#future fantastic beasts films

[redgoldsparks]

I wrote a 12 page epilogue to my 2019 comic "Harry Potter and The Problematic Author" because I found, in 2023, that I had more to say. You can also find this comic on my website, and I have PDF copies available on etsy. I may sell print copies at some point in the future.

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

Full transcript below the cut.

PAGE 1

Part one: Ruddy Owls!

I was in fourth grade when the first Harry Potter Book was released in the US.

Panel 1: Sometimes our teacher would read it aloud in class. “Mr and Mrs Dursley of number 4 Privat Drive were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

Panel 2: I was 11 years old when Harry Potter finally broke through my dyslexia and turned me into a reader.

Panel 3: Every night in the summer before sixth grade I waited for the owl carrying my Hogwarts Letter. I cried when it didn’t come. “I have to go to Muggle school!”

PAGE 2

Part Two: Hats

I dedicated myself to being a fan.

Panel 1: I began collecting Harry Potter News article.

Panel 2: I asked my relatives to mail me ones from their local papers. I filled a thick binder with clippings.

Panel 3: I wrote my own trivia quiz

Panel 4: and participated in the one held annually at the county fair. “Next contestant!”

Panel 5: I usually got into one of. the top five spots. I won boxes of candy, posters, stationary, and once a baseball cap. (Hat reads: I survived the battle of Hogwarts).

Panel 6: In high school I sewed a black velvet cape and knitted many stripped scarves.

PAGE 3

Part Three: Double Trouble

Watching the last film in 2011 felt like the final note of my childhood. 

Panel 1: I remember driving home from the midnight showing thinking about the end of 13 years of waiting; wondering what would define the next chapter of my life. 

Panel 2: That same month I heard of something called Pottermore. “Okay, so there’s a sorting quiz… I already know my house! Patronus assignment? Mine’s a barn owl. Duh!" 

Panel 3: You can read the books again but with GIFs? Why? 

Panel 4: I lived in a place with very slow and limited internet at the time. Pottermore sounded inaccessible, but also boring. I never joined. 

Panel 5: "I’ll just read the actual books again, thanks." 

PAGE 4

Part Four: Sweets

In 2016, a series of short stories titled "History of Magic in North America” were released on Pottermore to pave the way for the first Fantastic Beasts Film. These stories display an extreme ignorance of American history, culture, and geography, but the worst parts are the casual misuse of indigenous beliefs and stories. Fans and critics immediately spoke up against this appropriation. Some of the most quoted voices included Nambe Pueblo scholar Dr. Debbie Reese who runs the site “American Indians In Children’s Literature”; Navajo writer Brian Young; Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw), founder of A Tribe Called Geek; Dr Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), a Professor at Brown University who runs the blog “Native Appropriations”, and writers N.K. Jemison and Paula Young Lee.

PAGE 5

Rowling is famous for responding to fans directly on twitter, yet she did not respond to anyone calling out the damaging aspects of “Magic in North America.” Her representatives refused to comment for March 9 2016 article in the Guardian. She has never apologized. All of this, plus the casting of Johnny Depp and the specific declarations of support by JKR, Warner Brothers, and director David Yates left a sour taste in my mouth.

For further thoughts on the new films read The Crimes of Grindelwald is a Mess by Alanna Bennett for Buzzfeed News, November 16, 2018.

PAGE 6

Excerpt from Colonialism in Wizarding American: JK Rowling’s History of Magic in North America Through an Indigenous Lens by Allison Mills, MFA, MAS/MLIS (Cree and Settler French Canadian)

Although Rowling is certainly not the first white author to misstep in her treatment of Indigenous cultures, she has an unprecedented level of visibility and fame, […] One of the most glaring problems with Rowling’s story is her treatment of the many Indigenous nations in North America as one monolithic group. […It] flattens out the diversity of languages, belief systems, and cultures that exist in Indigenous communities, allowing stereotyping to persist. […] It continues a long history of colonial texts which ignore that Indigenous peoples still exist. […] In the Wizarding world, as in the real world, Indigenous histories have been over-written and our cultures erased.

from The Looking Glass: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature Volumn 19, Issue 1

PAGE 7

Part 5: Music

Panel 1: Also in 2016 I discovered two podcasts which radically altered my experience of being an HP fan. The first was Witch Please created by two Canadian feminist literary scholars Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman.

Panel 2: “If it’s not in the text it doesn’t count!” “Close reading ONLY!”

Panel 3: They talk about Harry Potter at the level you’d expect in a college class with particular focus on gender, race, class, and the troubling fatphobia, fear of othered and queer coded bodies, violence against women, white feminism, gaslighting and failed pedagogy in the books. They bring up these issues not because they hate the series, but because they LOVE it.

PAGE 8

These passionate, joyful conversations went off like fireworks in my mind. I had never taken a feminist class before. I gained a whole new vocabulary to talk about the books- and the world.

PAGE 9

Panel 1: The second podcast I started that year was Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, created by two graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile.

Panel 2: They read one chapter per episode through a theme such as love, control, curiosity, shame, responsibility, hospitality, destruction, or mystery. Like Witch Please, they are interested only in the information on the page, not thoughts from the author. The delights and failures of the text are examined in the context of the present day, and new meanings constantly arise.

PAGE 10

What does it mean to treat a text as sacred?

Trusting that the more time we give to it, the more blessings it has to give us.

Reading the text repeatedly with concentrated attention. Our effort is part of what makes it sacred. The text is not in and of itself sacred, but is made so by rigorously engaging in the ritual of reading.

Experiencing it in community.

“To me, the goal of treating the text as sacred is that we learn to treat each other as sacred.” -Vanessa Zoltan

PAGE 11

Part 6: Tooth and Claw

In October 2017, Rowling liked a tweet linking to an article arguing that trans women should be kept out of women’s bathrooms because of cisgender women’s fears. In March 2018, she liked a tweet about the problem of misogyny in the UK Labour Party which included the line “Men in dresses get brosocialist solidarity I never had.” The author of the tweet had previously posted many blatantly anti-trans statements.

Rowlings publicist claimed she had liked the posted by accident in a “clumsy and middle-aged moment.” Yet, in September 2018 she liked a link posted by Janice Turner to her column in the Times UK titled “Trans Rapists Are A Danger In Women’s Jails.”

Screencaps of these tweets can be found in the article “The Mysterious Case of JK Rowling and her Transphobic Twitter History”, January 10 2019 by Gwendolyn Smith (a trans journalist), LGBTQNation.com

PAGE 12

Excerpt from: Is JK Rowling Transphobic? A Trans Woman Investigates by Katelyn Burns

Ultimately, the answer is yes, she is transphobic […] I think it’s fair that she receives criticism from trans people, especially given her advocacy on behalf of queer people in general, but also because she has a huge platform. Many people look up to her for creating a singular piece of popular culture that holds deep meaning for fans from different walks of life, and she has a responsibility to handle that platform wisely. (Published on them.us March 28, 2018)

PAGE 13

Part 7: Home

At age 30, I’m still not over Harry Potter.

Panel 1: I’ve recently found a local bar that does HP trivia nights. “Poppy or Pomona?” “Poppy!”

Panel 2: I currently own an annual pass to Universal Studios so I can visit Hogsmeade.

Panel 3: I love talking to kids who are reading the books for the first time. “Who’s your favorite character?” “Ginny!”

Panel 4: And I’m planning a relisten to the audio books to next year to help me get through the election cycle. “Jim Dale, I’m going to need you more than ever…”

Spoiler from 2023: I did not do this. By mid-2020 JKR had posted her transphobic essay; we were in covid; I never visited Universal Studios again.

PAGE 14

But I do want to learn from her mistakes. I never want to repeat “Magic in North America.” As I write, I will do my research. I will consult experts and compensate them. If a reader from a different culture/background than me speaks up about my work, I will listen and apologize. I KNOW I WILL MAKE MISTAKES. But I will own up to them and I will do better.

PAGE 15

Excerpt from Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power and Publishing by Daniel José Older

We can love a thing and still critique it. In fact, that’s the only way to really love a thing. Let’s be critical lovers and loving critics and open ourselves to the truth about where we are and where we’ve been. Instead of holding tight to the same old, failed patriarchies, let’s walk a new road, speak new languages. Today, let’s imagine a literature, a literary world, that carries this struggle for equity in its very essence, so that tomorrow it can cease to be necessary, and disappear. (Buzzfeed, April 14, 2017) 

PAGE 16

Harry Potter is flawed, & JK Rowling is problematic. But the books helped me learn a lot: 

*One of the greatest dangers facing the modern world is the rise of fascism 

*The government cannot be trusted 

*Read and think critically

*Question the news: who paid the journalist? Who owns the paper? 

*Trust and support your friends through good times and bad

*Organize for resistance

*Educate and share resources with peers

*The revolution must be diverse and intersectional

* We are only as strong as we are united

*The weapon we have is love 

MK 2019

PAGE 17

PART 8: EPILOGUE

In 2021 I removed a Harry Potter patch I sewed to my book bag over a decade ago. I took 15 pieces of Harry Potter fanart off my walls. I got rid of my paperback book set, 2 board games, and 8 t-shirt. [images: a Hogwarts a patch with loose threads, a pair of scissors and a seam ripper]

Panel 1: Maia holding up a shirt with the Deathly Hallows logo on it. Maia thinks: “Damn, this really used to be my entire personality.”

Panel 2: The t-shirt gets thrown into the Goodwill box.

PAGE 18

I wrote my zine wrestling with JKR’s legacy in 2019, after her dismissive and racist reaction to indigenous fans and critics of “Magic in North America” and after she had liked a couple transphobic tweets. Since then, she has gotten so much worse.

A Brief Timeline (mostly from this Vox article)

June 2020- JKR posts a 3600 word essay making her anti-trans position clear

August 2020- The Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Org issues a statement about her transphobia, JKR doubles down on her position and returns an award they gave her

December 2020- JKR claims 90% of HP fans secretly agree with her anti-trans views

December 2021- JKR mocks Scottish Police for recognizing transgender identities

March 2022- JKR criticizes gender-inclusive language and legislation

December 2022- JKR retweets trans youtuber Jessie Earl’s critical review of Hogwarts Legacy, starting an onslaught of transphobic harassment towards Earl

December 2022- JKR removes her support from an Edinburgh center for survivors of sexual violence with a trans-inclusive policy and funds her own center which explicitly excludes trans sexual assault survivors

January 2023- JKR tweets “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.” It got nearly 300K likes

March 2023- One the podcast “The Witch Trials of JK Rowling”, hosted by a former Westboro Baptist Church Member, JKR compares the trans rights movement to Death Eaters.

PAGE 19

What are The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “It’s a 7 episode documentary style podcast hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper. Nearly every episode contains interviews with JKR as well as critics, journalists, historians, protestors and fans.

Panel 2: Maia speaking. “In episode 1, JKR speaks more candidly than she has previously about being in an abusive marriage. Her ex-husband hit her, stalked her, broke into her house overlapping with the time she was writing the first three HP books.”

Panel 3: Maia speaking. “What she went through genuinely sounds horrific. I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of life-long traumas those experiences leave.”

PAGE 20

HOWEVER.

It is clear from reading the June 2020 essay on her blog and listening to the podcast, that JKR still to this day feels unsafe. Despite her wealth and privilege she moves through the world with the mindset of a victim. And the group of people she finds most threatening are trans women.

Or rather, she is afraid that allowing trans women in women’s spaces invites the possibility of male predators entering those spaces.

Here’s a direct quote: The problem is male violence. All a predator wants is access and to open the doors of changing rooms, rape centers, domestic violence centers [...] to any male who says “I’m a woman and I have a right to be here” will constitute a risk to women and girls. - from The Witch Trials episode 4 as transcribed by therowlinglibrary.com, March 2023

Image: A stem of Belladonna with flowers and berries.

PAGE 21

Let me introduce here the term: TRANSMISOGYNY. The intersection of transphobia and misogyny, this term was coined by Julia Serano in 2007. Scout Tran, on tiktok as Queersneverdie said: “Transmisogyny occurs in people who have been previously hurt by traditional misogyny. Who have been driven to hate men or at the very least to be scared of men. They will sometimes take out that rage on trans women. (March 2023)

JKR claims to care for trans women and understand they are extremely vulnerable to assault and violence. In her 2020 Essay she wrote: “I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe.”

So she cares about trans women… just less than cis women, and she’s willing to throw all trans women under the bus because of her unfounded, prejudice fears.

PAGE 22

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “JKR claims to have seen data that proves trans women have presented physical threats to other women in intimate spaces, but never cites sources. She also uses “producer of the large gametes” as a definition of “woman”.

What about transmen and nonbinary folks?

Panel 2: Maia leaning on a stack of all seven HP books, the first four Cormorant Strike books and The Casual Vacancy, gesturing to a series of quotes with a tired and disgusted expression.

I’m concerned about the huge explosion of young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning. * [...] If I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. -June 10 2020 essay

I don’t believe a 14 year old can truly understand what the loss of their fertility is.

-Witch Trials episode 4

I haven’t yet found a study that hasn’t found that the majority of young people experiencing gender dysphoria grow out of it*. -Witch Trials episode 7

*No sources cited

PAGE 23

It’s hard to over emphasize how fixated JKR has become on these topics. As of the date I’m writing this, 14 out of her 20 most recent tweets (70%) are in some way anti-trans. She tweets against Mermaids (a UK based trans youth charity), against trans athletes, against gender neutral bathrooms, and in support of LBG Alliance- a UK org that denies trans rights while upholding gay rights. Here are some gems from her archive:

“People who menstruate.” I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? -June 2020

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman. - December 2021

And in response to someone asking “How do you sleep at night knowing you lost a whole audience?”

I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly. -October 2022

PAGE 24

Hashtag Ruthless Productions a queer nerd podcast company created a great guide on ethical engagement with HP. Image: the two hosts of Hashtag Ruthless productions, Jessie (They/she) and Lark (he/him).

Stop buying all official HP Products: books, movies, games, toys, etc, Universal Studios tickets, food, merch.* Boycott any new TV series or movies. Instead: buy the books and DVDs used. If you still want to wear HP merch, buy fan-made. Engage only with fan content: fic, podcasts, fanart, wizard rock, etc. Show transphobia is bad for business. None of this will change JKR’s mind. But the Fantastic Beast series was canceled and after record Pottermore sales in 2020, they fell in 2022 by 40%.

*She gets a portion of ALL tickets. In 2019, this was her largest income source. Read the full guide: hashtagruthless.com/resourceguide

PAGE 25

As late as 2019, I was still reading JKR’s murder mystery series. But by the fourth book my experience began to sour.

Panel 1: Maia holding a copy of Lethal White. “The only gay character in this book is a government official who gropes his staff?”

Panel 2: “The only genderqueer character is misgendered and portrayed as a whiny faker?”

Panel 3: “The only Muslim character is disowned by his family over gay rumors?”

Panel 4: “Even the women aren’t portrayed very well…”

Panel 5: “Why is the main female character defined by the rape in her past?”

Panel 6: “Wait, what happens in the rest of this series…?” Maia scrolls on eir phone.

Panel 7: “Is the series heading towards an employee/boss relationship?”

Panel 8: “And has a man wearing women’s clothes to commit assault?”

Panel 9: “Yeah, I’m done. I’m never reading a new JKR book ever again.”

PAGE 26

And as for JKR herself?

As tempting as it might be to tweet your frustrations at her, I don’t recommend it. In 2021, she tweeted, “Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me.” Getting hate online feeds her sense of victimhood and she waves it as proof of her moral high ground. Instead I suggest you block her on twitter, then delete twitter, go to the library and try to find a new book that feels magical.

Stack of books: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Gifts by Ursula K Le Guin, Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir.

PAGE 27

In “Emergent Strategy” adrienne maree brown writes: You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them, personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else’s health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival-based, learned behaviors rooted in pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there. If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right.

PAGE 28

Seeing anyone over age 12 wearing HP merch now makes me uncomfortable. Are they ignorant or actively a TERF? I hate wondering how much money JKR has probably poured into anti-trans legislation… This zine is a culmination of my slow breakup with a story that once brought me joy. Now it just makes me angry, tired and sad.

Image: Candle in a fancy holder burned down to less than an inch.

Maia Kobabe, 2023

[txttletale]

(Other than the really weird bit about "Male presenting Doctor") what were your thoughts about the specials?

pretty mixed bag, pretty messy, but good overall. i think they were very obviously a nostalgia trip for people around my age lol and it worked! i loved seeing tennant and tate back onscreen together, their chemistry hasn't aged a bit, and honestly just watching doctor who that wasn't written by chris chibnall was a breath of fresh air. they weren't boring, like seasons 11 and 12 were, and they didn't go too far off the other end into nonsense like flux did. characters want things again! the show can let itself just be silly! i was literally cheering out loud when donna and the doctor were just saying random scifi gobbledegook at each other for like a solid several minutes during the star beast.

the structure of the specials kind of baffles me. i love wild blue yonder--i think it's definitively the best of the specials as a standalone, it's absolutely fantastic, creepy and atmospheric and bringing things around to RTD's strength, which is well-written characters interacting with each other and letting good actors just act. but at the same time i dont understand why it exists? it feels like...idk. imagine if you watched the star wars original trilogy but instead of the empire strikes back the middle film was just a feature length film about luke and han surviving on an ice planet with no reference to anything that happens in the last film except the two characters' relationship. and then the next film was still return of the jedi, unchanged. it felt like that

i liked all the weird campy silliness of the star beast and the giggle, and they were both very fun! neil patrick harris gave a fantastic performance, there are a lot of very memorable sequences from the giggle, but it's very very all over the place. so many threads get kind of picked up and go nowhere. the toymaker's haunted house dimension goes nowhere. RTD's eyerolling social media commetnary goes nowhere (thank god tbh but yknow im illustrating something here). even the toymaker kind of goes nowhere, after ncuti gatwa shows up he's bascially an afterthought who loses by dropping a ball. obvious parallels to david tennant's first episode with that ball scene could be made, but just... aren't. it feels like load-bearing sectikons of the plot and themes were cut out to make room for a backdoor pilot for the stupid fucking UNIT spinoff

oh and it goes without saying i fucking hate all the UNIT wank in the star beast and the giggle. i hope space nine eleven 2 happens to their stupid fucking avengers tower i cannot stand kate stewart who is constantly a murderous bonehead (in the giggle alone she gets two pepole killed by not listening to the doctor and assuming that this teleporting godlike entity could be restrainted by Two Guys) who is both in and out of universe just a boring nepo baby with no merit of her own

um. i still dont know what happened with the regeneration. i think the implication is that when david tennant dies hell time travel back to become ncuti gatwa inside himself--at least the rehab dialogue seems to make that implication. but it's not really explained or explored? baffling. i do think that fourteen getting to settle down and live a peaceful life with his friends is cute.

oh yeah and the ask said other than that but goddd there was some good stuff in the star beast and honestly with the state of the UK media i will take any perspective on trans people that includes baseline human erespect but some of those lines made me cringe so bad. anyway overall i am cautiously optimistic for the future of the show--oh ncuti was fucking great did i mention that i instantly bnought him as the doctor he owned the scene, the moment he was there it was clear he was the protagonist, and i liked the church on ruby road well enough too--i am cautiously optimistic but i worry that a big UNIT-shaped tumor will devour huge chunks of it and it'll be annoying. also russel t davies is like 60 and i just dont want to hear what he has to say about twitter so im not looking forward to dot and bubble

[hellcheer-munson]

Fuck JK Rowling but it makes me so angry to think we could have had a complete Fantastic Beasts series with an autistic lead who isn’t a total stereotype, who is loveable, who has a love interest instead of just being infantilised…and instead we’re getting a seven season Harry Potter reboot/remake that no one asked for or wanted on HBO Max.

When I was going through the process of my autism diagnosis, feeling anxious and worried about what being diagnosed would mean, knowing that Newt Scamander - a character who is adored by so many in a major franchise - was being played as autistic helped me tremendously. I saw much of myself in Newt, and it made me feel seen that an autistic person like myself could be the hero, that Newt wasn’t a joke or stereotype. It was so important to me coming to terms with my diagnosis that a character I loved was like me and not limited by being autistic.

I’ve mentioned this before but on the opening day of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in the UK, there was a boy on the row in front of me. When Newt came onscreen, he started bouncing and flapping his hands excitedly - like me, he was autistic and saw himself represented on the big screen.

“But Luna Lovegood” - you know what, controversial but fuck your “but Luna Lovegood”. Her actress sided with the TERF, and Luna is NOT confirmed to be autistic, it’s just a popular fan headcanon. Meanwhile Newt Scamander has been confirmed by Eddie Redmayne (not JKR, fuck her) to be on the spectrum. I’m not saying she definitely isn’t because I can definitely see it, and it’s wonderful autistic people can relate, but I’m talking about a character who is intentionally written and portrayed as autistic instead of just fan headcanons.

What does having a love interest have to do with this? Believe it or not, this isn’t me just being a shipper: too often are autistic people infantilised, as if we can’t love other people or that people are incapable of loving us. But - as anyone following me most likely knows - Newt Scamander has a love interest, Porpentina “Tina” Goldstein, who he’s canonically married to in the future. They even have a grandson who is called Rolf and marries the aforementioned Luna.

In the three films, we only got a few scenes (and then JK Rowling cut Tina out because Katherine Waterston called her out on multiple occasions for being a transphobe) of Newtina but what we got showed that not only is Newt capable of forming a romantic attachment but also Tina clearly loves Newt as he is, quirks and all. She understood his odd compliment of “salamander eyes” because she knows his special interest is magical creatures and it’s his way of saying he adores her eyes. She read his book and genuinely made an effort to learn because she knew magical creatures were important to him, and we saw her grow from thinking he was writing an “extermination guide” to giving him the name for his book, “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them”. My girl Tina LOVES Newt for who he is and always has, and that’s beautiful.

Seeing an autistic person not only fall in love - he spends the whole of the 2nd and 3rd films lamenting on how beautiful she is, talking about her and with her picture in his pocket/suitcase - but also being loved for who they are is something so rarely seen and is so important.

I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and say that the second and third Fantastic Beasts movies weren’t the greatest, by the way. I will agree to that. The first one seems like a damn masterpiece in comparison, even with its problems, but I’m still angry.

The fact that JK Rowling’s bigotry has contributed to losing this rare example of autistic representation in a major mainstream franchise is something no one talks about when discussing her actions, and it hurts that no one seems to care about canon autistic representation.

[daphneblakess]

with casting announcements for the harry potter show likely coming soon if it's dropping in 2026, remember that whatever 10 year olds are cast will be weaponized to deflect discussion of jkr's transphobia. that in fact, hbo will likely stoop to any stuntcast they can think of. this might include recasting a popular actor from the movies, casting actors of color as characters who were previously white, or even queer actors as a wink and nudge that, see, joanne is totally cool with the gays (as she donates five-figure sums to anti-trans legislation lobbying)! do not fall for it when it happens. it is to try and make people forget this show is being made because jkr - whose involvement is confirmed to be very heavy - is cranky that half the cast of the films (including all three main actors) have publicly denounced her for her transphobia.

turn up the heat on anyone who lets their name be attached to this, in any capacity. demand their stance on jkr's transphobia and let them dig their own graves. the fastest way to render hp culturally irrelevant is to make corporations feel like associating with it is a liability. if signing onto this show becomes reputational suicide, we saw from the radioactive sludge basin that fantastic beasts turned into how unceremoniously that will get future projects cancelled.

[warderfromtheborder]

Final Shape thoughts

TL:DR it's very good. I'm glad Bungie cooked so good on it, but I'm still sad/frustrated/concerned about the future development of the game

Campaign 10/10, no negative notes. Absolutely fantastic writing and performances. Liked the structure of having the final mission happen after the raid. I hope we get to replay Excision it was a lot of fun. SCUR-V appearance gave me the giggles and the shouts.

Prismatic is really cool, I like having a different way to do my liar's handshake build.

The new enemy faction is super cool, but it felt like they got less aggressive with their abilities as the campaign progressed?

The Pale Heart is a fucking AMAZING destination, what an excellent way to frame the final leg of this journey. I took tons of screenshots looking back at the portal. Climbing up the weird Witness tree hieroglyph in Iconoclast was one of my fave bits of traversal.

The only thing I genuinely wish was different is: in Wild Card, I wish the dark ether'd War Beast was like, 10 times as big. I wanted to get attacked by a comically large beaste.

Satisfaction at a good ending for the story is on one hand, and fomo burnout is on the other. I want to have more adventures in this game. I want to not have to worry about chasing red borders anymore. I want to never look at a season pass or seasonal challenge checklist ever again. Pathfinder is just gonna make me more aware of how much Im not doing rituals each week.

I kinda feel like daniel craig who's just wrapped filming a Bond movie is immediately asked "aren't you excited to make another one :) "

And then there's the like, looming possibility that the studio is gonna bend backwards to make Destiny 3?? And no idea whats gonna happen after the three episodes. I hope those two questions are addressed on monday's livestream. I can't stop thinking about the layoffs, and how for years it sounded like they were committed to not overpromising, not crunching, building up a sustainable cadence of content. And then, seemingly because youtubers couldn't handle a story that wasn't spoonfed to them, Lightfall got so much bad press it got buried despite being an excellent expansion, and the seasonal content was also excellent, but so much bad press means 10% of the team has to get fired??? Including people who have nothing but huge Ws under their belt like the head composer or the lawyer who protects the community managers from harassment???? LITERALLY DECIMATED. Yeah of course I dont have the full picture, there's so much context and details I don't know. It's parasocial. But I don't feel as certain anymore that I get to support devs who are happy with their employers. I know they still love the game they make. I dunno. I dunno. Give everyone a year's paid vacation! Give everyone a raise! Give them all tenure! Stop fuckkng firing game devs!!! Please!!

The Final Shape, very good, good job destiny dev team, 9/10.

[eddieredmayneargentinablog]

"Day of The Jackal FIRST LOOK: Eddie Redmayne is every inch the suave assassin while filming Sky's 'modern reimagining' of the thriller in Croatia", Daily Mail, November 6, 2023.

Eddie Redmayne was seen for the first time on the set of Sky's  new TV adaption of The Day of The Jackal in Croatia on Monday.

The British actor, 41, cut a suave figure as he shot scenes as assassin known as the Jackal, originally played by Edward Fox in the classic 1973 film. 

Eddie was dressed all in black and teamed a sweater with smart trousers for the shoot which took place in a busy market.

The Oscar winner could be seen chatting to the crew before jumping behind the wheel of a swanky sports car for a complex action scene. 

Originally a novel by Frederick Forsyth the story follows the story of the trained killer who is hired to is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle.

According to the Hollywood Reporter the producers, of which Eddie is one, have described the adaption as a 'bold, modern reimagining of the beloved and respected novel and film.' 

And while the series, written by Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett, will pay homage to the original it will be set in the world modern world of geo-politics.

Producer Gareth Neame said: “We are excited to bring to life Ronan Bennett’s re-imagining of Forsyth’s revered thriller in the complex world in which we live today and are incredibly fortunate to have an actor of Eddie’s calibre as our Jackal'.

It comes after Eddie  credited his parents for his successful career in a rare candid interview.

The actor said it was his father, Richard, a banker, and mother Patricia, who ran a relocation company, and their willingness to allow him to pursue  his interest in acting at an early age that allowed him to flourish in his career.

'I loved music and singing and acting at school,' the Fantastic Beast franchise star told Today's Willie Geist in an interview. 'To my parents' credit, which now as a parent myself I really do hold high, anything I had an interest in or my brothers had an interest in, they supported.' 

The future star attended the Jackie Palmer Studios Stage School in London where his classmates including James Corden, Jamie Dornan and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. 

The father of two shares Iris, seven and Luke, five, with his wife of nine years, Hannah Bagshawe.

Eddie, who won the Academy Award for his portrayal of the late physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

In addition to the Oscar, Eddie won a Tony in 2010 for his work in Red and will soon return in a production of Cabaret after starring as Emcee in the musical in London's West End. 

Still most fans know him for his role as Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts films. He's starred in three of the magical adventures, but said he isn't sure when or if a fourth is in the works.

Speaking to Indiewire the actor explained, 'It’s more a question for J. K. Rowling and David Yates and Warners, but I don’t know, I’m afraid. I can’t add to that, adding, 'I love playing Newt, he’s a sweet man".

....

[dreaminginpastels]

characters I write for

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

»»-----　my darlings (characters I will ALWAYS write for)　-----««

♥︎ remus lupin (harry potter - marauders era)

♥︎ druig (marvel - eternals)

♥︎ spencer reid (criminal minds)

♥︎ ed nygma/the riddler (gotham, batman: forever, potentially the batman if people would like!)

♥︎ peter parker

(tom holland or andrew garfield only, pre-no way home only as I haven’t seen that film yet, and am not as familiar with tobey maguire’s peter parker)

♥︎ newt (the maze runner)

♥︎ data (star trek: the next generation)

♥︎ michael mell (be more chill)

♥︎ reed richards (the fantastic four)

♥︎ peeta mellark / finnick odair (the hunger games)

♥︎ merry / pippin / sam / frodo (lord of the rings)

♥︎ pat butcher (bbc ghosts)

♥︎ todd anderson / neil perry (dead poets society)

♥︎ theo dimas (only murders in the building)

♥︎ newt scamander (harry potter - fantastic beasts)**

**prior to the newest movie only

»»-----　as a kind of general rule, I can write for any character from: -----««

- harry potter / marauders era / fantastic beasts and where to find them

(original movies/books characters only)

- marvel (especially eternals and avengers)

- criminal minds (seasons 1-7 until I catch up)

- lord of the rings (trilogy only, I haven’t read the hobbit yet!)

- the hunger games

- gotham

- the maze runner

- dead poet’s society

- ghosts (bbc)

- the fantastic four

- x-men

- star trek: the next generation

- dirk gently’s holistic detective agency (netflix series only)

- the back to the future trilogy

- narnia (movies only)

- the pirates of the caribbean

- dear evan hansen (musical)

- be more chill (musical)

- only murders in the building

please note:

this is NOT an exhaustive list, I am a fan of heaps of fandoms and am in love with way too many fictional characters 😅 

plus I’m always open to new suggestions!

the best option is to send me either a direct message or an ask to check if I write for any particular characters that you might have in mind

I’m very friendly and am super happy to discuss it with you!

[noblehcart]

i know i know no one really cares, but like for all the hype Journ.ey to Bethle.hem is getting for their songs and for Milo and the fun campy-ness....can we PLEASE just talk about Joel Sm.allbone as Antipater??

Like, while it sooo wasn't necessary to the plot, it was so gripping to me? IDK I just really attached to his character most because I love the complexity of the role. Trying to be a good son, soldier, and learning to be a future (roman-jewish) ruler whilst keeping in mind the looming beast above them that is the fuckin Roman Empire. What is the line to upholding the legitimacy of his /father's reign, following the orders of a higher order (Rome/God) and what is just plain wrong- like murdering pregnant women and infants in the face of all that? Antipater deals with a lot and I just loved seeing his internal conflict in his song 'In My Blood'.

Never been anything But your loyal son Been a good soldier Followed your orders Never questioning you once You're all I wanted to be But now it's all unraveling There's blood on my hands Don't know if I am A monster or the son of a king

I truly feel like Mary and Antipater were the only ones actually played as a serious role for obvious reasons and I think were the best actors tbh, but IDK I just really loved these two. They had phenomenal chemistry imo, but that's me because I wanted so badly to see this extended in some form or another and maybe because in so many ways it didn't feel like a christian movie so my brain kept thinking what's the next in the series? What's next for Antipater? Which in of itself is conflicting as a believer because I know what I believe and to feel unsatisfied with it is ....-gestures- anyways that's not what this is about.

I do know I have a TYPE and it is Antipater, but I do think Joel did wonderfully in the role, and he has acted in other movies as well and had his music featured in other movies like Ben Hur (2016). He is a fantastic singer I just loooove his group 'For King and Country'. Go check out THIS music video and tell me its not gripping.

I guess my other thing about this is KNOWING that the writers fully well knew what happened to the actual Antipater, firstborn to Herod, and so to tie this in just WRECKED me emotionally because it unsayingly says that he dies in the end and the resignation just destroyed me. Historically, Antipater is charged & executed for the intended murder of his father Herod. I found this section in Wikipedia and wow

Concerning Antipater's execution following on the heel of Herod's executions a couple of years before of his sons Alexander and Aristobulus, it would be recounted in the compendium Saturnalia (compiled by Macrobius) that Augustus remarked "It is better to be Herod's pig than his son."

So for me knowing all that on top of watching (skimming) the movie just wrecked me for Antipater and his role here. So yeah that's my two cents and love for the character and his storyline in the film. I'd love to write something fictional with a similar tone because I really want to see it explored more.

I don't think I have said it anywhere before on the blog, but I am a non-denominational Christian with very open views to many things, beliefs and concepts. So if anyone has any questions on whatever regarding that please feel free to hmu I'd love to discuss it with you <3 I do not believe in bible thumping- that is not what I'm here to do. I believe there's many ways to God and the universe and that we're all entitled to find and discover that in whatever manner is best fitting for you.

[irradiate-space]

Review: "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore"

A mediocre film.

The Fantastic Beasts series started with a focus on a magizoölogist using magical beasts to solve problems. This film had a couple of interesting animal sequences, but it focused on the Dumbledore/Grindelwald relationship conflict, and wasn't particularly deep. For all the visual effects, the stakes were low, and not because we know how the Second Wizarding War starts. Rather, the stakes are low because there's very little tension.

The worldbuilding sucks, in the usual JKR fashion.

The head of the international magical government is apparently chosen by a direct vote of all wizards, but only after a magical deer is given the choice to sniff the candidates, and most people vote as the deer does. Is this better than the system in use in our United States? No! There is no chain of custody of the deer, and anyone can corrupt it. The deer can even be provided by a candidate! How the fuck is this government supposed to work? The only good thing it has going for it is that people can reject being chosen by the deer, and that they have magically-fast tabulation of the vote.

The protagonists are working on a "no one can know any whole part of the plan, because that would allow Grindelwald to see the future accurately" plan, but it sure seems like Dumbledore knows the entire plan.

Dumbledore is magically prevented from working against Grindelwald, but his "no one can know all the details (except me)" plot sure seems to include working against Grindelwald. Hmm!

It's really only redeemed by the prison break sequence, and the fact that I watched it as an in-flight movie.

The title sequence is neat in that they've finally landed on "The Wizarding World" branding for the non-Harry-Potter parts of a story which grew out of Harry Potter.

[writing-fanics]

The Flash Review 2023 / Let Me Say

Never done a review on a movie before on here but here’s mine.

So the The Flash has been in development hell for decades, multiple directors delays. Set backs and other things. Was supposed to come out in 2018 but didn’t. Multiple, controversies and reshoots.

Firstly, Ezra Miller before their controversy I’ll admit I’ve had a crush on them. Especially, when I saw them in Fantastic Beasts as Credence Barebone/Aurelius Dumbledore and then when I saw them as Barry Allen in The Justice League. I was absolutely in love.

I was a middle school teenager around, 14. and was mostly crushing on fictional characters and reading Killing Stalking. I still continued to crush on their characters and the actor themselves, and I still do on the characters not the actor..

don’t get me wrong I love some of Ezra’s work which is fine in my opinion. I’ve really only seen them in, Fantastic Beasts and The Flash. I haven’t seen Perks of Being a Wallflower yet which I’ll definitely watch eventually.

I understand, not wanting to see The Flash because of their controversy and the things they’ve done.

But… I will say that his performance as Barry Allen. Is very enjoyable and funny and goofy, what I expect from a character like the Flash. I mostly grew up liking Batman but Ezra’s Flash I immediately fell in love with I’m the past movies

Again, I understand not wanting to see the film because of Ezra. Which is totally up to you even I was skeptical of seeing it. But I went with my gut and decided to see a film I’ve been excited about since I was like 15 years old.

Actually Talking about the Movie Now

SPOILERS

So, I waited five years for this and the opening was great the first act amazing. I love that he needs to basically eat food or he basically isn’t at full strength. That aspect I love. The CGI…

The CGI babies reminded me of Renesmee, and the director said it’s because we’re seeing it from Flash’s perspective and since he’s fast. He sees things differently and it’s distorted. Him saving, the babies from the hospital goofy as fuck..

But I couldn’t stop laughing.. Elephant in the room, him putting the baby into the microwave.. I audible laughed in theater and was “like no fucking way he just put dat baby in a microwave, like it’s a some breakfast burrito.” the guy next to me laughed when I said that

when he went for the vending machine instead of the baby.. I laughed the dog slowly falling I laughed. I love the interactions between Bruce and Barry, Barry and Iris left more to be desired honestly. Since last we saw her was in a slow mo in Snyder Cut. (which also was pretty decent but could’ve been shorter if not for the slow mo)

Flash is knocked into the next dimension by evil lookin dude

in all a or one gets a 7/10

Act Two.. Eric Stoltz is Marty Mcfly

Barry going back in time was cool, I loved how they interpreted him going back in time. That was cool seeing all the things that happened was amazing.

Young Barry, is fucking annoying but honestly he stole my heart. Like legit he’s goofy as fuck and honestly I’d probs have a crush on him if I went to the same school as him. His introduction is hilarious, and how Future!Barry tackled him to the ground I laughed. Past!Barry life though is just….

Their interactions were just goofy and hilarious, and also they honestly kinda had that older brother and little brother thing going on in my opinion. Which also added to me liking their interactions and little quips.

Barry, losing his powers and just doing that goofy run everyone dunks on is just hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing. Also, I had no idea who the fuck Eric Stoltz was.. and I was like Barry really just ruined back to the future by going back in time.

Also, even tho I hate Aquaman the fact he’s a dog in this universe. Omg..

Also the younger flash had me cracking up more.. the scene when he ran back into the apartment naked with a music instrument covering his parts. And slowly shuffled away I laughed.

seeing Micheal Keaton, I was so happy cause I absolutely adore Tim Burton’s Batman films. Especially, the sequel I love Catwoman in that one Omg!

Seeing him again, firstly as a disheveled man with th Gandalf beard I was like yo did batman? But seeing him in da suit. Brought back memories.. watching it for the first time on dvd when my mom bought it while at Walmart for me.

Kara, she was good I prefer her over Superman. Cause, gonna say it now.. I didn’t like Man of Steel. It was boring and I didn’t understand it cause of the constant flashbacks it got confusing. For little me.

But Amy Adams was in it so.. I was like ooh Giselle.

But I did get excited seeing Zod, idk why again I didn’t enjoy Man of Steel. But my stupid little ass liked Justice League it’s a guilty pleasure now but I was 14 when it came out soo. But I’m not surprised cause I also liked Batman V Superman and the Suicide Squad not The Suicide Squad (2021) < this one I love the first one no

Back to the Flash, I wish she was in the movie longer tho. When Barry saved her in the Russian base.. and said I got you and she repeated it back to him.. my heart..

also phasing the molecule scene I was like ‘He’s molecules got all rearrange’

6.5/10

Act Three…. zod kills babies now also bat nipples

so…we find out what happened to baby Superman.. Zod killed him when trying to find the key to remake Krypton.. yeah.. fuk Zod.

them preparing for battle was cool to watch but this act, also was the slowest. my mind started to wonder off about flash fanfiction I’ve read (on ezra’s flash before the controversy might I add).. then I went back to the movie.

so.. everything goes to shit real fast Batman dies. Kara dies. And both Barry try to fix it. and eventually older Barry realizes they can’t.

but the younger one who hasn’t seen lost, and is immature. Keeps trying, and I love how his suit gets darker and darker each time he travels back more and more sharp stuff starts appearing and eventually it’s revealed the guy that kicked flash at the beginning is Dark Flash.

which I figured out once I saw the stuff appearing on, younger flash. I’m all younger flash dies and dark flash ceases to exist.

Barry goes back and quickly disguised himself, and takes the cam of tomatoes his past self put in back onto the shelf not before having one last conversation with his mom. And I honestly teared up a bit. It was so sweet seeing him finally get to say goodbye to his mom.

and her giving him a hug. a twinge of me though she realized it was her son but she didn’t. And it was sweet.

the movie ends with his dad getting acquitted, and a hunted date for Barry and Iris and then fucking George Clooney is revealed as Bruce Wayne but he isn’t

also during one scene we see multiple versions of the Flash and Superman’s, we see the og and the one our parents most likely grew up on which I know has a lot of controversy. We see Adam West Batman. And Nicholas Cage Superman!!

omg I new from the way it looked it was him.

I’d give this act a 4.5/10 was slow

i guess im total the film is a B- it isn’t great but it’s good.

Ezra as the flash is great, i haven’t really gotten into the CW flash show I tried to but I wasn’t feeling it like I was with Gotham.

But from a cinematic stand point, I love Ezra Miller as The Flash. Despite, their controversy their version of the Flash/Barry as honeslty meant a lot to be growing up especially since I’d just moved across the state again from

Washington state to NC leaving behind my friends and a house I loved which I had a little place under the stairs. And my own living room. but since we moved I have none of that no place under the stairs for me to escape to when my adopted siblings get on my nerves.

i have a room but the loft is right next to it, and whenever they’re being loud I can hear it full volume and I wished I had a place under the stairs again.

Yes, Ezra Miller deserves to pay for the actions they’ve done spend some time in jail (even). And not get off with the slap on the wrist. I’m happy they’ve said that they’re getting help I applauded that but I’m still upset by the things they’ve been accused up especially for someone who enjoys the things they’ve been in.

But, I didn’t let that destroy my enjoyment of the film and seeing Barry again I couldn’t be even more happier and honestly my 14 year old self in me was still crushing on Barry disassociating him from the actor that portrays him.

In all..

Ezra Miller, should be held accountable of their actions and spend some jail time. Stay away from the camera a bit and get the help they need, and then and only then we’ll see what happens. Honestly idk this is my mind set I’m sometimes a very forgiving person depending on the circumstances.

I’m a fan of Ezra’s work that won’t change.. since he’s impacted my young teenage years for being in Fantastic Beasts heck I still have the Credence Barebone Lego dimensions thing. And then being as the Flash..

But as of now.. I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things they’ve done.

[I won’t turn off comments on this I will delete any hate towards me or anyone else if needed]

[spatial-jump]

AB / spatial-jump

���That’s one badass stapler!” — Five Hargreeves, the Umbrella Academy

ABOUT ME:

Name: AB (she/her) Birthday: 17th March (minor); Pisces Ethnicity: Asian British, of Indian descent Hobbies: Reading, writing, procrastinating, netball, badminton, swimming Favourite colour(s): Aquamarine, royal purple Height: 5’2” or 5’3” A-Level Subjects: Maths, Economics, Classical Civilisations Likes: Flapjacks, books, the rain, thunderstorms, lightning, chocolate, broccoli, the night sky, space, cats, monkeys, volcanoes, oceans, Greek and Roman mythology, Spring, my favourite fandoms and characters Other: INTP, Gryffindor, daughter of Poseidon, incredibly stubborn, grammar freak, angsty writer, sarcastic, mix of introvert and ambivert

SOCIALS:

Quotev: Main, Writing Account Wattpad: Main AO3: Main Pinterest: Main Discord: ABADA17

FANDOMS:

(Favourites are in italics.)

Primary: Harry Potter, Marauders Era, Fantastic Beasts, AVPM Trilogy, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, TLT Musical, Heroes of Olympus, the Maze Runner, the Hunger Games, the Umbrella Academy, Stranger Things, Divergent, Once Upon a Time, Anne With an E, Dead Poets Society

Secondary: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Chronicles of Narnia, Miss. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Murder Most Unladylike, How to Train Your Dragon (books), Noughts & Crosses, Enola Holmes

Other books: Five Survive, Yellowface, Love You to Death, Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, Swallows and Amazons, Pride and Prejudice, The Secret Garden, Malory Towers, Famous Five, THUG, the Midnight Game, This Book Kills, the Odyssey, War Horse, Arc of a Scythe, Nancy Drew, A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Atlas Six (first book only)

Other films/TV shows: Line of Duty, Red Eye, the Capture, Trigger Point, the Green Mile, the Shawshank Redemption, the Hurt Locker, Terminator, James Bond, the Bay, the Tourist, Barbie, Troy, Cruella, Ghosts UK, the Apprentice, Dragons’ Den, the Traitors, Enola Holmes, Kaos

Currently reading: The Maze Cutter, Little Women

Currently watching: Teen Wolf, Runaways, Pirates of the Caribbean

Future: Supernatural, Bridgerton, Good Omens, the Kane Chronicles, the Mortal Instruments, the Matrix, the Shining, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, the Godfather

CHARACTERS:

Comfort kins: Five Hargreeves (TUA), James Potter (HP), Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano (Hoo), Henry Mills (OUaT), Thomas (TMR)

Kins: Ron Weasley (HP), Lee Jordan (HP), Dustin Henderson (ST), Charlie/Nuwanda Dalton (DPS), Severus Snape (HP), Percy Jackson (PJO), Hazel Levesque (HoO), Tina Goldstein (FB)

Comforts: Teddy the Niffler (FB), Pickett the Bowtruckle (FB), Kreacher (HP), Newt Scamander (FB), Regulus Black (HP), Newt (TMR), Eleven (ST), Steve Harrington (ST), Leo Valdez (HoO), Sadie Kane (TKC), Killian Jones (OUaT), Mulan (OUaT), Gilbert Blythe (AWaE), Jerry Baynard (AWaE)

[scamanderishredmayniac]

Newt Appreciation Month!

I was initially planning to take up a challenge for Newt’s birthday month, as it’s Newt’s birthday on the 24th February. I wanted to dedicate this moth to Newt with some prompts, that fans could answer if they so wished to take part in the way they did with Tina’s birthday in August. I wanted to use the same questions, but with Newt’s name and in regards to him instead. I was supposed to make the grid with the questions on it, and have it up today but it seems I’m a little late. I was so preoccupied with another challenge during January, that I didn’t manage to finish it on time. To be honest I’d started ages ago, but I’m queen of procrastination, and always seem to do everything last minute dot com.

So the prompts will come a little later perhaps, or at least the fancy (ok really badly made picture grid) will be posted up a bit later than expected, as I’m still working on it. It’s proving to be a little more trickier than I thought. I’m not as talented as the fbevents page admins who normally host these things. But as you saw not so long ago they are no longer holding events for Fantastic beasts in general and doing things mainly for Tina instead it seems. But I’m determined and want Newt to be celebrated, and I want to do something for his birthday, so I thought if I want to take part in doing something, I’m going to have to be the one to host it myself. Even if I’m the only person doing it, then so be it. My prompts, fan fics, fan art barely get much recognition, so I’m not holding my breath in anyone joining me, because people usually don’t and my things mostly go ignored anyway. But I’m going to do it, and I’m going to celebrate Newt because I still love the Fantastic Beasts films, and want them badly. And I still love Newt and he still holds a special place in my heart.

Anyway I’m going to post the prompts as a list for the time being, so you can all see them, while I make the grid, and if you want to join in, that’d be great. I’d appreciate it. So here are the prompts for this month:

Day 1: Five things you like about Newt

Day 2: The first moment that made you fall in love with Newt

Day 3: Describe Newt in 3 words

Day 4: something you have in common with Newt

Day 5: cutest Newt moment

Day 6: if you could meet Newt, what would you want to say to him? Or do with him?

Day 7: Favourite Newt quotes

Day 8: Favourite Newt moment with Tina

Day 9: Favourite Newt moment with others

Day 10: Favourite Newt moment of all time

Day 11: Favourite Newt none romantic relationship (friends/family etc)

Day 12: Favourite interview about Newt

Day 13: Favourite headcannon about Newt

Day 14: Favourite theory about Newt

Day 15: Favourite Newt AU

Day 16: Favourite Newt costume

Day 17: Favourite Newt’s item/belonging

Day 18: Favourite Newt hairstyle (his hair did look different in each film, so which film hair did you like?)

Day 19: If you could adopt one of Newt’s beasts, what would you chose?

Day 20: A song that reminds you of Newt

Day 21: Favourite Newt merch or wish you could have

Day 22: Favourite fan art

Day 23: Favourite fanfic

Day 24: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEWT - post a fanfic or fan art for his birthday

Day 25: Favourite fan video edit

Day 26: Favourite graphic/edit/GIFF/aesthetic

Day 27: Top 5 favourite Newt accounts

Day 28: what do you want to see for Newt in Fantastic Beasts 4/ future plot?

You can do this any way you like, draw fan art, write fan fic, share pictures, videos etc, or just a simple answer the question or whatever.

Lastly I’m going to pin this post so I can refer back to it, which means my normal pin with my intro will disappear from the top of the page. Eek! I’ve decided maybe I will pin prompts each time I take part in something maybe. Anyway let’s celebrate Newt for February. We can continue using the usual birthday tag FebulousNewt or if anyone has anything better, then let me know. Because I can’t think of anything creative. Or we can just go with NewtAppreciationMonth.

[ditzydisaster13]

Every Beast meets or makes Ruin. Let the Battle consume every wake. Let the events carry Change. Let the Wind Shelter our Secrets. May Past and Future Collide in a Blind dust that swoons and breathes the force of Life. Artwork below created by me.

It’s disappointing how in way of movies, there are so few films that give audiences a good feeling of fantasy and magic. That element of fae and amazing creatures. Gems and spells. Runes and connections to the elements.

There are so few examples in pop culture that are out of the way of Disney. We have tinker bell, and brave. But that barely scratches the surface of all things fantastic. Harry Potter gets a little better. Trolls and wizards. Magical creatures and the flick of a wand.

The Dragon Prince and Vox Machina work even better than most. It’s not absolutely D&D. Or exactly what I’m looking for in fantastical imagines. But they’re pretty close.

I’ve been working on my own Fantasy AU for Voltron. Studying Disney and Dreamworks alike; and other pop-culture medias that are going to greatly assist me and only benefit the journey I am making attempts to create and travel.

My hope is that this book will not only be well received. But also that it will live not only in my own heart and memory, but hopefully in the minds of other fantasy lovers.

[hellcheer-munson]

Chapter 10: A Promise Kept (FINAL CHAPTER)

It's been seven months since I first began writing the first draft of this fic, originally for purely my enjoyment and with no intention of publishing it...and here we are, ten chapters in, the fic is finished and I'm posting the last part of it here for anyone interested to read. It has been months of love, devotion, sweat, tears, panic and goodness knows what else but I'm proud to say that I have finished this absolutely TITANIC fic. There are things I want to go back and write better, but perhaps that's for the future - for now, I'm simply proud of the work I've done given that it took a long time and I genuinely tried my best. I won't talk too much here as I don't want to give away spoilers for this chapter, but what I will say is that it involves a character death that may cause you to need tissues, and something that could potentially piss a LOT of people off. I hope people enjoy it anyway. Obviously I need to credit James Cameron for his film - Titanic is my favourite film of all time, hands down - and Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet for being incredible actors in the film, so incredible that their chemistry inspired this fic and doubtless many other Titanic AU fics in other fandoms. I'm also giving credit to Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston whose chemistry in Fantastic Beasts was NOT used enough (*sobs*), and who are both not only amazing actors but also incredible people. Part of me still hopes we get more Beasts movies, but if we don't then I need Eddie and Katherine in a movie together as love interests IMMEDIATELY. A huge thank you to everyone who has read even just one chapter of this fic, left kudos', comments, reviews etc. I am grateful for any readers I get, I truly am, especially since I know this is a strange one and for a fandom that is no longer as active or beloved as it once was. But I am so grateful, all the same, to have been able to combine two loves of mine into one and to be able to share the result with you all. So from the bottom of my autistic geeky Titanic-obsessed little heart, thank you all so much <3

[adarkrainbow]

Behind Peau d’Âne (1970) - C

# The music of the movie was created by Michel Legrand, who worked on several previous project of Demy (Lola, The Young Girls of Rochefort, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg). It was however the first time Legrand ever had to work on music for a fantasy film. He decided to mix different genres, the baroque, the jazz, the pop music, to give an “temporal in-between” to the music. He also used modern instruments and rythmic fugues to contrast with other French fantasy movies which rather used more medieval music (such as “Les visiteurs du soir” by Marcel Carné, The Devil’s Envoys).

# “Peau d’Âne” and the following movie, “Le Joueur de Flûte” will be Demy’s only two fairytale works. He had planned a modernized adaptation of Cinderella with roller skates with Francis Ford Coppola and the actress Nastassja Kinski in the titular role. But the project was never made.

# Disney actually noticed the success of Demy’s movie - to the point that in the 1990s and 2000s, Disney contacted several times Demy’s family about making an animated adaptation of his movie! (Because Demy died in 1990) Again, however, it was never made - notably because they ended up realizing that the themes of incest and bestiality of the story might not be well-met by the American audience. 

# The songs of the movie became so popular in French culture that you can still find them today. They are present in several movie: 2007, “Le quatrième morceau de la femme coupée en trois” (The fourth piece of the woman cut in three) ; 2014, “L’année prochaine” (Next year) by Vania Leturc..; The 2015 movie “Marguerite et Julien” by Valérie Donzelli also takes a lot of inspiration from the movie, being a story about incest filled with anachronisms and with a lyrical tone. In 2018 Peau d’Âne was even adapted as a musical at the Théâtre Marigny!

# Demy’s movie is actually based on the second version of the original tale, the prose Peau d’Âne by an anonymous writer ; it is not based on Perrault’s own Peau d’Âne written in verse (though he might have written the prose version too). Demy also decided to add in his movie other elements taken from Perrault’s tale to give a sense of a wider fairytale world. The scene of the Princess arriving at the farm with everyone frozen evokes the sleeping castle scene from Sleeping Beauty ; the old woman who hires the Princess spits toads like in “Diamonds and Toads”, and when she speaks to the Prince there are references to “Little Red Riding Hood”. When Donkey Skin is mocked by the villagers they call her “Cucendron”, the original insulting nickname from Cinderella, and the “Ball of Cats and Birds” has a guest of honor the Marquis de Carabas, from Puss in Boots.  Even beyond the fairytales of Perrault, Demy also slid nods and references to other fairytales: the deceased Blue Queen is in a glass casket, like Snow White ; the magic mirror of the Princess to watch her father is a nod to the mirror of “Beauty and the Beast”. 

# There is also a work on the seasonal cycles in the movie, which is both a nod to the fairytale genre and to the “pathetic fallacy”: the disease of the Blue Queen is revealed during a thunderstorm and corresponds to autumn. She dies in winter as her funeral takes place in the snow. It is in a young and fresh forest, spring, that the Prince and the Princess fall in love. 

# What truly makes Demy’s movie unique compared to other fairy tales adaptation is how he decided to fill his scenario with anachronisms, truly making the movie “atemporal”. Quite a bold move, that again seems to be part of Demy’s desire to fuse the “merveilleux” and the “réalisme” (fantastical and realistic). The Lilac Fairy is the main source of those anachronisms: she offers the Blue King books and poems “from the future”, written by modern French authors. The Blue King reads verses from Jean Cocteau in his “Ode à Picasso”, in which the Muses of Antiquity are described using modern tools such as zinc, phones or gas. He also reads “L’amour”, a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire. But the Princess is greatly confused by those poems she doesn’t understand, and in front of her father’s love declarations she thinks that it is this weird poetry that clouds his mind. The rest of the Lilac Fairy anachronisms comes from her mentions of “phone” and “batteries” (that highly confuse the Princess), and how her outfit clashes with the rest of the movie - as she wears high heels and a 1930s Hollywood hairdo. And finally, during the final wedding, the Blue King and the Lilac fairy arrive at the Red Castle in an helicopter. 

# Another element of the movie that might elude people is that, during the “fitting of the ring” scene, all the people whose name are announced are references to historical French figures, who either lived alongside Perrault’s time, or who were simply part of the century of rule of Louis XIV. The “Princess Pioche de la Vergne”: it was the baptism name of Madame de La Fayette. The “Princess de Monthion”, a nod to Jean-Baptiste de Montyon. The Duchess Girard de Saint-Amand, a nod to Marc-Antoine Girard de Saint Amant. The Duchess Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde - the baptism name of Antoinette Des Houlières. The Countess Le Métal de Boisrobert, a nod to François Le Métel de Boisrobert. The Countess of Escarbagnas : she was the main character of Molière’ “comedy-ballet”, “The Countess of Escarbagnas”. The Marquise Marie de Rabutin-Chantal: the baptism name of the Marquise de Sévigné. The Countess Le Bovier de Fontenelle: a nod to Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle. The Baroness Mary Wortley Montagu: a nod Mary Wortley Montagu. The Baroness Vauqelin de la Fresnaye: a reference to Jean Vauquelin de La Fresnaye. Earlier in the movie Godefroy, the friend of the Prince, talks about “La Ségur” and “La Clèves” : the first one is a nod to the Comtess de Ségur, and the other is a nod to “La Princesse de Clèves”, the most famous work of Madame de Lafayette.

# As I said previously, the “atemporality” of the movie is also present through the music of Michel Legrand, which mixes Renaissance music, jazz sounds and the Disney movies soundtracks. The costumes too mix fashions: the Princess and Blue Queen are dressed at the Louis XV fashion, the prince has a Henri II fashion, the valets are dressed in more generic Middle-Ages, and the peasants are taken out of the paintings of Le Nain. 

# While the Princess is clearly depicted as a “victim character”, and in her first scenes is surrounded by doves to highlight her innocence and purity, she is actually much active and stronger than it seems. She opposes her Fairy Godmother’s plans at first, and she is the one who makes “seducing” moves towards the prince by blinding him with her mirror or putting her ring in the cake. In a meta-reference, her fleeing of the castle is described as her being tired of waiting for a “prince charming” to save her, and in her own words - if he won’t come to her, she’ll find one on her own. In fact, it is only by escaping the castle that she gains a name, “Peau d’Âne”, as before she was entirely nameless. And finally, instead of the Prince waking up the princess with a kiss, here it is the Princess who appears to a Prince in his bed and takes him away through the power of love. 

# The Lilac Fairy was built in opposition to the traditional idea of a fairy godmother: instead of being the “moral power” and moral authority of the story, the Lilac Fairy is a scheming character who acts quite selfishly as she ultimates wants to be the one to marry the Blue King ; and it is implied that the entire story was one slow and cruel vengeance of the fairy towards the king, of which the death of donkey was the climax. On top of subverting morals, she also subverts time itself as the main source of anachronism, from wearing a Jean Harlow haircut to riding on an helicopter. A woman lost between the past and the future, or living outside of time, she unites the traditional fairy godmother and the mythical seer as the King descrbes her as knowing the secrets of the future. The vanity of the fairy is actually an element that Demy took back from the vaudeville adaptations of Donkey Skin  in 1860-70, in which the Fairy Godmother scolds the Princess for disturbing her before she could finish preparing herself, and says that the Princess shouldn’t cry out of fear it would ruin her beauty. 

# Unlike the more cynical and harsher king of the original tale, who is said to mourn his wife in a very fast way “as if he wanted to be done with it”, Demy’s King is a passionate lover sincerely devastated by the death of his spouse, and who at first refuses to see his daughter anymore because it hurts him to see anything reminding him of his wife. The King is also the only character who expresses a carnal form of desire and love (unlike the Prince-Princess who live a chaste love) - and at the end of the movie, the last glance the King gives his daughter can be interpreted as him not having fully erased his lust for her. 

# The Prince’s character is in a “quest for true love”, but it looks a lot like a childish whim. In fact, his character has been noted as very infantile - he has extravagant love-dreams of a girl he barely met in the woods, he pretends to be sick to stay in bed daydreaming, he plays on his parents’ kindness and worry to obtain what he wants, and his capricious nature is also shown when he demands a cake done SPECIFICALLY by Donkey Skin, and later asks for the ring to be tried on by all the girls of the kingdom, despite him already knowing that it belongs to Donkey Skin. But in a true paradox, the “trial of the ring”, which seems like an extravagant caprice and profondly annoys/bores his parents, is also the only way the Prince can officially declare and recognize his love for Donkey Skin, and avoid all accusations of him trying to marry a girl “on a whim”.  Similarly, the “love dreams” of the Prince and the Princess have a very childish nature: far away from any kind of parental authority, free from all the responsibilities due to their rank, all they want is to do childish games and partake on puerile entertainments, rolling in the grass or eating lots of pastries. In fact, in the original draft of the love song between the Prince and the Princess there were lines that Demy later cut, because he thought they were too suggestive and would give an erotic reading to the song: “Nous feront ce qui est interdit / Jusqu’à la fatigue, jusqu’à l’ennui”. “We will do what is forbidden / Until we are tired, until we are bored.”

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Belle

In a sense, Belle feels like the movie that Mamoru Hosoda has been building up to his entire life. Looking back at his work, Hosoda is primarily obsessed with three themes that appear time and time again in his movies. 1: Fairy tales (Wolf Children, Boy and the Beast). 2: Sci-fi, particularly time travel and cyberspace (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars). 3: How those fantastical elements intersect with naturalistic, real-life stories of family and coming of age (Literally all those previous films). Those three themes permeate Hosoda’s filmography, but they’ve never all intersected at once... until now. Here, at last, we have a near-future sci-fi yarn that uses cyberspace to re-imagine a classic Disney fairy tale as the backdrop of a classic teenage coming-of-age story involving complicated family matters. All of the director’s fixations have finally been married in a single package, the definitive example of everything that inspires his creative process.

It’s just a shame the end result is such a disaster.

Okay, “disaster” is probably too harsh. Belle is far from the worst film ever made, and in the rare moments where everything clicks together, it’s damn near perfect. But my god, this movie is a mess. It’s at least three different stories fighting for attention at once, never coming together in the way they’re so clearly trying to, continuously pushing each other out of focus so no one thread is ever developed enough to matter. It jumps back and forth between ideas with minimal justification. It switches its emotional core at least twice without properly resolving what came before. And when it tries to tie everything together for the climax, it runs into yet more problems that transform what should have been a barn-burner ugly cry masterpiece of a finale into a confused and troubled message that doesn’t seem to know what it’s saying and might even end up saying some unintentionally really shitty things. I have liked and loved so much of Hosoda’s work, but this is unquestionably the worst thing he’s ever put out.

Our story, as you can probably guess from the name, is a take on Beauty and the Beast. Well, sort of. It actually starts with our protagonist Suzu joining the new cyberspace world U, a place I can only describe as VR Chat on all the steroids ever. It’s basically an entirely new virtual world that’s supplanted or fully integrated all other forms of social media, so the entire digital world uses it as a community hub. And if you’re already thinking this sounds suspiciously like the premise of Summer Wars, well, yeah. Hosoda likes his motifs, what can I say?

Anyway, the reason Suzu is drawn to U is because it’s an outlet for her to rediscover her love of singing. Singing was something that she shared with her mother, but after her mother died saving someone else’s kid from a flood, Suzu sunk into a depression that basically crippled her ability to sink without descending into a mess of emotions. The real world has become a listless place for her, a place where her connections to other people- including her father, who god bless him is trying his best to carry on- fray and fade more and more every day. But in the virtual world, hidden safely behind an anonymous, much-prettier-than-her-real-face avatar? Suddenly, she’s able to connect with those emotions again and sing unchained by her trauma. And thanks to a lucky video of her performances going viral, she suddenly finds herself possibly the most famous person in the digital frontier, a mega-diva whose songs inspire millions without anyone knowing who she really is. Everyone flocks to hear her sing, she’s beloved and over-scrutinized by everyone... while in real life she’s still an emotionally stunted teenage girl trying to reconnect with what it means to find happiness in life.

It’s at this point in my plot summary that a lot of you are probably asking, “Okay, but where does the whole Beauty and the Beast thing come in? Because that seems like an awful lot of setup for an entirely different movie that doesn’t leave much room for that Disney homage I was promised.” And... yeah.

Yeah.

This is what I mean about Belle feeling like multiple stories fighting for attention. After speedrunning the mom-death-to-digital-superstar plotline I mentioned above with liberal use of montage, the Beast literally comes crashing through the wall of one of Belle’s concerts, and she decided to take an interest in the bestial avatar pursued by justice-seeking mobs because... well, pretty much because. It literally feels like the story’s been hijacked and yanked down an entirely different path than the one it was setting up. And from then on, the plot just never comes together, it bounces back and forth between Suzu’s teen-melodrama struggles in the real world and full-on Disney homage in the digital world, but there’s almost nothing tying them together until the finale. The two sides of Suzu’s journey feel so disconnected they might as well be separate movies. And sometimes it feels like not even Hosoda understood these two stories were supposed to be part of the same movie. Suzu literally has two romantic subplots running simultaneously, one in the real world with her childhood friend and one in the digital world with the beast, and never once does it acknowledge the fact that she’s pining after two guys at once. It’s like she entirely forgets the other guy exists as soon as she leaves his world behind and goes right back to devoting all her attention to the other dude. This is literally the easiest conflict generator you can come up with in a YA story, and Belle can’t even do that right.

And because of this disconnect, both sides of the story are left feeling painfully skin-deep and skeletal. We don’t even get to hear Suzu sing once before her mom dies, so the attempts to wring drama out of her re-finding her voice in U feel like development for a conflict we never even set up. This should be the driving force of the movie’s emotional core, but because the setup is so rushed en route to aping Disney, huge parts of it feel like an afterthought. And the cyberspace side of things is somehow even worse. I don’t ask for exhaustive realism in my speculative sci-fi, especially one that’s literally based on a fairy tale, but I could write a whole separate essay on how U’s world makes no goddamn sense as anything beyond paper-thin allegory. It seems to exist as a perfect libertarian utopia where everyone has true freedom and everyone gets along perfectly, which is so laughably Not How Real Life Works I have to wonder if Hosoda’s actually, like, spent time on the internet at all. The closest it comes to doing something clever with the concept is re-imagining the Gaston figure trying to kill the beast as essentially a moral police doxxer who goes around trying to unmask “dangerous” users’ public identities while spouting the rhetoric of self-righteous justice to justify his hate campaign. But even that is shamefully under-utilized because of how fragmented the narrative is.

Actually, that’s a lie, the best part of the whole cyberspace side of things is a brief moment where Belle’s exploding popularity is showcased by people remixing her songs into different musical styles like electro-swing and hard rock. As someone who’s consumed his fair share of Megalovania jazz covers, I had to laugh at how accurate that was to the online experience.

But it’s in the Beauty and the Beast re-creation itself where Belle’s biggest ambitions and failures lie. Because of how little reason we’re given for Suzu to care about the Beast, every scene she has with him, recreating or paying homage to the most famous beats from the original Disney movie, feels hollow. It’s not until we reach the final act and finally discover the Beast’s identity in the real world that it becomes clear what this whole enterprise is even about. And good god, it is a can of worms. I won’t spoil anything, but the final act is where Belle finally starts trying to pull all its disparate threads together, connecting Suzu’s emotional trauma to what the Beast is suffering and dropping in some uncomfortably real portrayals of familial abuse and the difficulties our world has responding to it. It’s the moment the fairy tale crashes into reality, where the larger-than-life emotions become a vessel to channel something real and raw and powerful... and it ends up Disney-fying the issue to such an extent it honestly feels kind of insulting. You cannot treat real, grounded abuse the same way you treat a fairy tale about a monstrous being learning to love again. You cannot wave a magic wand over something this potent and pretend that makes everything okay. Hosoda used to be so good at marrying the grounded and fantastical sides of his stories, but ever since Wolf Children he’s just been getting worse and worse at it. You were a pro at this, man, what happened?

Look, I don’t hate Belle. If I’m honest, I don’t even dislike it. It’s a wildly ambitious movie trying to do so much at once, and it’s so earnest about it I want to root for it on principle. If nothing else, it’s certainly a gorgeous-looking movie, and the entirely-CG portrayal of the digital world marks another strong step forward for gorgeous and artistic CG anime. Belle’s avatar in particular does a freakishly good job of capturing the precise feel and movement of modern day Disney Princess design; you could slot her into Frozen and she wouldn’t feel out of place. But when the best, most fully realized scene in your movie is a romantic confession between two minor side characters with almost no impact on the main plot (I’m not even kidding, that scene is fucking wonderful), something has clearly gone wrong. Despite trying to say so much at once, it just isn’t well constructed enough to properly say anything at all. And unless Hosoda pulls himself out of this slump very soon, we may sadly have to come to terms with the fact that his days as a certified master are behind him. Until then, I give Belle a score of:

4/10

God, that was disappointing. Please let his next movie be better.