chaotic-multi-fandom

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ngl in a way i kinda miss the time when s2 was coming out and i was so emotionally invested in it i genuinely believed it was good. i miss when i still hadn’t realized how bad the writing was and how dirty the characters were done. like yeah i wasn’t thinking critically at all but at the same time i didn’t have to deal with the pain of watching my favorite show being butchered so bad. i was living a lie but i was also happy. was waking up from the illusion spell actually worth it. couldn’t i simply live that blissful fantasy forever.

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me as a kid reading Dune: I appreciate the detailed world-building that justifies why everyone fights with swords and has mental powers, but the idea of a Butlerian Jihad against computers is pretty silly

me in 2025, trying desperately to find the three (3) places you need to go to to disable the latest helpful AI assistant that's inserted itself into my work chat and is advising me to do things that would be a breach of federal law: Oh Now I Get It

[chaotic-multi-fandom]

like father, like son | DUNE (2021) VS DUNE PART TWO (2024)

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X

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"Louis thinks I'm boring. Do you find me boring?"

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Claudia my beloved 🥰

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Tolkien writing kingdoms' moral decay and eventual decline: they exploited nature, destroyed forests and cut down trees

Tolkien writing male characters' moral decay and eventual decline: he stopped listening to his wife

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Controversial opinion among Dune book fans maybe, but I loved the changes they made to Chani's character. Making her a fedaykin who is already an experienced fighter before Paul arrives was a brilliant choice. Dune Part Two is a war movie, and this puts her at the center of the action, side by side with Paul, and gives her a much more active role than she has in the book.

We got a hint of where things were going in the beginning of Dune Part One. The first thing we ever know about movie Chani is that she's a fighter. She serves as a voice for the Fremen, telling us the story of their struggle from her point of view. I wrote here about the difference this change makes compared to other adaptations of Dune, what a perspective shift it is to have the world of Arrakis introduced not by an outsider, describing it as a dangerous but valuable colonial prize, but by one of its native inhabitants, who tells us before all else that it's beautiful, her home that she's fighting to liberate. I am so, so glad that the second movie followed up on this characterization.

I never found Chani and Paul's love story in the book particularly convincing, because why would this woman, who already has a prominent and respected place in Fremen society, even give the time of day to her deposed would-be colonizer, let alone fall in love and have children with him? Without a compelling reason for Chani to love Paul, she ends up feeling like a prize to be won, and "indigenous culture personified as a woman to be wooed (or conquered) by the colonizing man" is a trope we've seen and don't need to repeat.

But as soon as you tell me it's a barricade romance I get it. Cool cool cool, I know exactly what this relationship is now and it makes sense. Movie Chani doesn't respect or even particularly like Paul when she first meets him, and she doesn't think he's the fulfillment of any prophecy. She comes to respect him, and eventually love him, through his actions. He's brave--sometimes recklessly so. He fights well. He's willing to stick his neck out on the front lines with the other Fremen fighters. He can (after a little help) hack surviving in the harsh desert environment. He's not too proud to learn from others. He seems to genuinely want to be her equal in a common political struggle. All these qualities make sense as things she values.

Fighting side by side as equals is just about the only way I can see movie Chani falling for Paul. And it fits perfectly with the film's pattern of reversals that Paul's capacity for violence would initially be one of the things Chani likes about him, only for her to be repelled later when she sees what he becomes.

And as for Paul, well, he's had people deferring to him his entire life. Someone who doesn't take any shit from him is probably refreshing. He seems to like people (Duncan, Gurney) who challenge him and engage in a little friendly teasing--and aren't afraid to go a few rounds in the sparring ring.

It's easy to speedrun a romance when you're spending all your time together in mortal danger fighting for a shared political cause. Especially if you then start winning in a war your people have been fighting for decades. Are you kidding me? That is the perfect environment for intense battle camaraderie to turn into romantic love, and lust.

It makes sense that this version of Chani never believes Paul is any kind of messiah. Of course a character like movie Chani wouldn't believe in or trust some outside savior to liberate them. She's been working to liberate her own people for years. The more Paul invokes the messianic myth, the more he starts sounding once again like someone who plans to rule over them, and the more uncomfortable Chani becomes. In this way she becomes a foil to Jessica, the two of them representing the choices Paul is pulled between. It's a great way of externalizing the political and philosophical debates that often happen within characters' heads in the book.

And of course this version of Chani would leave Paul at the end of the film. It's not just the personal, emotional betrayal--although that stings. What common cause does she have with someone who just declared himself emperor and is sending her own people off in a war of conquest against others? Given the important role she plays in Dune Messiah, I am super curious to see how they get her back into the story, but girl was so valid for being willing to just gtfo. Given that she has the last shot of the whole movie, I'm sure she'll be back somehow, and I can't wait to see what they do with her character in any future installments.

[chaotic-multi-fandom]

alicent after a week of getting kicked out of her own small council to later finding out that rhaenyra is finally in her girl kissing era ten years too late and over 300 miles away

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Tumblr Tuesday: One for The Sapphics

It’s Lesbian Visibility Week! Happy lesbian visibility to all who celebrate the visibility of lesbians all year round. Please enjoy this little collection of sapphic (fan)art to honor the occasion, and may we all remember to give the lesbians in our lives a little forehead kiss. 🧡🤍🩷

@mimimar:

@greenfinchg-illustration:

@gentlemosses:

@doodlenoodleh:

@tapiocats:

@coldcigarettes:

@theartofmadeline:

@clipsindrawers:

@mayakern:

@cronchy-baguette:

@emiuli:

@causticcapricorn:

@zucchini-draws:

@carabiner-pansy:

@adalheidis:

@fshfish:

@thatssofarahh:

@evgar:

@katieaki:

@bhramarii:

@dyke-dyke-goose:

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Don’t you know your Sam? :(

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“For a moment I had an idea of what it would be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands.”

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Art by qiaofu

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i need Severance to have a happy ending but the themes of orpheus and eurydice does not fill me with security

[chaotic-multi-fandom]

SEVERANCE EPISODE 6 SPOILERS!!

I loved the fact that Helena's and Mark's sex scene was lit with very warm colours, and happened in a very cozy atmosphere with blankets and comfort, while Mark and Helly's occurs on a hard uncomfortable floor surrounded by cold and uninviting white and blue colours. And yet, it is this second scene that comes off as much more real and sweet.

What surrounded Helena and Mark was a fake simulated light just like the warmth which was entirely artificial and changed nothing about their freezing surroundings. That scene, is meant to unsettle us, given that the audience is most likely aware by now that Helly is really Helena, and thus that Mark is not consenting (and neither is Helly). The warm lighting reinforces this feeling because it is signalling to us the opposite message. We are used to relating warm colours in film with positive scenes, so it being used here creates a sense of discomfort.

However, then we get Mark and Helly. Their scene occurs in a real space, the office in which they've shared their entire life with one another, and one burdened with the discomforts of the real world (being nervous, the floor being hard and uncomfortable, clothes getting stuck), unlike the eerily "perfect" atmosphere of the previous one. It's much slower than the first, there is explicit consent several times, we focus on their faces while it is happening so that even though much less skin is being shown, it is much more intimate and sensual. All of this surrounded by almost sterile colours which would usually transmit to us an entirely different tone and atmosphere. There's no need for artificial warmth here, they are the warmth. Less skin being shown may also be a way of letting us see that Mark and Helly are reclaiming their own bodies, both of which have been violated by Helena.

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i love how different helena dresses for helly. like every morning she makes the choice to do her hair in a way she doesn't usually do and put on clothes different to her own personal style and she's been doing this since the first day. even before she went into getting severed that day, she made the decision to separate herself from this new person she was creating, yet she cannot accept her as a whole other person of her own. and it's fucked up because this hair and these clothes are not helly r's choice either. they are a part of her identity because that's all she knows but it is assigned to her by the very same part of herself who cannot see her as a separate human being with her own feelings and memories and agency.

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