Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Memento Morlys 🍉

@aardwyrm.bsky.social

1.8K followers 4K following 5.6K posts

sentient curio cabinet. writes sffh, spams dog nonsense. slush reader for giganotosaurus. the bird's name is rambo. hwa, codexian, ey/em https://maldamarlys.com/ https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/aardwyrm

maldamarlys.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

ok I finished the original novella. the sequel is also on this volume but I don't think I have it on me tonight

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

"a monster from 2 million years ago" and it's a giant beaver

1 1 2

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

the 2 million years thing is really persistent. they keep repeating it. I know there was no wikipedia on the 50s but surely you could go to the library just to check if your timeline was off by an order of magnitude

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

on the other hand the narration has an endearing habit of addressing the readers. "you know, the thing I mean!" that's kinda cute

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

I can see the man in the costume and his limited range of motion in every action godzilla takes

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

but nah. look up out of the water, some iconic rampaging, and that's it

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

I don't know if I were suddenly freed from the constraints of 1950s vfx, loose only in the confines of my imagination, I might think of something for godzilla to... do?

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

more tellingly, godzilla doesn't, like, do anything new? the plot is not identical to the movie, so he wasn't working particularly hard to adhere. and godzilla was, y'know, a clunky and delicate practical effect, so you'd have to write around that

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 11h

the book definitely reads like a screenplay rejiggered into paragraphs. lots of clumsily inserted descriptions of stuff like people's clothes that don't seem to serve any purpose but to tell you which part of the movie to picture

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

the no fact check just wild assertions school of sci fi is ascendent here. did you know the heyday of dinosaurs and also trilobites for some reason was 2 million years ago in the jurassic?

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

suppose I should try something else by the translator and see if it's any good?

1 1

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

but also this was published for kids, so maybe the gee-whiz vibe is accurately preserved?

1 4

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

Shigeru Kayama, I guess

a man in a suit and tie is talking about writers who use subtext and they 're all cowards

Alt: I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards in gif form

media.tenor.com

1 4

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

Shigeru Kayama (apparently his estate prefers his name be written in western order in english) wanted the original script of godzilla to be even more overt, according to a little desultory research? because it was so subtle. so supposedly his novelization of his own script let him put that back in

1 3

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

the effect throughout is really... corny? I read a lot in translation and generally it shouldn't read the same as a text in the original language, but this is real clunky and I'm just trying to puzzle out if it's a choice

1 2

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

definitely some choices made in translation. I read the note from the translator at the back and he talked about some technical stuff, Japanese pronouns and the lack thereof, onomatopoeia, not tonal choices and prose decisions

1 4

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h

(library horror club is reading the novelization-but-by-the-screenwriter of godzilla this month. interesting choice, clear just a personal favorite of the guy who runs it but I think if you run the old ladies reading classic horror meetup you should be allowed the occasional power trip)

1 6

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 14h

as is law, the best of every kind of restaurant is an unremarkable box in a strip mall on the outside and a whimsical little adventure on the inside

1 1 2

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 15h

the national diet told me godzilla keeps eating their boats so I asked how many boats they have and they said they just find the exact spot the last boat vanished and send a new boat afterwards so I said it sounds like they're just feeding boats to godzilla and a scientist's daughter started crying.

1 2 21

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 17h

did the thing again where i take a wonderful long walk and after the hours alone with my thoughts under the trees everything i've ever wanted to write is clear and crisp as the air and then i get home and i'm too tired from all that hiking to do fuckin anything

1 2 12

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 18h

the halloween vibes in @spiritcitylofi.bsky.social are immaculate

purple anime character in a beanbag chair with a purple bat friend writing in some sort of tome in front of a cheerful fireplace. the walls are covered in spooky trees. the carpet is purple ghosts. pumpkins are everywhere.

same little guy, same bat, this time next to a purple-swathed window surrounded by candles and looking out over a giant spooky pumpkin patch

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 18h

4th now

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 19h

this time of year always makes me regret my complete lack of talent in the visual arts, and that I failed to learn more than the absolute basics of photography from a cranky jesuit. like I guess these are nice but they capture no more of soul and essence than a windows xp desktop

A pond under a blue sky lined in autumnal colored foliage

View between some trees of a meadow dotted with fall colors

Flowers and grasses along a path also looking fallish

Reposted by Memento Morlys 🍉

The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 19h

Oh, hello

2 140 240

Memento Morlys 🍉 @aardwyrm.bsky.social · 1d

could have sworn there was a dog in here somewhere

Blankets, toys, and a pillow in a dog bed. only a pair of pointy brown ears pokes out