuuuut??! Mae Ok's partner is her own son? Damn that's kinda sad. And who is the girl in his wedding picture? Should I know her? And he can't find deaths from 2013 and So Mun's parents. Maybe that means they aren't dead? But there's corruption even in the afterlife, it seems. Intriguing.

• Oh, So Mun got his father's number.

• So "hitman" is a hitman and got powers. Possibly level 3? But that's a bit weird. Maybe that soul will transfer to mayor's son? Or the mayor and his goonies have a deal with the corrupt part of the afterlife?

Well, I'll find out as I progress. But I don't have time to continue today!

[theradioghost]

Okay so MAYBE I've been reading too much Xmen but I'm really into the idea of characters meeting their time displaced future kids and I'd die to see a Penumbra version? Bonus points if they're from ~the darkest timeline~ where their parents are dead 🖤🖤 (I love u and your headcanons so much ur a gift to us all)

ohhhh, Anon, I have spent the last two weeks binging arsPARADOXICA, and trust me when I say right now my head is full of future selves and dark timelines and people making terrible, terrible decisions with time travel. consequently this may have gotten away from me and I may have written this instead of taking notes in my last class, but please accept this totally unbeta’d 2.5k.

The person following Nureyev down the alleyway was good; very good. No one else would have heardher footsteps, mirroring his exactly, without echo. She could have crept up onanyone else.

But not on him, which seemed almost a shame as he spun, caughther, had her pinned to the ground in a heartbeat. He’d never been one forprolonging a fight, and he’d never had the brute strength for the kind ofhand-to-hand that Juno went in for; but his spouse had insisted that Nureyevbroaden his technique to include a number of useful throws and holds after afew too many close shaves and a few too many dead bodies. And besides, he had afew questions.

“Now,” he said politely, pressing the swearing girl’s faceinto the pavement. She really was a girl, barely out of her teens at theoutside, and he was glad he hadn’t gone for the knife. “We meet at last.”

“Get off!”

“After all,” he continued, unperturbed, “aren’t you the onewho’s been trying to interfere with my work for the past week and a half?Trying very admirably, I’ll admit. This was uncharacteristically clumsy of you.So, who hired you?”

“I’m not working for anyone.” Her voice was impressivelypetulant, considering it was muffled by most of his weight and the grittyconcrete beneath her.

“I don’t appreciate lying,” Nureyev said. “You’re certainlyvery talented for your age, but not talented enough, I think, to have had thekind of information on me which you clearly do. Those pitfalls were very personalized. You know how I work,which means you’re with someone I’ve workedwith before. Or worked against. It makes no difference. If you were foolishenough to try mugging me in an alleyway, they can’t have told you enough aboutme.”

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.

“Wrong again. I’m making a profit off yours,” Nureyev said,placing his knee in the center of her back and hearing the air leave her withan oof. He loosened his hold justenough to reach down and begin rifling through her pockets, the work of onlyseconds; she wasn’t carrying much, although he noticed some kind of sleek,complex personal device which wrapped all the way around her arm. It was alittle petty, perhaps, but the prospect of rethinking his technique enough toevade this mysterious new adversary was irritating, even as it excited him.Juno would be furious.

As soon as he touched the device, the girl started tostruggle far more desperately. “Do nottake that,” she said. “That is a bad, bad idea – ”

He tightened his grip, and something on thedevice beeped. There was a second ofrapidly gaining white noise, a sensation of heat, a bright flash –

Nureyev sprawled backwards on the concrete of the alley, thegirl next to him. There was someone coming around the corner, he realizedblurrily, disoriented; he could hear the footsteps.

He could have half sworn that the girl ran with him behind the storage container,but at any rate, they ended up pressed against the metal, Nureyev twisting herarms up behind her back with one hand and covering her mouth with the other,but not really paying attention because he was staring through a chink in themetal at himself, walking down thealleyway.

It was unmistakable, a living mirror. Nureyev knew ahologram when he saw one, and this wasn’t it. And when the girl’s doppelgangerappeared around the corner, following behind him, and his own double turned andpinned her to the ground, a surreal, impossible thought occurred to him.

The other Nureyev reached for the girl’s wrist; she tried topull away, and both of them vanished.

There was a long silence, broken only by the muffled soundsof the city at the end of the alleyway and the dripping of water from a nearbypipe. Then Nureyev lifted his hand off the girl’s mouth and said, “You have tenseconds to explain what just happened.”

“You’re not stupid, it’s obviously a time machine,” the girlsaid hurriedly. “I’m from the future and I’m trying to help you.”

Nureyev frowned. “So you’re not the person who’s been sabotaging me?”

A pause. “Uh, no. I am,” she said. “That’s how I’m helpingyou.”

“Excellent logic,”he said. “What just happened?”

“There’s an emergency switch on the device,” she said. “Movesyou in time one minute. You activated it.”

He considered it. And to his surprise, he believed it. Afterall, he’d seen stranger. Or things as strange,at least.

“You could let me go now,” the girl suggested hopefully.

“Alright,” Nureyev said, not letting go. “Let’s presume thatyou are, in fact, from the future. I think what you need to tell me now is whyI should believe that you’re sabotaging me for my own good.”

A pause, and then she said, “I know your name is PeterNureyev.”

Nureyev considered this for a second. Then he twisted one ofher arms ever so slightly further. “Certainly a dramatic choice,” he said. “Butjust as much of a threat as an assurance. Who are you, then, that you wouldknow my name? What’s yours?”

“Mona,” the girl yelped. “Harmonia, Harmonia Steel, go easy!”

Every one of Nureyev’s trains of thought stopped and rerouted to the same destination. “Steel,” he said. “What do you mean, Steel?”

“It means that you and Juno weren’t stupid enough to give meyour last name, Dad,” the girl snapped. “Now would you let me go?”

All of the strength he was not using to hold her down was suddenly going to making sure his hands did not start to shake. “Prove it,” he said.“Give me one piece of evidence that actuallyproves – ”

“He didn’t call you Peter until your wedding vows and whenyou asked he said he was scared of being the first person to say it to you intwenty years but it seemed stupid to leave it out,” Mona said, all in onebreath. “You two bicker constantly about whether sawdust coffee is even worthdrinking, he has a birthmark on his lower left back and you like to poke himthere to make him jump, you’re allergic to shellfish but he still doesn’t know because you think itmakes you look silly – ”

His hands seemed to let go, his legs to move him up and awayfrom her a step or two of their own accord. Nureyev stared at her, observingwith new eyes, awed eyes. “You’re…”

“I’m your daughter,” Mona said, rolling upright with awince. “And wow, you are heavier thanyou look.”

Nureyev looked at her – a young woman, sharp-eyed,tentatively smiling at him after her attempt at joking. A young woman smilingat her father, a young woman that hehad raised – that he would raise, andwho had, improbably, arrived in his now. Itall made sense, of course – he wouldn’t have admitted it for a heartbeat, butthe uncanny accuracy with which his previously unknown adversary had beenanticipating his every move had frustrated and spooked him. But that wasperfectly reasonable if she’d learned them straight from him. If he’d raisedher to the job.

He felt sick.

“You’re a thief,” he said flatly. “I don’t know what I’ll belike in the future, but let me tell you, in the present I do not approve.”

“Oh, hell, no,” Mona said. “No, you and Juno, both of youtaught me a few things, but believe me, there were always two big rules in ourhome, no growing up to be a thief or a detective. Both of you are gonna be really emphatic about that.”

“Then what do youdo?”

“I’m working on it,” she said. “I was thinking anthropology?Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that, it was a joke. Anyway, I’m not here togive you spoilers for the next twenty years.”

Nureyev caught the thought that he had at least twenty goodyears with Juno coming up, and filed it away to spend some time with when there was not business toattend to. “Alright then, Mona. Tell me, why did you travel twenty years intothe past to mug your father in an alleyway?”

“Someone hired you to steal a data chip from the Duchess ofNew Ithaca,” she said. “I’ve been trying to stop you without having to tell you all of this, and maybe screw upour entire timeline.”

“Unfortunately I think it’s too late for that on a number ofcounts, dear,” Nureyev said, reaching into his pocket. On its chain, the datachip caught the dim light of the alleyway, and its crystal circuits sparkled. “You’vetold me everything, and I’ve already stolen the chip.”

“I know,” she said miserably. “This was my last resort – I thoughtmaybe if I could steal it back off you I could return it quick enough.”

Nureyev stared at her. “And you decided to do that bysneaking up behind me in an alleyway,” he said, half in disbelief.

“…I’m Juno’s daughter too?”

Caught off guard, he laughed, and she did too, for half amoment. “Wow,” she said, “this is… so weird.You just look so young.”

“I take it I’ve gone gray in the future, then,” Nureyevsighed. “Hm? No? Oh, no, I haven’t gone bald, have I?”

The smile had faded from Mona’s face, and she stared at him,as though she didn’t know how to find the words. “In the future,” she saidslowly, “where I came from – when Icame from, you’re – you’re dead.”

He stopped laughing, and looked back at her, the anguish inher eyes.

“That’s why I’m trying to stop you,” she said. “It’s – we don’treally understand yet, you know, how this thing works, what effects it willhave – it’s half cannibalized Martian teleporter and half Dark Matters tech andwe’re half sure that if you create a paradox with it it’ll tear apart realityitself – but I had to, because yousteal that chip, and twenty-four hours later they realize it’s missing, andunless that doesn’t happen, unless it’s notgone by that time, then there’s nothing I can do, nothing that will stopthe chain of events that ends in twenty years with the Duchess killing you, andnow it’s too late.”

Twenty good years.

Nureyev had been roped into watching a few of Rita’s showson occasion, and time travel was a surprisingly frequent plot point. Hesincerely doubted the programs were what you might call scientifically accurate, but he’d paid enough attention to be awareof the theoretical problems of changing your own past. And he’d paid attentionwhen Mona said tear apart reality itself.

“There’s no other course?” he asked, very quietly.

“I had one shot,” she said. She wasn’t crying despite herchoked voice, which didn’t surprise him; he had no doubt that he and Juno wouldbe more than anxious to do their best as parents, but both of them were awfully good at bottling things up. “Itried everything I could think of, and I can’t just go back and do it over. IfI meet myself, that could be the end of everything.Literally everything, the entire universe. And knowing it’ll happen isn’t – isn’tgoing to help you.”

That settled that, then. This had been the tightest, mostfinely planned heist of his career, and the obstacles Mona had given him hadcut it yet closer. There were no further gaps, no place left to jam themachinery, much less without paradoxically contacting himself.

“Mona,” he said, as gently as he could manage. He didn’tknow this girl, didn’t love her yet, but the knowledge that he would, the wayshe was looking at him, the fact of a kid of not more than eighteen or nineteenwith the life or death of their father in their hands, weighed against uncountable lives  –

The world, or your life. Everyone else, or the one whomattered. He knew the choice he’d make.

“Mona, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry that fate has led ushere. And I want you to know that I don’t blame you.” He put one hand overhers. “So I want you to go back. Go home.”

“You – ”

“I’ve always known the risks, my darling,” he said, managinga sad smile. He even meant it, in that moment, he really, truly did. “This isnot a job that tends to lead to a long life, after all – but you’ve just given me that, Mona. Twenty years is –is more than I ever could have expected. Twenty years with you and Juno is morethan I could have ever dreamed of. I nevercould have predicted such a piece of happiness coming into my life as Juno –I never could have predicted you,Mona. And knowing will make every second of it that much more precious. So go back and take care of him for me.”

Mona stared at him in disbelief for a second, and then hereyes hardened. “Dad,” she said, “she killed Juno, too.”

Nureyev’s world stopped.

“What?”

“I can’t stop that either,” she said. “This was my onlychance. All or nothing. I took a gamble and I lost.”

Juno was dead.

No, he thought, forcing his mind to organize, forcinghimself to think – no, Juno was fine, safe on Mars, safe for another twentyyears. But then, yes, dead.

Peter Nureyev reconsidered his decision.

The near-certain risk of ending reality itself. Or living twentycontented years knowing he’d done nothing to save the life of Juno Steel.

Absolutely everything ending. Or a universe that kepthappily, blindly turning, but without Juno Steel in it. Either way, no Juno.And then the slimmest chance of saving him.

He weighed the options. It wasn’t a hard choice. Not evenclose.

“Well, then, Mona,” he said, brushing alley grime off hiscoat. “You’ve been acting here for about two weeks, yes? Back three weeks, thistime, I think that should be enough – ”

“I told you,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything elseI can do. You’re unstoppable on thisjob. You bragged about it my whole life. I’ve had fifteen years to figure itout and I still couldn’t do it.”

“You very nearly did,” Nureyev said. “But you’re you, Mona, and not quite me, for which I’mvery thankful. And you’d need a thief exactly as experienced as I am to come upwith a way to stop me from stealing that chip.”

“Which I’m not,” Mona said. “I know.”

“No,” he replied brightly. “But I am. And really, isn’t beating yourself at your own best con infinitely more worthbragging about?”