#tim burton is also just like really annoying in general it’s hard to enjoy his movies w/o thinking about his sad boy loser antics

[medievalwife]

society if tim burton never had a film career 🪽

[tatiana-love]

Theodore Nott Headcanons!!!

disclaimers: hi darlings! this is how I envision this specific character, it’s okay if you envision him differently!

post type: headcanons, fluff

trigger warnings: none, I think

author's note: this is my first time writing anything!!! I got this idea from @honeystevie. I thought that making my own headcanons would be helpful for shifting. making this was fun so I’ll probably make more posts like this in the future. feel free to make a request! english is not my first language so be nice to me pls. anyway, I hope you enjoy this suuuuper fluffy, random post! <3

not proofread!! gif is not mine!!!

Theo Nott (General) Headcanons:

He’s a classic Aquarius; he values freedom, is intelligent, and tends to be slightly detached.

When he first meets people, he’s slow to warm up to them.

Despite being well known around school, he’s more introverted and observant than most of his friends. At social events, you can typically find him off to the side by himself or sticking by his friend group.

He can be… grumpy.

And sarcastic.

And a little cunning.

But he’s also determined, disciplined, focused, and a fast learner.

He has a soft side too!

He’s been through a lot, okay!

Since he lost his mother at a young age, and his father has always been quite cold towards him, Theo’s learned to become self-reliant. So, he HATES asking people for help. He would rather do something the wrong way than ask somebody for help with something.

That being said, he seeks comfort and escapism through reading.

He loves everything from classic literature to fantasy novels.

Once Draco caught him reading “Twilight”. Theo never heard the end of it.

He rolls his eyes whenever Draco brings it up.

Theo’s always been drawn to moody and artistic things. As a kid, he liked Tim Burton movies.

His favorite seasons are autumn and winter because he likes cold, snowy days when he can stay inside and watch a film or read a Stephen King book.

Most of his clothes are dark colors. A deep, dark teal is his favorite shade to wear because it’s the perfect mixture of blue and green.

He wears a big, chunky ring which contains his mother’s birthstone, and he NEVER takes it off.

You’ll usually find him in a sweater with a collared shirt underneath, slacks, and Converse high tops.

When it’s extra cold, he wears a black leather jacket.

Theo secretly has a thing for Ravenclaws. During his 3rd year, he developed a crush on Luna after seeing her in the library, but he never got around to talking to her. He just admired her from afar.

Theo: *staring at Luna*

Draco: “Nott, what on Earth are you doing?”  

Theo: “Huh? What? Nothing…”

Draco: “Er, alright then…”

Theo: *nervously sips water*

Draco: “Anyway, as I was saying, that Lovegood girl is such a freak.”

Theo: *chokes on water*

Luckily, Theo’s gotten a lot more confident since then.

Speaking of secrets, Theo likes to write… but only Blaise and Hermione know about that.

Did I mention that Theo and Hermione are friends?

Although they were wary of each other at first, they slowly grew close by bonding over their shared interests. She brings out a softer side of him.

Ron and Harry never warmed up to Theo though.

Blaise, however, is his closest friend. They’re both introverts who had complex childhoods, so they sort of just understand each other.

Theo & Draco knew each other long before attending Hogwarts. Even though Theo finds him to be obnoxious at times, he looks back on his childhood memories with Draco fondly.

Draco & Pansy like to annoy Theo for fun to try and get a rise out of him.

It usually doesn’t work.  

But when it does work it’s truly… something else.

He bottles up his feelings, so when he lets them out it can be explosive.

Of course, Draco found this hilarious at first… but remember when I said Theo was observant? He knows EVERYONE’S secrets. And if someone really pushes him, he’ll use their secrets to get even with them. Including Draco who learned that lesson the hard way.

On a lighter note, Theo’s a cat person. I imagine him adopting a black cat at some point. It would probably be a girl and he would probably name her after a character from a book that he likes.  

Theo is someone who cares deeply about the people who are close to him despite his initial aloof demeanor.

He’s the kind of person to send letters to his friends or leave notes around for them to find.

He’s got perfectly messy cursive handwriting.

Theo for sure has a pen pal that he’s been writing to for years under a fake name. He shares his poetry, secrets, and short stories with them.

Unlike Blaise and Draco, Theo is not really concerned with his public image.

When he finally does open up to someone, he’s much softer, warmer, and sweeter than he was before.

He’s an insomniac. His eyes are always a little puffy from a lack of sleep.

His cologne smells like sandalwood!!

[kuuderepunkin]

Hi there! 🥰 Could I request male Bleach/BNHA matchups? I use she/her pronouns. I’m a shy bookworm/writer at heart, but once comfortable I do emit chaotic crackhead energy, and love cheesy jokes and puns. I also enjoy dry humor! I strive to be patient and empathetic with everyone, it’s hard for me to get mad/irritated. I daydream a lot, as it’s one of my coping mechanisms for my anxiety, and I admit I do get lost in them as I go about my day. I also always wear some piece of jewelry to fiddle with to avoid scratching my hands if I have an anxiety attack. I somehow always lose my glasses even if they’re on top of my head. Horror, folklore, and epic fantasy is like catnip to me, and I tend to like unusual things that don’t have a clear cut answer or explanation to them. Narnia and Tim Burton definitely influence my aesthetic.

Why yes of course! ;0; I wish these were longer but my brain kept derailing and making me stop and be like “huh she’d be really good with them too!” 

Bleach matchup: Ulquiorra 

Man this was hard, I know which Bleach boys you love but there’s a lot of them to love- and like I need to look past my bias! (I will include some Starkk head canons for you at the very bottom, ;) .) I think Ulquiorra would be a good fit for your personality. Your crackhead energy wouldn’t shock him, it’s quiet endearing actually. I kind of feel like the two of you would click so I don’t have too much to say about it. Starkk would also love you, but your crackhead energy would receive some resistance from you- just the light scoff but he loves it because you get along well with his partner Lilynette. 

Let’s be real he’s probably a book worm himself- well if he was allowed to be. He seems like a very smart and well read kind of guy. 

He loves to discuss novels with you and sit on the couch lounging as the two of you are busy being immersed in a book, if he’s read it before he may ask your opinion of it and will lead into a nice long intellectual conversation. 

In an attempt to better connect with you he may find some books on puns and just humor in general so he can grasp the meaning of it all. 

Sadly when he executes any jokes or puns they still come off dry due to his monotone voice. At least you like dry humor because all his jokes will seem to come across that way. 

But the energy you get when you’re having fun or being a “crackhead” lights up his day, he struggles with his expression and hopes it doesn’t hold you back- and it really just makes him happy. 

The two of you are super empathetic so it’s great because neither of you will go being upset for very long because you guys will take care of each other. And he thrives off of being able to help you. 

When you day dream he will only interrupt to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, staying hydrated and such. It’s important that you don’t let yourself drown in escapism even though anxiety is scary. 

He is there for you and he is going to help you work through your feelings of anxiety, he will not stop you from day dreaming, he thinks it’s a great release but he wants you to be able to daydream without the limitation of being upset. 

When you choose to day dream he is content just having you lay in his arms, and stroke your hair and kiss your neck and shoulder. 

He will hold your hands in his, too, to make sure you don’t hurt them by nervously scratching at them. Ulquiorra will rub your hands and soothe them whenever you do go too far with your habit of scratching at them. He’s gentle but thorough and makes sure your hands are going to be in the least amount of pain as possible. 

One of his favorite small actions is to lower your glasses onto your face, it’s so simple yet it feels so romantic and domestic. 

He himself falls into the Tim Burton and whimsical influence of your interests. 

Boku No Hero Academia matchup: Present Mic / Hizashi Yamada

I said the Bleach one was hard and here I am going through the list of bachelors, sadly I haven’t gotten to Hawks in the manga yet, and what I do know is not enough to write some headcanons for the two of you in a relationship. But what I have seen I totally would ship you two, your energies would work well together. Alas I had to resort to characters I knew better, Present Mic would be so fun he’s insightful and caring but he has that fun edge to him. Aizawa might be too boring for you, yet it would be an adorable ship. And last for consideration was ALL MIGHT! Toshinori Yagi- god that would be such a soft ship but I feel like he would give you so much to worry about! Then again they are all pro heroes and would make you stressed in some way or another. Yagi and Mic both have a great sense of humor though, but All Might might give himself to his job too much, but you could pull him back? GAH I’m so indecisive. I think the deciding factor is just based on your aesthetic. 

While you are shy at first he thinks it so adorable, he loves the idea of maybe making you blush and then having you just turn that energy around and make him blush! 

Your crackhead energy is welcome here! The two of you play off of each other's energy, and it just is so much fun. He loves being around you and he brings out the best in you. 

The two of you get into little joke wars, it’s not much of a war it’s just the two of you firing off jokes and having laughing fits together, he gets so touchy and lovey when he’s in a laughing fit so he will hug you and lean into you and squeeze you into him. 

It’s good you’re patient because he is loud and enthusiastic, but luckily he doesn’t do anything too annoying to make you upset in the first place, he just has a lot of energy. 

You can daydream all you want, since he’s usually working on his radio station he doesn’t mind if you’re not paying attention to him. He does love having you cuddling against him while he works. 

But if you’re daydreaming because you’re overly stressed he will pick up on it, he is not as well spoken as his best friend but he knows how to talk with you and stress the importance of letting people help you. He cares about you and he just wants the best for you and you care so much for others and himself that your health and wellbeing is important to him. 

He buys you some jewelry specific to being fiddle with, because it’s important that you don’t hurt your nails or fingers or scrape at your knuckles and palms because that can cause pain and he doesn’t want you to be in pain. 

Besides it is better to avoid the risk of infection as a whole, he sometimes will take your hands in his and play with them. He brings them to his lips and kisses them. 

Mic should learn, with you, that your glasses are in plain sight but when you tell him you’ve lost them and can’t find them his brain seems to glitch and he’s like “oh man we have to find them!” Despite being able to see them on your head. It will take a couple of times of him passing you and looking for them for him to realize they are right there, and he just stops and stares. He’s so disappointed in himself, he’s the right height to just SEE them on your head yet your beautiful face distracted him. 

Mic will read books to you, he has such a beautiful voice and he loves talking, so it’s a great way for you to sit back and relax. He loves when he helps you slip into sleep or into a really good day dream. 

Watching horror with him is an experience, he knows better than to scream but his physical reactions only get jerkier because of it. Like he will hold in his voice yet his body goes flying in the air. 

Loves the unexplainable so he will have radio discussions about it and he will invite you to co-star so the two of you could bounce theories off of each other. 

Bonus Starkk: 

You remind him so much of Lilynette when you’re on your crackhead energy and it's so heartwarming to him. 

He would like to say he reads a lot but the truth is, it’s the easy way for him to fall asleep. 

Like he really can’t say he hasn’t tried to get into a novel you’ve recommended but he just can’t keep his eyes open, the pages are just so dull even if he loves the words coming off the page. And if you want to help him by reading it to him, he’s a dead man, your voice is just too soothing to him and he’s out like a bulb. 

To keep your hands busy he wants to sleep in your lap- play with his hair, pick out his sculpted features. Run your hands over his jawline, through his cheek bone ridges. 

But lucky for you, Starkk has a lot of stories to tell and it’s harder for him to just pass out in the middle of talking because it keeps his brain working. Not that he doesn’t get tired being in such a calm state makes him want to slip into sleep with you. 

He wants to hold you close, and if you want to keep reading those books, he’s fine with that. Holding you as you keep doing whatever you are planning to do. Whether that’s finishing the movie you have on or reading that book you’ve held in your hand that made Starkk think about sleeping. 

[xxxprettydeadgirlxxx]

One step forward, three steps back

Summary: You wake up one night to strangers kidnapping you. When Loki finds out it was The Avengers that took you, he wastes no time in getting you back. When the Avengers realize there is more than meets the eye, they are determined to get to the bottom of it. What they discover will force them to change the way they think about the harsh, coldhearted God of Lies. Rating- M Warnings- Violence, mentions of abuse, mentions of rape and sexual assault, mentions of torture.   [Reader has a very dark, painful past] Relationships- Loki/Reader Tags- @neurotic-narwhal@nuggsmumreads@burningarbiterheart @starrynight35@christy-winchester @turnoftherogue @a-manduhhhhh @nochillrcgers [If you want on or off the tag list let me know]

Chapter 1    Chapter 5 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

                                Chapter 6- Love and Insecurities

After a few more days of observation, Natasha decided it was finally time for her to leave and seeing that you were perfectly safe and sound with Loki, she had no issues in doing so. She gave you a hug goodbye, along with her cell phone number and a promise to call her if you ever needed anything, and stay in touch.

It didn't take very long to notice how the tension between Natasha and Loki had eased to almost nothing and it had been that way ever since the night Loki left the two of you alone while he went out. You weren't sure what happened, or why, but you couldn't help but feel relieved. Maybe if you wished hard enough, the two of them would become 'friends?' You weren't going to hold your breath on that one, but it was wishful thinking.

Things were starting to get back to the way they were before The Avengers showed up and it was peaceful, just you and Loki. He'd been a little distant with Natasha hanging around, not much but enough that you noticed, so it was nice to finally be alone again.

After Natasha left the two of you spent the remainder of the day in the garden, where Loki read you stories; more so lore, from a book that he'd brought with him from Asgard, while you laid your head on his lap closing your eyes as he lazily stroked your hair.

You loved to listen to Loki read-or talk in general- with a voice made of silk and honey, and comforting in ways that you could not explain. When angry, his voice was intimidating and pretty damn frightening for whoever was on the receiving end, but you also found it incredibly sexy- at least when he was mad at someone else- if he were to get angry with you... Well, you weren't sure how you would take that.

Probably not very well at all.

Loki had never been angry with you. Annoyed, yes. Frustrated, definitely. But angry? Never. And if he ever had been, he'd hidden it well. You'd never been truly mad at him either. You were sure it would happen eventually, no one was perfect, and Loki had explained to you a while ago that arguments were to be expected, even considered healthy to a degree, that it would eventually happen. It hadn't, so far, but it was hard to argue over something when you had nothing to argue about.

Well, unless you count the TV remote.

'Loki! I am so sick of watching the news. Can't we watch a movie or something?' You whimpered, glaring at him and gripping the remote a little tighter, you give it a tug- where it remained in Loki's hand- completely unphased at your attempts to steal it. Ignoring you, Loki continued to sit and stare at the TV for several more minutes while you groaned and pulled on the remote until your hand was aching. Glancing at you out of the corner of his eye Loki let out a snort of laughter before covering it up as quickly as he could with a smile; a smile that reached his eyes.

He was enjoying this too much, you realized.

You scowl at him and Loki chuckled,  "Sorry, pet. I couldn't resist. You're just so cute when you struggle." He teased, finally letting go of the remote so that you could watch something that wasn't the news. You hated the news. Too depressing. "What do you desire to watch, sweetness?"

You smile at him before focusing on the TV, pushing the fancy button that said NETFLIX, and scrolled through until you found the movie you wanted. The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was one of your favorite movies, having been since Loki introduce you to it two years ago; it was also one of his favorites as well- for a Midgardian film that is. You were pretty sure that he was mostly just intrigued by Tim Burton and his style. Loki had always, and you assumed would always, be more drawn to the darkness. The darkness suited him, you'd always thought that.

When the movie began Loki adjusted himself more comfortably, sprawling out on the couch and taking your hand to urge you to sit on his lap. With your back braced against his chest and positioned to sit between his legs- that were entwined around yours- you let out a sigh of contentment. There was nothing better than Loki cuddles. Well, perhaps there was one thing that could be better than cuddles. Loki sex. Loki sex could possibly, definitely, be better than Loki cuddles. You just hoped to experience that with him eventually. After thinking about what Natasha said it made sense why he was so hesitant to connect with you that way. Given your circumstances, you were surprised you wanted to try having sex at all, but you loved Loki and wished to bond with him in the most intimate manner that you could. If something happened and you hated sex, you were sure Loki would never pressure you to do it again. But seeing as you enjoyed all of the other sexual things you two had done together, you found it highly unlikely you would hate sex. You don't see how you could hate anything where Loki was involved.

It was almost eleven when you decided to retire to bed. Loki was currently on the rooftop picking various (hidden) herbs that he'd planted along with the flowers, used to create potions as needed. You had no idea what the potions were used/made for, or what they did, or even what the hell he did with them all afterward because he never kept them in the apartment, at least nowhere that you could physically see since you had never found them.

You guessed he stored them in his magical pocket of neverending storage, as he did everything else.

Jumping in for a quick shower, you wash everything except your hair- that you'd pinned up- deciding that you'll get up in the morning and wash it instead of sleeping with wet hair like you usually did. As you're brushing your teeth you hear Loki walk into the bedroom before joining you in the bathroom, situating himself at his sink (there were two- his and hers) and began brushing his own teeth. He claimed it wasn't necessary to do so being Aesir, but he enjoyed it nonetheless, claiming he felt content to just simply stand beside you to perform a task such as brushing his teeth. It was something simple and mundane and although you were used to a more domesticated Loki, Natasha had pointed out that she had never witnessed Loki act so... Normal; human. He continued to cook, clean, and take care of you the same way he always did (mostly) while Natasha hung around watching his every move. You realize that it probably made Loki uncomfortable having his 'previous' enemy gawking at him, especially since Loki had threatened her during his attempt to take over the world.

And now, here he was, playing house.

He'd told you the story- at least his version- of when he intentionally failed to conquer Earth stating that if it had been his plan, or even his desire to take over the planet he could have and would have won.

Easily.

He explained that he had no desire to rule Midgard and his only goal was to leave Sanctuary (a planet that he will barely speak of) and how taking over Midgard was his only option, so he'd taken it. To get out.

That, you believed- That Midgard was his only means of escape.

Escape.

He'd never used that term, but you knew there was more to the story that he wasn't telling you. There was something about that place and the way Loki would clench his jaw when he spoke (very briefly) about his time there, or how he'd space out in the middle of the conversation at times with nothing but a mix of anger and pain written across his face, while you pretend not to notice his slip, wondering if Loki was even aware that his mask had fallen. What happened to him? - The million dollar question; a question that you may or may not ever get an answer to. That was entirely up to Loki.

It had never occurred to you until this moment, what exactly Loki might be doing if he had never met you because you seriously doubted that he would be living in a two bedroom apartment on Midgard because he wanted too.

Spooned against Loki with his arms wrapped around your waist, you found yourself unable to sleep, feeling anxious, and wondering over and over again if Loki truly was happy living like this- with you, a confined mortal. You could barely leave the house without panicking and that made you depressed, but mostly angry. Scolding yourself internally for not being stronger and wishing that you could just be normal only to be reminded daily just how utterly, and truly broken you really were, and with absolutely no guarantee that you will ever get past the trauma you've endured.

Never once had Loki complained about anything.

Not about the nightmares.

The anxiety.

The fear.

The panic attacks.

Being mute as well as borderline Agoraphobic.

All of these things, these broken pieces of you and yet, Loki was still here.

"Baby, are you alright?" Loki mumbled against the back of your neck.

Damnit.

You already knew that you couldn't hide anything from Loki, but still, you nod in hopes that he'll believe you anyway while attempting to ignore all the insecurities screaming inside of your head. You knew that it was stupid, that it was nothing to worry over because if Loki didn't want to be here, he wouldn't be here. Yet, you couldn't get rid of the doubt, or the thoughts that came with them. Loki removed his hold around you and sat up waiting for you to do the same, but you were too embarrassed to look at him, not to mention ashamed with your own mind and how it was currently twisting the truth.

'I'm fine.'

You don't make a move to get up or roll over. Instead, you focus on the bedroom wall in front of you in hopes that it will be enough to distract yourself from Loki's penetrating gaze- that you could literally feel all over your body without ever having to look at him- and hoping he would drop the subject quickly.

No such luck.

"You're lying." He stated matter-of-factly. His tone held no anger or judgment, only worry. Gently, Loki coaxed you into rolling over to face him, but you keep your eyes cast down, focusing on anything but those beautiful emerald eyes of his. Look into his eyes and you are done for!

He whisperers your name, almost in a plea. "Please."

'It's just my own mind, it's nothing.'

"Oh, but it's something. I can literally feel the anxiety and worry pouring off of you. What's happened since we went to bed to upset you so badly? How is your mind betraying you?"

You didn't want to answer, you really didn't want too, but you knew Loki was not going to let this go until you told him what was wrong. Swallowing, you finally meet his eyes. 'Are you happy?'

"What?-"

'...With me?'

Loki blinked, obviously taken aback by the question. "Of course I am happy with you."

'Are you? Are you happy, here with the broken girl who can't hold herself together, locked away in this apartment all the time?- and can only go as far as the gardens and no further without the risk of panicking-  You always have to take care of me, do this, do that- I'm a burden.  I feel like I don't give you enough back. You should be on Asgard or wherever, doing Mage things, not sitting here rotting away in a two bedroom apartment on Earth...’

"Stop that, right now!" Loki snapped, anger now apparent in his tone, causing you to wince and break eye contact. Taking your arm Loki forced you to sit up. The hold he had on your arm was rougher than usual, though it didn't hurt; forceful would perhaps be a better description. Still, you didn't want to face him.

"Look at me!" Your eyes go wide and you obey without question. "Never think of yourself like that again! Ever."

Yeah, he was definitely pissed.

"You are nothing of the sort for I do not take on burdens, for any reason. You, my love, are not broken. Damaged perhaps, but my darling girl you are far from broken. I have seen broken. You are not one of them.

As for Asgard, I can never go back, a fate I accepted a long time ago, and being a Mage can be done anywhere." Loki took a deep breath and licked his lips, his tone much softer and gentler now. "I am happy here with you, whether it be in this apartment or the garden, I care not where I am as long as I have you by my side. I protect you and take care of you because I choose too, because I want too, because... Because I love you."

Your heart skipped a beat. It isn't like you didn't already know that Loki loved you, but to actually hear him say the words brought tears to your eyes.

'I love you too, Loki. And I'm sorry. My mind is my own worse enemy.'

"It's alright darling, but please- never doubt my love for you." He leaned in to connect his lips with yours giving you a very soft and sensual kiss. It stayed that way for a few minutes- soft and slow- until you felt Loki's tongue sliding across your lips, looking for access. Immediately you open your mouth and allow him to deepen the kiss. A kiss that would have brought you to your knees had you been standing. Feeling a little lightheaded you decide to lie down, pulling Loki down with you and settling between your legs. Already you could feel the familiar warmth beginning to stir in your lower body, something that happened Every. Time. He. Touched. You.

The kiss the two of you shared became more urgent, more passionate, for every second that ticked by. You sink your fingers into his beautiful raven hair and he cupped your face with both hands before breaking the kiss, breathing just as heavily as you were and staring deep into your eyes as he spoke, "You remember what you asked me the other day, about what you wanted to do... With me?"

Your breathing came to a halt. Eagerly you nod and pray that the words you just heard were real; that this wasn't a dream.

"You truly wish to be intimate with me, give yourself to me?" You nod again, feeling the hot, wet tears beginning to stain your cheeks. Loki smiles and wipes them away before giving you another heart-stopping kiss. "Then, I shall make you wait no longer," he whispered against your lips. "But promise me, if you change your mind- no matter what we are doing or how far we've gone- think it, and I will stop immediately. Do you understand?"

'Yes, Loki. I understand.'

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: Gosick

In the year of 1924, in the fictional European country of Sauville, lies the prestigious Saint Marguerite academy; a place for students to reach the best of their ability. One such student is Kazuya Kujo; thierd son of an imperial soldier determined to make a name for himself away from the shadow of his two older brothers. Not that it’s easy, as due to his appearance he is quickly dubbed the Reaper that Comes in the Spring, as to a local ghost story, and his very appearance is made synonymous with bad luck.

On his first day at the academy, however, he makes a chance encounter. In the towering library on the ground, he discovers a beautiful garden on the top floor. And in there, he discovers a mysterious doll-like girl with beautiful golden hair; the Golden Fairy that supposedly steals the souls of men. He soon finds out however that this is no fairy, but a genius young girl called Victorique, who is kept in isolation at the academy for somewhat dubious reasons.

Kujo quickly takes a liking to her, and as they get involved in spooky goings on and grisly murder cases around the country, she soon takes a liking to him. But a storm is coming, and their happiness is threatened by the very forces that kept Victorique shut away in the first place...

The Reaper, and the Golden Fairy. Two terrifying beings, and two people totally unsuited to be with one another. Yet though the gale threatens to tear them apart, their hearts will always be together.

It’s time to consult the wellspring of wisdom and assemble the fragments of chaos once again.

Every time I start a ‘block’ of new anime series from my overwhelmingly large backlog, I’m always hoping for that ‘one’ series to come up. The series which seemingly comes out of nowhere, that I know very little about, and yet which somehow, inexplicably makes it onto my favourites list. A couple of blocks ago, it was Fate/Zero and Rozen Maiden. The block after that, it was Jormungand. And when I did my little Urobuchi retrospective, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet was the show which really stuck out to me. It’s a nice feeling when it happens; finding something excellent completely by accident.

In many ways it’s these kind of shows which essentially ‘save’ anime for me; there’s only so much stuff which is mediocre-to-average you can sit through before you begin to question why you’re bothering. I try and mix things up a bit; mixing the things I’m genuinely excited for with shows like the ones above that I’m practically going into blind. Perhaps it’s the lack of hype which makes them stand out, or perhaps I do, occasionally just find diamonds in the rough. It certainly doesn’t always work; shows such as Haibane Renmei or Requiem for the Phantom, while technically impressive, can fall a bit flat under an emotional scrutiny, whereas others like Aldnoah.Zero and Umineko are just plain crap.

But when these shows come along, it’s well worth the wait and the drivel I forced myself through to find them. I was slightly concerned with this current block; while it did give me Tokyo Ghoul and Eureka Seven, both of which are great, the latter I was kind of expecting to enjoy anyway and the former only really became great in its second half after a pretty dull first half. As for the rest of the things I’ve been watching, Ghost Hound was technically sound but ultimately a bit of a let-down, Clannad annoyed me for several reasons, Umineko, as I’ve stated, was pure crap, and we don’t talk about Elfen Lied ever again. I was beginning to worry that I wasn’t going to find my ‘undiscovered gem’ as it were for this block.

Then I saw Gosick; a show which has assuaged my fears and reinstalled my faith in anime once again.

It’s not perfect. It has problems, some of them rather major. But when you actually get down to what matters, Gosick is actually a pretty fantastic show.

It helps that the production is done by my absolute favourite of all anime studios; Studio Bones, baby! These guys can take on any genre and any art style and make it work, I swear. It’s funny, because by Bones standards Gosick isn’t actually that impressive on a technical level; the character designs, while striking, are simple, the direction is merely fine, and the animation is really quite restrained. Yet even a Bones show on a budget looks better than about 80% of other anime out there, and at its best Gosick is a really pretty show, really making the most of its gothic setting. The standout moments are few and far between, but when they come around they really make the most of it. Overall Gosick is just a really purty show; perhaps not with quite the sparkle and flair of a KyoAni or a P.A. Works show, but honestly, I prefer a style that’s a little more grounded anyway.

As for the music, you’re honestly not going to notice it. Aside from a couple of notable insert pieces and two really good ending themes (the opening looks pretty but the song is pretty meh), most of the music just basically does its job; accentuating the mood and blending into the background. I can’t fault it for that, though I can’t see myself revisiting the soundtrack like I do for, say, Eureka Seven.

So here’s a thing which took me far too long to figure out; the title Gosick isn’t a referencing to a plot point or a character in the series, but is in fact just a corruption of the word Gothic. I’m not making a point here, other than the fact that I feel silly for not working it out.

Although technically it is an important point, because when it comes to whether this show works from a story perspective, the important factor is literally staring at you right in the title. From the early episodes Gosick has a tendency to paint itself as a season long mystery show, which honestly is doing itself a disservice. If you’re watching Gosick for a good mystery, you’re probably going to feel rather let down. Even if you’re watching for a thriller or a crime drama or something, it’s really quite basic in that regard.

But if you’re looking for the best example of a purely gothic anime you can find, I can’t think of any better example than this.

(or Rozen Maiden, but...you know...one thing at a time)

It’s not just the visuals and the sound that lead to this. It’s the lore. It’s the setting. It’s the ghost stories and folklore playing along with politics, science and the occult. It’s a tension that never really goes away, and a constant feeling of dread for both our main characters at any given time. It’s pure black comedy mixed with goofy slapstick, and it’s genuine terror mixed with cheesy horror.

Good, proper gothic is a hard thing to get right. In the west, Laika and Tim Burton are probably the only ones who really know what they’re doing in that regard, and even then the latter has the tendency to overdo things here and there. Gosick however strikes the balance just right; it is one of the most consistently entertaining series I’ve ever watched. Even in shows I loved, I can generally point to moments that are better than others. Gosick is basically an extended anthology; two or three episodes a time dedicated to the current mystery, with hints thrown in now and again towards the overall plot. But the thing is, it works, because all the individual mysteries are seriously engaging, as is the main plot. Sure, not everything hits, and not every single plot twist is truly warranted (I am reminded of a certain late revelation which is highly uncomfortable and really could and should have been done another way) but honestly everything that needs to slot into place, really does.

It helps that the show has a strong cast. Again though, not strong in the traditional sense; most of them don’t really go through a proper arc or have much development at all. Even the main hero Kujo pretty much stays the same throughout the whole series, and if there is a weak spot to the show I’d have to point to him. He’s kind, charming and performs the every-man role fairly well...

...buuuuut he’s also a blithering idiot. Like, really. You wonder how he even managed to find his way off the boat.

Okay, okay, he’s not that bad. And frankly, I’ll take his idiocy and his many, many poor decisions with slightly more leeway given the fact that he is such a charming person. It’s not like Shirou from Fate, who is such a blithering moron yet is also so convinced he’s right that you just want to punch him. Kujo’s idiocy is harmless. Most of the time. I did want to slap him once. Maybe twice.

The rest of the supporting cast fill their roles well. The hyperactive teacher, the friendly cook, the flamboyant detective, the secondary love-interest who doesn’t have a chance at all; they’re all interesting and distinguishable in their own way, frankly fitting a gothic story to a tee. They don’t have to have fully fleshed out characters just so long as they’re instantly recognisable, which they are.

Also, props to the show for having a character with ridiculous anime hair, where, not only is this actually acknowledged in the show, but is also a vital plot point. That did make me chuckle.

But of course we’re just skirting around the edges here; the real reason to watch this show and the reason it is so dang entertaining is Victorique herself.

Victorique is basically the Sherlock for the show, but she has an awful lot of layers to her. She’s grumpy and stroppy, but also adorable with a childlike innocence. She can be badass when she puts together a mystery from the smallest cues, yet also badass when she fights for her own happiness. Her relationship with Kujo is what makes the entire series for me; they both fill each others weaknesses, and bring out the best in one another. It’s a deep, mutual respect and friendship that lies beneath the surface teasing and baiting, which honestly is the thing I think was missing from Spice and Wolf.

Honestly, I think Kujo and Victorique have one of the best relationships I’ve seen in any anime. And the show knows this, and is constantly threatening to wreck everything; I won’t spoil anything, but when the feels hit, they hit hard.

Gosick is a show that really shouldn’t be as good as it is, and in fact may not be. It has issues with storytelling, with characterisation, with a bit of major plot contrivance near the end and with the fact that one member of the main duo is, as I’ve mentioned, a complete blithering idiot. But honestly, it doesn’t matter; Gosick does so many things so, so right during its run that I can’t help but instantly love it. If you’re one for sweet, delicious Victorian gothicness or just want to see an adorable and really well realised relationship (which may or may not be romantic) between two very different people, I can’t recommend Gosick highly enough. And even if you’re not sure, give it a try. I did, and while I certainly wasn’t expecting anything truly fantastic, I most certainly got it.

My score: 8/10

Well, one more show from this block to go. Will it round it off nicely, or will it bring the whole thing crashing down. We may never know.

Well, we will. That’s why I do this stuff.

Next classic review will be RahXephon.

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/alan-yang-is-keeping-it-weird-with-his-new-amazon-series-forever/

Alan Yang Is Keeping It Weird with His New Amazon Series Forever

Alan Yang on the set of Forever with Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen.

By Colleen Hayes, courtesy Amazon Prime Video

If you were to picture a successful screenwriter and director’s house in the Hollywood Hills, you’d probably imagine something like Alan Yang’s place. Perched in a cul-de-sac at the top of a steep winding street, the mid-century modern home hovers above the city, a wall of windows framing a glimmering view. When I arrive to meet the co-creator of Master of None and the forthcoming Amazon series Forever on a warm July evening, a cluster of people dressed like gaudy refugees from a 1980s Sunset Strip hair-metal band stand outside a house a few doors down from his place, planning their party route for the night and living out their L.A. dream.

Yang’s own Hollywood fantasy seems to involve hard work, high-powered meetings, and flights between New York, Taiwan, and Los Angeles as he plots ever more ambitious idiosyncratic projects. Earlier that day, he’d met with executives to discuss Tigertail, the multi-generational Asian-American feature film starring John Cho, inspired by his own family saga, which he is writing and directing for Netflix. He is also in the early stages of producing Little America, an anthology series about immigrants for Apple, which will be written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon.

Right now, though, there’s Forever, the uncanny dramedy Yang co-created with Matt Hubbard that drops on Amazon Prime on September 14. Starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen, Forever takes the idea of marital commitment to wild, existential extremes.

Yang got his big TV break when Michael Schur and Greg Daniels hired him for the writing staff of Parks and Recreation. He had met Schur—virtually—through a baseball blog called Fire Joe Morgan that both men obsessively contributed to. (“It was legitimately crazy,” Yang said. “We would write 15,000-word screeds for no money!”)

After absorbing the show’s sweet vibe and character-based humor for six seasons, Yang and Parks and Rec pal Aziz Ansari decided to create their own series, Master of None, based on their friendship and “the fact that we like to eat food together”—which is, Yang hastens to add, “not the worst way to start a working relationship.” They wrote a pilot and sold it to Netflix, whose scripted slate was still in its infancy. But when Parks and Rec got picked up for a final season, they put their own project on hold, giving them time to think about creating something more original with Master of None.

At one point, Yang said he and Ansari were holed up in New York, trying to write, and feeling increasingly frustrated. “I told him, ‘My dad grew up basically in a tiny village in Taiwan. He had a pet chicken and he had to kill it because he didn’t have enough food to eat. So whatever happens, it’s all gravy because here we are in a hotel room talking about that television show we get to make.’” Ansari exclaimed, “That is way more interesting than any of the stuff that happens to us!” The duo decided to “make episodes about other people’s points of views,” including one threaded with flashbacks to the immigrant experiences of Ramesh and Peter, the dads of Ansari and Yang’s fictional alter-egos, who share some of their stories over dinner at a restaurant.

Yang is telling me this over dinner at Majordomo, David Chang’s buzzy, senses-overloading Korean fusion palace on the outskirts of downtown L.A. The chef (who has his own TV show, Ugly Delicious) is a friend of Yang’s, something immediately clear from the way they enthusiastically bro-hug, and accentuated throughout the night, as a string of amazing but unordered dishes arrives at our table—special treatment that starts to feel like a delicious stamina test.“You’re ready, you’re ready!” Yang coaxes me encouragingly at one point, as the waiter whisks away several half-eaten plates, filling the cleared space with a glistening serving of pork belly.

Food played a huge part in Master of None, as did the hyphenated-consciousness of Asian-Americans. At the 2016 Emmys, accepting the prize for outstanding-series comedy writing along with Ansari, Yang noted, “There are 17 million Asian-Americans in this country, and there are 17 million Italian-Americans. They have The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Sopranos . . . we got [Sixteen Candles character] Long Duk Dong. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Yang seems to be doing his part to fill that chasm. He describes Little America as, “like Black Mirror, but instead of being super-dark sci-fi stories, it is immigrant stories,” while his family saga, Tigertail, jumps between current day New York and Taiwan in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. “Even three years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible,” he said of writing and directing the latter. “But now, I think, generally, things are changing—not only for me, but for everybody.” It doesn’t hurt that the movie now follows in the wake of Crazy Rich Asians, which domestically grossed $34 million in the first five days of its release.

“I’m excited to try to make a movie where there are three-dimensional, smart, funny, interesting, hopefully compelling characters, who happen to be Asian,” Yang continued. “My favorite stuff, no matter what the genre, is character-driven stories [and] specific details that animate that character’s point of view. So their background matters sometimes, and what they look like matters, and where they came from matters.”

Yang came from Riverside, California, the child of immigrant parents. A self-described “tiny Asian kid in big glasses,” he said he avoided getting bullied by being one of the fastest runners on the playground. He showed me an Instagram post from Bobby Hundreds, a streetwear designer and former schoolmate, who wrote that Yang “was the kid my parents were constantly comparing me to. ‘Why can’t you be more like Alan?!’ He was the smartest kid by a mile, never got into trouble, and got accepted to Harvard. But the annoying part was that he was actually really COOL. Like, he played in a band and stuff. So, I couldn’t even hate on stupid Alan Yang.”

At Harvard, Yang studied biology because his parents had instilled in him the idea that science and math were a safe zone for people of color. “When things are subjective, that’s when things get taken away from you,” he said. “If you are an immigrant and you write an essay, a teacher who may not have the same perspective as you might dock your grade,” whereas, “if you get all the answers right on the math test, you got them right, they can’t take that away from you.” Yet Yang gravitated toward the arts—playing around Boston in a group called Model Kit, dating a girl in a band, and writing for the Harvard Lampoon. He says with a grin, “I wanted to hang out with smart people and creative people.”

Pursuing that path led ultimately to his current life, where he gets to collaborate on projects with people like Nanjiani and Gordon, and invent a black version of Friends for Jay-Z’s “Moonlight” video. The experience surrounding the making of the extended video—which stars Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Jerrod Carmichael, and Tessa Thompson—felt like “a dream,” said Yang. “Like I was sleepwalking.”

Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph in a scene from Forever.

Colleen Hayes

And then there’s Forever, his new Amazon show starring Armisen and Rudolph, a dramedy so unusual in tone and structure that it presents considerable problems for a journalist faced with trying to describe it without spoilers. It is a story about a suburban neighborhood, an ordinary couple, marital malaise, and also . . . it’s not.

“Alan was talking about a lot of the creative freedoms he had enjoyed making Master of None,” Rudolph recalled by phone of their first meeting to discuss a possible collaboration.

“I was most interested in having them play more grounded characters, and play more naturalistic scenes,” Yang said. “That’s my taste generally. I know that they’re such skilled sketch performers but I just felt like they could do sort of gentler, quieter stuff.” He tapped his friend and former Parks and Rec cohort Hubbard to partner with him. The duo, said Rudolph, “had such a great take on the life of a relationship,” and developed roles that would allow her and Armisen to stretch beyond the kind of broad characters they inhabited on S.N.L.

In Forever, Armisen and Rudolph play June and Oscar, a long-married couple in suburban Riverside, Yang’s hometown. They adore each other, but there is always the sneaking sensation, as Yang put it, of, “Is that all there is?” The answer in Forever is a surprising mix of yes and no, as the series repeatedly pulls the narrative rug out from under its characters and its viewers. Among the disruptive elements in the series is Catherine Keener as a rebellious, charismatic neighbor who inflames June’s sense of frustration and longing.

“There’s some crazy shit that happens,” Yang said, emitting a laugh that actually sounds like a distinct ha-ha-ha. He emphasized that he wanted to unravel the traditional half-hour comedy series structure and to keep “the isolation and the loneliness of domesticity . . . somewhat tethered to the reality that people go through, to still be relatable.” After apologizing for name-checking so many “pretentious-ass films that people will hate me for mentioning,” Yang cited David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Tim Burton, and Krzysztof Kieślowski as some of the directors that inspired elements of Forever.

“He definitely goes there with his references,” Rudolph said affectionately. “Sometimes I just say, ‘Yeah!’ because I don’t know what Eastern Bloc filmmaker he is talking about!”

As for the future, Yang said he doesn’t know if there will be a third season of Master of None, but it’s not impossible. (“Aziz and I are always talking,” he wrote via e-mail.) And Yang is leaving the door open for another season of Forever, if this series about married life and existential turmoil can find its audience. He knows that it is “a weird show”—and a slow-building one that goes against Amazon’s current mission of creating noisy, Game of Thrones-scale hits.

But then with so many networks and platforms competing for attention, it’s actually the perfect time “to make something that is interesting and bold and new and audacious,” Yang argued. “In this environment, why make a show that seems like every other show?”

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Joy PressJoy Press is a T.V. Correspondent for Vanity Fair. Her book, Stealing the Show: How Women Are Revolutionizing Television, was released in February.

Source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/09/alan-yang-discusses-his-new-amazon-series-forever-and-possible-plans-for-master-of-none-season-three

[themediareviewer]

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children - Book and Comparison

As promised, following my review on the movie, here is my take on the book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011) by Ransom Riggs. If you’re only here to see the comparison between the book and the movie, feel free to skip this next section of the post and check the following one lower down!

After I watched the movie by the same name (directed by Tim Burton), I knew this wasn’t the type of world I could simply walk away from. There were simply too many things unsaid, too many mysteries I still wanted the answer for -- and that ending! No, I couldn’t leave Miss Peregrine on that note. That is why on the following week, when I was walking about with a friend by a bookstore, we both stopped in front of this book, and the decision was unanimous: we both got a copy. I started to read it that very evening.

Now, people often mention that a book or another “is a fast read”. Well, I am a very slow reader -- the type who easily takes 10-20 hours to read a 300-page book. So when I say that a book “is a fast read”, I really do mean it’s a fast read. And this is definitely one of them. I must have finished it in 4 sittings of very short duration.

This isn’t generally a point I find particularly relevant when reviewing a book. What is the relevance of how quickly or slowly this book is read? Is Les Miserables a bad book because it’s long? Is Love Story bad because it’s short? No, this isn’t an element that we should be judging a book’s quality by. However, in this case, the speed of the reading is influenced by two things that I particularly enjoyed about the book:

- The pacing: Oh, the pacing. I loved how Riggs travelled smoothly between moments of contemplation and outbursts of action, particularly because I could never tell in which of those moments I was in. I didn’t know what to expect, and that’s considering I had watched the movie already! I think John Green described perfectly as he called this book a “tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel” (as per the cover of the book published by Quirk Books in 2011). And I will generously emphasize the word tense. There is no respite in this book. The author doesn’t dwell in moments that are not relevant to the story, and describes actions with poignant efficiency. It was truly like watching a movie sometimes. And none of his contemplative moments felt like a waste of time. Sometimes he would spend a long time describing a room, but I could feel that it was due to the room’s relevance to Jacob, emotionally. There was however, no emotion attached to the colour of his sweater or any character development attached to the flavour of Jacob’s toothpaste, so he didn’t bother with those. Why would he reveal any more than he needed to, when omitting it could be just as powerful?

- This brings me to my next point actually, which is the prose. Riggs’ prose is so good. He managed to synthesize an entire image, capture a whole breath with one sentence. There seemed to be no wasted words, every description so pertinent. He would sometimes build up his wonderfully grotesque imagery in agonizingly slow steps, or add a verb of movement in his description to add life to objects, always with a creepy overtone. (The vines ran down the wall.) Every time I glanced down the page to see if a monster was about to jump out of a bush and my eyes fell onto those movement verbs, I thought things were about to go down, but he tricked me. And so, Riggs kept me exactly where he seemed to want me: at the edge of my seat, constantly preparing for the worse, never quite at ease.

The Word and the Lens 

(I shouldn’t try to give clever titles to my things...)

Now, the only reason why I feel the need to compare these two is because I find it very hard not to compare two things of the same name. You know, if there are two Vanilla ice cream at a shop, I will definitely want to know why they both earned their name, and which one holds the edge. However, when it comes to art and media, I try (with capital letters TRY) not to compare things too much. I feel I owe each of the artists’ behind each piece to look at their work individually and in their own right. 

Nevertheless. I’m only human. We are only human. Who came first the chicken or the egg.

My situation was, should I say, “peculiar”, seeing how I actually watched the movie first and later read the book. This means that I had already been provided imagery for most of what had happened in the book thanks to Tim Burton. And I think this speaks very highly of Ransom Riggs that I actually felt his descriptions were still very enticing despite the fact I already knew how most of it “was supposed to look”. Of course, I should also mention that Tim Burton did a fantastic job in building the Riggs’ world. The Home itself looked fantastic, with its creepily immaculate look, its sharp angles and desaturated colours. The whole costuming was also very on point: effectively odd and beautifully translated.

Another bonus point for Tim Burton was how he translated the characters. In my opinion, the people casted for each role was very on point -- if not in physical description definitely on the characters’ personalities. Enoch was such a fascinating, dark character and Finlay MacMillan played the part creepily well. 

In fact, I’m surprised (and slightly ashamed) to say that I actually preferred Burton’s version of Miss Peregrine than I did in the book (yes, book-avids, burn me on the steak!). Not only was her wisdom incredibly evident, but her training as an ymbryne seemed to include more than just being good at speeches and knowing dates. In the movie, Miss Peregrine is fully capable of using a cross-bow and making conclusions that were honestly remarkable (such as figuring out why Jake had come to see her even before he said it). In the book, Miss Peregrine seems like a wise lady, but that’s about all she is throughout the first book. Her limping seems to make her physically incapable of keeping up with the children (and protecting them for that matter), and for a “wise old lady”, the kids constantly outsmart her, getting themselves into mortal danger at occasions. Not only that, but her dialogue seems... adequate, at best. Nothing she said was so well-versed to the point of warranting the book’s title being “Miss Peregrine’s”. The peculiar children seem considerably more interesting and important to the plot than she is. And in matter os wisdom, I am still waiting for Miss Peregrine to surpass the wisdom in Jake’s very first sentence of the book: “I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen”. Who here was wishing they had come up with that little jewel for their novel? 

In any case, I suppose that having a main character that is more interesting than your title character is not a bad thing. It’s a great thing I should say. But then it all goes back to, Then why is Miss Peregrine the one in your title and not Jacob? It’s almost as if Riggs doesn’t want to let Jake be as important and cool as he actually is. This seems to be a recurring theme in the book actually. I understand that there are characters who doubt themselves, but when the story itself constantly diminishes the character’s potential, it becomes a bit of an uphill battle. Why must Jake not excel at anything? Why keep bringing up how incredible Jake’s grandfather was? And if his grandpa was all that great, why aren’t we reading a story about him then? Why does book-Jake sound petty in moments where his character was visibly understanding the level of danger they were in? Why keep hammering that Jake is simply not good enough? Again, the reason why I bring this up here and not in the section above (where I was only analyzing the book), is because perhaps these are all questions Riggs will answer further on in the series of books. However, because I had movie-Jake as a reference, I came to expect more from book-Jake. I was expecting him to be braver, to take more initiative, to have better plans, and to a certain extent for him to be more useful to the plot. (***spoiler alert - The fact that he can see the monsters seems so absolutely pointless when he can barely muster the courage to tell his friends useful information about it ***). I still feel that Riggs opted for some plot points and deliberately-placed descriptions that undermined Jake’s potential as a character, and even though (as I mentioned for movie-Jake) book-Jake is also not annoying, that is definitely less true than in the movie.

What the movie does get phenomenally wrong and you will have to forgive me for my small freak-out session #1 (***spoiler alert till the end of this paragraph***): WHY, just WHY would you change Emma’s powers???? This makes absolutely NO difference plot-wise and the is no valid reason to diverge so dramatically from the original material! It would be as odd as if Dasher was suddenly the one with the shining nose but Rudolph still became Santa’s favourite because he has nice fur. It’s like, “Okay, you’re allowed to change it I suppose, and there is no major plot point that is ruined by this so far.... But why?????”. Sure I liked the shot of Emma clearing the water from the ship’s secret room, and Jake being there did make it romantic.... But still, to quote Boromir’s meme: “One does not simply change the original material because it looks cool”. Well, I suppose one does, but I don’t feel one should. 

So in virtue of my own strict dislike for spoilers, I should mention the next section delves a little bit into spoiler territory, but only in a superficial matter. That is to say, in terms of the story’s overall arcs (but not touching any specific plot points!), the entire last act of the movie was widely different. It was almost comically different. As I mentioned, having read the book after watching the movie, when I reached the last, say, 100 pages of the book, I could feel my brain going like, “Wait, whaaaat”. The setting of the final confrontation was completely different (both where and when), the people involved were slightly different, and even the outcome was absolutely different. 

Now, it’s true that I haven’t read the second or third books of the series, so it is possible that the movie was in fact referring to events that take place a bit further into the books. As I mentioned in my previous post on Miss Peregrine, awkward endings are pretty common in movies adapted from books (in my humble opinion). I had mentioned The Golden Compass (2007) as an example, and I will add City of Bones (2013) to this list (where -- for the sake of a cool final shot I suppose? -- the protagonist suddenly gains Harry-Potter like powers which she never had in the book, and yes, I am as bitter about it as I sound). So, risking repeating myself (I am not as concise as Riggs unfortunately :/) companies don’t always pre-approve sequels to be made until they’re more or less sure they’ll make good money out of them. That is why we are often left with “first” movies which symbolically stand for more than one book. That is to say, that the director/producers try to tie loose ends and complete character arcs without letting the characters earning those endings. This creates rushed conclusions that are just messy and neat all at once (deal with that paradox!). 

So it is possible that the events we see at the end of the movie do take place later on in the story. But if not... (and now, you will have to forgive me for my small freak-out session #2. Also, spoiler alert for the remained of this post except for the last paragraph!) then what the HELL. Where did this ending even come from???? xD How does a climax taking place inside a decrepit lighthouse in an evening of 1940 becomes a full-on fight in the middle of a 2016 day-time, theme park in London??? Why would you diverge so incredibly from the original material??? Okay. Let’s calm down a bit... I will shamefully admit that I quite liked the final showdown in the movie, and even more shamefully... I would say I almost liked it better than the climax in the book. However, I feel that’s because the movie had been building up quite steadily towards an awesome showdown. I mean, for monsters who literally eat up little children’s eyes, there is no way that the finale could be an old man shooting with a handgun at children crouching in the sea. That would have not lived up to our expectations at all. However, that is where the whole building up comes into play. If Riggs’ first book ended up with an eye-candy massacre in a theme park, how would his second and third books possibly top that? In other words, the movie spoiled us with cheap fun, potentially jeopardizing the pacing and events of future movies. ....And yet, seeing how I am human... I fell right for it and had a blast watching that showdown. 

(Still spoiler) What follows the showdown in the movie however, perfectly exemplifies the “messy endings” I mentioned earlier. Seeing how the movie barely got the time to explain loops and how they work, the fact that Jake was loop-jumping (aka leapfrogging) by the end was very confusing in my opinion. I love my fair share of time-travelling movies and I particularly love getting into paradox conversations, but that wasn’t even the problem in this instance. There was simply not enough information given to us about loop-jumping for his whole time travel to make sense. How do loops work in this movie-universe? Is it the same as in the book? Is it like a time-machine then? Or a fixed inter-dimensional entrance to a single particular day in the past? If they are loops, can the peculiars leave the loops at any year they wish to leave at? Or can they only leave at, say, Jake’s present year? Why do the kids still act as children if time has actually passed in loops? How can the children get into a loop that opens up to 2016 if that loop wasn’t created until 2016 and they’re in 1940? And finally, if Jake goes back to 2016 and his grandfather is still alive, would that prevent Grandpa from dying? In which case, wouldn’t that mean that Jake would never be motivated to go meet the Peculiar children so wouldn’t live through the events that eventually made him do everything he did in 1940 which would then mean he couldn’t be in 2016--and NOW we have a paradox! xD In the book, the rules about loops are pretty clear, and though leapfrogging is a concept that is teased at by the end of the first book, we know we don’t need to fully grasp it yet, for Riggs will tell us more about it in later books. 

(Still spoiler) What drives crazy is that the movie had no need to mention loop-jumping! They had a perfectly reasonable ending where Jake had the choice of staying in 2016  and changing his grandpa’s death, or staying in 1940, in which case Grandpa would die, but at least the past would stay as it was and Jake could stay with Emma and things would still make sense. Instead, the movie wants to have both endings, and the plot becomes convoluted for no reason.

In conclusion, both versions have definite ups and downs, and I could never choose one over the other. I am partial to the movie’s characters of Miss Peregrine and Jacob, but I will never downplay the pleasure of reading really good prose. Both versions have pretty fantastic storytelling skills which eventually had a let-me-down moment -- the movie was way more aggravating in this aspect. However, I do feel that both versions have enough good things that I would happily recommend any of them to people into the creepy and the weird. Overall, I am very happy I got to experience such an interesting world not once but twice!