what would you have me do?

Barbie (2023) + details (insp 1/2)

#They really did it

Pls listen to my random X-Men rant that came out of nowhere

There is a coldness to Sir Ian McKellen's portrayal of Magneto that Michael Fassbender’s portrayal didn’t reach. McKellen’s Magneto is someone who had all the warmth driven out of him after decades of such grief and pain in his life and you could feel that on screen every time.

Fassbender was getting there no doubt, but his portrayal was always raw. There is a certain warmth to him, that he still had. Im not saying that McKellen’s didn’t, but Fassbender’s emotions were always ever present. They could change the course of a movie, like in Apocalypse.

But there needed to be a transition in my opinion, one event that brings these 2 portrayals seamlessly together, to shift those raw emotions into that coldness, the one that leaves you desolate, one that makes you understand that this is a man who never gets his hopes up, not after everything.

And in my head, the event that would cause that full transition is Pietro(Peter) Maximoff. Specifically him going to Westview and he doesn’t come back. Not in the way that he’s dead, but he’s trapped in the MCU for a long time.

Think about, Pietro vanishes out of nowhere, and everyone thinks it fine for a bit. He’s done this before, he’s probably on some island exploring or a busy city. Then it turns into 2 days, and they panic. Charles turns to the Cerebro and he can’t find him. And to him that either means that he’s not on earth, or he’s dead. Everyone stops what they’re doing to help find him. And someone has to tell Erik.

The more heartbreaking aspect is for everyone to decide of their own volition. If Erik knew or not if Pietro was his son. You could have him gaining a family again, learning to love again, to open up his heart and care for his son, then to have it so cruelly ripped away from him. The thought of “not again” going through him over and over.

Or, you can him learning after Pietro was taken, and he’ll always be wondering of the possibilities, of what he could’ve had if he just knew earlier. Either way it’s painful, the man who found family again, and was cruelly ripped away, or the man who didn’t find out he had family until it was too late.

And he hopes, he hopes that maybe Pietro is still here. That he was taken and somehow, somehow they managed to mask him from the Cerebro. And in my head Charles helps with that hope, not on purpose of course. But he’s so desperate that he doesn’t lose another kid, not after everyone, not after Raven, not after Jean. And I think in that desperation, in all those years he spending looking with the thought of not again, he inadvertently gives Erik that false hope.

And when it turns out to be nothing but dead ends and a funeral/memorial with no body, it’s final nail in the coffin. For Erik’s hopes and for his and Charles’s relationship. That any piece of warmth he had left, was taken away. And he’s bitter at Charles, and it’s another reason as to why his and Charles’s relationship ended up like it did in the future.

It combines the two timelines, the different portrayals in the most heartbreaking way.

Consider this (based on a conversation I had with some friends a while ago): Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for people who actually like Pride and Prejudice. Look–I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I got about 20 pages in before I came to the conclusion that the person who wrote it did so out of the belief that the original Pride and Prejudice was stuffy and boring. There were out of character vulgar puns. And the trailer for the movie did not convince me that I had missed anything by cutting short my reading experience. So, what I’m talking about here is this premise: the world of Pride and Prejudice, but if you die, it’s highly likely, almost certain that your corpse will get up and try to eat people. But no one dies in Pride and Prejudice, you might say. In fact, few or no people die in any Jane Austen novel. This is true. But people do get sick with some regularity. Imagine the tension added to Jane getting sick after going to visit Bingley if there was the chance that she would become a zombie after she died. Becoming a zombie in an eligible bachelor’s house probably would have seriously wrecked any chances of any of the living sisters ending up with him. Imagine Mr. Collins, as a minister, having the duty upon someone’s death of severing their head with a ceremonial plate or something that would prevent the corpse from rising. Obviously important, but this only makes him more self-important and obnoxious. And dangerous. For you see, in this version, Mr. Bennett, who stays in his office all the time, whose life is the only thing allowing Mrs. Bennett and her daughters to stay in the house–Mr. Bennett is definitely a zombie. He died at home, and Mrs. Bennett decided that, no way were they dealing with this, and so…just started faking it. Jane and Elizabeth know. The younger sisters don’t. In this universe, I think we have to go with zombies that are not any faster or stronger than the humans they were, and in fact tend to get weaker as time passes because their flesh is rotting. And…hmm, okay, how about they are pretty violent upon rising, and for about a week afterward, trying to bite people and spread the infection (even though most people are carriers anyway, but getting a nasty bite from a corpse will give you other stuff that will have you die while carrying the virus). But then they calm down and basically just start sort of attempting to act like they did in life, that is, taking habitual actions with no consciousness, in a depressing and desiccated way. So Mr. Bennett is a zombie, and Mrs. Bennett’s number one goal is to get her daughters married before anyone finds that out. And this, actually, makes Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins more frustrating for Mrs. Bennett–obviously Mr. Bennett didn’t tell Elizabeth that she could refuse Mr. Collins, because Mr. Bennett is dead, but Mrs. Bennett can’t say anything or the game would be up. Another question in this version–does Mr. Darcy find out about Mr. Bennett being a zombie somehow? Does Elizabeth find out that he knows and didn’t say anything and this is something that helps repair his earlier actions? Anyway, this is the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that I was looking for.

Okay also: in the original, when Elizabeth walks through the rain all the way to bingley’s to care for Jane while she’s sick, it’s a very dramatic expression of both Elizabeth’s love for her sister and her penchant for flamboyant rebellion, but consider, if there is a chance Jane will wake up a zombie and Elizabeth knows it, how does that change the dynamic? Elizabeth might be going to help take care of Jane, or to *take care* of Jane should things take a more morbid turn…by killing her zombie sister.

This works especially well if zombieism is communicable prior to death; if mr. Bennett is a zombie and only the elder Bennetts know, that means Jane has been pre-exposed and is almost certain to wake up as a zombie should she die in the Bingleys’ care— which the Bingleys do not know. Elizabeth has to forge through the rain to be there in case things get ugly, because she knows that the Bingleys aren’t prepared.

Yeah you know what? I am 100% for this. A few additions:

*Mr. Collins self-importantly bragging to everyone that he is the one personally responsible for decapitating  Lady Catherine de Bourgh  should she fall victim to the devil’s touch and become a zombie, and that she specifically ordered her head to be burned in the grand fireplace at Rosings. 

*The ambiguity as to whether or not Catherine’s pale, sickly daughter is in fact a zombie herself, but Mr. Darcy is expected to marry her anyway for the sake of family and keeping up appearances. 

*Wickham is a necrophiliac, ‘nuff said

This is so much better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which honestly just felt really lazy to me.

Lydia’s vivacity is encouraged by Mrs. Bennett in part because being having an outgoing, cheerful, lively child who socializes with a lot of people all the time helps counter the rumors about Mr. Bennett. Obviously she wouldn’t be so happy and flirtatious if her father were dead; he’s just always been a bit reclusive and Odd. Kitty is encouraged to follow her example in this for the same reason.

Mary is prone to sermonizing about zombiism and what one should or would do in the event of one’s own family members falling victim to it. 

They *have* to pretend that Mr. Bennett is still alive. If they don’t, they lose the hose and Mr. Collins gets everything. Zombies fit perfectly in with the themes Jane Austen was interested in examining: putting on a good face at all costs, the problem of idle aristocrats… it works really well. 

Also, Lady Catherine’s daughter is DEFINITELY a zombie. I can’t decide if it’s better if A) Lady C is in complete denial about this, but she’s so high ranking that no one says a Damn Thing. or B) Lady C absolutely knows her daughter is a zombie… and STILL thinks she’s better than Lizzie.

So has this been written yet? It needs to be written!

This is what Rasputin would've wanted.