We all got that one mutual that be going through the most treacherous situations a person could endure and then posting a few minutes later about why such and such should get fucked through a concrete wall.
Mutual: my situationship partner just got caught in a tornado at a broken glass factory where they were cheating on me with my landlord who just increased my rent by 6000% and my pet marmot has a disease so rare they’re naming it after him and all my bones are becoming apricot jelly which I’m allergic to.
Same mutual 16 minutes later: Do you think Ronald McDonald and the Burger King ever explored each other’s bodies?
A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.
You'd think the most trans masc coded characters in The Shards would be Bret and Matt - on account of their fear that everyone else perceives their lack of classic masculinity and their self-isolation from their peers respectively.
However you would be wrong. Susan Reynolds, who falls in love with an average of one little gay boy per annum and doesn't understand why she always loves them more than her perfectly nice, heterosexual boyfriend, would have been saved by testosterone.
Referring to someone as your “partner” sounds as if you are deliberately obscuring their gender and may subtly out you. “My ex”, however, is entirely unobtrusively gender-neutral. #breakupallrelationships
Came into work today and my boss was like "come look at this, you'll like this" then she showed me all of our signed Bret Easton Ellis books and I was like, cool that we have these but I think you have deeply misunderstood what kind of person I am
Narration! Huge win for lovers of modern gothic fiction!
I'm impressed with Rigney's accent and curious/hopeful to see if he can keep it up.
I love the way the trailer is set up, how Bret's describing a film that never gets made to Terry but we're seeing clips of him living out that film in real life whilst also knowing at least part of that pitch becomes Less Than Zero. And the way Robert is framed as The Trawler simply due to the order of scenes they show.
Scenes are extremely recognisable - the car "chase", the club, Principal Croft's office, the Galleria, Robert's welcome party - down to what I believe is probably Bret in Robert's penthouse? Though it's framed as if it's another scene of The Trawler.
I've never seen Hayes Warner in anything before but she's adorable and I'm so excited to see her performance. Debbie comes across as so sad in so many scenes, which is perfect. My special girl 😭
I was already sold on Rigney as Bret before seeing his performance, but if I hadn't been his posture during the lunch with Terry would have done it. There wasn't a single moment in the trailer during which he wasn't a scared, slightly anxious little boy.
As with most modern streaming shows it is a little dark, but they seem to have gone for some interesting lighting setups, which I'm looking forward to seeing populated with characters.
I was worried Bret and Matt's relationship would be misinterpreted, but their clip is so tender. Matt holding Bret's waist? Both of them smiling? Leaning in to kiss? This is going to destroy me, I fear.
The costumes are cool (Bret is so snatched, lol), I'm hoping we get to see some more casual fits too, especially from the girls.
The flashlight in the yard in Palm Springs - YES!!!
Obviously nothing could be as iconic as the original 80s soundtrack, but there's so much modern music that could be a good fit, and the trailer sounds good, so fingers crossed.
Liz just laying into Debbie - oh, my sweet girllll.
I love that Bret has to stand on his tiptoes to kiss his own girlfriend, as god intended.
Whilst the tone is a bit glitzier than the overall vibe of the book it does balance quite nicely with what appears to be heavier scenes - Bret crying, people arguing, Debbie feeling left out and alone - and it is just the trailer, I'd expect them to put their most-eye-catching foot forward.
Still on the fence:
Dale seems to be playing some kind of Ryan/Jeff combo. Which makes a lot of sense run-time wise, but kind of muddies his relationship with Bret. Bret wanted to get serious with Ryan, whatever that meant to him, I can't see him being mature enough to think that way about a sex worker. Part of Ryan's allure was also that he was inexperienced and it was exciting for Bret to show him how things were done. Ultimately not a narrative ruiner, just curious to see how they do it.
There's only one scene where Bret genuinely enjoys being intimate with Debbie, and it's not the scene they show in the trailer. Would completely understand if they wanted to move that one to the bedroom though lol.
Yay, more screen time for the girls, but maybe at the price of a slight butchering of their characters? Susan is not an "AV club, hit it!" girlie, and Debbie would never tell Susan she could "just kill her". However, easily forgivable if 1. It's to show contrast with how numb Susan becomes later in the story and 2. If that's what Bret thinks Debbie would have said, even if really she wouldn't have.
Perhaps my biggest gripe: it looks like Robert assaults Bret at the party, not Terry? 1. Whilst Terry is past forgiveness before he even starts trying to groom Bret for constantly checking out sixteen year olds, the assault at the party is what truly cements how despicable he is. Bret made it very clear while they were "having sex" and afterwards that he didn't like it. For Terry to then try and touch him again - it's beyond sickening. 2. I don't think Robert thought what he did to Bret was sexual assault and I think he's too homophobic (whether you think he's queer or not, he is homophobic) to go any further than that. I also think it's important that he comes into Bret's home, somewhere he mostly feels safe, and proves to him that he isn't. This would really change their dynamic. But I could be reading the shot all wrong, it is just a trailer.
It still feels a little weird that Robert's tall and in good shape but slightly soft, a little pale, round baby face, wide-set eyes, doesn't not look like Bret Easton Ellis, while Bret looks like they'd invent a new magazine column just to put his face in it. Obviously anyone can be deeply insecure, but I feel that's harder to get across when it's a visual medium and you're looking at Igby Rigney. Curious what, if any, of that aspect of the plot has carried across.
Something about the bastardization of the story time and time again proves that nobody in power really cares about the people who would resonate with King’s Carrie White. A girl so ugly and repulsive she’s been removed from her own story. The societal need for women and girls to be constantly perceived as attractive is what fuels a fair amount of her torment in the book, but that person isn’t even allowed to exist on the screen. We cannot empathize with her; it isn’t allowed. It’s fascinating to me.
Matt Kellner purposefully flunking the same classes as Bret sophomore year because he thinks he's cute but is too shy to talk to him in front of his friends,,,
Bret coming back from freshman summer break absolutely stacked but still fat and Matt, who has previously only been privvy to male models and prep school twinks, has the gay awakening of the century in the boys' locker room
Matt Kellner purposefully flunking the same classes as Bret sophomore year because he thinks he's cute but is too shy to talk to him in front of his friends,,,
Happy Halloween season! Here's another stab at my own take of Carrie White, based on her book description. I'm super happy with how these turned out! I'd love to tackle some of the other characters in the book eventually, especially Margaret!
