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#i tried to cram every main character in this
aphpuffinchild · 2 months
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since it's out i can finally post my piece for @hws-anthology as well as the timelapse for it. as is arguably all my hetalia work, it's a love letter to my friend @pyrrhocorax 's fic Sendlingur og Sandlóa - i'll ramble a bit about how much it means to me, as well as the symbolism i wormed into this piece below the read more :)
i originally had two pages planned for this piece, potentially more - the fic is a good 74k words long and certainly not light on scenes i could and wanted to pull from, but various things led into other various things and one page was all i could manage, so i tried to cram in what i could, so here's that (in a rough, somewhat arbitrary order of focal points)
the opening chapter! the car is a framing device for the piece as much as it is for the journey the characters will take following that first chapter, so i wanted to use the car window/shapes as a literal framing device in my drawing
joi, shaky at best in his sense of self, sees no reflection in the window, instead there's a silhouetted raven to signify the search he must go on to find it
while not perfectly transcribed by virtue of wonky (plus an extra) line(s), the notes coming from joi's headphones are the opening to the song sendlingur og sandlóa, the fic's namesake, which a loved one kindly transposed by ear for me for the purpose of this piece
in a similar vein, the stickers on joi's suitcase are of a purple sandpiper and a ringed plover, the birds after which the song is named - here they are as transparents and in their original colours
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i wanted to create a sliiight impression that joi is the one knocking over the chessboard, representing his repeated rejections of it (both physically, and the things it represents)
the chess pieces were also chosen specifically! originally i was going to use a black rook and a white pawn to match chapter 41, but for the sake of having alternating colours and the rest of my metaphors working (iirc) i swapped those colours around. that, and i wanted to match chapter 13's white king and black pawn - the black pawn stuck, the white king was colour swapped for colour cohesion reasons like the other's. (visual contrast was important to me, but the white queen blending slightly into the sky was okay for symbolism reasons) (there was also black king, white rook from chapter 3, so it all worked out anyway - there's a lot of chess in this story and i only had space for so many pieces and colours, basically)
speaking of which, the black pawn is for joi (chapter 13), the white queen is for halle (someone who, from joi's perspective, can go anywhere, vs joi's pawn, someone to be used -> see chapter 35 and perspective).
the king piece is falling (but hasn't quite fallen) between halle and henrik (chapter 3, 7, 13, though i most clearly thought of 19)
the person in the top right corner is eduard! i desperately wanted to include him because i think he's deserved it, and i considered a lot of ways of working him in, but i think an ambiguous silhouette that isn't Quite part of the main picture works better narratively
note also that he's separated from the other's through a red curtain, to represent the iron curtain (naturally) i wanted it to match ber + tino's part in some way, to sorta emphasise their similar foundations despite being split apart across places
the flowers at eduard's window are placed and chosen purposefully as well! orange/red zinnia's outside (for familial ties, steadfastness, friendship and remembrance) for what eduard puts out in to the world, then lily-of-the-valley for tino and cornflower for him inside to show what he wants to hold close :)
halle and joi are the only characters with their eyes open - halle looks towards the viewer/author/reader/joi, while joi looks away all together. if you've read the fic (which i assume you have because i can't imagine this is interested to read otherwise) you probably don't need me to explain why that reflects their roles in the story
similarly, every character apart from the brothers is turned towards another in some way (eduard does not count when his flowers do, and his role in the story is based around that disconnect partially anyway) tino towards ber and eduard (and hana, i guess), ber towards tino, henrik to halle, halle to henrik (though he looks away - his values are elsewhere even when they are together). joi, at best, looks at his own reflection in the window
the colour scheme, while arbitrarily picked from gradient maps based on what i felt "fit" has been approved by the author as being very "SoS core"
finally, the poem on the note, chapter 46
all that being said, i can and will now talk about my personal relationship with SoS, so unless that interests you i imagine the post is done now! thank you for reading :)
the first comment i posted on SoS is dated 2nd November 2016 - logging into my old account i can see i bookmarked it on the 31st August that same year, so i can safely assume i first read or at least found it then. a month after my first comment, i posted another on a different account, pouring a few bits of my heart out and the author responded! we went back and forth a bit and eventually talked (i think) via tumblr for a little, but the majority of our conversations were via skype for whatever reason (we didn't call, just texted). it was a lot of me looking for writing advice, insight to their work/process/skill, talking about The Brothers and talking about psychology/the brain on a general and personal level. i think if i read our conversations back now i'd cringe, given that i was an awkward, fumbling 16 year old, but i dont think anything else wouldve been fitting given the subject matter. eventually our conversations fizzled out and we stopped talking for years, but i'd go back to SoS routinely and cry.
in may of 2021, i posted another comment during what in hindsight was definitely another relatively minor mental health episode - i think it was half trying to emphasise how important the work was to me on the off chance pyrr saw it, and half a bid for connection since i had no idea if they even remembered us talking. i assumed nothing would come of it, and for about a year that was true - until pyrr responded after all in february of 2022 - i'm happy to say we've been talking consistently on discord since then. i feel a little weird speaking too intimately about our friendship as it is now since it's not just my story to tell (though pyrr, if you're reading this) (i'm sure you are at some point) (you're welcome to talk about it however, i just didn't want to without consulting you) but i can say with some certainty that it's at least a little bit my fault that we have a sequel now - cementing my place as official number #1 fan and validating the me from almost 8 years ago in a way i don't think either of us processes well.
it's here that i feel the need to talk about my other dear friend, @hws-lceland , who i'm grateful to have met through the zine's discord server. i'm sure they're reading this too, and a lot of what our relationship means to me is stuff that's probably a bit too vulnerable for either of us to speak publicly, but i *can* say that i love them very much, and i'm really grateful to have someone else to understand, and that he read SoS for me. i thought he needed it, and i hope i was right
sendlingur is...endlessly important to me. i'm aiming to not write an essay here (a goal i think i've already sorta shot in the foot) but i think it's important for me to talk about some of this a little loudly, all the same. my writing has changed because of the series - remeeting with pyrr and showing them some of my more recent work was interesting since it was apparent even to them the influences i'd taken (to be fair, in one section i explicitly asked and did borrow a format of theirs, but this goes beyond that). when i was 16 i asked my mum to read the fic in a desperate bid to be understood. i've cried reading the fic many, many times. i've signed off letters and poems with my switched around version of i'm sorry / thank you / i love you (i swap the first two around) many, many, many times, including in a close friend's wedding gift. SoS has very sincerely changed my definition of love. the name halle is a part of my abstract mindscape. id already considered changing my name to johannes anyway and this fic certainly didnt help. i've gained a friendship of 7 and a half years through it. i've gained another newer one now, too. i am not well. i wasn't well then, reading it, and it hasn't fixed me (i am worse, now, arguably), but it healed something, or at least made me feel understood. i could go on, and maybe sometime i will (there were so many things i wanted to include in my piece and pay homage to!), but for now i will thank anyone who took the time to read all this (again), and say that i look forward to experiencing the sequel
as always, i'm sorry, thank you, i love you
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briluvspnk · 3 months
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SWEET CITRUS ! — childe x fem!reader smau
🍊 | synopsis » the so-called class clown, childe, gets partnered up with his "happy crush", (name). little does he know that his "little crush" would be more than "just a crush", and that getting the attention of someone so focused with her studies would be as hard as passing the math exam he has next week. :')
the bank + in debts
( childe's grp! )
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🐋 childe — the bank™
The rich kid, the class clown, the golden retriever, and the guy with barely surviving grades. No one ever sees him studying and that explains a lot. He's part of the basketball varsity team and is very active in sports activities though! So that's something. He's such a social butterfly that someone would mention a name once and he'd immediately be like "Oh! Them? I know them! I met them once dur-"
He lets his friends borrow money from him and also loves buying stuff for them and hence, receiving the title: The Bank. Though sometimes the "borrowing of money" gets out of hand and even others borrow from him and then forgets to pay him back 🤷‍♀️
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🐮 itto — in debt #1
That kid who played with bugs. A lot. He's a good funny guy who gets along with almost everyone (some say he's the "real class clown" 🤷‍♀️).
He tries at school sometimes. Enough that he doesn't have to repeat the year. He isn't aware there's an assignment or when deadlines have been moved most of the time. "What do you mean there's an assignment?" "The deadline's been moved to next week? But I crammed this all night :("
Fun fact: he tried to join the basketball varsity team but didn't get in :<
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❄️ kaeya — in debt #2
The school heartthrob ™. He has 183 dating rumors going for him and only 3 of those are true (definitely not an exaggeration). As the escort of the student council, there's no doubt everyone knows about him. No one ever sees him studying and yet he's still a consistent awardee?
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⚰️ hutao — in debt #3
The social butterfly with... questionable interests and a personality. "Summoning the ghosts and asking the dead souls of students for answers" is a habit of hers during exams and graded recitations. She copies homework often.
"My goal is to copy from every smart person in our grade and I will determine the best smart person." (she has yet to copy from Diluc, Al Haitham, and Tighnari.)
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💫 aether — in debt #4
Quite popular for being the "student who always goes to other classrooms" even though classroom hopping is prohibited (he got caught once or twice). He's the only one who isn't classmates with anyone from his friend group :') He has ok grades and is a reliable person during group projects.
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🌠 lumine — in debt #5
The sassy girlboss who ALWAYS GOTTA BE WALKING AROUND. You will always see this woman walking around the school. She knows all the secret hangout spots and has caught a questionable amount of couples going on their little dates.
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🎸 xinyan — in debt #6
The hot electric guitar player 😍 (no, author is definitely not biased because they used to main her). She often plays (and/or sings) during school events and carries during music projects. She uploads videos on twitter, youtube, and tiktok. :)
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masterlist » previous » next
🌻 | a/n
» all the characters know or will know eachother. their connections will be shown as the story progresses :)
» the in debts #1-6 are arranged based on how much they owe, how often they borrow money, and how often they actually pay it back
» i swear the first chapter will come either today or tmrw 🥹
📨 | taglist » [closed]
@kentply
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kaibutsushidousha · 3 months
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To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?
For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.
I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.
Minase was already detailed in his own post.
Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.
Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?
And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.
Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).
And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.
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eewtp · 3 months
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Not a PJO Show Review*
Now I was so excited for a truthful adaptation of the books and I am left just disappointed with every new episode that comes out. First of all, why was this fourth episode not even 30 minutes long? ?
Anyway, one of my main issues so far includes pacing of the story. It’s very much stuck in a “rushed but at the same time slow” moving kind of pace, which is insanely weird. In one episode they spend all their time in one place but the writing tries to cram so much detail into that episode that everything rushes by with dialogue instead of action. It’s so weird I can’t even describe it well, but the point is that there is entirely too much of the characters walking you across the street with dialogue only readers could actually follow/understand.
(For example; Zeus is pissed that the bolt is missing and wants it back by the summer solstice or else he’ll start a war. The solstice is in a few days. This is mentioned once/twice and nobody has shown even an ounce of urgency to find the bolt. It’s just expected of you to remember that fact while the show does nothing to remind you of it- the sun is always out and it’s not stormy to show just how mad Zeus is, the characters calmly walk and chat and never once mention the bolt again, etc.)
The exposition dumping does not help at all; a sentence or two to describe something important only for the talking to drag on with the expectation that you know what they’re talking about. Grover absolutely running through what CHB is all about, the entire point of the kids’ quest, Annabeth being the daughter of wisdom (so far there has not been one instance where this is proven, just mentioned offhandedly). There’s hardly any personality attached to any one character because all they do is rapidly explain things.
Now, exactly why are they going to the Underworld? To save Sally, yes; but what does that have to do with the bolt? At this point their mission is Sally, not the quest- the Hellhound chase scene was cut from the show, so now there is no indication at all that Hades might have had something to do with the missing bolt. Poseidon and Zeus are pointing fingers at each other (which was either not mention or I missed it because of how off handed this detail was), so why in the world would Hades play a part in this? Because these three hate each other? Again, only readers would be inclined to think like this because their hatred was never emphasized or expanded upon.
(Are they hoping to just ask and receive some kind of news about the bolt? They have no lead as to where the bolt may be, so going to Sally’s aid first and then figuring out details with the bolt is so questionable. Again, this is far from showing the urgency of the situation)
Also, Luke’s betrayal is going to be interesting. He’s the one who let the Hellhound in, which put the entirety of camp in danger for his own goals. Without this, he’s just some guy who doesn’t agree with the situation they’re currently in- he’s not dangerous or evil, so far he’s just there.
Friendships are just not there. They say Luke and Annabeth are like family but they’ve spoken once. They say Luke and Percy are tentative friends but all they did was have a tour around camp. They say Percy and Grover are best friends but their conversations mainly revolve around dumping exposition.
There’s more I have to say but I’ll just say I have hope the show will make up for this iffy start. It’s not too much, but it’s there-ish.
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mintmatcha · 1 month
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can u tell us what you didn't like about hazbin hot? I'm not a big musical person so I also tuned out when they started singing lol
Yes lol here's a long ass nonsense rant under the cut.
The creator of the show has done some really racist shit in the past and hides from criticism behind her queerness, but whenever that's brought up, it's immediately shot down and I'm told to separate the art from the artist.
that being said. here's my critique of the show itself.
but hazbin relies so much on material outside of the show. there's things you're supposed to know from twt and tumblr and other sources to make the show make sense. you can't say the show needs to exist in its bubble away from the creator and then make us dependent on the creator for information about the characters.
for me, it's less about "why is a show bad?" and it's more "what makes a show good?". Frankly, I don't think there's anything in this show to make it good.
First off- the show is ugly. The character designs aren't good and often repetitive (suits. same color palettes, same body shapes, etc) The animation itself isn't good either, unfortunately.
We have to stop pretending alastor isn't a crime to character design. He's so ugly. there's almost nothing redeemable about how he looks.
I thought the show itself had one of the weakest plots I've seen. it felt like the first draft of a 14 year old and tried to fit 5 seasons worth of ideas into 8 episodes, so the pacing was just awful. There's no semblance of time passing or real urgency in most episodes because vivziepop was trying to fit in all 50 of her OCs.
example: There was almost no reason for the V's to be in the show-- and the other overlords for that matter. None of them really do anything other than Valentino, who's just there to make Angel's story stronger in this season.
(not to mention Valentino and Vaggie, the series to latinx characters, fall into some fucked up stereotypes)
We are just told this collection of people is strong and scary, but we never really see WHY. It's a waste of time in a crammed show.
That being said, one of the main characters sir pentious had no real weight as a character and had less screen time than some of the nothing characters. Half of alastors time should have been used building him up, including, I dunno. all of episode three. There's no reason to introduce all of those characters other to give alastor the info that an angel has died, right? He's. The radio demon. he should just have some sort of news ability or connections to get him that info. (also that episode makes it really easy to know who killed the angel. there's no mystery to it.)
There are also so many things that simply don't make sense in the show? They are told almost immediately that their plan will not work, so they go to heaven to be told... the same thing.
Vaggie is amazed that angels can be hurt and killed when she is an angel who was hurt and almost killed. (Vaggie and Charlie have a super weak relationship btw. I think it's so poorly done. In a show about sucking dick and cock, it made me roll my eyes that the lesbians have such a pg relationship. how come everyone else gets to be horny other than the lesbians? Because its harder to fetishize? )
the ending was just. awful. Lucifer won the fight without that much of a struggle. It feels like he could have just done that. whenever.
Im going to get murdered for saying this but the songs aren't good, they just have a killer vocal cast. the backing music sucks every time.
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liapher · 2 years
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Map of the World by @seperis
[Click on the pictures for better resolution.]
I read Map for the first time last year, and a couple months later decided to already reread it. The first time around, you're dropped into this story without knowing what's going on in terms of either the character dynamics or the setting, and it's like a puzzle you get to try to figure out. It's delightful! The second time around, you start out with a lot more puzzle pieces at hand (but absolutely not all of them yet!) and you manage to connect so many more dots. (I swore to myself to not go overboard and still ended up with a ten-way colour-coding system with stickers and writing margin notes. More recently, I decided to read all the comments on the Map AO3 pages, and they are so much fun to read! So many readers have shared really insightful observations, and the author has written a lot of very interesting replies as well. But having to switch back and forth between the story and the comment section is a bit of a bother, and I sensed an interesting typographical challenge, and that's how I found myself typesetting the fic again while adding foot- and margin notes to my heart's content. The book ended up being so long though that I decided to split it into two parts :-)
As for the cover of the first half: Each of the DTA fics introduces you---and the main characters---to a new, larger part of the world. In Map, the focus lies on Cas's cabin as the foundation for the relationship between the two main characters is laid, so Dean and the reader have to open the bead curtain together to get to that part of the story. If I ever get around to giving a similar treatment to the other fics in the series, the cover design would continue correspondingly: opening the gate to Chitaqua for Stars, entering Ichabod's main square for Lights, and stepping through one of the paintings in the white room for Game.
[Typesetting and crafting notes under the cut]
Typesetting
Okay so the thing is I love very involved typesetting. It's neat to look at, fun to plan (or as a reader, try to reverse engineer the typesetter's decisions), allows you to be a bit of a control freak about all details etc etc. The point of this typesetting project was to include lots and lots of commentary, so my priorities were:
maintain a clear visual distinction between the text and the comments
make the comments easy to read
keep the comments close to the lines they refer to
I used a combination of footnotes and margin notes to make the most of the available space. Margin notes are used whenever a comment is short enough; footnotes otherwise. Fortunately, I was able to typeset the text in such a way that there's no more than one new footnote per page, so I got away with just reusing the degree symbol ° to introduce footnotes and didn't have to work with a numbering system. Most margin notes refer to specific lines as well and here I got to add my favourite little typesetting detail: a manicule :) I based its design on this hand-drawn one.
Other notes: The longest comment is nearly 5 full pages long and is a comment thread about Dean not realizing how laundry works at Chitaqua lol.
I also wanted to prioritize reading comfort, so the margins are rather generous and based on the canons of page construction, and the leading is relatively generous: the body text is set in 11/14 and the comments in 8/12. The drawback is that this means I ended up with a lot more pages than planned (over six hundred). I also don't love that the baselines of the body text and the comments only line up every 6/7 lines, but every other leading option I tried out ended up making the text harder to read---can't have everything at once I guess.
I decided to not include any headers and footers since I think they'd only have made the page appear more crammed without actually adding a lot of useful information. Instead, the page numbers are in the margins, sharing a baseline with the topmost line of text. The beginning of each chapter and/or day is still easy to find since those black tab-like day number indicators extend all the way to the fore-edge:
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2. The text block
I wanted these books to have a nice 2:3 (14 cm × 21 cm) page ratio, which meant I needed to trim the fore edge. I had a bit of a paper trimming disaster with another book last week, but for these books I found a method that worked better for me: Use the blade of the cutter to line up the end of the ruler with the spine of the signature at the head of the page, use the cutter to make a tiny cut at the 14 cm mark, repeat at the bottom of the page, and then use the marks you made as a guideline for where to place the ruler to actually cut away the edge.
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This is the first time I sewed a book on tapes. I didn't have bona fide bookbinding tape and just used some leftover non-stretchy woven cotton tape (width: 1.5 cm) I had lying around. I followed the video tutorial by DAS. I don't have a sewing frame, but the tape was fairly stiff, so just letting about 2 cm of the tape protrude at the top worked like a charm.
3. Headbands
I followed the two-colour headband instructions by DAS and used a leather band with a diameter of ~1.5 mm as well as some three-ply thread that I got by separating a six-ply embroidery thread. This worked pretty well---the stiff leather band was easier to work with than the shoelace I used last time (mostly because of its even circumference). The slightly tricky thing about the embroidery thread is that the different strands sometimes try to bunch up on top of one another instead of lying flat, but I'm happy with the results. Per headband, the ideal length to work with for this kind of thread and a text block spine width of 23--25 mm was ~30 cm for the green one and ~55 cm for the blue one.
After finishing the headbands, I glued some (80 GSM) paper to the spine---but only between the tapes, to sliightly even out that difference.
4. The case
I followed DAS's video on the square back bradel binding.
The straightforward case:
Front & back: 216 mm x 140 mm
Spine: 23 mm (text block) / 26 mm (case)
Hinge: 7 mm
For the cloth-to-paper ratio of the half binding, I just picked what looked good rather than following the general ratio recommendations. Before gluing on the paper, I used a blue pen to make a couple subtle marks on the bookcloth, which helped a lot while trying to quickly place the paper.
To case in the book, I found it easiest to add a little glue to the spine edge of the back cover, put in the text block and do some quick readjustments, shut the book, let it dry for a few minutes, and then paste down the rest of the back endpaper (maybe in two or three more goes---add glue to the next couple cm, go wild with the bonefolder, repeat). Add glue to all of the front endpaper, shut the book, open it again, go wild with the bonefolder to smooth everything out, done.
For the wrap-around case, I ended up just winging it. It's mostly a square back bradel binding though.
Front, left: 216 mm × 102 mm (at the top)
Back: 216 mm × 145 mm
Spine: 25 mm (text block) / 28 mm (case)
Fore-edge piece: 19 mm
Front, right: 42 mm
The fore-edge piece is thinner than the spine piece since, unlike the latter, it's directly wedged between two pieces of bookboard, and the text block is thicker at the spine than at the fore-edge. I had initially tried making the spine and the wrap-around section level, but that looked a bit silly since you could see the gap between the text block and the right part of the cover.
For the wrap-around part, I glued the back, the fore-edge piece, and the right part of the front cover to a piece of paper (80 GSM), with one board width (2 mm) in between. In retrospect, I should've maybe added 0.5 mm to the hinge between the fore-edge piece and the front so it shuts more easily.
To secure the leather straps with the clasp, I cut two grooves into the bookboard: (Ignore that I obviously only thought of that after I'd already glued the bookcloth to the board, and also ignore the remnants of some paper that are glued to the right edge of the back cover...)
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I cut out a couple small bookcloth triangles and used them to fill in the gaps along the back of the curved edge.
I painted on the cover design with some acrylic paint---super fiddly and it took forever, and unfortunately I only did it after casing in the book---before would've been easier. Oh well! I used a pencil to draw guide lines; fortunately it can just be erased from the cloth without leaving a mark or damaging the (dried) paint. (I tried this out on a scrap piece of bookcloth beforehand.)
In conclusion:
DTA, my beloved
Comments, my beloved
Involved typesetting and crafting projects, my beloved
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showtoonzfan · 1 year
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My thoughts for what I think the new Helluva episode is ganna be like:
- Probably more Moxxie’s a wimp jokes/crude pegging jokes regarding Millie and how his wife takes charge in the relationship
- Crimson is either just going to be a jerk or actually evil with an evil plan that kicks off the fight scene later.
- More Blitz being a dick yet slightly supportive of Moxxie so they can show that he also “cares”.
- Maybe another “Moxxie’s fat” joke since the writers are obsessed with that joke for some reason.
- Millie does nothing throughout the entire episode besides stand there, yell and be aggressive at Chaz and only then moves once the epic shark mafia fight scene happens, which will probably take up the majority of the last few minutes of the episode.
- Bonus points if Crimson and Blitz end up having this weird sexual tension like Blitz and Striker did.
- More Moxxie going through the same damn arc of learning he’s enough the way he is but his bad boi daddy berates him. I’m expecting a “bad ass” moment of Moxxie standing up for himself and pointing the gun at his father to one up him.
- Definitely more mlm fetishization and a hyper sexual Chaz with many dick jokes and gay jokes because we already know he’s going to sing a song about how much he wants to bone Moxxie.
- The episode will probably be about 22 minutes like the previous one and yet I have the feeling most of it will be the characters just sitting around until the fight scene happens, aka I feel like most of this is ganna be pointless filler.
- Either Crimson is ganna stay evil by the end or they’ll pull another abusive ass lesson of “I was just tryna toughen you up” at an attempt for an emotional heartfelt scene.
- Stolas will probably not be in this episode but he might be mentioned once so the fans can get their daily Stolitz fanservice, unless the episode is ganna act like the previous one never happened and portray Blitz as sad again. Bonus points if they actually DO cram Stolas in here since I know Viv can’t go one second without shoving him into every episode.
- This episode will probably be better animation wise but fast paced.
- Blitz honestly seems like he doesn’t need to be in this episode at all unless they’re doing the same thing they did in episode 5 where they PAINT it as another character’s episode but then turn it into a Blitz episode.
- I’m expecting another “Uwu pity Blitz” scene, maybe Crimson tries to manipulate him or just spew cliche hurtful things but either way I feel like they’ll find a way to have Blitz be the main star for the episode.
- The episode will probably get revolved and end in another rushed half assed way.
And that’s all I got. Again I’m not watching the episode but I can’t wait to see what other critic blogs think, and once I read the events of what happened, I’ll just go off from that.
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artist-issues · 7 months
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What do you think about Disney's Wish?
Predictions:
The movie will be an eye-candy with beautiful 2D and 3D. (But going by the trailer it's not as impressive as the Puss in Boots the Last Wish or Spiderverse. We need a better name for that animation style. How about 2/3D? ZED? I don't know.)
The music will be great. (But after listening to the song from the trailer that is supposed to be the ''I want song'', oh my God the lyrics are so generic and bland they can fit practically any main character ever. And it's just a lot of singing about nothing.)
The Star character, Valentino or both will be annoying.
Valentino will be funny and marketable but the movie could've worked without him.
The world will be huge, beautiful, and interesting and we explore none of it.
The protagonist will be bland with one obvious flaw or a dream which will be related to the message of the movie.
The message will have all the subtlety of the hammer in the face.
Inconsistencies, contradictions, and random stuff happening because funny/the plot.
References to older classics that you wish you would be watching. (You saw how many references they cram now into their other movies? And now it's one of the things they talked about the most!)
Death is funny until we have the fake-out death then you need to care.
No love interest because love makes women weak apparently. Or no love interest because the actress is a lesbian and she talked about how Asha ''looks like her'' because modern acting isn't about pretending to be something you're not, it's about showing who you are every chance you get. And for those who think they might make a lesbian love interest, I would like you to take a look at the gay ''romance'' in the Strange World. But if by some chance they do I doubt it will be any good. When was the last romance in Disney, Frozen 2 (2018) and that's a holdover from the first movie (2013) and the last good romance was Tangled (2010).
Lame villain! It's supposed to be a throwback to the older Disney movies and that includes its villains but Disney is so incompetent with their IPs I wouldn't be surprised if they get their own villain ''formula'' wrong. I swear if they try to make him a twist after spoiling that Chris Pine will be voicing the villain and his evil laugh in the teaser trailer, or ''redeem'' him after he did unspeakable evils. And no villain song. Can Chris Pine sing? Please no terrible auto-tune!
Making jabs at old Disney tropes even tho this movie isn't even half as good as the movies that came before it, uses a bunch of other modern tropes or straight up the same ones that it mocked earlier and completely misinterprets them and uses them even worse! Modern Disney seems to hate its past and does everything to show how ''better'' they are now. Which is untrue in most cases and just smug and annoying!
I'm sorry for being so pessimistic but that's how jaded I become and only towards Disney. It might be their greatest hit that will make people think ''Disney is back''. But Disney needs to change. One good movie will not save them if they keep making remakes that lose money.
I don't know; some of the things you've listed are likely, but I doubt all of them will be true!
I think the animation looks...unfinished. Isn't that odd? It looks like there's not a lot to fill in the scene, and what is there didn't get done rendering.
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See these are pretty, but there just isn't a lot going on in the backgrounds--it's very icon-y. Maybe they're going for a storybook-look, but...a very minimalist, simple storybook? Not like Snow White:
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Or Pinocchio
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I can see that there are 2D textures on the trees and grass and stuff, but I wish there was just more there. Like all these pots and all the stonework in the background, in the screenshots from classic Disney above. Where’s the stuff; it would look even better if there was stuff. You know usually when Disney tries a new technique or look, they show it off. In Moana, they’re like we animated water, and as a result, we are going to show you SO MUCH WATER. In Tangled, they were like, we nailed the hair, and as a result you get to see Rapunzel’s hair do SO MUCH. In Wish it looks like the artists were shy about showing off the painterly stuff. But I’m no expert.
I really agree about the music. Like I really agree. I have only heard snippets. But I remember seeing the trailers for Frozen when a little bit of the music would play and immediately wanting to hear more. Looking it up like “Frozen trailer music” because just the snippet was enough. In this movie, I like the trailer until she starts singing, and then for some reason my whole brain rolls it’s eyes. Why does it do that for this movie? I love Disney music. I listen to Disney Princess Christmas album every season even though it’s not amazing, because I just like hearing characters sing. So why should I be exasperated by new feature-film Disney music, even if it does sound just like the others? I don’t know. I am not a music expert, either; I’m just telling you who I am (a Disney lover) and how inexplicably I reacted to Wish’s little music thing. Chris Pine can sing, but just like everything he does: he sounds like Chris Pine singing.
I think you’re right about Valentino; I don’t know if that’s a fair criticism, though. The Little Mermaid could’ve worked without Flounder. Mulan could’ve worked without Cri-Kee. Cinderella could’ve worked without Jacques. Moana absolutely did work without Pua. But in the new movie’s trailer I did feel like, “this feels like a pointless character.” Don’t know why.
The world actually looks empty to me. See points about the art style above. I don’t want to explore what I’ve seen of it, because it looks like an unfinished Open-World game that someone wants me to stream walkthroughs of on YouTube, and I’m like “no thank you, that looks boring.” But maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe in the story, the Wishing Star deepens and fills up every piece of scenery it interacts with! That would be cool. Maybe there’s a story-reason for the world.
I don’t know about the protagonist being bland. To make a good character (particularly in a kid’s movie) you need one big flaw (to make the character believable) and one big strength (to make the character compelling) and then little flaws and strengths surrounding that. For example, Aladdin’s one big flaw is his insecurity, and his one big strength is his compassion. You can file smaller traits like “trust issues, impulsivity, defensiveness, dishonesty” under the Insecurity flaw, and you can file “generous, insightful,” under the Compassion strength. His compassion makes him help and connect with Jasmine in the marketplace even though his Insecurity leads him to think he needs to be a Prince to re-connect with her after she turns out to be the Princess, etc. So it’s fine if she has one obvious flaw. She just really needs it to be relatable. All Disney characters wish for something. But every single one of them typically learns that the thing they were wishing for isn’t what they thought it would be, and to have what’s worth wishing for (love, usually) requires sacrifice. It’s a formula, but it’s a tried-and-true formula. It’s a multi-faceted formula. If they pick a new facet but remember the good, plain, common sense in the same formula, everything will be fine.
Their messages have been less and less subtle. In general I don’t mind when messages are obvious, because (you know me) I think that’s what movies are for. But! I will admit that movies like The Little Mermaid or Beauty & the Beast or Lilo & Stitch, where the messages are wrapped in layers of compelling character arcs and feel more character-driven, are better than movies like Raya and the Last Dragon. No shade, Raya, but how many times can you say “trust” in the same movie? Aladdin did it in two.
I don’t mind references in movies. Worked for Frozen. But there’s a difference between having Anna excitedly see the sails of a ship entering the harbor as a callback to Pocahontas, and having Rapunzel ask Vanellope if people assume all her problems were solved because a big strong man showed up. One is respectful (hey, let’s parallel Anna seeing the start of a new chapter in her life the same way Pocahontas did with sails!) and the other is sort of poking fun at the audience for ever liking what Disney made. Basically I’m very tired of meta-references.
I think this movie has potential to treat death with the weight it’ll need. After all, if it’s about wishes, one of the very easiest but most emotionally-engaging things they could do is have the main character (or the villain) be wishing to bring someone who’s died back. Then the message could go hard.
I totally agree about romance. The thing about romance is, it is a great way for one character to self-examine and confront their issues, as well as move into a place where they’re willing to sacrifice for others. Having a young, naive character set out to get their dreams, and then run into another character and start to care about that character? It forces conflict and tension, and again, it’s a formula, but it’s a formula that makes sense and shouldn’t be fixed because it’s not broke.
What I really don’t like about this villain is that he just feels bland, like a rockstar character who turns out to be a jerk. Surprise, surprise. And Chris Pine plays Chris Pine in everything he’s in, so I’m not thrilled by that either. But whatever.
Yeah, this last point goes back to meta-humor. #NotMyDisney thinks it needs to acknowledge what’s being mocked in order to trick the mocking audiences into watching their new stuff. “If we just own up to our formulas with a joke, they’ll see we’re self-aware and they’ll come along for the ride!” No, actually, you’ll just take them out of the movie mentally and emotionally to hit them with a fourth-wall slap. And then they’ll mock you because that’s cringe. The truth of the matter is, Disney responded to their haters best with Mary Poppins, and then again with Enchanted, and should’ve left it at that. Don’t say “yeah I know we have princesses and cute animals in our movies, aren’t we silly.” Say, “yeah I know we have Princesses and cute animals in our movies, but that’s because life is dark and hard, and hopeful young women with lowly but loveable creatures are inspiring & important. Kids need a spoonful of sugar to HELP the MEDICINE GO DOWN. But it's still MEDICINE that we're making, you're telling us we shouldn't give kids medicine that tastes good?" That’s what they used to say. Now they just…agree with the haters? Because it's a popularity contest, not a responsibility, anymore. Like that’s going to help.
Anyway, I don’t have set-in-stone thoughts about Wish, because Wish hasn’t come out yet. I agree that actors and actresses can give you some idea of where a movie’s headed and sometimes that’s disheartening, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me worry about Wish—except that it looks bland.
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Something I dislike about Miraculous since season 3 is how all kinds of evil are carried by Gabriel which could sound good cool but that ultimately destroys he’s character
He was the basic:I’m your father,I hurt you because i love you and your mother
But then he kinda stopped caring for Adrien safety,then it came the “end the world”, Not even rewriting it but straight up destroying it
And now he has the sicko kind of villain having a obsession for defeating ladybug which doesn’t fit he’s character since unlike other villains like Eggman from sonic, he’s main characteristic isn’t a ego which got destroyed over and over again by a teen. That development from “I’ll conquer the world to make everyone gaze upon my brilliance” to “I’ll drown you,I’ll drown you like a basket of dumb puppy’s” or “that’s stupid,you’re stupid!!! STOP BEING STUPID!!!” or “now that you are this super thingy you think you’re better than me Dr.Ivo Robotnik? WELL YOURE NOT! I own you,I OWN YOUR PLANET, I own this planet! In fact F*CK THIS PLANET”. Since he’s character was about a EgoMegalomaniac which was defeated by a sassy Ego maniac but Gabriel goal was never for he’s Ego or to conquer or for revenge. So he’s later actions are kinda… out of character which is now he’s character which is sad
That’s because they tried to turn Gabriel into every kind of villain since he’s the only Maniac of the series. You know why Spider-Man has many enemies? Because each one does a thing Gabriel does but perfected it
Green goblin-insane megalomaniac with a giant ego trip which killed the man he once was replacing it with a monster which became obsessed with defeating the child who defeated him over and over again for years
Rhino-a maniac who does this for power and money, he nothing more than a criminal which is capable to getting he’s hands dirty
Mr Negative-a victim of someone else with a single yet selfish plan of revenge but he’s ultimately stopped by the third party of Spider-Man
The lizard-a victim of he’s recklessness but is nothing more than a man trapped inside a monster
Venom-someone selfish blaming someone else for he’s misery manipulated by a sinister creature with the same mentality
Carnage-a unstoppable maniac, abomination, MONSTER who lacks any care for human life and the monster covering he’s body is nothing but a fitting look for he’s interior.
Yet all those traits,all those ideas and arcs are molten into a character which ultimately does not work for how contradictory he ultimately is. If they want to do those arcs then fine but they’ll need more than Gabriel since he’s not the right villain for that history
I talked about this briefly in my analysis of him as a character, but the problem with Gabriel is that the writers seem to be divided on whether to make him a more sympathetic villain like Mr. Freeze or an unapologetically evil villain like Lex Luthor.
Both are amazing characters in their own right, but just because you put aspects of both of them in one character, it doesn't make the result a good one. Gabriel clearly has the charisma to be an irredeemable monster, but more often than not, the show goes out of its way to make you feel bad for him, even when he's shown to abuse his son emotionally and physically. You could have easily fixed the issue with Gabriel by revealing that Nathalie is the one who wants to recreate the world in her own image. Either that, or have her be the one who is more willing to hurt people than Gabriel is, while he cares more about the well-being of people like his son.
Like you said, Spider-Man's rogues gallery works because of how large it is, opening the door for all kinds of stories without needing to worry about ruining any previously established motivations, and instead focusing on how people who fell into similar circumstances as Peter Parker went down a different path than he did. They don't try to cram different character traits into a single villain and have Spider-Man fight them every week. They simply let each villain tell their own story, and that's why it works more.
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kursed-arcana · 5 months
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Digimon adventure 02 The Beginning Review: All Filler, No Killer
I wanted to love this movie. I was well aware of people’s complaints going into this, but I still expected the best. I was wrong. I went in expecting a coherent and compelling narrative, instead it was all filler, no killer.
This movie is sadly a waste of the 02 cast. While marketed as their revival film, their presence was little more then window dressing to another chosen child’s story. Not a single 02 cast member made a contribution to the plot that could only be made by them. Not a single 02 cast member received a character arc in the film. The most focus and effort put into showing their lives as adults was the opening montages of the film. While a beautiful opening it was, it was not enough to make this film worth watching for any digimon adventure fans.
Not only did this film not focus on any of the 02 digidestined, it did not address or mention the plot of last adventure kizuna and its major reveal (unless a certain single line of dialogue in the closing narration was meant to imply kizuna’s reveal is now meaningless, despite never even being mentioned in the film prior). Instead we were treated to another story about a new oc crammed into the franchise, cough male Meiko cough. For every complaint people had about Meiko’s focus in tri, this movie did it worse. She had 6 movies, so at least the focus on her was spread out and the 8 characters the audience is invested in had character arcs, that is not the case here. Instead , we were treated to a story about another digidestined. Another claiming to be the first, which we were previously lead to believe we saw in tri, which was a weird retcon to begin with, then we met the first child to lose her partner in kizuna, and now we meet a new special snowflake, with his new special digimon that apparently is responsible for the partnership between all digidestined and digimon, and maybe even the death of his parents (lol). Not only is this insulting to adventure cast, but fans as well. When will they realize, we don’t need shocking reveals that contradict previously established lore, but meaningful character arcs for our chosen children and to see their partner digimon reach new digivolution heights.
The director of this film possibly thought he could recapture the magic of the first 02 film, but what makes that film more enjoyable is the fact that it came out during 02’s original release and not decades later. And while Willis was a primary character, the main cast still had plenty of chances to shine. Like gatomon and palmon suddenly reaching mega with no build up whatsoever lol.
This film contributed nothing new for our 02 cast. No new mega forms, or even their ultimates, new new levels for DNA digivolved Silphymon and Shakkoumon, not even the chance to see the digiegg of kindness in the anime for the first time. Hell, armor digivolution never even got mentioned, but at least we revisited the computer lab.
Not to mention that after all these years, there are still plotlines left unresolved. The dark ocean still hasn’t been explained, despite being brought up in tri and claiming Maki Himekawa, nor has its ruler Dragomon, or what happened to Daemon once he was stranded there and the fact his presence alluded to a plotline with the 7 demon lords. These dangling plotlines would have been perfect to address in a 02 movie or series, instead we got something less meaningful then a shounen filler movie (like the original 02 movie). At least those typically allow for their cast to shine despite focusing on original characters.
The 02 cast deserve their tri movie series, or even their version of kizuna. They needed to regain the future they achieved at the end of 02 that got retconned away, despite the epilogue still apparently being canon. They deserved character arcs, and some damn confirmation on takari after all these years. I wanted to see them overcome obstacles, to achieve their dreams. Instead I endured a meandering story for a new more chosen then all the rest of the “chosen children”. Can the people behind the digimon movies please stop trying to one up each other now?
I encourage all digimon fans to still watch the movie. If we want to see the adventure and 02 cast again, we need to support the series, but we also have to let our complaints be known, in order to encourage a better outcome in the future. While this film is a waste of the 02 cast, it is still nice to see them again, even if their presence felt more significant in their brief subplot in kizuna. At least we have confirmation that they’re still making progress towards their dreams, still hanging out and still hoping for a brighter future with their digimon. What little we got of them interacting was still nice, funny and even heartwarming at times. And if you’re a dub fan, at least we got Brian Donovan back as Davis one more time. Weird they let him reclaim the role but not Lara Jill miller for Kari, even though Tara Sands is still great.
Until next time digimon fam, stay Prodigious
(If you like my review and have my anime list, please follow the link and like it there. Id like to gain alittle traction as a reviewer and its always nics to be able to see if my writing is appreciated)
P.S. And To Lui, the saddest chosen child in all the land
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lordfenric-writes · 5 months
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Writing Project/NaNoWriMo 2023 Chapter Five Draft One-Fire and Fleet and Candlelight
Surprise, readers! I thought it'd take until tomorrow to finish writing the first draft of Chapter Five but here we are, a day early! I rather enjoyed writing this chapter-a touch more down to earth than the previous ones-and hope you like it as well.
Also a surprise-I had planned a seventh POV (two so far, four other mains to go) but couldn't figure out how to incorporate the character into the main story. Solution: interlude chapters! So before Section One: Snow and Ash ends, I will have an interlude chapter the next time I write! This being a first draft run-through if I don't like it, I can toss it, but I have a good feeling about this making this work.
Tagging: @notwritinganyflufftoday, @510amy5, @scarlet-moon, @aziz-reads, @thalion71, @howdywrites, @cindereleanor, @crowandmoonwriting, @officiallordvetinari, @athenswrites, @apothecaryforwearysouls, @asha-mage, @failemyfalcon, @dontpokethekitty, @alcego-writes, @lordkingsmith, @kevin-sedai, @housemarcellus, @eightwithcapitale, @avendesora-sedai, @captainjonnitkessler, @aritany, @clearancecreedwatersurvival, @appelsinner, @tardisbird, @sarandipitywrites, @ahordeofwasps, @detectivepetrichor, @gunpowderplusgelatine, @talesofsorrowandofruin, @dontpokethekitty, @rainbowcoloreddays, @dragomango, @starscribes, @johndoesartnow and anyone else who wishes to read/like/reply with a comment or be added to the taglist (message me if you wish to be added/removed).
Links to the other chapter posts can be found on the pinned post at the top of my blog.
And now, the next chapter:
CHAPTER FIVE: FIRE AND FLEET AND CANDLELIGHT
Hiraeth Town, Glyndover Province, Aelbrennia Imperium
13th Yuelmark, 2336 E.B.
Another day, another dawn, another battle with restlessness fought and lost. Mal could not, would not, surrender to the armies of night and sleep, their lord and master.
His childhood home at the eastern end of Hiraeth was cozy, quaint and untidy as hell, a two-story half-timbered affair with peaked roofs crowned in snow and pale blue trim in sore need of a new coat of paint. Were spring afoot and the valley golden-green, the yard would surely be overgrown, the hedges slithering out into the road. The carpets and curtains would have been pleasant and pretty décor enough had they not become feasts for moths and mites. Every single door needed oiling along the hinges, every single room in want of a good dusting and sweeping.
The number of books piled high and low were enough to open up a second shop should Owen Carver have wished it, crammed under the ornate porcelain hutch and threadbare olive-green chaise-lounge, towering over the blackwood escritoire and dropped casually along the creaking steps of the narrow scroll-worked staircase. Some were even sliding off the top of the ancient (and mostly empty) icebox in the kitchen, others jammed in front of the pantry door (it never would stay shut). Mal hadn’t even bothered looking in the study, where clocks, codices and crossword pads had conquered every ink-stained surface imaginable.
Mal’s room had been just as he left it, a narrow and neat little corner overlooking the frozen stretch of pond he’d once failed to learn to skate upon. Remnants of his childhood still littered the seldom-used space: an obsolete silver scrysphere on a mostly clutter-free desk, model castles with figurines of knights and fell-beasts hand-painted and aligned just so, the old fish-tank where he’d once tried raising a baby lake-kraken before Father had put his foot down. Spell-diagrams and leyline maps plastered on green-and-white-striped wallpaper, paperbacks and comics everywhere, though fewer in number than the horde clogging up the rest of the house.
So much life, so many memories, such a vast amount of dust and debris.
Mal couldn’t even imagine what lay beyond the locked door at the end of the hallway.
The room no one entered. The room belonging to Gwendolyn Estella Carver. To Mother.
“Malcolm,” he could almost hear his father whispering as he sat up most of the night, using the same soothing voice from when high school exams and arcanist’s lore had kept him awake well past the witching hour. The bespectacled bookkeeper was ever quiet and calm, in memory as well as flesh. “Mal, you fool, don’t be a silly lump. Drink some warm milk and rest those weary bones. The words will still be there in the morning, waiting for you. Words are forever; they will always wait.”
The words were still here as promised, books and papers hidden in the shadows cast by the wizened white candles dribbling wax along the windowsill. Mal rested in the claw-and-ball-footed armchair in the sitting room, clad only in a worn gray t-shirt and dark green undershorts, eyes red-rimmed as he watched another light fall of steely sleet drift upon the pond. The fire roaring all evening in the hearth behind him was reduced to embers now, green sparks dancing on charred husks of crumbling wood.
Yes, the words were still here. And so was Mal.
And his father wasn’t.
The clock in the corner, an amberwood antique carved with basilisks and alphyns, sounded seven o’clock. Mal wasn’t sure which worked harder to rouse him, the clambering chimes of the fanciful clock or the blazing fingers of light creeping in through the window, dissipating the sleet. Either way, it’d been four hours now since he had vanquished sleep and forced himself to stay awake. Four hours since he sat with a candle as his only company, watching and waiting. Time to get up and unstiffen his long, lanky limbs.
In the sticky solace of the kitchen, Mal mindlessly stirred at a cup of flat, flavorless coffee, cursing the lack of creamer in that shuddering behemoth of an icebox. A runnel of bitter black liquid spilled out of the cracked white mug and onto his hand, hot as wyvern’s breath, and he didn’t even notice for half-a-minute. Mal’s mind had been elsewhere, empty, drifting ever since he’d first fixated on that frozen pond. Wishing there weren’t so many thoughts clamoring for his attention, so many memories demanding he dwell upon them.
And worse yet, the dreams waiting for Mal on the other side of sleep, the enemies he knew he could never disarm or defeat.
“Shitshitshit!” Mal hissed, dumping the coffee down the sink and grabbing a glass of gem-fruit juice instead. The coffee spill he could leave for cleaning later; it wasn’t as if the counters were unused to such a stain after enduring years of assault by steak-sauce and syrup.
Slowly he wandered back to that old room of his, ignoring the still-fresh signs of Owen Carver’s life strewn about, avoiding the door he’d never unlocked and entered. As mindlessly as he’d attended his abandoned coffee, Mal mindlessly attended to those things necessary to get the morning started: bathing and dressing.
Are trousers really necessary? His sleep-hungry mind asked, toweling off his ruddy curls, refusing as ever to be tamed.
Yes, his mind responded to itself. Trousers are essential. We do have company later.
Oh, right. Mal sighed internally and externally. I forgot. People are coming over.
Urgh, I know, right?
After a day spent dwelling on death, huddled quiet in the corner of the Zero Church while the Lamplighter Monks sang songs of remembrance and lit torches of parting for the small crowd in attendance, Mal didn’t know why he now had to spend a day dwelling on life instead. He didn’t want to dwell on anything. But just like when it came to trousers, reception and remembrance was expected.
Others wished to remember Owen Carver’s life alongside his only son. To recall the man as he was alive, a twinkle in his eye as he told stupid jokes and tall tales, selling books of local lore and fae-folk tales to all and sundry.
Not the pale figure who waited in a wooden box, destined for the icy lichyard out back.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think! We have people coming over, right? Must get ready!
The suit Mal wore was simple and sober, thin black tie and threadbare black coat over the only dress shirt he could find in the closet among the discarded experiments of his youth. He pondered the alchemy set he’d received for his tenth birthday, which every kid he’d known seemed to own at the time, then discarded the memory and the set itself once he recalled his father setting it up for him. Besides, there could’ve been some leftover acid in there, waiting to burn through the fabric of his tight-fitting jacket.
The floorboards groaned as he stiffly stalked along the upper hall and down the steps. Though an eternity seemed to have passed, that damn clock hadn’t struck another hour yet. If crystalline chimes had sounded right then, the Hex-Key in Mal’s pockets would have had half-a-dozen nasty spells waiting to launch straight up in retaliation.
Nothing but silence sounded throughout the house, however. Nothing but the hum of the irascible furnace, the whistling of wind along Gough Lane, the beating of Mal’s heart.
Shortly before eleven o’clock, Violet and her parents-Owen’s only other living kin-arrived in their beaten-up old jalopy, tendrils of indigo steam wafting from the charge-crystal unit under the hood. Mal stared at the pond again, though outside this time, ignoring the burning cold stabbing at his arse while seated upon the old swing hanging from a weather-warped tree. Violet had to wave a hand over his face several times before he blinked rapidly, realizing she was there.
“I should’ve put some ice down your back, might have snapped you out of it sooner,” his cousin chuckled. A lacy black veil hid her deep blue eyes, worn even on days bereft of funerals if Violet was in the mood. “Mind, you seem to like the cold. Nearly gave me frostbite the other night, now you’re intentionally freezing your balls off. Starting to worry about you.”
“Hello, Violet.” Mal’s grin was only half-forced. He pushed himself off of the creaking swing, readjusted his stupidly thin tie, cursed as he had to tuck that damn dress shirt back in. Had he really grown that much since he’d last worn it? “Come to join me in yet more misery?”
“Proverbially it has been known to love company. And hopefully casserole.”
Mal winced as he saw the dishes being unloaded from the back of the auto-wagon. Uncle Andrew did love to cook (unlike his hapless and now-deceased brother) and Aunt Matilda loved to eat (whenever she wasn’t smoking or chatting your ear off). Together they made a fearsome duo at holidays and special occasions. Today was no different.
“Come on, let’s get you indoors.” Violet tried flinging an arm around her much taller cousin, as warm and protective as she had been helping him up off the floor of The Zero Church once Nash had vanished and the amulet was his. Her voice was ever-cheery and a touch saucy as always but quieter than usual. “Don’t need us to put you in the ground, too, yeah? Not for ages.”
“Yeah.” Mal’s massive ears burned from the cold and his tongue blazed as he bit back a laugh. Laughter, when all he wanted was either tears or nothing. “Indoors sounds good.”
An hour later saw the snowy yard and frost-glazed cobbles of Gough Lane filled with several other auto-wagons and land-chargers, all of them old and in need of maintenance. New and modern tended to avoid Hiraeth as a rule.
Mal sat on the old olive-green chaise-lounge with a painfully forced smile on his face, smiling and nodding, nodding and smiling, as guests started to trickle in. Condolences and cards piled up as high as the pillars of books. Casseroles and cold cuts made their way to a table quickly cleared off by a cursing Uncle Andrew, Aunt Mattie directing dish placement with a wave of a long-stemmed pipe from her seat upon the claw-footed armchair.
“Malcolm, dearie, you simply must eat something,” Violet’s mother chided. She took a puff of the gold-capped thin tube, ashes singing her tweed coat and wobbly smoke rings dancing about her graying bouffant. “No use starving yourself, lad, it won’t bring back poor Owen. Thin as a rake you are, I’ve always said, haven’t I, Andrew? Can’t have been healthy, can it, always eating nonsense like frozen waffles and spell-heated sandwiches all the time.”
“Nothing healthy about what I’ve brought over, either, Mattie!” Andrew chuckled, the plump proprietor of Hiraeth’s oldest pub acting as if he were catering to any old event and not the reception for his brother’s funeral. Mal suspected his uncle had already cried himself silly at home; in public, the man never ceased smiling, no matter the chaos. “Everything’s layered in some kind of cheese, gravy or crispy-fried something-or-other! Just looking at the table will put ten stone on you!”
“Just what you don’t need,” Aunt Matilda replied with a tsk and another puff of sweet-scented smoke. She poked her rotund husband in the gut, strained beneath a too-tight blue-black sweater-vest. “I’ll take double helpings, of course.”
At the rescue yet again, Violet sidled in past the bewildered Speaker Pritchard and two of the Lamplighter Monks, standing out amid a sea of sober black, grays and browns in their crisp white-and-blue robes. She grabbed Mal by the ear, whispered “This was a mistake!” and jabbed her thumb away from the sitting room. He nodded in response and slipped away alongside her.
The cousins waded through the milling crowd caught between kitchen, sitting room and hall. Snow-haired Mester and Mistra Butler patted Mal upon the shoulder, passed him a box of tissues and wished him well. Jowly old Mester Turnbull the seed-merchant promised to look after the hedges come spring, should he need it. Stone-faced Mestrama Sayer offered Mal fine deals on the many antiques and books his father had collected over the past quarter-century plus a highly unsubtle suggestion of who should run the bookshop-for a generous sum, of course.
“How well do you know any of these people?” Violet hissed after pushing past Mester Maddox the souvenir shop owner, Father’s neighbor in the row of businesses along High Street.
“Barely at all,” Mal sighed, nodding and thanking another well-wisher for their condolences. He grabbed their coats and scarves from the hat-stand, grateful no one was truly paying attention. “But Father knew everyone and everything about this town.”
At the backdoor, Mal and Violet stumbled upon someone who was neither neighbor nor family member but one of his father’s most loyal customers. Scrawny and straw-haired, Kassandra Lloyd was a pestilential pseudo-poet who’d surprisingly asked Mal out once five years back, when he’d been visiting home on summer break. Startled, he’d blurted out no without thinking and sent her running away in tears. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a nasty limerick in her journals about him; it’s what he would have done.
Instead, Kassandra smiled wanly and held out a chunky book, its soft grey cover hidden by her gloves. “Here you go, Mal. I borrowed this book a while back and, er, kind of forgot to tell your pop. He let me borrow stuff all the time without asking, from both here and the shop. Thought you might like to have it back.”
Mal nodded again, his smile neutral and restrained. “Thanks. Was it any good?”
Kassandra shrugged and shook her head. “Couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. Hope you can.” She paused to wipe away a stray tear. “I’m sorry. Gonna miss that old dear now he’s gone.”
“Likewise.” Mal turned the handle and stepped outside into the snow. Violet followed him, skirts swishing, weirdly flipping off Kassandra as she turned around and headed for the casserole-laden table. Eyebrows raised, Mal merely zipped up his leather jacket and wandered back towards the pond. Violet clearly had an even more personal connection to the poet than he had and not a pleasant one by all appearances.
None of my business, he thought to himself, tightening up his striped scarf. Yuelmark was a great deal colder here in Hiraeth than in the city, with crowds as populous as his entire hometown wandering every street and flame-crystals alight under every lamppost and signal-stem in winter. And yet, he kept finding himself wandering out here, adrift.
The cousins returned to the swing, ropes straining as they had for decades from their attachment to the lightning-split oak. Violet shuddered and sniffed at the cold yet didn’t complain. Being out here was better than being in there.
“You ready to talk?” Violet asked a few moments later, shattering the solemn silence.
“No.” Mal’s voice was hoarse. He’d already said more today than he had since that morning in the Zero Church. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”
“Not about Uncle Owen, you nitwit!” Violet rolled her tear-bright eyes and punched him in the shoulder. “I’ll never ask about that until you tell me you want to. Vice-versa, yeah? I miss the weirdo, too, you know.”
“I know.” Mal looked away, not wanting to crack a grin. “So what are you referring to?”
“The garden and the church. Our Aelir friend. The amulet. Any and all of it.”
“I-I don’t know.” Mal reached into his pocket and retrieved the ivory-and-lapis amulet. “I know I’m headed back to Novalonde, back to school, I’ve an airship booked three days hence. As for this…Mother sought out and investigated many rare and powerful objects over the years. Other Arcanists would hire her away to help for months, even years at a time, before and after I was born. And then one day she was just…gone forever. And this is what she thought worthwhile enough to leave me? Why? What even is it?”
“I suppose she wanted you to find out.”
“Fine. Then she could have stayed and given me some obnoxious but ultimately solvable puzzle like Father would have!” Mal nearly tossed the amulet aside in anger and settled instead for thumping the returned book. “After all these years of wondering if she ever spared a thought for me, anything, and this-is-all-I-get…!”
Mal hunched over, teeth clenched tight, ready to retch. Violet patted him on the back and murmured softly as he let loose a long, heaving sob he didn’t even know he was holding back. Tears, proper hot tears, ran down his face for the first time that morning.
The pair of them gone and nothing left but a cluttered past and an uncertain future.
What am I going to do? Where do I go from here? What now?!
Ready to toss out every single fire and earth spell he could think of in a fit of rage, snarling and shout-crying swears, Mal decided to toss the amulet and book into the snow instead-
Only to notice the silver infinity eye symbol on both the amulet and the book.
Mother’s journal. Where the hell did Kassandra find this?!?!
“Oh fiddlesticks, dreadfully sorry but am I interrupting something?” said a faint, familiar voice from behind them, back in the direction of the house. Mal looked up, wiped away the tears, almost startled when he saw a familiar plaid coat and cat’s-headed umbrella. Winifred Baines from the café on High Street had arrived, her plain-featured face soft and sad.
“Mistra Baines! Oh, um, well-”
“No worries about proprieties, dear.” She gestured her umbrella back at the house. “Just Winifred will do. Old Jimmy Turnbull said he thought you wandered out here, though I was unsure as he does enjoy his brandy. I, well, suffice it to say, I have something for you I think-no, hope-will help you, Malcolm. At least a little bit. Indoors, of course.”
“Of course.” Figuring he could use a proper cup of coffee or hot cocoa, Mal sighed and wandered back to the crowded cottage, Violet in tow. The amulet and journal were clutched tight in his hand, saved for later; the words would wait, after all.
Back indoors, the crowd of well-wishers and grievers were nibbling snacks, sipping sherry, chatting and sniffling back tears. Some were patting poor Uncle Andrew on the back while others gossiped and whispered with Aunt Matilda by the food table, a wreath of candles now encircling the picture of his father propped up in the center.
No one seemed to notice Malcolm, which was no surprise given his absence from Hiraeth much of these past ten years. At present, he wasn’t bothered one single bit.
Winifred beckoned the pair into the clock-crowded study, squeaking an apology as she bumped into a chess table with an unfinished game. Who was Father playing with? Mal wondered, thinking of potential chess partners from town, only to have his train of thought derailed by an unexpected and delightfully fuzzy sight.
“Merp!” A coal-black tail swished back and forth while wine-dark feathers fluttered and flapped. Ears and whiskers twitched in unison and the biggest coin-gold eyes Mal had ever seen on a kitten widened in reaction to his surprise. “Mrow?!”
“This is Oberon!” Winifred exclaimed, grabbing a wicker basket’s handle and pushing it across a side-table towards Mal. Inside sat several pounds of adorable fuzzball, a rare winged cat that couldn’t have been more than four months old. “My Queen Mab had another litter a short while back and I had no idea what to do with nine more kittens skittering about the attic over my shop! So, once I saw how lonely you looked the other day, I knew exactly what to do!”
Mal leaned forward and stroked the darkling kitten’s head. The fuzzball merped, mewled and sniffed at his fingers before giving him both a lick and a nip. “Oberon, huh?”
“Every sorcerer needs a familiar after all, am I right?”
Mal ignored the misused term. There was a time and a place for that. “Heh, I guess so.”
“He’s yours if you want! And if that jiggery-pokery school of yours allows, of course.”
“Thank you, Winifred.” Mal’s face broke into a genuine smile for the first time in days. Here he was worried about legacies and the past and here was a little sliver of future potential waiting right here. He dangled his Hex-Key over the basket and laughed as the kitten fluttered his stubby wings and batted at the device, luckily unable to activate even a fraction of leyline energy.
The three of them left the study, Winifred nattering on about past dealings with his father, Violet holding the basket and trying to get the kitten’s attention. Mal shed a tear of joy amid the tears of grief, glad for a moment of hope after days of grief.
So wrapped up in emotion was Mal that he failed to sense a strange pause while passing by the eternally-locked door at the end of the hall.
From inside the unopened journal arose the sound of a sword-sharp pen, scratching away.
Deep in Mal’s pocket, the ivory-and-lapis amulet thrummed to an ancient song, a dirge unheard by any ears for eons. The locked door thrummed and rattled in kind.
Out in the hallway, noticed by no one, the amberwood clock chimed thirteen times.
*****
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Note
Is the pacing of RWBY storylines bad overall?
Six Years ago I wrote this little piece about the problems with narrative structure in RWBY Volume 4
Ironically, I think most of that still applies not just V4 but V5 V6 V7, and, really, every single volume since V4.
The show wastes time on unnecessary elements and then rushes or offscreens crucial elements of narrative and plot an audience would WANT to see.
The narrative of MilesWBY has exactly two modes - NOTHING is happening or EVERYTHING is happening.
Well, using "OR" here might be incorrect because...
Sometimes both of those writing modes are happening at once and while EVERYTHING is happening offscreen, NOTHING is happening.
The show essentially has, unintentionally, perfected saying a lot while saying NOTHING.
I think ANN review/retrospective of RWBY overall hits the point on the head well:
"This, in essence, is the biggest paradox of RWBY's writing. It tries so hard to cram in as much plot as it possibly can, but ends up saying far less than it did when a tidal wave of creative ideas was the main focus. Characters that could have had interesting and engaging storylines are either truncated to the point of not making any sense or are relegated to plot manipulators with one-dimensional characterization who get a single moment of interest directly before they become irrelevant for the rest of the story. It speaks to a lack of inventiveness in these new plotlines being written, creating the image that they care more about hitting the most salient story points and then moving on to the next batch of plot rather than finding intriguing and creative ways to flesh out the characters and aesthetic that drive said plot forward."
The only part I'd disagree with is V4 being different - I think V4 is exactly the same way its just that Miles and Co genuinely had no idea what to TRY to say or what the plot will be.
Like this perfectly describes the issue with MilesWBY writing overall. I think the key moment is when RWBY staff said after V4 that they offscreened Yang's journey with the arm because "it would be boring". That epitomises the crucial misunderstanding the showrunners have with the story. The story is not interested in those characters or their emotions or their development or reactions to the world around them. The story is not interested in making a point or making characters OR the world change or develop. The points of interest within the narrative are reversed from how you'd write the narrative. Focus is given to the parts you'd generally don't really focus on and the crucial character interactions, development, self-reflection, growth AND conflict are offscreen.
As it stands, that makes MilesWBY into a show which hasn't really said ANYTHING of note since the Fall of Beacon happened. The cast jumped through multiple continents and Kingdoms and yet none of the crucial characterization plotlines or thematic elements had ANY development.
The fact that Ever After trainwreck haphazardly attempts to use character flaws from volume one and two to do SOMETHING with characters speaks MILES (ha) about how much the writing staff doesn't care about having actual proper character progression. As well as how much thy are willing to completely ignore Volume 3.
You could literally cut out everything between V3 and any "Newest Volume" and just have characters randomly be dropped into it through magic and nothing would change. Even the "dead" characters don't mean anything - after all there's zero difference in MilesWBY on whether a character has genuinely died or if they merely were forgotten offscreen.
This might sound kind of mean but MilesWBY volumes are an equivalent of AI generated text paragraphs.
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emotionalcadaver · 10 months
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Part 10: Don't Look Back
Fandom: Peaky Blinders
Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC
Summary: Lucy tries to convince her family to move to someplace safer, but her brother was never one to make things easy for her.
Word Count: 4,605
Notes: I apologize for how long it’s taken me to update Lucy’s series, but I’m back! Warnings for depictions of minor character deaths, religious fanaticism, murder, blood, violence, and references to past sexual assault.
Masterlists: Main • Series • Fic
Previous Part • Next Part
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Chapter 1: We All Fall Down
Lucy did not like London.
The city itself was fine. But the memories that the place drudged up left her on edge, nerves shot. And the closer she got to that…place, that narrow little alleyway, the closer she tattered towards an emotional meltdown.
Her mother’s home, the home she’d spent a large share of her teenage and early adult years in, was not all that far from that place.
It was with a heave of will that she pushed down the jitteriness building within her, and braved to walk those familiar roads, winding her way to the family home she’d lived in since they’d moved from Yorkshire to London while in her teens. The gray stone looked perhaps the tiniest bit more beaten up than before, but everything else seemed to be utterly unchanging; right down to the street lights and moss growing over the sides of the house.
There weren’t a lot of great memories waiting for her inside.
Stealing her nerves and drawing in a deep breath, she rapped her fist twice against the wooden door. There was the sound of footsteps on the other side, then the clicks of locks being undone, and finally the door swept open.
“Lucy,” Teddy grinned at her, his head of red locks overgrown and messy. He pulled her into a great hug that squeezed her ribs.
“Hey, Teddy,” she smiled, stretching on her toes to ruffle her little brother’s hair.
“Come on in,” he stepped aside to let her inside. The interior of the house smelled like freshly baked biscuits. Very little had changed, since she’d last been there. The decor was all the same, with books and photographs crammed into every tiny space, the red and green rug faded, even the couch and armchairs in the living room were in the exact same placements as the last time she’d visited.
“How’ve you been?” she asked, shedding her coat and hat to hang on a hook.
“Not bad. You?”
“Busy,” she said. Teddy offered her another grin.
“I bet. I’ve got some more stuff for you and Thomas. Remind me before you leave and I’ll get it for you.”
“Great, thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Tommy says thanks too.” 
“Glad to hear that the boss is happy,” he shot her a conspiratorial look. “Mum’s in the kitchen.”
“Hey,” her voice dropped in volume, catching his arm before he could turn to lead her to the kitchen in the back of the house. “Have you made any progress in getting them to move?”
Teddy’s smile fell. “Mum’s open to it, but…”
“Lucy.”
Her heart sank, turning to the stairs, where Elliot was standing with his hands in his pockets, lips pressed in a firm line.
“Hi, Elliot.”
“What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “We’re in the city on business. Thought I’d come by to say hi.”
“We?” he asked. Lucy swallowed roughly.
“Me and my boss.”
“Hm.”
“Luce, come one. Come say hi to Mum,” Teddy said, tugging on her arm, steering her towards the kitchen and away from Elliot.
The kitchen was warm, pots and pans soaking in water in the sink, a kettle on the stove.
“Hi, Mum.”
Her mother was a short, slender woman, with long, curly dark red hair and green eyes that matched those of all her children. Her hair fell nearly to her waist, flowing loosely. Her eyes were lined with dark makeup, an obscene amount of rings and bracelets adorning her slim hands. 
“Lucy!” she flung her arms around her only daughter in a bone crushing hug, shockingly strong for a woman so small. “Oh, my baby girl. It’s so good to see you. What are you doing in London?”
“Just a quick business thing.”
“You should have said! You and your friends are always welcome to stay here!”
Behind her, she heard Elliot scoff, brushing past her to remove the whistling kettle from the stove.
“Have you been alright?” Lucy asked, shifting from foot to foot, choosing to ignore her brother.
“Oh, yes, yes of course.”
Nodding, Lucy leaned awkwardly against the wall, then wetted her lips. “Listen, Mum, there’s something that I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, here we fucking go,” Elliot growled out. 
“Elliot, please,” her mother scolded, then turned attentively back to Lucy. “What is it?”
Her foot tapped anxiously against the floor. “There have been some things happening with the company lately, and I think that it would be better…safer for everyone, if maybe you and Teddy and Elliot all came up to Birmingham for a while.”
Her mother’s brows pinched. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said quickly. “Yes, of course, there’s just…there’s some things that are going to start happening here, and Tommy and I both think that it would be for the best if you got out of the city for a while.”
Her mother wasn’t stupid, nor were her brothers. But she’d never had the heart to fully tell them the truth of what she had been up to all these years in Birmingham. Teddy knew more than the other two, but not everything. Surely, her mother had to have heard the rumors, maybe even seen things in the paper, and she clearly knew that the kind of work Lucy had been doing for Tommy was morally dubious at best. But they’d never talked about it openly.
“You want us to come to Birmingham?” her mother asked, slowly. Lucy nodded.
“Just for a little while.”
“Oh, well, I suppose that would be alright–”
Elliot took a sip of the tea he’d been brewing while she got through her proposal.
“I’m not going to Birmingham,” he said. Lucy’s head snapped around to him.
“It doesn’t have to be Birmingham. You could go on holiday, all three of you. Go to…to America. You’ve always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, right Mum? I’ll pay for it–”
“No,” Elliot set down his teacup and saucer. “I mean, that I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”
She felt her temper begin to crackle under her skin. “Elliot, it’s not safe–”
“Why not?”
Her jaw set furiously. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I’m not leaving.”
“For fucks sake, Elliot, could you just once do what I goddamn ask you to–”
“Don’t speak to your brother like that, Lucy,” her mother said.
“I’m not going,” Elliot finished off his tea, heading to the backdoor. “And that’s final.”
Lucy watched him go helplessly, hands hanging at her sides. “Okay, well, we can at least get you and Teddy set up at…” she trailed off at the look on her mother’s face. “Mum?”
“Lucy, I can’t leave without Elliot.”
“Mum, please–”
“I’m sorry.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Teddy, who gave her a sad, helpless shrug. A furious, frustrated growl rumbled in her throat.
“Stay here,” the back door slammed shut behind her after she pushed it open and stepped through it, storming towards where Elliot was bending over a little garden they had on the backside of the house. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I’m not leaving my home without good reason.”
“Oh and is you might get fucking killed not a good enough reason for you?”
“Who might kill us?” he asked. “Why would they kill us?” his eyes narrowed. “Do you even have any answers? Or are you just following the orders of your boss up in Birmingham?”
“I can’t tell you without compromising–”
“You know, I’ve been reading about all of the shit he’s done, the past few years. The shit that you’ve done,” he was suddenly right up in her face. “The Devil. That’s what they call him up there, right? That’s what they’re starting to call him down around here now, too. You might’ve sold your soul to him, but I’m not about to let the rest of us be dragged down with you.”
“You don't know what you’re talking about.”
Elliot leaned back, eyes gleaming cruelly. “I know what you did. What you still do. If there is anyone who this family needs protecting from, it’s you, Lucy,” he licked his lips. “You’re a monster, a demon wearing human skin–”
“Can you please stop it with the melodramatics?”
“Oh? So you're not the one that they call the Red Demon up in Birmingham?” 
She went silent, looking at him in quiet calculation. Elliot scoffed.
“None of this would have happened if you’d just stayed and done what you were told.”
“Excuse me?”
“You should have stayed here and married Matthew.”
Bile rose up in her throat at the very thought. “You would say that, knowing what he did to me?”
“It would have been better than you giving yourself away to the fucking Devil,” the next look Elliot shot her way was one of pure disgust. “I know that you’re fucking him,” at her shocked look, he laughed, humorlessly. “Please. The innocent act only works on Teddy and Mum. Not on me.” 
Crossing her arms around herself, Lucy stared at him with silent dread. He sounded so much like their father, it was as if he was standing right in front of her. The very thought had a chill running up her spine. “I’ll have Tommy place protection outside the house. If you won’t leave.”
“No. We don’t need him.”
“Elliot, I’m trying to keep you all safe you daft fucking idiot!”
“If I even think that I see Peaky Blinders outside this house, I’ll chase them off with Teddy’s revolver myself,” he looked at her hatefully. “You know I’ll do it.”
“You’re going to get you all killed.”
“No, I think that would be more your fault than mine,” he turned back to the garden.
A stab of hatred flooded over her, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl. “Fuck you,” she hissed at him, fighting back the desire to strangle him, spinning on her heel, she began to walk towards the back door of the house.
“Dad was right, you know,” Elliot’s voice called to her from across the yard. “You really are nothing but a fucking slut.”
Her steps staggered, the breath punched from her chest for a moment at the words, throat constricting. It took a controlled, deep intake of breath to stave off the tears suddenly building behind her eyes.
She didn’t allow them to fall until she bid Teddy and her mother goodbye, walking down the gray streets all alone. 
∗ ∗ ∗ 
Tommy was in the washroom when he heard Lucy come in, key unlocking the hotel room before the door opened, then closed behind her. Drawing the razor across his jaw in careful, calculated movements, he finished shaving his face, wiping the remnants of shaving cream off, splashing some water on his face, wiping over his chest, then drying off and pulling his shirt back on.
When he stepped out into the hotel room, Lucy had folded herself onto the windowsill, legs hugged to her chest, fingers pressed to her mouth as she stared out the window at the rapidly darkening city. Night would be upon them soon.
“Luce?”
She coughed. “Teddy collected some more information for us. Thought you might want to have a look,” she held out a bundle of papers that had been cradled in her lap to him. Tommy took the packet, glancing at her curiously as he set it down on his bed.
“Alright.”
She still wasn’t looking at him, instead keeping her head turned to the window. Settling his hands in his pockets, he tilted his head.
“How did the conversation go with your Mum?” he asked, even though by her grim mood, he could already have made a pretty good guess.
“They’re not moving,” she said. Tommy nodded.
“I’ll have men posted outside the house.”
“No. If you do, Elliot will just try to chase them off and probably get somebody shot,” she rubbed her palms together, looking down. Tommy felt his brows furrow, moving closer until he was right beside her.
“Are you okay?” there was something in her voice that he didn’t like.
“Fine.”
He cupped her chin with one hand, tilting her head back until she looked at him. Her eyes were red, clearly she’d been crying.
“Lucy…”
“Really, I’m okay.”
“We’ll figure out how to keep them safe.”
Her face twisted and Tommy cocked his head.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she scrubbed at her face. “Elliot’s just a dick.”
A flare of protectiveness built within his chest. Tommy had never even met Elliot, and yet he still held a not insignificant dislike for the man. It didn’t help that he always seemed to leave Lucy jittery with nerves and sadness, though her crying at something Elliot had said was new.
“What did he say to you?”
Lucy just shook her head stubbornly, jaw tensed in that way that he knew meant he’d have to practically pry her jaws open to get an answer. Sighing, deciding that it wouldn’t be a good time to push her, he just drew her into the circle of his arms, her head thumping against his chest while he rubbed her back.
“It’ll be okay.”
She nodded silently.
“We need to get going soon.”
“Right,” she stood from the windowsill, going to the washroom, blotting at her eyes and redoing her makeup, fluffing her curls. Tommy leaned against the doorframe, watching her with his arms crossed over his chest. Once she was done, she sat down on the end of one of the beds while he pulled his waistcoat and holster back on, the toe of her shoe rubbing against the carpet.
“Do you think that I’m a slut?”
He almost dropped his revolver as he tucked it back into the holster. “What?”
Lucy was looking at him with big eyes, face uncharacteristically vulnerable as she shrugged. Stalking across the room, he came to a stop in front of her, cupping her face in his hands.
“Of course not.”
Her breaths rattled, nodding once, eyes closing as she leaned into his touch. Tommy bent to kiss her lips, rubbing a dark red curl between his fingers.
“Besides, who said that there’s anything wrong with that?”
That got a tiny laugh from her, eyes darting down, to his relief a bit of life returning to her cheeks. Taking both her hands in his, he pulled her to her feet, enjoying the way that she bumped against his chest.
“Come on, let’s go cause some trouble.”   
∗ ∗ ∗ 
“Lucy, there’s a phone call for you.”
She glanced up from her papers, frowning. “For me? Or for Tommy?”
“For you,” Polly whisked around her. “It’s your brother.”
“Oh.”
“Phone in the back.”
“Thanks,” she put down her pen and stood, squeezing around the other men in the betting shop to get to the phone in the backroom. Picking it up, she held it to her ear. “What’s going on, Teddy?”
“It’s Elliot.”
She started. Never before had Elliot called her. Never. It was always only Teddy or her mother.
“Where’s Teddy?”
She listened as the voice spoke on the other end, a numbness seizing her bones, leaving her cold. She might have mumbled out something that could have been considered some form of instructions, or she might have just hung up the phone without an answer; she wasn’t sure, staggering back to the kitchen and slumping down into a chair.
“Oh, good lord,” Polly looked up from the kettle of tea she was making. “What’s wrong with you?”
The floorboards creaked, Tommy stepping in from the front sitting room and into the kitchen, swiping a cigarette across his lips.
“My brother just died,” Lucy said numbly, and Polly froze.
“What?” Tommy said, moving to squat down in front of her. Lucy fumbled to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Yeah, he, um, Elliot just called me. I guess he was following someone, and the man noticed, confronted him about it…things got out of hand, someone pulled a gun…”
Tommy’s hand moved to rest on her knee, pressing circles in through the material of her slacks. “I’m so, so sorry, love.”
Polly went to close the double doors to the main part of the shop. Tommy rose to remove the kettle as it started to shriek.
“Which one is Teddy?” Polly asked Tommy in a hushed whisper as she moved to help him with the tea. “Is he the one she likes, or the one she doesn’t get along with?”
“The one she likes,” Tommy said, plucking the teacup from Polly and bringing it over to sit in front of Lucy. She stared down at her hands, the tiniest of tremors having found its way into her fingertips.
“I have to go back to London,” she said. Tommy nodded.
“Of course.”
“I should–I should see about moving Mum and Elliot closer…”
“One thing at a time, love. I’ll come with you.”
“Tommy, we need you here–” Polly began to bristle.
“You can manage a few days without me. Besides, we need to look into this man Teddy had a conflict with,” he took Lucy’s hands pulling her from her seat. “Come, let’s get you some fresh air.”
“Tommy–!”
“Not right now, Polly,” he said sternly, guiding Lucy with a firm arm around her to the door.
They stepped out onto the gray street, Tommy ushering her away from the betting shop, around a corner, and then into a secluded alley. And there, without the pressures of needing to appear stoic and strong in front of Polly or the public, she let her head fall forward onto Tommy’s chest, and began to weep.
∗ ∗ ∗ 
“I need to go see my Mum,” Lucy said, looking out over the expanse of the river from where they were standing on the road. Tommy cocked his head, hand reaching out to brush against hers.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, I think it better if I go alone,” she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, wrapping her arms around herself and offering him a weak smile.
“I’ll go see what I can find about the man who killed him.”
“Divide and conquer, then? Meet back at the hotel around noon?”
“Alright,” he stooped to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
She started to walk down the road. When she looked over her shoulder, it was to find him still staring after her, hands shoved into his pockets and frowning. But upon her giving him a little smile and wave, his lips tilted upwards. She could feel his eyes on her until she rounded the corner. As she moved further and further away from Tommy, her smile fell, head hanging as she sniffed.
The house seemed to loom over her more than normal; its shadow dark and cold as it cast over her. Lucy gulped as she pulled the spare key Teddy had given her from her pocket, and opened the door. The hinges screamed.
“Mum?” she called out as she closed the door behind her. “Elliot?” Baskets full of flowers and baked bread were stacked neatly in the living room, the odor from the flowers sickly sweet and pungent. There was the sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs, and then a figure was flying at her, arms outstretched towards her throat.
“You! This is your fault! This is all your fault! You disgusting whore!” Elliot was screaming as he threw himself at her. Lucy’s back collided with the door, hands barely managing to catch at his wrists before they would have wrapped around her throat.
“Elliot!”
“He’s dead, he’s dead because of you!”
She lifted her knee to crash into his stomach, and he doubled over coughing, then choked as her next punch struck him directly in the throat, leaving him to collapse to the floor. Stepping over him, she rested a foot on his chest, pushing him down roughly into the hardwood. 
“Don’t ever come at me like that again.” 
Elliot looked up at her with hateful eyes, but made no other move to attack her. With a deep breath, she removed her foot to allow him to sit up.
“Where’s Mum?”
Elliot didn’t say anything, instead just rubbing his throat. Rolling her eyes, Lucy stepped past him and headed into the kitchen.
Her mother was seated in her rocking chair in the corner of the little breakfast nook, staring out the window. Her red hair was tangled, clothes wrinkled and rumpled. The rocking chair creaked back and forth, back and forth.
“Mum,” Lucy said, quietly, taking a cautious step forward. When she didn’t respond, Lucy knelt down in front of her, grasping her hands. “Mum?”
“Oh, Lucy,” her mother said, as if waking from a daze. “Lucy, you’re here.”
“Yeah, I am,” she stroked some of her mother’s hair away from her face. “Are you okay?”
Her mother’s bottom lip started to tremble. “They don’t know–the police don’t know–”
“I know. It’ll be okay,” she said, raising to hug her mother.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come home.”
They parted. “Have you eaten?”
“O-oh, no.”
“How about some of the bread and jam your neighbors have sent you?”
“Alright, I suppose so.”
She went back into the living room, snatching a loaf and a container of dark purple jam from one of the baskets. Elliot had pulled himself to his feet, and he followed her back into the kitchen. Lucy scraped a knife over the slices of bread, smearing the jam before passing a slice to her mother.
“Mum,” she crouched down in front of her again. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but after the funeral, I thought maybe you could come stay with me in Birmingham for a while. You and Elliot. Or maybe you could go out into the countryside. Join up with the caravan with your kin.”
“I said no, Lucy,” Elliot growled. But her mother looked tempted.
“Wait, Elliot, maybe…maybe Lucy’s right.”
“No.”
“But-”
“I am the man of this house. What I say goes. And it certainly isn’t going to be superseded by a disgusting slut.”
“Elliot that is enough! You do not speak to your sister like that!”
“I don’t want her at the funeral,” he growled. “It’s her fault Teddy’s dead! She has no right to go!”
“That is not–”
“No, he’s right,” Lucy said, voice quiet. “I shouldn’t go.”
“Oh, my Lucy, no. Please, come,” her mother reached for her hand, choking on tears. “Teddy would have wanted you to come.”
“That’s sweet of you to think, Mama,” she said as gently as she could. “But I don’t want to cause any problems,” she shot a glance at Elliot. If she went to the funeral, there was almost bound to be a fight between them; be it during or after. That was the last thing that her mother needed right now.
“I’m sure that it has nothing to do with you being unable to step foot inside a church, does it?” Elliot sneered. Lucy rolled her eyes.
“I’m not a fucking vampire, Elliot, I can walk in a church just fine,” thought honestly, she didn’t particularly enjoy it. Churches made her uncomfortable. Reaching out, she combed her fingers through her mother’s hair. “Think about what I said about leaving, okay?”
Her mother nodded wordlessly, and she stooped to kiss her cheek. She caught at Lucy’s hand, holding onto her with a grip like iron. “Lucy, don’t go.”
“I have to, right now, okay? But I’ll be back. I’ll come see you after the funeral,” it took a long moment before her mother loosened her grip on her and nodded. Straightening, Lucy left the kitchen, heading back to the front door.
“We’re not leaving,” Elliot insisted, following her. 
“We’ll see.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have things to do.” 
“Things with the Devil?”
“Things like tracking down Teddy’s killer. I’ll see you later,” she closed the door before he could say anymore.
∗ ∗ ∗ 
“You’re really not going to go to the funeral?” Tommy asked, lighting her cigarette for her as they stood at the edge of the park, the shadows of the tree above them almost completely hiding them from view. Lucy shook her head.
“No, I don’t think so. Elliot doesn’t want me to. It would just cause unnecessary problems,” she took a puff of her cigarette. “I’ll pay my respects later,” there were times where the grief that she had attempted to shove down, at least until these issues with Teddy’s killer and her mother and brother were resolved, started crawling up her throat and she had to swallow it back down, voice choking around it. 
Tommy put a hand on her hip, letting her lean backwards until his chest met her back, arms going around her. Lucy closed her eyes. They were alone in the park, it well past midnight. The whole area was secluded and not often traveled. There would be no risks of interruptions.
A car drove up to stop at the edge of the park, and two of their men stepped out, the silhouettes of their caps clear in the dim light of the streetlamp. Tommy coughed, letting her go as the men went around to the trunk, popping it open and pulling out a figure, bound and gagged, and beginning to drag him along the grass to them. He groaned as they tossed him at their feet.
“Thank you, boys,” Tommy pulled from his coat pocket a wad of bills that he split in half, handing each to the men. They nodded in silent respect, went back to get into their car, and drove off. Lucy squatted down in front of the man, her head tilting. It hadn’t been all too hard to find him. There were plenty of witnesses to the altercation between him and Teddy. After that, it was just asking around, learning which pubs he liked to frequent, then sending some of their boys to pick him up.
“Hello, Mr. Larry Baxter,” Tommy said in that deep purr of his. “Do you know who we are?”
Baxter shivered in his bonds, eyes darting from one to the other, then nodded.
“Good. Do you know why you are here?”
Baxter hesitated only a moment, then nodded.
“Good,” Tommy reached into his coat, pulling his revolver from its holster. “Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?” he asked her.
“I want to do it,” Lucy said, staring down at Baxter in silent, shivering rage. Tommy held out the grip of the gun to her. Taking it with one hand, she plucked from her lips her cigarette, giving it to him. Tommy brought it to his lips casually, watching lazily as she approached Baxter. Raising the gun to aim at one of his eyes, she cocked it.
Her brother had been shot in the face. The funeral would be a closed casket one, considering the extent of the damage.
An eye for an eye.
She pulled the trigger, and blew a bullet directly through his eye, into his skull. Blood and brains splattered onto the green grass.
Green and red. Like the faded rug in her mother’s living room.
Tommy took the gun from her, sliding it back under his coat. His hand touched her hair, massaging the base of her skull.
They weighed Baxter down with stones and tossed him into the river. And as they walked home Lucy let her head rest against Tommy’s shoulder, the scent of blood still lodged deeply in her nose, the taste of the salty tears rolling down her cheeks on her lips.
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frecklydork · 6 months
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I don’t know what to do with my red energon necklace. Do I throw it away?? I hate looking at it. I just cry when I see it. It feels so heavy on me when I wear it like I’m just dragging its dead weight forward. I miss Starscream so bad it hurts every single day and the nightmares about him hurting me for my abuser are fucking relentless dude. when does it end. Where can I get some peace. Why did the entire franchise have to become a trigger, why did I have to lose my most main F/Os out of everyone I’ve ever self shipped with, why did it have to be my main comfort source.
My shelves and walls are so bare without my TF stuff and I have tried for over a year to keep it and to get over it but I can’t keep allowing myself to get triggered. It took me six hours to shove everything into boxes and cram them into my closet. I’ve debated on deleting my ship tags and mass deleting every single TF post from my blog because I feel so uneasy when I get notifications for likes/reblog on my old self ship art that I’m never going to be able to go back to. New followers (who understandably don’t know I have ptsd and had my love for the franchise literally beaten out of me) ask me about TF all the time and I don’t know how to answer. I flinch if I see a TF character in someone’s icon. I hate living like this. Steve Blum could be coming to my city and I have a feeling that even if he gave me a video of Starscream saying he loves his little Starflower, like he’s done dozens of times before, I don’t think it would make any difference bc I’m so numb to it now
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bougiebutchbitch · 5 months
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I've been seeing the OFMD season 2 ending being compared a lot to the Supernatural finale or the Game of Thrones finale.
I think there's something to be said for writers and the effect they can have on fans when things are handled so offkey for sure
yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If anything, it shows how good the first season was, that the second season was such a let down! There was a lot of promise there, and it got fumbled for a myriad of reasons, not least of which being the writers panicking about having less screentime than expected/not getting a season 3.
The end results were........ kinda incoherent. It felt like they tried to cram a load of plots that should have been stretched out over two seasons into one - Ed and Stede's whole decision to settle down and leave piracy (especially in Stede's case! Holy shit! He 180'd so hard he must've given himself whiplash!) and the Archie/Jim/Olu/Zheng thing being the main ones that stand out.
Between very rushed pacing, poor character development (as in: interesting character development being retconned at the last minute with very little lead up or explanation), and big emotional beats just... handed to us without proper demonstration on-screen, in a classic example of why 'Show Don't Tell' is included in damn near every 'how to write' manual... Well. It's not BAD. It's just. Mediocre. And given how good the first season was - and how amazing most of Season 2 was, bar the dodgy pacing! - that makes the overwhelming 'meh'ness of the finale even worse. I think a lot of us just... expected better.
If there is a Season 3, I might watch - especially if David Jenkins isn't just teasing with the Izzy reanimation thing. But even if Izzy comes back... I dunno, Stede and Ed's relationship drama is complex and beautiful and fascinating. The final episode just. Shoved them together on land to run an inn while all their crew sailed off into the sunset. They abandoned the pirate life that Stede freaking loved... and that's a happy ending?
I dunno. It feels like the writers want them to break up in S3 because of a lack of communication and because they 'moved too fast'. Again. Which like, that plotline gets old?? It feels like they haven't really grown or changed or had a chance to start working through their relationship issues. I expected a bit.... more development of Blackbonnet as a pairing this season, regardless of whether this is the penultimate season of the final one!
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sleepymarmot · 7 months
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Bright Young Things (2003) / Vile Bodies (1930)
Yes, yes, of course I watched this for young gay Michael Sheen.
For real, the main entertainment factor of this film is embodying the Leo pointing meme every time a familiar face shows up on screen. At some point a certain someone appeared in an incidental role for a few seconds in a close-up next to Tennant and I completely fucking lost it. The UK can’t possibly have so few actors!
I’ve never even heard of the book this was based on, or was aware this was an adaptation before being informed in the opening titles, but it’s very noticeable. The script frantically jumps from plot point to plot point just like in any other feature film that tries to cram a novel in less than two hours of runtime. A bigger problem is that it’s not very clear to the viewer whether they should even try to make out a plot out of this string of scenes, or it’s a narrative that operates on vibes only. (I had to quickly leaf through previous scenes because I’d put a name to a wrong face, all while wondering if correcting myself was even worth it.) The film has a boisterous beginning, then slows down for a long time, then is given a shot of energy when James McAvoy’s character does a certain big thing halfway through (I cheered. Then I went “Oh man :/”). The plot does get a bit more coherent after that.
The ending caught me by surprise: I didn’t realize it was that late in the thirties. The radio announcement was a real “Guess he’ll die” moment, and it was immediately followed by a scene where the main character and his love interest seemed to poetically die on the same day… And then both of these were swiftly undone. The final scene was so conspicuously set during an air raid in a room filled with burning candles that I kept expecting the final frame to be a bomb hitting the building, or someone knocking over one of the candles — either way, with the pair being set ablaze just like the rediscovered manuscript. But no, it was just… a happy/bittersweet melodramatic ending? Instead of a neat destructive one? But I had already given up on the emotionally involved melodramatic mode of viewing because I’d written off the characters as unlikeable empty shells whom you study like a bug instead of rooting for! The girl didn’t even seem to like the boy and the boy sold her, what kind of emotion was their reunion supposed to evoke? And what happened to Agatha and Miles during/after the war? According to the summary on Wikipedia, the original novel’s ending is entirely different in content and tone, and much more in tune with the detached cynicism of the story up to the war, which makes me wonder even more about the adaptation’s intent.
It was nice to look at all these pretty people in fashionable clothes, and get a glimpse of a foreign historical setting. “Watching a random mildly obscure production because you’ve heard about it online and/or some star was in it” is a familiar, semi-forgotten experience, and that felt pleasantly nostalgic.
---
Of course, I couldn’t resist immediately reading the original book to compare, encouraged by a review saying that it’s actually not that long. I found a public domain version somewhere and read the bare original text without commentary, even though I’m sure it’s a terrible way to consume century-old satire.
I was surprised to discover that the book is from 1930 — and still ends with a great war (fictional, I assume). No wonder the adaptation moved the setting a decade forward!
My impression that the characters and their stories were supposed evoke curiosity and contempt rather than compassion was confirmed. I now find the shoehorned sappy ending even stranger. The film version turned out to be very faithful otherwise: the unimportant events and characters are condensed well, and the weird pacing and disjointedness that I perceived as a trait of sloppy adaptation were actually true to the source material.
The last chapters of the book feel different not because of the sudden bleakness, but because the scope is rapidly narrowed to the few main characters, and most of the secondary subplots are dropped. The book, unlike the adaptation, puts a definite end to Agatha’s story (and her life), and there’s an entire subplot about a fictional film that didn’t make it to the real film, but what about the Prime Minister and his unsuccessful courtship of a Japanese noblewoman, or Miles’ brother and his rejected proposal? I thought these were going somewhere.
What a shame that the misunderstanding about “shooting” didn’t make it to the adaptation — it’s one of the few passages in the novel I found genuinely funny. Speaking of dialogue, I thought the “parties” monologue in the film was very unnatural and theatrical, and sure, in the novel it’s not said aloud but belongs to the narrator.
The minor character who hosted the fateful party was in the novel actually, uhh, a major character from the writer’s previous novel who made money via human trafficking?? That would have been very confusing for the movie’s audience, so I think it was pretty clever to throw all that out and make her Miles’ mother instead. Too bad a more serious take on Miles warranted a new surname: “Miles Malpractice” is a great name.
Miles’ role was expanded a lot for the film, which I think we all agree was a good choice. Most of his lines in the movie, including the tearful goodbye, aren’t in the book at all! So that’s another thing that was made more dramatic for the film. You win some (Miles), you lose some (the ending). The moral of the story is… Stephen Fry is better at writing a gay character than a straight romance? No wonder; the question is why he even bothered with the latter.
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