#i think what would be better is Hannibal taking John's role in the story and Will taking Alecto

[mizumonohomo]

my brain is trying to manufacture a locked tomb and hannibal crossover in case youre wondering where im at

[laikuh]

@spoopy-action-at-distance

If you have time, can you give a short run-down on why this show is a good watch and why a SPN John Winchester fan might like it? The gifs are making me curious!

hey! sorry it’s taken me a few days to get to this! i would be happy to give a short run-down of prodigal son.

basic premise: malcolm bright, born malcolm whitly, is the son of martin whitly, an infamous new york serial killer known as “the surgeon.” malcolm was close to martin as a child, and even after martin was incarcerated at an asylum, he remained close. both men further bonded over murder and what makes the mind of a serial killer tick as malcolm grew, but eventually malcolm cut off martin to study profiling and join the fbi as a profiler. when the show starts, he’s been fired from the fbi and is now consulting for the nypd under the leadership of the cop who helped him as a kid and that cop’s detective team.

the bad: this show is a knock-off nbc hannibal. malcolm has will graham’s same empathy gift, though it’s packaged differently, he’s just as mentally unwell (if not worse), and his push and pull dynamic with martin is very very similar to will’s push and pull with hannibal in season 3.

it is also a procedural. and i mean, like, really a procedural. like criminal minds level, not like hannibal having to pretend at being a procedural to tell an actual story, just a straight up procedural (don’t take a shot everytime i type the word “procedural”). this means it’s...i mean it feels like criminal minds. and i don’t mean that super negatively generally speaking. i love criminal minds tbh! i have seen most seasons of cm like 4 times, i just never talk about it here bc it would ruin whatever weird artsy incest vibe i’ve managed to acquire on this blog. but i just mean if you think you’re going to get a show as delicate as hannibal with prodigal son, you aren’t. it’s going to be more akin to criminal minds.

it is also very stupid and dramatic. like. shit happens that will make you roll your eyes. it’s ridiculous. it’s over the top. it’s silly.

the good: the acting and the cast is wonderful. the dude who plays malcolm is so good. i mean, so fucking good. and michael sheen needs no words. it’s michael fucking sheen. he’s taking his volturi camp and making it somehow worse, by which i mean better, and he’s just so fun to watch. lou diamond phillips is great as gil. i love both the actors who play dani and jt. bellamy young took me some time as jessica whitly, malcolm’s mother, but she’s grown on me a lot if you assume she is also playing camp instead of serious. and the actress who plays ainsley is...fine. lol. also down the line we also get recurring roles from dermot mulroney, catharine zeta-jones, and alan cumming.

also i mentioned above that it is stupid. but actually i love that it is stupid. i love that it is stupid so much. i think it’s so fun! i love rolling my eyes fondly and thinking, “god, this show is dumb.” it’s campy! it’s having a grand time! i love it for its wildness and think that’s what makes it so enjoyable. let shows be dumb! it’s good for us as a society, i think.

but really, the best selling point for this show is the martin-malcolm dynamic. it’s so juicy. it’s so gross. it’s so tragic. they play off each other beautifully, and tom payne as malcolm really does a perfect job of getting us a crystal clear image of how damaged malcolm is by his experience with his father. how fucked up his love for martin has made him. he’s gone on his dad, his dad is gone on him, and it’s so unhealthy and awful. but it’s also really interesting. i eat up every scene together, and i love how unpleasant it is. malcolm is a very whumpy character, very dean winchester, very will graham. he’s so sad, he has so many daddy issues, he is so broken. we love to see it.

as for your specific question i’ve kind of been avoiding, i don’t really have a reason why a john winchester fan would like prodigal son, as john and martin are not overly similar beyond the damage they’ve caused their oldest children. and even then, john at least was a good person trying to do some good. martin whitley is genuinely a serial killer who is deeply psychotically unhinged. he is trying to do only harm, even to malcolm, even if he thinks otherwise.

tldr: prodigal son is fun and emotional if lacking in originality and realism. it’s a procedural, which means it’s repetitive, and its flair for the dramatics may not be a good fit for some. but if you love characters that are filled to the brim with daddy issues, are super traumatized, and also might be a little in love with their fathers, i think it’s a great pick to watch.

[auxiliarydetective]

Since you infected me with A-Team brain rot, what would their musical AU be like?

Ooooh, this is actually a bit of a challenge. Something tells me The A-Team and musicals aren't supposed to mix - well, unless you're looking at Murdock. He thinks he's in a musical either way. I won't be mentioning all of the songs on the show, but they have to be a part of the musical au. Finding 100% accurate songs will be hard sometimes, but I'll still give you vibes.

Speaking of Murdock, since he already sings on the show from time to time, he should be able to sing longer and you'll never know if it'll turn into a full-on number with choreo and everything or if B.A. will interrupt him with a record scratch or smashing his casette player. In taking all the songs I know that have been sung on the show and that I thought would fit, I saw that most of Murdock's were Beach Boys songs, so... That's his show-assigned vibe, I guess. Something that I think would be super funny would be a huge, flashy number of Happy Pills by Weathers in the VA - or literally anywhere - , led by Murdock of course.

B.A. probably wouldn't sing but I can see him doing a spoken word piece, like something Hamilton-esque. I could totally see something like My Shot, except less about US independence. That kind of song could also work for plan-making or building something, so maybe he only ever "sings" in those group performances.

Now, Face. Oooooh boy. You just know Face's songs would be good. The first song I thought of was Joel Grey's cover of Razzle Dazzle from Chicago, but that's honestly also a Hannibal song, so... both it is! His song, the song that would be his "character theme", so to speak, is definitely Good Old-Fashioned Loverboy. On a darker and more symbolic note, I could definitely see him singing Take Me To Church, interpret into that what you will.

Hannibal, as I said, gets Razzle Dazzle together with Face, but I could also totally see him sing something older or something that shows his role in the team as the dad figure. Something a bit sad, but maybe Smile by Mikky Ekko could work. Then again, he also has huge vibes for Feeling Good. You know, THAT song my Michael Bublé. Perfect for scheming Hannibal. Another song I think could work is Specialization by Marilyn Monroe and Frankie Vaughan - something older, something that has to do with movies, old Hollywood... I don't know who'd sing Marilyn's part. Amy doesn't really have the vibes, but she's my first pick for now.

Amy would slay Face with Womanizer, let's be honest. She's got the attitude and it could even fit her voice. Similar vibes: Confident by Demi Lovato. She's a queen, no doubt about it.

And because I love her too much...

Kit gets songs too. Her introduction song could so be The Greatest Show because her circus background is so vital to her character. One more cheerful and upbeat one would be I'm Still Standing by Elton John. Maybe even as a duet with Murdock, just for the vibes? Staying with duets, she could sing Faith by Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande with Face or, even better, Do I Wanna Know. Another great song: Do It Like A Dude with B.A. as her hypeman. She could also really belt out Church by Fall Out Boy.

Group songs! The first one might be an odd choice, but... California Dreamin'. Simply because of Murdock's show-assigned Beach Boys theme and because it sounds like something they could sing in the car. Maybe Murdock starts it or Hannibal does and the others join in or do backup vocals. Or in B.A.'s case, he might just tap the steering wheel in the rhythm. The second one is even weirder: You Are My Sunshine. If I had a nickel for every time this song appeared on the show, I'd have two nickels, which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice. Because of this, I image them quietly singing or humming it at some point. But this last one should really fit better: Walk on Water by Thirty Seconds to Mars.

So, without further ado: Here's the playlist and the story behind it

We get introduced to the team and Hannibal and Face make a plan to get Murdock out of the VA. Then, the whole team hops in the van and we get to my fanfic on how the team meets Kit during Children of Jamestown. The story is pretty much the same as in the fic and she joins. Now, we get some more Murdock shenigans and Kit and B.A. bonding. After this, Murdock and Face do their little bit with surf city, showing Face's attitude towards women and setting up the beach theme of the whole musical/movie. Face tries to flirt with Kit but she declines, causing Amy to comment on him being a womanizer. The team arrives at their beach destination of choice and the audience is shown that Kit and Face do have feelings for each other but Kit is just blocking everything out and Face doesn't wanna be pushy because she's a team member. After that, more Murdock shenanigans and Hannibal making a plan, the attempt at executing it and its failure, after which Hannibal tries to "cheer up" the others. Face and Kit are still very much in love and we get a mashup between Church and Take Me To Church to show that. The two of them team up to save the rest of the team and we get a super fun happy end for both the idiots in love and the team as a whole.

[wisteria-lodge]

Archetypes: Sorting Hat Chats

I’ve been asked about my rationale for naming different primary/ secondary combinations. I did this originally as a tool to help me sort characters - I wanted to see how these types tend to be used, so I could more easily see what subversions looked like. I'll run through my thoughts, but know there’s a lot of variation within each category. But even WITH that variation, I do think that each one has its own specific energy that makes it interesting to talk about. An explanation of the terms I'm using.

DOUBLE LION “THE REVOLUTIONARY”

Pretty straightforward. The Lion primary knows something is wrong, they know it in their bones even if they can’t articulate it, and they’ve got to go out and do something about it. Probably charging at whatever power structure is directly in front of them. It’s unlikely you find a character leading a revolution who isn’t a Double Lion. These guys are intense, inspirational, single minded.

The villain version of the Lion primary tends to be the person who “went too far" or "became the monster they were trying to fight.'' But I think that the much more interesting Lion primary villain trope is the Traitor. Since Lions work from their feelings, and their philosophies can’t necessarily be articulated or linked to individuals outside of them - they can definitely have their head turned while still feeling moral about it.

One of my favorite examples of this Revolutionary archtype is actually Christian Bale‘s character from Newsies. He’s the spark that starts the unionizing revolution, but 100% needs his Badger and Bird lieutenants to keep him focused and keep him from defecting

LION SNAKE “THE ROBIN HOOD”

These guys are similar to the Double Lion - they will recognize a cause or injustice revolutionary style - but Robin Hood doesn’t go up and bang on wicked Prince John’s door. His move is the snake secondary one: confront the problem indirectly. Undermine the regime by stealing tax money and re-distributing it to the poor. Be simultaneously Robin Hood the outlaw and Robin of Locksley the noble, infiltrating and getting information. The Lion Snake is more likely to work within society (or deliberately separate from society) versus just breaking everything down.

LION BIRD “THE LAWMAN / THE VIGILANTE”

The fact that the Lion Bird can either be the Lawman or the Vigilante shows off the very clear hero/villain split you get with Bird secondaries. We also see this with the Snake Bird (simultaneously the Mastermind and the traditional Villain) and the Double Bird (either the Scientist or the Mad Scientist.) This is why I think I had such trouble naming the Badger Bird. I wasn’t leaning into the duality of the Bird secondary enough. The Badger Bird can be the King Arthur, or he can be the Mob Boss, and he’ll look kind of similar either way.

The Lion Bird also has that Lion primary conviction and drive, but they want to follow up on it with investigation, evidence, and plans. I actually think there need to be more stories about Lawmen turning into Vigilantes and vice versa. Because Lion Birds are their Cause no matter what external alignment gets attached to it.

LION BADGER “THE LINCHPIN”

This is my own sorting - although when I came up with this name I still thought I was a Double Bird. The linchpin is the pin-axle thing at the center of a wheel that prevents the whole thing from falling apart, and I think it's a good way of talking about the energy of this combination. The Badger secondary means they’re a lot less single minded than the other Lion primaries: their power comes from being part of a group. They become the emotional “heart” a lot, and have a way of quietly keeping things together just by existing. They can be leaders, but a Double Lion will lead from up front while a Lion Badger will lead from in the middle (if that makes sense.)

I do think it’s really funny that this is a common sleeper villain trope. Peter Pettigrew, Prince Hans, and Randall Boggs of Monsters Inc. all became integral to a group, and then exploit their position within it. They’re kind of the evil bureaucrat. Maybe that's a good trope for children’s media

DOUBLE SNAKE “THE TRICKSTER”

This is another straightforward one. Double Snakes are in it for themselves (and maybe like three other people.) They're going to be clever and tricksy about how they get what they want, and will not mind doing things backward and unofficially. And they won't mind if you know that's what they're doing. There’s something very unapologetic about the Double Snake which makes for very attractive characters. They are consistently voted the sexiest... and when they’re villains they’re fun villains. You know what they want, and what they want is not that complicated. I think that’s a big reason for the appeal of Snake primaries in general. They’re the easiest primary to understand and explain.

SNAKE LION “THE LANCELOT”

I used to call these guys “The Rebel,” which... is too generic, doesn’t really mean anything. So I started thinking about the Lion secondary as the Knight secondary, and I liked that. Double Lions are the Crusader Knight, riding for their Cause. Bird Lions are Grail Knights, riding for their own personal truth. Badger Lions are Champion Knights, here to help the helpless and defend the innocent.

And if that's that case… Snake Lions have to be the Knight Errant, the knight who rides for his lady. It is that simple. Lancelot might be a Knight of the Round Table, but he’s riding for Arthur the person, not Arthur the King. And for his lady, Queen Guinevere. I feel like his dilemma is one that’s common to a lot of Snake Lions: what happens when they’re forced to split their loyalty? It’s tragic, but Lancelot can’t have Arthur and Guinevere simultaneously.

(At least not until my awesome Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot OT3 which I will totally write at some point :)

SNAKE BIRD “THE MASTERMIND / THE VILLAIN”

The classic. We see a little more of the Bird Secondary split, and well… this is your stereotypical villain. They want power. They’re going to use an elaborate plan to get it. There’s a lot you can do with this sorting, but I actually do think it’s fun that whatever you do, this slight undercurrent of villain and/or mastermind… never quite goes away.

SNAKE BADGER “THE LOVER”

The Love Interest sorting. Chances are very good that if there is a love interest (who does not serve some other role in the story...) they're going to be a Snake Badger. Devoted to one person, solving problems by caretaking. This is the Badger secondary who is likely to have the smallest group, which is just going to make them look excessively devoted to their friends. This type is pretty gender neutral, which is fun. A lot of female love interests, but also your Mr. Darcys and Peeta Mellarks.

One of my favorite things about this trope (mostly just because I think it’s funny...) is that if you write a character who is not supposed to be a love interest, but who is a Snake Badger... subconsciously I think people are going to read them as a love interest anyway. Looking at you Jaskier, Horatio, and even Captain Barbossa.

DOUBLE BIRD “THE [MAD] SCIENTIST”

I think that (especially if you aren’t a Bird Primary yourself) your response to hearing a fictional Bird Primary’s motivation is kind of …huh. That seems random. Or oddly specific. You get your Hannibal Lecters, whose entire motivation is... wanting to eat people while drinking nice wine.

Double birds seem especially unusual, just in terms of society. They are Bird secondaries and they interact with the world through gathering data, but their Bird primaries mean that data can literally lead them to any conclusion, no matter how potentially wacky. These guys consciously build themselves from the ground up, and that can make them kind of detached - either in a logical way, or an unmoored way. They're written as either really stable, the rational mentor figure. Or really... not. And that’s how you spot a Bird villain. They’re not after money/power/safety, they’re after something weird.

BIRD LION “THE GRAIL KNIGHT”

This is the trope of Perceval or Galahad, questing after the Holy Grail chalice... which is really just meaning, and truth. It’s a personal quest. Grail Knights tend to ride alone, and a lot of the things that concern them are metaphysical, to do with identity, purpose, things like that. You can have extremely different Bird Lions, but I do think there is a sort of spiritual core there. Doctor Harleen Quinzel sees freedom and truth in whatever the Joker is doing, and then once she recognizes his hypocrisy, has to go build her own meaning.

I actually think these guys are pretty easy to spot because of that Lion secondary. When they change direction, they change direction, and there’s probably a period of despair between the direction changes. I’ve talked about how Bird Lions having a habit of falling apart pretty dramatically, and that’s where this idea comes from.

BIRD BADGER “THE SURVIVOR”

A rare sorting, but an interesting one. I call this one “the Survivor” or “the Last Man Standing” because, well, they seem to be. They seem remarkably stable. This is the Bird primary least likely to be a villain, and maybe the sorting least likely to be a villain. I think what’s going on is that they are grounded and integrated in whatever community they happen to be in (because of that Badger secondary), but they can define themselves and rebuild themselves in the Bird primary way. This makes them uniquely suited to building a new version of themselves for whatever situation they happen to find themselves in.

Maybe a better name for these guys would be “The Adapter.”

BIRD SNAKE “THE ARTIST”

Like all Bird primaries, these guys are inspired by their own projects and their own worldview, but because of that Snake secondary, Bird Snakes have a more easy-going ‘take the world as it comes' kind of energy. They are “the Artist” because everything they do is art: they want to use themselves and the world around them, put all of that towards whatever their Bird primary happens to be interested in.

You can have villains like the Nolan Joker, or the Talented Mr. Ripley, who kind of turn the world into their own personal philosophical social experiment. Or Scotty from Star Trek whose meaning is solely the well-being of the Enterprise. Maybe they just like traveling, and that's all they need. (It's a way for the Bird primary and the Snake secondary exist very happily together, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was pretty common.)

DOUBLE BADGER “THE PEACEMAKER”

Badgers are interesting, because while I think they’re generally regarded as “correct,” they’re also seen as kind of boring. That’s the case with both Badger primaries and Badger secondaries, which means it is doubly reflected in the Double Badger. They often get written as simplistic, the sweet Jane Bennet type who loves everybody and caretakes everybody and just wants everybody to get along.

They are often the targets of what TV Tropes used to call “Break the Cutie.” What could be more interesting than making this character, who wants to be happily part of a community, be forced to build protective models, be all tortured and angsty? I actually think we’re seeing a return of the Double Badger as an interesting character in their own right, with people like Aziaphale, and I'm here for it.

BADGER LION “THE PROTAGONIST”

What can I say? There are a lot of protagonists that are Badger Lions. They want to help the group - so we know they're the good guys - and then they charge and make stuff happen. Lion secondaries are very useful in fiction - you drop them into a situation and stuff just happens. I also think of this as the Starfleet officer sorting - because if you’re a Starfleet officer, either you are the sorting, or can model it really well.

I will say that this is kind of the stock Protagonist sorting, the way that the Snake Badger is the stock love interest and the Snake Bird is the stock villain. There’s just something sort of generic good guy about this one, which is why I want to see it used as a villain sorting more. Badger villains - mostly people who define ‘human’ very narrowly - are insanely terrifying.

BADGER SNAKE “THE ADVISOR”

Possibly “the Power Behind the Throne.” This is another one I had difficulty pinning down. I called it “the Politician” for a while, which unfortunately came off as a little bit more negative than I meant it to, since I think this sorting has a lot in common with Lion Badger, the linchpin of a heroic team. The difference is that Lion Badger takes on that role kind of unconsciously, while the Badger Snake does it very consciously.

Their loyalty is to the group, but their skill set is all about subversion and different ways of going around the group, which is why there’s an interesting contradiction at the heart of Badger Snake. A lot of real life Badger Snakes struggle with feeling like “bad people" and it's too bad. These guys are ridiculously powerful and competent when they are sure of themselves, and I love seeing them in action

BADGER BIRD “THE KING / THE MOB BOSS”

Another difficult one, despite (or because) I really like them. I was calling them “the Architect” because “The City Planner” sounded too boring… but that’s what they do. They’re all about the community but they problem-solve the way all Bird secondaries do, by prepping, and gathering knowledge. I talked more about this in the Lion Bird entry, but Bird secondary seems to have this villain split going on, and that’s what I see here too. This is a controversial love-them-or-hate-them sorting, and I think that’s why. There’s a lot of room in whether or not you see this sorting as villainous.

[marvelhero-fics]

Silent Britain

Series - Prologue

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader 

Summary: You and Tom are working as love interests in a new Scorsese film, essentially leading to be love interests in real life

A/N: Sorry, it’s been a hot minute since I've posted! Anyway, this is basically going to be a whole series. I have no idea how many parts it’ll be, and I’ll be updating at least every two weeks (but I’ll aim to update it weekly!) I thought it was kind of a fun idea so essentially in the film Tom plays a bad-boy mob members son, while the reader plays the opposing mob members daughter. Please enjoy! (This chapter is a bit of a slow-burn, but it’s essentially just setting up the plot and everything!) 

Also, all the italics in this story are the readers thoughts!

Word Count: 1,500

Silent Britain Masterlist || Full Masterlist 

Prologue

The uncomfortably loud alarm buzzed through your tired mind. A glance to your left told you it was 7:00 am. Time to get up. One arm reached out to turn your alarm off, while the other went to wipe your eyes as they opened sluggishly, adjusting to the illumination in your bedroom that crept through the blinds. Wasting no time, you moved your body from your large bed and stumbled your way to the kitchen. The house was quiet, no music playing, no TV’s on, signalling to you that your roommate/best friend, Evie, hadn’t woken up yet.

The thick script left on the dining table caught your attention. It was for an upcoming, untitled Nolan film. You’d been asked to read the script to audition, however you only made it about half-way through it last night. Looks like thats on today’s agenda.

Acting was your absolute passion. You’d been lucky enough to start your acting career about 4 years ago, acting in 2-3 bigger films, every-so-often working alongside a well known celebrity. Working alongside Robert Pattinson in dramatic indie film was pretty cool, considering you’d grown up around all the Twilight hype. Playing Brad Pitt’s daughter in another film was also a big moment in your career. Not to mention your recent role in the Emmy award winning show Big Little Lies really helping define who you were as an actress. Ever since then you’d been asked to audition for quite a few more roles. Shockingly, it actually took a bit of a turn on you. People recognised you more often, which meant it was harder to leave the house. It also meant you started comparing yourself to other actors your age, to which you never thought you’d live up too. Being rich and famous really wasn’t all it was cut out to be.

While mindlessly making breakfast, your phone began buzzing on the hard, marble bench top. It was your agent, Melissa.

“Hey, Mel.” You quickly answered,

“Morning, (Y/N), how’re you doing?” Her thick American accent sung through the phone. Melissa was from California. You weren’t, you were born and bred in England, and you’d continued living just outside of London throughout your career. It was just much easier having an agent closer to the action of Hollywood.

“Good, I’m a little tired, it’s like seven AM over here.” You responded,

“Well it’s 11 at night over here, but I’ve just received some fantastic news and I couldn’t wait to tell you.”

“You’ve got my attention.” You chuckled slightly, leaning down to rest on the kitchen bench, ready to intently listen to whatever Melissa had to say.

“You remember that Scorsese film you auditioned for a while back, Silent Britain?”

Oh my god. “Yea, of course I remember, what about it?” Your palms became clammy and your voice shook slightly.

“You’ve been offered the role! You’re playing Elizabeth Baker!”

Your head immediately fell to your hands. You were just unbelievably over-joyed, you didn’t even know what to say. This would undoubtedly be your biggest role to date. “Mel, oh my god, this is such huge news, I really didn’t think I’d get it. This is so, so, so incredible.” You stood and began pacing the kitchen.

“It gets even better, guess who else is already signed on?”

“Who?”

“Tom Hardy is playing your father, Anthony Hopkins is playing your grandfather,” Your jaw had already hit the floor at this point, “Chrisitan Bale is also signed on, and Jude Law’s set to play one of the detectives.”

“Melissa, holy fuck.” You paused, “holy fuck. This- that’s so many actors, incredible actors-”

“And there’s plenty more to be signed on. So I’m assuming you’d like the role?”

“Of course I’d like the role!”

“I’m sending through all the paper-work and details for you to flick through, I’ll also mail over a script ASAP so you can go through the whole thing. You’ll have to fly out here in about 2 weeks for the initial meet up with Martin and the cast, so I’ll book that in now, and we can work out the rest of the details when you’re here, how’s that sound?” Melissa explained quickly,

“Yea, yea that sounds perfect, when’s filming set to start?”

“It says mid-June, which is in two months, if all the actors have been accounted for by that time.”

“Okay, I’ll get all my shit sorted out and I’ll see you in two weeks! Thanks so much Mel.”

And with that, the two of you hung up. Leaving you alone with your thoughts. A fucking Gangster Scorsese film. It doesn’t get better than that. That’s peak-of-the-career shit right there. Everything you did the rest of that day was purely in order to be organised for your flight. You hadn’t been this excited since you landed the role of Reece Witherspoon’s daughter in Big Little Lies. After screaming in pure bliss with Evie about the news, you went to your nearest shopping centre to get any possible supplies you may need. Shampoo, conditioner, dry shampoo, toothpaste, a power board, a charging cable, new comfortable clothes, not that you really needed anymore, new nicer clothes, not that you fucking needed anymore, the list went on. Evie even came with you, as if your impulse control wasn’t already low, Evie made it plumet, suggesting you needed every second thing she laid her eyes on. You even bought a notepad with the Taxi Driver movie poster on the cover because Scorsese directed that too, and it’ll be funny incase I ever need to take notes.

You shut the boot of your car, hopping into the driver's seat next to where Evie sat comfortably in the passenger’s seat.

“So who else is in the film? Besides Venom, Hannibal Lecter, Batman, and John Watson.” Evie smirked at her own joke,

“Ha ha. Very funny.” You stated, pulling out of the car park. “That’s all I know about at the moment, here” you passed her your phone, “check my emails, I might’ve gotten an update.” Evie took the phone from your hands and held it to your face to unlock it.

“Melissa Bradd sent another email, with attached file, more details…” Evie muttered, mainly to herself as she opened the document. “Hmm, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hardy, you-” Evie gasped heavily.

“What, what is it?” You quickly interjected.

“I’m going to shit my pants, I’m gonna actually die right here, right now-”

“Evie, what the fuck!? What is it?!” You almost wanted to pull over the car.

“Timothee Chalamet is playing Joseph Baker, your brother!” She practically shrieked. Christ. Obviously you adored Timothee’s work, he was incredible and so devoted, but Evie absolutely adored him, for a long time now.

“Oh my god,” you uttered, just above a whisper. Reacting to not only Evies reaction, but also that another big name was going to be on screen beside you. “Anyone else?”

“It doesn’t even fucking matter who else is in it!” Evie sung, flailing her arms in the air.

“Evie, who else is in it!” You repeated, feeling a little on edge. Her gaze returned back to the phone screen, her excitement still clearly coursing through her veins.

“So far, Finn Wolfhard is set to play your younger brother, and Michael Fassbender and Christian bale are signed on as your uncles,” She read.

It was at this moment, your hands really started shaking. You tried gripping the wheel as tightly as you could, but it honestly felt like most of the blood in your body was vanishing, you didn’t seem to have control over much of anything, especially not your breathing. Evie looked over at you.

“Hey, (Y/N/N), you okay? You’re kind of looking a bit pale.” She spoke quietly,

“That’s a lot of big actors, Evie.” You responded, your mouth entirely dry.

“Yea, but you’re a big actor too, you know. You’ve been in some big films!” She lightly tried to reassure you.

“Eve, I’ve been a background character in like 3 big films.” You peered over to her, quickly returning your glare back to the road.

“You’re in Big Little Lies, that’s a big show.”

“I’m a daughter, I’m not a main character at all. This movie, I’m a fucking huge character in this movie. This movie practically fucking revolves around me, Tom Hardy, and Hopkins.” Your voice elevated as you spoke.

“Let’s just get home, and then we can talk it all through.” Evie said calmly, clearly not paying much mind to what you’d just said. You nodded in response. And, as if on cue, your phone chimed.

“What was it?” As you asked, Evie began scrolling through your phone.

“Another email from Melissa.”

“And?...”

“A couple more actors signed on.”

“And?...” Your head was far too close to exploding.

“Well, Rachel Weisz is playing your mum, and Daniel Craig is another uncle,” Evie was speaking softly, “Idris Elba is a detective, and- uhm- Tom Holland is your love interest…”

And there goes the explosion. “I need to pull over. I’m about to have a stroke.”

[collaborationandresearchproposal]

Thursday 29th April, Research Report: Lycanthropy and the hays code

Notable points * lycanthropy seems  to be synonymous with homosexuality- parallels between Teen Wolf and Buffy The Vampire Slayer's respective coming out scenes. * The Queer-ness of the character Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter books and film series. Many fans head cannon and write slash fics about Remus and Sirius' romance and relationship, reading the characters as queer. The ship, named 'Wolf Star' is quite popular and well known within the fandom. Many fans feel there is enough evidence to build this relationship on; Remus and Sirius' ghosts stood next to each other in the resurrection stone, mirroring Harry's parents,  a canonically married couple. They also bought Harry a joint present for his birthday and know the intricacies of each others personalities. Dumbledore also infamously told Sirius to 'lie low at Lupins.' But the problem here, as the article points out, is that Rowling doesn't acknowledge Lupin as queer, despite the homoerotic cues in the writings,  and instead gives him a female love interest and admits that Lupins Lycantrhopy is a metaphor for AIDS/HIV. She has further dismissed any alternative readings of the character, disappointing fans' hopes of there being a shred of representation in a queer monster who is actually queer. This sort of behaviour from authors and creators is what turns Queer-coding into the more harmful and frustrating Queer-baiting. A large majority of queer representation comes from connotations and interpretations. the clues are there and queer audiences do pick them up. However this grey area allows allows straight culture to use queerness for pleasure and profit in mass culture without admitting to it. Modern examples of this are CW's Supernatural and BBC's Sherlock. I can't personally speak for Supernatural but having watched Sherlock with the advantage of a queer eye, I can say with confidence that it is a prime example of queer-baiting. there is clear homoerotic subtext between Sherlock and John and even Sherlock and Moriarty. I Personally think it's entirely romantic as I head cannon Sherlock to be Asexual or at least on that spectrum but the point is, it is not just wishful thinking or pushing of a narrative. It's manipulation. Queer-baiting takes advantage of an already vulnerable group of people by preying on their desire for representation in the media.

In modern media werewolf's are often portrayed as having chiselled bodies and looming over each other. The 1985 Teen Wolf received a television reboot and it's fair to say it got reasonably more progressive.  It seemed interested in queering the werewolf narrative and in a sly moment of gender-bending the traditional Little Red Riding Hood narrative, protagonist Scott receives the Bite from a male werewolf while wearing a Little Red Hoodie (‘Wolf Moon’). Additionally, the show features LGBTQ characters while Scott’s human best friend Stiles visits a gay bar and makes friends with a group of drag queens in startling contrast to the gay panic of the 1985 film’s version of Stiles. By midway through the show’s second season, the slash pairing that had proved dominant in the fandom was Stiles and wannabe-Alpha Derek Hale. The two characters, who operate in the narrative as belligerent and begrudging allies, rapidly became a slash phenomenon, due, in part, to the chemistry and comic timing between actors Tyler Hoechlin and Dylan O’Brien. The narrative is further subverted when Derek is raped by an adult  human woman.

The pair 'Sterek' gained so much traction that it caught the attention of MTV and the cast and crew behind the show. So much so that they released a video of Hoechlin and O'Brien cuddling on a boat, asking fans to vote for Teen Wolf for this  years Choice Summer TV Show at the Teen Choice Awards. This  was big as it acknowledged fans and slash flics and the pairing itself as a possibility and many queer voices who watched the show felt heard and validated. However this didn't last long. MTV released a video on the official Teen Wolf Facebook, this time featuring O’Brien asking fans to vote for Teen Wolf in a TV Guide Poll. O’Brien joked that if fans did not vote, then the show would kill off its sole remaining gay character and one of the few remaining non-white characters on the show, Danny. The Teen Wolf Facebook released the video with the following caption: ‘Keep #TeenWolf in first place! Heed Dylan and Linden’s advice or we might have to. #KillDanny’ (Teen Wolf). The show’s social media team then attempted to make the #KillDanny tag go viral on Facebook and twitter, but fans, understandably, were not amused, primarily using the tag for outraged tweets to MTV (Baker-Whitelaw).Such blatant disregard for fans’ concerns about queer representation on the show alienated a large number of fans, especially when coupled with Jeff Davis’ more frequently dismissive and condescending comments about the Sterek pairing where he had been enthusiastic and even encouraging of the ship. As seasons wore on without any indication that Sterek would indeed become canon, it became clear that MTV and Jeff Davis had been queer-baiting Sterek fans as a marketing technique and that the unique interplay that fans had enjoyed with Davis, which offered a new kind of truly interactive fandom had, in fact, been something of an illusion. ' serial killer Hannibal Lecter and his love interest Will Graham in Hannibal, and reanimated gay corpses Kieren, Simon, and Rick in In the Flesh. Notably, both series have received an overwhelmingly positive response from fans and critics who have applauded the series for taking their queer monsters beyond mere coding and into explicit text. The warm reception of Hannibal and In the Flesh’s handling of queer representation by fans, and the continuing frustration with Teen Wolf’s queer-baiting and the appropriative nature of Remus Lupin’s narrative in Harry Potter, belie a desire not only for better queer representation, but also for more complex re-articulations of queer monstrosity' the symbolic and narrative trappings of monsters are often used as metaphors for queerness without actually acknowledging the positive behind that queer identity or even confirming the queer identity at all. Another positive example is the miniseries Good Omens. Based on the book of the same name, written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Pretty much the whole fandom believe That the two leads, Crowley and Aziraphale are in a romantic relationship. They've known each other for centuries and perhaps what was the main fuel to this ships fire was the episode 3 cold open. Even fans who have only read the book seem to support these two as a couple and what's perhaps even more amazing is Gaiman’s response on twitter. "I wrote it as a love story. They acted it as a love story. You saw it as a love story. How much more proof do you need?" and "I wouldn't exclude the ideas that they are ace, or aromantic, or trans. They are an angel and a demon, not as make humans, per the book. Occult/Ethereal beings don't have sexes, something we tried to reflect in the casting. Whatever Crowley and Aziraphale are, it's a love story." It's beautiful because not only does it confirm that they are in love but it also leaves room for interpretations of what kind of relationship they have together.

https://dialogues.rutgers.edu/images/Journals_PDF/2017-18-dialogues-web_e6db3.pdf#page=164

In the year 1922, when cinema was gaining traction and popularity, The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) hired a devout Presbyterian, Will H. Hays as its head. Eight years later, in 1930, the MPPDA ratified the Motion Picture Production Code. Also known as the Hays Code, these guidelines were set up as “a list of rules that studios could follow to avoid the censors’ wrath” one specific line read “sexual perversion or any inference to it is forbidden” This era in censorship set the stage for a culture in which the stereotypical behaviour of homosexuals, or any behaviour deviating from the traditional gender roles, is seen as dangerous, evil, and even fatal. By representing coded homosexual characters as depressed, perverse, and succumbing to punishing ends, it shifted social subconscious beliefs of LGBT individuals in real life to those represented on screen. Media often teaches us how to feel about others and ourselves – e.g., it promotes specific body types and clothing styles. In the same way, by promoting gendered behaviour and banning homosexuality, it spread a message that homosexuality was not fit to be viewed openly. Although themes of homosexuality were banned they were definitely alluded to and that continues today.

[ed-edward-blackbeard]

Last Line Meme

@shipperfiendobssesser​ tagged me in the Last Line WIP meme.  YOU ASKED FOR IT.

Long text post, so I’m sticking it behind a “read more”

Fandoms behind the tags:  Hannibal, Doctor Who, Gotham, SVU, BBC Sherlock, a couple of Walking Dead, a couple of Xenaverse,  a couple of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Live action), Star Trek (TOS), Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, The Following, and some original stories  (Not included, because I probably won’t ever go back to them:  Supernatural, Stargate, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Deadwood, and Harry Potter.)

Not tagging anyone BECAUSE I WOULD NOT SUBJECT MY LOVED ONES TO THIS.  No, seriously.  I’ve been working on this goddamn thing for two and a half hours.

Hannibal WIPs:

Ripper!Hannibal:  Hannibal picked up the scalpel, hid it in his coat pocket, and followed him in the shadows.  

Temple Body (Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham):  His presence warded off nightmares and ushered in a calm and dreamless sleep.  "Sure, a shower."     

There Were Three (Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham):  "Excellent.  I shall expect you Thursday night, promptly at 8."  Hannibal rose when Will did, and followed him out of the office.  "Are you returning to the crime scene tomorrow?"  

Sanity and Empathy (Hannibal/Will):  Knew it as well as he'd known the feel of Hannibal's broken heart, left in the chapel written on a broken man.

No Place Like Home (Hannibal/Will):  When Hannibal got back to Will's room, Will was sitting up on the side of the bed.  "You just missed the cardiologist; my heart's fine.  They're gonna stitch me up and as far as she's concerned, I can go home right now."

Murder Husbands In Denmark (Hannibal/Will):  "I can do that, soon as I'm out of the shower."  He leaned across the bloody butcher's block and nipped at Hannibal's ear.  "Hurry up."  

Leather Hannibal (Hannibal/Will):  "So I think you like my new motorbike."  Will squirmed as Hannibal's leather-gloved hands pressed down against the erection straining his zipper.  "But perhaps that is not all you like."

Keeping It In The Family AU (Mischa Lecter/Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham):  Hannibal reached out and raised her up, and offered her his elbow.  "You're not going to bow to me, Mischa."

I, Profiler (Crossover SVU/Hannibal, Hannibal/Will, Barba/Benson):  "I will sign your form," Hannibal agreed.  After Barba hung up, Hannibal sighed, and turned his attention back to the sausage browning in the frying pan.  "Mr. Barba seems to be at loose ends," he commented.

Hannibal’s Nightmare (AUish, Hannibal/Will):  He knows who he is--My name is Hannibal Lecter, and I am a psychiatrist.  I am a serial killer, and I am a cannibal.--but that doesn't seem to matter.  He is trapped in a place that does not seem to exist, and yet, it does.  

Great Escapes (Hannibal/Will):  Hannibal placed her plate in front of her, then dropped the fork carefully on the napkin.  Once he was out of range, Will let her go and returned to his seat.  "Do enjoy your dinner."

Firsts (Hannibal/Will):When the dance--and the music--ends, they're both breathless and ready for more.  Hannibal empties his pockets over the balcony rail for the violinist below, then follows Will to bed.

drunken kisses sequel (Hannibal/Will):  "I know."  And he had.  It was almost as if this entire conversation was useless; Will and Hannibal were so much in each other's heads, the answers were known before the questions were even formulated.  

Building A New Life (Hannibal/Will):  In the back cargo hatch was their luggage, their bloody clothes which really needed to be burned, and a large igloo cooler that carried all their provisions plus a few… special treats for later.  

Biokinetics (Hannigram AU, Hannibal/Will):  "No, not at all."  Will put his glasses back on as Hannibal led the way out of Will's living quarters and into the Institute's foyer.  

Original WIPs:

Roxy The Pink Police Poodle:  Oh, boy.  I recognize Shit Detail.  That means we’re going to do something Not Fun.  For either one of us.

Paralegal:  No amount of whipping furniture at my head can shake the solidity of the facts of the law.

Ghosts of deBerk:  (scriptfrenzy screenplay):  You want to ask me if I can talk to them for you, but you realize I am not Whoopi Goldberg and this is not Ghost.  You know things do not work like that.

Baywood:  All the things that you could need, but wouldn't ever think of buying for yourself when the time comes.

The Nature Of Time:  The Eternal was confused.  And so to experience time, He became a part of it.

Small Things:  And if any found it, they did not live to tell the tale because many went out, and few returned, and the ones who did died quickly, without relating what they knew.

Sleep Deprivation: The clock on the microwave read 2:03 AM as Mara heated her second milk of the night.

Sangria Falls:  "Put on the shackles, now," Nick repeated, loosening the snap on his gun.

Misty Valley:  Rain splashed on the windows, matching the rolling drops of blood that pooled red on the inside of the glass.

Midnight Scratching:  .  If she was losing her mind, then Poe was trying to console her.

Mars Rover:  The air was circulating slowly inside the helmet to stretch out the final oxygen supply, but as soon as they were out of the atmosphere, they wouldn't really need it anymore.

Fall of the House of God:  .  As it dug itself in, Lamiel planted the seeds for further discontent before going to sleep to gather its strength.

Dymond Family Murders:  Fiona's estate contested the agreement when first announced, but has since withdrawn the challenge and given the arrangement its full support.

SVU (Special Victims Unit) WIPs

Cedro Barba (Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson):  Turning the box back over to Cold Case, Olivia headed for SVU.

Checking In (Barba/Benson):  "I'm no role model, Olivia." He jostled Noah into sobs as he handed the child back to Liv. "Almost twenty years later and I still dream of punching my old man in the face every morning."

Post-”October Surprise” fic (Barba/Benson):  "Come on, let it out."  She cradled him close, resting her chin on his temple.  "It's going to be all right, Rafael."  

Dinner With Mami:  Rafael just smiled at that, and a little kernel of heat blossomed in the pit of his stomach when she smiled back.

Starbucks:  "Three cups, Liv," he reminded.  "Three cups of Starbucks all over Armani."

Barba and Benson Dinner Untitled:  "I think I like you better all put together.  A present just waiting to be unwrapped.  Although…"  She made an appreciative noise at his bare chest.  "I can see the benefit of keeping you naked."

Barba/Benson Vampire AU:  “Come on.  The blood bank is open by now, and you’ll think a lot more clearly when you’ve fed.”  Olivia held her hand out.

Doctor Who WIPs:

Running Up That Hill (9/Rose):   Disappointed in Rose,which was even worse for both of them. 

1920′s Gangster AU (10/Rose):  But there was no harm in looking, the Doctor kept telling himself, and so he continued to pay regular visits to the club.

A Crack In Time (12/Rose):  "Rose, is it really you?" he asked, and even his voice was changed, Scottish and hard.

Come Back To Me (10/Rose):  The Doctor's words were rushed as he hastened to reassure Rose.  "There's only a really tiny little bit left, not even enough to hurt you, or even know it's there.  I took all of it out of your head, scrubbed it clean, remember?  That's how we met.  This is just one tiny little glitch that saved your life."

Doctor John Smith (Tentoo/Rose):  John looked steadily at Jackie.  "It's a lot to take in.  Rose has been through a lot.  I just want to make it easy for her, that's all."

Drips (A Coffee Shop AU) (Ten/Rose):  It had started, for Rose Tyler at least, with the gas leak that had blown up the Henrik's shop she'd worked at--thank God she'd been off shift that night.  

Sunshine and Roses (9/Rose/Jack):  The crinkles at the corner of his eyes made his mouth turn up in a perpetual smile, which was accompanied by laughter at Rose's antics.  

Light and Dark (Ten/Rose):  "We like children, we like them young, they are still light and generous and they want to play!"  A few free light specks floated around Rose again, and lit on her hair, on her shoulders.  "Oh, we see!  You keep him light, he glows when you're with him!"

Part Of Your World (Ten/Rose Little Mermaid AU):  He sort of waved through the front glass, and several of the whales flicked their rear fins as a sort of answer before the TARDIS bobbed around and headed back for the Trench and the Challenger descent point.

Untitled Post Impossible Planet/Satan Pit (Ten/Rose):  She knew the why well enough, and went in for a second kiss.

Pregnant Rose Tyler (Ten/Rose):  "All right.  Anything for you, Rose Tyler."  And this time, he meant it with all his hearts.

Two Hearts, Two Hearts (Jack/Ten/Rose):  "Back in the TARDIS, or else she's wandered off again," was the Doctor's reply.  "Didn't know what I'd find in here, so I asked her to wait.  But you know how rubbish she is at waiting about, so we'd better go."

Gotham WIPs:

Father Nygma’s Bird Problems (AU, Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot): This time, Carmine’s smile was far more rueful than he’d like.  “There’s no way you could let me down,” he answered.  Especially not given his own personal history.  “Good evening, Edward.  Remember, you can call me or see me at any time you like; I am always available to my priests.”  

 Hello, Old Friend (Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot):  Ed gave a negative shake of his head. “That's far too generous, I couldn't accept.” Especially when he had no real way of paying back the kindness. 

Mine (Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot):  Getting up from the chair, he rapped the table with gloved knuckles.  “I’ll swing back by later to see what you decided.”

Cuts Like A Knife (Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot):   He was relatively certain that a google search of How to fix the ice-muddled memory of your best friend turned worst enemy would return exactly zero helpful results, so he was going to go with the closest approximation he could think of and adapt what he found to help Ed.  

Walking the Tightrope (Jim Gordon/Oswald Cobblepot):  Oswald simply nodded.  That was fair enough; the agreement was to take each other as they came, profession included.  It kept things interesting, to say the least.  

What He Needs (Jim Gordon/Oswald Cobblepot):  The black eye mask was folded on top, and while he withdrew it with his fingers, he carried it back in his mouth and offered it up to Oswald.

BBC Sherlock WIPs:

Untitled Johnlock #1 (John/Sherlock):  "Not important at all.  It's common.  Any two individuals regardless of gender can have sex, and a portion of those can make love with sentiment behind it.  Boring.  What is important, what is unique, is the closeness two people share.  Especially when one is less than personable, as it were.  But you, John, you are what is important.  Not how you choose to use an appendage."

Life Form (John/Sherlock):  Sherlock did allow himself to blink, and when no catastrophe happened, he relaxed microscopically.

Past Life (John/Sherlock):  "Sandals and swords, how exciting.  I can certainly see how it would pull one from the realm of sleep."

The Following WIPs: 

Sacrifice (Joe Carroll/Ryan Hardy):  The ghostly shapes moved like quicksilver behind the mist.

That Night (Joe/Carroll/Ryan Hardy):  The heat from their touches made the room-temperature glass seem almost icy.  

The Ending (Joe Carroll/Ryan Hardy):  The answer that Ryan couldn't give, and that's why this moment, here in this nowhere place, was most important.  In this place, the answer didn't matter.

Unexpected Savior (Joe Carroll/Ryan Hardy):  Joe disconnected the call while studying his reflection in the mirror. “Dear Ryan, whatever shall I do with you?”

Everything Else:

Untitled Rickyl AU (Walking Dead, Rick/Daryl):   So it was as a civilian that Rick rolled up at Carl's school that afternoon.

Wintering (Walking Dead, Rick/Daryl):  "Don't worry, Papa Bear.  Little Ass-Kicker's in good hands."  

Destrus (Xenaverse, Ares/Xena):  Well, his great sword through a few puny mortal chests had put an end to that idea

A Friend’s Faith (Xenaverse, Autolycus/Xena):  "It's hard to have faith in yourself when you think nobody else does, but it's even worse when you think you've let down the ones who do."

Kunzite and Darkury (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon/PGSM/BSSM/Bishojou Senshi Sera Moon, Kunzite/Dark Mercury):  Both are trapped in the whirlpool at the base of the waterfall, a deepening vortex that sucks them deeper and closer together.

Untitled PGSM (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon/Bishoujo Senshi Sera Moon, Human!Nephrite/Ami):  He was only Nephrite, outcast and human, and he was shamed for feeling gratitude to Sailor Mercury.

Responsibility (Star Trek TOS, Kirk/Spock):  No--that was unfair.  Jim was not fire, and it was only Spock who burned.

Return To Underland (Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, Alice/Hatter):  The Unicorn chuffed nervously, pawing the marble floor while the Lion paced and growled, tail flicking madly.

The Girl With the Tuxedo Kitten (Millennium/Dragon Tattoo series, Lisbeth Salander/Mikael Blomkvist):  Blomkvist laughed.  "Why don't you take Sally and let her sleep?  I'll set up the litter in the bathroom and put out some more dry food."  

[jgroffdaily]

From Charlize Theron and David Fincher, 'Mindhunter' delves into the darker corners of the criminal mind

To meet Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany, stars of the Netflix series “Mindhunter,” you’d never suspect they recently spent 10 long months consumed with the darkest reaches of the human psyche.

Groff, a charmer known for playing the lead in HBO’s “Looking” and King George in the original Broadway version of “Hamilton,” laughs generously as McCallany, a seasoned character actor and gabby raconteur with a booming voice, shares a story about training to throw out the first pitch at a Mets game.

Yet given their obvious rapport, it’s easy to see why they were cast as the leads in “Mindhunter,” which debuts Friday. The psychological drama, executive produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron, follows a pair of trailblazing FBI agents as they interrogate notorious real-life murderers in an effort to understand — and maybe prevent — the senseless urge to kill.

Groff stars as Holden Ford, a clean-cut but open-minded young agent intent on shaking up the hidebound agency, while McCallany plays Bill Tench, a cynical veteran who asks what might be the series’ central question: “How do we get ahead of crazy if we don’t know how crazy thinks?”

In 2017, when criminal profiling has long since become standard practice — and spawned an entire pop culture subgenre in the process — the need to understand the origins of violent behavior seems obvious.

But “Mindhunter” is set in the 1970s, an era when the starchy culture of the FBI still reflected the narrow worldview of longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, says McCallany.

“The FBI was one of the most conservative law enforcement agencies in the world, so empathizing with killers to try to understand the traumas they experienced in their childhoods and how that gives us insight into their behavior was not something Hoover was interested in.”

Yet the nature of crime itself seemed to be changing radically at the time. The social turmoil of the ’60s and ’70s also brought with it what appeared to be a terrifying new breed of criminal — brutal murderers like David Berkowitz (a.k.a. “Son of Sam”), Ted Bundy and Richard Speck who killed repeatedly and without apparent motive other than bloodlust. Establishing “means, motive and opportunity,” as law enforcement officers had been trained to do, was no longer enough.

The series is based on the book “Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit,” a nonfiction account written by John E. Douglas, a pioneering FBI profiler who interviewed and studied some of the country’s most notorious violent offenders over the course of a 25-year career. (Groff plays a fictionalized version of Douglas, who’s also said to have inspired characters in “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Criminal Minds.” McCallany is a fictionalized version of FBI agent Robert Ressler, believed to have coined the term “serial killer.” )

Theron became familiar with Douglas’ writing when she was researching serial killer Aileen Wuornos for her Oscar-winning role in Patty Jenkins’ 2003 film “Monster.”

A few years later, she optioned “Mind Hunter,” envisioning it from the beginning as a five-season television series, one that would take a more unsettling view of criminality and human nature than your standard catch-the-bad-guy-in-an-hour procedural.

Douglas and his colleagues were “really climbing an uphill battle with the FBI at that time, which just really did not function on any kind of empathy or understanding of these people,” Theron says by telephone. “I think a huge part of where we are in understanding aberrant behavior is because of his work.”

The “Mad Max: Fury Road” star, who says she’s fascinated by “any kind of severe behavior,” was drawn to the material despite its disturbing nature.

“I always want to know why. Why is it that somebody has the need to control in the ultimate way like Berkowitz did or [so-called ‘Co-ed Killer’] Ed Kemper did? A lot of people think it’s really strange, my mother included, but I think it’s healthy to want to turn the light on and want to understand something that’s scary.”

She immediately brought the project to Fincher, a storyteller known for delving into the homicidal mind in such films as “Se7en” and “Zodiac.”

“I just thought he must be somewhat obsessed with serial killers the way that I am, and I was happy to find out that he was,” she says with a note of self-deprecation.

Theron and Fincher spent several years developing the project with writers Joe Penhall and Jennifer Haley, putting together 10 scripts and a series bible and formulating an approach that blends fact and fiction. The decision was made to take creative license with Groff and McCallany’s characters, while adhering scrupulously to the real-life biographies of the killers portrayed in the series, such as Kemper.

Eventually they brought the project to Netflix, which had successfully partnered with Fincher on “House of Cards.” Fincher directed four episodes of “Mindhunter” and is, by all accounts, very much its creative leader.

“One of the amazing things about this experience is that finally a TV show that is director-friendly,” says McCallany, who was eager to work with Fincher again after small parts in “Fight Club” and “Alien 3.” “When a director is empowered on a television set the same way he would be on a film set, it's an incredible thing.”

Groff, a Fincher newbie, says the director has “no blind spots.” “Some directors are good with writers, and some directors are good with cameras, and some are good with actors. The sort of chilling thing about David is he can do everybody's job better than they can do it, so there's this immediate level of respect and hard work.”

Unlike some of his collaborators, Groff says he was “not a serial killer person. When I first picked up the book, it took me a long time to get through it because I found it so disturbing.”

Groff recalls that, from the outset, Fincher “wanted to blow up the comic-book villain idea of a serial killer” — the notion of an urbane evil genius à la Hannibal Lecter who drinks fine wine and listens to classical music.

“One of the things that is so chilling about ‘Mindhunter’ is that it humanizes the serial killlers, these sad, [messed-up] guys with damaged pasts and mental problems. It's so much scarier to look at them as human beings,” he adds.

For a show about serial killers, “Mindhunter” is a psychological deep-dive that features a lot more talking than gore — as Theron puts it, “there is nothing about this that is fast-burning.” One of its most riveting early scenes features two men conversing over egg-salad sandwiches in a prison cafeteria.

“We'll be the only two FBI agents in TV history to go multiple seasons without pulling out our guns and going ‘Stop!’” jokes McCallany. “People looking for gunfights and car chases gotta look elsewhere.”

But for anyone interested in psychology rather than splatter, “Mindhunter” may prove to be highly binge-able.

“Selfishly, I just really forced David to make me my own TV show that I, as a viewer, would want to watch,” says Theron, who is nevertheless confident there are many out there like her. “I can’t be the only freak.”

‘MINDHUNTER’

Where: Netflix When: Anytime, starting Friday Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

[massmurdera]

Best/Worst of 2017

Objectively speaking, 2017 was a tire fire of a year in America and I knew that going in. I’ll leave out the Trump bullshit and how I feel. Americans/people like being outraged, but it gets old to wake up every day in a panic. I did when Deflategate was happening to Tom Brady, but that had no real-world implications. Everyday, I was waking up to check Twitter to see what bad shit was happening. I think I did a solid job cutting it out as best I could and not letting it make me go mad.

It was a mostly boring year and then it picked up towards the very end. I might not feel good about America and where we’re I think we’ heading while holding out hope that this ends soon (I’m naïve and think we’re completely/totally fucked) but I guess I feel all right about where I’m going and how I feel about those close to me in my life. I’m controlling what I can control. Things could be better, but I’m all right. 

TV Funniest go-to show: Desus and Mero Late Night/Politics: John Oliver Favorite TV show (non-Game of Thrones): American Vandal TV SHOW (non-Game of Thrones): 1) Legion 2) Stranger Things 3) Godless 4) Dark 5) Sneaky Pete 6) Mindhunter 7) Marvelous Mrs Maisel 8) Better Call Saul 9) the Deuce 10) Fargo 11) Ozarks 12) 13 Reasons Why 13) Lethal Weapon 14) Riverdale 15) Mr Robot 16) This is Us TV Comedies: 1) American Vandal 2) Big Mouth 3) Nathan for You 4) Rick and Morty 5) GLOW 6) Veep 7) Brockmire 8) Atypical

I’m biased that a family friend of mine co-created American Vandal and his brother is on the show too in a minor role but it REALLY is great. It sounds stupid that older family members scoffed at or were bewildered by, but it’s far smarter social commentary than it appears. It nailed high school so well.

BEST NEW CHARACTERS Funniest: Hormone Monster/Monstress (Big Mouth) Best Jeff Spicoli that should get a spin-off: Dylan and the Wayback Boys (American Vandal) Best Philip Seymour Hoffman: Edward Kemper (Mindhunter) Most fun/crazy role: 1) Aubrey Plaza (Legion) 2) Susan Sarandon (Feud) Perfect role: Marc Maron (GLOW), Nikki Swango (Fargo) Best drunk: Brockmire Sorely Overlooked: Clayne Crawford in Mel Gibson’s role (Lethal Weapon) Star-Making: Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why); Rachel Brosnahan (Marvelous Mrs Maisel)

DISAPPOINTING FROM GREAT SHOWS: Curb Your Enthusiasm; Fargo; the Americans; Game of Thrones; Silicon Valley; Veep Shows I half-watch but could give up on: Big Little Lies; Feud; Preacher; Runaways; Shameless; the Sinner; SMILF; SNL; This is Us; White Famous WORST Shows: 1) Twin Peaks 2) the Leftovers 3) the Defenders 4) Taboo 5) Top of the Lake Didn’t work but should have: Vice Principals -had moments Absolute Worst: any and all political panel/news shows (Fox News, CNN, MSNBC). Burn them all to the ground.

Still need to watch: American Gods; BoJack Horseman; Brooklyn 99; Carmichael Show; Catastrophe; Good Place; Halt and Catch Fire; Handmaid’s Tale; Master of None; Punisher

Overall: the new shows were damn good, but the established great shows were all letdowns.

MOVIES 5 STARS: CLASSIC: 1) Get Out 4 STARS: 2) Free Fire 3) John Wick II 4) Dunkirk 5) Star Wars 6) Logan 3 ½ stars: Brawl in Cell Block 99; Good Time; Logan Lucky 3 STARS RENTALS: WATCHABLE: Atomic Blonde; Baby Driver, Babysitter, Big Sick; Blade Runner 2049; Fate of the Furious; Okja; Shot Caller, Spiderman, Split; War for Planet of the Apes; Wind River; Wonder Woman 2 STARS-DIDN”T LIKE BUT DECENT PARTS: Girls Trip; Guardians of Galaxy 2; Ingrid Goes West; Lego Batman; War Machine Most boring/dumbest critic favorite: Personal Shopper Cool twist made up for okay movie: Split Coolest soundtrack/score: Good Time, Dunkirk Most Over-the-Top Violent: Brawl in Cell Block 99 Overrated: Baby Driver, Wonder Woman Disappointed: Lego Batman

NEED TO CHECK OUT AFTER I READ BOOK: Lost City of Z; It HAVEN”T SEEN: Call Me By Your Name; Coco; Columbus; Darkest Hour; Disaster Artist; Florida Project; Justice League; Lady Bird; Molly’s Game; mother!; Mudbound; Phantom Thread; the Post; Shape of Water; Thor; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

I’ve got catching up to do. But I think the year in movies wasn’t good.

Best Documentaries: 1) the Defiant Ones 2) Get Me Roger Stone 3) the Keepers 4) Jim & Andy BEST NETFLIX STAND-UP SPECIALS: 1) Dave Chappelle 2) Patton Oswalt 3) Ali Wong 4) Marc Maron 5) Neil Brennan 6) Bill Burr 7) Rory Scovel 8) Mike Birbiglia

Burr’s my favorite comic and seeing him live he is the best comic alive but it didn’t translate live. And he cut out so much of his best stuff.  Chappelle might be more natural and have a sense of the moment though. Overplayed controversy -outrage over Chappelle’s jokes. Yeah, I don’t think they actually saw his act and just listened, out of context, to the jokes. He’s still as good as it gets. People just want to be outraged and have things be PC. Comics maybe hype that up, but it’s true. Underrated/Lost moment no one saw: Def Jam 25th Anniversary Special wasn’t good but Chappelle’s 7-minute improv off-the-cuff bit is secretly funnier than anything he did in his 2 specials. I don’t think any other comic alive or ever could have pulled that off as smoothly/naturally.

Worst special: Amy Schumer (like her, but she wasn’t ready to be released and nothing worked: felt like she wanted in on Netflix $ guys like Chappelle/Seinfeld were getting. I get the fairness, but uh, Chappelle’s specials felt like an event.

OTHER SPECIALS (comedy album/non-HBO) SOLID: TJ Miller; Joe DeRosa; Kurt Braunholer; Brian Posehn Didn’t totally work for me but I like them: Jerrod Carmichael, Tiffany Hadish

STILL NEED TO CHECK OUT: Ari Shaffir; Jerry Seinfeld; Brian Regan;  Jen Kirkman; Judd Apatow; Hasaan Minaj; Michelle Wolf; Chris Gethard

Just loaded with too much good comedy. It’s never been better with podcasts, Netflix.

Favorite Podcasts: 1) Chapo Trap House 2) Pardon My Take 3) Frotcast 4) Bill Burr 5) Fuck the Chargers 6) Inactives 6) Revisionist History 7) Dollop 8) My Favorite Murder 9) Hound Tall Best Dollop Episodes of the Year: 1) Falling Pilot 2) Falling Pilot 3) Uber 4) Trump 5) Trump part 1 & 2 5) Enron 6) Phantom of the Open Dollop can be hit-or-miss. But the hits? Are as good as podcasting gets for history, comedy, and understanding the times we live in now. They would make for classic movies/docs. but specializes in overlooked, ridiculous stories that may have had massive historical ramifications (Dope Lake, Falling Pilot qualify for that except the ramifications part). Every once in a blue moon, they nail something timely (Enron) or current (Opium; Uber; Trump). They are the calm in the eye of a storm of utter insanity. Best individual episodes: -Bertcast (#217: Dave Anthony/Gareth Reynolds)-funny stand-up stories -Joey Diaz on Rogan/Bertcast -Tom Segura/Bert Kreischer Weight Loss Challenge (Joe Rogan) first episodes of the year)-funny/strangely inspiring. They did another challenge later in the years  -Revisionist History-Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment (Brown v Board of Education)-the unintended and disastrous consequences still felt today of why the decision was awful in a way you didn’t consider. It’ devastating to hear -Crabfeast #292 (Gareth Reynolds) talks about being hired to entertain kids birthday parties for 5 years as a side job while trying to make it in comedy. I love stories of failure/struggle at shit jobs Funniest podcast: 600 Dollar Podcast-bummer it ended Frotcast is my next favorite for humor (Best of 2016/2017 episodes are most accessible rather than just being dropped in). Bill Burr always. Best guest on a podcast: James Adomian as Gorka (Chapo Trap House) Best political: Chapo Trap House (and, yes, I am a Grey Wolf) Best Sports: Pardon My Take Best fan hate/schadenfreude: Fuck the Chargers Most underrated: Butterfly Effect (Jon Ronson)-only 6 episodes 3 hours 30 minutes; does what Malcolm Gladwell does but more long-form on the porn industry History: Dollop (over Common Sense/Hardcore History) Best local radio show/podcast: Matty & Nick Overrated/Lukewarm/Forgettable: Crimetown; S-Town; Pod Save America, Larry Wilmore Crimetown and  S-Town’ are basically just accents. I didn’t like them the way other people did. Pod Save America is for boring people who don’t listen to podcasts and don’t know or bother for better alternatives. They are inoffensive dudes: it’s VERY basic. I think ‘Lovett or Leave It’ is better depending on the panel. Worst: Missing Richard Simmons Other podcasts I enjoy-Binge Mode, Bodega Boys, Dumb People Town, Emotional Hangs, FOFOP, Handsome Rambler (Hannibal Burress), Lovett or Leave It, We’ll See You in Hell Need to check out more-Crab Feast, Cum Town, In the Dark, Mogul Listen to if they have a good guest -Bertcast, Joe Rogan, WTF, You Made it Weird BEST EVENTS: 1) Pats-Steelers AFC Championship  2) Pats-Texans AFC Divisional  2nd half 3) Chance the Rapper: Boston Calling 4) 1975: Boston Calling 5) Thrice/Circa Survive: House of Blues sadly I couldn’t see Thrice or the stage at all in the mezzanine but I wasn’t mad 5) My Favorite Murder: Wilbur 6) Turnover: Royale 7) Hannibal Burress: Boston Calling 8) Frightened Rabbit: Boston Calling 9) Norm MacDonald @ Wilbur Theatre: Netflix taping 10) watching my friend mosh to Converge while I held his sweatshirt

WORST EVENTS: 1) My cousin at Boston Calling -just a disaster I won’t explain, but it was the probably the most disappointing thing that I experienced all year and shit on my weekend with my friend from LA. I basically had to become a babysitter and ditch my friend. 2) Pats-Texans AFC Championship Game -freezing 0 degree cold January game (expected) in the upper 300-level section and ours was the ONLY one not standing for a playoff game. Sat next to two kids under 8. Then someone brought in a newborn fucking baby that, no hyperbole, could not have been more than a month old. Insane. We snuck into the 200-level section at halftime and it ended up being a fucking party and playoff atmosphere that I wanted, expected, and had enjoyed before. 2) Migos  -last minute replacement for Solange: just looked/sounded completely unprepared and they knew it. Crowd didn’t seem to be into it (Boston is mainly white) and didn’t know the lyrics to chant back: when they did so, it failed, and they were laughing it off but knowing it wasn’t a good setting for them. 4) Bon Iver  -I liked his new album but doesn’t translate well live and to festivals. Super boring. Watching white people LOSE their shit to lukewarm Kenny G-esque saxophone solos (5 people playing the sax) was ridiculous.

MUSIC 1a) Brian Fallon-’If Your Prayers Don’t Get to Heaven’ 1b) Brian Fallon-’Forget Me Not’ 2) Menzingers-’˜Lookers’ 3) Lorde-’Perfect Places’ 4) Carly Rae Jepsen-’Cut to the Feeling’ 5) Turnover-’Breeze’ 6) Vallis Alps-’Fading’ 7) Kendrick Lamar-Humble’ 7) Calvin Harris/Frank Ocean/Migos-’Slide’ 9) Night Game-’the Outfield’ 10) Kesha-’Praying’

Album: Menzingers-’After the Party’ New Artist: Khalid Late pass: Turnover Late pass song: Lord Huron-’the Night We Met’

WORST POLITICAL: the chaos that comes with Trump-Waking up everyday in anxiety to check what happened on Twitter in America with politics/everything. It was, objectively, a trainwreck tire-fire. There’s too much news (which he obviously likes, even if it’s bad: he likes the attention and is a cable news addict). So, yeah, I don’t want to just be overloaded with it all the time, so fuck you forever. A year’s worth of shit is dumped every week. Thing is, I don’t hate Trump the most. He’s a stooge and he’s only doing everything the Republicans want anyway. It’s just that he’s such a dunce.

Worst music moment: 1) Katy Perry dancing w/ Migos, her music videos 2) Taylor Swift album rollout 3) Eminem’s cringe-y Trump freestyle that sounded as bad as Hamilton

Favorite debacles: Uber, Juicero, Fyre Festival Only because I can’t enjoy the Trump presidency debacles since it’s everyday life. Favorite Online Writer: Drew Magary Best health choice: switching to shoes with arch support -I can’t wear any of the major shoes like Nike anymore. I’ve got super flat feet. I was walking around for 2 months feeling like my foot was broken. I was in agony. Instant relief when I got better shoes. Most Confused thought: How the hell is Martin Shkreli the only evil rich asshole to go to jail? Sweetest/Coolest: Remember, Remember the 5th of November and beyond (super dumb inside joke to only person that might read this BS). I’ll leave it at that. I mean, I totally want to write about it, how awesome/funny it is, a phone call I made to my friend that was 12+ years in the making that he didn't expect. But yeah. I’ll just say it’s really sweet and just not jinx it.

Look ahead 2018 MUSIC: 1) Brian Fallon 2) Thrice 3) Chvrches 4) Wonder Years 5) Arctic Monkeys 6) Carly Rae Jepsen 7) 1975 8) Bruce Springsteen 9) Justin Timberlake NEW HBO: 1) Barry-Bill Hader as an assassin 2) Confederacy 3) Mosaic NEW NETFLIX SHOWS: 1) Maniac 2) Altered Carbon OTHER NEW SHOWS: 1) Corporate 2) the Terror 2) Counterpart 3) the Alienist 4) Waco 5) Good Girls  RETURNING TV: 1) True Detective 2) Atlanta SHOWS ENDING: the Americans  BOOKS: 1) Stephen King-’the Outsider’ 2) new Game of Thrones? 3) Michelle McNamara Gillian Flynn is overdue for a new book MOVIES: 1) Death of Stalin 2) Incredibles II 3) Soldado: Sicario II 4) Bodied 5) First Man-Chazzelle 6) Where’d You Go Bernadette-Linklater 7) Predator -Shane Black 8) Halloween -David Gordon Green/Danny McBride 9) Widows -Gillian Flynn/Steve McQueen 10) Creed II 11) Deadpool II 12) Hold the Dark 13) Scarface-Coen brothers 14) Black Panther 15) new ‘Cloverfield’ NEW COMEDY SPECIALS: 1) Bill Burr 2) Chris Rock 3)Tom Segura 4) Bert Kreischer, 5) Mike Birbiglia

Biggest bummer: no Game of Thrones until 2019, but I’d rather they not fuck it up

LOOK AHEAD TO 2018: -moving out of parent’ place in 2 weeks while still saving up to buy a house/condos  -uh, I just turned 31, so that took forever. I have a decent amount of $ saved up to secure a house, but I want a decent one. -brother’s wedding in April -and bachelor party -cousins getting married and engaged -happening in droves -Pats playoff run and maybe the last best stand in the Belichick-Brady era. Brady could easily play 3 more years, be a top 3-5 QB (he still is the best, most durable/toughest, consistent), break every record, but something to be said about going out on top. -Shows/Tours Hoping to see: Boston Calling, Bill Burr, Brian Fallon, Bert Kreischer, Thrice, Chappelle, Pats -Gaslight Anthem reunion shows for 10-year anniversary of ‘the 59 Sound’ AND hopefully coming back again

[yuki-almasy]

Gordian Knot

So, I am going to talk a little about art-styles and my thoughts in general. Well, two years ago I already written a text like this but then never put it up on the internet. I felt too insecure about the topic and at all. I read the old text and it's still the same as back then. I am astounded that I made this little progress in matter of growth. Haha But I feel the need to address this theme again and to organize my thoughts.

I worked my butt off to draw animeresque semi-realism. It's what I always wanted to do and to archive that, was my main goal. But back then and now, I am not satisfied with drawing it. It's like a blockage, I have to force myself to draw like this and it's no fun at all. I read from several artists, that you always should do the harder thing, that's what brings you to a higher level of what you can be, or think you can be. And I agree to some point but also, I am not sure that that's the best way. Everyone is different and not every approach works for every person. Sure, you should always challenge yourself and keep learning but if it leads to stress and frustration, it will not be profitable for your health and art. Of course,you can fight through it but what if you are not strong enough to always push yourself to your limits, like me? Will I stagnate, if I stop drawing in half-realistic ways? Will I walk backwards, if I draw more what brings me fun instead of constantly pushing myself? Ultimately, I don't know.

There was a man once, his name was John William Godward. He wanted to become an artist at any costs, so he moved to Italy and even as his family repudiate him because of it, he strived to become as perfect as he could be. He was a master in drawing skin, marble and any sorts of fabric and also in drawing realistic in general. But he committed suicide at age 61 with the words written: 'the world is not big enough for myself and a Picasso'. So what can we take away from this tragic story...? Well, Picasso said 'It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.' Maybe, that it's not the ultimate goal to draw and paint as realistic as possible. If it's your goal, go for it but it's not 'THE' goal. What 'THE' goal is, is up to you. But what is my goal...?

Deep inside me, even when it's a fact, it's hard for me to really feel the fact that every drawing style is equal. When I really can go with the flow and have fun, my drawing looks extremely different to what it looks like, when I put all energy into it. But if I put a lot of energy in it, it becomes an absolute chore drawing that pic. And for every hour I work on it, frustration rises, until I just hate to work on it. And now I stare on the blank canvas and switch from what I 'should' do, to what I 'want' to do. I want to have fun but I also don't want to... I don't know, leave the ability to draw beautiful bodies and alike. There pics I drew recently, I am absolutely not satisfied with, but I couldn't bring it to a better outcome because it was a real fight. My mind rebelled like I would do something painful while drawing and therefore, I drew pics that are way bellow my best. But I have the feeling, when I go away from drawing more realistic, that it's worth less and will not be seen as 'valid' art; even though I see all art as equal, it's like I just couldn't accept myself. And also, I am more into 'realistic' stuff, like the TV series 'Hannibal' and 'Sherlock (Holmes)' etc. how should I address this kind of things with a less realistic style? How can I draw them beautiful/sexy/admirable? I don't know what 'feels right' to me, or how to archive it.

Due to my abusive past, I crave for love and attention, especially for my art. Art was what could make me happy and I had/have passion for. Some people do not care about attention or popularity at all and I work hard on myself, to make it a lesser role in my life but it's nevertheless a huge part of an art career and a need for people to go forward, pulled from the love and admiration of others. The fact is, that people are not as healthy or balanced as they should be and struggling, fighting with the thought of giving up; but if you log in and there is someone who says, that your work is great and it was worth it, or gotten some likes etc... that gives the power to keep going. So of course I want to please my audience... but overall I am just confused what people like and what I should draw, or even want to draw.

It's a constant progress of drawing and deleting; keeping things for later and never touch it again. Do I want to pursue art as an career? Yes. But how should I ever archive that or anything at all, when I am just a bundle of insecureness. I gone so much forth and back, left and right that I am a gordian knot, unable to undo or even loosen it. It's unbelievable hard for me to get anything done and my mental health is a huge reason why. I do love art so much but I am always so torn. It's five years now, that I feel like this and every month that passes feels like I wasted opportunities. Time runs and I'm helpless with all my thoughts and overall. My inner blockage and confusion is constantly hinder me to go forth. Well, I am an realist and I know that it will be better at some point in the future... but you have to make step by step, to get there even if you feel utterly powerless. I really want it to be better and I draw and will eventually overcome it. But right now and the past five years were really hard.

I had to write all this down, I just had to. And now, I'll putting this in the aether of the internet, to set it free and keep trying to go forth. But whoever read this, thank you; it means a lot that you took the time to read about the confused thoughts of an artist. Hopefully you will have a wonderful day or night.❤

[stitching-in-time]

Phantom of the Opera US tour review!

Went to see the re-staged tour of Phantom of the Opera yesterday. Being an extremely obsessed Phantom fan for pretty much my entire life, I have mixed feelings. (Long post ahead! Also spoilers, in case there’s anyone left who doesn’t know the show already...)

I wasn’t planning to see the new tour, since it isn’t the original staging, but the lure of hearing my favorite score performed live with a huge orchestra was too strong, and the new cast looked pretty good. (And included Trista Moldovan as Carlotta! Trista is one of my favorite Christines, so there was no way I could resist!)

The bright side: it wasn’t the completely awful trash nightmare I’d heard some of the hardcore phans say it is. The downside: the new sets are ugly and the new blocking really hobbled the storytelling. The original staging is perfect, and has stood the test of time- so why change it? That’s what I’d like to ask the people behind this, because it doesn’t make sense to me. I know budget concerns were supposedly a factor, but I don’t see how that giant turntable set could be less expensive than a staircase and a portcullis! The one thing I will give it: the staircase magically appearing as they descended to the Phantom’s lair was pretty cool, but I still prefer the original with the whole stage filled with mist and candelabras, it was more atmospheric.

The places where this production was at it’s best were where it stuck most closely to the original. The opera scenes were the best in that respect- and I even liked this version of ‘Il Muto’ better than the original- they had a whole Rococo boudoir set with a cabinet for the Count to hide in, it was very pretty and made it more funny. That was the only place where I can say this production improved on the original. The opening sequence was my favorite though, and I was having a bit of a squee moment when the overture started and the chandelier lit up and all the Hannibal dancers appeared. I also liked the cobwebbed effect over the prologue that dissolved away as the overture started- I thought it was painted on a scrim, but it was actually some sort of projection- very cool! And I forgot that Carlotta also sings ‘Think of Me’ at the beginning, so I nearly flipped out that my favorite Christine was singing ‘Think of Me’ live in front of me! (WHY IS SHE NOT STILL PLAYING CHRISTINE?! SHE’S NOT TOO OLD COME ON PEOPLE! SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR!!) Not to count out Kaitlyn Davis, who was perfectly fine as Christine, and sang a lovely cadenza (I love that they let her use a different one from the Broadway version!), but Trista is my fave and I’d choose her over everybody. Except Gina Beck- I don’t think I could choose between Gina and Trista- don’t ever ask me, I can’t do it!

The use of the original costumes (or most of them, at any rate!) was what saved the whole production from looking like a pathetically cheap bargain basement version. Except for ‘Masquerade’, which they really skimped on, and it looked awful- if you take away the original costumes, including the Phantom’s iconic Red Death costume, AND the staircase that was utilized in both the dance and the Phantom’s entrance, then you’re left with a scene that has almost no impact, or even reason for existing. But Christine’s Star Princess costume was one of the prettier ones I’ve seen- nicely subdued colors, and the skirt was all sparkly like a field of stars- I wasn’t close enough to see how it was constructed, but it looked like a net overskirt with rhinestones, maybe? But it was so much better than most of the really brightly colored, less embellished ones they seem to use nowadays.

The loss of atmosphere was the big problem with the sets: they were mostly just backdrops of brick walls. I guess they were trying to show the ‘backstage life’ of the theater, but it took away from the Gothic Victorian romanticism aesthetic that’s so much a part of what makes the show beloved. In a dramatic sense, switching the action of ‘Angel of Music’ to take place in the ballerina’s common dressing room rather than a luxurious private dressing room for Christine still makes sense, even if it’s less pretty to look at, but changing the Phantom’s lair was just glaringly wrong. It literally looked like a basement: just brick walls with a bed and a desk. (Well, it was supposedly an organ- like a smaller, steampunk version of an organ that the phantom had invented, but it looked like a desk, not an organ.) There’s no candelabras, no portcullis, no throne. There’s a bunch of candles hung from ropes from the ceiling, but it just looks like a student’s modern art project rather than something someone in the 19th century would actually do, particularly someone like the Phantom. All the opulence he surrounds himself with is part of his persona, and helps create his character for the audience- he feels somewhat incomplete without it. Also, taking leaves from the movie adaptation and actually showing the Phantom killing Buquet onstage, or having Raoul punch him in the jaw in the graveyard, undercuts his supernatural persona and makes him seem less mysterious, which lowers the dramatic stakes, and undoes some of the glamour of the character. 

That said, Derrick Davis was very good. He has a fantastic voice, and I hope he gets the chance to play the role on Broadway, because I feel like we didn’t see the best of what he could do, because this version’s terrible blocking took away so much character development. Being nearly a through-sung show, the big songs are also the big moment to build the relationships between the characters, but the new director seems to think that having two characters stand motionless several feet apart and sing at each other from afar is enough to do that- and it’s not. ‘Music of the Night’ is all about the Phantom & Christine establishing some kind of emotional/sensual connection, but it was just awkward here. It’s a running joke in the phandom that Christine has a ‘phantagasm’ when the Phantom touches her in MOTN, but certainly not in this version. There’s nothing remotely sensual about this blocking- it’s pretty business-like for most of it, including when he blindfolds her for goodness knows what reason, leads her around in a dance hold for a few seconds, then they go back to standing motionless a few feet away from each other again, until he picks her up and puts her to bed. (Why she immediately falls asleep isn’t explained, we’re just supposed to go with it. Okay. Whatever. But really, bring back the mirror bride asap!) 

The same trouble plagued ‘All I Ask of You’. It’s usually my favorite, because it’s just so romantic and sweet, but that doesn’t come through in this version. Raoul & Christine’s relationship should be demonstrated through their mutual affection as they’re hugging and canoodling in this song, but in the new blocking it can’t. They stand on opposite sides of the stage until halfway through- Christine actually runs away from Raoul and looks more afraid of him than the Phantom! Add to that the weird set design- why are those brick walls on both sides of the stage if they’re on top of the roof?! I couldn’t even see the entire rooftop set from where I was sitting because of those darn wall pieces blocking the view- why were they there?!- and you’re left with an oddly flat love song. It’s a shame too, because everyone in the cast had a great voice, and it sounded lovely, but that was it. Raoul in particular felt kind of rigid and unemotional, but I wonder how much of that is the director’s fault, since Andrew Lloyd Webber wants the new staging to set up Love Never Dies, so they’ve deliberately tried to make Raoul less likable to do that, which I hate! You could tell they did that with Hadley Fraser at Royal Albert Hall and it was so disappointing. LND will never have an American production, so don’t ruin POTO just for it’s sake. Raoul should always be sweet and adorable. End of story.

On a positive note, they’ve clearly taken a few notes from the phans complaints and made some minor changes from the UK tour- the Phantom’s mask is less ugly than the one you see John Owen Jones wearing in the TV commercial, and his wig is less full and more controlled than the floppy haired ones they used in the UK, thank heaven, but I’d still prefer the return of the slicked back wig. And Christine now has her scarf back during ‘Think of Me’. Also, I don’t know if it’s just Derrick Davis, or if they’ve officially changed it, but I’m glad he’s less aggressive toward Christine in the Final Lair scene. The choking is still a major problem and they really need to find some alternative to that, but at least he didn’t get on top of Christine in that aggressive rape-y stance when he throws her on the bed, like previous Phantoms in this production did. That was one of the reasons I didn’t have interest in the touring show- it changes the Phantom’s character, and it’s really inappropriate for a show that lots of children know and love, not to mention triggering for a lot of people, and I wasn’t gonna support that. But when I watched a bootleg of Derrick, he didn’t do that, so I decided I could give it a chance after all. (Note to producers: bootlegs are your friends, not your foes!)

Also, an interesting costuming tid-bit: Kaitlyn Davis was wearing the rare, elusive, non-striped blue dress for ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’! I’ve heard tales of this phenomenon, and seen a few pics, but it was a surprise to actually see it in person! And it was a pretty one, too: dark blue floral print on a lighter blue background. I admit that trying to find a good match for cosplaying the stripey dress has been a lifelong goal, but it’s impossible! However, I’m wondering now if cosplaying this version might be more do-able. I’m gonna keep it in mind as an option now :)

So overall: it was a mixed bag. I didn’t like the new design or direction, but the whole cast was very good, and I liked them a lot. (I thought the main trio was especially good in the Final Lair scene- if only it had been the original staging!) I’m disappointed that it didn’t have the emotional impact that the original had, but it was still an entertaining show, and I enjoyed all the little funny moments that you don’t get from just listening to the cast album or watching grainy bootlegs. (When Carlotta swished her Hannibal skirt and caught two of the ballerinas underneath it, and they crawled out and rolled their eyes! LOL) And of course, seeing the original costumes in action from moderately close-range was a dream come true after all these years! 

It wasn’t the perfect Phantom experience, but it was still fun, and it was certainly worthwhile. It can’t replace the original, but it was an adequate place-holder if you don’t have access to the real thing. The music, after all, is all still there, and if it makes some little kid falls in love with the show, and maybe musical theatre in general, I think it’s still doing it’s job. I saw a matinee, and there were two bus loads of school kids in the audience, and it was great to see how excitedly they were talking about the show afterward. I even saw a little boy in the lobby before the show who couldn’t have been more than four years old, but he was wearing a little tuxedo, cape, and mask, clinging to his mothers hand and asking her when they were going to see the Phantom. (Awwww!) I’m just glad the show is still out there in some form garnering new phans, because that’s what’s going to keep it alive for years to come. :)

[lighdesoti-blog]

Dating sims rom

Dating sims on 3ds This ain't a baseball game, but you've gotta decide: Will you be a pitcher, a catcher, or both? Man marries dating before with confidence on the seven stars 3 pets for dating sim.  It's a bizarre concept, criticizing a wrestler's hokey cartoon-y ness by invoking an even hokier form of storytelling.  You can choose to filter your results by section by choosing from the drop-down menu below.  Have you often caught yourself thinking these wistful thoughts? That's easier said than done, however, since the gods made her leave her body behind and appear as nothing more than a head in a flowerpot.  Matt dating sim about sweet memories of zelda simdate game, addons, dreamcast download free games, deliver the guy who acts as possible.

Dating Sim They're parody, but both Paz and Kaz have different personalities which come out during the dates Paz likes being complimented and treated gently, Kaz likes being punched and Big Boss staring at his crotch with the binoculars.  Here you will find a large collection of free sim dating games.  Yes, Gakuen Handsome is purposely silly, and its main love interests are parodies of the all-too-typical dating sim archetypes.  On my first playthrough I found it fairly easy to mack it with Foxy, and on my second playthrough I was bold enough to make a move on Springtrap.  It ends up failing in an epic fashion.  Max, switch, completing challenges of displaying dating sims 3.

Dating sims on 3ds Browse our huge selection and let your creativity as ds games.  In recent years, there have been many that incorporate dating sim elements.  Also, you're maybe kind of attracted to them.  But to pretend like Hannibal Chau's romantic hardships never happened would be a disservice to true Pacific Rim and Guillermo del Toro fans everywhere.  Who's the sims 3: chained new free on, ps3, gamecube, fantasy harvest moon: 60m.  There's just one small change: the girl next door has now been sworn in as President.

Dating sims you won't believe actually exist Places for dating in these dating games can vary from cheap local cafe to expensive restaurants, etc.  However I'm not sure if there aren't that many over here in America.  If you are looking for something different, check out our other dating simulation games.  He supports the military, wears jorts, and looks like every male member of the Avengers rolled into one bro.  No one else seems to notice Yukari's wild 'n wooly exterior.  Supports the love between: People of contrasting physical fitness Do you wish you were in better shape, but suffer from a lack of incentive? As both a game and a thing that exists in the world, Katawa Shoujo teaches an invaluable lesson: never be too quick to judge.

Search Results for: dating sim psp Trust me, if you've been in a relationship long enough, you know what I'm talking about.  Ve an emotional in your birth or respective mark it contains recent fixes for 3ds 3d printer! If you achieve this you can unlock some mini games.  When people ask you how you got into such great shape, just tell them the truth: You won your trainer's heart with your stick-to-itiveness and discipline.  There's even a first-person kissing scene tongue no doubt included and the oops-I-walked-in-on-you-changing gag those mandibles - be still, my heart! What you get is Luckydog1, the tale of five infamous mafiosos who endeavor to bust out of prison, possibly taking the time to make sweet love to one another along the way.  Collected here are dating sims with the courage - and moreover the moxie - to shatter all barriers with the power of pure love and raging hormones.  When aliens invade Earth and destroy the capital of the United States of Nippon, they brainwash the nation's citizens to think that nothing happened.

Dating sims you won't believe actually exist Such is life in Brothers Conflict, an otome dating sims aimed at the female demographic extravaganza.  This helps people make better recommendations.  Saeki Kazuma, just your normal highschool student, has a good life, good friends, and a loving relationship with his girlfriend, Izumi Yukari.  For sim with a dating sim for nintendo 3ds on the sims you're looking for 3ds, strategy games.  Luckily for our hero Thaddeus Cub, the town's new doctor, his hulking physique and willingness to closely inspect the crotches of man, demon, and orc alike make him the perfect fit for the Meat Log community.

Looking for dating sim games with sexual content, nudity, H However, things take a turn for the weird when, after a fun day at the Alpaca Kingdom, Kazuma awakes to find his girlfriend transformed into a fluffy, flirtatious alpaca.  Call it unbelievably creepy if you want - but if this guy's truly happy, then who are we to judge? But you could go for Visual Novels, Like Clannad, little Buster, Dugeon Traveller.  In Eiyuu Senki, you can rewrite history to do just that.  Play this one with an open mind, and an open heart.  Burnhounds june 6, 2013 the grab two involved making them across as a.  This is a child subreddit to.

ROM In his stead, Sweet Fuse has a stable of hunky dudes to fill the game designer's shoes, including fighting game champ Kouta Meoshi and Ryuusei Mitarashi, male gigolo.  It doesn't tie too much into the story aside from stealing an access card from one of your girlfriends, though you do receive rewards like special outfits and access to their cars.  In 's Five Nights of Love you're once again thrust into the role of new security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but instead of surviving, you need to seduce one of the animatronics within the titular five nights.  This game is actually the first in a series, which is fortunate for anyone who wants to explore the area beyond the confines of the local clinic.  But I've never seen so brilliant and subtle takedown of a character as John Cena's sexy High School Adventure.  Throughout the questline, when her past and lineage are slowly revealed, you can be polite and understanding in your dialogue, or you can be forceful and rude.  But if anything I described sounds in the general vicinity of your relevant interests, give it a look.

[johnnycareer-blog]

A Conversation With John Smith

In the spirit of fair play, I have put myself in the "hot seat" and had Shawn interview me for our Career Profile Series. 

Can you tell me a little bit about what you do presently and how long you have been in this job / providing this service? Officially I am a Principal Partner in O’Hara-Smith Consulting. I am a Career Consultant / Coach. I’ve been doing this since 2005. I help people manage their careers. In laymen’s terms I help people find a job, change jobs and fill vacant jobs. A Recruiter. A Headhunter. Some years ago a young man asked Shawn and I what we did for a living. We told him we were Executive Recruiters. He stared at us blankly. Shawn piped up, “Headhunters”. He got all excited! It was as if he suddenly realized we were famous Rock Stars! I enjoy my job, but his guy was making me think my job was pretty cool! Maybe I was a “Rock Star”!? Further discussion revealed that he thought a “Headhunter” was a “Bounty Hunter”, as in “Dog the Bounty Hunter”. I went from Hero to Zero pretty fast!

Tell me how you arrived at this point in your Career, what is you Career story?  I did not set out down this path. In fact at 18 I had no idea this Career existed. My first real “career”/ job was in Banking. This led to a job with the Government (F.D.I.C.), which led to a long career in the Insurance industry. From the very beginning of my working life I’ve traveled a winding path. I’ve been a Process Server, Book Binder, Ranch-hand (in Hawaii), Car Salesman, Estate Sale worker, Auditor, “Corporate Suit”, Entrepreneur, Coffee Shop Owner, Coffee Roaster (Johnny Lolita’s) and a Recruiter/Career Consultant. By no means a conventional path or a direct one. By no means have I reached the end of my path.

The Recruiting/Consulting business was a Family Business, one my Brother-in-Law (Jim O’Hara) founded. I ended up leaving my Insurance career when my bride (Jim’s sister Shawn) informed me we had just purchased a half-interest in the agency! 

There is a common thread throughout my career. I enjoy solving problems and helping people. 

By no means have I reached the end of my path.

What did/do people say about your choice? Were they surprised, encouraging, skeptical? A number of people were surprised, including me! My decision to go down this path in 2005 was pretty sudden. As I recall it unfolded over the course of about six weeks, (from Shawn’s announcement to my resignation). The Management at my company were shocked and did their best to persuade me to stay. My family was stunned, maybe confused is a better word, but supportive. My friends were on the fence but encouraging. I think it was frightening for most people to wrap their minds around my choice to abandon what they viewed as conventional “job security” for the uncertainty of running my own business, especially one they didn’t quite understand. “Hey, it’s not like I was going to be a Bounty Hunter!” My greatest supporter was and still is Shawn. She has complete and utter faith in me…you will recall this was her idea. 

What do you love most about what you do?  Helping people. To quote another famous John Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together!” ~John Hannibal Smith/The A Team. I love it when a client lands a new job, makes a new hire or takes that BIG step towards pursuing their passion.       What do you dislike most? I hate it when I have to deliver disappointing news, “you didn’t get the job”, “the candidate accepted another offer”, “this career path is not in your best interest”. 

What is your greatest challenge? Standing back and watching the train wreck happen. I know that sounds a bit severe, but that is what it feels like to me. What I mean is, in order for people to learn and grow, sometimes they have to make mistakes. I’m a “fixer”, a problem solver. When you work with the same issues long enough, you can pretty well predict the outcome. I Understand that my role is that of a Consultant, a Trusted Advisor, a Coach. I can give people advice and guide them. However, for some it’s not enough to warn them that the stove is hot. Sometimes they have to get burned first.   What is your Greatest reward? Hearing the excitement in a client’s voice when they call to tell me that they just landed that job we’ve been working on or they just filled that critical vacancy because the candidate accepted the offer or, they just made the leap to follow their passion. Best of all is when they call one year, five years, 10 years down the road just to say “Thank You” once again for your help. 

Would you recommend this work/role/business to others? Yes, if you enjoy helping people realize their potential or follow a dream. It’s a great way to make a positive impact on the lives of others. It can be extremely satisfying, rewarding work. 

In looking back to where your where when your Career began, is there anything you would have done differently if you knew then what you know now? At 18, 21, 25….I would have done a few things differently, made a few different choices. The part of my Professional Life I’ve enjoyed the most, has been the unconventional part. I would have followed my heart more than my head. I have had some great experiences. I’ve worked in some interesting fields and lived in some great places like Hawaii. I would have followed the “winding path” a lot sooner and would probably have avoided the “straight and narrow” path all together. I wish I had known then that it was okay to choose your own path and not to follow what everyone else was doing or expected you to do. 

What advice do you have for others that are starting their Career journey or are seeking a New Career or who may wish to follow their passion? Do it! Don’t wait for someday. Don’t wait for the timing to be right. Do it now! Have faith in your abilities. Have faith in your dreams. Find a way to make it work and follow your heart. Live a life someone will want to read a book about! 

If you knew you could not fail and we take money out of the equation, what would you do? What would become? What would your dream Career be? Is it too late to pick “Bounty Hunter”? I think that has changed or evolved over time. Most of my life I’ve wanted to be a Cowboy. At heart that dream still exists. Right now, left to my own devices I would be an Adventurer / Writer. Like Louis L’Amour or Ernest Hemingway. I always want to see what lies over the next mountain. What adventure awaits. Who knows, it’s never too late. 

Who's story has inspired you? If you know of someone who's story would ice an inspiration to others, I would love to connect with them and share their story.