#I always put my interpretation that it always has horror elements

[friendofcars]

Please drop the essay you refrained from writing in the tags and would also love to hear your thoughts on the mask dream! I think it's one of the most interesting dreams ronan has, especially in tdt. Always really enjoy your thoughts and meta :)

hi so first of all thank you for this very kind message and second of all the 'essay' i mentioned was in fact about the mask dream. and third of all thank you for waiting for my belated response. i wrote the remainder of this post over multiple weeks and didn't proofread any of it and i'm almost positive it gets incoherent in places so please let me know if you want anything clarified.

so, the post i'm referencing is this one by parrishwife about adam and ronan's rather unhinged desire to simultaneously become and be with each other. i coincidentally read it immediately before reading chapter 17 of the dream thieves for the trc book club and my brain exploded a little because i think the mask nightmare plays with the same idea- not explicitly, and maybe not primarily, but there's an element of ronan both fearing and desiring the possibility of adam becoming ronan (or at least like ronan).

i think the most straightforward and plausible interpretation of this chapter is that ronan fears losing adam (to post-traumatic dissociation, to his bargain with cabeswater, as a rejection of ronan's desire for him, etc.) (btw parrishwife also has a brilliant post analyzing the mask dream.) i'm also suggesting that he has a simultaneous fear of adam reciprocating the attraction, which, for ronan, comes hand in hand with self-loathing; desire is fear, it is horror, it is anger; he fears rejection and miscommunication while also fearing that adam will experience self-hatred too. because ronan hasn’t realized his second secret yet, the fear/desire/self-loathing/projection is particularly muddled. This interpretation hinges on my observation that adam is profoundly ronan-like in the dream.

because of my complete inability to omit details, i’m going to put the meat of my observations + analysis under a cut:

first, before i write an absurdly long response, here was my initial comment in the trc book club server after reading the chapter:

and my follow up after some discussion:

and now after musing on this chapter for the past month, here’s a more detailed analysis, almost line by line:

first, in the dream, we're told that “the mask was his father's.” it's ambiguous as to whether niall dreamt, made, or bought the mask, but it's as if ronan has inherited the mask (along with the secret keeping, dreaming, perceived imbalanced devotion in romantic relationship, etc.). the important detail, aside from mask, of course, is father: a) ronan's self-hatred, grief, and depression are directly tied to guilt over niall's murder, all of which inform the way he dreams, unguided and alone, b) adam's bargain with cabeswater kicks off a plot that serves as a metaphor for adam's healing from trauma from his own father, which informs the way he isolates and hides himself from others and c) here we have two boys, traumatized by their fathers in different ways but still with the consequence of repression, with ronan fearing that adam will break/succumb to the fallout of his dual sacrifices (pressing charges and leaving the trailer/giving up his hands and eyes to cabeswater). i mention all of this to start drawing connections between ronan and adam's experiences, how they relate to one another, and how in which ronan's self-hatred manifests in a concern for adam ending up hating himself too (becoming [like] ronan).

we can also consider the setting of the dream: the original mask is at the barns, out of reach in multiple ways (hung high on the wall, on a property from which ronan is banned, and his subconscious won't let him return home in his dreams either) but the consequences of the dream do lead him back to the barns (he manifests the night horrors, which he buries at the barns with his friends; enlisting gansey to help literally kill his demons and everyone else to dispose of the bodies brings him home- it's something he can't do alone -> recurring fear of isolation, the magic of connection, etc.). but ronan already has access to the apartment at st. agnes- adam already lets him sleep there, on the floor, and he's only there in the first place because ronan helped him move there. ronan plays an active role in establishing and maintaining the apartment as adam’s home. and in the dream, the mask is at eye level, both within reach (and, of note, probably where you'd hang a mirror). greater proximity to ronan = greater risk of adam realizing (and reciprocating, or mirroring) ronan's attraction towards him.

all of this is to say that ronan's subconscious is asking him: what if adam was within reach? would you squander the opportunity? what if he's too far gone to cabeswater, out of reach in the wake of abuse? what if keeping adam close is putting him in danger? (there's a line about their changing proximity at the very end of the raven boys that i'm thinking about as i write this.) what if he falls and cuts himself on ronan?

like i mentioned, I think the more straightforward reading of the dream is ronan's fear of losing adam, whether via adam’s trauma responses/dissociation/bargain with cabeswater or as a rejection of ronan’s romantic interest. i'll try to be briefer here since i know it's been discussed (reading this a couple weeks later…i was not brief at all lol). shortly before the dream, cabeswater goes missing. due to the ambiguous consequences of adam's bargain with cabeswater, there's reason to fear adam will also disappear (or at least his hands and eyes, or what they represent -> his skill, his perception, his survival instincts, etc.). then there's the fear of the figurative consequence: adam disappearing in the sense that he completely withdraws and isolates himself from ronan and the others. gansey fears that adam's spirit will break; adam fears he will turn violent (which is why he withdraws). it's not clear which ronan fears, but it might as well be both, given the obscuring nature of the mask and adam's violence in the dream. i don't think ronan fears that adam will purposefully hurt him (given his prophetic refusal to hurt adam, even to save his own life) but he fears he will hurt adam by confessing feelings to him, or by trapping him in henrietta, etc.

in the dream, ronan tells opal (at this point, orphan girl) that cabeswater is gone, which triggers adam’s appearance in the dream (to emphasize the possibility of adam disappearing too). adam says, “far away isn’t the same thing as gone,” which is probably a rare display of optimism from ronan, especially as a counterpoint to the dreamt miniature white plane that is lost to the lake (this symbolizes the potential outcome of losing adam in the context of adam’s doubt/disbelief, which is dismantled by the end of the book when he figures out that ronan paid the rent and loves him, which coincides with ronan realizing he doesn’t hate himself, that the world will not end if adam knows how he feels, and thus the white nigh horror is born as a symbol of adam’s capability of belief in ronan and both of their acceptances of ronan’s feelings). whew.

we then get a description of adam in the dream. he's wearing his aglionby uniform, perhaps to represent a repressed adam hell bent on assimilation to pursue his ambition, but in my interpretation a detail that clues us into some mirroring/becoming of ronan. i'm specifically thinking of the flashback in trb chapter 20 in which adam recalls the catalyst for pursuing aglionby: a confident, affluent, friend-possessing aglionby kid who probably wasn’t but might as well have been ronan. as a counterpoint to the aglionby uniform, adam’s fingers are black with oil, an obvious nod to adam’s fear that his job as a mechanic and poverty betray his attempts at escaping his roots (side note- sacrificing himself to a sentient forest literally roots him further in henrietta/on the ley line), but i can’t help but draw a comparison between the oil mentioned here and nightwash- something we don’t even know whether ronan has canonically experienced yet, but still a visual parallel that signifies limiting, restricting factors in each of their lives (class, disability, etc.) that anchor them to henrietta. if this connection is a coincidence, which it very well could be, the shame both adam and ronan experience remains true in the text, in terms of adam feeling stained by his non-academic yet necessary-for-survival work and ronan’s complex relationship to dreaming. ronan also endures unmaking/nightwash in trk after adam, demon-possessed, chokes him and ronan has the same “will not choose hurting adam to evade death” experience, so this really does all connect in my “no coincidences in trc” brain.

adam takes the mask without asking permission nor hesitating, which seems out of character and ronan-like (read: impulsive), although adam does indeed reach for the mask without asking first when they visit the barns. in trb adam is constantly asking permission, clarifying invitations, hesitating, etc. until he makes his sacrifices, so perhaps ronan’s dream is exploring an adam that acts more and fixates on consequences less (which is quite ronan). the summative effect of these details is ronan’s perception of adam’s own insecurities, curiosities/introspection, etc.  which, perhaps unintentionally, make me simultaneously consider ronan’s own difficulty with reconciling his home life, identity, secrets, social position at school, etc. the touching without asking might also prod at a warped sense of intimacy for ronan, especially regarding the nature of ronan’s relationship with kavinsky, but i feel like i need to consider this perspective more before elaborating further.

then, adam holds the mask up to his face- nobody puts the mask on adam; it’s an autonomous choice. autonomy and choice are critical to both of their character arcs, especially in trb for adam and in tdt for ronan. then, adam “becom[es] something else” and the distinction between adam and the wooden mask dissolves as a nod to the concern that adam will become indistinguishable from cabeswater (also predominantly of wood). lots to comment on here: that adam must eventually accept that he isn’t cabeswater, much like he isn’t his father; adam becoming less human and ronan grappling with his human-ness/creature-ness, ronan grappling with the distinction between himself and his manifested dreams, which include cabeswater, etc. if adam is merging with cabeswater and cabeswater in its forest form is inherently an aspect of ronan/his heart/his soul/his mind… much to chew on, even if its founded on their insecurities. adam becoming a creature, like ronan; becoming magic or getting intertwined with it… also rolling around the concepts of a wooden mask, a wooden boy, lies (secrets), autonomy, atypical creation, etc. in my head and coming up with pinocchio which is probably absurd but. i had to admit this. ronan wanting to be a real boy (greywaren choosing humanity) is not not canon in td3. on adam seeming to be carved from wood, maybe a brief exploration of a fear of a lack of distinct identity (ronan fearing adam becoming cabeswater or a part of himself against adam’s wishes); Adam wants to be self-made, not made by anyone else…maybe references pygmalion, galatea, etc.

in the same paragraph, as adam becomes even less-adam like, his teeth become hungry, his jaw starves. teeth are frequently mentioned when describing the lynch brothers, and hunger is a predominant theme for both adam and ronan (“they were both hungry animals, but adam had been starving for longer), and chapter 11 of tdt loops in the gray man and the concept of a hungry knife; i'm not articulating this well but there’s something to say here about ronan being raised to think of himself as a weapon and him fearing adam will succumb to the same, and sharp teeth are the imagery by which i'm connecting these dots (?). adam’s eyes are “desperate and incensed.” he is not only afraid but angry (a very ronan combination of emotions), and the adjective “incensed” even links to ronan’s internal experiences being frequently described as fiery, burning, etc. a vein stands out from adam’s neck; veins stand out from ronan’s body later in the chapter when he’s awake but not yet back in his body. vulnerability, anger, desperation, tension, vitality. the physical parallels are numerous. or maybe just repetitive writing, but i read trc very generously in terms of assuming intention.

then, the dream becomes a nightmare. the mask becomes indistinguishable from adam’s face- anger like a second skin, second secret, tamquam alter idem, horror movie twins, double-headed night horror and all that- it’s a nightmare BECAUSE ronan could be into this (and by “this” i mean the conflation of adam returning his attraction and them becoming more and more like each other), and at this point in the narrative, this desire to be and to be with is obscured by ronan’s depression. adam is described as a creature, a word used to describe ronan too (a genuine compliment from gansey, but an alienating burden of a descriptor for adam and ronan). adam becomes a night horror, which, like cabeswater, is a manifestation of an aspect of ronan- like calls to like, and this is terrifying to ronan.

the night horrors are explicitly described as representations of ronan’s heart and are “in love with his blood and his sadness.” the word choice of “in love” when the night horrors are manifestations of self-hatred and depression and shame is more proof of ronan conflating desire + guilt. ronan’s heart is auto-cannibalizing. do you know what I’m trying to say. as a side note, the mentioned rhythm of ronan’s heartbeat works as a physiological and metaphorical tie to the very feeling of a nightmare. just some nice texture in the nightmare for me as a reader! re: adam, “adam was the horror now” -> adam has become inextricable from ronan/cabeswater/magic -> adam has become one with ronan’s self-hatred adam isn’t the horror for trying the mask on, he’s the horror for realizing and reacting to the mask (here i had a lightbulb moment and had to close my word doc to calm down lol)… and if we equate ronan himself to the mask (the teeth! the hunger! the eyes! a psychological prison only the prisoner can break!) and the nightmare is built upon this dream adam’s rage and terror at his union with the mask… we circle back to the two-headed fear of adam’s rejection AND reciprocation of ronan’s attraction. of course the merging of adam and ronan takes on a completely different connotation in greywaren when they are both eager to merge souls and their codependency and inability to maintain a stable reality without the other is… a lot to think about. Re: “toothful king” more teeth = lynch-like, as we’ve established, but ronan has also been described as a king in his dreamscape; this usually implies creative power but is that what Adam has here? maybe king is more intended to throw focus towards his power over ronan? also, in a ater paragraph, “tooth upon tooth upon tooth” makes me think of rows of teeth…which is sharklike. like the bmw (“if it was sharklike, it had learned how from [ronan]”.)

i'll also make a couple comments about the line “to think about it was to be immobilized with the horror of watching Adam be consumed from the inside out.” 1. the immobilization, whether literal or figurative, is notable in the context of ronan, who is often kinetic, restless, hyperactive, adrenaline-seeking, etc. but is also immobilized post-dream manifestation; taken together, ronan in motion and ronan frozen tell us that for ronan to stop moving and obscuring the secrets he hides in a maelstrom of posturing is to make him vulnerable- and this line is shortly before nightmare adam attacks him. to stay still is to look truth in the face and confess it and bear his heart to it- and his heart itself is the secret. ouroboros. i don’t know. also, cannibalism, probably. that's not really my wheelhouse but it’s in here a little bit. and ronan dreams creatures to love- chainsaw, matthew, opal. he's revulsed by the possibility of creating an adam that loves him, that is made of him or in his image, that lacks autonomy/mobility in relation to ronan.

then comes the violence. before it, ronan takes adam’s arm (as he does at the barns, later) and says his name- saying adam, not parrish, presumably, which is another marker of vulnerability. this line reminds me of “cabeswater: call it by name” or an act of creation, affirmation, that adam is adam (human, a man), and not a monster. despite this act of tenderness, of acknowledgment of independent identity, nightmare adam lunges for ronan while simultaneously trying to remove the mask from his own face (this brings me back to the idea of duality, violence vs. love wielded inwardly and outwardly, double edged swords, the two headed night horror, the self vs others, etc.). his fingers hook ronan the way the night horror hooks in the following chapter- a premonition that gets subverted with the eventual declaration of “claws and beak”/”unguibus et rostro.” adam's face is gone and the mask becomes invisible- the distinction between ronan’s feelings towards adam and adam’s feelings toward ronan is gone. however, perhaps condradicting what I literally just claimed (lol), ronan cannot kill bring himself to kill adam, even this nightmare version, but has not yet realized that he doesn’t want to kill himself either.

“the mouth gaped, door to bloody ruin.” the mouth, not adam’s mouth, not the mask’s mouth. disembodied. there's a whole thesis to write on adam’s relationship to his body and his dissociative experiences, the reintegration he experiences as he repairs the ley line, etc.  an open door, especially a door-like mouth, is a confessed secret (think of ronan’s closed door at monmouth), and here, a path to the worst possible outcome.

ronan removes the mask from adam and discovers that it’s easily removable, that the distinction between adam and the mask and that which it represents can be recovered simply and gently, but the removal still ruins adam. a petal peeled from a flower-he loves me, he loves me not… and the strange beautiful flowers ronan dreams… that love is beautiful and not inherently violent… something adam and ronan must individually learn for themselves. adam must distinguish himself from his trauma, from his family, from his bargain with cabeswater. his self-loathing creates an additional prison within the limiting circumstances of his poverty. but as gentle as the removal is, ronan’s heroic action still results in gore- his father’s, rather than his mother’s, account of his birth. adam is reduced to muscle, bone, teeth, eyeball- a collection of parts, but no holistically integrated face. a miracle of moving parts but gruesome. life leaks out of him like nightwash out of ronan. unmasking, confession, secrets you can’t take back, irreversible bargains… ronan says he’ll put the mask back on, will restore adam’s dignity and grant him a shield against vulnerability, but the damage is done. we get a rare “please” (“please work”) from ronan, maybe a prayer, maybe in the same vein of the “please” he thinks when he sees adam for the first time (cdth chapter 5).

and finally, the lab blood dna line around which i will talk in circles because I can’t do it justice, but after ronan wakes with the bloodied mask he wonders “whose dna…would a lab find in that blood?” this is THE merging of adam and ronan line imo that makes all of my tenuous claims that the nightmare is about adam becoming ronan hold actually hold water. it’s like if the narrator in kevin atwater’s my blood is your blood hated themselves and their partner too because their love felt like violence and guilt. and because both adam and ronan, due to their (father-related) trauma, struggle to distinguish between pain and attraction and desire and resentment, there’s an implication that reciprocated feelings between the two of them would also be mutually inflicted harm- that they’ll both make each other bleed. spring awakening word of your body. it reminds me of when dogs get into a fight and in the aftermath it’s hard to tell whose blood is whose, if one is bleeding or just covered in the other’s; ronan’s nightmare explores: who is capable of harming (loving) the other. because ronan’s refusal to harm adam as nightmare adam harms ronan is love, even if twisted up. ronan can’t extricate desire from violence at this point since he hasn’t woken up to his second secret yet (and undergone the character development required to realize it). the blood might as well be both of theirs.

Some other assorted details: the overlap between ronan’s self-hatred and his projection of this onto adam (ch 9: ronan had seen a face about to break in the mirror etc. terrible paraphrase but you know what i mean) so his nightmare is an exploration of him projecting onto adam; there’s a dual desire for adam/reciprocation but also a fear + assumption that adam is simultaneously terrorized by his own feelings (which tbh is not wrong) so adam being the horror in the nightmare is to say he’s Ronan since the horrors are an extension of Ronan’s depression, grief, guilt, etc. esp. regarding his faith and sexuality which are symbolized via the dreaming, and since ronan could not kill him (it wasn’t a choice! foreshadowing! he sees himself as a corrupting force on adam, etc.), ronan is eventually subconsciously led to the realization that he cannot kill himself either- he has to believe in himself (cheesy, but since the climax of tdt crucially involves adam’s belief in ronan and the dreaming and the second secret, it’s real) and to believe that his love for others is beautiful rather than dangerous, and that this love can be wielded back at himself too. “why do you hate you? I don’t. he woke up” is the same damn thing as “it was only for adam it had been a prison.” pretend i pasted in the spiral eyes emoji 1000 =x here. (adam’s own self-loathing, isolation, bargain w cabeswater, etc…. so very eight of swords. if only he would take the blindfold off etc.)

and this all ties back to the two headed night horror… tdt opening with ronan’s secrets and the plane and adam’s doubt in ronan’s dreaming and the first introduction of the black night horrors and the eventual acceptance of mirrored attraction or at least acknowledgement of ronan’s second secret and adam witnessing the manifestation of the white night horror which is double-headed and signifies both internal and external love/acceptance… i’m running out of steam here but it all ties together. it’s all connected I promise.

but in this chapter, before the plot of tdt plays out in full, we're left with the conclusion of what if adam reciprocates ronan's attraction? that's what he wants (this is why he pays the rent. this is why the dream is in the st. agnes apartment, where ronan has put adam.), but because at this point ronan can't differentiate between desire and self-loathing, adam wanting him back would make him a mirror of his desire and self-loathing, and the fear of this is explored in the nightmare. i hope this has made sense!

i think this was pretty comprehensive and perhaps too speculative but aside from opal's role in the dream, which i'm still thinking about, but i'd love to hear someone else's take on her in this chapter (or anything else about the mask nightmare!).

[devsgames]

I have been sitting on this thought for some time and I want to hear your opinion about it as a fellow game designer.

Is horror a game genre?

TL;DR: Horror as a category is useful, but it doesn't quite fit as a genre in a system where we define it by gameplay In game design, genre is often associated with mechanics. If in an analysis of a game we leave only the key mechanics, then we can determine the genre. It works the other way around - puzzle has some mechanics, a shooter has different ones. But horror doesn't have key mechanics? This made me wonder if horror IS a game genre. A similar example for me would be "Educational Games". Is edutainment a genre? Some of them are puzzles, some of them are action games for quick reactions. It’s easier to say that this is a “modifier” of a game and because of it the approach to design changes, but if you remove all its elements, you still end up with a game. It’s the same with horror games, if you remove horror from Resident Evil, then it’s action. If you take the horror out of Clock Tower - it's point and click. FNaF is a puzzle game, Slender, Outlast - an adventure game, and so on. In my opinion, horror is not a genre, but a modification, since the core genre of the game will always be hidden under it. However, it should be noted, that as a game category, it still is useful, especially for consumers.

Right, so before diving into any talk of genre I need to be clear that I don't think "Genre" as a concept itself is a hard-coded categorization system. It's sorta just a vague notion that two pieces of media are related, and once you try ascribing rigid definitions to everything it all (rightfully in my opinion) falls apart. The realm where people sit down and try to hardcore categorize game genres like it's some kind of science (looking at you, The Berlin Interpretation) is incredibly contrived and frankly just goofy. I think once it reaches this point it quickly crosses into the realm of being mindlessly rigid and 'genre' as an idea stops being useful as the high-level-establishing reference point that it is. (Related: Get someone to define a universally accepted definition of the "Role-playing game genre" for me.)

To that end, I've long held the belief that trying to categorize games by genre is a fruitless endeavour that is ultimately circular. Generally I find the practice just amounts to little more than a fun thought experiment. It's sorta like how it's fun to ask someone if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable (spoiler alert: the actual real answer is "technically it can be both and to most people the distinction doesn't actually matter"), or like asking someone if a bowl of cereal is a soup. It's for fun but when you get down to it doesn't really solve many problems. I get it, we as humans just like putting things in neat little boxes, but I don't know that it actually matters that much.

That being said: "If in an analysis of a game we leave only the key mechanics, then we can determine the genre" -> I see where you're coming from, but I think this also sort of fundamentally misunderstands "genre" as a wider media concept.

"Genre" is defined by what media contains in all its elements. Just because games have mechanics while other media don't, that doesn't mean game genres are implicitly and solely defined from these mechanics (despite what games marketing might have you think at times).

While mechanics can inform genre, just because games contain interaction doesn't mean that is purely what defines their game genre. Take Horror as an example; in games and otherwise "horror" is dependent on building up specific emotions (usually being horror/terror) and as such mood and realization play a key component in evoking those fear responses in people. Elements like theming, artistic choices, narrative structure, and so on inform the genre of 'horror' just as much as the mechanical gameplay within them.

To that end, you can say that Five Nights at Freddies and PT are similar in genre (because they're both trying to spook you) and Five Nights at Freddies and Papers, Please are of genre (because they're both told through the 'administration simulator' framing with gameplay mechanics revolving around 'desk management'). While the latter might have more in common mechanically, in the end they both have like concepts and that could serve as a reference or build to an understanding between the two, so they're both roughly similar in genre.

As a more extreme example, "Call of Duty" tends to glorify war and military violence, while "This War of Mine" paints a desolate picture about what war does to a community. CoD is an action-packed First Person Shooter while This War of Mine is a slow-paced management simulator. Both are very different tonally with little mechanical comparisons between the two, but both deal in similar narrative and thematic genre (being war and its various interpretations and impacts). The wrapping might be different, but there's still cross-genre trappings there to connect them.

I think treating "Horror as a modifier" is interesting because if anything I tend to view it the opposite way, where mechanics modify genre instead. A Horror game at its base, modified by "First Person Shooter" as a mechanic, or a Educational game modified by "Puzzle" as a mechanic. It's all apples and oranges at some point. 🤷

As you said though, I think genre is primarily useful as a tool for analyzing media or as communication shorthand to help a viewer 'at a glance' understand what a piece of media is related to. Once you start trying to get into the weeds with trying to draw hard conclusions on what is/isn't 'genre' it all becomes overall less useful and more like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[sad-vampire-wh0r3]

Vampire Suggestions: Movies and TV

For my babes who want to get into vampires but don't know where to start. Here are some of my personal recommendations.

Vampires are a very fun genre to get into especially in films imo, you get ranges from romance, to comedy, to drama, to sinister. I really recommend looking into vampire folklore as well, I love the many interpretations of vampires across the country, but in my experience, having background knowledge of the folklore/history makes these films more enjoyable. (this is just my personal preference, you ofc don't have to do this)

What We Do in the Shadows (2014 film) and (2019) show. They are both mockumentary comedies, but I think they're really good and very humorous. The characters are more fitting to classic vampire stereotypes but I think that's what makes it more enjoyable

Interview with a Vampire (1994), I also strongly recommend the book written by Anne Rice. Although I am not the biggest Tom Cruise fan, he is how I pictured Lestat

Van Helsing (2004) Focuses more on Hugh Jackman and hunting vampires, I loved how the vampires were portrayed in this film

Castlevania (2017) people are usually hesitant when I recommend this one because it is an anime, but Castlevania is one of the franchises that really sucked me into vampires. Gothic Horror/Literature is such a perfect mix with vampires, especially when religious elements are tied in as well.

If you want something more in the 'teen romance' part, I suggest *The Vampire Diaries (*TVD), it is a bit dated, and it is one of those 'love it or hate it' series. But I think if given the chance you could potentially really like it. It obviously has a little more than romance, but the main love triangle was what I was there for. (you could also watch the spin-off series called The Originals, I preferred this one a little bit more especially if you wish to know more about the originals )

I also really recommend looking at the suggestions on this article, if you are looking for vampire romance films that AREN'T Twilight (no judgement on those who enjoy the series, I enjoyed it when I was younger, I just don't really have the same feelings towards it now)

If you want more recent films:

Midnight Mass (2021) This series was a little bit scarier than the other ones I have recommended (I didn't know if you had any limits so I thought I would lay this one out here). But it also falls under a Gothic horror in a way, like I said before when I suggested Castlevania, Religion, gothic horror, and vampires are such a good mix, and you can really see it shine in this series

Dracula (2020) I love retellings or Bram Stokers Dracula (if you have not read the book or know much of Vlad the Impaler, I strongly recommend doing a little deep dive on him). This retelling was a lot more modern and I really loved Claes Bang's acting, I am such a stickler for Dracula's because imo Christopher Lee will always be number 1.

**Note: I did not recommend Christopher Lee's Dracula Films because they are a little older, and I know that some people do not have the patience for older films. However I will be happy to Link them here**

The Invitation (2022) Although I didn't really enjoy this film as much as I hoped I would, I still am going to put it down because I know some people really did like it. It is a bit of a build up, but I don't want to spoil it for you

I hope that some of these recommendations you enjoy, I saw some of the other recommendations on here and they are all so good. Personally I think a big plus in the Vampire community/genre is that there are so many interpretations of vampires and there are so many forms in media that you can really dip your toes into all of it and pick and choose what you like from the batch. I hope you look into a bunch and Happy hunting !

[witcherhomeinspector]

anatomy of a ""true"" scary story

1. the needlessly detailed intro. explains too much about the characters, their motivations, their beliefs/expectations, and why they end up in the setting they do. each character is perfect for the role they will play in the story, and they never do anything unexpected or out-of-character unless it furthers the evidence in an extremely obvious way.

(e.g., "mandy was always the most level-headed and skeptical of us, so why was she the most scared by the lights in the sky? it must be because she had finally seen something her logical mind couldn't explain away with facts and reason - like a real UFO.")

2. the blatant ethos-building. attempts to build up the narrator as knowledgeable, reliable, and objective. often cites hunting/camping/military experience, stresses how much of a skeptic they are/were, and usually finishes up with some sort of claim about how they know "everything there is to know" about a certain field or location. writer assumes that everyone who reads the story will have the same degree of knowledge that they have and so will trust their narrator's expertise, which becomes apparent when the evidence they describe and the conclusions they come to are inconsistent or just plain factually incorrect.

(e.g., "trust me, I've been hunting in these woods since I was seven, and I know all of the animals that live around here. none of them have orange eye-shine, let alone orange eye-shine nine feet off the ground." <- has apparently never heard of owls sitting in branches, despite having perfectly described the call of a screech owl earlier as part of the "evidence")

3. the purely emotional foreshadowing. insists that narrator or others around them "had a bad feeling" or "sensed a dark energy" in the place where the main action would later take place. rational reasons for unease either excluded or dismissed as unrelated.

(e.g., "we all had a weird feeling about being inside this old abandoned building. sure it was dark, moldy, rotting, and unsafe to be in, and sure we had spent years listening to stories about how often people got hurt or scared in here, and sure we heard noises that could easily be interpreted as signs of danger, but none of that explains why we all felt like something was watching us, or why we suddenly felt the icy grip of dread around our hearts.")

4. the stupid decisions that lead to the climax. often described ironically, as though the narrator is aware of their poor decision-making. the equivalent of comic book characters going "i know this isn't realistic, but just play along, okay?" may or may not be justified ("i know it was stupid, but i had to because ___"), but if so, justification usually over-reliant on ethos ("i'm a skeptic - I had to see for myself, because i wasn't going to believe it otherwise") or pathos ("my beloved dog who saved my life once ran towards the scary sound so i had to go after her").

5. the mimetic climax. the "encounter" with the allegedly paranormal thing is just a magazine-cuttings ransom note of things other people have said/written in other stories on similar topics. sometimes it's juiced up with wildly over-the-top detail such as gore, poetic imagery, or unlikely dialogue, but the bare bones default to the list of tried and true horror elements. talking about a voice-mimicking shape-shifter? describe the voice as "staticky" and "distorted." talking about aliens? check wikipedia for the most agreed-upon descriptions of "greys." talking about demons? put that shit on the ceiling and make sure it's scared away by christian imagery and prayer!

6. the convenient black-out. in attempting to build drama and suspense, the storyteller writes their narrator into an inescapable bind, or else runs out of steam and doesn't want to come up with a detailed detente. the narrator, often wracked with terror and sure of their impending demise, mercifully passes out from fear or exhaustion and wakes to find the danger is past. especially common in stories about demons, shadow-people, and aliens - this definitely doesn't coincide with how often elements of these stories mock or mimic real-life experiences with sleep paralysis, schizophrenia, hallucinations, and other neurological conditions.

(e.g., "the pure malevolence of the black shadow suffocated me, and i couldn't move, not even to close my eyes. my legs gave out beneath me, and i crumpled to the floor while the shadow moved towards me, bending over me and filling me with dread. then everything went black, and the next thing i knew, i was lying on the kitchen floor with sunlight streaming in through the windows, and the entity was gone. my whole body hurt, and i was exhausted, but i didn't feel afraid anymore, just confused and a bit fuzzy. i definitely did not just have a seizure, and was instead the victim of a psychic attack by some unknown entity. posting this here so that anyone else who definitely isn't having seizures can see that they are not alone and should take my experiences as a sign that the shadow realm is real and that anyone who wants you to see a doctor is gaslighting you and calling you crazy. i believe that you're having real visions of the shadow realm, even if no one else does <3")

7. the reifying lesson. the conclusion of the story affirms that all of the rumors, legends, tales, etc. that the narrator had originally disbelieved are, in fact, unassailably true. often involves the narrator sharing their experiences and having them confirmed by others, and stresses the long-term impact of the story's events. the narrator might be dogged by visions or memories of what they saw, or maybe they got a friend who conveniently specializes in the "occult" to give them an amulet or ritual to keep them safe. either way, the narrator now feels that it is their moral duty to share their story with as many people as possible in order to prevent others from making their same highly specific and easily avoidable mistakes.

bonus 1: stresses that the narrator and co. are the only people who could possibly be where they are. establishes isolation of location such that normal human activity could not possibly account for experiences, even though humans famously love to fuck with each other and are extremely good at it. "it made absolutely no sense that someone would be out in these woods at night, without a flashlight, so far from civilization, so who - or what - could be making that noise?" my brother in hypocrisy you are (purportedly) out in these woods at night, without a flashlight, so far from civilization, stomping through the undergrowth and making a ruckus.

bonus 2: inappropriately references or claims legitimacy through native american lore. a white lady successfully "smudges" a demon-infested house, or a conveniently appearing native character shares a sacred cultural artifact with a complete stranger who reports to have experienced something the native character solemnly identifies as a piece of their cultural heritage.

bonus 3: attempts to beef up an otherwise unremarkable story with the addition of Scary PeopleTM. Scary PeopleTM can include anyone who is walking, moving, acting, or talking in a way that the narrator does not consider "normal," and can also include people that the narrator doesn't think should be in this setting - such as people wearing certain clothing, people from a certain ethnic background, poor people, disabled people, and houseless/transient people. if these people are not outright described as "creepy," "inhuman," "possessed," or "unnatural," then they are posed as probable threats or perpetrators of violence, either against the narrator or against others, instead of just people who are living their lives and don't want to be harassed.

[thetypedwriter]

Summer Sons Book Review

Summer Sons Book Review by Lee Mandelo 

I was so excited for this one. 

It checks off almost everything I love: dark academia, troubled boys, southern Gothic, queer romance, and a murder mystery. 

What’s not to love?

Turns out there’s plenty. At the same time though, there’s a plethora I do adore. 

Summer Sons is a book by author Lee Mandelo that centers around a boy named Andrew, a 23-year-old student at Vanderbilt that is trying to prove that his best friend Eddie’s suicide is a murder. 

Bracketed by mysteries and engulfed by grief, Andrew inherits a house, a roommate, an estate, and more money than he knows what to do with. 

No matter what the authorities, the cops, or others say, Andrew refuses to believe Eddie’s wounds are self-inflicted. 

Eddie wouldn’t do that to him. Eddie wouldn’t leave Andrew. Which means the only plausible explanation is that Eddie’s so-called end is the work of someone else. 

The novel becomes a murder mystery. Andew is trying to seek out answers surrounding his best friend’s untimely demise while also struggling to stay afloat in his American Studies program and interrogate the supposed new friends that Eddie had made before he died. 

The premise hooked me right from the beginning, but the genre put a falter in my step.

The book is labeled as horror. 

As integral as the murder mystery element, there’s also a running plot point of Andrew and Eddie bonding over a traumatic childhood experience in which they fell into a sinkhole and were forever cursed after. 

Andrew is possessed and stalked by a haunt, a skeletal creature that now resembles Eddie and always leaves Andrew worse for wear. 

As Andrew is trying to solve Eddie’s murder, he’s also seeking answers about his own ghostly possession, the one that continues to tie Andrew and Eddie together beyond the grave. 

As someone who dislikes horror, I didn’t find this book very scary. If anything, the horror elements are actually the most well done bits of the story. 

Mandelo crafts suspense and anticipation well, and any time a haunt, possession, or nightmares ensued, Mandelo created a perfectly ominous tone that raised the hair on my arms in an enjoyable way. 

It was never so over the top that my cowardice made me close the book. I wouldn’t label this book as horror and that’s saying something for someone who considered Stranger Things too scary to watch. 

Gothic, certainly. Suspense and creepy, absolutely. Horror, however, is a little too strong for this particular novel. 

It’s always very evident when authors follow the writing advice of: write what you know. To some extent, I think Mandelo did just this and it shows beautifully. 

His interpretation of the South, of local folklore, and curses and bloodlines was by far the most detailed and well-written elements of the story. I loved these aspects and found them both original and compelling. 

It’s Mandelo’s characters I have issues with. 

Andrew as a main character is frustrating beyond belief. 

I know that he’s grieving. I understand he’s grappling with loss and huge life changes and mainly in denial. 

However, Andrew pushes every single person away that wants to help him and hardly changes. From beginning to end, Andrew is a very stagnant character. He’s apathetic, distrusting, closed-off, and quite honestly, just kind of a dick. 

Once again, I understand he’s going through a lot. However, he tells himself that he needs to get to know Eddie’s new friends from Vanderbilt, to infiltrate the group so to speak, and yet, when someone like Riley, Eddie’s old roommate and Andrew’s new one, tries to talk to Andrew, Andrew completely and utterly shuts him down. 

It’s frustrating as a reader to have a main character tell himself something over and over again and never act on it. 

Additionally, in a very Raven Cycle-esque influence, the book has street racing and lots of fancy cars like Hellcats and Supras. For Mandelo, Andrew street-racing with this new masculine “pack” is his way of bonding with the others. 

I’m sorry, but no. 

Racing cars is fine and having something in common to form a friendship is great. But it’s not a stand in for actual character and relationship progression. Without actually getting to know these other boys, Andrew simply races them, drinks with them, does drugs with them, and once gets into a fight at the pack leader’s house. 

That is the so-called bonding that we get as readers. 

The book is labeled as a slow-burn romance, but I would replace that label with a nonsensical-romance instead. Andrew and Sam (the pack leader and Riley’s cousin) have no discernible reason—as far as I could see—to actually like each other. 

Other than having a dick-measuring contest with their cars, they had no actual emotional or impactful conversations that left any kind of impression on me as a reader. The romance is stilted, shallow, and happened out of nowhere.

It’s almost like Mandelo was two-thirds the way through the book and realized that he wanted a queer awakening and made it happen. I wanted more from Andrew. I wanted more from all the relationships. 

The ingredients were there, but it was either cut short or the scenes that did take place weren’t utilized properly. 

I read this book in six days. Despite my complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The murder mystery is intriguing, the emotions and backstory are thought-provoking, and the writing is beautiful. Mandelo is an amazing writer. I fell in love with his diction, his cadence, and his descriptions. 

However, it also made this book disappointing because it could have been better. 

It’s like when you watch a good TV show and you feel bitter because it had all the elements to be great, but it was squandered (like any live-action movie ever made). 

Summer Sons has elements of that. It’s a great, compelling read with so much promise, but falls short of what I wanted. 

Recommendation: I was advertised that this book was a mash up between The Foxhole Court and The Raven Cycle. As an avid lover of both of these series, I say this advertisement is phooey. I see hints of how people could see a resemblance to The Raven Cycle, but Summer Sons is its own beast.

 If dark academia, car racing, and toxic masculinity seems like a mix you would like, Summer Sons should be your next paranormal thriller. If not, I would argue that there are better novels out there in each of those categories that will suit your needs better. 

Score: 7/10

[honeyrage]

independent, low activity  and  private  original  horror  character,  primarily  set  within  the  mag.nus  archives.  fandom  specific  and  crossover  verses  available,  including  other  horror  franchises.  mutuals only, non-mutuals  including  personals  and  minors  dni.  please  read  rules  prior  to  interacting. a study on the aftermath of a horror movie, acquired narcissism and what it means to be the final girl. created by honey ; twenty-eight, seasian, any pronouns. 21+ interactions only.

CARRD. PROMPTS. INTEREST CHECK. STARTER CALL.

specific notes:

i'm only interested in writing with mutuals  and in developing plots and worldbuilding. i put a lot of thought and work into faye, and want to show the same care into her dynamics with the people writing with them!

i will not romantically ship faye with muses that use the other members of twice as faceclaims, whether currently or as past romantic connections. friendships are free game, however. i also won’t be shipping them with muses using yuta nakamoto, as i have fancasted him as their twin. please respect this!

i will not be following solo blogs that use minatozaki sana as a faceclaim. this is just a precaution. respectfully, just because we use the same faceclaim doesn’t mean we can share headcanons.

faye is one of five survivors of the a ser!al k!lling. i have left them open to interpretation, with only vague mentions of how they play into the story and their relationship to faye. if you are interested in picking one of them up, i would be more than happy to listen to your ideas! let’s build a little world together ♡

though faye’s verses are largely based in the thriller and slasher genre, they do have some verses not involving these elements. these are predominantly set before or after their near death, or in alternate universes.

please keep in mind that i do not intend to romanticize or water down what faye goes through, or how they cope afterwards. the final girl trope has always been a favorite of mine, and something i have always wanted to explore. if the slasher genre is not something you enjoy, i suggest considering not following.

outside of what happens to her, faye is an imperfect person, their own issues even before this happens to them. they are occasionally prone to toxic behavior, withholding information both from friends and romantic partners, among other things. please note that any of these themes may be discussed, but tagged accordingly. i will of course, not push your boundaries on this. if a topic discussed on this blog is not something you are comfortable with, i will never approach you with it.

that being said, feel free to blacklist infidelity cw (for one of the threads here), violence tw and usfw specifically.

no taboo or dead dove plots will be written on this blog. keep that shit far away from me.

this is not a krp blog, and no krp blogs are welcome here. i do NOT count using asian fcs as krp. i do however, hold the right to withhold my following at any time whether or not you use the krp tags and what not.

DISCLAIMER: faye’s storyline is inspired by, obviously, the slasher genre. specifically by scream, netflix’s you, and the final girl trope. all headcanons, writing and edits however, are mine as are the specific elements in her main verse. do not steal anything from this blog. do not take inspiration, do not saving anything, do not use my headcanons without my expressed permission. also keep in mind mun ≠ muse. i don’t condone her actions, do not take them as mine.

[kae-karo]

3, 9, 14, 20 for fic asks!!!

jack jack jack !!!!!! hihi thank u !!!! for context (x)

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

ohhhhhhh god um okay. slkdjfklsdjf. does the mall au count?? lmao no but really i think my fave fics tend to mostly be the ones that i've put a lot of my heart into? and usually those are ones where i got to play around with tons of different dynamics within the realm of one story - so right now, probably kaeya and the huge bread (x) would be up there as a fave!!

9. Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written!

pretty much daily !!! every now and then i have a day (or two or three) where i just need a break or i have too much to do work-wise to make it happen, but with not playing genshin so much lately, i usually spend at least a little time at night every night writing if nothing else!

funny enough i actually haven't written anything today (yet) so here's a lil tidbit from yesterday:

Long limbs extend from the dark archway first, ending in claw-tipped hands and undeniably vicious. They dig into the carpet as a head emerges, and one glance- one glance, and Ranze might be in love.

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

i'm just rolling back through my discography and picking more than one lmao and i think but i'm losing blood and you're warm (x) could be a fun one done as a comic, i think it'd be really cool to have some of the horror elements translated visually!!

i could also see good directions (x) being a fun one to see turned into a music vid of the actual song it's based on lmaooooo

closer to heaven than you'll ever know (x) is another that i think would do well adapted as a comic? i think some of the imagery like the gold threads could be really fun to see visual interpretations of

OH my love is the killing kind (x) would also be a very fun one to see done as like. an animation of sorts maybe? it strikes me as like. a fun one to see the action scenes play out

i would literally commit crimes to see my king of disaster series (x) turned into some kind of film lmao that one has always held a place near and dear to my heart

i'm not sure this one would translate well as a whole to a visual medium BUT i would love to see just one scene from dancing after death (x) comic'd i think? cause the fact that blue flames burn hotter than cremation flames do is...a very interesting concept

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

unironically one of the funniest titles i've done is ragnvindr? i barely know her! (x) which is not at all a comedic fic in spite of the title lmao.

i'm also partial to kaeya and the huge bread which came from rose misreading a line in another fic i'd been writing at the time ("kaeya with his heart bared" was the line iirc)

laksjdflksdfj i forgot i liked don't want to say goodnight (x,x) as a fic title so much i accidentally used it twice lmao

most of my titles come from song lyrics that i really liked so a lot of them are like. already ones i like a lot? but the days are so short, and you are so lovely (x) is always a personal fave just cause it's such an evocative phrase i think

[send fic asks from this list!]

[child-of-hurin]

I've been watching a lot of Rite of Spring vids on youtube, and since today is the Equinox of Spring, a date I only learned to appreciate after moving to the American Midwest, I decided to make a little selection of performances of the Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One with my impressions :D

A little context: it is well-known that this ballet, choreographed in 1913 by the legendary Nijinsky, was a tremendous flop at the time. While Stravinsky's musical score continued to be played and studied (it was even used in Walt Disney's Fantasia, in 1940), the choreography was lost and the ballet never performed again... Until 1987, when dance historian Millicent Hodson led a research project with the Joffrey Ballet company to reconstruct Nijinsky's ballet. The fruit of that project was a choreography subsequently performed by many ballet companies around the world. Many of those performances are available on YouTube nowadays, and there are even fan channels dedicated to documenting and uploading as much material as they can.

The last act of this short ballet is a solo dance called "The Sacrificial Dance (of the Chosen One)", where a young girl dances to death. When I watch that part I always think the three main elements are: fear, anger, and devotion.

The solo dance below, with the ballerina Beatriz Rodriguez, is from the first performance of the reconstructed ballet in 1987. In my opinion, out of all the performances I have had access to, this is the one that makes me think of fear the most. She looks terrified. Sometimes she opens her mouth like she's screaming or wailing, which not many other dancers do -- look at 03:58, she's the only one who does that, or her grimace at 03:48. She sells the exhaustion and horror like no other dancer I've seen so far, and she set the tone for all the ballerinas that came after her.

This performance by Gaia Straccamore, in 2001, is the one that has always seemed like the angriest to me. It's always very interesting to compare and notice the changes: I think maybe it's because she is so tall, and her form so controlled -- notice her movements are sharper than Beatriz's, her arms and legs straighter, look at the way she covers her face and pushes it back at 00:24, or how far down she goes to gather the fist she shakes at the sky. To me, she looks as furious as she is afraid, cursing her fate. It even makes me see a slightly different meaning in certain steps of the dance. This might also be my personal favorite performance to watch.

Finally, I think there is an air of solemnity and earnestness in this performance by Marie-Claude Pietragalla, given in 1989, that makes me think that this Chosen One, between the terror and rebellion, is genuinely trying. Her gestures and face during the jumps at 02:50 make me think she is not just being overpowered by the religiousness of the rite against her will, like the other ones, but like she's pleading, or praying (for it to end? for her to be able to give herself away?). Being honest, this is not my favorite interpretation, but it was the first version of this dance that made me feel this way, and I think it's striking.

And a personal favorite as a bonus: Margarita Simonova. I'm putting this one here because I really like the performance, and also because I think the poor quality of the video gives it a very interesting effect lol. She's a sacrifice for the Sun god; there she is, shining blindingly in the darkness as she dances in his honor. I think it looks cool, especially at around 4:30 when the sky turns red and she starts moving so fast she leaves a specter of light behind, accidentally gorgeous. I also really like her sense of rhythm and some stuff she is doing with her body: the way she interprets the step at 03:25 is unique as far as I can tell, and gives it a slightly different meaning, IMO. I think some of her choices, like her upturned face as the punches the ground at 03:08, or how she changes the step at 0:36 so that she is not shaking a fist up at the sky like the others are, make me read 'devotion' or a similar religious feeling.

Those are some of the performances that strike me the most, but you can see many others, as well as the full ballet and short documentaries, on YouTube for free. I'll leave you with a thematic YouTube playlist, in case you're interested:

For those who made it this far, thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful spring or autumn depending on where in the world you are :)

[thetaoofbetty]

Bad take being dropped right about now:

Am I the only one that’s more concerned with Jabitha than Barchie? BA is a hot ass mess and it won’t last but I get the feeling that they are trying to set Jabitha up long term? Everyone keeps talking about how perfect Tab is and how cute they are together. I feel like RAS REALLY wants us to like them and maybe that is for a reason like they are sticking around for awhile? Am I overthinking this? I have trust issues because of these writers sorry😭.

i say this with love (and exhaustion because work has kicked my ass for the last few weeks):

if everyone else isn't quite right, what makes anyone think that certain characters are going to escape it?

putting the rest under the cut:

tabitha being called perfect is...a tragedy, tbh. because it means she's been given no discernible flaws that create depth of character. people always amuse me with their fascination of background or side characters who they proclaim to be babies who are perfect and have never done anything wrong because those characters are easily self-insertable real estate but generally pretty boring if you take away all of fandom's projections of who people decided they are.

honestly, that the allusion of innocence and lack of flaws have made some perceive her to be jughead's perfect match is really gross to me but i don't think anyone wants to examine what they're implying with that when they do that.

(watch all the people who harassed me for months suddenly try and walk back all the ways they called her perfect for him based on her character being in service to his storylines in s5 in my inbox now)

also, we see that they're fighting at some point and that not everything is perfect so there's that. will it be as bonkers as the rest of them (veronica seems like her choices will be bad? dangerous? morally reprehensible? unknown)? i don't know.

all we know for sure is that it's not riverdale, it's rivervale, there's a horror element, and that anytime anyone says everything is as it should be, it's nothing like it's going to be in the end. i don't think assuming anything for the next 5 episodes is going to do anyone any good.

and, to be fair, always consider the source. and interpretation of the moment isn't a sum of the whole.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[middlenamesage]

Black Moon Lilith and Lilith the Character Archetype: My Reflections Coming out of Black Moon Lilith Conjunct the North Node

Following the astrological transits, both the collective and my personal, I have for a while noticed that when Black Moon Lilith is at play, it’s really hard for this to go unnoticed in my life. I always could sense this energy, I knew what it felt like, but used to find it hard to describe, or at least to dissect enough to understand with any valuable meaning.

Physically speaking, the astronomical point known in astrology as Black Moon Lilith is the point along the Moon’s orbit that is farthest from Earth (the lunar apogee), a point that changes position in the zodiac along with the changing orbit of the moon. To me it makes sense this point can be so potentially relevant to us, as all living beings are very much guided by the Moon, who keeps us in connection with each other. Out where the Black Moon is, in this metaphorical place of exile, it’s more of an “every man (or woman!) for himself!” vibe. Lilith is very much about the instinct of self preservation. It’s about resisting control or exploitation by others (and/or internalizing its effects). Often the two occur together as two faces of the same trauma. Black Moon Lilith represents the areas where life has taught us that we absolutely must advocate for ourselves. However, she can also bring shame and denial of wants wherever she is placed, or transiting, because this is something that generally develops where we have been told or shown we can’t have something.

Black Moon Lilith is in fact named for Lilith in the old testament/Jewish folklore, and the way we have come to make sense of its effects (rather, its correlations to our lives) is in considerable measure inspired by this character, and her archetype- who has many interpretations. Lilith was Adam’s first wife, before Eve, who left his ass! She refused to lie beneath him during sex, saying they were created equal. I think we can interpret this metaphorically, of course, as resistance to being controlled in many potential terms… but also literally, as there is a focus of unconstrained sexuality concerning Lilith, which I have observed has some definite relevance to the Black Moon too, but is far from the only or even the most important way to understand it.

Various legends say that after fleeing Eden, Lilith went on to become a she-demon/succubus/baby kidnapper/baby killer/so on….. (those are just the accusations I’m recalling off the top of my head). But over these many years, Lilith has picked up many other story lines, provided inspiration for phenomena such as Black Moon Lilith, and gained many evolving faces and interpretations. Other than being a religious figure, and/or a she-demon, some of her contemporary associations include witchcraft/dark magic, creative renditions in fantasy and horror, gothic culture, and the biggest switch of all, her status as the first feminist.

As a potent force from the most distant shadows of the Moon’s reach, where connection to one another is compromised and we must turn to ourselves to defend our basic natures, I’ve found that Black Moon Lilith can have both positive correlations- such as going one’s own way where it truly benefits one’s life, putting one’s foot down to mistreatment, and stepping into one’s personal power- and negative correlations such as pushing away and/or disregarding other people, general concern with defending one’s own initiatives, to the point where it is premature or anti-productive, and the shame, denial and/or rage that many have developed from being disallowed their power by others.

How we express Black Moon Lilith can be instigating healthy boundaries on one hand, and setting up unnecessary walls of defense on the other. It can be self respect on one hand, and self obsession/failure to consider others, on the other. It can be self protection on one hand, and self sabotage on the other. It can be shame and denial over who we really are/what we really want on one hand, and it can be where we liberate ourselves from shame on the other. Very often, it seems to dole out as a complicated mix of both the “bad” and the “good”.

It used to be that reflecting on my own experiences, despite my fascination with it, there was very little “good” I saw about the Black Moon’s correlations in my life. I came to associate the energy of Black Moon Lilith with a few of my “trauma responses” that have caused me to sabotage relationships. I felt she had helped me stand up for myself/walk away from people a few times when I actually needed to, but for the most part, she seemed to just make me quick to unconsciously wreck budding relationships, reject others, put up lots of walls, or not want to cooperate/compromise with others- even though this was also betraying my own desires deep down to be close with others. My natal Lilith is in Libra in my 7th house, so the relational element of her is especially relevant.

I think that this Black Moon wound of mine in the realm of partnerships has several big origins/perpetuators I can site, but one of the first and biggest that I can consciously analyze, is having internalized the messages I was told by a parent growing up (not necessarily said in as blunt of terms as I received them) that no one would ever want to be with me because I am too difficult to live with. (I was also shown this when my parents sent me elsewhere to live.) Internalizing this message about myself stripped away my personal power when it comes to partnerships. For so long I approached all relationships assuming they were damned to end before they ever got too serious (something I still do struggle with), and I long believed, a belief that at some times was not as much conscious as it was confirmed with my deeply engrained unconscious behaviors of sabotage, that a ‘true’ and committed relationship is simply something I can’t have. This long internalized belief has given rise to many of my independent behaviors in relationships... both in destructive ways that compromise my connection with others and/or alienate them, and in positive senses that protect my individuality and self respect.

Here’s the thing. I was never wrong to see my trauma responses in the force of Black Moon Lilith. Black Moon Lilith and Lilith the archetype are in fact rooted in trauma. We mustn’t trivialize that part. The defense mechanisms, rage, shame, denial, sabotage, the desire to leave people and things behind, and the general mechanisms for self-preservation which can accompany Lilith stem from instances where we have felt held down, lead to believe we don’t have power, mistreated, and in some cases even horribly abused/violated. But the reality of Black Moon Lilith’s painful origins does not make it all a bad thing! It can be a very empowering thing potentially, because where we are hurt is also where we can find the avenues for healing, and for gaining acceptance of our most authentic self and desires. And there is a very good reason we develop many of these less than savory reactions from traumatic experiences and messaging. Lilith teaches us to recognize our boundaries, and to reclaim the personal power that once was lost! - even if at times we may run too far with these prerogatives in stubborn quests for independence and personal autonomy wherever she resides.

Though I have been fascinated by and intent to ponder Black Moon Lilith for probably over a year now, my reflections on it, and later on the character Lilith for which the lunar apogee is named, have really gained a lot of new ground during this last month+ of Black Moon Lilith’s conjunction to the North Node. (Which is currently separating, but still in effect.) The Lunar North Node is another very important point in relation to the Moon’s orbit, which shows the path forward. Black Moon Lilith with the North Node in Gemini has proven too be so ripe with many new experiences for me to learn about Lilith. It’s hard to say if anything has actually changed about my relationship with Lilith, or if I am just starting to see more of the positive in her that was always there, instead of just noticing and perpetuating the glaring negative. Also, I decided it was about time to accept Lilith as a part of who I am. I can’t deny the power the associated energies and the archetype has had on my life, so I might as well embrace it- both the good parts and the parts that are a work in progress. (And that is the story of my new little stud earrings with the Black Moon Lilith symbol!)

One aspect of my relationship with Lilith that I think actually has started to bloom forth in more of a clear-cut positive way with this Lilith-North Node transit, is finding the power to actively and productively embrace a part of myself, via finding/claiming opportunities to keep cultivating this part, even though it’s meant having to disregard my reservations, and even fighting through some shame. I can see now that there is a whole world of great personal empowerment to be tapped into with Lilith, and not just in the ability to leave people behind. (But of course leaving people behind is one means she’ll employ, if it is necessary for stepping into her power!)

I have always seen myself as a writer. It’s not even by choice, and a great deal of the time, for a very long time, I have really resented this natural compulsion of mine. You see, I have a deeply complicated relationship with writing, one that undoubtedly needs some healing. Well, this Black Moon Lilith/North Node conjunction in Gemini, moving through my 3rd house of communications (and as I only found out the other day, also conjunct my natal White Moon Selena, i.e. the lunar perigee/polarity to Black Moon Lilith) ended up bringing me my first opportunities ever getting paid to write… something I guess I just used to assume I couldn’t do, due to my lack of a college degree, as well as the difficult relationship with writing and my paralyzing perfectionism. But with this transit, I placed aside my assumptions of what wasn’t possible for me, and I have some hope now that accepting the opportunity to write for other people, on subjects that generally don’t even mean anything to myself, may just turn out to be the good dose of objectivity needed to help restore some healing to my writing relationship.

Once again, where you’ll find the wounds in your relationship with your personal power, is also where you’ll find how to heal them, and use them to empower yourself and others- and that healing is really what Black Moon Lilith conjunct the North Node has been trying to facilitate for us all. Of course, the process is basically never straightforward and easy, nor all enjoyable. This transit has brought a wide range of Lilith experiences in my life to comment upon.

Some other occurrences have been: abruptly ending an extended off and on relationship with someone where there was always a good deal of power struggle (and would have been power imbalance if I had not stood my ground in a lot of instances), unconsciously driving away or creating distance with a few friends, being consciously and stubbornly persistent in putting more distance between myself and my family than ever before, and facing a couple situations providing awkward trial and error experiments in how I communicate my dissatisfaction to others who wronged me. But I know that all of these experiences are helping me to evolve, and to better understand my responses which stem from wounds that have set into me with the nature of Black Moon Lilith.

And I marvel at the fact that millions of other humans have also been going through experiences which are forcing them to confront and/or evolve their own instincts and behaviors associated with the Black Moon, whether they realize it or not.

Lilith says, “These are my boundaries[or conditions]. You will respect them, or I am outta here.” She says, ‘I know what I am capable of, so I’m gonna fight for it- even if I have to shut out other people.” The placement of our natal Black Moon Lilith shows a prominent area where power has been stolen from us, whether through physical or psychological means (and where the Black Moon is transiting can bring up these issues in other areas, as well). Lilith develops from a wound, and her determination to not feel the powerlessness again can serve as either the healing or the perpetuation of it.

* * * * * * * * * * *

P.S.

For any astro heads reading this with this knowledge of their birth chart, I welcome you to comment or reflect on where 5° Gemini falls in your chart. This is where the (currently separating) conjunction of Black Moon Lilith and the North Node occurred, so the house in your natal chart where it’s transiting, and any natal placements that may be in aspect to this point, especially conjunctions and oppositions, may be able to show where/how you have embodied or encountered Black Moon Lilith energy in recent times.

NOTE :

If anyone is wondering which “Lilith” in astrology I have been referring to, since it is a fairly infamous fact that there are actually 4 things bearing this name in astrology… I have for the most part only followed the mean calculation of Black Moon Lilith (and with Black Moon Lilith’s conjunction to the North Node, mean Lilith is what I’m referring to).

There is also Osculating Black Moon Lilith (aka True Lilith), which is a different calculation of the same concept I have discussed with Black Moon Lilith. A calculation that is actually technically more precise about the moon’s orbit, for the moment that it is taken, as the lunar apogee technically jumps around a little bit a whole lot… yet I have personally found Mean Lilith to be more worth following, especially when following collective transits, if trying to examine the effects of something lingering over an extended period of time, or if conceptualizing Black Moon Lilith’s cycles throughout the entire zodiac. I don’t doubt that the calculation of osculating Black Moon Lilith (which often is not too far from the mean calculation) has a lot of validity to it too though, perhaps especially for natal chart interpretations, and progressions.

As for the other two Liliths, there is the asteroid Lilith- but that is named for a French composer, not the Lilith archetype as we know her. Not saying it isn’t something worth looking into, it just hasn’t been a point of focus for me. And lastly, there is Dark Moon Lilith (aka Waldemath Moon), which is said to be a dark body of unknown origin revolving around the Earth- but there is a lot of debate as to whether it actually exists. I don’t have an opinion one way or another, and I haven’t followed it in transits. However, its placement in my natal chart, with an opposition to Black Moon Lilith for one, does peak my interest.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Cinderella (Spoilers)

Disclaimer: I am posting this review the day after the movie airs on Amazon Prime, so if you haven't yet seen it don't read on until you do.

General Reaction:

It is slightly weird to think of another movie studio taking on one of the classic fairy-tales that isn't Disney, because, as I am sure is the case for a large portion of the mainstream audience, Disney have almost claimed fairytale adaptations as their own.

However, as identified, Cinderella, is a fairy tale and one created long before Disney came about. As such, other studios are allowed to put across their own interpretation of these classic stories that we have seen a lot of times adapted at this point.

That being said, we have seen many different adaptations of Cinderella at this point from the classis Disney Animation version and it's live-action counterpart, to modern-day reworkings like A Cinderella Story of the mid-noughties starring Hilary Duff.

It's quite an easy story to tell and adapt to a variety of different settings, and what this 2021 retelling does with the story blends the old-fashioned with the modern. Does that mean it is set apart from the others? Well in my opinion yes and no.

While this is a Sony movie, it plays a lot like a Disney Channel Original Movie. From the comedy to the settings to the costuming and the music, it plays like the best of those types of movies. I'm talking the High School Musical franchise and the Descendants franchise. It is by no means bad or corny, but it isn't even on the level of the 2016 live-action Cinderella.

While that version was pretty much a straightforward live-action version of the original animated version, the style of the movie outweighed the substance.

Here however, there is a great blend of both style and substance. The story takes the classic elements of the original Cinderella fairy tale but tries to inject a modern and feministic twist that the recent live-action Beauty and the Beast tried to do.

In terms of whether this version of Cinderella stands out in the crowd of Cinderella movies, I would say it does. Not only is the titular character race-bent and the setting she is in seemingly plays into that, but the reworking of the Fairy Godmother as the Fab G as well as giving the Stepmother a more humanised backstory allows for a more compelling take on a classic.

Cast:

Because this is just the one all-in review I'm not going to do an in-depth character analysis and instead group the characters as who were my favourites, who did a passable job, who was bad and who were for some reason just there.

Favourites:

I have a top 3/4 favourite characters in this movie. Idina Menzel's Stepmother Vivian, Billy Porter's Fab G, Minnie Driver's Queen Beatrice and additionally Beverly Knight's Queen Tatiana.

Idina Menzel was always going to be fantastic in this movie, but to see her portray what is traditionally the villain character in the movie as a sympathetic character as part of the movie's feminist agenda was an interesting twist. No cat for a start, I don't know if Lucifer was a part of the original fairy tale but of course in the Disney adaptations Lady Tremaine is always accompanied by her faithful feline, but also the fact that her backstory parallels Ella's current story and the fact Vivian was so willing to have Ella reject her passion to do what is expected of her just as was forced on her was actually great motivation.

In truth I have only ever seen Billy Porter in one other thing aside from this movie and that was American Horror Story: Apocalypse. I have never seen Pose though I have heard good things, but from what I understand, Billy Porter only really has one speed. However, as the character's name states, that speed is fabulous. I loved Fab G in this movie, the fairy godmother is usually one of my favourite characters in the movie and every interpretation I have seen has brought something different and memorable. If this version of Cinderella is remembered for anything it will be for this very modernised take on the Fairy Godmother, not only gender-bending and race-bending a traditionally white female character, but with Porter choosing to make the character non-binary and that outfit speaks for itself, Fab G was simply a fabulous character.

In both Disney adaptations, I have never heard mention or reference to Prince Charming having a living mother...or a dead one for that matter. So to not only have the Queen being in a chunk of this movie, but also having her own story branch tying into the feminist agenda running through the movie and being portrayed by Minnie Driver, I was in love with this character.

Pretty much similar to the Fab G, if you've seen Beverly Knight's one second in the trailers you've pretty much seen her in the movie. She contributes to Ella's story in the movie and only appears in the latter half of the movie in 2 maybe 3 scenes but she makes an impact because she's Beverly Knight. My only gripe with her is she does not sing in the movie, you have Beverly Knight with not even a solo in a group number?

Passable:

Unfortunately the star of the movie Camilla Cabello is just passable in this movie as Cinderella. She does have some humour about her and her singing is great despite maybe being autotuned because I know how she can sing, but she doesn't feel like Cinderella to me, it actually feels more like a version of what Emma Watson was doing with Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast rather than Cinderella but at least she tried.

As for Nicholas Galitzine, he's definitely more engaging as a modern-day Prince Charming, Robert is definitely more engaging a character than Ella unfortunately, which to be fair is still good as the 2015 Cinderella is the only other adaptation to really make the Prince interesting, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly which movie it is but there is another movie I have seen where the Prince Regent doesn't want to be king but the Princess does and has to fight for her right to be it...that's pretty much this story for them.

Also Pierce Brosnan as the King, despite jokingly singing towards the end, did a great job at being the archetype of old-fashioned values with his on-screen wife Minnie Driver's queen pushing him into a modern-day thinking.

Bad:

As for who's bad, I have to say it pains but the British comic relief characters really let the side down in this movie.

In the three mice defence, Romesh Ranganathan and James Acaster are somewhat funny but unnecessary. James Corden however is abismal in this movie. I get he produces it, but particularly after Cats I do not understand 1) Why he'd want to portray another CG animal or 2) Ever think that one shot of him changing back from human to mouse with his head on a mouse body was funny...it was terrifying.

Also this movie is supposedly a family-audience movie...so why include a crass joke of Corden's character talking about peeing out of his front tail?

Additionally to the three mice, Rob Beckett has a surprising role in this movie as a potential suitor for Vivian's daughters, but he simply portrays such a creepy, cringe-worthy character it's almost uncomfortable to watch.

New Additions:

So as well as the two queens and the British comic relief there is also the addition of Princess Gwen to the movie who is the sister of the Prince and the one who wants to be ruler. It's kind of the same story as Jasmine's in the live-action Aladdin as wanting to be Sultan but being a woman isn't taken seriously, however here it is treated more comedically as every time there is a serious moment with the King trying to force Robert to grow up and be King, she always tries to interject with "Would this be a bad time to tell you about an actual real reason why I would be a good ruler" and they make sense but she's always dismissed until the very end.

Then there's a town crier, who is also inserted as a musical number while he's reading his proclamations but as a rap. Honestly I don't know Doc Brown as an artist but I did happen to enjoy what he contributed.

Music:

Which brings us on nicely to the music of the movie as this is a musical and I usually break down the songs. Again this time I will be doing groupings of best to worse.

Honestly my favourite number is probably "Shining Star" mostly performed by Billy Porter with verses by Camilla Cabello and, unfortunately, James Corden.

I also enjoyed the two original songs of the movie, "Million to One" which is Cabello's "I Want" song of the movie and used a lot through the movie, and then also "Dream Girl" which is Idina's main other song but also sung by basically the women of the movie, it's Idina Menzel if you don't give her an original song it's an insult.

Idina's other song is a cover of "Material Girl" and honestly it is a lot of fun, Nicholas Galitzine's rendition of "Somebody to Love" was also fun and surprising as I did not think this guy could sing that well.

The group numbers were fun and well choreographed but they are also somewhat forgettable. The song at the ball of "Whatta Man/Seven Nation Army" was probably the most memorable but still just mediocre.

Recommendation:

So with all that said, would I recommend watching Sony's Cinderella? Honestly I would say it is worth at least one viewing, and I do recommend watching all the way through just to get the full experience. I do think it will do better as a streaming movie than it would have done as a theatrical release, but I cannot pinpoint a market for this movie.

I don't think this will go down as one of the great adaptations, but there are moments and aspects of the movie that sets it apart from the crowd.

Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, it's not as fantastic as I feel the trailers were making it out to be, but having seen the movie twice there are definitely elements of the movie I looked forward to watching the second time around.

So that's my review of Sony's Cinderella, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[agentnico]

No Time To Die (2021) Review

I swear this movie came out 2 years ago?... Okay, yes, I agree, that was a cheap gag, but look, the constant postponement of this film's release is in itself a joke! Finally though, it is here.

Plot: James Bond is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica after leaving active service. However, his peace is short-lived as his old CIA friend, Felix Leiter, shows up and asks for help.

“I’d rather slash my wrists.” Those were the words spoken by actor Daniel Craig in 2015 for a Time Out magazine interview prior to the release of Spectre. Seemingly it felt as if Craig was done with his signature role as famed British spy James Bond, however be as it may have been, MGM managed to sway away Craig’s suicidal thoughts and cut him a cheque with a sum he simply couldn’t refuse and have him return for a proper final outing. Hollywood business at it’s finest, ladies and gentlemen! But the question is posed, was there a need for another Craig/Bond film? For the previous instalment Spectre was such a let-down that it left a sour taste, or at least I think it did. Honestly, I don’t really remember much of what happened in Spectre, it was such a shoulder-shrugging forgettable feature. The answer however is a positive one, for No Time To Die ends up being worth the wait. All this wait. Though I would’ve found it super amusing if this film came out and turned out to be an absolute stinker, as then everyone would just be sat there in the theatre wondering why the hell we’ve been waiting for this movie this entire time. But nope, it’s a good one.

No Time To Die really feels like a culmination of Daniel Craig’s time as James Bond. And with that merit this movie doesn’t actually feel like a James Bond film. Yes, it has the one-liners and the action set pieces and the typical tropes of a Bond film, however the focus here is very much more on Daniel Craig’s interpretation of the character, and how he managed to turn a weapon into a human. For James Bond at the end of the day was always a killing machine. License to kill and all that jazz was always at the centre of what made the character, however Craig’s take brought a lot of humanity and reality to what was a stereotype. And it’s shown more than ever in No Time To Die, with Daniel Craig delivering a performance of vast emotional gamut. His Bond experiences moments of general happiness and actual love (real love, not just his typical one-night stands he’s known for) to then fury and sadness. My fiancée jokingly made a remark at the beginning of this movie about how petty James Bond is acting in this movie. And I agreeably chuckled at first, for to be fair he was getting offended easily and taking everything so personally without giving it much thought, however the more the movie progressed, the more I understood why he was this way. It made him feel more human, and actually made me care for him. Additionally, the aforementioned element of love plays a big part in this film, for romance is truly at the heart of this one. Bond turns out to be a real loving sweetheart, and this all culminated in one hell of a finale, one that really surprised me with it’s emotional gut punch. Look, I see this film’s ending really dividing audiences as it’s not something you would typically expect from a James Bond movie, however I absolutely relished it and saw it as a perfect swan song for Daniel Craig.

The movie is long. In fact, it’s very long. In fact, it’s too long. It runs at nearly 3 hours and yes, there is a lot of story crammed into this but honestly there are many chunks that could have been cut down and the film would have benefitted from it. For the movie is very good, but it has chunks that drag which does cause the experience to be slightly diminished, however that being said, this is a very well directed movie. Cary Joji Fukunaga (who’s previous work I don’t know much of though I have seen his Netflix limited series Maniac with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone which I do recommend highly) exhibits some strong directing here, balancing moments of real tension using unsettling imagery with moments of levity and good character chemistry. Yes, he brings class and the right amount of epicness to the action sequences, but it was actually the quieter moments that I feel he really excelled at. The opening sequence is especially disturbing, with the way Fukunaga displays this lonely isolated house in the middle of snowy nowhere, and we see a mysterious figure creep towards it wearing a mask so creepy it reminded me of that freaky monkey mask from the horror thriller I See You. A shot from behind a sliding glass door I found especially unnerving. 

Performances across the board are all great. Daniel Craig I’ve already sing praise for, however others are to be mentioned also. Rami Malek manages to take a fairly lacklustre villain and present him in proper vile fashion. He’s truly unpleasant and horrible in this role, and I truly despised him which is what made him perfect for the role. That being said the actual character was weak. There wasn’t much meat to him so to speak. Typical Bond bad guy who wanted to see the world burn. Lea Seydoux returns as Bond’s love interest Madeleine and her chemistry with Craig is wonderful and I really enjoyed seeing her character develop more since the last movie. Returning from Spectre too is the villainous Blofeld played by Christoph Waltz, and though he isn’t in the movie much, I weirdly enjoyed him more this time around. In Spectre is was really forgettable and the script didn’t know what to do with him, whilst here is serves a specific purpose and we also get to enjoy a great scene with him in prison having a battle of wits with Bond. Real good stuff. We also have a couple of new Bond girls, with Lashana Lynch taking on the 007 mantle, and it was nice seeing a very different kind of spy in her. Her and Bond bicker quite a bit, however natural they become buddies and they are the better for it. And Lynch can be easily added to the list of powerful badass women on-screen. Ana de Armas also appears in what is a little Knives Out reunion, and unfortunately she’s only in the movie for one sequence, but it’s actually a great sequence with her putting a new spin on the Bond girl stereotype, bringing charm, swagger and humour and riffing off good banter with Craig. Shame we only see so little of her. The likes of Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes also return, and even Jeffrey Wright takes a break from pondering What If? scenarios to make a little comeback. 

No Time To Die definitely stands next to the better Daniel Craig Bond films alongside Casino Royale and Skyfall, and it’s a true culmination of all of them, whilst still managing to ignore and forget the existence of Quantum of Solace, which is good, because Quantum of Solace sucks and I can’t believe I even managed to bring it up again!! Regardless, what a way to send off Daniel Craig on a proper high, and really refreshing to actually witness a Bond movie that features feelings and emotions. In fact, it’s pure Valentine’s Day essential viewing, so mark your calendars for next year, as you now know what film you have to rewatch on February 14th 2021! 

Overall score: 8/10

[discotreque]

LwD 2.03: We’ll Always Have Tom Paris

I’ve lived in the same apartment for eight years now, and yesterday was the fifth catastrophic mechanical failure of the same bathroom toilet—all unrelated issues, too; this time it was the fill valve. At this point I don’t know whether to call a plumber or an exorcist… but anyway, it’s been kind of hard to focus on Star Trek! Ugh.

This week’s episode is credited to M. Willis, who I last encountered on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, a show about which I wrote literally 100,000 words of fanfic last year, in between Picard and Lower Decks when I had no Star Trek to obsess over. Willis’s She-Ra episodes tended to be slightly off-format in execution, with big action set pieces, lots of characters in unexpected combinations, and usually an emotional game-changer of a climax—and her last credit on this show was “Much Ado About Boimler,” which obviously had all those elements too. She writes to her strengths!

Spoilers within:

If you need me, I’m going to be ugly-laughing about “Voy” for the rest of the day. (Wow, that does actually save a ton of time!)

SHAXS IS BACKXS!!!! The lower-deckers never knowing how or why a senior officer came back from the dead is a perfect microcosm of this show. I love that he still calls Rutherford “Baby Bear,” and I love the weird cosmic horror that LwD keeps sprinkling into the Star Trek universe. (What does that koala know?) I hope this doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of Kayshon! His appearance on the bridge gives me hope we’ll get to keep both characters around.

Star Trek has always had fairly fuzzy world-building for the world outside Starfleet—understandable, since 99% of Star Trek takes place within Starfleet—but it’s been such a thrill to see LwD (and Picard) finally establish some in-universe pop culture that isn’t conveniently familiar to 20th- or 21st-century audiences. Like the Zebulon Sisters last season—a band that apparently does USO-style tours of Starfleet ships? Delightful. Kestra Troi-Riker having a t-shirt from a Sex Pistols cover band in Klingon? Fucking brilliant. Tendi bonding with the guy at the storage place over the “Klingon acid punk” playing from his little Bluetooth speaker? PUT IT IN MY VEINS.

They really put the character development in gear this week! I liked how we locked in a couple of things already established in extra-canonical material: Mariner’s bisexuality, which Mike McMahan mentioned in an interview last year, and Tendi’s given name, D’vana (which I was sure we’d heard on the show before, but I guess not?).

Speaking of Mariner’s love life, is human–Bynar dating just… by definition a threesome situation?

We learned a lot of new things about Tendi, though, and every single one makes her 10 times more interesting to me. Remember last season, when she said “many” Orions hadn’t been pirates or slavers “for over five years”? Is the implication that something happened in Orion culture—around the end of the Dominion War?—that led to Tendi (and presumably others) rejecting a life of crime and joining Starfleet? How long was she “the Mistress of Winter Constellations” before that—or is it more of an inherited title? I want more Tendi lore!!!!

(Speaking of Tendi’s life, another quick and confounding piece of information for my red-yarn “what the hell is up with Tendiford” theory board: Mariner asks if they’re dating and Tendi’s response is “Not really!” Not really? That’s not no, D’vana!)

This show continues to be a surprisingly conventional workplace sitcom underneath all the excellent Star Trek (and that’s not a bad thing, just a genre overlap that keeps falling out of the front of my mind). Boimler’s inability to use the computer hit way too close to home for me this week: a couple years ago, I returned to a job after a long-term leave of absence, during which time I’d been assigned to a new manager—who’d never had an employee return from long-term leave before, so he didn’t know what to do beforehand—so I spent my first day back just chilling at my desk, fucking around on my phone, because there was literally nothing else I could do without logging into the system first. Too real!

Something we’ve seen in this show that I’m not sure we’ve seen before w/r/t the food replicators is somebody putting a tray of food into the replicator to add more food on top of it—in this case Shaxs getting spicy kiwi ketchup (?!) on a hot dog he seems to have already replicated. (He couldn’t have asked for “hot dog, with spicy kiwi ketchup” in the first place? This is haunting me worse than him coming back from the dead.)

As a certified cat lady, the T’Ana plotline—and its resolution—made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe (unless that was the toxoplasmosis). I should have seen it coming, but I was too distracted by the second-hand embarrassment of them breaking “Jeremy” (and the completely unprecedented Star Trek plot of a doctor getting off on her grandmother’s family heirloom…).

Miscellany:

Jet offering to carry Boimler across the threshold of the door like a bride… am I going to ship THIS now?

Mariner interpreting Tendi’s “talk like a pirate!” in the same way a modern millennial would—“Arr, how ya be doin’ today, me fellow Orion?”—might have been my favourite dumb joke in the entire episode. (“I’m allergic to, uh, pheromones?”)

Tawny Newsome read the line about “only one name, like Odo!” in the script and apparently literally called Mike McMahan out of the blue to remind him that Odo’s name is short for “Odo’ital” and she didn’t want nitpicking nerds on her case. He told her the line was so funny he would accept the nitpicking, so don’t blame Tawny—she tried to warn him!

“There’s like, only a couple people in the quadrant who can say they got beat up by Tom Paris.” Is that a burn? I think that’s a burn.

Another banger of an episode. This show is more confident this season, and I’m loving it—and based on what I’ve heard from people who’ve seen the next two episodes, it only gets better from here. HYYYYYYYPE!!!!!!

See you next week—I’ve got to go fashion a toilet plunger into a crucifix, apparently.

[aotopmha]

Attack on Titan in 2020

I've sort of dropped doing detailed chapter posts on the series because that type of writing wasn't very fun for me anymore and I have taken a liking to a bullet point kind of approach where I list the elements that stood out for me in the chapter or make a separate post for some specific topic I'd like to talk about in it.

I've started like 10 different posts to attempt to talk about AoT this year and I always end up with incoherent rambling because of all of the elements I'd love to to talk about.

This year's chapters were 125-135 and this year's episodes episodes 1-4 of season 4.

The anime episodes in particular have given me a lot of food for thought, so I'm just saying fuck it.

I think the biggest misstep of the story for me will forever be the fact that it decided to use fairly specific historical imagery.

The Eldians are clearly supposed to have allegorical equivalency with Jewish people, but the Jewish people were never the oppressors. There weren't any Jewish empires. That's conspiracy theory bullshit.

But on the other hand, the series clearly takes great effort to not stereotype any of the groups it's portraying and gives complex reasons for what both sides do. It's one of the few Japanese series that I've seen not stereotype Middle Eastern-coded people (Ramzi and Halil) or black people (Onyakapon). Everyone are people, it says. It even champions diversity:

(Chapter 118)

It is also very much true that a bunch of fascist states use long-term history as an excuse for their actions:

(Chapter 127)

Nation did X 2000 years ago therefore our conquest of them is justified.

This makes discussion about the series' themes like a minefield.

The people who are very critical about its imagery are right, but the people defending the series aren't wrong, either because it condemns all of those nasty ideas of conquest and hurting innocent people.

You can't have a more clear-cut condemnation of genocide:

(Chapter 127)

If you combine all of these details instead of zoning in on them one by one, to me what the story is saying is that *even if* all of that conspiracy bullshit is true, innocent people don't deserve to be slaughtered no matter the reason because they are still people who have their own feelings, thoughts and wishes.

The story clearly gets the baseline, but fumbles the details. I decided to look up some more discussion surrounding this these past few days and I just wish there was more good faith discussion about it. A lot of it feels like a moral superiority contest.

I think it's these kind of flawed stories that actually deserve detailed scruitiny over stories that are rotten to the core because they are *almost there*. Talking about them is a good topic starter in what to do and not to do in a story like this.

Speaking of rotten to the core, I think the absolute highlight of the chapters this year is Eren and some of the chapters this year finally gave me a pretty clear picture of what is going on with him.

Context from 123 certainly helps, though:

(Chapter 131)

This is about Eren's perspective. He can't accept the destruction of Paradis.

It's not that this solution was inevitable looking in from the outside (which is one of the interpretations I see around for Eren's actions), it's that *Eren* can't see any other way out of this except the most extreme because of all of the horrible things he has seen from the outside world. It is very similar to the way suicidal people can only focus on the negative.

You can tell them everything is going to be okay, but those words won't reach them because their mind won't let them and loops them back to those negative thoughts.

Eren can't see the ice cream or silly clowns. But he can see how the other Eldians in the league of Eldians are willing to push Paradis under the bus. He can see how Grisha's sister was killed. He can see how racist and cruel Marley is towards the Eldians in Liberio (and how the people have racist leanings towards other nations, too).

He can only see those bad things. But he also understands how everyone outside of the walls are human just as the people inside of the walls are.

So he is torn to pieces by guilt.

He doesn't want to do this, but he can't see any other solution.

This is why I also think he can't rob his friends of their agency. He is fighting for them to have a good future:

(Chapter 133)

(Chapter 131)

What really stood out to me on a revisit is that Eren considers himself much worse than Reiner.

I've seen criticism on how the story pushes the narrative of both sides being the same and this detail is really important to me because this is the story acknowledging that what Eren is doing is worse and gives all of the following exchanges about this the context of it being a similarity in principle.

Both sides have killed for what they think is right and have to deal with how they have killed people. This is such an important detail in the Uprising arc, too, where Erwin firmly acknowledged that overthrowing the government might not actually be the right choice by him. It was simply what he saw as right. On a narrative level this avoids absolute truths and preference of one character perspective over the other and once again makes it about individual perspectives.

The theme of individual perspectives is so ingrained in this story at this point in my eyes that it's another cornerstone in understanding what is going on with Eren to me.

I think it's great.

I also really appreciate Annie and what was done with her in this chunk of chapters.

(Chapter 127)

There has been this narrative going around that proposes that the story is in Eren's corner too much. But these chapters are nothing but questioning Eren and Annie is one of the main voices in this. It's the Marleyan girls, really and I think this is a very necessary part of making the narrative work. Once again, it separates the narrative and character perspective.

It says that the Paradis side caring is about character perspective, not what the narrative sides with and Annie is even sympathetic to Mikasa in that instance.

She gets it. Unexpectedly, I think Annie might play a bigger role in taking down Eren than expected. Her character arc about deciding to no longer go with the flow because she doesn't want any more tragedy to happen is basically calling for it.

(Chapter 128)

Another element I've seen brought up is the fact that nobody seems to address the Bert-sized elephant in the room, but some of our characters are certainly thinking about him.

This is such a thematically strong element and really interesting because Connie joined the military to make his mom proud and be a good soldier. This is the motivation behind his claim when he says they are going to save the world. But what does becoming a good soldier mean, exactly?

Well, apparently possibly gunning down people you care about.

This moment is so good because it's another moment where the idea of glory in war is taken down a peg.

The moment with Connie declaring they're going to save the world is so often criticised, but it is actually turned on its head in 128. There is no heroics in this. This is actually Connie's big "killing a person" moment because it strips away the final bit of comfort in killing in war, the excuse of killing for good moral reasons.

It is also a wonderful complex evolution of the series' themes. Trost was about fighting monsters. In the Female Titan and Clash of Titan arcs some of those monsters turned out to be human. In the Uprising, Return to Shiganshina and Marley arcs all of those monsters turned out to be human and here in the War of Paradis arc, everyone is human and the only separating system is what everyone views as right.

I really hope the anime will let this chapter breathe a little bit more.

Moving on, I guess it is time to address the rumbling.

I love it as a horror spectacle.

(Chapter 130)

And I really I think it needs to be non-CG when animated. CG is fine in spectacle battles, but not in horror settings because it is too clean.

The rumbling needs to be disgusting and dirty.

Chapter 132 gave me one of the few moments in which I truly cared about Levi. I think him telling Hange to dedicate her heart was a very good moment to cap off their relationship. He sent another SL commander to fulfill their duty.

The speech about hatred in chapter 134 also stood out to me. I think it definitely should be fitted in there somewhere in this, but I also see a bunch of criticism for it.

I want to point out that this is the side of present Marley talking here. It's the military dictatorship.

It's the Nazis. I think the Nazis should feel regret for exploiting innocent people and admit they're wrong.

I also like how the horrors here are undoing the brainwashing and showing the truth to the citizens.

I guess you could read it as heavy-handed, but it is also something that needs to be addressed and in principle, it's not wrong.

I'm also going to put a mention of Historia here. I've talked about how this is my biggest and most glaring problem with the series because of how thematically unfitting it feels, but I've also talked about it in many posts. I wanted to focus more on other stuff in this post.

So now, we make it back to chapter 135.

I think having stewed on it for a month now, I like the element of mindscrewing our cast with the Titans of the people they love is the strongest element of it. It's making them face their personal traumas and we also get some great character moments and payoffs from it.

Mikasa ended off the year in a very good note in my eyes.

Even this deep in the story, this chapter left me in a situation where I have no idea how things might turn out.

I might have rough ideas, but not anything specific and that's fun.

Well, this is it on my retrospective.

2021 is confirmed to be AoT's final year of publication as volume 34 is set to be the story's final volume.

Those who hate the story can finally be free of it and those who care for it, can look back on it with fondness and sadness and many other emotions and evaluate.

It's been 7 years for me. What a wild ride.

So, I'm asking everyone, what are some of your observations on AoT in 2020?

Is there anything you'd like to add or do you have any observations or counterarguments for anything I've said?

I'd be curious to see what everyone else thought of AoT in 2020!

[no-gays-in-russia]

ESC 2022 reviews: Albania 🇦🇱

Entry: Sekret- Ronela Hajati. Language(s): Albanian, English. Overall score: 5.6/10.

Originally, my thoughts on the song were: it’s peculiar and it’s not really for me, but there are cool elements to it and I can respect it. After the revamp came out, these thoughts pretty much turned into: burn this shit down.

I don’t know why, but that seems to be the case for all revamps this year: they seem to make the song worse rather than better, exacerbating its worst elements and minimising the best- which is exactly what this revamp did.

Let’s start with what I do like about the song: from the very beginning, I thought the concept itself was peculiar and, at least theoretically, very promising, as it alternates ballad and uptempo sections. However, I felt like it wasn’t properly put into practice and this alternation, rather than giving the song variety and keeping up the listener’s attention, makes it quite chaotic. It’s like the song can’t decide what it is. 

However, I always found the ballad parts gorgeous, expecially the intro: it showcases how delicate Ronela’s voice can be, it’s well structured and properly builds up tension for the rest of the song, definitely the best part of it. You can therefore imagine my horror when I went to listen to the revamp and the intro had been significantly cut down. Since the progression of the intro paved the way for the rest of the song, I feel like now that that progression has been taken out the whole song struggles to hold up, and the beginning in particular feels a lot more random and weaker.

Speaking of the lyrics, of course most Eurovision fans, including myself, can’t understand them, as they’re mostly in Albanian; which I am glad for, because I’ve looked up the translation and they’re not the best. In this sense, I feel like it was very smart what they did for the Festivali I Kenges finale: only a few lines in the chorus were translated into English, so that the Albanian language was mostly kept, but international viewers could also grasp the overall meaning of the song. And the lyrics in themself were quite smart, as they were very vague: “Hey, I will never regret, you will be my secret”.  Everyone can interpret it however they want, it works great. Then the revamp came. And, in the chorus alone, they added an extra line in English. In English and Spanish. “Baby, feel my body, toca, tocalo, I like it”. Concern number 1: these lyrics (along with others in English which were added) specify the sensual/sexual nature of the song- they’re not vague anymore, and the spell is broken. Concern number 2: was the Spanish really needed? Short answer: no. It was not. I’m seeing an increasing amount of songs throwing in random Spanish (Fuego, Llamame, Hasta La Vista, Suave...), and all it does is it makes the song feel like a summer hit, making it sound cheap and low-quality. Keep the Spanish out of it unless there’s an actual reason for the song to be in Spanish!

If I had to praise the revamp for something, it would be that the beat they added is really cool and makes the song super catchy. But that’s about it.