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mediaevalmusereads · 3 years

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The Alienist. By Caleb Carr. New York: Random House, 1994.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, mystery, suspense

Part of a Series? Yes, The Kreizler Series #1

Summary: The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: ableism, homophobia/transphobia, racism (including slurs), sexism, rape, abuse, child abuse and sexual assault, child prostitution, animal cruelty, blood, gore, violence

Overview: This book has been on my TBR list for a while, so I figured I’d finally get around to reading it. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the reading experience. Carr writes in a way that pretty closely imitates 19th century detective fiction, and while such a style might not be for everyone, I thought it went a long way in creating atmosphere. My criticisms have mostly to do with pace and the creative decisions that probably didn’t have to be made (such as depictions of child sexual assault, use of slurs, etc), but even with those faults, I have to give Carr’s craft and research a lot of credit, so this book gets 4 stars from me.

Writing: As I mentioned above, this book mimics detective fiction of the 19th century. If you’ve read any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, you might get the idea: first person, characters displaying almost whimsical behavior, stuffed with contextual details that may or may not be relevant. At first, I thought the reading experience was going to be a slog, but once I realized what Carr was trying to do, I readjusted my expectations and found the prose to be quite engaging. If you like 19th century literature, you might appreciate what Carr does, but if you find older lit to be a challenge, this book might not be the thriller you’re hoping for.

That being said, I do think there were some areas where Carr could have picked up the pace or even cut some of the contextual details. It’s obvious that Carr did a lot of research before writing this book, and it’s understandable that he would want to show off some of that research, but there were times where I felt like it was a little much.

I also think there are a lot of things in this book that will offend modern sensibilities. I recall at least one use of the N-word (which is spoken by a racist minor character) as well as remarks that make it clear that characters think same-sex intimacy is “deviant” or abhorrent. I can understand why Carr put them in his book; if we’re trying to evoke an atmosphere and make the story feel like it’s set in the 19th century, it’s not realistic to expect everyone to be accepting of gay sex or treat POC with respect. But also, I think it’s on Carr to bear the responsibility of creating plot points and characters that have those attitudes in the first place. The character who uses the N-word could have easily not done so, and characters could have been more clear that their revulsion was at child prostitution rather than same-sex relationships.

Still, I was able to follow the plot with no problem and the sentences flowed in a way that made the reading experience feel quick (no 10-line sentences, thank god). So while there may be some things I would have liked to see adjusted to fit my own tastes, I think Carr did a wonderful job of making me feel like I was reading an older work.

Plot: The plot of this book follows a group of investigators as they try to use psychology to catch a serial killer. As far as being an “original” or unique thriller, this book doesn’t necessarily deliver a plot we haven’t seen before; but what made it so interesting (at least to me) was that it was less interested in the thrill of catching the killer and more interested in thinking through the “whys.” Why did the killer do X? Why did he do Y and Z when he could have done A or B? In this sense, the suspense doesn’t come from the action or the “chase,” but from the building of ideas and a foggy picture becoming more and more clear.

If I can fault Carr for anything, it’s that I think he crafted his mystery around some subjects that are... touchy (for lack of a better word). Most of the murder victims are children - specifically child prostitutes - and a lot of the killer’s motivations are rooted in some combination of racism and exposure to abuse. If you’re looking for a book which handles these issues with sensitivity, I think you’ll be disappointed. But I have to give Carr some credit for not overly sensationalizing these things; for example, while he did include characters who were racist towards Native Americans, he also included characters who were sympathetic and who insisted on not judging tribes for their defensive violence. Not everything is perfect, and there were some moments that made me uncomfortable, but I felt like Carr painted a complex picture of 19th century America, so I was able to keep going.

Characters: The plot of this book is told from the perspective of John Schuyler Moore - a newspaper reporter who teams up with his friend, eminent psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, to catch a serial killer. As a protagonist, Moore isn’t overly compelling - he’s more like a neutral, blank slate that the reader can project themselves onto. He serves much of the same function as Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories: to be a witness to other characters’ brilliance while occasionally making some helpful insights. Still, I didn’t outright hate Moore - he was kind and loyal, and I admired how he went out of his way to try to help people.

Kreizler, the psychologist (or “alienist” as they were called in those days), is somewhat of a Sherlockian character in that he’s eccentric, confident, and had abilities that stun the people around him. For the most part, Kreizler was fun to follow. I think the only times I got truly frustrated with him were when he would allude to some knowledge and then leave Moore in the dark - like “aha! This thing is obvious!” “What thing?” “No time to explain! I’ll tell you at dinner!” Those moments were a little irritating.

Sarah, the most prominent female character, was more complex than I expected her to be. She has clear career aspirations and doesn’t let anyone hold her back, and I liked that she was presented as this kick-ass woman who still felt human. She struggles when faced with the horrors of the murder, but she doesn’t let the horror put her off of her task. She’s confident and never seems to have a moment of self-doubt (which is refreshing). She notices interpersonal things without being boxed in as “the woman who notices emotions.” Granted, Sarah does serve some token function - she’s brought on in order to provide a “female perspective,” which was a little frustrating, but she held her own so well that my annoyance melted away.

Marcus and Lucius, the two brothers who work for the police department, are also quite charming characters. I loved how they brought technical expertise to the group by being knowledgeable about anatomy, fingerprints, photography, and the like, and I especially enjoyed the way they bickered with one another. Their presence immediately made scenes feel lighter, and they brought something of a family aspect to the whole band.

Supporting characters were well-crafted in that no two felt quite the same. Teddy Roosevelt (yes, that one) was cheerful and warm while still demanding absolute cooperation and loyalty from his men. Cyrus and Stevie - two of Kreizler’s employees - were charming, though I wish Cyrus had gotten to do more than just kind of silently stand by awaiting orders. Mary - Kreizler’s maid - was a lovely character, and I appreciated the positive disability representation we got with her, though I do not like how her character arc ended and how it related to the main plot. The crime bosses were intimidating without feeling too much like stock characters, the thugs did their job. I don’t think there was a character that was poorly written, just characters who served purposes that may or may not have been needed.

As for the murderer... we don’t get to see him very much, but I felt like I got to know him because so much of the book was focused on mapping out his life and psychology. It worked much better than books where the antagonist is looming off to the side, acting as a vaguely threatening force but not really a character, and one that doesn’t even show up until the last quarter of the book. When the killer finally does appear on page, I felt like he had been involved in the story, even without being physically present, so I was able to accept him as an active force on the narrative, not just a surprise twist at the end.

TL;DR: The Alienist is a well-crafted mystery that uses atmosphere and psychology to create an engaging mystery. While some readers may struggle with the period-like prose or the more disturbing aspects of the story, Carr creates a compelling narrative by focusing on understanding and knowledge over spectacle and action, and by using well-developed characters.

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eldritch-elrics · 3 years

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svsss: the (not so) grand return of peerless cucumber

so a LOT happened in the chapters i read last night (44-49) and i have. SO many thoughts

not as many as i had right after i read but i really had to go to bed so i couldn’t write them all up.....

i put some reactions in individual posts but i’ll repeat them here!

first of all. shang qinghua. fucked off to the demon realm. like, good for him? but also. i want to see my boy

binghe keeping sqq’s body??? xue yang vibes OFF the charts

so I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MUSHROOM PLOT

i love how every so often sv will hit me with a twist that is SO up my alley that i just. lose it a little bit

HE MADE HIMSELF A CLONE BODY OUT OF MAGICAL MUSHROOMS AND TRANSPORTED HIS SOUL INTO IT.

i love mushroom shit and i love bodyswapping and. my god.

the fact that sqq has died twice and been forced to inhabit 3 different bodies??? wei wuxian wishes he were this cool

sidenote but the mental image of sqq doing radio calisthenics in the forest is really funny. or maybe it’s just funny to me because of the associations i have with this one time in japanese class?

sqq’s new body looking like a cross between shen yuan and shen qingqiu is really interesting and perhaps... symbolic....?

also hey does this mean he doesn’t have to deal with the cureless poison anymore. i assumed that it would be cured in his eventual sexytimes with binghe but hmmm i guess not!

the point where i really lost it was when he realized he was disconnected from the system. i know now that it wasn’t permanent but that was just so interesting, how much he hates it and wants it gone. which makes sense! even though it has helped him get out of bad spots at times, it’s a sign that he’s not really from this world. now i’m just really curious what’s gonna happen to the system at the end of the novel. maybe it’ll shut off once he achieves the “goal” it’s seemed to have set for him and gets together with lbh?

also i’m glad that sqq seems to have matured a little bit in terms of his people skills / problem solving skills? though uh. remains to be seen how he’ll act in front of binghe when binghe realizes who he is

it also seems like i was completely wrong about sqq’s motivations for sacrificing himself lol. lot more selfish than i thought? but it makes sense! fun twist

mxtx sure likes to have her protagonists execute plots that they don’t tell the reader about until after they happen lol (i’m thinking of the golden core transfer)

uhh back to plot reactions

love the running joke about peerless cucumber. also the demon names... six balls <3

also hold on a minute, peerless cucumber is a dick joke? lmao

thank you airplane for making it clear binghe has a big dick. absolutely vital character information

so i’ve said this before but sqq’s narration really CARRIES this novel. here i’m thinking specifically about his diatribe against sha hualing’s nails

shl is pretty fun. sexy evil lady!

sqq can turn his fan into a blade. nie huaisang get ON that smh

yang yixuan my beloved!

also HAHA i predicted that sqq’s super mushroom powers could help the xin mo thing and i was RIGHT

so sqq is just. SO invested in getting the plot back on track. like with all the harem members and stuff. it’s so funny because like bro. surely you’ve noticed by now that things are going very differently than in pidw. and also... you don’t WANT to go back on the pidw track bc that would kill you!!!

so the system reactivates when binghe turns up right? i am thinking about. the fact that when it tries to reboot it’s like “contacting customer service”

WHO IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

it’s so interesting because like... obviously the whole system thing is so much bigger than just A Book? it’s even got airplane trapped inside it. and he’s the fucking author! who is running this thing? and for what purpose?

sqq listening in on the gossip about how lbh is DEFINITELY obsessively in love with him was SO funny. poor man

so binghe. he has become so COLD

i don’t like it :(

once more. my dude go to therapy.

wait also random but sqq has a beard now and for some reason that’s so funny to me

life at the palace seems terrible lmao no one is doing ok

smh, mxtx protags keep dying and staying dead for huge amounts of time and then coming back in different bodies

the fact that binghe’s happiest memories are training with sqq :(

THE FACT THAT BINGHE IS ABSOLUTELY SHIT AT KISSING

my god. that entire scene

went from “awwww headpats” to “AAAAAAAA”

the fact that the system congratulates him i’m sjkdhgjhsdhgjsds poor sqq.... didn’t ask for this shit.......

after 50 chapters, he’s finally realized he turned the male lead gay <3 say goodbye to all those funny oblivious moments!

i had to stop there because it was way too late at night but wow. we shall see how this relationship progresses

i can’t see it improving anytime soon but at least sqq knows lbh likes him now???

i had a LOT of thoughts last night but now i’m pretty much just like. i really need to see where it goes before i make any judgements on bingqiu

rn i’m not a big fan because 1. sqq is so wildly uncomfortable (understandable lol, even if lbh thinks it’s just a dream) and 2. lbh is very obsessive and that’s not really my favorite trope. but like it’s obviously not meant to be a healthy relationship, at least definitely not right now, and i do like some good fucked up romance! i’m excited to see the developments where sqq realizes what his real feelings are

i’m also fairly neutral on binghe as a character atm. his main personality traits seem to be “obsessed with sqq” and “trying not to die from evil sword qi poisoning” and i don’t find that all that compelling? between him and lwj i have to say that mxtx’s love interest characters are not really my favorite, though i wouldn’t say i dislike either of them.

furthermore i’m slightly concerned with how lbh’s “i’m the main character and i get what i want” attitude is gonna affect the romance. i know there’s some dubconny stuff later which i can’t say i’m excited for but i am excited to see how binghe’s character is gonna develop in general

my aspirations for bingqiu is that they’re both able to eventually break free of the expectations of the system

because, look at this from sqq’s pov. there’s this ai in your head that has, for literal years, been steering you towards a romance that you (at least outwardly) don’t want. isn’t that fucking terrifying? i love it. the system (at least how i see it) has been bending the established plot of the world in order to make this happen. it’s like fate but you can see the gears turning.

and even if sqq does end up liking lbh back, can you imagine the existential crisis of like. wondering if he really CHOSE to get with binghe or if he was somehow compelled to by the system which acts based on binghe’s emotions?

i think that would be so interesting

however what i think is Actually going to happen (based on that one time when airplane was like “hey cucumber, uh, is lbh just a character to you or is there more...”) is that sqq is gonna realize that he’s had a bit of a crush on binghe since reading pidw and is only just now dealing with his internalized homophobia. so him getting together with binghe has less strings attached

i think there’s some opportunity here for a commentary on the soulmate trope? because svsss is just so steeped in themes about agency and fate. i think that would be really cool but we’ll have to see. i feel like the ending is gonna be simpler and happier than i want it to be but obviously i cannot make any judgements yet! i’m just having Thoughts :)

so, i also read one of the extras (the one where he goes with lqg to battle succubi) because the translation i’m reading recommended it! it was pretty fun

sqq SO clueless. like i get it, he doesn’t think he’s into anything other than Pretty Cis Women, but. sqq we’ll work on this

also ASKING LQG IF HE’S A VIRGIN. sqq literally stop

(that was so funny though)

liu qingge ACE RIGHTS

actually lqg’s outburst in this chapter was kind of bizarre and can be explained in a few different ways i think?

i really like the idea of him being aroace. thinks true love doesn’t exist etc

i feel like the intended implication of lqg’s outburst is that he’s realized madame meiyin is referring to binghe and is like “holy shit no sqq can’t be with Him”

maybe lqg is just homophobic?

but i. also kind of wonder if lqg is gay and in love with sqq? and is just putting up the “such deep love doesn’t exist” thing because he really doesn’t want sqq to know

there was that whole line where the succubus was like “well you’re not his soulmate you don’t know” and it made me think

on the other hand i can’t really see lqg liking sqq that way; they seem to have more of a Bro Bond

then again lqg does keep fighting binghe for sqq’s sake

either headcanon is fun! i’d be excited for more insight into lqg in general i think

#my god this is long #svsss #svsss spoilers #finn reads scum villain #my post

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g-perla · 3 years

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The ACOTAR Series is a Romantic/Gothic Horror Stage and Only Nesta Got the Memo

Not even SJM knows what’s going on.

Ok, this is going to seem off the rails but bear with me.

So I'm a big fan of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (top 5 books and all that jazz) and I was thinking about it because it deals with themes of the Other and the supernatural, Nature as Character, the overlap of the animalistic and human, blurring of established binaries...fun, Romantic shit like that. Interestingly, this overlaps with how SJM illustrates her world and characters a lot of the time, hence why I was considering it while working on my Nesta project. I’ve mentioned before that Nesta really gives me Byronic heroine vibes and that’s a character construct of precisely this literary tradition.

I started thinking about Heathcliff and Cathy and how they're ridiculously extra and just feel the most intense emotions towards each other but also towards literally everything (nothing half-assed ever, this is a Romantic novel after all). I then remembered how so many people ship them, but like in earnest, in a totally aspirational way. It's not a #cursed ship to them at all. It's...romantic to them not Romantic. I even read often that people quote it at their weddings, specifically the infamous "two souls" quote.

Then I had an epiphany. I was like "wait, what if SJM is one of those people?? What if she has the energy of a Cathy/Heathcliff earnest shipper and that's why all her ships are messy??" Because if that is the case, my friends, oh boy oh boy would it explain so much. I will post some sections from Wuthering Heights:

Doesn’t the acotar series seem like a 1/50 dilution of that energy?? And that is barely a taste of all the spiciness this book has to offer. To illustrate further: SJM gave us the F/eysand suicide pact and the near-death battlefield Nessian scene. One is certainly more outlandish than the other, but both are the result of intense emotions. To that Emily Brontë raises the following: Heathcliff asking the sexton to dig up Cathy’s grave to see what’s up because her ghost has been haunting him since he personally dug up her grave 18 years prior and she has been haunting him ever since. He later demands to be buried in the same exact grave when he dies so they can decompose together. They both married other people though which only adds to the mess. (I am not lying to you the Romantic tradition really gave us these gems lmao. As an aside, Mary Shelley was also a writer of the Romantic tradition and she confessed her love to husband Percy Bysshe Shelley on her mother’s grave. Her mother was liberal feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft by the way which only makes this even more amazing. Additionally, biographers believe that the Shelleys also had sex there. Talk about Romantic 😉.)

Then I had ANOTHER thought! (Dangerous)

If we read the series from the point of view of just another YA high fantasy things might get a bit boring because the world-building is honestly lazy and the magic system is pretty soft, which isn’t a pre-requisite in high fantasy (The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system) but it's not the norm and it doesn't pay off in this series. Not to mention that the plot is pretty lackluster and derivative. To add to that the romantic and sexual relationships are questionable in their healthiness and consequently are the source of much argument in the fandom.

But, dear reader, if we think about the ACOTAR series as being a sort of thematic and ideological 21st century YA homage to the Romantic tradition of the 19th century (within which Gothic Horror also lives), things get REALLY, REALLY SPICY.

No longer do we just have a romance fantasy with messy, hyper-emotional, animalistic characters who constantly partake in morally grey situations rife with dubious dynamics. No longer does plot really matter. No longer do we require quasi-scientific descriptions of the world and the magical system. No! All that matters now are the characters and the mood. Now we have potential! Add a lot of Nature ambiance: expanses of dark woods, great mountains, the unknowable and sublime energy of the ocean, a violent rainstorm/hurricane/tsunami, an impending snowstorm whose intensity reflects the growing emotional intensity of the characters as the story goes along (I’m looking at you impending snowstorm in acofas that curiously matches the growing complexity of Nesta’s emotional state). Blur the lines between any imaginable category: life and death, human and animal, known and unknown, Self and Other, beautiful and monstrous, good and evil, masculine and feminine, the list goes on. Most importantly make your readers uncomfortable by frustrating their desires to sort things into easy binary categories and don’t apologise for making them question their assumptions about the world, morality, gender, and any other kind of previously constructed Order.

Basically write the story with Dionysus-in-a-Greek-tragedy energy and bring to us mere mortals artful Chaos.

Once that is done we can have a literal Romantic/Gothic Horror story. The Acotar series could have been this unapologetically, with the added element of being told through the eyes of the "Cathy" character instead of through the lens of a third person getting second-hand accounts about what went on. This whole series is honestly enough of a chaotic mess of Byronic-like heroes and heroines and cursed familial relationships that it could have been that. That alone is peak entertainment. The problem, however, and the main reason why I can’t really say that this series truly delivered this wackiness is that SJM committed the act of not fully committing to the bit (very un-Romantic of her, I know). Now, I am not saying that SJM actually intended this. I’m just saying it really could have accidentally been this genius with some tweaks. Unfortunately, she made the crucial mistake of trying to justify too much, trying to make things too neat, too tidy, too sensical (in other words: the reason we really can’t have nice things).

I could end this here, lamenting the potential of what SJM had set-up for us were it not for one element, one gift:

Nesta

OHOHOHO DO THINGS GET GOOD HERE SO BUCKLE UP

Most of the characters refuse to fully commit to the bit in their desire to satisfy modern sensibilities, by which I of course mean they want ridiculous things like political power, to conquer lands, to be a Girl Boss, to get married, have kids, celebrate holidays, converse about mundane things, be relatable, etc. You know, pretty pedestrian stuff that only requires a bit of genetic luck, a sprinkle of energy, and the right circumstances within the world of Acotar. I would like to reiterate the beginning of this paragraph: most of the characters.

Let’s say you’re stubborn and you decide to still read the series through the lens of the Romantic/Gothic tradition, what happens then?

The most hilarious thing (for the Nesta stans that is. The antis would probably hate this)

Nesta, based on what we know about her through Feyre and the limited amount of other scenes, is the only character who really takes the performance seriously. She's the only one that SJM hasn't managed to confine through justification. Nesta just shows up and simply refuses to make sense (her POWER what a queen 👑). She is endlessly fascinating because she just exists in her world on her terms, established categories be damned, and in this manner she frustrates not only the sensibilities of the characters in the stories but those of the reader as well. This double duty is, I suggest, the result of the other characters not fully inhabiting the nebulous world of Romantic characters and thus being a little too plausible and understandable even if they are not justifiable.

Ok, you may say, but I relate so much to Nesta. I do understand her. I don’t justify all of her actions, but I understand where she is coming from. (You’re not alone, friend. I like to think these things too. Alas, we are but plebs).

To that I reply; Nesta does things, certainly, and we can spend hours trying to explain through extrapolation, educated guesses, and personal experience why she did those things, but the fact is we really don't know why. We are never explicitly told. Our insight into who she is and her motivations comes predominantly from the understanding of her youngest sister and from our own interpretation of the actions she takes. I must make clear that our own interpretations are rooted in pre-established assumptions about what is sensical and orderly in our own world and in our own lives. We cannot interpret with the tools available to us that which may be, by definition, unfathomable. It is simply paradoxical. Nesta, as we currently know her, is a construct derived from a limited number of scenes and our interpretations and projections of these scenes. Even the scenes where we get third person narration don’t explicitly tell us her motivations and her logic. For all we know there really is no comprehensible reason for her actions and that is endlessly amusing to me in how utterly Romantic it is. Acosf may and likely will change this of course, but as it stands, Nesta is a whole Romantic character. Her divisiveness in fandom and in the narrative could be due in part to her refusal to fit the discrete categories available in her world and ours.

Isn’t that wonderful?

To illustrate this a bit more I will share some details SJM gives us about her/ elements she sets up that fit in with the characteristics of the Romantic tradition (these are not exhaustive by any means):

The absolute pettiness (and extra-ness) of being so angry at her father’s inaction that she is willing to starve to death to see if he does something.

How in Acowae she is described as shifting between emotions as if she were changing clothes and feeling everything too strongly (probably to the point of destruction)

She is constantly being compared to animals, even when she is still human. Granted, SJM compares everyone to animals, but that strengthens the blurring of lines between usually discrete categories. It is still most powerful when used as a comparison when she is human because it dehumanises Nesta.

Often, SJM describes her characters as forces. Forces of nature, for example. Acofas is full of details like this in relation to Nesta. There is a storm brewing leading up to the solstice party and it is in full swing when she arrives at the townhouse. The language used there suggests that Nesta herself may be the storm (against the onslaught of Nesta). It really adds to the Maleficent energy tbh.

She is often associated with death post her transformation

She is Other even to Others. She was Made like Elain, Feyre, and Amren in a sense, but the process of her specific transformation differentiates her greatly from the others. As it is, she doesn’t fit in anywhere

Her intense attachment to her femininity and its expression are at odds with the ideas and assumptions about the performance of womanhood and a woman’s role in her world and even in ours. She is unapologetically feminine in her physical presentation, but her character, her thoughts, and possibly even desires transgress the unwritten rules of acceptable femininity (unfortunately there still are abject expressions of femininity in our ‘”progressive” mileux

She displays in many of her actions a disrespect towards authority and to the status quo. This is particularly notable when her intensely polarised sense of right and wrong is aggravated.

Her self-destructiveness. This is referred to most strongly in Acofas, but I would say she was remarkably blasé about self-preservation in Acowar as well

She is described as intelligent, cunning, ruthless, attractive, and prone to debilitating extremes of emotionality. All of these are characteristics of Byronic heroes, a subtype of the Romantic hero

Here are a bunch of quotes that touch on many of the elements that I have discussed above:

“I looked at my sister, really looked at her, at this woman who couldn’t stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory...Who had shrouded the loss of our Mother, then our downfall, because the anger had been a lifeline, the cruelty a release. But she had cared--beneath it she had cared, and perhaps loved more fiercely than I could comprehend, more deeply and loyally.”

--Acotar, emphasis mine, note the strong emotions. This is a recurring element for Nesta.

“Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe...Only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.”

--Acomaf, animal comparison

“Nesta is different from most people,” I explained. “She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it’s a wall. A shield--like the ones Rhys has in his mind.” “Against what?” “Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything--sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

--Acomaf, emphasis mine

“I knew that she was different [...] Nesta was different [...] as if the Cauldron in making her...had been forced to give more than it wanted. As if Nesta had fought after she went under, and had decided that if she was to be dragged into hell, she was taking the Cauldron with her.”

--Acomaf, Nesta had her own plans for the Cauldron what a queen

“Something great and terrible.”

--Acowar, referring to her eyes. Oooh, spooky Nesta 👻

“The day she was changed, she...I felt something different with her [...] like looking at a house cat and suddenly finding a panther standing there instead.”

--Acowar, a two in one here: difference + animal comparison. Boy does SJM really go heavy when establishing Nesta as Other.

“‘Not in flesh, not in the thing that prowls beneath our skin and bones...’ Amren’s remarkable eyes narrowed. ‘But...I see the kernel, girl.’ Amren nodded, more to herself than anyone. ‘You did not fit--the mold that they shoved you into. The path you were born upon and forced to walk. You tried, and yet you did not, could not fit. And then the path changed.’ A little nod. ‘I know--what it is to be that way. I remember it, long ago as it was.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’“

--Acowar, show don’t tell gets thrown out the window here, but it is useful for the present purposes

“What if I tell you that the rock and darkness and sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something--something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth. What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?

What came out was not what went in [...] How lovely she is, new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter’s sunrise.”

--Acowar, who knew rocks, darkness, and the sea were such gossips, but look how many connections to nature! To be compared to the sea, a significant example of the sublime, is peak Romanticism. If any of you have read Moby Dick, think about what the ocean and the white whale might have represented there and how that might relate to Nesta.

“I think the power is death--death made flesh.”

--Acowar, Feyre referring to the possible nature of Nesta’s power. Alluding to her powers possibly being related to death is quite significant because that is something most of us cannot comprehend, nor can most of the characters. For Nesta, a “reborn” but very much living character to have death associated with her is a strong blurring of the lines. The case of her being labelled a witch is similarly significant as it solidifies the elements of the supernatural while simultaneously comparing her to pretty much the only exclusively female-coded monster in western pop culture. I will touch more on this when I do my study of Nesta through the framework of Barbara Creed’s Monstrous Feminine.

“I am not like the others.”

--Acowar, we love a self-aware queen.

“Nesta took in his broken body, the pain in Cassian’s eyes, and angled her head.

The movement was not human.

Not fae.

Purely animal.

Purely predator.”

--Acowar

There are a lot more details and quotes that support this interpretation, but I didn’t write them all down in my archived notes. This post is obscenely long, however, so even though there is more to be said, I’ll leave it for another day. If you made it this far you really are an MVP and probably love Nesta to a concerning degree like me. Please rest your eyes if you’re actually reading this 😂

I’d love to read about any other takes and thoughts that might have come to your minds after reading this monstrosity,

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applejacks1552 · 4 years

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PART 1:

So after my discussion on why Gambit would make a good parent in the 616, a few readers asked if I would do a write up for Rogue, his long time love interest and recent wife.

Now parenthood for Rogue is a little more complicated than for Gambit in several aspects, not the least of which being the complexities of portraying motherhood in media. The rather fraught politics around the role of women in society leaves the issue of if and when women should have children loaded with controversy and judgement from opposing sides. But let's take a look at what we know from comics canon and set those considerations aside for now.

A normal life

Given the limits her powers impose on her physically, throughout her comics career Rogue covets and idealizes a perception of normalcy far more than most of her fellow mutant teammates. She yearns for intimacy and touch and family. While the majority of the X-Women are fairly silent or ambivalent or even downright hostile toward the notion of starting a family, it's something Rogue has expressed interest in on panel more than once.

In Cable #20 during the Legion Quest storyline, the M'kraan crystal wave is coming and the world is about to end. Rogue asks Gambit if he'd ever thought about having a family … clearly something she herself is mourning in those last moments of life and in relation to what might have been with Gambit.

Later, in Uncanny X-Men #359, Rogue is desperate to be free of her powers, having recently come to experience physical intimacy firsthand while trapped powerless in Antarctica with Gambit. She tries to undergo a treatment claiming to cure mutation, but is stopped at the last moment by Mystique. While arguing with her, Rogue explicitly expresses the desire to have a child someday as part of the reason she wants to be free of her powers. It says a lot about how important this was to her that Rogue was ready to throw away her powers and risk a procedure she knew almost nothing about by an individual she doesn't even know she can trust.

Her aspirations are further expounded upon in the short prose story "Life Is But A Dream" by Stan Timmons from The Ultimate X-Men 1996 collection. In this tale, Rogue uses the Danger Room to simulate a normal suburban life with Gambit which includes a child they name Charlie. She thinks this will be a way to experience what she wants, yet fears she'll never have. Though ultimately Rogue cannot fully buy into the simulation, as it fails to live up to reality.

A Talent for Connecting

Rogue doesn't spend a significant time with younger team members or children early on in her career, probably because she is so concerned about harming others with her powers.

So when she finally gained control early in Mike Carey's X-Men: Legacy run, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for Rogue and she found herself sliding readily into a mentorship role for many of the younger team members at Cyclops' suggestion. Her personal struggles with her own powers and her past along with her empathetic nature lent well to connecting with young mutants as seen in X-Men: Legacy #234.

Even as Legacy wound to a close under Cristos Gage, part of Rogue's decision to follow Wolverine during the Schism and become a senior staff member at the new Jean Grey School stemmed from her desire to continue helping the children. It really seemed like Rogue had found her calling and she felt strongly about protecting the kids and giving them the kind of life she didn't have growing up as she says in X-Men: Legacy 260-1.

Rogue eventually found herself called away from the X-Men and joined the Uncanny Avengers Unity Squad. But even in this era Rogue has a soft spot for kids.

In Deadpool #18, Rogue promises her teammate Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) she'll be there for his daughter Ellie if it turns out she's a mutant.

New Possibilities

The Rogue and Gambit miniseries (2018) saw Rogue return to the X-Men and reunite with Gambit. Later in X-Men: Gold (2018) #30, Gambit proposes and they marry despite her powers still being a challenge.

In Mr. & Mrs. X (2018), Rogue is forced to confront her power control issues as she and Gambit run missions on their interrupted honeymoon, escape Mojoworld, and deal with an unruly Thieves Guild. By the end of the series she has regained control, potentially opening new doors for the couple. We also see Rogue and Remy serve as rescuers and caretakers for Xandra, the secret perception-warping child of Lilandra and Xavier, getting some insight into the trials and triumphs of parenthood. Rogue gets particular insight, as she gets to witness the bond between Cerise and Xandra.

The topic of children comes up throughout the run, from the joked conceit of Kitty trolling the newlyweds by making them babysit an egg, to Rogue teasing Gambit about his "baby fever" since Spiral's soul appears just to him as an infant. Both characters note that they "want it all" for their lives and by the end of this run, we know that Gambit seems hopeful for the possibility of parenthood someday and Rogue is at least open to considering it eventually. That "maybe" would have been a really nice place to leave it for a while, with that glimmer of distant hope.

However, we see a rather drastic 180 degree shift when we get to Excalibur (2019) by Tini Howard. Despite foreshadowing in the early part of the run, where Rogue mentions Krakoa's new law about making more mutants and Apocalypse waxes poetic about "the children of tonight's unions" while Gambit and Rogue hover in the background frame, followed by Rogue's suspicious floral coma and rumors about a secret costume, and then finally her escape from said coma by driving a sword into a mysterious energy emanating from her abdomen. Yes, despite all this ...

We later get an unexpected confession from Rogue in issue #6 during an otherwise steamy scene, in which she confirms the challenge pregnancy is for her and then claims an off panel nightmare led her to suddenly realize she doesn't want children now or maybe ever.

To say this seems incongruent with her previous portrayals and build up to this point, even as recently as Mr. and Mrs. X, would be an understatement. One can only speculate at the reasoning behind this decision. Why bring up and tease this subject if it serves no purpose? Editorial edict? Just to punt the subject down the line and take it off the table for now? To fake out the readership, only to spring a surprise on them later? To change Rogue's narrative completely to fit a perceived more modern lens? ... Only time will tell.

Continue to PART 2 ...

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fghartwork · 4 years

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A note to Zutara authors and authoresses:

I respect what you do, and I completely aspire to be an author! I know it is no easy task however, and I wanted to share a few notes from the perspective of a Zutara fanfic reader, a Zutara Shipper, and a diehard Avatar fanatic.

I will speak for myself, and dare to speak for the other Zutarians, when I say that we ship Zutara because of their dynamic 'as is' on screen. I recently put up a challenge, and the Zutarians answered the prompt with really well thought, in depth answers, but none that stretched outside of what is canon.

So here is what I want to say.

When writing a fanfic, as a reader, you should know that I am looking for fanfics that accurately reflect Zuko and Katara's characters as we see them on screen, in the show.

Personally, here are some major Zutara fanfic turn offs for me:

1. Predatorial, possessive, Sex God Zuko

The Zuko I remember was awkward, learning to make friends, serious, reflective, introspective, and respectful of the women in his life.

As we see in the show, Zuko and Mai's relationship in the beginning is strained, but he never insults her (other than 'your just a big blah' lol!) hurts her, or underestimates her. With Jin, he is a little rude, but it stems from his social awkwardness more than his ill intentions.

Before Zuko gets to know Katara, he sees both Sokka and Katara as "Water Tribe Peasants" (This actually makes me laugh, bc Azula does the same. They are both entitled, rich, brats, but we know that Zuko's arc evolves him for the better) We know that by the end however, he really gets to know both Sokka and Katara, and comes to respect them very much.

2. Mean, aggressive, Zuko.

-No No Nooooo! Zuko was a brat who threw temper tantrums before he matured, and became simply sleep-deprived, dramatic, and slightly overreactive. He is not an abusive reflection of his father! Aggressive, surly, rude Zuko feels (for me) so out of sync with his character.

3. Pushover Katara.

This one makes me laugh, because I do not know what show y'all watched, but in the Avatar I watched, Katara is anything but a pushover. I some fanfics, Zuko bullies Katara....in a sexy way I guess? Some fics really blur the line between bantering and bullying, and Katara's character just kind of shrinks under Zuko's grumpiness...this is a turn off for me, and very out of sync with her character.

4. Unexperienced Katara.

Many fanfics that I have read, make Zuko the sex god and Katara completely unexperienced...as we see in the show, they both have dabbled in flirting and some relationships, but nothing so exaggerated. Actually, Katara is much smoother than Zuko, when it comes to dating and relationships.

5. One more majorrrr turn off are Toph's nicknames. Oh my goodness, some authors go so nickname happy with Toph's character that I cannot even finish a fic because I am overwhelmed with how many "Sparkys" and "Sugar Queens" litter the page. Please take it easy, good people of the fanfic realm.

A lot of fanfics seem to make the mistake of altering Zuko and Katara's characters for the sake of romance or sexy scenes, but really, we ship them because their dynamic and their chemistry as it is in the show, is already perfect. It's just that neither of them made a move.

Here are some fics I think did a really good job of reflecting Katara and Zuko's characters, creating great romantic tension, and staying pretty accurate to the Avatar World.

How Your Heart Beats

(This one went a little overboard with Zuko's sensitivity, fantasies, and awkward situations, but all around it felt natural, and ended up being both moving and hilarious).

The Prince's Choice and a Warrior's Gambit

(This one is in an AU, it is filled with lots of fluff and plot filler, a little much for me, so if I am honest, I skip to all of the parts where Zuko and Katara interact directly-And they are good 👌🏽)

Prince of Panty Dropping

(The title is 'read bait'. It is not vulgar, I promise) This one is comedy, so their characters are exaggerated, but it feels natural to me, and is very funny.

Moonlight and Sunshadow

I haven't finished, but it's great so far! Though it is in a slightly altered AU, their characters are not only reflective of the show's, but I would say an accurate estimated extension of what their characters would be like older and with more 'screen time' aka, interaction (including Sokka, Suki, and Iroh) that takes talent, creativity and close attention to detail.

I want to give a nod to one more piece:

Brightest Nights and Darkest Days

Sighhhh.... I have complicated feelings on this one. The writer is very skilled and creates an absorbing narrative. The romantic scenes are on point. The plot tension is compelling, and the ending has a powerful gut punch.

However, Zuko and Katara's characters swing back and forth from more accurate and relatable, to completely foreign.

Zuko is an insufferable jerk, and not in a cute way 😭 Katara is portrayed as almost a ditz, and not in a cute way!!

Iroh's character seemed unnecessary here and intrusive.

There were 2 other characters whose names I forgot, but were also unnecessary .

I have a love-hate relationship with this fic.

I know the authoress may read this, so I want to respect her and her work. In all honesty, I very much admire her style and skill in writing.

To close, I want to note that as authors, you have the creative authority and license to write your fic however you want, and I respect that. I also admire the fact that you devoted hours, days, weeks of your life to fulfill your creative vision and to entertain your audience.

If nothing else, I hope my insights serve as a spur for discussion among readers and as some food for thought among authors.

If you made it this far, thank you and best of wishes. 🥰🙏🏽

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

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Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike.

The key, Taylor-Joy explains to Den of Geek, was in having every single game be recognizably unique. “[Series creator and director] Scott [Frank] and I would have a lot of conversations about both the chess and the addiction scenes, and how we were going to make each of them different and each of them fresh,” she says. “Because this show is seven and a half hours, and if a lot of that is the same chess game, people are gonna wander off.”

The cast and crew imbued each chess match with specific emotion, matching Beth’s personal and professional growth, and unique physicality. For the latter, that involved bringing in chess consultant Bruce Pandolfini (who also consulted on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel on which the series is based) and grandmaster Garry Kasparov to plan out the series’ many games down to every gambit and checkmate. Because neither Taylor-Joy nor her on-screen competitors had played much chess prior to shooting, treating the gameplay as choreography helped them pick up the moves.

“I saw the whole thing as a dance,” explains Taylor-Joy, a former ballet dancer. “I saw learning the choreography as dance, but just with your fingers.”

Costar Harry Melling, who plays one of Beth’s early rivals Harry Beltik, agrees that the authenticity was found in the tactile movements of the pieces themselves.

“One of the most important things in terms of the choreography was the feel of the pieces,” he says, “about how you take pieces—whether you slide it across the board or whether you lift it up or put it down. All of these little details [are] what makes it look like you’ve been doing it your entire life.”

“It’s like riding a horse,” says Thomas Brodie-Sangster, whose chess champion Benny Watts is known for a distinctive leather duster and laconic attitude. “It doesn’t really matter if you can ride a horse, it’s more about if you can get on the horse and get off the horse and look cool doing it. That’s what people pick up on; it shows that you actually look comfortable doing it.”

While Beltik and Benny are as fictional as Beth, the actors were encouraged to draw inspiration from current and historical grandmasters on which to base their characters’ games. “Every game in the show is based on a real game,” Brodie-Sangster says. “If you’ve got a really keen eye, you can probably recognize games from across the history of chess.” He modeled Benny’s moves after Bobby Fischer, while Melling devoted a lot of time to watching current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen play.

“That was really fascinating,” Melling says, “because I knew nothing about chess whatsoever—so [I was] starting from ground zero, really, working out how these people operate, what makes them tick.”

Equally important as the dance steps were the dance partners. Taylor-Joy credits the originality of each sequence to who Beth is playing at that moment in time—like Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a hunky competitor who flusters young Beth. “The first time that Beth plays Townes, it’s the first time that she’s ever liked somebody that she’s playing opposite against,” she says, “so she wants to win, but she doesn’t necessarily enjoy seeing him crumble, which is a new experience for her.”

Taylor-Joy soon found the game as dramatic as Beth does. “For her, it is life or death,” she says. “This is her intellect being challenged, and her intellect is the only thing she has any faith in. So I definitely felt the pressure, and then—whenever she’s playing with somebody—the power high of that.”

It’s no surprise that Beth gets a power high from defeating her male opponents, as it is a very insular boys’ club into which she enters as a dowdily-dressed teenager in the ’50s. For her first match with Beltik at the Kentucky Chess Championship, Melling says, the former is very much in his element, “and then she sort of enters his sphere, and he becomes completely in awe of her talent, and he knows that she’s a better player than him. His bubble gets burst very quick.”

Though Benny saunters into their first match together, Brodie-Sangster acknowledges that there is also an immediate spark with Beth. “Her presence is a bit of a surprise, and a bit of an enigma for him,” he says. “She is very much in a man’s world and doesn’t really look like she really fits in there; neither does he, and I think there’s a kind of connection there.”

Beth grows up in the world of chess, both as an aspiring grandmaster and as a young woman. Taylor-Joy had a blast playing so many different versions of Beth, though she laughs recalling how Frank initially asked her how young she thought she could play. Fourteen or fifteen was her answer—“eight, you’re gonna have to get another actor to do that one”—and so she portrays Beth from her inelegant teenage years through to her mid-twenties.

Over the course of the series, we witness Beths who are alternately brilliant and awkward, shy and sexy, on top of the world and extremely vulnerable. “Because [the show] takes its time and because you do grow with her, you as an audience are allowed insight into why she is the way she is,” Taylor-Joy says. “You see the things that shape her, and you see her grow from it, and you understand why she’s grown in that direction.”

To move between those many phases, she would devise her own backstories for the different Beths: “She starts off walking very clumsily and awkwardly and almost side-to-side, and then I was like, ‘Oh, and this is the first time she’s ever seen an Audrey Hepburn movie’ and she starts wearing the black pants and the turtleneck and starts standing differently, if a boy’s around. And just trying on different personalities, as I think we all do, especially in that age range, and probably into our adult life. It was really fun.”

In contrast to her male opponents and love interests who inhabit the same sphere, the two key women in Beth’s life exist almost entirely outside of the chess world. Fellow orphan Jolene (Moses Ingram) shows her the ropes at the orphanage, much like an older sister, but resentment stretches between them when Beth is adopted and Jolene is left behind.

“It’s all in how they’ve grown up with each other and gotten to know each other,” says the theatrically trained Ingram of her first on-screen role and the difficult emotional history between Beth and Jolene. “I think people that truly love one another certainly get the very best, but also the very worst, of each other. When you can see someone that deeply, you can’t help but be locked in to one another.”

Complicating their relationship is the fact that preteen Jolene is the one who introduces eight-year-old Beth to the tranquilizer pills to which she immediately becomes addicted. “Jolene was just teaching her how to cope in the only way that Jolene has learned how to cope,” Ingram explains, but that simple act irrevocably shapes Beth’s approach to chess for the next decade. Initially used to “even out” the orphans’ disposition (and then later banned for their habit-forming tendencies), the pills help Beth envision a chessboard in the shadows of her bedroom ceiling at night. Taylor-Joy says she would track Beth’s mental and emotional state not just by the different matches, but by how the ghostly chess pieces appear to her: “Sometimes they’re familiar, sometimes they’re very threatening, it all very much depends on where she’s at.”

Unfortunately, where Beth is often at is relying too much on the pills to help her focus during chess games, believing herself unable to triumph when not in her altered state. Her dilemma is complicated by the fact that the tranquilizer pills come back into her life care of her adoptive mother Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), who initially comes off as a stereotypical ’50s housewife who can’t function without “Mother’s Little Helper.” (Though the pills go by the fictional name Xanzolam in the series, they seem to be a cousin of Azolam and other benzodiazepines.)

In the past four years, Heller has been best known behind the camera, as the director of such celebrated films as The Diary of a Teenage Girl (for which she also wrote the screenplay), Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and What the Constitution Means to Me. While Heller had always referenced her history as an actor as “part of my superpower as a director,” she says that she began to feel like “a fraud” when directing stars like Tom Hanks or Matthew Rhys. “I started to feel like, ‘Do I even remember what that feels like, to be an actor, to be asked to do these things, to be asked to go into these certain emotional places?’”

So when Frank, a long-time friend, invited her to join the series and spend a few months shooting in Berlin, Heller saw it as the perfect opportunity to, in her words, “keep my street cred as a director who was an actor.” As a director who seeks out projects about the uncomfortable things that people don’t talk about, Heller found that Alma embodied those same sensibilities: “She’s someone who has a lot of pain in her past, and that makes her most interesting; she’s not some version of a ’50s housewife that doesn’t feel real. So much of what I try to do as a director is to tap into that thing that has made somebody the way they are.”

Despite mother and daughter’s initial friction, as Beth carves out her niche in the chess world, and Alma begins accompanying her on her more glamorous tournaments, the older woman is inspired to revisit her own long-abandoned dreams of devoting her life to a creative pursuit. “For Alma,” Heller says, “she had this dream deferred. She was somebody who wanted to be a pianist and artist and never could, and that’s a pain that I feel is very human, and I totally connected to.”

What’s remarkable about The Queen’s Gambit is that each of its female characters experiences a different and specific struggle for the time period. “Scott did that really beautifully,” Ingram says of playing adult Jolene, advocating for change during the Civil Rights movement while Beth is moving up through the ranks of the chess world. “He didn’t let us forget what point in time we were in the world—we’re in the ’60s, in the smack-dab [middle] of civil unrest, because people aren’t being treated fairly. And I loved that Jolene is out front and being a crusader, being a champion for change, when very clearly all she’s known is white people her whole life. So it was beautiful to see that she’s found herself later, in changing the world—trying to, at least.”

In that endeavor, Jolene describes herself as a radical, though Ingram also feels that the word was a fitting theme for the series overall.

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“I think it’s radical that Beth, as a woman, is this far into the chess world at this point in time,” she says. “It’s unheard of that she’s there, and everyone’s shocked by it. It’s definitely a story of radical love, and radical faith.”

The Queen’s Gambit premieres October 23 on Netflix.

The post Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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chucklestheechidona · 4 years

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Red Dwarf: USA

AKA: One week into isolation and a Welshman drunkenly types out his most controversial opinion

One of the first sci-fi shows I ever watched, at least, without realising it was science fiction, before even Star Trek, of which I vividly remember seeing Patrick’s face and voice on my thick arse grey heavier-than-sin Television, would have been that of the 1988 comedy - Red Dwarf.

I didn’t watch it live of course, I was born in 1993, by the time I could actually start remembering things the show had already ended. Like many people, I watched it on someone’s recorded VHS tape, among others in our house such as Duckman. Like Duckman, Red Dwarf was a bit out of my depth, but I liked it all the same. Some of the jokes landed and the slapstick and (not)aliens were enough to capture my attention.

Of course, I grew older, my appreciation for the show changed over time. The jokes obviously landed a lot more, but what I appreciated more was the character building, the acting, the writers and the cast having an appreciation, even through troubled shooting or grievances, towards what they were working through.

As anyone would expect though, I have my thoughts on where the series’s high’s ended, can see the flaws in some writing and some episodes, and overall the direction it headed after series 6, but yet, it still holds a special place in my heart.

Something I didn’t figure out until I was much older was the existence of a USA version. There was a pilot, then a failed attempt at another pilot/episode 2, and it was never heard from again.

Anyone from Britain could have told you this was a terrible idea from the start, anyone who’s watched it will tell you how awful it is.

In a DVD extra on one of the boxsets, both writers lamented what could have been if things went right, the misery of working in an American environment which didn’t appreciate the British insight. Rob, who plays Kryten, speaks about how the American cast thought the script the American execs were pushing on them to be terrible. But Rob got paid a lot of money to eat food and do some scenes, so he enjoyed it for the most part.

But if you like Red Dwarf, you already know this. If you didn’t, thanks for staying with me.

There are many reasons for why Red Dwarf USA didn’t work. “You can’t just take a British thing and try and localise it.”

Yet The Office USA is a massive hit, and has its fan-base here.

Craig Charles, as in, Lister’s actor, reckoned it was because of a lack of a class system, although Doug, one of the writers, would disagree.

I get Craig’s feelings, mind you. In the UK, I have more in common with people who are on the same pay-grade as me than anything stupid like race, sex or religion. Which isn’t to say there aren’t those divides in the country, but the class system is very heavy here. The Lower and Working class bond knowing they’re working harder than those above for not as much pay.

But as Doug says, the people on Always Sunny/Malcolm in the Middle aren’t the same people who are on Friends/Frasier, for example. He uses a different example, for it’s an old documentary, but the point still stands. There is class in America, even if it’s implemented differently in media and IRL

(As an aside, Malcolm in the Middle was fantastic.)

Craig Bierko (the USA Craig and the USA Lister) said it was just a mistake to do, that they shouldn’t have even tried to localise an exceptional program. I mean, he partook in it, but the actor had to eat and food isn’t free.

But after all that, here’s the thing.

I think it could have worked.

It would need heavy editing mind you. A proper look into why it didn’t work in the first place. More of a look into an American future, rather than a future which was (despite original intentions) still heavily British.

The jokes would need localising, the actors would need a bit of a workaround in terms of personality, but here’s why I started this.

Where the story would go next.

Dave Lister (UK) was a happy-go-lucky carefree scouser, who worked as little as possible, chased impossible dreams while playing a guitar he never put any actual time into learning. He got along with people quite well, despite being on the bottom of the pecking order. He got in trouble with authority, but he was doing it out of good intentions.

This was mostly to balance out his bunkmate, Rimmer, who was in every way opposite. He was a stressed pent up ball of worry and anger, who had one dream and one goal only, of which he failed constantly. He was liked by no-one, the only person he was above (Lister) he took extreme measures to exercise the little power he had.

On an aside, UK Lister wasn’t conventionally attractive. Craig Charles is a good looking bloke mind you, he’s not ugly, but his looks managed to sell the underdog achiever. He looked very much the part of a low-life Liverpudlian drunk. (despite being a wordsmith and successful poet in real life, not to mention his impressive DJ’ing)

USA Lister however, was played by this HUNK.

Dave Lister USA was shown to be the same kind of person, but hinted at was his more roguish cheeky nature. A more... American view. While Lister UK, when talking to his crush, would be almost awkward, never really sharing many words with her, despite being madly in love with her, Lister US had gone out with Kochanski.

(True, UK did past series 5, but a retcon to match the books is still a retcon)

Lister US was cheeky, cocky, a bit arrogant to Kochanski. He hadn’t taken the relationship seriously. She was a Flight Navigation Officer, he was the lowest rank on the ship, a Third Technician. He had no aspirations, no dreams. He had a plan, much like our Lister, but hadn’t even seemed to save up pay for it. He mentions it once in passing to Kryten at the start, but the way he talked to Kristine, the way he spoke about it to Kryten, it seemed that he’d given up, more than our more hopeless UK Lister.

UK Kristine knew Lister but had hardly shared words with him, and it was all Lister’s fault, as Kris would have been kind enough to actually talk to him. UK Lister’s story overall is of a man who had the chance to be better, but gave himself excuses why he couldn’t, or didn’t. UK Lister could have talked to Kris at any time, but had been his own obstacle.

USA Kristine however, had had USA Lister actually get her to go out with him. It was nice, they still talk. But Kris had ended it. Kris had career aspirations, and Lister had not.

(This kept close to the UK books, but UK Kris had somewhat used UK Lister as a rebound. It was still a nice enough break-up, but Lister then careens down into depression. Unlike AmeriLister who’s optimistic he can pick it back up. Gotta love America and their hope.)

This culminated in the final scene we see of pre-accident Kris, where she sees David did a noble gesture by sacrificing himself to save his cat, and (even though oddly paced) tells David she loved him.

Heat of the moment it may be, but USA Lister immediately cracks, telling the crew that he’d give up the cat’s location. It’s played for laughs obviously, but maybe this is what’s more important to USA Lister.

But these very differences, like angles, could stretch further than just copying the show. By leading on from what made AmeriDave different than BritiDave.

What I would do

First, we make USA Lister stand out more. His dress attire seemed Han Solo-esque, so let’s put a bit of that personality into him. This Lister, would have been an under-acheiver his whole life, maybe after the event, he wouldn’t be. This Lister would be brought back with a new sense of determination. He has to prove to Kochanski, Rimmer, his Cat and Holly that he’s no longer this Third Technician, he was capable of getting back the human race.

Where UK Lister (at least, in the show) would try and see in what ways he could kill time, in a sobering kind of malaise that strikes a man three million years into deep space, USA Lister would be trying to get his head around how to get back. In the final part of the show, after they see their future selves, he knows he actually has to do something. Back to earth? Sure, he wouldn’t know, and finding out would be hard, but USA Lister would actually have to learn to apply himself early.

This doesn’t sound like Lister! (or more accurately, isn’t this just the Book Lister) British people like seeing despair. We long to see Del Boy fail, we want to see Basil Fawlty have a meltdown. Americans have hope. They want to see Ross get with Rachel, they long to see their hero win. Or if he can’t win, have a snarky comment about it. We want to see UK Rimmer and Lister fail in their attempts to get back, because it’s funny. USA have hope. They’d want to see Lister get home.

USA Rimmer would make learning hell for USA Lister. Rimmer, thinking he knows more, would foil the attempts at Lister, but not out of malice, out of incompetence on Rimmer’s part. “Thermodynamics, let me teach you, Dave, no-one’s taken that test more than I have!” Que the failed test.

Unfortunately, the Cat, Kryten, Holly and Rimmer in the US version are almost all carbon-copies of their UK counterpart. I haven’t thought this through enough, obviously. They’d have to be changed, Episode 1 would have to be rewritten, but with changes in mind.

I’d have USA Lister be an actual hero, but a kinda useless one who takes a while to get things done, consulting with his equally useless crew. Rimmer, to be a dick, but with a lot of the bitterness taken out (because American’s can’t really pull it off), but with the same inferiority complex. He’d make hell for Lister, but under the genuine reason of “I want to see you do better. (cause right now you’re an embarrassment to the human species)“ The last human, trained by the best of what was left of humanity. Or at least, Rimmer would see it that way.

The rest of the cast could be figured out later. Honestly, too much like their counterparts. I guess that was the point of the show when they tried to release it, it was only a localisation after all.

Conclusion

We’ll never know what Rob and Doug wrote that the other actors liked, I doubt a copy was kept after it was butchered by the Americans.

But I think what little made it different, was the bit where it shone. Sure, shone as in behind 4 panes of glass and a sheet of paper, but still, it could have been something.

I’m a sucker for “What could have been.” Even for money-grabbing USA executive schemes such as trying to make RD: USA

And hey, maybe it could have. And I like all that alternative stuff. When Mortal Kombat actually included bits from the movies, that made me smile. If Sonic ever had a nod to Fleetway, I’d be happy enough.

Maybe one day we’ll have an alternative Lister played by Craig Bierko, and he’d be an actual space-wanderer hero. And then our UK Lister can call him smug smeghead. And he’d be right.

(About USA Lister, not Bierko)

Final Conclusion

The word count on this went way out of hand. This killed an afternoon and I’m stuck in my house, I have a backlog a mile long to go through

Need to finish ‘Off’, ‘Torchwood’, DW, and possibly watch some Red Dwarf before the new one is out.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Smegheads

#Red Dwarf #USA #Lister #Rimmer #Kochanski

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paperclipninja · 5 years

Text

Younger post-ep ramble 6x11

I may be on holiday but if you think that’s going to stop me offloading some thoughts and feelings about this week’s episode of Younger, ‘Holding Out for a SHero’, then you’d be sorely mistaken (any chance to over-think and over-analyse my fave fake reality). In saying that, this will be a briefer version of my usual post-ep ramble, what I shall refer to as Ramble Lite™. There were parts of this episode I really liked and parts I felt disappointed with, but it largely played out in a way that I expected, with the exception of that twist at the end! Hats off to Joe Murphy for that fab misdirection, I may have gasped.

This episode opened with Maggie in her tomato garden looking radiant and Liza filling her in on the decision not to see Josh anymore because it’s complicated and feelings and that undeniable thing called chemistry (or something like that). I applaud Maggie’s consistent use of Chaz (I really hope we get to hear her say it to his face at some point) and Liza stating out loud that she chooses Charles, but this scene also delivered one of the two big moments of disappointment I had in this ep. If anything was ever going to be out of character on this show it would be Liza, a writer and editor, being unable to come up with decent adjectives to describe the man she is supposedly in love with. Yet here she is describing Charles as ‘a peer’ and ‘appropriate’ as reasons for choosing to be with him. For real? I understand the effort to paint him as the sensible choice vs. the less sensible, the head vs. heart, in this triangle that’s been resurrected. This particular way of describing men has always served a clear purpose in the Youngerverse and ngl, my alarm bells went off in episode 7 when Michelle referred to Charles as ‘appropriate’. Liza uses this exact term to describe Richard, the horrendous man Michelle sets her up with in S1E2 who starts reading emails at the dinner table on their date, he’s ‘age appropriate’. She also described Jay as nice, viable, legitimate prospect, sure, but she also sobbed on his shoulder because she was so in love with Charles that her heart was aching at the thought of missing the chance to be with him.

It feels so painfully deliberate, Charles has gone from intellectually invigorating and romantic and been relegated to safe and ‘appropriate’. My disappointment comes from the fact that if this triangle must remain in play, there can be two men who are vibrant and compelling and really different, without painting one as ‘boring’ and one as ‘fun’. Knowing the way Liza talks about the important people in her life, with such admiration and affection, I feel she would at least say Charles is intelligent and romantic or kind or thoughtful or SOMETHING better than being ‘a peer’ and ‘appropriate’. I do believe that as viewers we often form our own interpretations of characters and when they don’t behave the way we imagine we are disappointed, but in this case it’s the disappointment that Liza’s entire reason for being attracted to Charles is being reduced to the idea that it’s sensible when we have been shown this is simply not the case. Phew, glad I got that off my chest (and so much for Ramble Lite™ lol).

Once in the office Liza is running Diana through the wedding planning, which frankly I cannot wait to see all come together. I love that Liza’s already secretly planned a bachelorette party and really does know Diana well enough to know she’ll want one (so many lols @ Diana’s, ‘yes that’s why I was bringing it up, because I don’t want one’ and could Liza look any more pleased with herself that she’s managed to pull the wool over her eyes? Adorbs). Charles arrives looking for Kelsey and is wanting to see how she would like to break the news that he is once again publisher, because that’s how they work now that they’re the dynamic duo and have I mentioned this week how much I LOVED seeing their dynamic last week? Kelsey proves that she has indeed kept her head and announces that Millennial secured a new investor and that Charles is once again in the boss seat and I am once again extremely impressed with Kelsey this season, as is Diana (and honestly if you have the D.Trout stamp of approval, what more do you need?). I will also never tire of seeing Diana, Kelsey and Liza as true peers and now friends, it’s undoubtedly a highlight of season 6.

The book pitch of the week is extremely timely (as always), a manners for millennials piece that aims to counteract the generation’s greatest shortcomings, such as ghosting exes and not RSVPing to weddings. This episode really did have some stellar lines and the fact that Liza can now drop jokes in meetings, such as her ‘neither was I’ response to the author’s ‘I am not proud to be a millennial’, is the kind of goodness I am here for since the lie is no longer a thing. Naturally Liza and Diana are both very interested in finding out more about these topics and it turns out the best way to get some finality with the ex is to write a good ol’ fashioned Dear John letter (best way to get those RSVP’s -unknown). This is reinforced nicely in Charles’ office, when Liza leaps off Charles’ desk as though she and Charles were caught christening the damn thing (which would’ve been very ok by me and at this point you should know I’m not at all sorry) by Diana bearing flowers and note from Alice the author letting them know she will not be publishing her book with Millennial (so no Charles, the flowers are not for you). All this talk of how good letters are leads to Liza penning her Dear Josh letter that night, which we only catch a tantalizing glimpse of initially, before the narration and accompanying montage when Josh actually receives it.

While it was only brief, Charles asking Liza how she feels about him being back as publisher and her answering honestly, she just wishes Kelsey hadn’t been unceremoniously stripped of the title, is yet another lovely insight into their relationship. Charles continuing with, ‘what about you, always thinking of others, how do you feel?’, excuse me while I clutch my heart at the sweetness of it all and seriously, does ANYONE ever ask Liza this? The family picture on Charles’ desk is noted and it’s great but I also can’t help but feel it’s somewhat ominous so I’m putting my gush on pause (v. open to being proven wrong on this).

Kelsey and Zane continue to be all over the place, I have so little investment in them as a pairing and I really think it’s because I have simply not seen enough of them together to know whether I care, though I have enjoyed a number of their interactions recently. It also doesn’t help that Zane has been many shades of douche this season. Since professing their love for one another, he is being caring at the start of this week’s ep, apologising and saying he feels partly responsible for Kelsey’s demotion and trying to allay Kelsey’s self-doubt. It is Kelsey who says that she doesn’t know how to do this with Zane and that one of them always loses (the old editors-who-were-peers-and-then-one-became-the-boss-but-now-they’re-peers-again curse), which returns Zane to Douchetown in time for the staff meeting.

I felt for Kelsey, it would be so hard sitting in that first meeting with Charles at the helm again, though him going through all the acquisitions and saying these are a credit to Kelsey’s impeccable instincts was great and necessary. But then Charles brings up the Arabian Seas book and the ‘we’ enters the conversation, along with a list of books that sound like they belong on the bargain shelf because yawn and yes it’s fine that Charles has his own instincts, but Zane in this meeting is awful. Kelsey calls him out, she is clearly and rightfully angry about the unfairness of her entire situation and she warns Charles to, ‘pay attention…and you too Liza. I didn’t have any boundaries at work and look what happened’. I have no idea if this is foreshadowing but I feel like it could be juicy if it was so let’s keep abreast of any future developments (yes that is a boob pun and you’re welcome).

Highlight of this whole scene of course is Liza ripping into the guy and the whole office when Kelsey walks out of the meeting and can hear that her meme has been made into a banger of a tune. We get fearsome Liza schooling the entire room on the fact that Kelsey did get the money, ‘that’s why we all have a job, she’s a goddamn hero’. YESSSSSS Liza *praise hands*. Kelsey in turn agrees to speak at the girls school event that Lauren put to her earlier (yes it IS ok to be angry and Kelsey no longer distancing herself from her social media mistake but using it as a platform to empower others and be a role model…where do I sign?).

Lauren was in ultimate PR and friend mode for Kelsey this week, trying to figure out how to spin Boobgate and trying to see the positive side of all the invitation cancellations. I always say it, I know, but Lauren’s unrelenting advocacy for her friends is absolutely one of her best qualities and her line, ‘you are an example of a woman who made a very simple mistake and the patriarchy seizing that opportunity to tear you down’, was fantastic. She also very much latched onto the SHero theme and I appreciated her use of the word at any given opportunity.

It is as Lauren and Josh are leaving to catch an Uber to Inkburg Midtown that we discover this means he is very relieved Claire doesn’t have to move to LA now. I really don’t get this. I said last week that Josh is far too woke to expect the mother of his child to bail on her career aspiration just so he doesn’t have to move to LA, especially considering he knows the struggle Liza faced in her own career journey after having Caitlin (who you may remember is her daughter…or was. Current status unknown). If we’d seen in their conversation Claire saying that she really doesn’t want to move but she can’t see another way to give Gemma the life she hopes, then ok, Josh finding a way to up his income is ace. So I do hope we find out at some point this was the case, because Josh deciding he’ll get more money so Claire and Gemma can stay for his convenience, it’s just nope.

Though I do have to say that the biggest benefit of Josh securing the Infinitely 21 partnership is getting to see more Shelly because omfg I cannot with her. The way she talks about paint colours, giving her personal number, the line I could not believe I heard, ‘but seriously, Josh, unload on me’ ( I love that this season has seemed censored af compared to previous ones – I don’t love this but you know what I mean- yet lines like this get dropped in. Too good), I am in awe of her complete and unabashed lust for him.

It is between picking paint colours that Josh finds the letter from Liza and it is heart wrenching. And beautiful. The emotion really is palpable as Josh leaves the store to find somewhere to read it once he realises what it is. The flashback montage is certainly something that hasn’t been utilized in the show and it really leaves such an impression. Coupled with the narration of the letter, it really captures the impact of Josh on Liza’s life and Liza’s genuine commitment to make her relationship with Charles work. If this show was wanting to move these characters past this old relationship it would have been a poignant and perfect way to do it. However it plays out in the long run, I thought it was really well done.

The hands down highlight of this entire episode for me was Diana’s bachelorette party. Lauren running at an unsuspecting Diana screaming, ‘get in the Hummer bitch’ is one of the funniest moments of the series, I will be laughing for eternity. Liza reminding Diana that, ‘I get you’, yes she does and I just love everything about seeing these women, all the Younger women, out together. I feel like the focus of this episode really got pulled to the other drama but this is the first time we’ve ever seen every female character of this show together in a room and I feel like THIS IS A BIG DEAL. Maggie schooling Diana on how strip clubs work and SO many brilliant lines, as Diana waves her money in the air only to tell the first stripper, ‘You’re a lot, no thank you’, then ‘Hi, little one’ as she flags another. The hilarity does not stop with Diana, Lauren’s, ‘here’s a fiver, you should smile more’ is every kind of YES (I sense a whiff of Liz Lemon in that line and I approve). As Liza and Kelsey talk about men and work and blah, Diana tries to bring them back to the purpose of the evening, ‘ladies, there are bulging crotches in your faces, can you focus?’. Listen to the Queen people. Yet another Diana wedding related event in which she ends up asking, ‘how did tonight become all about you?’ and I was thinking the same Diva. *Eyeroll*

The Hummer ends up at Inkburg because Lauren wants to help Diana fulfil her wish of doing something she’ll regret for the rest of her life (and obviously the reason they all need to be there is so Liza and Josh can have their post-letter confrontation). They are all so drunk, it’s hilarious and I would watch an entire feature film about the antics of this group while inebriated. Seriously, take my money. From Lauren’s, ‘Get out of the hummer Doana’ to Maggie’s, ‘I forgot we were in a car’, they cover the entire drunk person spectrum. On top of that we have Diana’s penis balloon hat position which just cracks me up because I am 10 but my fave is Diana saying to Josh, ‘John, just something small, tasteful and literary’ and then as she’s leaving, ‘it was nice to meet you Jake’. Obvs a wise choice not to go through with the tat but I’d love to know what Diana would have ended up with.

Josh calling Liza out on writing the letter and trying to walk away never talking to him was completely fair enough. Him reminding her that she said she would always be there for him, be Gemma’s aunt Liza, he’s not wrong and his hurt and confusion are understandable. But it is so nice to finally hear Liza making a choice and sticking to it (whether she does or not in the future). Josh saying that he gets it, she’s scared of what they were, they still are, it’s powerful and her defensiveness of Charles when he says that she’s making the safe choice is exactly the right response if she really means she has chosen him. And not because I love Charles and Liza together, but because Liza is standing up for her choice and her ‘don’t you tell me what I feel’ retort is so charged and fierce and I love it. ‘I know this is hard to accept Josh, but we were a moment in time. But the time has passed’ - this whole scene is wonderfully acted, the chemistry between these characters has always been strong and this is no exception. And obviously I agree that they need to move on. However my second big disappointment for this episode is the, ‘you forget Liza, I know you. I know when you’re lying (a couple of seasons of thinking she was 26 might contradict that but ok), especially to yourself.’

I absolutely understand the sentiment and I completely appreciate the setup for the zinger, ‘you wrote a letter to the wrong guy’ (though I do take issue with that line in general considering Liza has just said she’s made her choice. Even a simple, ‘I think’ in front of it would’ve made it less arrogant), but if this setup is leading to a Josh and Liza reunion down the track, then I would have preferred the execution be different because to me, this is not insightful or romantic, it’s Josh once again questioning Liza’s understanding of herself and her needs (I know it’s meant to be him trying to get her to ‘be real’ but it just doesn’t land like that for me). I have no doubt lots of fans are jubilant but it feels manipulative and is not a tactic that compels me to think they might have something worth revisiting. If after Liza said, ‘I love him more’ Josh had looked at her with that heartbreak in his eyes he can convey so well and said, ‘well then I hope he loves you the way you deserve’ or something and walked away, then THAT would show growth and make the possibility of him being an option again (which is clearly where this is all heading) far more compelling IMO.

So in one of the best bait and switch moments this show has delivered, Liza returns to the loft and has a good hard look at the gala photo with Charles and Michelle and Tom (and in my head she’s thinking about how good it is she and Charles promised each other they won’t go to things like that anymore) before we see another letter starting, Dear Charles. And just when all the Team Charles Stans were going to have a collective meltdown, it turns out it’s Kelsey writing her resignation letter and we all exhaled but then didn’t because Kelsey, what are you doing??? So. Much. DRAH-MAH, so little time.

Ramble Lite™, that was a good joke wasn’t it? Can’t believe we’ve reached the finale but I am also very ready because WE GET TO GO TO A WEDDING!!!! Better get my neckwear sorted…

#youngertv #younger tv #ramble #6x11 #younger season 6 #liza miller #charles brooks #diana trout #kelsey peters #maggie amato #liza x charles #team charles #review

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shyvioletcat · 5 years

Text

Kingdom of Ash Tour Sydney

Oh my gosh, I’m sorry this took so long. My notes were much more extensive than I thought and then just a lot of poor time management. Anyway, here it is.

A few choice bits of information/quotes:

“Being a dork pays off you guys. Who knew?”

Says Melbourne like a local

Loves our coffee. Says she’s moving here because of it.

Advice to aspiring writers: find someone to share your work with. Giving and getting feedback teaches you so much. Gives you a form of community.

Got into writing because it’s what she loves and it makes her come alive like nothing else does.

Music plays a Huge part in her creative process

Daily writing schedule. Plays with Taran then about 930/10 she starts. Gets admin stuff done first 9-8 job.

Nothing compares to sitting down and writing a scene she’s wanted to write for years and years. Describes it as time stopping and the closest thing to magic, at least for her.

Had a question about her creative circle for bouncing ideas around and talking about her stories. Sarah didn’t talk to her family about her stories at all when she was younger. Doesn’t like her parents reading her books. She referred back to writing ACOTAR and she asked the audience “do you know what it’s like to write an on the page sex scene knowing my father was going to read this?” Said it took her about three glasses of wine to deal with it.

About her dad reading said scenes: He said “I just skip those scenes.” Sarah’s reply “I’ll do you one better. I’ll just rip those pages out.” Then she talked how it was much worse when ACOMAF came out the next year.

Josh has become her creative sounding board over the last few years. He reads the early drafts of Crescent City and lets Sarah ramble to him for hours. She thinks it’s really cute they get to do that.

He thinks he’s every love interest in all her books. At events people ask if he’s what Rhys was modelled from. Josh will say yes. Sarah was very adamantly said it was a no.

Fellow writers help her from looking like a complete idiot. In particular Lynette Noni. Calls her a secret Disney Princess. Has become her can’t live without critique partner.

She said don’t listen to the people who say writing is a dumb dream. But said it’s a long long road to getting published but not impossible. “Don’t ever listen to the haters man.”

Her parents were always incredibly supportive. Her mum would leave snacks outside her door so she wouldn’t disturb her while she wrote

When her parents told her that she needed a job to support herself Sarah didn’t want to listen. But she said they were ultimately right because there are no guarantees in publishing. One of her favourite moments is when she became a New York Times best seller and she got to call and tell her parents. The first thing her mum said was she regretted telling Sarah to be realistic about the expectations of yourself. But Sarah was adamant they were right.

She thanked us and got quite emotional. Thanked us for supporting her books, she was walking around Sydney harbour and thought to herself how lucky I am to do this for a living.

Someone from the audience screamed “I love you” she said “I love you too, I love you all so much” (insert my hysterical tears). She couldn’t express how much she appreciates everything we all have done for her and her family, the fact we have allowed her to live out her dreams. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this being the loveliest group of people I’ve ever had the honour to meet”. SHE LOVES US.

Crescent city

Doesn’t think her parents can read a single page of crescent city. Joking, it’s every other page. Started as excess creative energy, a real passion project.

Describes it as taking the ToG/ACOTAR worlds and jumping ahead over 3000 years to where they have modern technologies and comforts. Magical creatures living together in complex hierarchies. Feels different because of the modern setting but has familiar aspects, e.g. snarky sassy heroines and brooding sexy muscled men. Says there are so many. So many.

Josh: “why are there so many attractive men in this book?” Sarah “because it’s a fantasy. FAN-TA-SY.”

No real defined plot yet.

Knew it was the story she wanted to tell because of an experience on a plane. Sarah was listening to a piece of music and saw a scene play out and she burst into tears. She didn’t know the characters or how they got there. The scene will be in the first book and is like THE MAJOR BIG SCENE. Kept thinking of that moment of creation and how much it overwhelmed her and that was the deciding factor that that was the next story she needed to tell.

World of Throne of Glass

World of Throne of Glass. Started off as an encyclopaedia. It will be a chronicle that exists in world and Sarah describes it like going into the library of Orynth and pulling it off the shelf. The premise of the book is that Aelin has hired this cranky old scholar to travel around all the kingdoms/continents and includes the travel logs, transcripts from interviews with the characters, insight into how they felt, letters between characters. The book itself is like the the Terrasen courts private copy so it has letters between characters. Glimpses into the future.

BUT THIS MEANS IT WILL COME OUT LATER

ALSO SAID THERE ARE POCKETS OF HISTORY SHE REALLY WANTS TO FILL IN AND THERE’S ALSO LOTS OF STORIES THAT MAYBE ONE DAY SHE MIGHT WANT TO TELL SHE JUST NEEDS TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT. SORRY I’M JUST REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

Throne of Glass/ACOTAR

The idea of Throne of Glass came to her when she was 15/16 years old. Gripped her like no other story had. Throne of glass has a special place in her heart because it’s what started her on this journey.

Sarah was changing Kingdom of Ash right up the very last minute.

Mystery questions from the lobby:

What would happen if all your villains met?

The thought of Maeve and Amarantha gave her chills to think about. Would they rip each other to shreds or form and unholy alliance? Undecided.

Did you cry during the writing of the final book? If so which moments?

Number one scene. The Thirteen.

Gave lots of details about when Manon first appeared, a piece of music from the Fright Night remake was playing and she saw the cottage scene play out. She saw Manon disembowel the farmers and how her teeth and claws came out and just thought “I love you”.

Loved witches since she was little because she realised witches were often women with power when women weren’t allowed to have power.

Sarah went to the mat for Manon. She hadn’t sold the rest of the books, only up to Heir of Fire. Writing about Manon gave Sarah her courage and came into her life when she needed her attitude. She said “Over my dead effing body” when editor said to cut Manon.

Sarah listened to a song from the original star wars and that was when she saw the sacrifice of the Thirteen. She needed to have Manon start where she did in Heir of Fire so when we all got to the scene in Kingdom of Ash is would really hit us strongly as it had hit Sarah for the first time. Sarah was sobbing at her desk when she saw them making their final run. She saw then Manon screaming and begging them to to stop because she realised she had a heart and loved them.

Sarah said she needed to lie down afterwards, she considered a happy ending for a moment, but then she thought about how the ladies never get to make the big heroic sacrifice and she really wanted the Thirteen to make the badass sacrifice and she wanted to make that moment when their exploding with light and not darkness absolutely destroyed Sarah.

Happier scene is the last goodbye between the main three, sobbing so hard. Really ugly crying not Frodo crying nicely at the end of The Return of the King, but bodily fluids spraying everywhere. So many tears.

Sarah would also get super amped up. Example: When Elide saves Lorcan she got so amped up she literally straddled her chair like she was riding a horse. (She re-enacted it on stage too). Then it was just more ladies were doing their badass thing like:

as Aelin flies down on the bird and explodes and destroys the wave and then Rowan is like that steam is going to boil every one like lobsters, got to get rid of that.

When Aelin makes her run and Lorcan sees her and he’s crying, you know if Lorcan’s crying some intense shit is going down

Then when Aelin is trying to get the mask off. That hit Sarah hit her so hard, didn’t expect it. Felt physically ill writing it. It was one of the few times Aelin was unhinged and in a panic. Seeing Aelin in a panic out Sarah in a panic.

Aelin has been like a person to Sarah and has carried Sarah through a lot of hard stuff. Sarah has said to herself “my name is Sarah J Maas and I will not be afraid”

Would say “What would Aelin do?” to give herself that swagger. Any time Aelin is in pain Sarah was in pain and would be like “My baby my baby! Let me help you”.

Such a joy to write. Aelin was telling her and showing Sarah where to go.

ABOUT THE ENDING OF KINGDOM OF ASH: Travelling in Costa Rico to a rainforest exists at cloud level. (Side note from Sarah: Vote for the environment! Do it for the golden toad). One of the most beautiful places she has ever been. Sitting in the backseat listening to music from John Carter of Mars. Sun broke through the clouds and lit up the mountains and Sarah heard the last line of Kingdom of Ash about the kingsflame blooming and she knew what the last line was and that’s what she wanted to get to. She starting crying (surprise surprise) didn’t want to tell her travelling companions so she lied and said she was crying because the view was so beautiful. Writing with Aelin at the helm guaranteed her nothing. Aelin did it though, she stuck to Sarah’s plans and Sarah got the ending she wanted.

Call out from the audience about Gavriel. Uproar from the audience. “Why did you do that!?” “Why would I do that? Because I’m a horrible person.” Any time a hot guy full of muscles dies it’s a sad day. Poor Aedion. “It would have been so hot! Not in a weird way! The two of them hanging out, the lion and the wolf and oh my heart... you mean I have no heart, that’s what you’re thinking.” Evil cackle.

Who of all your characters do you see sitting in a rocking chair and knitting and telling their grandchildren the wildest stories in their old age?

Throne of Glass. Dorian. Don’t know why.

ACOTAR world would 1000% be Cassian. Nessian book will come out after Crescent City. She started it just for fun, hadn’t planned to write last ACOWAR. Sarah was out to lunch with her editor and got a little drunk and pitched her other books, but then forgot. Agent called a few weeks later telling her the editor wants to buy these books.

She literally doesn’t have the time to get all the stories she wants out of her. Wishes she had Hermione’s time turner.

So that’s it. Again, sorry it took me so long. Sarah was so lovely and I still can’t believe I got to see her in person. There’s a lot I took away from her talk for myself, mainly just how adamant she was about being yourself is the way to go. We’re better off when we’re true to ourselves and love the tings we love without feeling bad for it.

#kingdom of ash tour #kingdom of ash tour sydney

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bulletdove · 5 years

Note

if u could change anything about aoaf what would u change?

AAAA this is such a good ask, thank you, i spent Way Too Fucking Long on this

(disclaimer: i don’t exactly support RPF, but i think it’s fine to consume it critically. it’s part of fandom, whether we like it or not. and fandom is an area of academic interest for me, so... you can’t understand something without researching it. yeehaw.)

so here’s AOAF: the extended cut. ideally part of a critical edition, because i have academic aspirations.

AOAF stands on its own really well as original fiction, because it didn’t get into heavy speculation and based itself off of “what if”. but the plot was more emotionally loaded than the characters were, i think? (so as far as RPF goes, it’s not that scandalous or ethically dubious.). extended cut would be an Original Fiction type of deal, the same basis as the original one but taking the characters in a different direction and obviously renaming them

the ship plot was good, but that’s extremely Fic (which is a draw of the genre, but also seriously limits the development of non-romantic relationships) so that’d be changed. more family interactions in the present that aren’t for the sole purpose of advancing the ghostf*cking plot, flashbacks to frank and his mom and frank and ray and frank and dewees. other friends hanging out, getting to know mikey. (i need to do a reread, but ray and bob and co. weren’t really that memorable...)

higher stakes. the kidnapping scene fell flat because you knew nothing was going to happen, mikey couldn’t die because he’s mikey, all that stuff. higher stakes for the dead character, too - i need to do a reread, but plausible risk of permadeath would help intensify things.

mikey subplot is of utmost importance. barely anybody who writes RPF seems to know what to do with him as a “character” - since his public persona is/was awkward, super quiet, but still super well-liked? and nobody really wants to figure out the why and how for a minor character, since he always ends up being a minor character - but i’d like some in-depth exploration. bringing out the parallels and differences between him and frank, the dead kid and the maybe-dying kid (assuming heightened stakes), and having them hang out more, is something i’d really like.

i’d have mikey and frank be friends, but also butt heads a lot and rub each other the wrong way - mikey’s a kid and he’s terrified of dying, doesn’t want his mom and gerard and his friends back home to go on without him, wants to explore this freaky town that feels like it’s breathing down his neck [it’s creepy, but he has a good feeling about it], wants to get the chance to be a kid again but also doesn’t want to die before he has the chance to grow up, and keeps having these freaky dreams about a marching band dressed in black. frank has (mostly) made his peace with being dead, thinks his family and friends have moved on without him and been pretty okay, wanted to get the fuck out and grow up but not sell out (gay punk rights), and he knows everything about this shithole and hates that it kind of feels like home. he’s a perpetual kid who knows he can’t grow up until he leaves; mikey’s too grown up already but he’s younger and moodier and both more and less at peace with life and death. they have a lot in common, but they can seriously butt heads.

i’d give mikey a heightened awareness of the supernatural, more mobility (definitely an ill-advised wander through the woods or three), and have him and frank have weird effects on each other.

i liked the sense of weird-hazy-small town that exists out of time, and not wanting to be there but also not really being able to leave (in different ways - frank’s literally trapped, the ways are just waiting and don’t know how long they’ll be stuck there, and their estimates keep changing.) deliberately developing that by having the teenage characters thinking about college and stuff or mrs. way thinking about plans for when they move away again and finding that those plans don’t feel pressing, that they might end up there forever, and maybe that might be liveable? (there’s definitely something wrong with that town, and it’s not just frank) good shit, more emotional depth, frank freaks out but they don’t know he’s a ghost at that point and don’t get it, fuck yeah

a more complicated plotline. more subplots. i think bringing in a different mystery than frank would make it more of a traditionally Literary work, and bring out unexplored dimensions in the characters and the worldbuilding. this time maybe it’d be donna? things around town are pretty strange, the police department is definitely corrupt, her kids keep vanishing in and out of the woods and not telling her the whole truth, gothic etc etc. haven’t thought that part out very much, tbh.

more character depth and development for gerard - AOAF would be the perfect time for him, a depressed kid with a sick brother and dead ghostfriend, to get really fucked up about life and death and his relationship to them, and stop feeling like an early death is some kind of romantic inevitability and realize oh god he really doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want mikey to die it’s not fair, frank being a ghost is cool on the surface but really it’s just awful, and is it really fair for him to be dreaming about his plans for after he graduates when frank is trapped here forever, and mikey might be too? (could bring this in in the kidnapping bit, idk. and some late-night chats with donna.)

more explanation of Why Frank Is The Way He Is. more flashbacks, more backstory, more insight into how he has seriously mixed feelings about his undeath and is trying to be okay with being trapped in the woods forever but really fucking isn’t but also feels like him and the water washing over his bones run at the same frequency - it’s part of him, but he wants more. more detail about that part.

ray and frank interactions. frank looking in on ray’s family, years later.

frank exploring more of the town than the woods - he has to have stood at the edge of the woods and stared as far as he could, he must have been curious, he must have wanted to know what was going on. he gets out of the woods, runs around town, is proud of it for changing and getting kinda-sorta-better? in parts? but hates it for moving on without him.

better ghost mechanics - i really disliked how it felt so easy and handwaved. blegh. the tree-phone was cute tho... (frank would gain mobility in degrees, not all at once, i think. and there would be side effects. more thought needed.)

the epilogue/sequel/whatever was cute, i wouldn’t change that except to make gerard’s eventual successful career a bit more ambiguous - and maybe mikey would die instead of your suggestion of gerard dying, i think that could work maybe. might be between the main plot and the epilogue, though.

showing more of frank’s unlife, and more of the other ghosts - absolute must. mikey spends a weekend at home, sneaks out, sees a dog in the woods that isn’t there, dreams about guitar lessons.

i swear there was other stuff that i talked about with you but i don’t remember... i didn’t mean to make this a whole Manifesto but i’m trying to get everything in in detail sfdklkfsdl rip

slower development of the romance plot, slower realization that frank is a ghost (but less over-the-top oblivious gerard), more developed main and side characters, more side characters (this story was a dudefest! where are the girls.), making the ending feel less contrived (all of their friends are suddenly there, and everything is okay? it needed a more drawn-out conclusion)

this wasn’t supposed to be this long, or take this much time >.

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zuka-themed-username · 5 years

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z-t-r: Phantom 2018

Phinally! (sorry - but I spiced it up with some stage photos this time, creds to eternalyjun/searching the tags)

I had the absolute supreme pleasure of seeing Snow Troupe’s Phantom twice during my trip to Japan in November. I had arrived with a ticket for an opening day s-seki seat in Takarazuka, but during my travels a wonderful fan club was able to provide me a b-seki seat the following morning, and holy smokes am I glad I saw it twice. I don’t know why I thought I could handle an s-seki seat - the sheer force that is Nozomi Fuuto is completely overwhelming that close up - but it was nice to not have to use my opera glasses!

For all that Thunderbolt Fantasy/Killer Rouge was my favorite show I’ve seen live, Phantom was the best I’ve seen in Japan. In terms of technical execution and emotional power this show takes the cake. While I was a bit surprised they would have Phantom near Elisabeth as they can be seen as tonally similar from a distance, I see now why they were not concerned.

Quick spoiler-free plot summary: Christine Daaé (Maaya Kiho) is an aspiring opera singer out on the streets of Paris selling her new hit single ‘Melodie de Paris’ when she is discovered by Philippe (cast A - Ayanagi Shou) who tells her to go to the Paris Opera House to meet the general manager Gérard (Ayakaze Sakina). When she arrives she finds that he has been ousted by Alain (Asami Jun), though circumstances allow for her to stay and meet the new prima donna/Alain’s wife Carlotta (Maisaki Rin). Carlotta allows her to stay, where the Phantom (Nozomi Fuuto) hears her beautiful voice. He hides part of his face behind a mask (and has a Black Angel-esque cohort) because of Tragic Reasons but still becomes her singing teacher, and she eventually gets the starring role in the upcoming production of “The Fairy Queen”. Due to Shady Circumstances something happens to her voice and The Phantom is Not Pleased. All hell breaks loose, and yes, a chandelier falls in a really neat way. There’s a whole lot of drama, and then a startlingly peppy finale as with all two-act zuka shows.

As with my other reviews this will be a total scattershot of notes and impressions. Spoilers will be indicated with a “[s]”. However as this is a show that’s been performed many times, feel free to ask me more detailed questions if they’re not answered here! And yes, you’ll want to buy the DVD/Blu-Ray. If not I might finally figure out streaming and show it.

[s] Right off the bat: in comparison to the 2004 version, Daimon (Nozomi) does not kill the gentleman (Joseph - thanks @daimongumi!) in the beginning. He instead does the tasteful tumble. The moment the set rolls out you see that there is not space for him to stumble down a set of stairs and be stabbed. The Phantom is instead shocked and horrified.

- The start of the show has an elaborate video projection during the overture (including the show curtain shown above). It does a nice job of establishing the extensive catacomb system under the Paris Opera House. I do wonder though if it was used to shorten what I call the “visual overture”, where the Top Star does a dance or some sort of interpretive performance to music at the top of a show as otherwise the plot does not require them on stage for quite some time. While Daimon is a triple threat I’d definitely put dance at #3 - and frankly I’m all for shortening the extensive moody Phantom & co. dances if it allowed her to conserve lung power for the real focus - her kick ass voice! A bit more on this later.

The Phantom pushes away the haters (I’m all three musumeyaku)

- There were amazing / borderline excessive projections whenever the Phantom was onstage, and I guarantee they will not show up well on the recording. I can only hope they do not wash out costuming and lighting. I feel like they were supposed to be tendrils of darkness, though as they were projected light it looked instead a bit like vines. When Daimon was wearing the sage green lounge wear later it was especially noticeable. Again the image doesn’t do it justice (but can we appreciate this shocking apple green color?)

Another set of Incredibly Insightful and Deep Notes directly from my intermission scribbles:

- “Carlotta is hilarious”

- “Maaya Kiho is perfect”

- “Nozomi Fuuto is perfect”

- “tiny organ”

- “hella candles”

and lastly,

- “shady swag Willy Wonka”

which works better with a crossing the silver bridge gif but for now:

Anyway back to more fleshed out thoughts:

- To the clown and the jester in the far back of the stage during Melodie de Paris: thank you.

- More specifically, there are about five “rows” of Parisians on stage during Maaya Kiho’s introduction, and there was one performer in the far back right dressed like a jester. They started out juggling. Kind of. There was another civilian with them pretending to be entertained. They juggled for about five tosses, then headed offstage. “Ok,” I thought, “let’s see what else is happening.” I looked to the far left and there was a terrifying old-school clown clowning around. I was impressed with the costume and the commitment but quickly looked back to the right. The jester had returned. With a pillow. And was spinning it like a basketball. Just like a regular couch pillow with tassels. Spinning it on her finger until it started to wobble, then she’d reset and try again. It was riveting.

I have so many questions. Did jesters do this? Are you supposed to be juggling the whole scene? Why did you exit the stage and not just bring the pillow with you at the start? Did this change every night? Whose pillow is this? Are they ok with you spinning it like that? Where did this come from?? How -

(By then the scene was ending, and thank goodness I knew the plot otherwise I would have been completely lost. Also thank goodness for seeing the show twice, as Maaya’s voice is a golden treasure and if I had been too distracted to listen to it I would have been quite upset with myself.)

- Asami Jun as the new, slightly skeevy general manager of the Opera House is a joy. I had so much fun watching her be so into Carlotta, shooing people away or making a path for her wherever she went. He showers her with compliments and is utterly distraught when he misspeaks. I can’t imagine what Ayanagi’s interpretation would be like, as she was so fantastically sincere as Philippe, but I’m glad they will have a chance to stretch themselves as actors, since there’s really only one solo song between the two roles if I am remembering correctly.

- There were two musumeyaku Phantom followers and it was nice way to break up the choreography. While I am still not 100% convinced that the followers as a whole are incorporated effectively (I would like to see more interaction between the Phantom and his followers outside of setting them up to make mischief), they executed some interesting choreo well.

- One thing that really struck me throughout this production is how well Takarazuka as a whole is able to create worlds on their stage, through the simplicity / complexity of having a ton of background people onstage telling silent side stories. Sometimes sheer volume works, as with large city scenes (here Paris, also Guys & Dolls’ New York City), but also in any number of smaller cafe or club scenes. While painstaking measures are taken to ensure it does not interfere with the Top Star or Top Musumeyaku, it is still motion on stage that can draw the eye away (*ahem* jester). I would like to highlight my second favorite set of background characters, the prop guys in “Home”, as an example of how tricky this balance is. Plot Happens and Christine finds herself with some laundry and some music backstage in the opera house and begins the setup for her big solo turned duet, “Home”. Maaya is near the front of the stage, to the right in a light spotlight. Behind her are 4-5 sets of 2-3 people representing different segments of the opera company. There are dancers, some folks around a piano (I think), costume folks, and two guys on the far left checking props - our Spear Guys. They are all doing some light tasks amongst themselves. When Maaya begins singing, they all stop, except for the Spear Guys who are still joking around. As the song continues, they freeze and another group begins moving. This repeats until each group has had a silent solo, moving about behind Maaya until the huge Phantom set piece rises from the stage. The first time I saw the show I was seated on the far right - prime Maaya placement (thank you!!), but also lined up to have the Spear Guys right behind her. The second time up in b-seki it was not nearly as distracting as I could see the 15-20 feet between them and Maaya, but they still didn’t stop at the start like the other groups. I don’t think for a second they missed their cue two days in a row, but I do find it interesting that the direction does not have the entire stage freeze for Maaya’s intro. I wonder if that would be more distracting - to have 10-15 people suddenly stop moving and then have small groups begin moving, so they instead try to smooth out the transition with our Spear Guys. Or perhaps they wanted to highlight that she’s not a big deal yet as a laundry girl, despite this being a big song, so they don’t emphasis it as much with total stage isolation.

I don’t know why this specific thing stuck with me, perhaps I just wasn’t used to “Home” being staged instead of just an audio recording. But I won’t let this more intensive thought on direction make me forget to mention that: I sincerely hope no one gave Daimon any direction after opening night in regards to her facial expressions whenever the Phantom hears Christine’s voice. Idk if new tumblr will allow the gifs, if y’all pick up what I’m putting down.

- A quick side note: the sets and costumes feel refreshed and much more intricate. I’m somewhat surprised they were able to load the huge set pieces just four days after Castle of the White Heron. Huge shout out to the Takarazuka Theater Stage Crew/Staff.

- This goes without saying but Daimon and Maaya’s voices were flawless. I have a note that “Nozomi actually out-sung the ensemble”, which, duh? Her voice + microphones? I wish I could remember what I was going for there.

- There’s a song contest in act one, and frankly I think they should make the song the ensemble has to sing the actual contest. Boy does that song not translate well. It’s incredibly fast and while Snow Troupe does their best it’s legitimately impossible to follow. I need to see rehearsal footage to see ensemble folks just be like, “whelp this is fastest I can go, how are you doing?” and the shrugs in response. And then Daimon being like, “well I had a to practice a bunch but when I did it over a decade ago-” *nails it*

[s] When Christine faints from, idk, finally having a chance to follow her dreams and then promptly being poisoned, and the Phantom ‘sweeps her off her feet’ to his underground dungeon palace (with way too many candles - I assume candle maintenance is what the followers do most of the time), it was more of a ‘1 - 2 - hngh” on the Phantom’s part. I heard that it was very quickly taken out and I can attest that it didn’t need to happen if Daimon was going to hurt herself. Also I like that it gives Christine the tiniest bit more agency if she has to stumble through the mirror with him instead of being completely unconscious.

[s] Speaking of which, Maaya’s approach to Christine. This is another tricky thing that I could write a short essay about. In this version of Phantom, (compared to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s The Phantom of the Opera where Raul, a Philippe-type, is immediately there to try and help with the creepy Phantom situation) Christine is much more isolated, and greater attempts are made to humanize the Phantom. We get the sad details of his birth, upbringing, and current situation, including the weird twist that Christine looks just like his mother. Another essay could be (and no doubt has) been written on that topic, however what I would like to focus on is that Christine is aware of all of this information. She’s aware of how he ended up with a “horrendously” disfigured face and why he is deeply ashamed to the point of violence if discovered. So when she uses her beautiful, angelic voice to convince him to take off his mask, sees his face, then runs off screaming, it’s truly heartbreaking. There are a million ways to play this scene and the character up to this point, but the unfortunate reality is that Christine has to run out of the grotto/garden in order to make it back up to the opera house (somehow, which brings up more questions) for the plot to proceed and for last 40-50 minutes to happen. Therefore the actress is a bit stuck. With that eventuality in mind, I think Maaya makes Christine as ‘modern/realistic’ as possible, in that she screams without too much fear, and her face is a bit.. flat? I don’t mean that in a negative way. I wouldn’t be surprised if she received a few notes along the lines of, “be sure to be really scared by his face” but wanted to treat Christine as a woman that could understand - or simply wanted to have the chance to understand - the man under the mask/scars, so her reaction both times almost looked like, “ok I’m screaming and running because the plot requires it but I’m here for you-” *and gone*. This is reinforced by the much stronger reaction she has when she realized she made a mistake and struggles to go back behind the mirror to him, and her polite but not very enthused duet with Philippe (side note: the Phantom walking up with flowers after that scene - a punch to my stomach). I don’t even think it’s out of true romantic love, but out of a desire to truly understand. For all that they come from different backgrounds, they do have the same goal of making beautiful music, and with this much less murderous interpretation of the Phantom I could root for them. This is in stark contrast to the 2004 version, where I was much more ok with the Phantom’s demise in the end.

[s] That all being said, Maaya’s voice in the song that convinces the Phantom to remove his mask is f*ing beautiful. I am legitimately tearing up just hearing the echoes of it in my memory. When the Phantom is alone and breaks down crying after tearing down the world around him (quite literally), he is perfectly centered on the stage and just so small. It’s an amazing bit of staging that tore out my heart. The use of religious-style themes as well is just crushing.

[s] Speaking of which, I can’t forget to mention the incredibly long but intense story of the Phantom’s upbringing with this gorgeous stained glass in the background:

[s] The suggestion of questionable morality by tilting it is clear and fantastic, the dancing and anguish throughout is just flawless. For all that it does not make me sympathetic for the weirdly young dad (yes yes struggs of being nibante and not senka), I could still get behind the raw emotion of it all, which is rare for me. The “Ave Mariiiiiiia” is now ringing clearly in my head as well and I’ll just say good luck buying the soundtrack because I already ordered every copy.

[~s] Not quite a spoiler but at one point the Phantom is in a boat with Christine and is wearing a standard suit with tails. Intermission hits and when we come back to to our seats the plot has not progressed and yet they went and Top Star’ed the suit to make it the intricate blue one shown in most of the promos. I chuckled a bit.

- This happens much earlier in the show but Carlotta’s song introducing the frenzied world of opera is so fun and amazing - I remembered it just now as if my brain was trying to lighten the mood for me. You could tell they really reveled in the lighthearted scenes and nailed all of the comedic shenanigans.

- Come to think of it there’s a lot of tossed paper, envelopes, letters, music, etc. that is wild yet contained, though there is a letter dropped from the ceiling that juuuust barely made it on stage on the second day. It fell in the slot between the lights and the orchestra pit and I hope there’s a day where a musician has to hand it to them XD.

- Despite the age of the show it felt quite fresh, and the staging did not feel nearly as stiff as say, Elisabeth. That being said, all of the Phantom’s emotional struggles had the same setup of powerful song into a moody dance (except the big rehearsal scene, which is still all dance, though modified). This makes sense given the previous set of Phantoms (Wao Youka, Haruno Sumire, and Ranju Tomu), but I think for Daimon flipping the song and dance would have been beneficial. It would have been a bit hassle in terms of structure and orchestration, for sure, but continuing to shorten the Phantom-centric dance segments in exchange for a smoother and higher emotional peak, along with extended glorious singing by Daimon (also because the Phantom is a composer, not a choreographer) would have been neat.

[s for a bit] And here I was about to go into the auxiliary musings without detailing Daimon’s approach to the character! It was, in short, exactly how Daimon would approach the role. A total cop-out description, but I still think the most apt, despite me being unsure of how she would approach it before I saw it. Daimon has a way of blending vulnerability and ferocity that is quite unique to her and on full display here. The Phantom as a character is emotionally stunted and traumatized. He has the full strength and rage of an adult that has been wronged, the anguish of an artistic teen trying to find his voice, and the naivety of a boy that has only been loved by a woman that was scorned by everyone else. It is quite messed up when you lay it all out, and yet it does not allow for violent acts such as physical/emotional possession of another person and straight-up murder. As I mentioned before, when I saw the much more intentional murder in the 2004 version I was engaged and impressed by the gutsy-ness of it. “A Top Star is a villain, wow!” The emotional appeal in the second half of the show for me fell flat, until the very end when Hanafusa Mari is cradling Wao because of the sheer power of their Golden Combi. Hence I always saw the role as one or the other. A Phantom that is a villain with selfish desires (2004) or a misunderstood artist that gets swept up in emotion and acts out (2006). Here I can see both existing simultaneously. When Daimon is sad and aching, she is sad. Make no mistake, she was crying, many people in the audience were sniffing - two people on the second day had like racking sobs they were trying to control. No doubt a result of having seen it live, it is difficult for me to look at the character as a whole and cast one final opinion - I’m thinking of core scenes and moments where the emotion - sadness or rage - is just so strong. That’s something I think, whether or not you’ll like it when you see it, you can’t deny. Daimon’s expressive face is conveying every emotion quite strongly. When she goes to kill Carlotta, (RIP, you suck for sabotaging Christine but damn do I love your attitude) the intention is quite clear. Carlotta messed with Christine, so she’s gotta go. It’s terrifying, the calm appearance and slow, methodical style at first. The only thing that makes it mellow out for me is the absurdity of the red outfit and mask. It’s clear he raided the costume department and/or worked on the outfit for sometime despite being so incensed the moment he discovers who is at fault. Regardless of that flash of comedy, the cold intent is classic evil scary Daimon that I wanted to see.

What then I like about this is that we have three different situations with three different outcomes instead of just “too much emotion = murder”.

In 2004 we have:

someone saw the facial scarring -> murder

Phantom is not a fan of the new way the opera is being run -> murder

someone messed with Christine -> murder

In 2018 we have:

someone saw the facial scarring -> an accident/fall out of fright (This sets up better how “genuinely scary” his face is when Christine sees it. As an aside, his body still shows up in the glass case later on so I guess someone had to go find his body? I figure the followers had to draw straws, but that the Phantom would capitalize on it regardless is problematic.)

Phantom’s not a fan of the new way the opera is being run -> someone passes out from fright or overexertion during the Phantom panic?

someone messed with Christine -> oh shit, murder

This makes the murder all the more shocking, to the point of nearly being out of place, but the murderous intention comes not out of habit but because of love/infatuation with finding the voice of an angel/their mom. Which is a sentence I never thought I would type but here we are.

While it’s not as shocking on the meta level and can definitely be seen as making the character more tame, it also makes the incredibly long appeal to his tragic background less out of left field and a bit more of a situation to struggle with as an audience member. This does not excuse the dramatic trope of being shot and then having a solid 1-2 more hours of emotional appeals on the silver bridge, running about the opera house with the most incompetent guards, and entire song reprises before then being shot again, Andre on the Bridge-style. It’s a bit too long, and I wouldn’t mind switching the getting grazed on the side scene with the Phantom/dad reunion scene, if only so we could have a moment where not only does Gerard see his son get shot but is also seen by guards having talked to him, so there is more tension in the final moments. Not to re-write the script, but throwing in a bit of smugness from the guards to be like, “Nah, he won’t shoot his kid,” - then, “Father!”, then - *bang* adds perhaps a deeper shock to the bystanders? Or perhaps it’s 1 AM and I need to finish pontificating on something I saw just long enough ago to forget more interesting details.

Regardless, that aaallllll being said, Daimon’s Phantom is one that seeks to cover every base as strongly as possible. He is the saddest, the most anguished, the most angry, the most vulnerable and the most capable of cold and calculated revenge. Thus it could read as a bit overwrought or youthful, but I think it works with this greater shift in narrative that the Phantom lacks the emotional training one would get from having been raised in a more... conventional mask-free non-catacombs environment.

[end of s]

- On the finale: y’all, I was so exhausted. This show is so much. I’m never prepared for a mini revue after a two act show and this was no exception. It was fast. I want the script-lettered “phantom” sign in my house. The songs were upbeat and it was jarring. This scene happened:

and there’s a hip move (?) that was real sassy. My face was stiff from trying not to cry and still an eyebrow twitched in surprise. When the gif hits tumblr it’s gonna blow up. Get ready for Music Revolution is all I can say. It’s already better than Super Voyager.

A few auxiliary notes:

- People were cryyyying. A lot of sniffles. Two people actively sobbing on day two.

[s] On opening day during one of the final scenes Christine plays, if I remember correctly, a few notes of the “oh you are music” line on the piano and “revives” the Phantom for a final moment. Except kinda? It went up correctly but on the way down she didn’t hit the right note and ended up with a nice jazz remix. You better believe she had it right the next day but I loved the *note, note, wrong note. tasteful pause. a note that sounds like a venturing guess. a pause. another note aaaaand the scene continued* I love knowing that she’s actually playing those notes.

- I’m not surprised if they didn’t release the opening day curtain call speeches - Rika Masumi could not remember Gaston Leroux’s name (original author of The Phantom of the Opera - and fair, this show is so far from the book I’m surprised it has to be mentioned at all) and Daimon was trying to explain the cast split but got caught up in “ums” (which sounds like “eh”), which led to a funny bit where she was like, “you know, cast... eh... eh... ah, A!” (’A’ also sounding more like “eh”). Then there were two more curtain calls at which point Daimon was literally like, “buy the CD, buy some sandwiches and drinks... go home please” and then was like, “ok let’s do a phantom mask sign-off, everyone put your hand up like this” *hand up like the phantom mask* “ok with me, ‘Phantom...’” *audience repeats* Then Daimon pulled her hand away and said “maerou!” which literally is just like, “Phantom... is over!” I’m sure there’s a more elegant way to phrase it but people chuckled and starting packing up so I followed suit. I really wanted Maaya to speak but alas that’s not how things roll. If anyone has any insight on how she said she was going to approach the role (beyond, “I’m going to support otokoyaku”) please let me know!

I’m no doubt missing a whole bunch, probably will edit in the morning, and might add some comments if I remember, but otherwise this sums up my trip! So glad to finally have it all out there and finished. Can’t wait to hear people’s impressions of the Tokyo run!

#takarazuka #snow troupe #phantom #yukigumi #nozomi fuuto #daimon #maaya kiho #murder #i was dead #but in the good way not like *spoiler*#:o

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Constantine - Series Review

I come not to praise Constantine, but to bury him.

Well, okay. A little of both.

In a fairly short amount of time from when this is posted, season four of DC's Legends of Tomorrow will premiere, featuring Matt Ryan as a regular cast member playing our favorite bisexual petty dabbler in the mystic arts; John Constantine. This makes it a great time to mention two things. First, if you weren't aware, Doux Reviews has a regular reviewer of Legends of Tomorrow who's both insightful and terribly sexy, so you should definitely check that out. Second, Constantine's one and only season as an independent property is ripe for a fresh look, now that we know we have more trenchcoated goodness coming our way.

So, let's take a look at Constantine's thirteen episode run, in light of what we've learned about the character since, shall we?

The series is now available on demand, so let's go episode by episode, while we count down to his next appearance.

'Non Est Asylum':

Re-watching this episode – and for the record, I re-watched it three times while trying to sort out how I felt about it – two things become very clear. Almost everything in the episode is brilliant, and they absolutely should have thrown away all but the last two minutes and started from scratch there, even if it meant only getting twelve episodes on air.

The issue, as most of you who care will remember, comes down to studio interference. 'Non Est Asylum' exists to establish two characters, John Constantine, and Liv. Liv is the daughter of a friend of John's who mysteriously died recently, has a mysterious magical cabin which is not at all like the TARDIS as owned by John Dee, will serve as the show's home set, and has all sorts of mysterious hints about why he abandoned his daughter and what his story was. All of this is clearly meant to set up Liv's character arc as 'female Neo who fights demons instead of robots'. That's her character brief, and it couldn't be clearer that it was meant to carry the season.

But at some point the studio clearly insisted that they cut Liv's character and replace her with a different type of female lead that they thought would fit the vibe of the show they wanted better. This isn't an inherently terrible thing and is totally within the studio's rights. The exact same thing happened with Big Bang Theory, and if you've ever watched the abandoned pilot of that show with Not-Penny, you know that it was a change for the better. But they absolutely needed to cut this episode loose as a result of that decision, because the scars of Liv's removal really, really show.

You can identify without effort the one single scene that was changed. In the original plan, John has Chas drive Liv past the place she scryed about earlier to see that something terrible had indeed happened there. Obviously this was meant to affirm her commitment to helping people despite her fear of the magical world. Instead, they inserted a scene to follow it wherein other characters discuss how she was so scared by the realization that she left the area, moved to the other side of the country, and would never be mentioned again. Good thing that she left the keys to her dad's cabin, so we still have a home base, huh? It's a sloppy edit that leaves the whole episode feeling wasted, and they absolutely should have scrapped the whole thing, starting the new pilot with John's encounter in the alleyway where he ignites his hands, because that's an amazingly strong image, segueing into the introduction of Zed drawing that same image, which should have, and would have, been a strong intro to her character if it didn't feel so much like a back pedal away from Liv.

It's all a shame, because like I said, the rest of the episode has a lot of wonderful stuff. The dialogue is absolutely cracking, specifically lines like, 'Where do you come from, John?' 'Oh, the sordid passions of my parents.' The effects are beyond first rate, specifically all the flashes to skulls and zombie/demon makeup, which is really tricky to not overdo and they stuck the landing every time here. And finally, the performances, even Liv's, are better than you should usually expect from a pilot. Anyone who thinks that Matt Ryan is just playing himself as John Constantine would do well to watch his portrayal of the electricity demon dressed up in John's body to taunt John. He's playing two entirely different characters arguing with one another, one of which is in what could easily have turned into Halloween makeup, and he completely crushes it.

Other thoughts about this episode; it was a mistake to rush that much information about Astra in right at the beginning of the series in what was already a pretty full episode. Ritchie was a fun character, but they really shouldn't have introduced both him and Chas in the same episode because that reads as a bit of a wasted opportunity for later. And speaking of Chas, now that we know that John is bisexual, do we suppose that he and Chas have had sex? Clearly, the answer at this point appears to be yes, but we'll keep checking in on that point as the season progresses.

'The Darkness Beneath':

Jesus Christ, yes. This. This is what the show should have been directly out of the gate. Just look at how much less we know about Zed than we did about Liv, and yet how much fuller and richer a character Zed is simply by virtue of the fact that we aren't being force fed studio notes back story about her for the entire episode. Ditto for John Constantine. This, apart from being set in the US instead of England, is exactly the sort of situation he'd have been mixed up in in the pages of Hellblazer, and the show was rarely stronger because of it. The absence of Harold Perrineau helps as well, since all he really accomplished in the pilot was to loom menacingly and say, 'I'll be important later.'

If they'd had the balls to completely throw out the pilot and start with John Constantine in the alley with his fists on fire segueing directly into this episode, we would currently be enjoying the premiere of season five of this show. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

'The Devil's Vinyl':

Satan cuts a demo. Reviews are mixed. I suspect that this is the version of the show that the network wanted to have; basically The X-Files with demons for aliens and a warlock/psychic combo for FBI agents. It's not terrible, as monster of the week episodes go, and it provides a good intro for Papa Midnite, but you can't help but feel like the show is rushing to introduce as much Hellblazer back catalog as they can to make up for the pilot episode misstep.

And Chas brought John orange juice because he was worried about his blood sugar. They didn't just have sex in the past, they're currently still at it. John even called him 'Daddy.' Can Chas show up on Legends? Because I am shipping them so hard right now.

'A Feast of Friends':

For thirty-eight minutes of screentime, we get a pretty standard demon of the week wrapped up in a not particularly subtle addiction metaphor. Good enough television, but nothing groundbreaking. But then John walks his old friend Gary into a theater, fully aware that he was leading him to his slaughter just because he couldn't think of another way to win, and we get our first real glimpse in this series of John Constantine: Hellblazer. The interesting thing about Constantine in the comics is that he is always a man who fully expects every single thing he encounters to be the shittiest possible version of itself, and is rarely disappointed. But contrary to how that sort of character is usually portrayed in fiction, that knowledge neither makes him bitter and cynical, nor longing for hope. It makes him pragmatic. And pragmatic is scary and interesting, because it's rarely seen as a virtue and never portrayed as aspirational. Except in Hellblazer.

I hate to keep focusing on sexuality, but it would be fascinating to know what Matt Ryan thought about John's sexuality while filming this series, because we keep encountering moments like John's kiss to Gary's forehead which display an extraordinary level of comfort with male on male physicality while at the same time not glamorizing it or making it feel exploitative. At the very least, I bet Matt Ryan is a hell of a kisser.

'Danse Vaudou':

Jim Corrigan! Dammit, I'd forgotten that they were setting up the Spectre and never got to pay it off. I know I've been saying this almost every story, but can Jim Corrigan please, please, please, show up on Legends?

This is the episode that almost broke me as far as re-watching Constantine goes. There's just so much rich potential and setup that we know is never paid off. The rising darkness that never happens, the live action realization of The Spectre that they were clearly building up to and would have been amazing, Papa Midnite who they had properly set up to be as compelling and layered a character as he had been in the comic books. It's just heartbreaking.

'Rage of Caliban':

A fairly standard Halloween filler episode, the likes of which The X-Files had been banking for most of the 90s. The title exists solely to allow me to make a poncy literary reference for the sole sake of validating my English degree, which I'm going to hold off on for the moment. But the scares are genuinely scary, the child actors aren't irritating, and the twists are pretty good.

Chas, meanwhile, has taken to arguing with Constantine like an old married couple while he's under the influence of the truth telling sword. But then he goes and raises questions by mentioning someone named Rene, so I guess the implication is that John is his rebound relationship? Yes?

'Blessed are the Damned':

Apparently there is a rule that all genre shows are required to do at least one show about snake handlers and one show about faith healing. Sensing that their run would be limited, Constantine does both at once. And, it's pretty much your standard genre show about snake handlers and faith healing, to be honest. Zed's sudden desire for faith stands out as a little out of character, but that's because it only happens for the sake of making us fall for the 'grab the feather' fakeout later on.

It is interesting to wonder what Manny thinks is going on in this episode, with the benefit of hindsight. Were he and Imogene working together? Did he pull out her feather? Or is it just a coincidence that two different angels are up to shady dealings simultaneously? Don't hold your breath for an answer on this one, I'm afraid.

'Saint of Last Resorts, Part 1':

This is the moment you can see the show figuring out what it wants to be. As an added bonus, as the scripting and themes are gelling, the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and there are a couple of directorial flourishes that are just beautifully handled. The DP on this one was Scott Kevan. I will be looking up his CV later, because his work here is so much better than we usually get.

'Saint of Last Resorts, Part 2':

It's a little odd how completely the naming ties these two episodes into one coherent two-parter, because really they have very little to do with each other as far as plot goes beyond this one picking up where the last one left off. But then, this one picked up the previous episode's cliffhanger from before the holiday break, so that's not so unusual.

By the end of this episode, all the pieces are in place for what the show should have become. Zed's backstory is just roughed in enough to allow for a lot of future development. We've explored why John makes the choices he does through the time honored technique of taking a different character and watching them get forced into making those same choices so that we can better understand how John got there. And Chas continues to prove that he's John's one true soulmate. I've started referring to them as Chastantine, if anyone would like to join me in shipping them.

'Quid Pro Quo':

In which we meet a really fun potentially recurring villain, the pathetic, elderly, also-ran magician Felix Faust, who you just know they would have found a way to bring back repeatedly as a sort of Mudd/Quark hybrid. Plus we finally hear Chas' backstory, in which we find out how he basically became Captain Jack with a countdown clock, which is a great idea and could have been explored in a thousand interesting ways.

Okay, I've been a little puckish about Chas and John's relationship, but this seems like the right time to address the issue like a responsible adult. I think, based on what we've seen this season, that John and Chas have definitely been physically intimate at least once in the past, but purely on a friendship basis. I think that they currently have feelings for another that transcend what we currently think of as friendship but don't really qualify as romantic love. I'd say that they'd reached a pure form of the Greek concept of Philia, but I'd hate to be that pretentious. And I'll tell you why. Because John Constantine would never, ever, think to worry about whether someone was still all right to drive after a night out. But he does for Chas.

'A Whole World Out There'':

And we're back to what's essentially a Supernatural or X-Files monster of the week episode. That's not a terrible thing, intrinsically. As they go, this would have been one of the better Supernatural or X-Files episodes. Plus, Jeremy Davies is always worth watching. It just suffers a little bit from being sandwiched between the previous week's excellent study of character relationships and the knowledge that we're only going to get two more episodes after this.

The show can hardly be blamed for it, but our time with Constantine is rapidly running out, and we don't have time to waste treading water like this. Frustrating.

'Angels and Ministers of Grace':

The evil artifact of the week is a black diamond and not one person made a skiing joke. I find that disappointing.

It's really hard to square this episode with the following week's revelation about Manny. It feels like the whole point of this installment was to humanize Manny and bring him more into Team Constantine's fold, but we learn pretty conclusively in the following episode that that is not where Manny's storyline is going, so what exactly are we supposed to make of what happens here? And what was the long term plan for Zed's brain tumor, which is clearly sitting there in the final scene wearing a tiny t-shirt that says, 'I'm going to be a significant plotline later on', and then never gets the chance to be.

Honestly, as I near the end of re-watching these, the thing that's striking me the most is how much optimism the writing room is showing; diligently moving forward with planting the seeds for long term plans, carefully setting up mysteries inside backstories, all meticulously orchestrated to come into play later on. There's a strange and tragic nobility in the amount of faith they were showing in the show's prospects for a future.

'Waiting for the Man':

This was an amazing season finale. It gelled the developing Constantine/Zed/Jim Corrigan triangle, which we already know to be doomed. We get the foreshadowing of The Spectre, who clearly has very specific wounds that we're going to presumable see inflicted on Jim as he dies and is transformed into his supernatural identity. We get the new information about Manny that completely flips the table on everything we thought we knew about the season's storyline and just begs the viewer to re-watch the season while waiting for answers in season two. Plus we get a stand alone story whose style feels like it could be straight from the pages of Hellblazer; involving ghostly goings-on colliding with the most grotesque and debased aspects of humanity.

This is a heartbreaking series finale for all those same reasons. The showrunners' optimism about the program's future remains unbowed, and no concession is made to the possibility that they might not be renewed. Instead the storyline marchs boldly on, telling a solid standalone story while delicately weaving in the seeds of events to come. If you'll pardon the mixed metaphor.

The closest the show itself comes to acknowledging its situation vis-à-vis renewal is a speech of John's early on in the episode about human life, in which he basically says 'we're here as long as we're here, and then we're gone. It can't be changed, it can't be helped, and it can go screw itself double hard, because we're not going to let fear of that matter.' Which is basically the most John Constantine sentiment ever expressed.

So, now that the charms are all o'erthrown, if I might borrow an appropriate line, what do we make of it all?

This would have been an amazing show, is the closest I can get to a concise answer. It was doing everything right, it was proceeding in good faith and making no concessions to fear, and it got screwed out of continued existence by the most banal and crushing forces. So, in a way, the show Constantine is very much a reflection of Constantine the man.

For those who don't know, or don't remember, the answer to what happened is depressingly simple. The network needed to make final decisions about renewals and cancellations by a fixed date, and Constantine hadn't aired enough of its run by that point to get the amount of positive feedback it needed to survive. It might have made the cutoff if they hadn't tripped out of the gate with the replacement of Liv for Zed, making it feel like the show was already troubled to network executive eyes from the get go. The combination of that initial wobble and the show happening to air a lot of its episodes after the cancellation decision had been made finished it. There aren't really any bad guys in the story, just a confluence of terribly unfortunate factors that no one could change. This is also, in its way, the most Constantine thing ever.

It's ironic that Constantine, the television character, has lived the opposite experience of Constantine the comics character. In the funny books, John was a random factor that occasionally cropped up in other supernaturally flavored books, most usually Swamp Thing. We didn't know much about him, but every time he randomly popped up he got more popular until they eventually gave him his own series. On the television, they jumped right to his own series, and then after that wasn't renewed began using him to pop up in other character's shows as a mysterious magician who served as a random factor in their storylines. Maybe if they'd done it the other way around his own show would have flourished earlier, I don't know. What I do know, however, is that Matt Ryan is clearly beloved, both by fans and by the people making decisions on the TV shows, because a character from a cancelled show on another network just does not get a brought back and given a second chance at life on other shows. That absolutely, categorically, never happens. The closest possible other example is Richard Belzer, and both of his shows were at least on the same network.

So, I highly recommend going back and watching these 13 episodes, because they really are for the most part damn good television. And John would absolutely want a party, not a wake. As to the overarcing plot about the rising darkness, I managed to find peace with it by telling myself that the rising darkness referred to the demon Mallus, who John was eventually able to help defeat on Legends of Tomorrow, and so it all worked out. We still won't ever know what the hell Manny wanted out of the whole situation, but if you squint at it sideways it all hangs together.

Nine out of ten trenchcoats. It's only not ten because the first half of the season is clearly finding its feet, but even so it's fantastic. Now bring on season four of Legends, wherein Chas turns up and helps John summon the Spectre to rescue Zed from the Brujaria.

I can dream, can't I?

Oh, and 'Rage of Caliban' is a quote from Oscar Wilde's introduction to Picture of Dorian Gray. You're welcome.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

#Constantine #John Constantine #HellBlazer #Legends of Tomorrow #Matt Ryan #DC Comics #Arrowverse #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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