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fuckyeahgoodomens · 11 months

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David and Michael interview with Vanessa Armstrong and Valerie Ettenhofer for SlashFilm, 10.7.2023

Film's Vanessa Armstrong got the answers in an interview with Sheen and Tennant, which it should be noted took place before the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike began. When asked about how and when Gaiman, who created and showruns the series, pitched the second season, Tennant revealed that "it gradually came into focus over a couple of years, probably." The actor notes that "the initial idea that there might be more story to tell" might have actually "had its genesis way, way back as a sort of fantasy idea, really, where we were shooting [season] 1." Like many a TV show these days, the show was initially marketed as a limited series, but that didn't last; it was officially renewed in 2021, two years after it aired.

While it sounds like Gaiman and the cast perhaps daydreamed about keeping the fun going with another season during production on the first, Tennant says the pieces still didn't come together until after it aired. "Then [season] 1 came out, and I think from that point, there was a slow realization that actually there might be more to come," he told /Film. "Neil was clearly excited at the idea, and I think Amazon were keen to do it." Some limited series clearly have aspirations for a sophomore season, but Tennant insists that he and Sheen "always thought it was a one-off," having signed contracts for one season and only been pitched on one season. When they got the go-ahead for another, though, he explained, "Michael and I were thrilled that we would get to return to [these] characters."

"When we started off on that journey, there was never a sense to go further, but what a treat that it was going to," Tennant explained. It took a long time for the full season 2 picture to come into focus: "I think Neil would drop us little nuggets down the months and years, really," he told /Film. Sheen, meanwhile, says he has "no memory whatsoever' of how Gaiman told him about the plans for Aziraphale in season 2. He did, however, have an inkling based on conversations Gaiman had described having with Pratchett about a continuation of the story before the author's death in 2015. "I know what we wanted to explore," Sheen said, "and I always remember what he was aiming to get to by the end of the second series, because of ideas that he and Terry had talked about with where the story might go."

Sheen says he thinks the first thing Gaiman told him about season 2 involved "the idea of Gabriel coming into their lives again in a very unexpected way, and then that eventually building to the point that they get to at the end of this series." Tennant, meanwhile, remembers being in Romania on a shoot for "Around The World in 80 Days" when Gaiman shared the first scene of season 2 with him and Sheen over Zoom. "Neil read us the first scene, the opening scene, which is, if you've seen it, you'll know we meet a very youthful Crowley and Aziraphale, very much way back at the beginning of time." (fygo: NGK FUCKING NGK!!!) Tennant says Gaiman "then gave us a quick sketch of what the rest of the series was going to be." Though both actors are understandably trying to keep mum about the ending of season 2, they note that Gaiman told them what it would be early on.

"That was all worked out, and it just felt delicious, really," Tennant says after recalling the Zoom meeting. "I mean from that moment on, it just felt like it was always meant to be. It felt like it was such a perfectly formed idea. I think it's fair to say that Michael and I didn't need much persuading." That's great to hear, because we certainly didn't need persuading to sign up for a season 2, either. The new "Good Omens" adventure begins on Prime Video on July 28, 2023.

#good omens #gos2 #season 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #interview #david interview #michael interview #s2 opening scene #angel crowley #good omens spoilers #spoilers #crowley and aziraphale meeting in heaven #s2 interview #slashfilm #slashfilm 2023

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twochildreninamoteldemo · 6 months

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what’s on your personal list of “must reads” for wincest? i have a feeling you’ve got good taste

- @spn2006

i wouldn't necessarily say i have a must-read list as in everyone has to read something, because everybody has different taste, especially when it comes to sam and dean's dynamics (both sexual and otherwise), but the fics that i would heartily recommend that fall into my reading of supernatural (or adjacent to it) go as such, keeping in mind that I am a samgirl, pretty much only care about early seasons, and enjoyer of the family horror of the show:

The Ballad of the Invisible Boy + Two Headed Boy by @dollyluxed

If i had to pick any fic as a must-read for a samgirl cestie, this would be the one. the yearning and desperation speak deeply to the isolation of samdean's youth, especially how sam feels it, and dollylux isn't afraid to get inside the beast of teen angst, which makes it feel really lush and visceral. the 90s nostalgia is excellent (disclaimer: i was born after the 90s, but it made me feel like i was there without being corny), and the way the story is told through several vignettes feels a lot like the show itself. these kind of snapshot short films of how samdean's codependency develops through this unspoken tension over the years. the stanford era portion has a scene i think about every time i listen to joni mitchell (check out the soundtrack for this duology too; it's excellent), and the season 1 section ties together the story in a way that fits well with the show. a slow burn, really beautiful story, and i love the illustrations. i would also recommend dollylux's shorter works for amazing smut:)

@applecrumbledore 's fanficography

The first of Roni's fics I read were "Dream fuckery" and "Drywall dust" (the latter the first of a 4-part preseries story), and the balance of angst, sexual tension, and humor blew me away. It keeps the tone of supernatural, which a lot of fics don't (which is fine), but this was super cool in that it felt extremely natural, and very fun to read. I haven't been updated in all my fanfic reading lately, but I loved the beginning of Pine Sweat, their time travel fic, and "try asking," their pov outsider fic, is fucking hilarious and exhilarating. they have lots of creative ideas from preseries to late seasons and it never gets old!

Gospel Truth by @cowboyified

A case fic with an accute sense of shame embedded within angst, a really great sense of description, and perfectly inspired by art by @thegoodthebadandtheart for the reverse bang a couple years ago. the aesthetic of both frauke's work and the fic itself feel real, both the openness of the great plains and the claustrophobia of incestuous pining. definitely a modern classic.

"Buy You a Mockingbird" by candle_beck

the dark pov outsider fic to crown all others. candle_beck is an amazing writer and i also recommend all their work, but this one in particular stands out because of the horror of the dramatic irony of the story--what the reader knows, but the pov character does not. it's incredible to see everything unfold, and a realistic if bleak interpretation of another classic trope (which i won't name for spoiler's sake).

"Other Brothers" by @homo-pink

another incredible pov outsider fic with this beautiful sense of empathy and also a hint of adrenaline thrill. sam's cheeky and sassy and smart, and dean's cute and so in love. pov outsider weecest has the potential to be disturbing or sweet, and while this teeters the line, i think it falls into the latter category in a way that doesn't feel too saccharine.

"Three Days on the Rack" by keerawa, read by Reena Jenkins

I'd highly recommend listening to this via podfic! reena is great and there's a lovely cello cover of fade to black by metallica that plays in the interlude. anyway, the fic is an orpheus and eurydice-adjacent story about sam trying to get dean out of hell--but it's a torture fic. i love the way it describes hell, i love the way we see dean in the depths of alistair's apprenticeship, i love sam's strength. another gorgeously dark gem.

"Skin Like Fear" [orphaned]

I can't speak much on this one because I don't remember it super well, but it's a take on samdean after sam's hell trauma, something not very touched on by the fandom, and the horror is super well done, it's a great fic. obviously dark, deals with rape aftermath, proceed accordingly.

"show me again, shame takes hold" by objectlesson

if you can't tell yet, i really love preseries fics. this one is a lesbian femchesters AU, butch dean i love u foreverrrrrr. as you can tell by the title, more angst, more shame, etc etc. i was catholic what can i say. there's a lot about the ambiguity of sexuality and gender in this fic too.

and that's it! some of my other favorites are "Tomcat," the Caged Desires series, "The Truth in His Bones," and Brothers, but those i wouldn't necessarily rec on a wide basis because the first one is specifically about transmasculinity, and the second 3 deal with dom!dean/sub!sam dynamics in a pretty sharp way that everyone may not sit with right. that being said they're wonderful and sexy (and the last two, rather sad). let me know what u thought of this list!

#fanfic recs #wincest #samdean #a prayer for which no words exist #letters #spn2006 #fic recs

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feralbutfluffy · 8 months

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53: Aziraphale

Chapter 53 of Too Wise to Woo Peaceably*

*after having been convinced not to delete it - next chapter will be up in about 8 or 9 hours; needed to give my eyeballs a break

*********

In the sudden absence of Muriel, Aziraphale jumped out of his chair and swung into frenzied action. He reached into Muriel’s satchel until he felt the familiar crumpling of a paper bag and pulled it out, smiling triumphantly. He inspected the contents before offering it to Crowley.

“Eccles cake?”

Crowley was drumming his fingers against the armrest with restless energy. He didn’t respond to Aziraphale’s offer.

“Nice to hear Maggie and Nina got together in the finish-up,” he said instead.

Aziraphale’s hand dropped a few inches, and he was grateful they didn’t seem to be returning to the topic of That Day At The Bookshop. He felt as if his nerves were being sanded away every time they spoke about it. As if facets of him were being filed down, leaving him raw, and if it continued the core of him would eventually be excoriated and exposed.

He knew he should sit down and think about it, reflect on what Crowley had said… but it felt an awful lot like telling himself he had to stare directly at the sun.

He didn’t want to do it; the very thought of it hurt.

“Mmm,” he said articulately.

“We really cocked that one up,” continued Crowley. “My idea was a disaster! Yours was worse.”

“I beg your pardon? My idea was a good one! They danced!” Aziraphale said, then frowned. “What was yours again?”

“Yours was interrupted by a horde of demons,” Crowley pointed out. “At least during mine - sheltering under a canopy in a rainstorm by the way; told you you never listen - the worst that happened was that they got wet.”

“Oh yes. The canopy. I’m not sure how you thought that would ever work, honestly.”

Being dismissive of Crowley’s idea felt much more comfortable than being honest to the point of vulnerability. He took a couple of Eccles cakes out and placed them on the end table, using the paper bag as a makeshift plate.

“Well it always works in films,” Crowley said, watching him carefully. “Seemed easy enough. Worked on me, didn’t it?”

“What did?”

“The whole…” Crowley changed position, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles, “...canopy thing.”

Aziraphale turned to look at him, wondering what he could possibly be talking about. Crowley and canopies? Films? Was it a reference? Aziraphale didn’t watch many films.

Crowley was still watching him, but now he was doing it out of the corner of his eye. He must have registered the blank look on Aziraphale’s face, because he quickly moved on.

“Really hadn’t taken you for a dancer. Thought your lot didn’t go in for that sort of thing?”

“Oh! They- We don’t. I took a fancy to it! Got quite good at the gavotte, if I do say so myself.” He tried not to look smug.

Crowley shook his head wonderingly. “How did I not know this?”

“Well we weren’t quite speaking at the time. We’d fallen out over the whole business with the Holy water…”

“Right. Course.”

“And I got quite bored...”

“Sure.”

“Kept expecting you to pop up actually, but you never did! What happened to you after Edinburgh? Did you get in trouble?"

“Yes,” said Crowley flatly.

“Oh.” Aziraphale studied him. “A lot of trouble?”

Crowley shrugged, but his expression was bleak.

"Was it awful?"

"No, not-" Crowley hissed a breath out from between his teeth. "Yes."

Aziraphale moved over to the sofa and sat next to him. "Tell me."

"I'm not sure-" Crowley cleared his throat

"Please. Tell me? Trust me, Crowley. I want you to be able to tell me things honestly," Aziraphale said softly, willing him to speak.

Crowley gave him a sidelong glance before training his gaze on the floor. Beneath the blood and the bruises, Aziraphale could see pink flooding his cheeks. He worked his jaw, searching for the right words. He sighed. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them again.

The restlessness was making Aziraphale nervous. "Crowley-?"

"Ripped my tongue out," he said baldly, evidently having given up on finding a prettier way to describe such a horror.

Aziraphale blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Your... Your tongue," he repeated slowly, his mind scrabbling for any possible way for the phrase to mean something other than the obvious.

Crowley was still staring at the floor. His tone was remote, as if speaking dispassionately would dull the impact of his words. "Ah... every day for, er, at least three decades, I think. It all sort of blurred together after a while. Might have lost track."

The silence was profound. Crowley uncrossed his legs again.

"Crowley..." Aziraphale said slowly, trying not to sound as horrified as he felt, "What the fuck?"

The expletive must have shocked Crowley, because he made a startled noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh. He didn't smile, but he did lift his tired gaze to meet Aziraphale's. He shrugged, as if unsure what Aziraphale wanted him to say.

"Tell me that was the only time?" Aziraphale pleaded, his voice thick with emotion at the idea that anyone might have- Could have- And for decades!

"There were a few other..." Tears filled Aziraphale's eyes and Crowley cut himself off. He started again, injecting a forced lightness to his tone that almost made it worse. "It's just... Well. Occupational hazard I suppose, if you're a demon who makes a habit of getting angels out of trouble."

A tear escaped from Aziraphale's lower lid.

"Ngk. Not really, I mean- Not angels. Just one. Just one angel in particular." Crowley's eyes seemed to be tracking the tear as it rolled down his cheek. His mouth twisted. He reached up and brushed it away with his knuckle. "Don't."

"They hurt you because of me?" Aziraphale felt extremely unsteady.

Crowley grimaced. "Sometimes."

"They ripped out your tongue!"

"It grew back."

"Every day! Every day? For decades?" His voice was thin with anguish. "And even after that... I was... I was dancing! And learning magic tricks-!"

"Not well," Crowley said, giving him a crooked smile.

Another tear started to roll down Aziraphale's cheek and Crowley's hand came up again, his knuckles quickly brushing it away as if he couldn't bear to let it fall. He absent-mindedly rubbed the wetness from his knuckles with the thumb of his other hand.

"Why? Why didn't you tell me?" Aziraphale's mind was reeling. "Why didn't you protect yourself? And the Holy water- Why didn't you tell me? Why did you help me if that was the cost?" His voice cracked, and he thought of Saraqael's words:

'He has been punished more harshly than you know for transgressions that should never have mattered, and your friendship has cost him more than he should have ever had to pay.'

He swallowed a keening wail that threatened to rip from his chest. "Why would you do that?"

Crowley cocked his head consideringly. "Are you familiar with G.K. Chesterton?"

The abrupt change of topic startled Aziraphale, and he blinked back his tears with a confused frown. "The poet?"

"The very one. He once said, 'There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.' Had you heard that?"

Aziraphale's frown deepened. "What? Don't change the subject! Crowley, we're talking about you and the fact that you've risked such awful, awful-"

"You're doing it again."

"What?" The tears were back, a film over his vision making everything blurry.

"You're not listening."

Aziraphale hiccuped a sob and stayed silent. He stared at Crowley and his heart ached.

Kind Crowley, who had breathed life back into the dove.

Thoughtful Crowley, who had saved his books.

Brave Crowley, who had stopped time and Satan himself.

He thought of Crowley suffering somewhere in that dark, damp place without the ability to speak, days rolling into weeks rolling into months rolling into years, and he felt cold, and sick, and guilty, and he didn't know how he would ever make it up to his friend. How could anyone repay that sort of debt? Two tears spilled out onto his cheeks.

Crowley reached up, but this time he didn't brush the tears away. Instead, he took hold of Aziraphale's chin, his thumb brushing the skin below his lower lip, his fingertips gently resting on the underside of his jaw.

"I stood on the wall of the Garden of Eden with you, and the first rain came, and you took me under your wing and let me shelter there. Do you remember? I looked at you, and..."

There was suddenly something so pained and soft in Crowley's face that Aziraphale's lungs tightened at the sight of it, tightened so much it hurt, and he was crying now, crying in earnest.

"I think I looked for you from then on. Everywhere I went, I was looking for you."

Aziraphale felt like he was falling. He told himself he was sitting on a sofa. In a flat. In London. It made no difference. He felt numb and weightless. He felt as if he were falling from a great height, straight through space and time.

"You asked me why I helped you, even knowing the price I'd pay." Aziraphale tried to turn away, but Crowley held his chin firm. "Like Chesterton said, 'There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.' I suppose it means I'm stupid for you."

They stared at each other then, Aziraphale wide-eyed and tear-streaked, Crowley fiercely determined and desperate for him to understand. Aziraphale took a shuddering breath, and the sound of it seemed to rattle something in Crowley. His shoulders slumped, and the tension of the moment broke into something else, something sore and heavy and resigned. He let go of Aziraphale's chin, and swallowed hard, turning away.

"God, but I am lost for you. In case you somehow didn't already know, I'm... I am chronically, tragically, irredeemably in love with you. Always have been."

And Crowley closed his eyes as if waiting for an axe to fall.

#good omens #ineffable idiots #crowley and aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziracrow #ineffable divorce #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfiction #good omens fic #ineffable partners #ineffable husbands #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands fic #azicrow #azcrow #crowley x aziraphale #a/c #go2 fanfic #good omens fic request

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after-witch · 9 months

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Hello hello, do you happen to have any movie/show rec for like dark content...?? I liked YOU but kinda lost interest around the second season lol. I love your work! You do seem to be like a soul who has great taste in media, so I just thought I'd ask. 😅 I could also use some media recs in general! Movies, music, shows, anything you love!Thank you so much! 💖

Hi! I don't really have any recs similar to You (IMO season 1 is the only like.... genuinely good season, though I wish it kept the books visceral darkness at the end) but here's some horror movies with darker content that I like-- (note this films may have graphic violence, sexual assault, other dark themes)

Zoo (2005); horror anthology based on a short story collection by Otsuichi. Some super fucked up stuff here. I also recommend the book!

Cabin By the Lake (2000); about a horror movie writer who gets some very direct inspiration for his works. Absolutely underrated gem!! It's got a bit of an obsessive/dark love feel to it. There is a sequel that is even more OTT, not as good as the first one though, but it's still neat.

The Night House (2020); A suddenly widowed woman starts having disturbing dreams in their shared home. LOVE IT. Actually have a prompt from last year's Horrorfest for this one that I'm working on.

The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); this film gets a bad rap!! It's got some creepy moments, an underlying theme of an obsessive demon... I suppose you should watch the first film before watching this one though.

Suicide Circle (2001); this film was my personality for way too long but it's still a damn good movie. Very dark, bleak, gory but in an OTT way. The sequel, Noriko's Dinner Table, is also very good.

Nightmare on Elm Street Series; I mean, they're classics. I'd say films 1, 2, 3 and "A New Nightmare" are essentials. But especially 1 and A New Nightmare. 2 is drastically different, 3 is when it starts getting silly with quips and gimmicks, but I love the character of Nancy who appears in 1 and 3 so...

So many more but my brain is blanking... hope this gets you started!! I will say "Zoo" and "Suicide Circle" are definitely the more extreme of these movies, maybe not to every horror fan's taste.

#ngl I think I'm bad at providing recs because my taste is just all over the place

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spicybylerpolls · 3 months

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Well, unknown hero agent man / pen symbolism anon, i hope you're reading this, cos you hit the nail on the head! this kind of symbolic storytelling is not only a fine art of cinema (being lost these days a little sadly, what with the whole netflix speedy turnover etc), but exactly what (good) films of the horror genre aim to do.

horror has long been a way to creatively tell 'normal' dramatic stories through subtext and symbolism. not sure if this is still a way around traditional censorship but im sure it began that way. films like the exorcist, the shining, rosemary's baby... all classics that are filled with subtext. its also an exciting way to talk about things that might seem trite or too bleak when portrayed as a 'straight' drama (this is the term meaning 'non-genre based' or 'non-musical' lmao). So you could say that ST is NOT straight, in more ways than one 😉

but much of this will go over casual viewers heads, so its finding the balance between making a story believable on the surface (another dimension exists! scary government men trying to kill us!) and subtextually (the UD as a metaphor for trauma/AIDS/closeted homosexuality/abuse etc) if viewers are clever enough to see/feel it. i say feel because much of storyviewing is instinctive instead of analytical.

so ST incorporates both - not just metaphorical, vague storytelling, but also real issues too. but it goes one step further, and actually has characters talk explicitly about reading deeper into stuff (murray's behind the curtain speech). it's a very meta show, even for a genre piece, which is why it astounds me that some people think it's not that deep lol. and some people think that only literature can be deep, but never tv or movies - which is an insult to anyone who has ever been passionate about cinema tbh. It's a statement that would probably rip the heart out of the duffers' chests and stomp on it. these guys are super nerds who have dedicated their adult lives to this passion project. as finn said, 'most people make it then just cash in - im so glad they still care'.

I'm sorry you don't feel comfortable talking about the beauty of this storytelling on your main. it really does surprise me that the fandom is so censorship obsessed because sexual metaphors have long existed in visual media, and especially in horror films. there used to be a long post about byler and a potential sex scene at lover's lake on here, but the user disappeared and the post went missing. it was about all the sexual imagery in ST, with a focus on byler in s4. i especially loved how they mentioned mike's introduction, where he was just in underwear: it is both appropriate for the setting, but also gets the audience used to him as a growing lad with a body and draws attention to those uncomfortable, potentially sexual aspects of being a teen. i mean, he was in tiny pants for god's sake. did we need to see that? why did we see it? etc etc

hilariously, they also referenced the always sunny in philadelphia scene where a character is in a therapist office talking about a pen being a dick. he then puts it in his mouth and chews the pen lmoao

i think you'd enjoy @therainscene's rod symbolism post too. I'm personally hoping for some explicit sex scenes with byler, because the show so far has arguably been telling that story metaphorically already for 4 seasons, and bringing it out of the subtext could be a storytelling device in itself. bringing byler's secrets into the light. after all, this is a period piece that aims to shed light on a bygone era. its not a propaganda piece that needs to remain coded; the reasons for staying secretive still exist for mike and will in the 80s, but times have changed since then for us as a global audience, and more importantly, the aspirational message has changed. what message would the duffs want to send to viewers that are still bigoted? clearly one of the beauty of homosexuality, seeing as will, our fav gay boy, has been the darling sympathetic victim of the show since s1e1. the show needs to remain true to both the 80s while also having a strong message for this decade in order for modern audiences to be able to gain something from watching this story; in order for there to be a reason the show exists at all.

so to answer your question, i had never picked up on the pen symbolism until now, but i immediately agree, not least because 1) it must have a meaning that connects to byler's conversation otherwise why does it just interrupt them with no reason? (from a storytelling pov), and 2) because of the always sunny scene lolllll

thanks for the discourse! if you stick around into s5, im sure we will be able to start discussing this on our mains. it'll be a new era and there might even be gifs/pics of byler to accompany our 'spicy' discourse haha!

Amazing/fascinating points! Thanks for adding to the discussion!

#byler #spicy byler #will byers #mike wheeler #no poll

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romancomicsnews · 10 days

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Do we need live action heroes?

To me, nothing has ever gotten me excited quite like superheroes.

I remember way back to my 7th grade. I was 12 years old, and had an incredibly difficult time that year. I did not have many friends yet, transferring into a new school, and was struggling to connect to anyone.

All I had was in that huge building was my brother, who was off dealing with high school. My grades slipped, my friends from my old school slowly drifted, and I found myself running more and more back to heroes for comfort. Whether it be movies, comics, or animated shows, superheroes helped me escape what would be the worst year of my life that far, with most of my joy and anticipation that year surrounding one singular event.

2012’s The Avengers.

All year until May I watched the trailer, looked at posters, and watched Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America The First Avenger to get myself ready. I remember smiling, sitting for 3 hours in line before the film to get good seats for the gathering of my heroes, a culmination of years of waiting.

To this day, movies like Endgame or No Way Home come very close, but nothing felt like that to me. And while I understand part of it was me being a child, the MCU and other superhero movies have continued to give me comfort in the best of times and the worst times. They have constantly been a force for good for me and a way for me to connect to those around me.

Which is why I’m sad to say, things have been bleak. Not in my life, but rather in the content that has been seen as acceptable to put out. Several big companies have been fumbling the ball lately with some devastatingly mediocre chapters in their respected sagas.

Last year was an abysmal year for DC, as they produced 4 flops at the box office. With the exception of Blue Beetle (which I love), each other entry in DC’s last year ranged from forgettable to downright abhorrent (I’m looking at you Flash). I was a big fan of the last Shazam and was pleasantly surprised by Aquaman, but both felt like they were going through the motions instead of bringing us exciting fresh takes on the characters that made the original two films great.

Due to the ever growing SPUMC (Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters), we’re looking at a terrible year for superhero movies. We already had the perplexing Madame Web, with Venom The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter to end the year. While these movies can have some fun performances, in general they feel sloppy, mismanaged, with subpar writing at best. As fun as it is to see Tom Hardy in a lobster tank, I don’t feel anything for Eddie Brock. And that sucks.

Finally, there’s the MCU.

Now, if you’re looking for me to bash entries in the MCU like The Marvels, you came to the wrong page, that’s not what this is.

In GENERAL, I like a lot of the swings they’ve taken since Endgame. Shang-Chi is still one of my favorite MCU movies. No Way Home had heart to it and wasn’t just a cash grab movie. Eternals had a vision and beauty I appreciate. Loki has one of my favorite finales of any tv show.

But they’ve been disconnected. It isn’t this seamless chapter book with a clear beginning, middle and end anymore. There is so much expansion with characters that we have no idea where they are going. To go back to just one of those I just mentioned, where is Shang-Chi? That movie was a hit, and yet we have yet to hear anything about a sequel or return.

Due to this focus on expansion, it’s hard to keep that connection with these characters if we don’t see them every few years. Where is America Chavez? Vision? Kingo? Thor? She-Hulk? This is a problem.

Couple this problem with the fact that VFX workers are worked to the bone, movies are being filmed without scripts finished, an emphasis on a multiverse storyline that doesn’t have a really clear path, and what seems like a vendetta against using comic book storylines, the films and television shows have been struggling to connect.

After all these catastrophes, you’d think it’d be a rough time to be a superhero fan. But really, it’s never been better.

Animation has been saving us.

To be fair, animation has always been respected and loved by the comic book community. X-Men the Animated Series, Batman the Animated Series, Young Justice, Spectacular Spider-Man and more have not only been people’s favorite superhero content, for many it is their in. I started by watching Spider-Man the Animated Series, and things have only gotten better from there.

Shows like My Adventures with Superman have reintroduced a new generation to Superman in a way that feels extremely accurate and fresh. It has also given us an incredibly adorable and heartfelt love story between Lois & Clark, something live action movies and shows really struggle with. Can you think of the last good couple in the MCU? And don’t say Spider-Man and MJ, because most of why we like them is because we like Tom and Zendaya.

Other shows like Invincible & Young Justice deal with heavy topics, such as grief, sexual orientation, gender identity, and trauma all in a way that feels human and real. Invincible in particular deals with grief and betrayal in its second season beautifully, all enhanced by incredible voice work from actors giving it their all.

Even the MCU has used animation in surprising ways. X-Men 97’ recently brought back the styling of the X-Men animated series, with the powerful messaging the X-Men are known for. With enhanced animation, a clear vision, and an emphasis on using classic comic book storylines, many are not only considering it a hit, but the best thing Marvel has done in years.

Even it’s more MCU heavy animated show What If had a much better second season, and while it’s not as deep or as good as the other shows I’ve mentioned, it’s worth noting it was a lot of lighthearted fun during the holidays. Definitely check out the Happy Hogan Die Hard episode.

Finally, Sony of all people gave us the best superhero film of the year last year with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. While everyone expected it to be good, I don’t think anyone expected it to be such an achievement. With incredible voice acting, a meta narrative about fans' relationship to the character of Miles, incredibly human moments and of course, a hero no one can not root for, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse easily will go down as one of the best superhero movies ever made.

I remember the ending of the film, where our heroes are finally gathered, and Miles is faced with what seems like impossible odds, and as the music swells, Gwen Stacy asks the audience “Are you in?”

And that was the moment I felt it again. The excitement, the joy, I really was a kid again, jumping out of my seat excited to see Beyond the Spider-Verse.

So if we can use animation to tell stories that connect, that show love stories in a way we haven’t seen, action in a way we haven’t seen, utilizing and respecting comic books, all while drawing out incredible performances, why are we emphasizing live action?

I don’t think we truly need more live action shows of B list characters. And to their credit, I think studios are noticing too. Marvel has a few more animated projects coming out, and DC will be releasing Creature Commandos this year. But they will be putting out just as many live action shows focused on expansion as they have been.

Is it time to reconsider how we tell these stories?

I know no matter what I say, we will get live action. And I’d be lying if I were to say that many projects out there excite me. Superman, The Penguin, Spider-Man Noir to name a few.

But I think it’s time we use superheroes to go back to their roots. We should be using superheroes to bring artists and animators to the forefront. Shows like Invincible, My Adventures with Superman and X-Men 97’ give us a clear picture of what superhero media can and should be. Story driven, beautiful, and full of meaning. Something we as people can finally connect to.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider following, and check out my socials and other sites here! And let me know: What's your favorite animated superhero show?

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homesickfornowhere · 1 year

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Recent books that I’ve read and would recommend🖤

Under The Blade by Matt Serafini. A really interesting twist on the slasher genre. Starts as a classic 90s slasher film, but has a fresh storyline and tons of twists.

Seed by Ania Ahlborn. An interesting take on demonic possession with a gut punching ending. Very creepy and bleak.

The Cotton Candy Massacre by Christopher Robertson. This book was SO much fun to read, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves horror and 80s slasher films. Gory, brutal, and a little bit cheesy in the best way.

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland. A bizarre and creepy little book that reads like a dark fairy tale. Great ending.

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs. Unhinged and twisted, but a page turner. Takes toxic, dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships to another level.

The Vessel by Adam Nevill. A creepy, slow-burn folk horror with a great ending. This was a quick read and I finished it in one sitting.

The Good Lie by A.R. Torre. I finished this in one day. A great mystery/crime thriller, and I enjoyed the main characters.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. An interesting read and gives a different perspective on death.

#read trigger warnings!#books #book recommendations #horror books #thriller books #fiction books

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thatbitchsimone · 11 months

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I need some disturbing and jaw dropping films recs please

martyrs (the original french one obvi)

the golden glove

dumplings

funny games (i like the US version bc i like michael pitt lol but the german version and the US version are pretty much identical. shot for shot remake, so u can just pick either one. no reason to watch both bc its the exact same movie just different language and actors)

salo (obviously)

cutting moments (its a short tho. i just randomly remembered it)

antichrist

the house that jack built

the snowtown murders

excision (its funny as well)

happiness (ok this one is really funny like yes its bleak and deeply disturbing but come on theres comedy gold in there dont tell me there isnt)

gummo

those are the ones that came to mind like ofc some very fucked up extreme movies that i didnt mention came to mind as well but i chose to give u the ones that are actually rly good

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mygreatadventurehasbegun · 5 months

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My Favorite New-To-Me Movies of 2023

Women Talking

This movie won the Oscar of Best Adapted Screenplay and deservedly so...it's scenes are so tightly written and delivered so beautifully by the incredible cast of actresses, that it held my attention for the entire runtime. Every performance was fantastic, and I wish at least one of them had received recognition from the Academy...personally my vote would have been for Claire Foy, but any one of them could have walked away with a nomination.

Pearl

This was such an interesting horror flick...the saturated color palette, the extreme bursts of violence and of course, the magnificent performance by Mia Goth. She was absolutely fascinating to watch...the character of Pearl is so desperate to leave her home and to become a star that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

While I consider this to be one of the best movies I've seen this year...it's not necessarily one I'd ever want to watch again. At least not in the near future...because this movie is bleak. During the Great Depression, a group of people sign up for a dance marathon with the hope of winning the prize money. All the characters are so compelling and interesting to watch. Absolutely recommend watching it, especially for Jane Fonda's outstanding performance...but you might finish the movie a bit depressed.

Deathtrap

Man, this movie is fun. It's the kind of movie that I can't say too much about, because the plot is so full of twists...but the basic idea is: A famous playwright, coming off a string of flops, learns that his former student has written a surefire hit play, and he conspires to murder his student and take the play as his own. And you have Christopher Reeve wearing some fantastic sweaters.

Sweet Smell of Success

This movie is so good, I don't even know where to start. The performances, the writing, the cinematography...it's such a perfect example of a noir film (especially one that doesn't focus on a murder or a detective). I wasn't sure what to expect when I started, but from the moment I pressed play, I was completely engrossed.

The Last of Sheila

I really caught up on my murder mysteries this year...and The Last of Sheila is a really great one. Another movie that I can't say too much about because of it's twisty plot...but I will say you can definitely see how it influenced Rian Johnson for his Knives Out films. Also, this was co-written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim!

Catch-22

I blind bought this one after Alan Arkin's death...I had never seen it, but thought it seemed like a fun enough film to take the gamble on. And boy, was I right! While I can see why some critics didn't love it back then, this movie is so wonderfully bonkers, I can't help but love it! The witty dialogue, clever shot composition and excellent performances by a massive cast make this movie a real treat!

Home Before Dark

This was a very random find for me...I actually just came across it on TV when it was starting and decided to stick with it (just like the olden days, get off my lawn). And while the movie itself isn't perfect, I was completely drawn in by Jean Simmons' performance. Her character has just returned home from a stay at an asylum, and while she tries to reacclimate to life at home, we start to see her lose it again...but we aren't sure if she is actually being pushed towards that breakdown intentionally. It has a few shades of the movie Gaslight, for sure.

The Collector

This may have been my favorite new-to-me movie of the year! It is such an intense and uncomfortable film, with amazing performances by the two lead actors and an ending that I did not see coming. Given the story and the setting, I could almost see this easily being turned into a stage play...I'd love to see a theater try and capture the claustrophobic feeling you get when Miranda is trapped in that cellar.

A few honorable mentions are: All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), The Thin Man, Sound of Metal, Persona and Somewhere in Time (this one mostly for the melodrama, lol)

Here's to more movies in 2024!

#the collector 1965 #home before dark #sweet smell of success #women talking #they shoot horses don't they #the last of sheila #deathtrap #pearl #catch 22 #movies

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alexhornefan · 7 months

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ALEX HORNE & GREG DAVIES - extended version- THEY LIKE TO WATCH podcast P.2

I reached the character limit so had to make a new post! Here's part two.

Asked about pets, Alex said they had the snail, chickens and a tortoise, but they'd all gone and now they have a dog.

Greg talks about how disappointing the Taskmaster house is to visit. Alex says there have been three proposals there and two of them they invited them in to propose. Alex discourages people from turning up to the house though. Greg suggests fans try and find out where himself or Alex lives and stalk them instead. They talk about taking selfies with fans and Greg says they're both quite tolerant with it all. Greg says having had a real job he doesn't forget how lucky he is with his career. Alex asks Greg asks about people who use a timer with a countdown from 5 which he finds very irritating.

Greg tells a story about he and Ed Gamble going to a bar in Norwich and it was a student night and because of The Inbetweeners they were swamped with people wanting selfies. Greg says the management asked them to stay and they'd buy their drinks all night, so they did. Greg said Ed hadn't done much TV then so he was taking the pictures and was deliberatly cutting Greg's head out of the pictures and people would be thrilled but then end up joning the queue again for another picture because of Ed.

Alex talks about acting and says that he thinks he's really good and even Greg says he's really good. Greg interrupts and says Alex is being self-effacing and that he does think he can act. Greg said he was surrised and that Alex could do a role quite nicely. Alex said he does have the fantasy of being asked to be in Snatch 2 and being asked to play a cool, hard-guy. Greg says he doesn't know if he sees that and Alex insists that he can. Asked if he likes the idea of not having to do much work in an acting role, with someone else doing all the writing, Alex says he does like that. He said he has a small part in a Sam Campbell pilot and because someone dropped out, he did the part. He does go on to say that he found the waiting boring with acting. Alex said he got the role mostly because they were filming in the town where he lived.

Greg talks about choosing friends who won't be bothered about his height and make a big deal about it. He tells the story of the short guy in a pub wanting to fight him, and Greg's even shorter mate hitting the guy over the head with a moped helmet.

Greg talks about the Kes documentary he made. He talks about watching or reading bleak things and that he can't handle it any more. He says he is too sensitive now. Alex says he can still watch bleak things and says he watched Tyrannosaur and it's very bleak but he really liked it. Greg says the last bleak thing he watched was Dead Man's Shoes.

Alex says Stephen Graham was very close to doing TM as he really likes it, but the filming schedules didn't work. Alex says about what a great actor Stephen is and that he came over to Greg and Alex at an event and Alex said how lovely and giggly he was to meet.

Alex talks about the sport he watches and watching Strictly Come Dancing. Asked if they'd ever do it, Alex said they were asked the other day by Shirley Ballas. Greg says you should never so no, and it's an amazing institution and Greg would prefer to watch than take part. Alex says Greg would be the best booking on strictly. Greg states that Alex is a very stiff person and Ales agrees and says there are times when he does loosen up, but being on BBC on Saturday nights wouldn't help. Greg looks like he's riding ontop of a hoverboard.

Greg says he doesn't watch comedy when he's writing as he's a sponge and will start to copy the style. He says he watches documentaries and he's recently been watching Last stop Larrimahr and Riders for Justice.

They talk about crying watching things and Greg says he doesn;t cry much. Alex asks if he feels it coming on and stops himself, but Greg says no, and he will cry as he thinks it's good to cry. He talks about going to a concert and getting their late with a GF and a song started and he started crying but noticed that not only was his GF crying, everyone else was as well.

Greg asks Alex if he can remember the last time he had an actual cry and he says no. He said the new John Lewis Christmas ad made him feel like he could cry if he let himself.

Asked about Taskmaster and how shows can be messed up, Alex is asked about how he had a brilliant idea and how every step along the way, Alex made it wonderful. Alex says Andy D is responsible for the look of the show. Alex said that they asked Greg and Frank at the same time and told both of them that the other one was doing the show to help convince them. Greg says he knew Alex a little bit and that their personality types worked well together. Alex puts it down to a lot of luck. Greg says it wasn't that weird because they did no each other at the start because of being in comedy.

They have a brief chat about the opening credits with beards, Alex having a beard since he got married.

#alex horne #taskmaster #greg davies #They Like to Watch

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apolesen · 8 months

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Inspiration for anyone writing fic about Garak, Cardassia & the Obsidian Order!

Please feel free to add your own suggestions in reblogs, tags and replies!

Cambridge Spies (2003) Mini-series about the Cambridge Five, a cell of Soviet agents in Britain. It starts in the 30s and goes all the way up to the 50s, and explores themes of loyalty, queerness and friendship. At the centre of it all is the conflicts between the characters’ values, what they are asked to do and the lives they want to live.

Enigma by Robert Harris (1995) Novel. Two codebreakers solve a mystery at Bletchley Park, with far-reaching implications. A really atmospheric book with really interesting characters, including some really subtle and neat queer stuff. (There is a film adaptation, but I don't think anywhere near as good as the novel.)

The Hour (2011-2012) TV show about a tenacious TV reporter who helps to launch a new kind of news show, but who then gets dragged into a spy mystery, turning him into an amateur detective. 1950s Britain, Cold War paranoia, class divisions and state censorship.

The Game (2014) Mini-series about a group of MI5 agents who are trying to find a mole in their group. A spy thriller where you’re not sure who you can trust, set in a very bleak 1970s Britain.

#elim garak #garak #obsidian order #cardassia #ds9 #star trek

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theamericanfriend1977 · 2 months

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For the movie asks, all the Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21)!

i apologize in advance if i repeat suggestions i've made in the past i have the absolute worst memory (and i feel like you've got so much more film knowledge than me!!)

1 -- a film in the IMDB Top 250

sunset boulevard (1950) dir. billy wilder

it's incredible to watch a film that you realize while watching has influenced and been directly referenced in so many other films you've seen before. watching cecil b demented and then realizing john waters references the ending of sunset boulevard makes it so much more fun for people who love film... people love to say tarantino is stealing from old movies but like anyone who loves film is going to want to recreate or at the very least acknowledge their influences in their own films... it's such an important part to being a cinephile imo and it unites the creator and audience with that shared love...

2 -- an indie film

punishment park (1971) dir. peter watkins

they actually used real political activists and nonactors in this film but it's so believably acted and frustrating and funny in a pitch black way. foreign audiences actually believed this was happening the film was so realistic (and it was blacklisted in many US theaters)

3 -- a foreign language film

la strada (1954) dir. federico fellini

you can't convince me that la strada wasn't influenced by the stooge (1951) they are just way too similar... giuletta is so expressive and tragic it's one of my favorite italian films for sure

5 -- an animated film

princess mononoke (1997) dir. hayao miyazaki

i watch almost no animation whatsoever but this film really had an impact on me and gave me a lot of environmental and existential hopelessness! it's radical in a way i hadn't seen other animated films be (but also i don't seek out animation. if anyone has any recs i am open to them!)

8 -- a film from the year you were born

fear and loathing in las vegas (1998) dir. terry gilliam

i realized i already mentioned velvet goldmine and surrender dorothy, my two favorites from this year so i'm going to go with this one. it's been a long time since i've seen it but it was really influential for me as a baby cinema fan in high school

13 -- a film whose main genre is Drama

martha (1974) dir. rainer werner fassbinder

ohhhhhh my god this film is so heavy ohhhhh man. just absolutely completely bleak holy shit. top 3 fassbinder for sure it's such an accurate study of domestic violence relationships...

21 -- a film with a great needle drop/soundtrack/score

wings of desire (1987) dir. wim wenders

something about new german cinema directors and their use of music because i contemplated mentioning the american friend again or beware of a holy whore/in a year with 13 moons/ fox and his friends from rwf. but the crime and the city solution and nick cave scenes are incredible!! wim wenders has such good music taste and has been incredibly influential on my own

#i stay yapping sorry!

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fans4wga · 1 year

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drew gooden has a pretty good video abt tha writers strike , " The Future of TV is Bleak " . it doesnt go super in depth but i encourage ppl to watch it , and also to show it to ppl who dont support writers

Thank you for sending this in! Mod Ani here. While this video is a decent primer (link here if anyone wants to watch), Drew unfortunately perpetuates some common misconceptions, so here’s some more sourced info if you want to read more.

I’m not calling Drew a liar at all—in fact I’m really glad Youtubers are calling attention to the strike and supporting the WGA publicly. But he said he remembers the strike himself, and to be fair, he was at maximum 14 years old during the strike. His memory might be faulty or he might have misinterpreted sources or found flawed sources in the first place. Anyway, in the spirit of fact-checking…

Did the 2007 WGA strike tank shows?

At the 0:44 mark and later around 1:40, Drew claims the 2007 strike tanked a lot of shows. While a very common misconception, this is mostly untrue! Many of the shows that got canceled/"got worse" were already on a downwards trend before the strike. “Heroes” got bad reviews before the strike; meanwhile, “Lost” and “Pushing Daisies” both got renewed despite the strike, so you can’t really blame the strike for its changes or cancellation. See this Twitter thread for a comprehensive debunking of shows people think "got worse" during the 2007 strike, written by someone who covered it (writer Emily St. James @/emilystjams.)

To sum up her thread: “The 2007-08 strike didn't uniformly impact shows. For the most part, the shows on good trajectories stayed on them and vice versa.”

This is an especially pernicious mistruth because it has the potential to turn audiences against the WGA strike; fans are being led to think that the strike will only mean bad news for their shows. But the opposite is true: shows will in fact get better if writers have fair wages and aren’t overworked.

Later in the same Twitter thread linked above, Emily St. James says: “By far the most deleterious effect on young shows at that time was that a bunch of shows that might have gotten time to build more of an audience suddenly had to deal with long hiatuses. Many were canceled. Most never re-found their viewers.”

Yes, that’s what happened with fan-favorite Pushing Daisies (RIP). But this is already happening with no need for a strike intervention with Lockwood & Co., HBO’s canceled Batgirl, First Kill, Willow, Warrior Nun, The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, 1899, and more. Popular shows are getting canceled after 1-2 seasons, for no good reason—or getting wiped from the streaming service entirely. The worst has already happened for many shows.

…Drew’s absolutely right about Quantum of Solace, though. They were basically working with a rough draft script for the film, which, of course, bad idea.

Did the 2007 WGA strike cause the reality TV boom?

At the 0:58 mark, Drew claims that the 2007 strike led to the reality TV boom and “altered the landscape of television.” While it’s true to an extent that studios filled their programming with reality TV during both the 2007 and 2023 strikes, the reality TV boom definitively predates the 2007 strike.

Again, this is a particularly pernicious mistruth because it could potentially turn people against the WGA and blame them for a trend they dislike. In truth, the reality TV boom that shifted the landscape started in the early 2000s with the enormous success of such shows as Survivor (2000), America’s Next Top Model (2003), The Apprentice (2004), The Biggest Loser (2004), Dancing with the Stars (2005), and more all predating the 2007 strike. This is all years before the strike was even a glimmer in a writer’s eye.

Lots of people have made jokes about the 2007 strike causing Donald Trump’s presidency because The Apprentice was popular during the strike. I tend to think this is a pretty silly correlation—who’s to say he wouldn’t have gotten a gig like that despite the strike?

What is the WGA fighting for now?

At the 4:00 mark Drew claims that the WGA is fighting “to be paid residuals for streaming shows rather than just a day rate.” I see what he’s getting at, but as phrased, this is a nonsensical statement. He means “flat rate”—a pre-determined rate the studios currently pay to writers regardless of how many people watch it. The writers—and I’m quoting this directly from the WGA demands posted by WGA member Adam Conover—want to “establish a viewership-based residual—in addition to existing fixed residual—to reward programs with greater viewership.” (Link to the WGA demands here.) This would make streaming residuals more like network residuals, but it would also require streamers to have transparency about how many people are watching, which they’ve been very nervous about publishing.

Drew also confuses the term “production companies” with the term “studios”, though this is a minor nitpick. The WGA is fighting the studios. A production company like ILM visual effects works with a studio like Paramount (studios are also called “motion picture companies”, because we’re old-timey) to make a movie. Some studios ARE production companies (Studio Ghibli does their own production), but not all production companies are studios. Okay, film school over, next point. (Link to read more about studios vs. production companies vs. publishers)

At the 4:06 mark Drew claims writers are fighting to keep AI out of the writers room entirely. This is just a slight misconception! The WGA is fighting to keep AI from replacing them, but in the current WGA demands, individual writers would still be able to use AI as a tool at their own discretion, but AI couldn’t be used as “literary material” and writers couldn’t be forced to rewrite an AI-generated script. Individual WGA members are not a monolith; some are hardline anti-AI, and some want to see if they can make AI work for them. (Mod Ani is on the anti-AI side of things, just to make my own bias here clear.)

The current WGA stance is, “How do you make sure this is a tool used by writers, like spellcheck and Wikipedia, and not a tool used to replace writers?” (John August, a WGA member and also part of the negotiating committee, wrote that and has some blog posts about it.) I think this part of Drew’s video is in line with a lot of popular anti-AI sentiment, and I do not personally disagree, but anyone talking about the WGA has got to put aside personal biases and report what the WGA is actually doing, not what we want the WGA to do. All in all, this is still a strong position for the WGA, considering the WGA is on the frontline of any business agreement about AI! The main struggle is to make sure it doesn’t replace human labor.

Drew also contradicts himself at 4:43 by saying the previous strike wasn’t about streaming services, when earlier in the same video he said correctly that the 2007 strike was all about gaining residuals for streaming services in the first place. So, uh, fact-checking himself?

Again a small nitpick, “There’s no financial upside for doing a good job” (5:45 mark) is also not quite true. The financial upside is getting a Season 2 renewal. Yes, increased transparency and viewership-based residuals would mean high-performing film/TV shows get paid more. But there’s definite financial upside to getting a renewal!

Production companies/studios shortening employees is absolutely not about “not having to put your name in the credits” (6:14). Everyone in the writers’ room gets their name in the credits. The issue, of course, is that studios are trying to have shorter writers’ rooms so they pay the writers for fewer weeks of work. WGA members not being credited isn’t a negotiating point at all, so not sure where this is coming from.

Miscellaneous things Drew is absolutely correct on and I will reiterate here

Drew’s absolutely correct on how scripts evolve during filming. That’s why writers are so necessary on set! Studios are cutting costs by getting rid of writers earlier in the production timeline, and a consequence of this is that writers aren’t getting the mentorship/training of being on-set for the show’s actual production. This is necessary training to become a producer/showrunner that writers nowadays simply are not getting.

He’s also absolutely right about how little money writers actually make in Hollywood, despite the films and shows they make producing so much more value for the studios. Residuals are lower than ever, writers’ rooms are shorter than ever, and many WGA members work a lot of side hustles to just be able to afford LA rent. So the discourse surrounding “rich spoiled writers” is just totally incorrect and maddening!

Drew is also absolutely correct about the entertainment industry simply being the first place AI is threatening jobs. Without legal challenges, AI will disrupt other industries soon, and the WGA is on the frontline of battling that.

Just for some clarification, around the 12:20 mark, Drew is talking about the common complaint about prequels/sequels/franchises/spin-offs. This is a real industry problem! Writers desperately want to write original stuff (remember the creator of Powerpuff Girls saying he pitched 16 originals to Netflix, with no luck, before doing a reboot?) It’s 100% the studios' fault; no writer wants this industry landscape.

Also at 13:40 mark, Drew makes a very good point that AI is only a small part of the strike, and it’s kind of been blown out of proportion because AI is trending in the news and popular in the discourse. Even the WGA probably wasn’t expecting this to get so much air-time. It’s still a part of the strike, of course, but keep in mind that pay and staffing are more major negotiating points at the moment.

Conclusion!

To sum up, Drew makes some good points, but muddles some too. I’d highly recommend going straight to WGA members instead of Youtuber middlemen… but in the meantime we’re here to fact-check. :)

#drew gooden #wga #fans4wga #wga strike #writers strike

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canmom · 7 months

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the especially crazy-making thing about this 'witnessing a genocide' situation is like...

ok, so there's lots of catastrophes that are genuinely kinda intractable. economics shit, climate change. the problems may be evident but there's lots of room for reasonable disagreement about how to solve them and it's easy to get stuck in a bad equilibrium where the only way out is coordinating an enormous collective action problem and nobody is making any headway. that's one kind of bleak, but at least it's a comprehensibly difficult form of bleak.

i know full well that 'genocide' is a geopolitical football where everyone wants to position what the other guy is doing is a genocide but what you're doing is merely anti-terrorism, assimilation, whatever. this is because the post-wwii consensus is pretty clear cut that genocide is one of the worst things imaginable and one of the only things that really merit going to war.

thus WWII, the official Good War, is retroactively cast as a war to end the Holocaust, even if in practice the Allies were pretty indifferent to what was happening and would turn away refugees, and their solution to the problem of millions of displaced people was to jump on board an ethnonationalist colonialist project that would send them all off to a newly defined 'Jewish state' in a spare country the British happened to have lying around in the Middle East... and well, we're seeing how well that's working out for everyone. subsequent stories of genocide, such as Rwanda, Cambodia, or Bosnia, tend to end with 'and then xyz country invaded and put an end to things and the genocidaires went to court and we put up museums at the mass graves and shot documentary films'. even though the nigh-universal hypocrisy about the subject is rancid, you can at least kind of imagine that there is some pretense that the objective of this whole affair is to stop these kind of mass deaths from happening.

at this point there is no ambiguity that what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza is genocide. they've cut off two million people without food, water, and electricity, shut off their communications, and rained the most sophisticated modern weapons on them indiscriminately for going on three weeks. they've blown up most of their completely overwhelmed medical infrastructure and done everything possible to disrupt it. this war is so one-sided it's not funny, it's just a massacre. Hamas can annoy Israel with rockets but can't do a damn thing to protect the population they're ruling. and there is nowhere for people in Gaza to run to. the border with Egypt is closed. an insultingly tiny trickle of aid has made it in, which will instantly disappear to the orders of magnitude more hungry people.

in short there is no option left besides wait to die.

but, ok. in contrast to all those intractable problems... this one is very simple to solve. Israel could stop dropping bombs whenever they feel like it, and negotiate for whatever they fucking want, e.g. prisoner exchanges. they could let the Palestinians out of the ghetto and dissolve the situation that creates Hamas. they could easily continue to maintain Palestinians as second-class citizens. (look at how lopsided South Africa remains.)

and if they won't, because the country is ruled by fascist maniacs with broad support across the settler population, the US - which has all the leverage in the world - could threaten to hang them out to dry until they call a ceasefire. Israel has so thoroughly made enemies of all its neighbours that they would not last long without that US backing. it needn't even get to that point, if the US said 'stop' and made it clear there was any sort of line... Israel might feel it has to do a little damage control and try to look good on camera. maybe hold off on the white phosphorous. leave a few houses standing.

but none of that is happening. none of it.

it seems like the ground invasion will be starting. it might be well underway when i wake up.

despite the 'simplicity', it's still not at all clear what one little human can do about it. if i go to a protest tomorrow, for the symbolic gesture of "having done something" if nothing else, maybe it will make me feel better, but the most likely immediate outcome is that the government (currently going through a rape scandal, i love the uk) is going to step up its internal repression of Muslims. somehow, the idea that the people are displeased with their democratically elected agents won't factor into it. the protestors become 'other' by virtue of protesting, another problem to control.

it's common to ask 'what would you have done if you lived in Germany (or Poland) during the Holocaust?' a lot of people imagine they'd be heroes, hiding Jewish people in their attic or becoming partisans in the woods or whatever. in practice, history suggests that most people would have gone along with it without much complaint, or even taken the opportunity to steal from the victims, moving into vacant houses, taking over companies, even helping the Nazis round people up.

i must not become an inner emigré. doing nothing when i could have done something is unacceptable. but what i feel, faced with this situation, is pathetically impotent.

i feel so sick.

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aimzicr · 10 months

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Okay I saw Last Voyage of the Demeter! I have thoughts. As someone who spent three years essaying about Dracula, as a fan and student of literature-to-film adaptations/transformations, and just as a reader and listener of Daily Dracula and Re: Dracula, I have thoughts. Mild spoilers below the cut, but nothing that would ruin the experience completely if you haven't seen/can't see it.

But please be aware: Dracula DOES go about in his Lizard Fashion™.

I wasn't expecting a one-to-one transformation of the Demeter's Log to make it on screen. After all, the story of men being silently hunted until all are dead makes for a great dread-inducing setpiece for Stoker's novel, but not so much for a standalone film. I did enjoy seeing how the story took the 'based on' as far as they could before they started stretching it.

I did have a quiet laugh as the first title-card almost seemed to suggest this was REAL and TRUE EVENTS for a second. Way to get me engaged and reference the epistolary nature of the original novel.

But yes, the story does get turned into a bit of a Last Girl Horror Movie, because they see and know there's something wrong and they're actively fighting against it, even as they get picked off one by one. An interesting take, a pretty damn good method of turning a bleak setpiece into a proper standalone story.

Dot points to follow, before I forget:

The opening with the wagons moving through the countryside was breathtakingly beautiful

(I couldn't help but think 'oh they're wearing the same hats my good friend Jonathan Harker wrote about')

The captain's log being read aloud, word for word, in quieter moments was very very good. (And, of course, by this point I know it word-for-word, so picking up on the small tweaks was quite a delight).

I enjoyed hearing the familiar names as we're introduced to the crew.

The captain's decision to retire and pass the ship on does make me reconsider the mate's stoic nature in the story as a man dedicated to his duty, rather than just an antisocial asshole. Always nice to consider things from a new angle.

Chekov's Black Dog (kind of a missed opportunity to not show Dracula using a mockery of Huck to escape, but this wasn't a one-to-one transformation of texts as I said; also no reference to a black dog being an omen of death? Missed opportunity.)

Dracula being the only one on the ship being allowed to eat meat, just a glimpse of his hypocrisy and tyranny

(Though I'm not a huge fan of modern vampires being depicted as messy eaters, Netflix's Castlevania etc: just DRINK THE BLOOD stop biting people and letting them BLEED EVERYWHERE, did your mother not teach you dining etiquette???)

"Can this disease be passed to people?" "No. Not without a bite" very cute.

The initial reveal of the face in the spyglass FUCK that was terrifying.

Considering inwardly 'why he look like that? We know he was an aristocrat when he left his castle -- wait, hang on, is this what happens when vampires get seasick? When they cross running water? They stop wearing clothes and go feral?' before I turned off my brain and stopped thinking about Seasick Naked Count Dracula

They really did need to add this new character, because the audience and the crew both needed the context and information. Otherwise, how could the crew fight back? RIP to canon, I guess, (but look at it this way: once Mina starts putting all the letters together, she gives Hellsing and the others the necessary information to kill Dracula, so... not too much of a reach?)

But Dracula, sir, bringing along a snack for the road and it ISN'T our friend Jonathan Harker?

The subtle reveal-and-conceal in the early parts of the voyage of Dracula's face and form was well done and genuinely terrifying. Just the parts where you look away for just a second and he's gone? Fuck.

"No, please! D:" "No, please~ :3"

HE'S GOING ABOUT IN HIS LIZARD FASHION AGAIN. THAT BOY AIN'T RIGHT.

Knock Knock. Who's there? Not your friend, that's for sure. (Dracula stealing this is Fucked Up, in the best way. He takes EVERYTHING from you! :) )

Vampirism as possession is an excellent way to recontextualise its parasitic history/links

Where's that tumblr post about how you can tell what a good horror film is? 'This movie's great, a kid DIES in it!'

Seeing the cloth move a second before the captain says 'I saw him move' but doubting myself. I didn't see that, right? It was just the wind. Right?

Oh. It wasn't the wind.

Men of Strength overpowered, Men of Faith made to doubt, Men of Reason rattled by answers that make no sense, and the Innocent hunted down. Dracula as a force of Pure Terror that tests one's character (and then eats, because he's a boyar and he dines on the cattle of his choosing)

Did he just slam this guy down so hard his BRAIN popped out of his skull, holy shit

'In my country, there's no-one else for him to feed on' what, do people go stale after a few bites? Dracula's a picky eater?

'He's rationing' puts the journey into even greater context. A chilling sentence in the film and in the broader understanding of the Demeter's place in the novel.

a Cool Plan to Survive The Monster is very action-movie, but I knew it wouldn't work (sorry, sometimes the spoilers/pre-knowledge ruin things)

'This is my home.' Augh. 'I'll do it.' AUGH.

The slow creeping fog rising up (like hands? like an embrace?) in the final hours was CHEF'S KISS. Beautiful effect

(Also loved the effect of the wind from His Wings displacing the fog, too. Even if you don't see him, you can see where he's been)

"What's going on?" "He knows." Oh. Well. Fuck.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter isn't told from the Captain's perspective, so much of the man's nobility and sacrifice in the name of duty is lost (even to the point that his iconic death pose is capital-m Mocked by The Dracula (almost like the old BAsTard was like 'I know you've read Stoker's book but I'm here to fuck with you, dear audience'). The Captain isn't the Final Girl in this horror movie, but they do give him a proper end as far as the film goes, even if he does get a lot more rattled and shaken than his log might suggest

There's also a sense of blurred intertextuality in vampire lore here, because they drew heavily on the Hammer Films/Buffy The Vampire Slayer context of 'vampires burning in sunlight'. Not truly Stoker's Dracula...

... then again, Dracula has a very particular Design, and is credited in the crawl as 'Dracula/Nosferatu'. He was for sure Count Orlock, rather than Dracula.

Knock Knock. I'm here watching you :3

That brief touch from Dracula as he leaves the bar was - fuck, it was a split second to make a poor man flinch, but in that brief touch was the playful terror of a tyrant: I own you, I don't fear you, you can't stop me, I control you. Nothing you said to me on the Demeter had any effect on me and you are just meat. Ta ta, darling~

The movie ending with a new survivor, the potential for a new vampire hunter, was very good. Instead of the Log of the Demeter ending in bleak despair and all hands lost, instead we have a man galvanised and ready to fight against evil, even if he has to do it alone.

Music kicked ass. Very raw, very primal, very Gothic Victoriana

Lots of fun! It felt a little like they were setting up for an Extended Dracula Universe (I hope I'm misinterpreting) but I did like how Getting To Live after a traumatic experience leads to 'Fuck this guy, he's not getting away with this in the future'. Like I said before, we wanted the monster back so we could kill it, so I appreciate that's the vibe they went with for LVotD. A little bleak? Sure. But the fact that people are willing to keep fighting, even in the direst circumstances with the odds against them? That's what we need. That's what it's all about.

#last voyage of the demeter #dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula #introspective #thoughts #mild spoilers #I love me some

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