#I visualize it as a miniseries

[wheelercurse]

I want to write many many many things but I don’t know where to start, so I end up doing nothing 😭😭

[jakeperalta]

(this isn't a question about the best p&p adaptation ever, it is simply which you prefer OUT OF THESE TWO OPTIONS since they are the two most commonly talked about and compared!!)

[kanansdume]

I've recently been watching these very interesting Star Wars video essays on YouTube (yeah I know, a rare breed) and it brings up these comments Lucas has made about how he views Star Wars as almost like a silent film in terms of how important the visuals are to him in comparison to the dialogue. But this essay also points out how important Lucas finds all of the "rhyming" moments in his trilogies and the way he utilizes them to remind you of something else for emotional or thematic reasons. And there's so many of them, both in visuals and in dialogue, and it's interesting to consider how important this is to him, the repetition for a purpose as well as the storytelling through visuals above everything else and then to look at Star Wars since the Prequels came out and realize how little has really been able to match up to those ideals since then.

The ONLY thing that's come out since the Prequels that I think really hits these two things the same way is, in fact, Andor. One of the things I noticed about the way people discussed Andor as it was airing in a way I haven't really seen for any of the other shows or films was the visual SYMBOLOGY. So many times I saw people noticing the Imperial cog everywhere, from the aerial shot of Narkina 5 as the prisoners escape to the architecture of Mon Mothma's house. There were people picking up on the use of items in Luthen's shop that are familiar from other things to give this idea that Luthen is from another time, he's attempting to preserve this world he lost, that if you're not looking closely enough you won't notice what he's really saying or doing with this shop. The color choices for the different locations and people got analyzed because the people involved spoke about how they intentionally utilized color to SEND A MESSAGE about the characters and the world. We know that the people who made the costumes and sets really worked hard to treat Star Wars almost like a period drama and study the history of the franchise as if it were a real place so that the things they came up with felt like they belonged in this world everyone knows so well even if it's completely new. And of course there were all of the myriad references to things from Rogue One, the constant repetition of "climb", the sunset on the beach, etc.

Nearly EVERY SHOT in this show was created with so much intention behind it in order to say something meaningful about the characters, the world, this specific story they're in, and the overall saga of Star Wars itself. It's insane how much greater impact this show was able to achieve through the incredibly careful usage of visual symbols and thematic repetitions, much like Lucas did before them. It feels like they didn't just study the history of the galaxy far far away, but they studied the history of STAR WARS and what Lucas was trying to do and say with this story. They peeled back his onion a bit more and were able to create something that really has that same visual feel even when it's not created for a child audience. It also is experimenting with its narrative style through its structure and through Cassian's character being allowed to be somewhat more reactive than proactive, and while that didn't work for everyone, it does feel like it's following in Lucas's footsteps of experimentation through Star Wars. Push the boundaries of what Star Wars is and can be and what you can say with it.

But this only works because they peeled the onion back enough to TRULY understand all of the messages Lucas was sending with it. They got the heart of Star Wars and despite its lack of space wizards, despite the lack of most major characters in the Saga, this was a show that honestly got the message more than just about anything else Star Wars has put out since the Prequels. The choices between selflessness and selfishness, the themes about how you always HAVE to make a choice even when it feels like you don't have any (sometimes ESPECIALLY when it feels like you don't have any), and how important it is to make sure to choose the path of compassion above everything else. The themes of connection to others, the symbiotic circle and the impact even the smallest person can have on world around them, it's RIGHT THERE and it's CENTRAL to Andor's storyline.

So yes, it experiments a little with narrative structure, but it's possibly the most Star Wars thing to exist Revenge of the Sith because it honestly truly GETS what Star Wars was about, both in its themes and in its filmmaking. A lot of people said that Andor didn't feel like Star Wars to them, usually because of the lack of space wizards and the fact that it's not a story aimed at children. But to me, Andor is EXACTLY what Star Wars is and has always been. They're stretching the boundaries of what Star Wars can be, but it's saying the exact same things Star Wars has always said, it's just saying it slightly differently. This doesn't feel like fanfiction to me, not really. Unlike things like the Mandoverse or the books, Andor isn't just taking some of the toys out of the sandbox and going to play with them somewhere else. Andor is IN that sandbox. It's building a slightly different sandcastle, but it's still within the sandbox, using the same sand that Lucas did.

[ronearoundblindly]

Here, I remade it but better I hope. Happy biftay bestie

Jake:

Also Jake:

[llycaons]

it’s so cool that they made a show with 45+ hours of runtime from a single book. they should do that more.

[m0e-ru]

back on the grind reiterating the 'it's the friend shaped essay isn't it' mim is friend shaped

[sparrowlucero]

ik you were joking but I would be genuinely interested to hear about the flux cowriting credits strife if you feel like going into detail on it

So I have a big conspiracy theory about season 13 of Doctor Who ("Flux"), namely that there's a lost episode was scripted and even possibly filmed in near entirety, but ended up being cut and cannibalized in post production due to behind the scenes issues, and the fandom has yet to pick up on it.

For anyone who doesn't watch the show: Flux is a miniseries of Doctor Who; a full season was not commissioned because it was produced during Covid. The most important stuff about it for the purposes of this post are:

It's 6 episodes long (¹). The episodes are all directly continuous and could not be shuffled around. (I should clarify here that, no, the showrunner can't simply choose on a whim to make 10 episodes, or only make 4; they had to stick to 6, as that was the amount they were picked up and scheduled for)

The showrunner, Chris Chibnall , wrote every episode apart from episode 4 (Village of the Angels) which he has a co-writing credit on.

(More subjectively but perhaps relevant) The season is largely considered to be kind of a structural mess and (less subjectively) there appears to some abnormal and consistent production issues (²)

So the first thing I need to evidence here is that Chris Chibnall, aforementioned showrunner and writer of the entire season, was late. Like, really late.

Word of mouth gossip had been circulating for a while that there was some sort of on-set problem involving filming having to be paused because he was still finishing scripts: (³)

This would later be confirmed at a Gallifrey One panel (⁴) with Matt Strevens, the executive producer, who suggests that filming stopped to allow Chris Chibnall to finish scripts; he further implies that large swathes of episode 5/Block 2 weren't written until Episode 4/Block 1 (in which Kevin McNally debuts) was filming:

So with that context, let's talk about that Episode 4, "Village of the Angels", the only episode not attributed solely to Chris Chibnall. Co written by Maxine Alderton.

The filming pics reveal an interesting bit of trivia for Village: namely, the clapperboards show that the story was actually filmed as episode 5, not 4:

As the above tweet suggests, this doesn't make much sense. The miniseries is, again, a single continuous plot. It's not like they flipped Village and the current episode 5, Survivors of the Flux; the latter explicitly takes place chronologically after it. And yet, Village having been intended as the penultimate episode 5 is further evidenced by the original trailer for it, in which a character states that the story takes place on the 28th of November. This line is dubbed over in the final episode and subsequent trailers to instead say the 21st:

Why is this line important enough to dub? Because that's meant to line up with the air date of the episode. Episode 4 aired on the 21st and 5 on the 28th. But something happened in post production, and now it's episode 4 on the 21st instead (⁵):

So if none of these episodes were moved around but it does seem like Village was meant to be episode 5, where and what is the original episode 4?

I have a theory.

Flux has a recurring subplot involving two side characters, a married couple (Bel and Vinder) who have been separated by the titular disaster and are traveling the universe to reunite with each other. This story is told through segments sprinkled throughout the episodes. These have a different writing style (including a diary-esque narration only present in these scenes) and an internally consistent visual style that looks somewhat different to the other parts of the season.

Village of the Angels, for instance, is a moody, dark episode set in a village in the 1960s:

However, Bel and Vinder's segments in the episode have a somewhat different look:

On top of this, they never intersect with the episode's A plot (literally or in any clear thematic way), and the majority of these segments piece together into one single scene that seems to have been cut up.

So, what I think is that the bel and vinder scenes across the middle of the season were originally a single full story, an episode 4 that took a breather from the main plot and characters to follow the lives of these two side characters; the differing visual and writing style is due to it originally having been filmed separately and with a somewhat different artistic intent. I believe Chris Chibnall's cowriting credit on Angels exists because these specific scenes are from a script he wrote, but that otherwise the Angel script can be credited solely to Maxine Alderton by normal cowriting standards.

"But wait," you might say, "I thought there were already 6 episodes that are all plot relevant? If no episodes existing right now can be cut, how could this 7th episode exist?"

Remember this tidbit:

The adventures in question comprise a large amount of the next episode (Episode 5: Survivors of the Flux), nearly 20 minutes of a 50ish minute runtime (and frankly, much of the rest of the episode is somewhat fluffy build up that feels like it's taking advantage of an extended runtime). A version without this added plot would, in my opinion, only warrant one final episode rather than two.

I think the showrunner, still scrambling to finish scripts as the episodes were being filmed, and making a snap decision to include a new major subplot (⁶), wrote a finale script so long and with so many plot threads that the only way to keep all this material of was to split it into two episodes, 5 and 6. And because they only could only make 6, he had to get rid of one of the previous 5 episodes - the already scripted and filmed ones - to make room for this new episode 5. A tough order when it's a plot-heavy miniseries... if not for episode 4 being a standalone divergence from the main plot about the lives of two side characters, one that could, in theory, be cut up and dispersed throughout the season without continuity issues for the main story.

(Some notes and clarifications under the cut)

(1) some sources initially reported the episode count as 8; this wasn't inaccurate - the 2022 new years/easter special were part of the episode order. Flux itself was always meant to be 6 episodes long. (2) A few of the production issues include: - episodes filming without a second draft:

- the fx team that had been on the show since 2005 abruptly leaving midseason (because they "didn't feel like part of the team anymore") and returning as soon as the creative team changed, including the head of the studio implying they weren't properly credited (mild vfx body horror warning in link):

- people working on additional projects such as books not receiving clear information on the characters they were assigned to write:

- and likely a director who was put on hold due to a script being rewritten:

Among other things I can't directly cite at the moment, including vfx artists having to do whole episodes solo in crunch time and writers not being told their work was massively overhauled until it aired due to major changes being extremely late in production.

While I don't wish to pontificate too much here and many of these things are pretty normal by themselves, I do think it could paint a picture of a production where an episode well into filming may genuinely be cut on a whim and without consideration for the crew, artists, etc. working on the show. (3) This reddit post comes from a leaker who was known to be consistently accurate. (4) Gallifrey One does not allow filming of panels. I know Kevin's livetweets of panels to be accurate. (5) It's very, very unlikely the entire season was moved back a week, as the premier is a Halloween special that was certainly always intended to air on Oct. 31st. (6) I don't wish to insinuate Chris Chibnall is, throughout his career, an inherently poor showrunner, but I do think that maybe his jump from police procedural - a genre that doesn't involve quite as much concept art, vfx work, marketing, convention panels, set building, episodic storytelling, and keeping in touch with expanded universe producers - to flagship science fiction adventure show may have contributed to some of these issues, especially when he was already in the mindset that things could be changed on a whim (perhaps not such a major issue when it's broadchurch and no new sets need be built)

(source) Basically I don't really think this is "the showrunner's fault" or anything; more that a perfect storm of a showrunner who was habitually late on scripts, used to writing lowkey cop dramas, covid, an entirely serialized season, etc. may have led to these issues

[molinaskies]

Sonic and the Mirror of Trauma: Scrapnik Island

Scrapnik Island is by far the most intriguing and impressive IDW Sonic miniseries so far. Daniel Barnes wrote an excellent story about recovering from trauma, struggling to escape your past, and facing the setbacks that come with both of those, and Nathalie Fourdraine and Jack Lawrence produced some beautiful art.

On its surface, the story has the potential to be a cheeky, cliché one-off akin to a spooky Halloween story (that started in December… hehe). But, when you look deeper at the plot and some of the tropes, and once you remember that it takes place between issue 56 (which I’ve crucially discussed at length) and issue 57, it suddenly becomes so much more important.

Mecha Sonic is a version of Sonic who has been forced to address the pain of his life and dabble with the consequences, and he represents the moment that Sonic has to face his own trauma—and that scares him.

Scrapnik Island sets off with the Scrapniks pursuing Sonic to help him, but Sonic, of course, has missed the memo. Mecha Sonic is hottest on Sonic’s trail, which stands out to me as not only is Sonic visibly afraid of Mecha (both from his sudden presence and from his memories of their last encounter), but he’s actively running away from his trauma, his past, his fear.

Even after Sonic’s been set straight on the Scrapniks’ deal, he’s still put off by Mecha Sonic’s silent demeanour and their history. So, Sonic treats him coldly, and this animosity triggers something deep within Mecha that he fights to starve off.

There is lots of visual storytelling to indicate that Sonic and Mecha Sonic are meant to be literary foils, but below is my favourite example. A flashback of a decommissioned Mecha Sonic fades into a present shot of Sonic “taking it easy,” but more so getting fed up with his situation.

Sonic is also particularly distrustful (and afraid) of Mecha Sonic, compared to the other Scrapniks. However, as time runs on, Sonic comes to an initial understanding of Mecha’s changed ways and wants to make peace. However, right after this, Mecha Knuckles attacks, Mecha Sonic defends and, in a way, sacrifices himself for Sonic, and things fall apart from here.

After Mecha Sonic is triggered during his battle with Mecca Knuckles (after a forceful encounter with Mecha Sonic’s past that sends him down a path of relapse), Mecha Sonic loses his ability to starve off Eggman’s primary programming. He turns on Sonic once again, but instead of serving Eggman, he strives to serve himself. While Mecha is falling victim to his traumatic past and coping mechanisms, the unfortunate thing about this is how it all reads to Sonic: another betrayal of his trust. It all calls back to Mr. Tinker, Metal Sonic, and Surge.

Mecha Sonic’s plan is to swap bodies with Sonic so that Mecha can use Sonic’s speed to escape the island, but the Scrapniks attack before the transfer can complete. This leaves Mecha and Sonic in an in-between state where they hear each other thoughts and feel each other’s feelings.

Even though Sonic states that the anger and sadness in his head is not his own, he’s still clearly shown to be feeling those feelings. They don’t originate from him, but their presence mingles with his own emotions to produce something darker and more irritated. Their presence also acts as a gateway of sorts, where the latent anger and sadness that Sonic can’t suppress makes it harder for him to put away his own feelings. Couple that with his physical pain from his sprained ankle (on the same leg he busted up a few issues prior), and soon, Sonic snaps for the first time in the entire IDW comic’s run.

I love whenever Sonic’s anger is allowed to shine because he is never enraged for petty reasons. Sonic has an attitude that often leads him to cranky comments, but Sonic is genuinely angry here because it hurts him to see someone speak so lowly of themselves, to have been hurt by the world so poorly. Mecha Sonic is also yet another person who has been created by Eggman’s terror specific to oppose Sonic. It’s another example of Surge’s “I will kill you or die trying” with the added complexity of Mecha’s attempt at redemption being corrupted by the trauma of Eggman’s influence. This puts pressure on Sonic because these impositions put Mecha, Surge, Kit, and others like them in direct opposition to Sonic for reasons entirely of no fault of his own—and that angers him. All Sonic strives to do with his life and his gift is help people, and to have so many people come out of the woodworks to say that the only thing he can do to help them is to kill himself is absolutely devastating to him. Not only because he believes in the direct opposite—that the only person who can give one purpose is oneself—but because it threatens to strip his own purpose away from him whenever these notions are unearthed.

Sonic isn’t angry at Mecha, personally. He’s angry at the system created to hurt them both.

The most important thing to remember is that, unless I fully missed something*, that strange mind-link thing between Sonic and Mecha Sonic is never undone. After Sonic cries Mecha Sonic’s tears, the story cuts to Tails officially deprogramming Mecha Sonic and Mecha Knuckles from Eggman’s directives, but it’s never explicitly stated that Mecha Sonic’s and Sonic’s mental link was reversed.

It can be reasonably assumed that it occurs off-screen (off-page? Outside of what is shown to the reader) because that would make general sense, but then again, so did the reprogramming, and that was explicitly mentioned. Further, it’s a general rule in writing for media that if you want something to be known about your story, it needs to be shown to the audience if not alluded to or directly referred to having happened. So, this is either an oversight, or it’s entirely intentional.

* The only way I can imagine this being accounted for is that the machine that linked Sonic and Mecha’s brains, the Egg Noggin, is (obviously) an Eggman device. Thus, whenever Tails removed Eggman’s programming from Mecha Sonic and Mecha Knuckles, perhaps it also restored Sonic’s brain to normal. This, however, feels like a bit of a stretch because we never see or hear of Sonic needing or receiving any treatment, but I am willing to consider it to be a viable reason. Either way, I think the point I’m about to make still stands as either a physical change or an emotional change in Sonic’s character.

This experience, this sharing of minds in such an intimate way where they can both so clearly hear each other’s hearts, taught them something. I read this as some sort of floodgates being opened, where while Mecha Sonic can more easily feel compassion and listen to the good in his core, Sonic now more clearly feels his anger and has a harder time suppressing his emotions. Whether there is lasting physical damage left in Sonic or he’s simply reeling from the depth of his emotions felt in this adventure, there’s been a clear impact.

Even if Sonic isn’t fully delving into things just yet, he’s taken a lesson away from all of this.

(From the IDW Endless Summer One-Shot, set between issue 64 and issue 65 and after the 900th adventure one-shot)

If nothing else, Sonic clearly understands trauma better now. Sonic is absolutely traumatized by his experiences with Eggman and other high-stakes adventures, but again, due to his tendency to push away his darker emotions, he hasn’t processed much of this. Sonic puts all his sadness and rage and fear and confusion into box after box after box before shoving everything onto a big, cluttered shelf, never to be seen again… until now. With such a clear look into the mind of someone actively reeling through trauma, a trauma so like his own, that shelf has collapsed, and now everything is spilling onto the floor before Sonic, quick as can be, can stop it.

Sonic is finally starting to understand the bigger picture, but I don’t think he’s fully on the path of self-awareness. I think there’s more boiling under the surface, more than even he realizes. And if Sonic keeps taking these micro-risks (instead of his usual Hail-Marys) that are fueled by his anger, like storming the Eggperial City too soon, then something will have to give.

Scrapnik Island is incredibly important to the IDW storyline because it showcases not only Sonic learning the depths of his pain and the pain of others but also yet another nail in Eggman’s coffin.

[budgies-with-pencils]

A (maybe) Comprehensive List of everything we know about the diner crew visually

I MAY BE MISSING STUFF. If you find anything for me to add comment! :^]

Also this is NOT meant to police anyone's designs. My designs don't follow any of this half the time. I just thought it'd be fun.

DINER CREW:

-Gloria doesn't wear makeup much [Farmhouse]

-Gloria is mexican [Duh]

-Gloria is a “tiny Spanish woman" according to Caspar [Chaos!]

-Ava is "stronger than she looks" [Big, Malevolent Thing]

-Leif has some variety of Facial Hair [Transdimensional Haboob]

-Caspar is white as hell [This is obvious emotionally, but Sheep?]

-The Mucklewains are canonically hot. [Farmhouse]

-The Mucklewains look like an "Alt-Country Duo" according to Gloria [Farmhouse]

-Zebulon does not have a mustache [Welcome to the Horizon (MB, not the miniseries)]

OTHER MAJOR CHARACTERS:

-Clementine has red hair. [several episodes]

-Clementine is, in this universe, the reference for the painting "Woman with Red Hair" by Amadeo Modigliani. This also implies that Terric, at some point, looked like painter Amadeo Modigliani, as he mentions he painted it. [Brunch]

-Ex looks, and I'm quoting directly here, "like some sort of things nerds masturbate to" [Pockets]

-Kazi's eye color changes frequently [Three Sisters]

-Kazi "Has a claw". You apparently don't want to see it. [Three Sisters]

-Kazi white as a ghost" [Three Sisters]

-Teta is incredibly tall, and has large horns [Welcome to the Triad]

-Libusa is "older than she looks" [Three Sisters]

-Libusa is bright yellow [Three Sisters]

YOUNG LEIF:

-BertBert is not a fish [Segius]

-BertBert does not have bangs [Interludes: Vela]

-BertBert has a "muscular Frame" according to Leif. [Nancy]

-Bertbert is blue [Welcome to the Triad]

-Verge looks mostly human apart from "Two Things" (one thing likely being the arms.) [The Wayfaring Stranger]

-Verge has a tattoo on their arm of all the bounty hunters they've killed. As of this episode, it has four lines [Escape from Moog]

-Verge has an extra set of arms they keep hidden [Welcome to the Triad]

[greenerteacups]

In future film adaptations of the HP series, DH is the one book I'm happy for future filmmakers to "mess around" with as much as they like to improve the visual / story experience for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm very happy for them to do a somewhat Twilight film Breaking Dawn-esque departure. Like, instead of focusing on the trio in the woods the whole time, let's get into what the Order are up to, let's show our friends keeping the DA alive at Hogwarts, let's show the other muggleborns having to go into hiding, let's flash over to Draco suffering the worst house guests ever... like we have this expansive cast of characters, let's not waste them for the extended camping trip from hell... also the best part of HP is the wizarding world itself, so many amazing magical set pieces in the world... and we spend the last book mostly in the forest...

Speaking of which, with there being a new series adaptation in the works (with rumours of potentially more HP series to come... perhaps even a Lily Potter / Marauders/ Snape based one...) is there anything you're excited about finally seeing adapted from canon or are terrified of potentially seeing butchered onscreen?

Yeah like and also it isn't even an INTERESTING forest. Like the "children wander into the enchanted forest and face [insert monstrous metaphor for adulthood]" is one of the oldest fairytales in recorded history, with a ton of creepy lore to draw on — you could have had the kids running through mystical haunted forests of ancient Britain! Running into the ghosts of Roman soldiers and Celtic ruins and magical creatures! Forest of Dean could have been COOL.

To your other point: I'd much prefer a Marauders series to a remake of the original. I'm of the not-unpopular opinion that the HP movies are as good as any adaptation of any book can get (save probably the Lord of the Rings movies) in terms of how they balance story structure, fidelity to the text, and onscreen pacing. The cinematography decreases sharply in energy and verve after Alfonso Cuarón, and the later movies unfortunately suffer from the mid-2000s trend of desaturating the frame, but they're solid movies and like — okay, in my heart of hearts, there's a little part of me that's like. Daniel Radcliffe will always be my Harry. I grew up with Rupert Grint and Emma Watson and Tom Felton, and seeing someone else in those roles will never hit me like it did to see eleven-year-old Hermione Granger alive for the first time on that screen. Which is not a real reason. But there you go.

There's also the problem of the genre pivot — the first few movies are obviously children's films, and a whole generation of millennials got to grow up as they gradually changed to Y/A films. But how many children are going to be watching a full season of a HBO miniseries? And how many adults are going to watch that miniseries and then complain it was underwhelming because, again, it's a children's series? It would be better, in my opinion, to start over with the Marauders, whom you can write into adventures that more naturally fit the pacing of a TV show. You can also start with them at like, age 14, which would solve the problem of years 1-3 essentially being about kids in middle school. Unlike HP, nothing happens that we know of in the first 3 years of the Marauders Era that's plot-essential, so strong writing in the pilot and a carefully chosen flashback or two could easily set the stage for a series starting in Year 4.

What I'm nervous about is the contingent of fandom that would expect it to be essentially a TV adaptation of All the Young Dudes, which — while it's an all-time legendary work of fanfiction, like all-time, incredible, wonderful story — does not much resemble what I think HBO writers' room would come up with. ATYD is a slice-of-life bildungsroman about Remus Lupin, and most of its stakes come through emotional tension — you can really easily transplant it outside of a magical setting, and you lose almost nothing. A Marauders show would be an action-adventure series modeled after the Harry Potter books, and it would need an episode-by-episode plot. In ATYD, Remus's development is the engine powering the story. That's not enough in a television series pitching itself as an action-adventure fantasy story, and I don't think the HBO team would be bold enough to depart from genre in this respect. After the failure of Fantastic Beasts, the execs are probably going to clock "Harry Potter show without Harry Potter in it" as a major business risk. Sowhile I'm open-minded and eager to see what the creatives would come up with, I wouldn't envy them the job of having to build out new personalities and arcs for characters that fans have already grown quite attached to their self-designed interpretations of.

It strikes me, too, that Rowling has never gone back to the Marauders as a potential vein for more books, even though she easily could have. She clearly doesn't mind dabbling in the HP universe, and the Fantastic Beasts movies show she's happy to bring the audience back to Hogwarts when she wants to. But for some reason, Harry's parents has always been a little too close to the original series, and I think maybe there's something in her that's afraid of revisiting that period — like if she fucks it up, she's damaging something directly connected to the books that made her famous, cheapening them. Or maybe she just doesn't want to write those stories. Who knows!

I do know that the most important name in that show would be the writing credit, because JKR has demonstrated (1) she isn't great at writing original stories for the screen, and (2) it's really easy to fuck up the pacing of a TV show, and if you don't get the pacing of Harry Potter, then you're not going to adapt it well. The HP books are essentially mystery novels that turn into spy novels. If you don't have that — if you think you're writing a high-fantasy epic from the jump, as the Fantastic Beasts writers seemed to believe, and as the Cursed Child writers seemed to believe — then you're going to write something that doesn't feel like Harry Potter, and most people will notice, even if they don't understand why.

[minisugakoobies]

Closer - Masterlist | KNJ, JJK

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader x Jungkook

Genre: smut, friends to lovers, there was only one bed!, Reunion!AU

Rating: M (18+)

Series Warnings: unrequited crushes becoming requited, 190811 Jungkook and platinum blonde Namjoon are the visuals, also both are gym rats so…. think “thick,”excessive use of “Noona,” needy Jungkook, “baby girl” Namjoon agenda, poly relationship, each chapter will have specific smut warnings

Word Count: 5k so far

Disclaimer: NSFW, obviously I don’t own BTS - they just inspire me

Summary: During your college reunion weekend, one unbelievably hot evening brings you and your old friends Namjoon and Jungkook together, in ways you've only dreamed of. Weeks later, you can't let the memory of that night go. Can the three of you get closer?

A/N: Thought I should make a little ML for this miniseries to keep them all together! 💕

Part One: No Regrets

One hot night spent lying between your friends Jungkook and Namjoon brings old feelings to light. “Do you have any regrets, Noona?”

Part Two: Together

There’s no holding back tonight, as you and your old friends Jungkook and Namjoon decide to do something about your regrets. Together.

Part Three: No Looking Back

You can't forget the memory of that night. Neither can they. Can the three of you get closer?

Masterlist 💜 Find me on AO3 💜 

© 2022-23 by sunshinerainbowsbts/minisugakoobies. Crossposted to AO3. Please do not copy or repost.

[shivadh]

Per a discussion in comments, here's a bit of a facecast gallery! I had more than I thought, once I sat down to make a list. Left to right, top to bottom:

Michaelis: When I shared some photos of top tier football coach Jose Mourinho ages ago, someone called him the King Emeritus and the idea stuck, although there are other visual influences as well. Mourinho is excellent visual shorthand, anyway.

Jes Deimos: In my head, Jes is based on someone I went to college with, but early on in the books someone linked me to V Spehar, nonbinary journalist and podcast host, and I love their look for Jes. You just have to imagine the ice white hair.

Noah Deimos: I never had an image of Noah as a teen, but the first time I saw stand-up comic Moses Storm, I went "oh, hello adult Noah." (He's super funny, watch his special "Trash White" if you get the chance.)

Gregory: Fellas, is it weird to base a protagonist's look on a statue of Hadrian's lover Antinous from 1800 years ago? He has such good hair, is the thing. This is a photo of a statue of Antinous I took myself at the Art Institute several years ago.

Eddie: Eddie is one of those characters who I find so compelling to write as a personality that I find it hard to visualize him, but I would be infamous if I left Guy Fieri out of the lineup.

Alanna: okay what you have to understand is that she looks like Natalie Portman but like, very specifically the straightened hair, no frills, Plain Jane phase Portman went through in the late 1990s.

Gerald: This is a photo of a University of Chicago polo team member from 1926 and that's so hilariously specific as an image that it makes me laugh. If it wasn't this dude it'd be JFK, though. Again, the hair is doing a lot of the work here.

Monday: it's time to admit that the amount of Xena reruns I watched while writing my master's thesis may have permanently impacted me. Lucy Lawless was all I could think of when describing her.

Simon: I based Simon in the first book heavily on the mannerisms of Colin Fox as Fritz Brenner in the A&E Nero Wolfe miniseries, because he's perfect, I am not taking questions.

There are a number of people I don't have a facecast for -- Georgie probably most notably, but also pretty much all the Galian contingent, Joan, and most of the Ramblers (Ephraim has a touch of James Dean about him but none of the photos of James Dean look quite right). I do have casts for Caleb and Buck but I couldn't cram all the images in so I'll do that one separately in a day or two.

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Movie: A fucking List of Potential Extra Stuff  

I can only pray and hope that Amazon, Matthew, the boys, Casey and whoever needs to be involved do more with the movie after the strike is over, but here’s a list of stuff related to the movie that I want  

All the Deleted Scenes: Extended Polo Scene, Extended Paris Café Scene, Extended Paris Love-making Scene, Morning in Paris Scene (I swear I have been feral over it since the bloopers were released), Extended Texas Holiday Montage (I’m not sure about this one but basically the scene in the bloopers where they shove each other), Texas Campfire Scene (That really doesn’t look like it’s just meant to be a montage, it looks like a legit scene), Extended Texas Scene after Lake scene (I’m also not sure about this one because I’ve only seen one person say this exists), Kensington Breakfast Scene, Brownstone thanksgiving scene, Whatever the scenes from Philip, Pez and Zahra’s credits were from, and probably a couple others that we don't even know exist

More Bloopers (there’s gotta be more right? I literally don’t care if it’s like twenty seconds longer GIMME GIMME GIMME)

What was shot before re-shoots (like the piano scene, I’m curious what was shot before and why didn’t it work)

B Roll Footage

Full Footage of certain scenes (ex: The entirety of Henry/Nick singing don’t stop me now)

Audio Commentary: Matthew’s director's commentary, Nick and Taylor’s actor's commentary, Henry and Alex’s in-character commentary  

A DVD with all of the above

Full Cast Audiobook

More Interviews and Magazine shoots with the boys together

(Kinda far-fetched but) A Musical Adaptation

A miniseries of post canon Firstprince living their lives (that’s what I want for a sequel, not a plot, just the visual media equivalent of domestic one-shots): Living together, More about Henry’s grief and depression, I can’t tell if Movie Alex has ADHD but maybe more on that, Maybe Princess Catherine coming back and reconciling with Henry (currently writing a fic on it), Maybe? The King reconciling with Henry (wrote a meta on it), Proposal (Casey’s freaking thread reply drove me insane), Marriage, Kids, So like, snippets of the next five years of their lives

(also unpopular opinion but… personally I don’t want Henry to abdicate? It’s an issue I had with the bonus chapter but one of Casey’s IG story wrote about why they wrote it like that, and I realized it might have something to do with me being kind of young and the ideologies that comes with that immaturity. I kinda thought Henry could take a step back without stepping down, like irl Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice who had their own normal jobs and have more of a say in what events to show up to. Idk. I’m a “fix this system” rather than “fuck the system” person, and I think there’s just power in having a gay prince who can keep both his title and his love.）

Yeah I might be delusional but I am also willing to spend money on all of these things so Amazon it’s up to you

[z3ny44]

Spoilers for Fionna and Cake Finale Double Episode Post

-Alright, episode 9 started of with a scare! That nightmare really seemed real for a second, and Marshall looked like Shoko when she fell into the radioactive river....

Thank god it was a dream honestly, but the main even of this episode... The Lich begging for Golb to acknowledge his achievements, his success in ending all life on his reality, only to be denied of any form of gratification and to be stripped of his own reason and turned into a tetris block...

I really liked this bit, I think Fionna and Cake had the best moments of Lich alongside his speech in the Citadel episode. His expression, his posture, his rage alongside his struggle... How can a character so inherently impossible to kill, be absolutely finished by no more than a look from the one whom he called his scholar.

Also Simon kicked him that's funny,, poor Jerry

And Now, from the 1000+ years Ooo, we get to see Shermy and Beth again! They are vandalizing Gibbon's kingdom, that, in case you don't remember or don't know, he's the son of Charlie (Jake's daughter that played Card Wars)

I really like 1000+ years Ooo. In a way its cozy but at the same time uncanny cuz you really don't know anyone... (I mean Marcy and PB are canonically alive but still they only appear in the Come Along with Me Intro) I wish it was a miniseries itself!!! Simon got TP'd to Shermy's head and still is trying to find a crown. They went to the library which is now ruled by the paper guys, and a robot in a turtle shell? uh,,, okay?

And yeah basically the Scarab is back cuz Ellis P freed them,,, bruh.

-LAST EPISODE FFS PAWN SWAN IS CANON WOOO

Okay but in all seriousness, the episode continued F&C dealing with the Scarab, and they just threw him all the guys that he imprisoned, which shows us what we already had a feeling since he caught Kheirosiphon: the Scarab just caught outlaw, independently if they are good or bad, most of these guys are reformed and have started a new life... he's just so shitty... like, look at these little Big guy :')

Anyways, to get done with the F&C story, basically Prismo tp's the Peppermint tank, alongside with Jay, little Destiny and BABY FINN!! WHICH IS HUGE?! Finn is going to grow up in Fionna's universe, and if the series continues, we might even see a normal world grew up Finn (with grew up I mean like 15, lol) ALSO WE SEE TIFFANY

Simon's side on the other hand,,, jeez I feel like I was synced with Simon in a way that I never really acknowledged Betty's sacrifice... She really did put everything on the side to be with Simon, and for his happiness.... not that it went by unnoticed, but it bugs me to think... what if they did it differently? What if he went on the trip with Betty... I mean to be fair we have the answer... he dies to vampires a couple years after, but how was the time he spent with Betty? What did they change? How did they change and grew even if it did not last forever....

and if you think that this was the part that hit the hardest... buddy..

Yeah,,, I think Betty isn't even there anymore, this was a goodbye... It wasn't explained but I think it was implied that she is gone... That Golb is back to his normal form... i don't know if this will have repercussions in the future? Maybe reform Lich and fuse with him?! I'm just throwing random ideas at this point.

-Final Opinion: This series was amazing, I'm always happy to have more Adventure Time content, it being my main artistic inspiration makes it so much more fantastic to see new characters, places and stories. It was definitely the best mini series so far. The funniest, the most interesting, and the prettiest visually. The epilogue was so heartwarming, Fionna being able to talk with Simon via sms, he's having therapy with Minerva, and PRISMO! Prismo now has the Scarab with him in the Time Room, they are going to make stories together hehe.

(also there was a frame in which prismo's head was flipped? idk if it was an error wtf)

[ronearoundblindly]

womp womp super duper quick sneak peek for the final fishies installment: [Audio/Visual miniseries found on the JJ Masterlist]

He’s zero for four guessing your fetishized zones. Those are about his normal odds with women.

“How could I forget?” you exclaim. “You’re ass!”

Your hand slaps down to spank him rather harshly, and Jake jolts forward, smothering a shocked laugh in the rolled up fabric of your tank top.

“What a gift! I mean, just, what a sight!”

Should he…

Should he feel objectified?!

He kinda likes it though.

🫠🥵😈

i love him, your honor

[gawdheads]

Mononoke (2007)

Japanese horror stories are imbued with the subtlety and depth of haiku poems. They can trigger deep emotion, grief, dread with a multi-angle narration that enriches the build up of their characters, making the resolution as impactful as a storm that only needed one single raindrop to summon  the rumbling of the darkest skies. Mononoke is an spin-off anthology series that follows the Medicine Seller, a drifter that travels Japan fending off the entities known as ayakashi that have bound themselves to negative human emotions like grudge, hatred, wrath and that have become more powerful, turning into Mononoke. 

The five stories explore the red thread that connects people to a Mononoke. Each story develops a human drive: mothership, brotherhood, family, love, solidarity. And each character arc scrutinizes the heart of human experience depending on the circumstances that brought them together to common ground where the ayakashi broods. That’s how the complexity of the plot plus the quality of animation makes this miniseries a great anime to experience: horror is treated beyond the gore and the disturbing graphic images because it’s also designed as an element of magic and beauty.

The story that struck me the most was “Nue”. It tells the gathering of three suitors seeking to marry Lady Ruri and then inherit the Toudaiji, a piece of wood that grants great power to its owner. The Medicine Seller was to participate in an incense contest in order to reveal the shape, truth and reasoning of the mononoke that lives in the Toudaiji. The two episodes play with the concept of how easy it is to numb the mind by overwhelming the experience of senses, binding the spirit to a last delightful affair, one that dismisses death, never aiming for resolution. 

I gotta say that Mononoke is the best example of art brought to life. The visuals and the animation is superb; the technique employed for each fable is a world of its own, to the point that you feel that the Medicine Seller is visiting a different type of Japanese era. Horror is depicted as a timeline that goes full circle in order to manifest properly. The art of each episode pushes the boundaries that no word of mouth can do justice to its beauty and its exceptional storytelling. I recommend you to watch it without distraction of any sort in order to allow your mind to blot out routine and dwell deep in the magic of the red thread.