#it's this sort of. sci-fi post apocalyptic world and the characters are a crew of misfits :0)

[birdietrait]

there are a few new ocs bouncing around in my head

#birdie rambles #i've been having crazy detailed dreams lately...they're like movies with actual plots #i haven't been in one of my own dreams for months now. idk if that means something ? SJKDSJ #but from each dream i've been pulling different aspects and building this story and i lovee it #it's this sort of. sci-fi post apocalyptic world and the characters are a crew of misfits :0) #LOVE a good crew of misfits

[bogkeep]

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

#stand still stay silent #might as well tag this if i wanna dig it up later

[icarusisstillflying]

💥 writeblr intro 💥

hiii folks, this is gonna be my writeblr (hopefully we’ll see how motivated i am) so i want to do a little intro!!

about me

you can call me layne, or if u want to call me icarus, that works too

queer

they/them

disabled with like a million chronic illnesses

21 yrs old

i’m a college dropout with absolutely no plan ahaha

i work as a barista and am looking for music gigs on the side (i still need to get better at the music part oops)

currently reading: Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

about my writing

i write mostly fiction/sci-fi/fantasy

almost all of my characters have powers or magic or aren’t even completely human

i like to write really cool fight scenes, i don’t care if they seem unreasonable, pretend it’s an anime idk. they have superpowers they can do anything

i like to explore the darker elements of these powers and worlds, so a lot of my work is nsfw bc of gore and stuff like that

like incorporating horror into my stories as well as just writing horror too

i write diverse characters and do the best research i can; if someone notices i’ve made a mistake or have accidentally written something insensitive, please let me know! i am always learning!

if i could draw i would make all of my works graphic novels as my choice of media, but alas, i am incapable of doing much more than staring at my tablet and getting angry when the picture doesn’t draw itself

my wips:

Generation Six

sci-fi, superpowers

a woman spends her entire life recruiting people known as Guardians to help protect the world from danger, but the biggest threat she’s ever faced is about to upend it all. not to mention the evil little shadow demon that lives in her head is constantly trying to overtake her and go on a murderous rampage. she’s a bit busy.

large cast, multiple povs

this series is on the back burner for now, i just am not sure where i want to go with it

an untitled pirate story

fantasy, magic gay pirates

the most feared pirates in the world is a crew of six people… and a magic cat? the captain is searching for the greatest treasure known to humankind, and she’d probably have it already, if they didn’t keep hitting all these roadblocks. seablocks? they’re on a boat.

small main cast

Murders of Crow Creek

western setting with supernatural/paranormal elements

a small town sheriff recruits an interesting group of people to help her solve a string of murders: a witch of the Dark Gods, a bounty hunter with a memory problem, a demon killer with a smoking problem, and a bartender with one arm and a hell of a lot of knives tucked in his boots. what’s the worst that could happen? ignore the all out war between gods that they accidentally get themselves into

small main cast

there’s ghosts, demons, angels, vampires, all sorts of supernatural beings just chillin in the wild west

personally love this one bc the main character, the sheriff, is just getting too old for this nonsense; she’s also a big time lesbian yeehaw

Kid Mother

sci-fi, post-apocalyptic

a disease has wiped out nearly the entire human population. if things weren’t already bad, this disease made it so that babies just. couldn’t be born. until one is. with the human population dwindling, and groups trying to speed up that process, our main character has to travel across the country with the first baby that’s been born in two decades so that scientists may be able to find a way to fix this entire thing. no problem.

very small cast

us vs the world trope

other info

i love answering literally any questions about my wips so pleeeeeaaaase ask away!!

i’ll probably also post any fanfics i write bc i have a lot of them, and i really need somewhere to share them oopsies

any advice about other places i can share my writing would be appreciated

please refrain from giving criticism unless it’s 1. constructive and 2. something i asked for :) sometimes i just Can Not Handle It

i do not tolerate any form of bigotry. if i see any clownery on any of my stuff, you will be blocked and reported. just don’t be an ass.

uhhh i think that’s about it? not sure what else to put in a writeblr intro, so if you made it this far, thank you so much! hopefully i will have more detailed posts about those wips up at some point before the year ends! follow if your interested, i’ll probs follow back :)

💥

#writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #my wips #works in progress #writeblr intro #intro

[aion-rsa]

Finch: Inside Tom Hanks’ Own Private Sci-Fi Dystopia

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A lot has happened since Den of Geek was invited to visit the New Mexico set of Tom Hanks’ dystopian sci-fi movie, Finch, back in March 2019. For starters, Hanks became one of the very first high-profile COVID-19 cases, and the world shut down just days before the film was finished shooting. The movie was called “Bios” at the time of the set visit, and has since been brought from Universal to Apple TV+ (it’s available now). Like many film productions that were affected by the pandemic, Finch took an unexpectedly long and twisty path to finally make it to our TV screens.

So it was again a different world, to say the least, on that dusty, scorching hot, pre-pandemic backlot in Albuquerque over two years ago. Maskless members of the press were huddled together in a small building, talking to a cavalcade of cast and crew members, including Hanks and director Miguel Sapochnik. The biggest safety concern on set wasn’t hygiene or social distancing, but the risk of snakes biting at your ankles (one of the first people we were introduced to was a snake wrangler holding a bucket and a long hook). The setting felt appropriately post-apocalyptic, but in a way that is sort of wholesome in hindsight.

Tom Hanks and His Dog

The film is a futuristic fable of sorts. Five years after a solar flare effectively toasts civilization as we know it, robotics engineer Finch Weinberg (Hanks) is fighting for survival with his best and only bud, Goodyear, his insanely cute terrier. Grappling internally with his own mortality and his love for his dog, he creates Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), a humanoid robot with advanced AI, to protect the little mutt.

“The ‘last man on earth’ is a familiar kind of trope,” says Hanks of the film’s setup. “But there’s no magic, no mutants, no aliens, no biker gangs. And it’s not a sequel! But there is a different sense of what loneliness is. When you see that there’s a dog in it, it becomes a completely different kind of movie.”

Most of the film’s stakes hinge on Finch’s desperate affection for Goodyear, and in that aspect, Hanks found the soul of the film.

“It’s a love story between a guy and his dog,” explains the Oscar winning actor. “Dogs teach you what love is and they worship you, and then they die on you. You have to put them down and it’s just the worst day of your life.”

Sapochnik agrees with Hanks’s sentiment.

“The dog is the heart of the story,” the director says. “And having the dog in the movie helps because whenever you see a man and a dog, you don’t think science fiction.”

One of the ideas that permeated the on-set conversations was that Finch is a family drama first and a sci-fi movie second. There are genre tropes and influences all throughout the film (the post-apocalypse milieu, the implications of AI, the road movie pacing), but the development of the connections between Finch, Goodyear, and Jeff is what propels the story at all times. “It’s a [different] kind of relationship movie,” Hanks explains. “You didn’t have to project anything onto it other than a simple premise: a guy had a dog, and it’s very dangerous outside, so how do you survive?”

“What we’ve tried to do is keep it real,” says Sapochnik of the creative process. “That’s been the mantra. Instead of it being ‘grounded sci-fi,’ we want it to be a drama that just happens to have a robot in it.”

Do Androids Dream?

That robot, played on set by Jones in a suit that would later be replaced by CGI in post-production, adds an intriguing wrinkle to this survival tale. For the hybrid visual effects creation, Sapochnik focused on capturing Jones’s performance as he would any other actor, not worrying too much about how the framing and camerawork would affect the effects work that would be laid over the performance later.

“We wanted to shoot it in a way where you forget that [Jeff] is a robot,” Sapochnik says. “The ideal scenario is that after two minutes, you don’t care that it’s a robot anymore. It’s a character. We’re treating it and shooting it like a drama and then overcoming the [CGI] problems later on.”

For Hanks, the key to the success of Jeff was freeing him from the cliches of robots in film by making him more dynamic and less rigid in his mannerisms and communication. In this way, Jones gets to express himself fully as opposed to playing an AI archetype.

“Jeff ends up being a free spirit as opposed to something predictable,” says Hanks. “Otherwise, it’s a combination of ‘Danger, Will Robinson!’ and ‘I’ll be back.’”

The director adds, “Finch curates the information that he puts in Jeff’s head, and Jeff makes choices, and the choices lead to questions and to him developing a personality. He’s a kid with way too much information. For him, it’s juggling that information and what it means. It’s an accelerated learning curve. He knows all this stuff, but he doesn’t necessarily know what to do with it. That’s his journey.”

Building the World’s End

From the beginning of their time together, Hanks and Sapochnik worked on fleshing out the finer details of Finch’s life to embed Hanks in the character as much as possible. The star even insists they were having the most intense script meetings he’s ever had on any project.

“There’s so much logic that has to be established about the world and when things happened,” Hanks considers. They would talk about how Finch had stumbled on a room full of ramen noodles prior to the events of the movie, but that he’d also already eaten it all by the time the audience meets him.

When asked if it’s important that the audience picks up on these hidden details, Sapochnik is firm in his position: It doesn’t.

 “Whether they do notice or they don’t, the idea is that we’re building characters,” says the director. “I think it’s good when you’re developing characters to have a full sense of who they are. But the audience doesn’t need to understand that to be able to enjoy the movie.”

Cast Away Again

When you consider that Hanks is virtually the only human being you see in the entire movie, it’s difficult not to draw comparisons to Cast Away, another movie in which Hanks is isolated, in survival mode, having curious conversations with non-human companions. But for Hanks, the films’ similarities are only surface deep.

“Cast Away was by accident,” Hanks says of his character’s predicament in that movie. “He always knew that the rest of the world was going on [without him]. On Cast Away, we riffed on fire, shelter, water, and food. But a requirement for living is also company. I knew all of Wilson’s lines. I don’t know what Goodyear is thinking. There’s a different philosophical bent on trying to discover what’s out there [in Finch] and trying to get back to something that you know is [out there] in Cast Away.”

As for the challenge of carrying a movie mostly by himself, Hanks doesn’t exactly view it that way. “I almost don’t like to use the world ‘challenge,’ because it’s every fucking moment!” Hanks says of the stresses of making a movie. “They’re all minefields. No matter how many movies you make, you’re sowing the seeds for your own destruction every time they clack the slate in front of you. You’re aiming for something that you need to make real in the falsest environment imaginable. You want to warrant the attention that’s placed upon you because you’re the only guy in the movie. But it’s tough because you have to nail the moment, but if you’re caught selling the moment, you’re doomed. It has to be real somehow. But that’s what ends up being the blast of it.”

Robo-Dog

While Hanks was the star of not just the movie, but of the set visit itself (he graciously spent a good chunk of his lunch break to continue answering questions when he clearly didn’t have to), there were two other, unexpected guests that nearly stole the show. 

In the movie, Finch has a robot named Dewey, who he built prior to Jeff as something of a prototype. Just as Jeff is modeled to be humanlike, Dewey is modeled to be doglike, but the difference is that, unlike Jeff, Dewey is a real-life, practical effects creation. In-person, Dewey is jaw-droppingly cool. As the effects team brings him into the room, they explain that he took three months to build from scratch and is composed of over 220 bespoke parts. It’s strange to feel an immediate emotional attachment to a robotic dog, but that’s precisely what the team was going for.

And then, there was Seamus, the terrier who plays Goodyear. He was as friendly and loving as could be, a rescue who went from living in a homeless encampment in LA and getting two surgeries for a piece of plastic lodged in his small intestine, to being adopted by a rescue organization and acting opposite Tom Hanks in a major motion picture. He lifted the spirits of everyone in the room (we had been shielding our faces from dusty gusts all day, so he was literally a sight for sore eyes). 

Finch was made prior to the global pandemic, but the world being forever changed by COVID-19 contextualizes the movie in a new way. The filmmakers changed the ending to be less devastating in response to the global pandemic and the pain it’s caused, and perhaps focusing on the warmer aspects of the story, like Goodyear, was the right call. To Sapochnik, Seamus’ adorableness is what gives the movie its power.

“You’ve got these great actors, Tom Hanks and Caleb Landry Jones,” Sapochnik explains, “but whenever Seamus comes onscreen, everyone goes, ‘Aww!’ I never thought a dog could create such a superior reaction, but everyone crowds around on-set. The heart of the movie is the dog.”

Finch is available on Apple TV+ now.

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The post Finch: Inside Tom Hanks’ Own Private Sci-Fi Dystopia appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[just-the-mage]

Review-Love Death + Robots (Pt 1. Episodes 1-4)

So here we are again.  You, dear readers, and I, a mostly defunct tumblr page.  I was thinking...I’ve written a few reviews on here before, and I’ve rather enjoyed myself to be honest.  So until RP starts up again for me, I’m going to grab some popcorn and start reviewing some of the media I’ve been indulging in during this exceptionally fun pandemic we’ve all been saddled with (and are becoming increasingly more and more used to as time goes on).  Here we go! 

Spoilers incoming! I don’t like to discuss a show without going through it entirely-no stone unturned.  You have been warned! 

Love Death + Robots is a compilation series-each episode is self-contained content, based on what I have experienced thus far.  The content varies wildly from cute and sweet to surreal, to horrific.  For right now I’m going to stick with the first four episodes since they are fresh in my mind.  

Episode 1: Three Robots

Three robots shows a short adventure shared by, you guessed it-Three robots exploring the crumbling remains of human society.  It comes across as three tourists making their way through an area that they are completely unfamiliar with, attempting to define and understand elements of the environment as humans once did.  Their analysis and attempts to understand not only human culture, but also basic human biology, were entertaining to say the least.  Each robot has flair, character, and a their own take on humans and humanity.  Over the course of the episode, the fall of mankind is referenced a few times, being initially explained as a mass extinction due to environmental disasters (global warming is probably a factor-one of the buildings has an entire ship sticking out of it).  However, the twist ending throws that whole theory into question once the cat that has been accompanying the robots for the last leg of their journey reveals itself as capable of speech.  And, interestingly enough...being in possession of opposable thumbs.  It was certainly unexpected, and a bit odd-the cat (and its many, many brethren) manage to finish out the episode by convincing the robots that if the robots do not pet them, the cats may explode.  I will say that the ending, though it was rather silly and fitting with the tone, felt like an out of place twist intended mostly to give a bit of closure to a story that had no real need to have an ending.  It felt a little out-of-left field, at least to me.

This first episode, I think, is one that I could recommend to a much more general audience than almost all of the other content of the show.  It’s whimsical and cute, despite inhabiting such a grim setting (and grim it is-post apocalyptic is not taken lightly here.  There are plenty of corpses, some skeletal and some not quite so much.  At least one of them appears to have died by suicide).  I found it to be a nice addition and a good introduction to ease people into the tone of the show.  Definitely give this one a watch, even if the ending sort of comes from nowhere. 

Episode 2: Beyond the Aquila Rift

This episode was definitely a change of pace from the first.  It begins as a high science fiction story starring a hunky, middle aged man and his two crewmates, making some sort of cargo run (?) through a wormhole of some kind, but promptly finding themselves in a completely different place from what they expected.  Hunky space captain wakes up first, finding that he is greeted by an old friend (read: lover) of his, who explains that there was a navigation error that led them off course-way off course.  They’re in a completely different area than they expected.  The ship’s navigator wakes as well, swearing that there couldn’t have been an error in her calculations, but seems ill and is placed back in her future tech cryopod to rest.  Space captain man then bangs it out with his ex-lover (Greta) in a scene that was almost definitely written by a man, and she reveals to him that she lied, and that him and his crew are actually hundreds of light-years further off course than they had thought they were, basically dashing any hopes that he could have of returning to his old life.  The two then wake the navigator again, who immediately starts ranting that ‘Greta’ isn’t who she says she is.  At this point, enough clues have been given that the captain catches up with the audience (it was all a simulation the whole time), and he confronts Greta, demanding that she reveal herself as she truly is.  She does, after some prodding-and the captain finds himself in an infested husk of a ship, aged and haggard, obviously dying of starvation.  Greta reveals herself as a lovely spider-beast, and the captain wakes up from his pod again-back in his comfortable illusion once more.  

I love the premise of this one.  Crazy aliens and shit like this is a huge draw for me-sci-fi horror is probably my favorite subgenre of horror when it’s done well.  I would count this episode as doing it pretty well.  They don’t go into much techno-babble, which I think is a pitfall for some sci-fi stories.  The writers are well aware that we aren’t spending too long in this world, so we don’t need to know much about the rules under which it operates outside of ‘computer mistake your ship fly here.’  The twist ending didn’t end up being too much of a twist-in my opinion there were too many clues given throughout the episode to make it that much of a surprise that things weren’t as they seemed.  The odds of this man meeting his ex-lover in the infinitesimal reaches of space just by chance were a bit too impossible to make it believable-and the navigator was far too convinced that her work couldn’t be incorrect.  In the end, it was an expected twist, but still pretty jarring.  Execution is pretty good overall though-and the sex scene is pretty decent as well, even if its strictly a dude-fantasy thing.  Also, call me a sucker for cool looking beasties, but I adore the design on spider-Greta.  That’s a lady right there for you.  

Episode 3: Ice Age

The only live action episode I’ve seen so far-this one gives an *entirely* different tone than the majority of the other episodes in the series.  Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead happen upon a lost civilization that exists entirely within their refrigerator.  They watch in awe as it develops incredibly quickly-hundreds of years passing within the civilization in roughly an hour or so of real time.  What starts in the morning as a town in the viking ages eventually develops into a modern society, almost destroys itself with nukes, and then rebuilds from the ashes into a fully futuristic society that quickly ascends beyond physical form, appearing to disperse itself into the cosmos, no longer bound by such petty rules as the laws of physics.  A disappointed Topher asks if they’ll return-to which he receives a sad ‘no’ from his partner.  It seems all is lost, and the couple go to bed for the night-only to find that the cycle has restarted overnight, and they probably won’t be able to keep any frozen chicken in the freezer for quite some time.

This one is probably one of my favorites of the series so far.  It’s fairly well acted, but the real beauty of the episode is getting to watch the mini-civilization develop itself in a glorious time lapse-the work that must’ve gone into it must have been monumental, to be honest.  The final product certainly felt that way, in any case.  What I also found fascinating was a specific scene in which the protagonists were abandoned in place of some of the tiny denizens of the lost civilization-which made me realize exactly how slow the ‘normal sized people’s’ actions must have looked to the diminutive people of this rapidly developing society.  Reminiscent of the earth’s motion in relation to our own perception-and reinforcing the concept that to an individual, perception is everything. 

Episode 4:  Sonnie’s Edge 

This episode opens with three people transporting mysterious cargo into a heavily guarded complex, quickly encountering and interacting with a ‘bigwig’ of sorts with a beautiful woman on his arm.  Through context clues the audience is easily able to discover that the three (pictured above) are here for a fight-and that their cargo is their fighter, a living creature of obviously immense proportion.  The bigwig asks the team to throw the fight, and they refuse, even after he offers a large amount of money.  (It’s worth mentioning that during this scene, ‘Sonnie’, the leader and controller of the beast fighter, shares an EXTREMELY homosexual gaze with the bigwig’s beautiful lady friend.  Don’t think I didn’t notice the setup, because I definitely noticed the payoff, even though it was rudely interrupted).  Sonnie and her teammates enter the ring, setting up as it appears that she will be piloting her fighter in some way.  Her opponent is also introduced, though he is hardly important in the story-imagine a cake of beef with a big sticker on him that says ‘mysogyny’ in bold print.  What follows is one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in animation (this is just my personal opinion though).  These creatures fucking tear each other to shreds, with Sonnie’s beast only just barely emerging as the victor, tearing the opposing fighter’s head clean from its body.  The bigwig is obviously angry, as is Sonnie’s opponent, and Sonnie and her team retires to a hotel room of sorts, with the exception of Sonnie-who slips away into the room that houses her fighter, promptly encountering the beauty from earlier! (Payoff time)..and it gets gay.  Fast.  I love me some wlw content, and there’s some nice tension here, right up until the beauty stabs Sonnie through the head.  Rude.  The bigwig reveals himself, which was a bit of a surprise-the part of me that hadn’t seen much of this show yet was hoping for a fluffy little happy ending.  It wasn’t to be though..after the beauty crushes Sonnie’s skull, the two promptly realize that ‘Sonnie’ wasn’t Sonnie at all-just some biotech.  The *real* Sonnie...was the fighter, the whole time.  Who promptly makes short work of both the beauty and the bigwig, (implied), in what I can only describe as the most satisfying moment in the series that I’ve seen thus far.  

This was easily my favorite episode of the show, and has continued to be, and I assume will continue to be my favorite through the rest of the series.  It’s not just because of the lesbian rep (my people!), or the misogynists getting fucking destroyed, but the strength of the reveal, the choreography of the fight scene, and the *power* of the protagonist.  I love her.  I love her sooo much.  We are seamlessly introduced into the world, shown a woman who has been beaten, scarred, faced sexual abuse, and she remade herself into a being of pure power.  She fought back, and *look how she fights back*.  I cannot describe just how much of a cheer-worthy moment it was to watch the smug smile be summarily wiped from the face of the bigwig.  I *love* seeing a villain who has full confidence in their victory suddenly realize that they don’t have the upper hand anymore...and that they are, in fact, absolutely screwed.  This was one of those wonderful, wonderful moments, and I can think of nobody more deserving than this villain of being torn to shreds.  This was an A+ episode for sure-100% recommend this one for anyone who can handle a bit of gore.  

Thank you so much for reading!  This is only part 1...more to come!        

#ooc #not ffxiv #review #show review #tv show review #love death and robots #love #death #robots #animation #sonnie's edge #ice age #beyond the aquila rift #three robots #wlw #lesbian

[transarchivist]

do you have any podcasts recs? I want to listen to archive 81 but I need some backup and I've already listened to the more "famous" ones, like all of them I binge podcasts like they pay me for me it ajsjjshfje

!!!! ok i'm sorry it's taken me a hot minute to get to you BUT i think i have a good amount of reccomendations :o

these first few are kinda "famous" but i thought i'd point em out just in case! some of them ended a few years ago and they were more well known back when they were running

wolf 359: gotta point this one out juuuust in case you haven't listened to it! amazing sci fi... would drama be the right word? it's very intense and has some really interesting meditations on morality and the self But it's also so extremely funny. complete, ended in 2017

ars paradoxica: america during the cold war, the red scare, intense government conspiracies.... And Time Travel! complicated but amazing plot and a big cast- i would recommend not pausing and listening to something else, it gets complex! mischa stanton directed it so you Know it has stellar sound design (added bonus: lgbt main characters) complete, ended in 2018

the bright sessions: people with superpowers go to therapy! plus: shadowy capitalistic conspiracies, amazing romances and phenomenal character development! i'm not a fan of romances and i Loved the ones here (it's not heavily romance focused though!) (added bonus: lgbt main characters + main lgbt romance) complete, ended in 2018. i think a spin off series is running rn tho!

the adventure zone: this isn't an audio drama, it's an actual play d&d podcast! the first season (balance) is amazing- hilarious and heart wrenching! (the heart wrenching takes a while to kick in but MAN it's so good) the first season ended in 2017. i haven't finished the second big season (amnesty) but i loved what i did listen to, same with the currently running season (graduation)

sayer: starts off as sinister night vale but with an ai and in space, evolves into a complicated save-the-world plot concerning several ais. it's in second person and it's Amazing! lots of meditations on the self and personhood. currently on hiatus but will be ending when it resumes

alice isn't dead: from the people who did night vale! starts as a trucker trying to find her wife, evolves to include shadowy government conspiracies and the power of regular people banding together. ending made me tear up it's really good! it's Big on the horror (the first ep is the only podcast that's ever truly scared me and it continues to scare the shit out of me to this day) but its Extremely Good Horror. very americana too! complete, ended in 2018.

ok that's the more well known ones out of the way, i think? i'm not too confident about how well known some of them are nowadays ^^' all i can say is that i heard abt them frequently in 2016. now onto the lesser known ones ! the ones that are complete are generally pretty short listens (relatively- they're still a good handful of hours at the least)

zero hours: by the wolf 359 people, it's a short anthology that released all at once last year. to pharaphrase/quote the official blurb: each episode is a take on the end of the world, whether the apocalypse is planetary or personal. each episode is separated by 99 years, starting in the past (1722) reaching the present and then overtaking it. surprisingly hopeful ending, made me <:')

i am in eskew: you've probably heard me holler about this before- it follows the trials and tribulations of david ward, who lives in the nightmarish and otherworldly city of eskew. 30 episodes long and complete, with a phenomenal ending! i can't rave about this enough i could Keep talking but i'll cut myself short. it's horror and it's damn good horror! does deal with extremely heavy topics, please be careful!

janus descending: sci fi horror with what has to be the most interesting formatting i've seen in ages: the two points of view alternate each episode... but one is chronological and one is backwards! amazingly done, keeps you guessing until the end! complete. follows peter and chel as they undertake a survey mission on an alien planet

midnight radio: made by @/theradioghost! big on the idea that "all ghost stories are love stories". a 1950s radio hostess gets letters from a fan. horror, big on the 1950s aesthetics, focus on the relationship between one and one's hometown. lovely ending! it's sapphic too :]

the far meridian: by the same people who did ars paradoxica! follows peri, a bit of a hermit who has extreme social anxiety, who lives in a lighthouse that suddenly begins to teleport. each morning peri wakes up and the lighthouse is in a different place! there are like... some horror elements? kinda? but it's not intense imo. it mainly follows peri learning to cope with her anxiety & helping others, with each episode usually having a one off encounter (usually pretty strange!) often has wholesome vibes. s3 is currently in production and is the final season. plus: lgbt characters, and kinda spoilers but peri uses a cane later on!

old gods of appalachia: honestly it's what it says on the tin! a collection of short stories set in historical appalachia that deal with entities beyond human understanding. they're good about trigger warnings, but it's Horror. produced by actual appalachians! stellar music, a Lot strong female characters, and a good amount of lgbt rep! killer music!! it's currently releasing but the latest short story is finished. (do listen in order though!)

the deep vault: by the archive 81 team! in an "almost-post-apocalyptic" america a group of friends chase a rumor about a secret hidden vault, only to Find it! follows the group as they traverse the deep vault. horror, actively points out capitalism a Lot, definetly has an interesting ending! amazing sound design, which is to be expected from dan powell!

tides: the official blurb is short and sweet: "tides is the story of dr. winnifred eurus, a xenobiologist stuck on an unfamiliar planet with hostile tidal forces". extremely snarky and endearing main character and fascinating worldbuilding! i don't know the status of s2, but s1 was really good!

limetown: follows one lia haddock, a public radio reporter, as she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened at limetown. all she knows is that 10 years prior, over 300 men, women and children vanished. horror, mystery, and some sci fi elements. presented in a found footage kinda way. i really enjoyed it, especially the first season. complete.

mabel: horror (big on the haunted house type specifically), sapphic romance, fun take on the fair folk/fae! follows anna limon, an in home carer who's trying to get in touch with her client's estranged granddaughter. evolves into a big fae-horror-romance-thing! really interesting romance tbh. amazing imagery and prose- lots of prose + almost poetry, but it's really good i promise. currently on a post season hiatus

spines: horror but it evolves past just horror in an interesting way (keeping the horror bits, of course). follows wren, who woke up in an attic surrounded by the remains of a cult ritual without any memories of who she is or what she was doing. she searches for answers, encountering creepy shit along the way. really interesting take on the super-secret-organization-that's-always-been-there trope! really good ending. one of the main characters is nonbinary + there's other lgbt main characters.

mirrors: by the people who did spines. also starts as horror but evolves past just horror (it's also sci fi). follows three women in three different centuries who are all experiencing the same haunting. phenomenal take on ghosts! like i can't articulate how cool this angle on ghosts is! s3 is supposed to start this year :] one of the main characters is sapphic, and her wife is a supporting character.

the six disappearances of ella mccray: also by the people who did spines and mirrors. evolves past just horror but keeps more of the horror elements? follows the 6 povs of the people who witnessed the surreal disappearance of ella mccray. each saw something different and surreal, and as they search for her, surreal things start happening to them. unsure abt the status of s3 but s1 and s2 are really good! lgbt main characters, including a trans lesbian (played by a trans woman!)

the bridge: horror. follows the crew of watchtower 10 on the transcontinental bridge that spans across the atlantic ocean. i listened to it back in like 2016-2017 so my memory is hazy, but i remember really enjoying it! currently on hiatus.

within the wires: sci fi... horror..? i listened to the first season a few years ago and enjoyed it and i've continued to hear really good things. it's by the people who make night vale! my memory isn't great but iirc the first season is a sort of romance that's formatted as a set of relaxation/meditation cassettes. it's a few seasons in and i think each is generally self contained, im unsure if it's currently running or not

the orbiting human circus of the air: also by the night vale people! again i listened to this a few years ago so im hazy. follows julian the janitor who works at a radio station that broadcasts from the top of the eiffel tower! surreal but in a wholesome way, iirc! i remember tearing up with happy tears at the s1 finale ^^' really good music! i think the second(?) season ended recently

stellar firma: i've only listened to a handful of episodes, but i've liked what i've heard. sci fi improv comedy that follows the newly made clone david 7 and the mess that is trexel geistman as they try and design custom planets. i think it's currently running but i dunno

rusty quill gaming: also another one that i've only listened to a few episodes of. actual play pathfinder (basically d&d) podcast set on an alternate earth. alex newall (martin's voice actor) is the dm. i've heard really good things from a lot of people! i think it's currently running but again i don't know for sure

right! that's. that's what i got.

i mentioned @/theradioghost earlier (shes behind midnight radio) but i would absolutely recommend looking at her rec list tag! she has impeccable taste

#ask #anon #podcast recs #cae speaks #mine #long post #<- incase the read more doesnt work

[embidoesdreaming]

[ May 30, 2020 --- I ended up sleeping the second half of the day away ]

Series Involved: Boku no Hero Academia Theme(s): aliens; post-apocalyptic; sci-fi

I had an alien invasion-esque AU of an dream where there were these aliens that I want to say looked a little like Xenomorphs but also more anthropod-like in general, and they acted like a hivemind. The aliens were shapeshifters---any person that they saw, they could change their appearance into---and they all came from another planet from probably some other galaxy through this portal they made in order to claim Earth as their new home.

I was Deku, trying to find everyone amidst all the chaos happening when the invasion had begun and was at its worst, though mainly looking for Inko. The details are hazy/blurred together as to how exactly the chaos looked while I was going around the city, but I eventually stumbled upon some machine at some person's house --- my guts tell me that this person was a scientist, part of an organization that dabbled in this kind of sci-fi stuff, so I'm pretty sure the machine held some kind of importance that now evades me. That aside, I must've entered this house either under some kind of belief that Inko was there or for just some other significant purpose/reason that I can no longer tell, but soon after I found thks machine, something happened that cause the whole earth to shake.

The building collapsed, burying me underneath it, which brings us to a timeskip of 3 years later. How I managed to remain preserved alive is beyond me -- perhaps it was some unforeseen force; maybe the machine had something to do with it; it could just also be dream logic, but that's beside the point.

Waking up, I found that my legs were crushed. It took some work to pull myself out from all the debris, but what laid before me when I did was a post-apocalyptic setting where the aliens now roamed the Earth, desolate of the human race, along with some new alien wildlife settling into the remains of urban settlement. The hazy sky was a foreboding greenish hue, I remember seeing a couple of War of the World-esque tripod-looking aliens going around looking for gods know what in the distance --- it was real jarring to say in the least. I spent a solid minute or two at a complete loss and all confused, trying to get a grip of what's happened, when suddenly a portal like the aliens' opened up near me. I saw people coming out of it armed with guns and other protective/military(?) gear. They were survivors either looking for supplies/other survivors, or going on an expedition to investigate more on the alien invaders.

Ochako was one of them. She freaked out when she saw me, Deku. Everyone immediately went on guard -- for all they knew, I was another one of the aliens shapeshifting to look like Deku. It wasn't until they soon started to shoot and I used OFA to dodge did Ochako immediately realize I was the real thing and made everyone stop. Apparently, from what I was told later on, the aliens don't actually copy one's Quirk unless it's displayed. Basically, if they can see it, they can implement it into their system and replicate it, so everyone was eventually advised not to use their Quirks in front of an alien under any circumstances. I'm not sure how Ochako knew it was me -- I can only assume that it's because the aliens never did anything that showed they could replicate OFA for the past 3 years since I was MiA, so it was impossible for them to suddenly use OFA now.

It took some convincing before the others finally listened. It was decided that they'd taoe me back to home base, which was beyond the portal, under the condition that I was placed inside this weird container thingy so I couldn't suddenly attack. Going through the portal brought us to the aliens' home planet (which sort of looked like a jungle, at least where we came out of), except they no longer lived there because they've all migrated to Earth. Survivors have made a home base there, and have been working on reclaiming Earth back from the aliens using their technology and making it their own. The details on how they dealt with me are hazy around here, but they eventually let me out to meet all the survivors and also be brought to the infirmary.

All of Class 1-A had survived, including several important adult figures like Aizawa, All Might and so on. I also learned that not many others made it out, and that included a lot of the students' parents. Inko was.. not among the survivors, either, but in any case, all the classmates were quite shook to see that I was actually alive, stuck between relieved and on edge (which is honestly quite understandable) before eventually just being generally glad.

I saw Kacchan. He had this.. very weird look on his face. Definitely in shocm, definitely in disbelief, but also conflicted, and.. torn over something? I can't quite explain it, but he was definitely in distraught. Rather than letting Kaminari and the others convince him to go greet me, he just.. swiftly turned away and left with a bit of haste. It was confusing, but I had to go back to the infirmary, so after I did and got my legs in casts, I went looking for Kacchan.

I found him in this huge training room, doing that training exercise with those battle ropes thingies. I know I was in a wheelchair and all, but, I guess being the Deku that I was, I threw myself off of it and dragged myself towards Kacchan. At first, it's like he didn't want to notice me no matter how many times I called out to him, but soon enough he stopped and.. well, I wouldn't say ensued a fist fight, but he sure did acted very rash. He pushed me aside, or grabbed me by the shirt and threw me back, etc. We argued for some reason, and I was saying how I was already set on joining the expedition crew as soon as I could so that I could find Mom and also basically be the protagonist that I was with the big idea of solving this mess for humanity. Kacchan wasn't having none of it, belittling me and saying not to even try, especially since my legs were crushed, that I couldn't possibly recover from that. I think he might've even said that I would've been better off dead, but I'm not too sure, but the arguments continued to escalate until eventually he just.. broke down where he stood.

Turns out, his parents also didn't survive, and it was assumed that I was dead was well, so he was convinced that he had lost everyone who were really, really important to him and supported him from the beginning regardless of how he was. The pain hurt so much that he ended up detaching himself from his emotions, distancing himself from everyone and repelling them with his rude behavior, and overall closing himself completely off just so that he couldn't hurt anymore, so that he could just focus solely on killing off the aliens and exacting revenge like a cold machine.

And yet, after 3 years of detaching himself from reality, I suddenly come out of nowhere, brought back hurt but alive. It left him in a whirlwind of conflicted emotions, like: Deku was alive? How is that possible? What about his parents? Is it only Deku? Why couldn't it also be my parents? Why only Deku? Why is this happening? What kind of sick joke was this? Why now? Kacchan didn't want to care anymore, so he ‘turned himself off’, but now...

I let him vent everything out and just listened, let him recollect himself and gather his emotions, fragile as they were now, and eventually had a moment of silence together, with him sitting there eventually picking up the battle ropes if just to busy his hands with the exercise. Eventually, people from the infirmary arrived to bring me back to the infirmary and keep me there for proper treatment, because this whole time I was too scattered and stubborn and wanted to get a grip of everything first and also too hasty to find Kacchan to sit still. Kacchan had them give us 5 more minutes since I wanted to keep him company a little longer. We talked a little, about what I can't remember, but eventually he dismissed me saying to go get treated already.

Kacchan gave me the most genuine, soft, thankful smile then. I'd never seen him with such a relieved face without any sign of him holding back or attempting to cover it up with an irritated behavior or whathaveyou. A genuinely blessed smile. He was just so, so glad that he hadn't actually lost everything.

He still insisted that I don't join the expeditions back to Earth later on as I adjusted to the new life. I wasn't in any condition for it, probably might not ever be. Of course, being the Deku that I am, I was too stubborn to agree, and wanted to prove that I could. A montage/timeskip full of recovery and physical therapy later, and I reached a point where I was finally able to stand without help (save for the bars for me to hold onto just in case), then stand and slowly shuffle forward just a little without help.

There are probably bits here and there that I glossed over in this timeframe, which were just snippets of me adjusting to the new life at the base; talking to Class 1-A, to Ochako, to other survivors; learning what happened during the time I'd gone unconscious for 3 years, how people managed to get a hold of the aliens' technology and use their portal to make a base on their home planet, and what they've all been doing with this current situation. Basically one big open world-esque lore drop.

It was around the time when Deku was working on walking on his own when I separated myself from his character, now seeing him continue his physical therapy in the background while I learn more about this dream world. Apparently, this part of the dream from then on wasn't significant enough for me to remember much of it, I guess, and soon enough, I woke up.

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #sci-fi #aliens #dream #deku #kacchan #ochako #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugo #ochako uraraka

[veryfashionabledesigns]

Analyzing the Snicket Aesthetic, Part 1/5: Time Period, Technology, and Medicine

.-There are quite a few fan theories placing the main events of ASOUE in the 80’s or 90’s, which is plausible, if not quite probable, in terms of the technology present in the series and the timing of the real-life publication of the books. On the other hand, I’m a shameless hipster and I live for that retro aesthetic, so I like the ambiguity.

-The post-post-apocalyptic theory is a fun one, but it can be a little limiting—not to mention difficult—to apply too many practical implications to this universe. Realism is all well and good, but it can easily be discarded for the sake of a good yarn or a pointed bit of commentary.  

Figure 1: The Illustrations of ASOUE are mostly influenced by the woodblock prints that frequently appeared in Victorian fiction--black and white, hatched shading, realistic perspective—while those of ATWQ vaguely resemble Modernist and/or Cubist art—subtle color, solid shadows, and slightly warped perspective.

(Continued under the cut)

        -Anachronisms everywhere, of course.  One of the books mentions a blacksmith and a computer repair shop in the same sentence. Events and media from before, during, or (infrequently) after the date range are regularly referenced.

        -Personally, I mix and match from a date range of about 1890-1980, for reasons we’ll get into over the course of this analysis, although this is really quite a large range, and even then it’s rather approximate, and can change depending on which version of the story one is referencing, and even from book to book or character to character.

-Time does not pass normally like in the real world. The atmosphere of ASOUE feels a bit older (gothic, vaguely turn of the century) than that of ATWQ (noir, 1930’s-40’s), but the latter is set before the former (see fig. 1). History has been run through a blender set to puree.

TECHNOLOGY

        -It’s sort of lowkey steampunk/dieselpunk. Relatively little sci fi tech is floating loose in the world, but given the materials and time, Violet would almost certainly come up with some fun retro-futuristic inventions.

        -Violet’s inventions involve mechanical and electrical technology, but seemingly nothing digital. She’s largely indifferent (and in the books, possibly even disdainful) in response to the “advanced computer” at Prufrock Prep, which always struck me as a bit odd. Maybe she distrusts Nero’s vague assertions that it will deter Count Olaf, maybe she prefers a more hands-on approach to inventing, or maybe she has the soul of cranky old lady.

Figure 2: Prufrock’s advanced computer in the Netflix series features cameras, a CRT monitor, and something resembling an oscilloscope.

        -Computers exist in this universe, but they don’t seem to do much, and there aren’t very many of them. Smart phones, laptops, and similar devices of the 21st century are almost certainly not around.

-In the books, Prufrock’s computer can display a recognizable image of Count Olaf and is compared to a toad in appearance, meaning it was likely modeled after PCs from the 80s and 90s.

-In the series, it’s even more anachronistic. The monitor looks more or less like what was described in the books, but it also comes fitted with a built in camera, much like a modern webcam, and can recognize faces about as well as most characters (although this really isn’t saying much), implying some kind of primitive deep learning capacity.  

Figure 3: A few computers that could fit in the Snicketverse. (The Apple 1, hilariously, is the real thing.)

-If the internet exists, it’s pretty useless. The first season of the Netflix series has a few references to the internet, none of which are relevant to the plot. The internet makes everything easier, and the Snicketverse is all about inconvenience and suffering.  

-Photographs appear in both black and white and color, although the color is quite grainy. The shift to color photography occurred gradually throughout the 20th century.

-Hector’s self-sustaining hot air mobile home is really quite impractical, if not impossible. A proper hot air balloon would require quite a bit of fuel to keep the air inside the balloons sufficiently hot. Historically, airships of comparative size would have filled their balloons with hydrogen and/or helium, which, barring leakage or other damage, could actually remain buoyant more or less indefinitely. Hydrogen, by the way, is very flammable.

-The submarines in The Grim Grotto are steampunk as heck—that is, realistically impractical but really friggin’ cool—likely inspired by early science fiction such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In real life, submarines rarely have portholes; in warfare or high water pressure, they could potentially be a weak point, and they’re fairly pricy for something that isn’t strictly necessary. There are a few exceptions, though, such as in subs designed for tourism or marine biology.

Figure 4: The Quequeg has a number of features solely for the comfort of its crew, such as this lovely library with paintings and antique-looking lamps. The use of brass and copper tones, as well as the warm lighting reminiscent of gas, oil, or early incandescent lights, also add to the steampunk vibes.

-Mobile phones do not appear in the books. As with the internet, they’re just too convenient. Should they be necessary to your story, however, there are a few ways to work them in. The movie featured telephones built into cars, which is actually pretty cool. In real life, portable phones have existed since at least the 1960s, although they were too large and expensive to be popular with the public until recently.

Figure 5: The Radio Common Carrier, a sort of mobile phone introduced in the 1960s.

MEDICINE

        -If Heimlich Hospital is typical of the Snicketverse, then the medical technology of the time is… not good.

        -For all the bureaucracy and paperwork depicted, there seems to be very little control over what sorts of operations are actually performed. Count Olaf can waltz in and say he needs the operating theater for a “cranioectomy,” and nobody seems to question it. It’s entirely possible that the amount of paperwork required is so massive that nobody can really keep track of it all.

        -Patients at Heimlich Hospital often ask volunteers for simple things like a glass of water—implying that the hospital is severely understaffed.

        -It is unknown what happens if a Volunteer is seriously injured in the line of duty. V.F.D. may have its own medics/infirmaries. Alternately, they may try to recruit medical professionals who will treat patients without revealing any secrets. It is also possible that volunteers are expected to lie to their doctors, or that the healthcare system is such a mess that nobody really asks questions when someone turns up with a suspicious injury.

        -There is some good news: near the beginning of The Hostile Hospital, Klaus mentions antibiotics and shots (likely referring to vaccines). From this we can assume that many of history’s nastiest plagues (i.e. tuberculosis, cholera, scarlet fever, etc.) are more or less under control. (Although I personally headcannon that Mr. Poe’s cough is an early symptom of tuberculosis, as this would be a fun little shout-out to Edgar Allen Poe.)

        -The rusty knives used in Violet’s “surgery” imply that doctors could get away with some pretty lousy sanitation. In the Netflix series, the entire hospital is filthy.           

Figure 6: The operating theater in The Hostile Hospital is similar in structure, if not style, to the one at the Old Operating Theatre museum, built c.1822.

-Public operating theaters like the one seen in the Hostile Hospital were gradually replaced by sterile operating rooms as doctors developed proper understanding of germ theory between c. 1860-1900. (See fig. 6). Notably, the set design for the operating theater in the series uses a 19th century layout with mid-20th century materials and lighting.

        -Treatment for mental health conditions is given little attention, which is troubling; sooner or later those poor kids are going to need some therapy. If memory serves, one of the patients at Heimlich is described as looking sad but otherwise healthy, suggesting depression.

        -Given how dystopian the Snicketverse is, PTSD and anxiety are probably quite common—especially among V.F.D. members, who often wind up in very dangerous situations at very early ages. In fact, one could make a solid argument that childhood trauma might be behind the neuroses of characters such as Aunt Joesephine or Hector—both of whom, despite having severely debilitating anxiety disorders, never seem to receive any treatment.

FANTASY ELEMENTS

         -There are very few of these, but it’s far from realism. Some rough rules of thumb would be to avoid things typically considered supernatural (i.e. dragons, ghosts, vampires), but things that are not quite possible (i.e. babies can bite through concrete, reptiles can be trained to imitate human speech on command), or possible but very improbable (i.e. a harmless snake being officially named “the Incredibly Deadly Viper” solely for pranking purposes, a phony surgeon convincing a crowd that decapitation is a risky but necessary medical procedure) are all well and good.

         -It should be noted, however, that at least a few characters in-universe believe in the supernatural. In the Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaires are briefly mistaken for ghosts, and in The End, Ishmael claims to predict the weather using magic.

#analyzing the snicket aesthetic #this started as a remake of a post from my main blog #but then i wound up with 20 pages #oops #asoue #lemony snicket #snicket aesthetic #vfd #i also threw fantasy element in with this section #because i didn't know where else to put them

[cyrelia-j]

My Nanowrimo Challenge

So I’m giving myself a bit of a different challenge for nano because I don’t need to be writing another novel length fic while I have a gazillion wips so, my challenge is

Writing 50k words (or more) to existing WIPs

So here is the master list along with current story status. Shoot me a reply dm whatever to let me know 2 or 3 that you’d like to see an update on and the top I dunno 2-5 (depending on how much story advancement comes from 50k words as much as I go on) will get updated and/or finished come 12/1!

A, Men: a/b/o-ish garashir porn, sequel to “O, Julian” and “I, Garak” (which had Dukat/Bashir also). Currently working on Chapter 3. Up on AO3

A Ceiling of Stars: sci fi au garashir based off a misunderstanding. Working on the main fic. (This one got weird because it started out one way, got mostly written, I had another idea in this world which got 50k written, then I went back to the original haha). Prologue is on AO3

A Gift for my Darling: Garak/Bashir/Parmak super dark twisted mirror universe AU where mirror Julian is a body horror cat slave. Lots of guro shit and porn. Working on chapter 7. All chapters are archived HERE

Cross: Desert Fantasy AU Garak/Bashir/Parmak where Julian was recruited to assassinate Garak- full of intrigue, some sex, and angst. Currently working on Chapter 6. Up on AO3

Deuces: Dominionless garashir AU (with Ziyal/Mardah) where Garak is Ziyal’s adopted father and the two of them stop on ds9 for a month going to Bajor. Some daddy kink stuff and slow build up to the sex. Working on Chapter 8. Only on Tumblr so far and can be found HERE

Eidolon:  1970s AU featuring Jack/Parmak where Jack comes through a wormhold to find Parmak on the other side. Part 1 of 2 is up HERE.

Extraverse stuff: Modern Garak/Parmak/Bashir AU featuring lots of silliness, sex, and pop culture references. The drabble stories appear at random at different periods between 1990 and 2018. Currently working on “Bomb Pop” which will be the latest story in the “modern” era. Series is on AO3

Follow You: You won’t find this anywhere yet but it was the dark version I was going with from “A Ceiling of Stars”. Currently working on this as a separate story.

For the Glory of Morning: Jack/Julian, Jack pack AU where the Jack pack are space pirates with lots of episodic adventures. Working on Chapter 5 as well as a sister story featuring the Cardassian crew led by Garak which has the working title “For the Glory of Night”. Up on AO3

Inside a Dream: garashir (past Jack/Julian and Julian/Sarina), some kelim and also will have Jack/Parmak. Post Canon everything AU where Julian’s mind is broken after Sarina’s death and Garak is trying to bring him back. Working on Chapter 6. Currently up on tumblr HERE

Invictus: Kelim (possibly garashir and parmashir later) PCC AU where Parmak is raising 7 children struggling to survive after The Fire, and Garak comes back to a very unhappy reunion to recruit him for a special mission. a dark au with a twisted relationship between Parmak and Garak. Working on chapter 5. The backstory for this dark universe Kelas can be found on AO3 HERE. This is currently on tumblr HERE

Limitless: garashir epic where Julian was also a sociopath with a split personality from his enhancements and is going to wreak havoc on the station. Twisted mind control dark dubcon story. The first fanfic done for the fandom and is currently being rewritten from the beginning (the technical events will remain the same). Working on both Chapter 9 and the rewrite and this is up on AO3. (You may not want to read yet though since it is crazy long and early chapters are being overhauled)

Lizards Melt in your Mouth: Modern garashir porn AU where Garak is Parmak’s “pet” lizard and Julian has been recruited to pet sit. The main story is done but I am doing a massive edit and am still planning some sort of epilogue/sequel. Working on the edit and sequels.  Up on AO3

The New JJ Frontier: Jack/Julian (likely G/B/J) au retelling the series with Jack and Julian as a married augment couple who grew up together in The Institute. Most recent part is HERE with links to other parts

The Power of Three: Modern Garak/Bashir/Parmak porn AU where Julian is a virgin who accidentally summoned two aliens thinking they’re sex demons. Working on Chapter 5. Currently on tumblr HERE

Renegades: Insanely long Garak/Bashir/Dax where Garak finds himself on a tech-less Western world on an undisclosed mission. Working on chapter 52 but I have no idea when I’ll get back to this but I have started chapter 52. Up on AO3

Starboys: garashir and Jack/Julian (with future Jack/Parmak and Garak/Parmak) sci fi su with a cyber/neon/neo tokyo flair where Garak is an agent for the Obsidian Order and Jack and Julian are lovers involved in an Augment theft crew who unwisely cross him. Working on Part 2. Up on AO3

Undertow: Jack/Parmak story set in season 7 heavy into bdsm/praise kink where Parmak is working on adapting the Morphegnic virus and Jack is his assistant dark and kinky. Working on Chapter 7 latest chapter HERE with links to the others

Stories that are technically complete but may have sequels/other parts:

Badhyāmahe: Garak/Bashir/Parmak Gotham/soulmark au where Julian is a doctor at Arkham and meets Kelas Parmak, one of Doctor Strange’s experiments. Working on a sequel. Up on AO3

First Contact: Garak/Bashir/Parmak pre relationship AU where Garak and parmak are both exiled and try and court Julian. Considering a silly sequel. Up on AO3

The Hunted: modern horror garashir au where Julian finds himself in a post apocalyptic world after monsters known as The Hunters attack. Considering a companion piece which is more garashir focused. Up on AO3

Lizard Hooks: Modern Earth AU where Jack and Julan are best friends dating Cardassian coffee shop owners Garak and Parmak. Done parts 1 and 2 but always up for more on this for fun. Currently on AO3.

Rain Inside your Eyes (Brain, Heathen, Breathe): Super angsty Julian character study series focused on him suppressing his enhancements. Considering a last garashir follow up. Up on AO3

Strangers: AU garashir murder porn based off Stranger on a Train. Considering a 4th part featuring Dukat. Up on AO3

So there you have it; questions, update status, want to poke me on one of these just reply, ask, w/e *faints*

#nanowrimo #my wips #cyrelia-j

[fyrapartnersearch]

Cockadoodledoo, (M//M)

Hey! I’m Jonesy! I’ve posted on here before a few months ago, and I spoke with a number of people about starting RPs, and then some shit happened where I was literally unable to get to the computer, thus vanished for a while. For… four months. Yeah. (Anyone want to know what it’s like to wake up from a coma and get in a fist fight with a nurse because you have no idea what’s going on? Just ask.) Anyhoo, if I had something started with you, or even if we were just talking about starting something, and you want to hit me up again, please do! For time’s sake, I’m just gonna copy/paste part of my last advert, because… coughlazycough.

 I’m in my late 20’s and am looking for M// literate (advanced) rp partners, ages 25+ please. I do not fade to black or avoid mature themes. My writing style has a casual feel to it, but I use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and I prefer that you have a good grasp on this, as well. I write third person paragraph style, and am looking for someone who likes world building and writing three dimensional characters. You know what I mean. If our characters walk into a town, I want to know who else is there, how the buildings are painted, what the air smells like. Take me to it. Paint me a worrrrrrddd pictuuuuureeee. If your character has a Maserati, I want to know how he treats it, how he drives it, and if he has that kind of money, why on EARTH would a Maserati be his car of choice?

 Absolute No’s: ….Well crap, I can never think of these until someone asks.

 Things I don’t like so much:

-Winey characters

-Super young characters

-Unrealistically serious characters

-Too much drama

-Posts that don’t move the story along (sometimes this is ok but not EVERY post…)

-Short posts.

-Spanish dudes (HA just kidding I LOVE spanish dudes.)

 Things I like:

-Spanish dudes

-All dudes

-Size differences

-Humor (Didn’t see that coming, did you?)

-Realistic dialogue*

-Open communication

 Genres I like:

-Sci fi

-Urban

-Steampunk

-Apocalyptical

-Dystopian

-Adventure

-Space stuff (This is its own genre, don’t argue with me.)

-Mild horror

 What I’m really craving right now is to use my character Ashby, and to find him a partner. I do have some other plots I’d like to write, or if you got something completely different and you want to run it by me, let me know! Worse that can happen is I’d say no. And then hunt you down and put sugar in your gas tank. (But mostly just say no.)

 So, Ashby. He’s a very complex character, thus kind of hard to explain while keeping it brief. Ashby Thornton Foster is a real strange creature. Not just because he’s very proper and likes to keep a position as the head butler in a household even though he probably has enough resources to never have to work ever. He’s tall, painfully handsome, with round antique glasses, and auburn hair. Sharp tongue, but can be a little daffy if you catch him off guard. He collects frightening tea pots, has been learning how to cook for 9 billion years but his chicken stew will probably send you to the can for the rest of the night, is excellent with mechanics and spends a lot of his free time tinkering, and has read almost every book ever written but can’t remember what happened in the last chapter of the one he’s currently working on. I should mention that this character is not human. He is a specific species of being that I created myself. I’ll go into it if you’re interested, but the basics are that he has handsomely jagged teeth, large amber eyes, and claw like nails that often lead him to be mistaken as a vampire, however when he shifts out of his human form, he looks more like a sphynx cat and a lady got together. That sounds awful, but he’s actually quite exquisite. (NOT a furry. He just looks a tad strange and has interesting legs.) Ashby is very sweet natured but runs a strict household. He is well respected and well loved.

 Ashby has a dark side to him that’s very calculated, very… intentional, if you know what I mean. He has the ability to make you the happiest person alive, but can turn around and cause you a lot of pain and suffering if you give him reason to. Battling with his darker side is a constant struggle. As far as a romantic interest for him, I usually play him as a switch, however he likes pretty masculine men (or beasties) who have the ability to dominate HIM because he doesn’t often run across many who can do so. (And I don’t just mean with sex. He can physically f*ck you up.) I would love to find him someone who can both talk him out of those times when shit gets a little too dark, but can also overpower him if need be.

 Usually, I play Ashby in a steampunk setting, and he’s the head butler of a household he runs pretty tightly, but I can also play him in other settings. He translates well. So if you’d like to Rp him in another setting, let me know! This character comes with an identical twin (Molocai, who prob won’t appear) and a Soul Eater character, who sets up camp in whatever town he settles in due to being promised his soul whenever he shuffles off his mortal coil. They’re best friends. (It’s a long story.)

 Here were some of the other stories I had ideas for, but if none of them tickle your pickle and you think we’d be a good RP match, let me know, anyway and we can do something else!

Made for one another:

Could fall under sci fi, apocalyptical, dystopian, adventure, hell it could fall under all of them. I have a really loose idea for this one. Two characters are genetically made for one another. Not romantically, but as in two parts that make up a whole. Both are genetically engineered to do something different, but both of their abilities need to be combined for whatever final outcome to happen. (The outcome being what they were created for.) Reasoning behind this was that maybe one person having both abilities, or the one ability that the both of them make up, would overload their system and kill them. Or significantly harm them in some way. Thus, two genetically engineered people were created.

The loose plot I had for this was that maybe one character has escaped the facility that created them. (Escaped a long time ago, perhaps.) This facility has some major unethical and downright inhumane practices (like lab growing people.) Character A. we’ll call him, decides to destroy the place, maybe from the inside out. (Perhaps he’s some kind of mercenary or rogue whatnot, living his life in secrecy so no one from said facility finds him, blah blah.) Ever see Alien Resurrection? With that scene where Ripley goes into the lab and finds all the failed experiments?.... No? Just me? Okay. Anyway, so while Character A. is torching the place, he finds Character B, who is the only experiment alive. He can’t just leave him there to die, so he takes him with him. That’s how they meet, but I don’t have much else for a plot for this story, other than that I see Character A as being kind of an asshole so they struggle a lot and much later they discover they’re literally made for one another.

 Mad Max:

This would be sort of based on the Mad Max world (as in the 2015 movie, even though I do so love the originals) though not using any of the characters, places, or… you know, anything. The world is a wasteland, but it’s not oil/gasoline that’s the hot commodity, it’s water. The wasteland is filled with different tribes, none of them very nice unless you belong to one of them. This pairing would be a character that’s kind of like Max, a lone wolf who belongs to no tribe and wanders, and…. I dunno, I guess he would be a POW? He’s a warrior from another tribe that was captured. Character A stops (cautiously) in one of the territories to trade for water and supplies. Character B is pretty roughed up and knows he’ll eventually end up dying if he doesn’t get away somehow, so his main objective is to get Character A to trade for him. Obviously, this eventually happens. Character A discovers that Character B has something that would be useful to him (maybe it’s just knowledge of mechanics and whatnot) so he ends up trading for him. Plot twist! They end up HATING one another. And maybe Character A finds out that Character B was lying all along and can’t really do the thing Character A traded him for, however now they’re stuck together, because they’re crossing the wasteland.

 Space Pirates (Totally not nerdy AT ALL.)

I have a space captain. He’s an alien. He has a super cool space ship and a super cool crew. His species is rarely seen in this part of the galaxy, usually they are a very secretive race living in deep, deep space, that remain secluded, however Janka has been exiled, and now creates a lot of havoc and headaches for anyone he encounters. I have a real old descrip of him from… jesus, like 2010 that I haven’t updated, but I’ll send it if he sounds interesting! Anyway, he’s a sarcastic, lazy sh*tface, kinda pretty gross without meaning to be, but he’s a real loveable character. Likes blowing things up. Kind of clumsy, which isn’t the best thing for someone who’s built like he is. He’s well known in space ports all over, so he sticks to the real shady ones, where he’s somewhat popular. This character comes with an entire crew, and bonus interesting genitalia. He really needs someone to take care of him (emotionally.) Very hard headed when it comes to relationships (“What? No, I didn’t get you anything for your birthday. You said not to get you anything.”) but when he falls for someone, he falls hard.

 *Please note that all of my characters are usually in their late twenties or older with VERY few that are mid-twenties. I also do not play with younger characters, and prefer them to be around the same age category.

 *Let me explain about the realistic dialogue. Two OC’s walk into a bar. My OC walks up to the bartender and says “Ay, Sugartits, I’ll have the usual.” Your OC says “I will have a beer.” Unless your OC is either a.) An android or b.) Two 12 year olds in a big coat, or c.) Horribly constipated, he’d better say something an actual human being would say. “I’ll have a beer.” “Gimme a beer.” “Just whatever you got on tap.” “Uh… Beer’s fine.” Don’t make your character sound like they’re reading a bad script.

 If I haven’t scared you off, shoot me an email at [email protected]

My RP mediums are usually Skype, Email, and I can be persuaded into Discord.

 And just to clarify. Gay RP. Plot before Porn. Thank you

#oc rp #submission

[dweemeister]

Stalker (1979, Soviet Union)

Before one makes assumptions about this film’s title, the word “stalker” here refers to both the modern definition of the word and as a nickname (from Rudyard Kipling’s Stalky & Co.) for a character who smuggles people to a specific place. Andrei Tarkovsky’s ponderous, glacially-paced Stalker is among the greatest science-fiction movies – delving into questions of existentialism, rational choice, the danger of subconscious desire, faith, and the limits of human understanding. For Stalker, Tarkovsky has fully embraced minimalism – the film has 142 shots in its 163-minute runtime (the longest shots are uncut for over four minutes; the first spoken line appears after nine-and-a-half minutes) – making this movie inaccessible for those without grounding in or preparation for “slow cinema”. Tarkovsky’s final film produced solely in the Soviet Union is a deeply introspective work, bewildering in the best way, always astonishing.

In an unnamed country, the “Stalker” (Alexander Kaidanovsky) sneaks people into a place known as the Zone. The Zone, bereft of human residents, is heavily guarded along its outer perimeter, but the police and military dare not enter it. One day, the Stalker – shown to be living in poverty with children, and urged by his wife (Alisa Freindlich) not to leave – has agreed to guide the “Writer” (Antoly Solonitsyn) and the “Professor” (Nikolai Grinko) to the Zone.

The laws of physics and time do not apply in the Zone. And it is rumored that, somewhere in the Zone, there is a “Room” that grants the innermost wishes of anyone who steps foot inside. The reasons for a guide are many: the straightest path will result in certain death, any routes that once led to the Room become impassable because geography can change in a matter of minutes, and the Zone’s innumerable traps (mental and physical) can only be sensed and never seen. Depending on the viewer’s interpretation, the Zone and/or the Room may be sentient. The Stalker demands that the Writer and Professor obey his orders. During their journey, they talk about their motivations for finding the Room. The Writer has lost his artistic inspiration, the Professor reveals a nebulous desire for scientific analysis, and the Stalker – who says he does not wish to use the Room – does not reveal his intentions for guiding others through the Zone until the final minutes.

There are no villains or monsters, spectacular special effects, or anything that one might expect from a science-fiction film. This is Tarkovsky’s second science-fiction work after Solaris (1972) – a space story that analyzed the essence of love when it collides with questions of experienced reality (Solaris is a rejection of what Tarkovsky believed to be Western sci-fi’s coldness, as embodied in 2001: A Space Odyssey) – but Stalker is almost nothing like that earlier film. This film is only considered science-fiction because of the physical impossibilities of the Zone, not because of any space travel or futuristic technologies. In a development I had never considered for a science-fiction film, almost none of the questions that Stalker poses to the audience have anything to do with science or technology. While recognizing that the greatest science-fiction works examine the nature of humanity, all the science-fiction media I had consumed prior to seeing Stalker contained elements of how humanity intersects with science and technology. This relationship is almost, if not non-existent in Stalker, appearing only at the conclusion. Stalker is entirely interested in the hearts and minds of the three leads – what they are subjected to while traversing the Zone, however disturbing, does not influence the people they are and the final decisions they will make. The Room is only a projection of their humanity; it does not shape who they are. This is reinforced by the Stalker’s true introductory words upon entering the Zone:

Our moods, our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings can bring about change here. And we are in no condition to comprehend them... everything that happens here depends on us, not on the Zone.

Loosely adapted from Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky’s intricate novel Roadside Picnic (Arkadi and Boris were brothers and co-wrote the adapted screenplay), Tarkovsky simplified what he could for the big screen. This meant compositing multiple characters into the three primary characters for the film and trimming down several years of excursions into the Zone down to a single sojourn. Interference from the Soviet censors and the accidental destruction of the original negatives at the film processing laboratory necessitated the introduction of intertitles announcing a first and second part. Episodes of state interference frustrated Tarkovsky as well (the censors did not request as many changes in Stalker compared to previous Tarkovsky films, but they could not tolerate narrative ambiguity of any sort, even if they could not find any specific anti-communist themes), who was forced to shoot almost the entire film three separate times, and led to him looking towards the West for work. It is the third and last effort that is available to audiences today.

With all these compromises and production nightmares, Tarkovsky was given multiple opportunities to make the best possible film he could. Production difficulties also meant Alexander Knyazhinsky became principal cinematographer over Leonid Kalashnikov (1969′s The Red Tent), who himself replaced another cinematographer before that. One of Knyazhinsky’s decisions mirrors The Wizard of Oz (1939) – the opening scenes are shot in sepia and all scenes in the Zone are shot in color. In entering the Zone, Knyazhinsky and Tarkovsky allow for an extended tracking shot that allows a glimpse into the uncertainty of the three men journeying to the Room:

This tracking shot sets the pace and tone for the remainder of the film (notice how the clacks of the wheels become indistinguishable from Tarkovsky regular Eduard Artemyev’s film score – the Azerbaijani tar is feature heavily, and the above instance will not be the last time rhythmic sound effects become inseparable from the music). Shot in Estonia, Stalker utilizes a lush, but lifeless landscape littered with human reminders of what life was like before the Zone was created. Wind is everywhere, even if the sound mix does not pick up on it. The grasses sway, the tree leaves rustle, and a low-lying fog brushes across the flora. Also omnipresent is water – whether on the grasses due to recent rains, flooded buildings, walkways turned into creeks, or deafening waterfalls. The second half’s interior scenes were shot at deserted hydro power plants already filled with fetid liquid and marked by years of abandonment (conditions were so poor that sound designer Vladimir Sharun believes chemical poisoning from these locations hastened the deaths of three crew members, including Tarkovsky). Almost suggestive of a post-apocalyptic world with industrial and military scrap strewn across the Zone, the effect is a serene suspense. The suspense, beginning with the above tracking shot, is cumulative. With death or separation possible at any turn, a slow walk to check for traps and a trip through a waterlogged pipe inspire interminable dread.

Amid this dread, what begins as a partnership defined by obeying the Stalker’s orders transforms into a series of bursts of overwhelming philosophy, ad hominem, poetry recitations from the mouth and mind (the poems used are by Fyodor Tyutchev and Tarkovsky’s father, Arseny), and rare instances of humor. The Stalker speaks of the Zone as a holy, perhaps partially sentient place not to be mistreated. The way he describes his work is not only to serve as a guide, but to offer a sort of deliverance (for himself? Those who hire him? The Zone?). Among these three, their initial intentions are not as they first appear. Cynicism and dismissive attitudes towards the Zone and the Room belie personal weakness and tragic character flaws. A front of altruism is stripped away, revealing exhausting fear, material desperation, spiritual emptiness. Just as important as what the Stalker, Writer, and Professor say to each other is what they do not say to each other – in Stalker, silent shots of the character’s faces say just as much as the philosophical soliloquies. This is outstanding acting from Kaidanovsky, Solonitsyn, and Grinko. 

The film’s primary themes revolve around the subconscious and one’s deepest desires. Those desires are usually never the ones we speak about when questioned by others. Instead, they are the ones that reveal our most sinister, selfish urges – stripped of social constructs, morals, restraint, and the judgment rendered by even those closest to us. Or perhaps excursions through the Zone (failed and otherwise) and entrances into the Room grant something far more minatory: latent revelations and wishes which may never be understood.

Perhaps it is that pure expression and dogged pursuit of individualism which scared the Soviet Union. Indeed, Soviet science-fiction literature has a history of critiquing authoritarianism, communist and capitalist systems, and cults of personality. The self-understanding achieved in Stalker is not common in fiction or real life – the realities are deeply unpleasant, but not approached cynically. The realization of these realities provokes different responses from the characters: anger and anguish. Stalker, through its framing and narrative escalations, is evocative of classic horror films – where a dense, foreboding atmosphere is the source of the horror. The horror in Stalker includes the desolate locations it features, but most importantly the purposes of the three men who seek the Room.

Released to heavy criticism in the Soviet Union, contemporary opinion has been kinder to Stalker. Western critics compare the Heart of Darkness-esque narrative to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. But Stalker has much more to say than Coppola’s film, preferring to examine its subjects for who they are and what they bring to their newfound surroundings rather than the reverse. Rather than Joseph Conrad, Tarkovsky takes his literary cues not only from the  Strugatsky brothers, but also those giants of Russian literature: Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Without spoiling too much, the Stalker’s enterprise seems informed by the title character in Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Ivan Ilyich is a dying man pondering the nature of his death and, increasingly, his life’s meaning) while his characterization resembles the title character in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (whose epileptic bouts make people believe he is unintelligent, when he, despite being socially awkward, is anything but).

For first-time viewers, Stalker will baffle, enrage, and mystify. It should be viewed as cinematic poetry rather than a straight-laced narrative. This film conveys complicated ideas of desire and the changes resulting from desire that too few are receptive to. The few answers Stalker does provide are shrouded in its darkest corners, waiting to be discovered by those brave enough to present themselves and step forth. Do not expect anything flattering.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Stalker is the one hundred and forty-sixth film I have rated a ten on imdb.

#Stalker #Andrei Tarkovsky #Alexander Kaidanovsky #Anatoli Solonitsyn #Nikolai Grinko #Alisa Freindlich #Sergei Yakovlev #Natasha Abramova #Arkadi Strugatsky #Boris Strugatsky #Alexander Knyazhinsky #Eduard Artemyev #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

[oselatra]

A Q&A with Mary Steenburgen

On Filmland, 'Last Man on Earth' and what she misses about Arkansas.

When Newport native and Hendrix College graduate Mary Steenburgen left Arkansas and built a formidable and decades-long acting career, she didn't just return home often — she spread the gospel, dragging her colleagues back to Arkansas with her for birthday parties and fundraisers. Now, as part of the board of directors for the Arkansas Cinema Society, she's lending her celebrity to the ACS endeavor, appearing in Filmland's panel discussions on the beloved absurdist post-apocalypse comedy of which she was a part, "The Last Man on Earth" (RIP), and joining her "Last Man on Earth" colleagues on a comedy panel and for a discussion after a screening of Will Forte's "MacGruber."

Because of your connection to (and support of) the Oxford American literary magazine, I once saw you on stage at the adjacent South on Main auctioning off an original lullaby –

Which we made good on!

That night, you sang and played accordion with guitarist Greg Spradlin on this fantastically sultry number inspired by a moment when you and your husband, Ted Danson, found yourself sitting behind Helen Hunt at a concert.

I forgot I did that! I think that's the one and only time that song's been performed. I think I called it "Helen Hunt," but the hook of it was "Everyone should dance like Helen Hunt," because she was so free at this concert and it was so impressive to me.

Maybe I'm conflating you with a little bit of your character on "Bored to Death," but I think a lot of people might think of you as being like that: free.

I'd have to make myself do that. I'd wanna do that and it would require me strong-arming my own psyche to do it. And I do that a lot! In fact, getting up there and singing that song is a perfect example of it. I have fought a true and sometime debilitating shyness my whole life, since I was really young, before I ever made a movie or did any of those things. And I remember my mom saying, "You know, I thought it would get better when you became famous." And it did not get better. I think I do things sometimes just to scare myself a little bit. Certainly singing that song that night would fall into that category, but for the fact that I was with somebody as talented as Greg, with whom I am not even in the same class of musicianship. But yeah, I believe in scaring myself.

You're coming to Filmland, in part, to talk about "The Last Man on Earth," which fans perhaps hoped would go the way of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and get picked up elsewhere after it was canceled on Fox.

I know! We're heartsick about it. So we're sort of having a series of funerals for it.

It's no wonder; there are viruses and astronauts, but it's approached with this absurdism and lightness that sci-fi-ish plots often don't get right.

No kidding.

What drew you to this project in particular?

Well, to be honest with you, I got a call from my manager who said, "You're being offered a show for FOX," and I thought [laughs], "Well, there's probably no way I'm gonna do it." And she said, "There's no part, but they'll create a part for you," and that really made me think I wouldn't do it. I learned a long time ago that I don't actually like it when people create parts for me. My job is to take the words and hopefully make them live and breathe, and not me, Mary. The one time this did work was "Justified," when I did the villain on the last season of "Justified;" Graham [Yost] and I had long conversations about her before it was really written, and then it was lovely.

Anyway, so I said, "Well, there's no part there; am I supposed to read something?" And my manager said, "There's a pilot, and there's a first episode, and they'll screen it for you." They told me it was Will Forte, and that really interested me because I've always been a huge fan of his, and "Nebraska" was so extraordinary. So they put on the pilot episode for us, and about three minutes in, I leaned over and said, "I definitely wanna do this." It was kind of love at first sight.

The four-year journey was just a journey of creativity. When [characters] Carol and Tandy were gonna get a divorce and they announced it to all of us, during rehearsal they said, "Gah, I wish there were someone playing, like, the Death March or something." And I said, "Wait, you mean 'dah, duht, dah-dah" [sings a snippet of Chopin's "Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor," the so-called "Funeral March"]. But [in the show's post-apocalyptic environment] we didn't have any stereos or any electricity, and I said, "Well, I have my accordion in my car. I could probably figure it out." And they went, "Wait, you play the accordion?!" And I said, "Well, yeah, I mean, I'm trying, and it's really rudimentary, but I could definitely play that." And then it became, 'Well, every time there's a funeral, Todd has to sing, and you have to play the accordion.'

So there was an incredible life to the show that had to do with John Solomon and Will Forte who collaborated so beautifully together, and then they had amazing writers like Rich Blomquist, who's also coming to [Filmland.] There developed a true love among all of us, a true family thing. We just always had each other's backs, and cared about each other's families, and it's really been hard for us to let go of each other, which is probably one of the reasons they're literally taking two planes to come to Little Rock, Arkansas, for an event they don't know very much about. Some of it, I'm sure, is that they're being sweet to me, but part of it is that there was an unusually intense bond that formed. We went through stuff together. You go through a lot in your life in four years.

Last question: What are your favorite things to do or eat or drink or see when you're home in Arkansas? Like, what, if anything, do you get homesick for?

Oh, my gosh, I think you can tell by how often I come home that there's a lot I love and miss. Some of them are very simple things, like lightning bugs and storms and thunder and lightning. Believe it or not, even warm sultry nights. I miss the food. I miss my Aunt Frieda.

In terms of Oxford American, I do miss that literary tradition. I feel like there's just a sense in the South of poetry that doesn't exist anywhere else. The things people say, the language of it all. I miss the sound of the accents.

And then I miss very specific things, I suppose, in North Little Rock especially, where I'm from. I'm very close with my sister, Nancy, who I really adore, and she has a place in Heber Springs, so we're all gonna go fishin,' which is something I'd never be doing in L.A. I miss the caring and kindness of people. You know, the fact that people have time for each other there, and to ask about your family. I'm not saying nobody in L.A. does that — if that were true, all these people wouldn't be coming to Little Rock with me! But it is a faster world. It's bigger, and it's more anonymous. You have to work harder at nurturing relationships, just by the mere fact of the size of it. For me to go see Kristen [Schaal] — she lives near my son — it's an hour drive, even though we both live in L.A.

We're, of course, thrilled that you're coming back to Arkansas. And thanks for dragging everyone back with you.

Yes! And can I just say this? I really admire Kathryn Tucker and Jeff Nichols and all the people that are working to nurture filmmaking in Arkansas. When I was young, actors felt like mythological creatures that had nothing to do with my experience of living in Arkansas. They just didn't feel quite real to me. There was never a thought that I could stay in Arkansas and be an actor. I love the idea that filmmakers like Jeff Nichols and others can make these really wonderful films and use actors and crew from Arkansas. Hopefully, for a whole generation of young people, it will feel like a viable option for them to be a director or a writer or an actor or to be on a crew. I just admire that these guys did more than just talk about creating this. They really have created it.

A Q&A with Mary Steenburgen

#A Q&A with Mary Steenburgen

[streetlamphalo]

SPSFC with Team Boundary's Edge: Final Cuts

So, we're at the end of the cuts now! What a journey it's been, honestly. After a lot of reading, deliberating and commenting, we're now down to the wire. It's been a fun time, trying to whittle the 30 initial books down to 10 (actually, it's 11!). As a final reminder, we're reading 10%-20% of each book, discussing the pros and cons of continuing and going from there. As always, these books may not have worked for us, a group of three reviewers, but they may well work for you, so I would urge you to give them a chance if they sound interesting to you! The first round, second round and third round cuts are up on the blog.

Tomorrow, I'll publish our list of quarterfinalists, which means I will soon be posting full reviews on my Goodreads profile (it felt unfair to do this on 20% of a book). I can't wait to go back and read some of these books and actually finish them! So, without further ado, the final round of cuts is:

The Immune: A post-apocalyptic novel with a deadly pandemic at its centre, in a world where the remnants of humanity must struggle to survive. A couple of judges likened it to The Stand, which I haven't read, and reading about a pandemic during a pandemic was rough. Additional commentary: The POVs were all over the place for me, but the pandemic thing I couldn't get over. I wanted to give it a fair shot, but I feel about this the way I feel about the Station Eleven TV show: not right now.

The Flight of the Kingfisher: A mysterious woman draws a crew into danger and adventure, in a book that would delight fans of Firefly and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a very light book, which was a nice break from some of the harder reads on the list this year, but sadly didn't quite do enough for the next round. Additional commentary: I started off with excitement for this one, but in the end it just didn't come together. I wanted to like it, a lot, but Becky Chambers this isn't, unfortunately.

The Exodus Betrayal: A cyborg with a mission finds herself in hot water when she realises she's bitten off more than she can chew in this cyberpunk thriller. One of our judges actually wanted to carry on with this one, but sadly the other two didn't feel it did anything new. Additional commentary: I love cyberpunk as a genre, but I enjoy it even more when I feel that it's really trying to push the envelope with its themes and approaches. This one, unfortunately, just didn't and in the end, I couldn't bring myself to want to carry on reading.

The Lead Cloak: A Colonel working in Area 51 is forced to take direct action when a terrorist attack threatens a technology that could destroy the very concept of privacy. This one feels like it would work as a TV show - the action scenes zoom right along, but the characters felt too flat for us to be able to carry on. Additional commentary: This feels like a Jack Reacher sort of book, where the action really shines through. But for me personally, I need to care about the characters a little bit more and it didn't quite do enough for me to be able to maintain interest in it.

The Shift: What if Earth moved into a different dimension, one where multiple versions of history could exist? The multiverse thing is pretty hot right now and this one has some really solid concepts, but it's ultimately let down by basic prose and once again, too many POV characters. I know A Song of Ice and Fire made multi-POV sexy again, but you need to ease your readers in a bit. Additional commentary: I love these sorts of big ideas in sci-fi and it's largely why I read so much of the genre, but these days I need and (perhaps unfairly) expect more from my prose than what I got here. But if the idea sounds interesting to you, do pick this up!

Tracker220: Another dystopian novel where the government is trying to control people through microchips and one young woman is going to stand and fight against the oppression. This one was another one where we couldn't figure out whether the audience is intended to be younger than us or what. It's a shame, because again the concepts were interesting and you don't often see religion mixed in this way. Additional commentary: Jewish cyberpunk is not something that I've run into before and I do wish I could have been more forgiving of the writing and its young protagonist, but I honestly believe I've outgrown it now.

Time Burrito: One of the books that really sparked a lot of conversation, particularly because its non-violent protagonist is so different from anything else we've had this competition. But the book will ultimately succeed or fail based on its humour and for us three, that wasn't enough. I think we just needed more from long-form works like this. Additional commentary: Terry Pratchett is easily one of my favourite authors of all time, so humour in fiction is something that I'm really familiar with. But here the comedy just didn't land, which to me feels like a shame because having something fun and funny would be a great departure from how grim some of the other works had been.

So here we are! I am just so happy that we've seen the list through so far and I can't wait to share some full reviews with you all in the coming weeks. Commiserations to all the people on the cut lists, but please take heart that you made it this far! See you tomorrow for the quarterfinalist list.

#spsfc #self published science fiction competition #book review

[brigdh]

Reading Saturday

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey. Book 6 of The Expanse series. "I made my name with the story on the Behemoth. Aliens and wormhole gates and a protomolecule ghost that only talked to the most famous person in the solar system. I don't think my follow-up to that can be "Humans Still Shitty to Each Other". Lacks panache." That's Monica Stuart, a journalist looking for her next story, but it makes a fairly good summary of Nemesis Games as well – though I'd disagree about it lacking panache. After five books of zombie viruses and a vast galaxy of empty planets for the taking and physics-defying abandoned security systems, Nemesis Games features pretty much no alien content at all. Instead we have humanity reacting to these events, mostly in negative ways that feature them being, well, shitty to each other. The biggest reaction comes from the Belters, millions of humans born and raised in no-gravity or low-gravity. Those conditions have led to extremely low bone-mass (among other physical adaptations), which means all those new planets out there for the taking? The Belters won't be going to them, at least not without months or years of expensive medical therapy that's out of reach for most of them. They can see the future coming, and it's going to abandon them to poverty and irrelevance. They lash out with terrorist attacks on a scale grander than any before, as though enough violence will force humanity back to where it was before the first encounter with the alien protomolecule. That might be an impossible goal, but a hell of a lot of people are going to die anyway. Meanwhile, the spaceship Rocinante is in need of repairs, which means our four main characters are out of action for a few months. They take this opportunity to split up and visit family and old friends – Amos to Earth, Alex to Mars, Naomi to the Belt, and Jim stays with the ship at the repair station. Having separate plotlines means that each one gets their own POV, and you guys, I was so excited! I've been waiting to hear Naomi or Alex's voice since Book One, and this does not disappoint. Amos's narration was particularly well-written; he's a straight-up sociopath (though one who tries to do good nonetheless) and struggles to recognize emotions either in himself or in others, often defaulting to describing social situations as a set of maneuvers toward a desired outcome. It lends his POV a curiously flat tone, but one that is really interesting to read. The four crew members are still separated when the terrorist attacks begin, and most of the emotion in the book comes from them trying to desperately make their way back to one another. Each one thinks of the others as family, as home – this is such an absolute fantastic series for those Chosen Family feels – especially Jim, and who would have thought the boring action hero of Book One could become such an adorable softie? He spends a significant portion of this book being sad that no one will do the space-equivalent of texting him back, and I love him so much. Holden could sit at a tiny table skimming the latest news on his hand terminal, reading messages, and finally check out all the books he’d downloaded over the last six years. The bar served the same food as the restaurant out front, and while it was not something anyone from Earth would have mistaken for Italian, it was edible. The cocktails were mediocre and cheap. It might almost have been tolerable if Naomi hadn’t seemingly fallen out of the universe. Alex sent regular updates about where he was and what he was up to. Amos had his terminal automatically send a message letting Holden know his flight had landed on Luna, and then New York. From Naomi, nothing. She still existed, or at least her hand terminal did. The messages he sent arrived somewhere. He never got a failed connection from the network. But the successfully received message was his only reply. After a couple weeks of his new bad Italian food and cheap cocktails routine, his terminal finally rang with an incoming voice request. He knew it couldn’t be from Naomi. The light lag made a live connection unworkable for any two people not living on the same station. But he still pulled the terminal out of his pocket so fast that he fumbled it across the room. Each character gets to star in a very different genre within this one book: Jim himself is in a political thriller, trying to find the mole hidden in the security forces; Amos is making his way through a post-apocalyptic landscape; Naomi is in a prison-break movie; and Alex gets at least two extremely cool car chases (well, spaceship chases) between being a detective following the paper trail. All of them are great, but I think my favorite is Naomi's, which is an incredible depiction of the harm and suffocation of emotional abuse (gaslighting in particular) and the depression and learned helplessness that can result, especially when everyone around you sees nothing wrong. We get a lot more about her long-awaited backstory, as well as Amos's, and there are reappearances of a lot of my favorite secondary characters: Martian marine Bobbie, failed murderer Clarissa Mao, foul-mouthed politician Chrisjen Avasarala. (Though I'm still holding out hope Prax will show up again someday; I miss him.) All through The Expanse series I've admired Corey's focus on petty human squabbling and politicking in the face of grand, universe-changing discoveries. Nemesis Games is that thread turned up to eleven. It's not a cynical series, though; for every narrow-minded failure there's an equally small but important triumph of friendship or justice or well-meaning. It reminds me of Terry Pratchett, in a way. Not at all in Corey's style of writing or type of humor, but they both have a view of humanity which is simultaneously realistic and fond and exasperated. And if there's a bigger compliment than that, I don't know what it is. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. Book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries. A security robot/cyborg armed with all sorts of guns and other methods of killing has hacked its governor module, allowing it to do whatever it wants, and nicknames itself Murderbot. But it turns out that what Murderbot really wants to do is spend hours watching dumb sci-fi TV shows, avoid eye contact or any social encounters with humans, and not have to deal with its own emotions. Unfortunately that last one is hard to avoid. In this book, Murderbot is heading to a mining planet where it knows something bad went down in its past, involving lots of human deaths. But Murderbot can't remember exactly what happened, since its memory was wiped, and so it's off to investigate. Getting to the planet means hitching a ride on a spaceship run by a massively complicated AI (which Murderbot promptly nicknames ART: Asshole Research Transport) and then getting a job as a human bodyguard to a group of scientists heading down to the planet's surface. Things, unsurprisingly, go wrong, and Murderbot finds itself with another pack of dumb humans in need of protection. I enjoyed Artificial Condition a lot, but it's not quite as good as the first book in the series, All Systems Red. Part of that is very simply that it's a middle book of the series, and it shows; progress in the larger plot is made, but not much, and there's a feeling of spinning our wheels while we wait for big events to happen. That said, it's still an extremely enjoyable novella (only about 120 pages), which builds out the world from what we learned in All Systems Red. Now we have sexbots and ship navigators, more about how different governments interact and function (or don't), and some hints as to what's going on with the company that created Murderbot. Plus there's Murderbot's wonderful narration, which honestly is worth the price of admission all on its own. A section from where it introduces ART to trashy entertainment: I watched seven more episodes of Sanctuary Moon with it hanging around my feed. Then it pinged me, like I somehow might not know it had been in my feed all this time, and sent me a request to go back to the new adventure show I had started to watch when it had interrupted me. (It was called Worldhoppers, and was about freelance explorers who extended the wormhole and ring networks into uninhabited star systems. It looked very unrealistic and inaccurate, which was exactly what I liked.) [...] “It’s not realistic,” I told it. “It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s a story, not a documentary. If you complain about that, I’ll stop watching.” I will refrain from complaint, it said. (Imagine that in the most sarcastic tone you can, and you’ll have some idea of how it sounded.) So we watched Worldhoppers. It didn’t complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor character was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on. At the climax of one of the main story lines, the plot suggested the ship might be catastrophically damaged and members of the crew killed or injured, and the transport was afraid to watch it. (That’s obviously not how it phrased it, but yeah, it was afraid to watch it.) I was feeling a lot more charitable toward it by that point so was willing to let it ease into the episode by watching one to two minutes at a time. After it was over, it just sat there, not even pretending to do diagnostics. It sat there for a full ten minutes, which is a lot of processing time for a bot that sophisticated. Then it said, Again, please. So I started the first episode again. C'mon, tell me you wouldn't read a million pages of that, plot or no plot.

[DW link for easier commenting]

#books #book reviews #james s.a. corey #martha wells #The expanse

[cyrelia-j]

Master WIP list

Updated as of 7/25/18

Current WIPs in case anyone has any questions on anything... (Also shoot me =_=)

A, Men: a/b/o-ish garashir porn, sequel to "O, Julian" and "I, Garak" (which had Dukat/Bashir also). Currently working on Chapter 3. Up on AO3

A Ceiling of Stars: sci fi au garashir based off a misunderstanding. Working on the main fic. (This one got weird because it started out one way, got mostly written, I had another idea in this world which got 50k written, then I went back to the original haha). Prologue is on AO3

A Gift for my Darling: Garak/Bashir/Parmak super dark twisted mirror universe AU where mirror Julian is a body horror cat slave. Lots of guro shit and porn. Working on chapter 7. All chapters are archived HERE

Cross: Desert Fantasy AU Garak/Bashir/Parmak where Julian was recruited to assassinate Garak- full of intrigue, some sex, and angst. Currently working on Chapter 6. Up on AO3

Deuces: Dominionless garashir AU (with Ziyal/Mardah) where Garak is Ziyal's adopted father and the two of them stop on ds9 for a month going to Bajor. Some daddy kink stuff and slow build up to the sex. Working on Chapter 8. Only on Tumblr so far and can be found HERE

Eidolon: Currently unpublished 1970s AU featuring Jack/Parmak. Will be a one shot.

Extraverse stuff: Modern Garak/Parmak/Bashir AU featuring lots of silliness, sex, and pop culture references. The drabble stories appear at random at different periods between 1990 and 2018. Currently working on "Bomb Pop" which will be the latest story in the "modern" era. Series is on AO3

Follow You: You won't find this anywhere yet but it was the dark version I was going with from "A Ceiling of Stars". Currently working on this as a separate story.

For the Glory of Morning: Jack/Julian, Jack pack AU where the Jack pack are space pirates with lots of episodic adventures. Working on Chapter 5 as well as a sister story featuring the Cardassian crew led by Garak which has the working title "For the Glory of Night". Up on AO3

Inside a Dream: garashir (past Jack/Julian and Julian/Sarina), some kelim and also will have Jack/Parmak. Post Canon everything AU where Julian's mind is broken after Sarina's death and Garak is trying to bring him back. Working on Chapter 6. Currently up on tumblr HERE

Invictus: Kelim (possibly garashir and parmashir later) PCC AU where Parmak is raising 7 children struggling to survive after The Fire, and Garak comes back to a very unhappy reunion to recruit him for a special mission. a dark au with a twisted relationship between Parmak and Garak. Working on chapter 5. The backstory for this dark universe Kelas can be found on AO3 HERE. This is currently on tumblr HERE

Limitless: garashir epic where Julian was also a sociopath with a split personality from his enhancements and is going to wreak havoc on the station. Twisted mind control dark dubcon story. The first fanfic done for the fandom and is currently being rewritten from the beginning (the technical events will remain the same). Working on both Chapter 9 and the rewrite and this is up on AO3. (You may not want to read yet though since it is crazy long and early chapters are being overhauled)

Lizards Melt in your Mouth: Modern garashir porn AU where Garak is Parmak's "pet" lizard and Julian has been recruited to pet sit. The main story is done but I am doing a massive edit and am still planning some sort of epilogue/sequel. Working on the edit and sequels.  Up on AO3

The Power of Three: Modern Garak/Bashir/Parmak porn AU where Julian is a virgin who accidentally summoned two aliens thinking they're sex demons. Working on Chapter 5. Currently on tumblr HERE

Renegades: Insanely long Garak/Bashir/Dax where Garak finds himself on a tech-less Western world on an undisclosed mission. Working on chapter 52 but I have no idea when I'll get back to this but I have started chapter 52. Up on AO3

Starboys: garashir and Jack/Julian (with future Jack/Parmak and Garak/Parmak) sci fi su with a cyber/neon/neo tokyo flair where Garak is an agent for the Obsidian Order and Jack and Julian are lovers involved in an Augment theft crew who unwisely cross him. Working on Part 2. Up on AO3

Stories that are technically complete but may have sequels/other parts:

Badhyāmahe: Garak/Bashir/Parmak Gotham/soulmark au where Julian is a doctor at Arkham and meets Kelas Parmak, one of Doctor Strange's experiments. Working on a sequel. Up on AO3

First Contact: Garak/Bashir/Parmak pre relationship AU where Garak and parmak are both exiled and try and court Julian. Considering a silly sequel. Up on AO3

The Hunted: modern horror garashir au where Julian finds himself in a post apocalyptic world after monsters known as The Hunters attack. Considering a companion piece which is more garashir focused. Up on AO3

Rain Inside your Eyes (Brain, Heathen, Breathe): Super angsty Julian character study series focused on him suppressing his enhancements. Considering a last garashir follow up. Up on AO3

Strangers: AU garashir murder porn based off Stranger on a Train. Considering a 4th part featuring Dukat. Up on AO3

So there you have it; questions, update status, want to poke me on one of these just reply, ask, w/e *faints*

#star trek ds9 #star trek deep space nine #fanfic status #my wips #garashir #kelim #parmashir #Elim Garak #Julian Bashir #Kelas Parmak #cyrelia-j

[aion-rsa]

The Midnight Sky: How George Clooney Made His Emotional and Timely Sci-Fi Movie

https://ift.tt/2WKb7AN

George Clooney has a relatively simple answer when asked by Den of Geek what inspired him to make his first science fiction film as a director, The Midnight Sky.

“I thought I had a take on it, you know?” says Clooney, who also stars in his seventh outing behind the camera. “I felt like there was a story that I understood in a way about what we’re capable of doing to one another if we don’t pay attention, if we don’t listen to science, if we don’t pay attention to divisions and hatred and pay that forward. I thought I had an understanding of that.”

We’re speaking with Clooney via Zoom, of course, in the ninth month of the never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, and after briefly commiserating about the last time we saw our parents (eight months for him, longer for us), we turn to the film, which is based on a novel called Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Dalton-Brooks and premieres on Netflix this week.

In the film, Clooney plays Augustine Lofthouse, a brilliant but lonely astrophysicist stationed at a remote Arctic research facility. It’s three weeks after “the Event,” an unspecified global cataclysm that is spewing enough radiation into the atmosphere to make the Earth uninhabitable. With the rest of the station’s crew headed south to reunite with their families and either prepare for the end or find a place to hide out, Augustine — who’s suffering from a terminal illness — decides to stay behind.

But he also has an important mission to complete with the time he has left to him: contacting the crew of an exploratory ship that’s returning from a habitable moon orbiting Jupiter and warning them to turn back and start a new life there (Augustine himself discovered the planetoid). Meanwhile, the ship’s crew, headed by David Oyelowo and a pregnant Felicity Jones, grow increasingly uneasy at the silence from Earth even as their craft is buffeted by asteroids and other dangers.

At the same time, Augustine finds himself caring for a little girl named Iris (Caiolinn Springall) who can’t speak and has apparently been left behind accidentally. He also learns that the transmitter at the facility isn’t powerful enough to communicate with the vessel. With the girl in tow, Augustine begins a treacherous journey through the ice and snow to reach another station with a stronger transmitter.

“I had an idea of the story I wanted to tell,” continues Clooney. “And when I talked to Netflix, I said, ‘This isn’t an action film, it’s a meditation. It’s a conversation about regret and about redemption. We’re going to take out some of the lines and we’re going to use score to tell the story,’ And they, to their credit, said, ‘Great.’”

The Midnight Sky is marked by passages of silence or sparse dialogue, particularly during the Earthbound scenes, but dialogue and personal drama are nothing new to Clooney, whose previous directorial efforts include films like Good Night, and Good Luck and The Ides of March. But even when it came to the effects-heavy material set on the ship or in space, the director wasn’t fazed.

“I’d done a couple of space movies so I had some understanding of how difficult space would be and what the preparation for it would be,” Clooney explains, referring to his starring turns in Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. He adds that he didn’t call his old friends and directors for advice on shooting the space-based scenes either.

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“I was on the set (on those movies),” Clooney elaborates. “I didn’t go back to the trailer. I’m from Kentucky. We try to stay out of trailers, you know what I mean? So I’ve always sat on sets. And I watched Alfonso and Steven. Alfonso, particularly for the spacewalk stuff, the things that he and Chivo (cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) did were really helpful.”

Clooney’s actors had to prepare for the spacewalk sequences in a different way. Tiffany Boone, who plays the astronaut Maya on her first mission aboard the Aether, explains, “I watched every documentary and every docu-series I could specifically about long periods in space. There was one that a few of us watched… I watched, I read books, I just, I really tried to find out what that experience is kind of like to be in space for a little while.”

Boone adds that she hired a trainer in preparation for the spacewalk sequence, saying, “I went to London and I worked on my core there. Every day that I was in London, I was training pretty much. Wire work, core training, and pretending to be in zero gravity. That little spacewalk that you see, that lasts under 10 minutes in the movie, took for me a good four or five months in total to make happen.”

Both Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo agree that getting to play astronauts in a movie scratches some kind of childhood itch — although in Jones’ case, only up to a point.

“I think it’s definitely one of those professions that you think, ‘Gosh, that would be a pretty exciting one,’” the Rogue One star says. “I think as I got older, I found it less enticing to want to go off into space. I’m not into small enclosed spaces, so I think I’d find the claustrophobia a bit too much. It’s extraordinary, these astronauts who go up and spend a year in space. I think that’s so admirable because to be an astronaut, there’s a huge element of self-sacrifice because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Unlike in Gravity, Clooney does not walk in space himself in The Midnight Sky, but went through a physical transformation of a different sort. To play the dying Lofthouse, Clooney lost weight and made sure to shoot his own scenes first — with the focus on the march across the Arctic plains.

Philippe Antonello/Netflix

Oyelowo adds, “I think being an astronaut in a movie’s a little bit like being a cowboy or being a detective. There’s something iconic about those professions when it comes to cinema, not least because great actors have made them iconic.” He expands on that, saying, “When you get in that suit, when you get on set, you do feel like you are stepping into one of the special opportunities afforded an actor when it comes to cinema. Especially when it’s a film on this grand scale.”

“It would have been really hard to do it the other way around,“ he says. “The beauty of it is for us, literally, we only shot my stuff first and then we only shot their stuff afterwards. There wasn’t this sort of crossbreeding that can make things really difficult and hard to do. It’s hard to jump back in an actor’s chair where you’re directing yourself. So I had a great advantage by being able to schedule it that way.”

Another member of the cast, Felicity Jones, was also going through her own physical transformation of sorts while shooting the movie: she was pregnant with her first child. But rather than treat that as an impediment, to be filmed around or ignored (or worse, used as a reason to replace the actress, like a studio might have done in the old days), Clooney came up with a better solution: Jones’ pregnancy was written into the script, adding another layer to the stakes facing the crew of the Aether.

“It’s extraordinary, when you look at the list of actresses who’ve been pregnant while shooting, you’d be surprised that in some of the most iconic films in history, the leading actress has been pregnant,” says Jones. “But for the most part, pregnancy has been something that has been CGI’d out or disguised. So it felt revolutionary. It did feel very special that in a film of this scope and scale, having a pregnant astronaut is pretty spectacular and it was a testament to George’s modernity that he wasn’t scared of it, that he embraced it, and saw how it could benefit the storytelling.”

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Indeed, the idea that Jones’ character Sully, her unborn baby and her fellow crew members could be the last humans left alive is perhaps even more profound now, nine months into a pandemic that seems to show no signs of ending, than it was when Clooney and company first started shooting the movie. “We finished shooting in early February,” the director says. “We came to LA to start the editing, and immediately we were told to lock down. I wasn’t able to see my parents, we weren’t able to see our family, like we just talked about.”

But as Clooney and his team began editing the film, the space-based, post-apocalyptic thriller took on a different tone. “It became clear that it was a story about our inability to communicate, our inability to be home, our inability to be near the people that we love and hold them and touch them,” Clooney explains. “We were able to, in the editing, lean into the elements that say that we didn’t understand until you took it away how important our ability to communicate is.”

Tiffany Boone muses that audiences watching The Midnight Sky will get something different out of it than they might have if the world hadn’t turned upside down in 2020. “Part of why I love the script is because I thought it was really timely and had something to say about the times we were living under,” she says. “I had no idea it would be as relevant as it is…that’s all of our reality, being separated from the people we love and hoping that they’re taking care of themselves and trying to find some connection even when we can’t be in person.” She concludes, “I think it’s going to hit people even harder.”

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The Midnight Sky premieres Wednesday (December 23) on Netflix.

The post The Midnight Sky: How George Clooney Made His Emotional and Timely Sci-Fi Movie appeared first on Den of Geek.

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