#devs thoughts

[sir-crocodile-slut]

Unpopular opinion but if you’re someone who constantly goes on and on about how lonely you are and that people always abandon and leave you… and that’s your main personality trait… you’re probably the problem.

[devsthoughts]

the villa - rachel hawkins

3.5/5

i have a lot of thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed The Villa. I found it very captivating and listened to the audiobook in one day because I simply couldn’t get enough of all the characters. I loved how the book switched from Mari’s POV in the past, to present day with Emily. 

(spoilers below)

There is one plot point that I can’t fully wrap my head around: Emily believing Chess. 

Correct me if I am mistaken, but in the first part of the book when the girls first arrived in Italy, Emily was telling Chess about how she had watched the Lilith Rising movie at a sleepover in elementary school during a classmates birthday party. Chess claimed she was never invited to said party, and then mere moments later reminded Emily about how she (Emily) climbed into her (Chess’) sleeping bag because the film scared Emily. Emily didn’t push Chess on the lie she very clearly caught her in. 

This brief interaction between the girls stayed with me the entire time, why would Chess lie about something so pointless? It shaped how I viewed Chess - as a liar. 

When Emily (finally) clues in that Chess had slept with her husband Matt, she is so willing to believe that Chess only slept with that loser once, and that Chess stayed in regular contact with him so that he would eventually leave Emily. 

Chess convinces Emily that she was sick because of Matt, and that the only reason she had gotten ill on the trip was because she had called Matt and her body was triggered by him. While I totally believe that, that is something that happens…I do not believe it happened to Emily. Emily only called Matt because Chess convinced her to! Chess also prepared some weird drink for Emily which honestly I think was poisoned! I think Emily was right in her original guess that Matt had been poisoning her. I think Chess was sleeping with Matt the entire time, and knew what poison concoction he had been giving Emily, so she spiked the drink as a way to con Emily into believing that “the body knows” bullshit she was peddling on about. 

While I was listening to the book, I couldn't help but think that Chess originally brought Emily out to Italy for ulterior motives. Part of me thinks Chess invited Emily to join her, so she could confess to Emily about the on-going affair with Matt, or if we are feeling especially sinister...Chess was going to kill Emily in Italy as a way to finally be with Matt, guilt free.

I think Chess changed her mind last minute when she snooped through Emily's laptop and found the draft of The Villa. Chess realized it was a gold mine, and knew she could manipulate Emily.

While Emily clearly has a blindspot for Chess, she at least has some brains and was able to find Mari's secret hiding spots for her journal entries.

Mari's POV was very interesting, I felt for Mari as she was so young when Pierce ran away with her and Lara. I didn't have too many thoughts/questions about any part of the book that covered Mari's POV. If anything, I was the most immersed in the book during the past storyline.

At the end, when we find out Mari did not kill Pierce and that it was Jonnie, I was disappointed that we did not learn what caused the argument between the two men. Honestly, I can't stop thinking about how much Chess pissed me off as a character to even say anything more about the other storyline.

[nidbaesenpai]

two mimir

[bunnieswithknives]

As much as I love angst I think it would be funny if he just didnt give af

[shrimpyjackal]

I fluffing swear I am so happy that i drew that-

[midorikawawas]

Hugo is really quite a case regarding his relationship with Lycaon.

He craves Lycaon's company and attention, but his self-loathing keeps getting in the way, stopping him from being fully honest about wanting to be friends again. Lycaon too is a curious case because, rather than falling for the taunting whenever they meet, he's serious, can even joke around, and displays actual concern for Hugo, even when Hugo dismisses him (at times gently, other times rudely)

But I feel the key to their current relationship is in one trust event that has them talking about their past. In here, Hugo can't help feel guilty about Lycaon's legs, only to have Lycaon say this:

That's when it hit me. Lycaon is waiting to have Hugo back, but this can only happen when Hugo heals and attains the peace he wanted after forgiving himself. At least we know he's already on that difficult path, but he's doing it on his own.

What makes this duo so special is that Lycaon knows this and has seen through all of Hugo's barriers, and is more than ready to being his friend again, but he's patiently waiting for Hugo to feel like someone capable to mend their relationship.

Like, ofc is hilarious to see them bickering, but Hugo's trust events are illuminating as we see the classic "Friends to enemies" trope not be reduced to them arguing whenever they see each other, but actually be awkward in the other's presence, or even being able to lovingly reminisce about their youth together, then deeply regret how bad decisions and miscommunication stopped them from helping each other, and the guilt they both feel regarding how things ended.

Hugo's the only one that participates in the intense teasing, and that's because constant taunting is his self-defense mechanism, since he refuses to be vulnerable to the only person that could see the worst of him; the memories of their separation play a part in his refusal to accepting Lycaon's help. However, he ignores that this time around, Lycaon wouldn't abandon him.

If anything, Lycaon is waiting for the instant Hugo's defenses break down to immediately catch him and be together again. And Hugo is.... Open to this, since another trust event has him saying that, depending on the future, Lycaon could be either friend or foe ( though we know he's betting on being together once again)

For Lycaon and Hugo, the resolution of their complex relationship is simply a matter of time now that they're in each other's lives once more, and destiny keeps making them cross paths constantly for a reason.

[milkamel]

Has been seeing a lot of Smilk hate cause of the polls and I felt bad so I quickly doodled him 💔

They could never make me hate you Shadow Milk Cookie

[reason-with-the-underdog]

alhaitham then vs now

alhaitham as a teenager, puffing up with indignation: cute is not a word that applies to me. first of all, the connotations are frankly, presumptuous about age-- alhaitham now as an adult, with the most deadpan voice ever: am i not cute kaveh

[mistakeofnature]

Was bored, painted THE BOIII

[deakyjoe]

Show me a motherfucker with big brown eyes and I’m automatically whipped

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

Why Dev Patel failing to jump out of a window is so cool

This era of movies tends to skirt the line of satirizing so much as to stand for nothing. The tradeoff of sincerity for meta humor is not in a ratio I recall voting for. I get wary every time a story possibly maybe makes fun of me for caring about it, and I've come to accept that I think of sincerity as a fragile thing. But fragile is not the same as meaningless.

Let's talk Monkey Man. Bobby/The Kid/Dev Patel is trying to get out of a building and leaps sideways into a window, ready to smash through it and land on the street. He clunks against it, he falls to the floor out of frame, the window remains fully unscathed, and the action music cuts out. A beat. Then he gets up, the chase keeps going, and the music kicks back in. In a lesser movie, this choice is saying, "Aren't action movies stupid? Anyways I guess here's an action movie." On the other side if nothing is ever changed, it's saying, "Aren't action movies perfect already? Anyways I guess here's more of the same." It's great when you can subvert expectations in a way that doesn't undermine everything else, so here's why this isn't undermining its premise and even enforces it.

First off, after coming back in, the music keeps playing and being a legitimately exciting beat underscoring the rest of the scene. The joke knows when it's over and gets out of the way. Second, this trope is a great target for this bit; windows are so much more reinforced than this genre ever credits. But then the magic is that the entire rest of the movie is consistently brutal. The window bit comes from a unified authorial voice that also earnestly digs into the action before and after it. A deliberate drawing attention to the difficult realities of action only works if the rest of your action does hit harder than the fare of movie you're invoking.

And Monkey Man delivers. Every henchman takes so many hits before going down, and the hits are bloodier, closer, and quieter than Hollywood action. And the last thing that makes it work is that it only happens the once. It brings up John Wick and rather explicitly claims this movie will be smarter, and it does the joke with the window to ask you to take the violence seriously. Every time a movie distances itself from its genre, it's making sincerity take so much more work every other minute. Lots of movies give up on it entirely. This movie chooses the work.

[shameless-and-delirious]

what the hell, sure

[trashprinxe]

Let’s have a talk about malleability and TTRPGs

I come from a theatrical background. Did theatre for most of my life, majored in stage management, the works. Plays and the way they function are deeply embedded in my psyche.

So when I design and play games, I come from that theatrical framework.

Now — on the one hand, you have Shakespeare. Fairly universal stories, yeah? You can cut it up, switch things around, put it into a multitude of settings. And it still works! King Lear in space. Romeo & Juliet as pirates. The Scottish Play (old habits die hard) done avant-garde. It’s malleable!

On the other end, you have hyper-specific plays about hyper-specific themes. Angels in America. The Laramie Project. Venus in Furs. Etcetera. You can’t remove the core themes, change the setting, switch scenes around: without erasing the core intent of the work and the story it’s trying to tell.

And in the middle, you have plays that are somewhat malleable. Almost, Maine, for instance. It’s made up of vignettes; you can do only some of them, if you so choose. It’ll still have the same impact.

I believe TTRPGs exist on a similar spectrum.

You have systems that can accommodate many different genres or play styles. People play dnd this way. Pathfinder comes with pre built settings that run the gamut

PbtA games are hyperspecific. Monster of the Week is about, well, monsters of the week. Remove that, and you’re playing a different game.

Call of Cthulhu can be set in any time period, but you still have to be up against Eldritch horrors. If you’re able to fight the monster, that’s a different intent than the game was built for.

Lyric games are akin to 4.48 Psychosis (everyone should read that, by the way, it’s a master work of avant-garde theatre).

And so on and so on.

Nothing is better or worse than any other. It just exists, on a spectrum, in the same vein as playstyle or crunch do. Everyone has their preference.

But with any game, there comes a point where you’re no longer playing that game.

10 Things I Hate About You is not The Taming of the Shrew, though it were based on it. There’s a limit to even the most forgiving game to where you’re no longer playing that game, but something you and your table have created for yourselves.

You can’t take the queerness or religion out of Angels in America. That’s a different play altogether.

It’s a spectrum.

I choose to design in the specific. That’s what resonates with my brain. You may want to play something that’s capable of handling more universal narratives. That’s fine too!

But we can’t ignore the bones of the system, and it’s incorrect to say we’re putting on Hamlet, when we’re actually performing The Lion King.

So: the Theory of Malleability (working title).

I don’t have a great end to this. Just musings. But I hope it makes sense to you too.

[bunnieswithknives]

Cat with heterophobia in its eyes

[silversodas]

I Don’t Know If Peri Can Be What Dev Needs Him to Be

So leaving off the episode with Irep (I guess that’s what they are going with) and I think I have just enough context to gage what Dev and Peri’s problem is. And some people have already pointed this out, it’s not wish fulfillment that Dev needs, and in a way Dev is starting to see that too. Well it’s more like he can’t understand why he isn’t happy with Peri which is why he has picked up the habit of constantly comparing Peri to Cosmo and Wanda. And come to the misguided conclusion that rule free wishes will make him happy. When he asks “why can’t you do this Peri?” When comparing him to his parents, what he is really saying is “why am I not happy with you, like Hazel is happy with your parents?” But let’s back up to Dev’s Birthday, the opening of the episode gives some pretty interesting insight.

Dev acts like a normal freaking person around Hazel and was starting to extend that to Cosmo and Wanda

Cosmo makes an attempt to cheer Dev up about his Dad being absent and Dev gives a shy but genuine smile at the effort.

Hazel has a pretty thoughtful gift for Dev, and Peri has an..interesting reaction to it

No one has pointed this out, but I thought his facial expressions in this opening were odd, like why does he look slightly sad about it? And you can’t say it’s resting bitch face because here is his resting face in the next scene

Speaking of this frame, it doesn’t seem to register to Peri that Dev is pretty down and is actually pretty oblivious to it, while Hazel picks up on it right away and cheers him up with her second thoughtful gift

And while waiting to receive it Peri….passive aggressively checks his nails..ok. It’s a pair of Rocket Boots, a lavish but thoughtful gift that Hazel wished up. And Boy is beyond freaking happy about them ,and Peri’s reaction to this is

“That should keep him happy for about ten minutes”

To criticize the gift? Dude what is your damage? I then had the thought “wait..is he jealous of Hazel?” But then I thought “no Peri wanted Dev to make friends of course he isn’t jealous..even though dev is never this happy or open with him like he is with her”

After the fight Dev had with Hazel and Peri trys to cheer him up by trying to offer him a distraction Dev losses his temper at the line “go ahead, make a wish” and blows up on Peri

“News Flash! I needed your help an hour ago!! I wish you would leave me alone!!”

Dev is furious because Peri let him down but got set off by the line “go ahead, make a wish” because he knows it won’t make him happy, all of his wishes have been things he can already get without magic. For real Peri is just slightly more convenient then online shopping for someone like Dev, and when he actually needed him he was distracted by his parents and wasn’t there for him

“I…as you wish kid”

I found this so heart breaking, you can tell in the first shot this wish hit him like a slap and looks so rejected and sad in the next shot. You can tell he really wants to help Dev and wants Dev to like him but Peri’s way of Godparenting IS NOT HELPING! Dev didn’t need shallow wish fulfillment. He needed Peri to help him emotionally for his Dad not being there at his Birthday. He needed Pari to be the adult and protect him from the psychotic banshee his Dad hired. HE NEEDED A PARENT!! I don’t think Dev is able to identify those feelings just yet though.

With that being said, Peri is a young adult doing his best, but the role of the Godparent (like the actual title godparent) is to give guidance and to take over the parenting role when the actual parents no longer can. And I am not sure if Peri can give that much of himself

I will say this about Peri though in the latest episode with Irep Peri really seems to be willing to go the distance for Dev, and I was NOT expecting Peri to literally snatch Dev away from Irep he basically went MINE! And let Jorgan blast Ireps ass back to the anti-fairy world and then

Leaves Dev to sulk on the ground….sigh, I mean if he is willing to go THIS far for Dev maybe he is willing to go further who knows.

Oh! We do learn this interesting tidbit about Peri

“It’s a good thing I was jealously spying on Dev- I mean passing by! I was normally and confidently passing by”

HE WAS JEALOUS OF HAZEL!!! Just like he was jealous of Irep! Wonder if they will expand more on this. Not gonna lie, it would be interesting if Hazel gets Devs trust back first and we get to see more of this jealous side before Hazel and Peri become friends

[beazure]

gotcha!