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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Superman & Lois Season 2: What to Expect When the Show Returns

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This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers.

The first season of Superman & Lois has come to a close, and what an absolute joyride it was from start to finish. Are you left craving more? Do you need to spend more time in Smallville ASAP? Well, we’ve got good news for you, because Superman & Lois Season 2 has already been confirmed by The CW, and the first episode has already been written!

We spoke with showrunner Todd Helbing to try and get some details about what to expect from Superman & Lois Season 2.

Superman & Lois Season 2 Villains

Superman & Lois has already given us multiple Kryptonians for Superman to have super-powered brawls and trade heat vision blasts with. There’s always an instinct to just give Supes someone he can hit, but the first season managed to do that while also telling a pretty nuanced, even tragic, story for its central villain. But that just means it’s going to be a little trickier to follow up Tal-Rho with someone equally compelling.

“From the earliest days that Greg Berlanti and I talked about this show, the question was always, ‘okay, if we’re going to do this, how are we going to make it different?’” Helbing says. “And if you go through any of the movies, I think the natural tendency is, you have to have somebody as strong and powerful as Superman, or he would never lose. The story engine that we have though, and what’s really important is the family of it. So once you become a father, once Superman became a father, he has weaknesses that he never had before, his thoughts about Lois, about the boys. That family aspect makes him a weaker in a lot of ways, because he loves more. But it also makes him a better hero, because he has something to fight for.”

It doesn’t seem like Helbing thinks power levels are as important to building a Superman threat as others do.

“It doesn’t have to be somebody that can punch as hard as Superman,” Helbing says. “I think of the end of episode 14, when he came back and he had to tell his wife that he can’t find Jordan. There’s a look on Tyler’s face, like he doesn’t know what to do. Those are the situations we want to put Superman in. Because I think to all of us, writers, actors, producers, that’s the most important and what really works on our show.”

Lex Luthor?

And everybody knows that if there’s one villain who definitely can’t “punch as hard as Superman,” it’s Lex Luthor, who has been brought brilliantly to life on Supergirl over the last few seasons by Jon Cryer. But with Superman & Lois determined to forge its own path, it may be awhile before we get to see Lex show up in Smallville.

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“Look, I think Jon was awesome as Lex, so I’m certainly open to anything,” Helbing says. “I think we’d have to find the right story where it would work. Lex Luthor is such an iconic character, so it might be a bit, you know what I mean? There are some other characters that we want to explore. If we’re going to make our own stamp here and try to carve out our own story in Superman history, let’s tell some fresh new versions of this.”

Will There Be More Flashback Episodes?

One of the highlights of the season was the flashback episode, which told us big pieces of Lois and Clark’s history together before the boys were born, and showed us Clark’s first adventures in Metropolis as Superman (in that cool Fleischer-inspired costume).

“We’re not going to make the show into Lost,” Helbing jokes. “We’ll certainly have flashbacks if it’s going to help tell the story and help the audience understand where a character is and where they came from so it really lands emotionally, then yeah, we’ll do it.”

Still, that doesn’t mean that a flashback episode is automatically baked into the plans for Superman & Lois Season 2 just yet.

“We don’t necessarily have a format that we’re trying to follow per episode,” Helbing says. “Not having the typical sort of heroic television formula is really, I think, allowed us to approach stories from a different point of view and aspect, and not maybe worry about stuff that I would have worried about on The Flash.”

Will There Be Crossovers With Other DC TV Arrowverse Shows?

The pandemic put the kibosh on all DC TV crossovers this year, although in fairness, those were always expected to be smaller in scale after the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2019. As for what characters or shows Superman & Lois Season 2 could potentially crossover with, Helbing isn’t talking yet.

“I think our sort of north star is just, it’s not any particular character, it’s just whatever benefits the story the best,” he says. “Honestly, it could be anybody right now. I think we’re under the assumption right now that things are going to kind of get back to how they were pre-pandemic, but I’m still a little hesitant to do that. And not just me. I think everybody is a little cautious, and we just want to be safe first and make sure everybody’s protected. We’ll see how it all plays out. I’m optimistic. I would love to do what we can.”

Helbing also teases more information about where Superman & Lois sits in relation to the other Arrowverse shows airing.

“There’s been a lot of talk and questions about how all the shows interact now and are related post-Crisis,” he says. “I think in season two, the audience will get a lot more answers about that.”

Natalie Irons and Steel

Helbing is keeping quiet on all the implications about Natalie Irons arriving from her corner of the multiverse to surprise her father, John Henry Irons, and the Kent family.

“We knew Nat was going to show up, and we knew we wanted her in the show, because we want to explore a new family dynamic,” he says. “I’ll just say, in season two, there’s a lot that everybody is dealing with, having to get used to new members of a family, I’ll just put it that way.”

Yes, we have to imagine she won’t be thrilled to see that her mother on this world is married to the man who murdered her on their world, for starters.

Will Reign of the Supermen Happen?

Look, you can’t blame us for speculating on this. Superman & Lois introduced John Henry Irons, and even gave him his Steel armor and hammer. They introduced the Eradicator, both as a piece of Kryptonian tech and also as the living embodiment of that tech with a mission to make Earth more like Krypton.

And in a sense, it also gave us Superboy. No, not the half-clone of Superman who eventually adopts the moniker of Kon-El (and then Conner Kent) but the actual biological son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Jordan Kent. For Superman fans, this is 3/4ths of a set of “replacement Supermen,” the heroes who rose after Superman’s “death” at the spiky hands of Doomsday in the famed Death and Return of Superman comic book story.

Helbing admits that they’ve talked about things, but certainly won’t commit to the possibility, either.

“We talk,” he says. “We kick all that stuff around, and it’s … I won’t say no, but I won’t say yes either, because we already wrote the first episode of season two. There’s some really cool stuff coming.”

And since Supergirl already did a version of Hank Henshaw, the infamous Cyborg Superman, and with all the other love for Superman comic book lore already on display in Superman & Lois, is any of this ever being discussed by the writers?

“I think one of the things that we want to do is we want to stay away from any of the villains that Supergirl did for the most part, unless we’re going to completely reinvent them like Morgan Edge. So we’re trying to find some deep dives and bring those stories out in our show. And I think so far, I’m really excited about season two.”

Superman & Lois Season 2 Release Date

At the moment, all we know is that Superman & Lois Season 2 will arrive in early 2022. The first season arrived in February, so that might be a good spot to pencil in for now.

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What do you want to see from Superman & Lois Season 2? Let us know in the comments!

The post Superman & Lois Season 2: What to Expect When the Show Returns appeared first on Den of Geek.

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ear · 6 years

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PLEASE share your vld reboot ideas aja the show canon is garbage and your mind is so galaxy brain

OK OK ALRIGHT!!!!!!!!!! alright so idk what kind of. earth landscape this reboot occurs in…. like yallve got this retro 80s/90s neon future verse going on but i didnt think my reboot version would fit into that so yall go wild with whatever hc for this earth reboot thing u want cuz im not creative and i didnt really think that far ahead

ALRIGHT here we go. this is so long i HAVE to put this under the cut but i hope yall enjoy the creations of my MIND……

- akeno “KEITH” shirogane: (age: 19) [gay] hes japanese/black/galran. hes still half galra in this reboot bc i fuck with that honestly but hes got more visible galran traits. his bottom canines are larger than usual and poke out from his bottom lip so he wears a mask to cover his mouth and his eyes r still purple but instead of his sclera being yellow(tinted), hes just like. got some odd golden flecks in his eyes. he normally wears a dirty mechanics jumpsuit with the top half tied around his waist and a black or white tank top underneath (hes still a high school flunk out so he works full time at a car repair shop so hes able to buy food and shit at LEAST + hes still got his motorcycle to keep in shape). his casual clothes r just regular grey sweats, hoodies, and adidas or whatever brand is closest in their future lol. hes blood related to shiro who ill get to in a second.. shiros blood related to him as his uncle (brother of keiths dad) ALSO his hair isnt long in this reboot, hes got a short messy head of hair that he mostly just pulls back into a TINY little pony tail on his forehead (like in the game show ep) so it doesnt get in his face while hes working. he also has goggles bc thats the one thing from yalls reboot ideas i actually like (endgame lion: he momentarily pilots black during shiros disappearance but his permanent and stationary lion is red)

- fal’allura “fala, ALLURA” naguna’ephy: [lesbian] (age: 21 or close to that in alien standards) shes altean on her fathers side and teem (what we’re gonna call nymas race) on her mothers side. she bares more altean features except her eyes are solid yellow and shes only got four fingers on each hand. instead of crescent shaped facial markings, she has painted on red and golden lines across her nose and her upper lip. her hair (very dark purple with silver highlights and literal glowing, twinkling stars) is VERY long, brushing the floor as she walks except and (now bear with me cuz this might be hard to explain) her hair, the farther down u look kind of fades away? like it becomes semi to absolute transparent… idk how else to explain it but i hope u understand…. she does wear a crown but its more like a headdress.. (imagine beyonces headdress).. she doesnt wear it often, usually only on diplomatic missions to greet other worldly rulers bc its heavy and it makes her neck hurt :/.. her dress! looks like this! but a little more spiffy .. u know.. her casual/training clothes are just…. idk imagine a royal looking sports bra and leggings?? i guess … ALSO ALSO ALSO she can still shape shift but instead of limiting her shifting to just the changing of skin tone and height, she can completely mimic different alien species but only humanoid races.. like she can have those indented looking knees and huge ass horns and all that but she cant like. turn into an earth lizard u know what im saying. also also also also she still speaks with an accent just… not a british one….(endgame lion: no lion. she keeps leading and piloting the castle ship until destruction, where she leads and pilots the atlas)

- alejandro “LANCE, ale” reyes-leon: (age: 19 ½) [bi] hes cuban/black/vietnamese. his dad is black and vietnamese and his mom is cuban! hes got longish afro textured hair he keeps back in a pony tail most of the time like this or a bun when training bc hes too lazy to put any actual effort into styling it. hes got a couple moles/freckles scattered across his face and hes got sectoral heterochromiaaround his left pupil so theres a little bit of blue in one of his other wise dark brown eyes (like this).. i havent really figured out what his clothing style is.. i thought about keeping his clothes close to vld canon like his jacket (bc that was a really good jacket) but im gonna go a little wild here so hold on. he wears one of those surfer type looking skin tight turtleneck shirts underneath his heavy bomber jacket.. he wears just regular ripped jeans and hightops like in canon…….. hmm……. he wears a pink bead necklace under his shirt that was made by his little cousin just a couple weeks before he was shot off into space and he hasnt taken it off since…………. he also has a tiny stick and poke tattoo on his ankle he did when he was thirteen bc he thought it would look cool but it turned out kinda lop sided so he never takes his socks off in embarrassment (endgame lion: blue to red (during keiths reign as black paladin) then to black when shiro leaves voltron to lead the atlas alongside allura)

- takashi “SHIRO” shirogane: (age: 31) [gay] hes japanese/black. hes keiths uncle and the only family keith really has .. his design doesnt really change much except hes got long hair (like kuron) but its pulled up into a messy bun or pony tail.. in MY canon hes still gay and married to adam (whos name isnt adam i just cant think of a new name for him yet) (and adam lives dont worry) and theyre working on adopting a daughter before shiro has to leave for kerberos. shiro usually dresses in work out outfits so like. gym shorts… tank tops.. leggings.. imagine those white blonde dudes who always wear a man bun and only eat vegan and drink chai from starbucks bc thats exactly how shiro acts but ONLY ironically ……… when shiros abducted on the galra freighter and forced to fight in the ring, his hair streaks white but instead of just a clean scar across his nose, he has multiple long scars scattered across his face from a one x one between his face and some debris thrown at him by a gladiator. his prosthetic looks and remains kinda the same i guess but this time its decked out with claws on the finger tips so it looks a little more galran yeah? (endgame lion: no endgame lion. he pilots the atlas alongside allura)

- francesca “frannie, frankie, PIDGE” eleonora: (age: 15) [trans girl lesbian] shes . just italian i guess. so anyway shes not gonna be an asshole bitch like canon pidge.. shes gonna be the caring sweet but KINDA mean little sister we always wished we had.. the little sister who would tell u, with all honesty, that ur winged eyeliner was smudged before u hit the town with the girls and made a fool of urself……. ANYWAY shes still gonna be the ‘hacker’/computer geek techno girl but not as much ykno? shes JUST a little girl so she just kinda does her own thing. i rlly like all the fanart i see of her wearing overalls and stuff SO thats her canon design…… she wears faded overall jeans over a short sleeved pale pink tshirt w a dog one it and scuffed up chucks. she wears glasses but instead of just taking them from matt she has an actual prescription and is basically blind without them. i literally cannot stress this enough but shes such a nice girl like the team pretty much adopted her as their little sister the moment they boarded the castle ship. idk what else to add on to her!!!! i literally did not put any thought into pidge at all! (endgame lion: permanently green)

- opetaia“HUNK” tuitama: (age: 19 ¾) [bi] hes samoan/black. hunk was adopted and has two moms and three other siblings, all of who are younger than him. im not sure about his fashion other than i KNOW deep down in my heart that he would wear cargo shorts…. i cant find it in me to get rid of his bandana thing so i let him keep it except he uses it to tie his hair up instead of using it as a head band thing….. HUNK in my au is more of a tech freak/engineer than pidge so he handles most of that stuff with the occasional help from pidge (like wiring… she has tiny fingers that can grab the wires easier) hunk probably wears the crocs/sandals with socks combo but just because he loves hearing lance bitch about it whnever he struts into a room. hunk also looks good in his vest so im gonna let him keep that but it looks more modified… like it has a bunch of pockets and stuff to keep bolts and nuts and other stuff he needs to work with.. thats also why he wears cargo shorts; just for the pockets.. (endgame lion: permanently yellow)

also ur probably wondering “if lance is in black and keith is in red and allura doesnt pilot a lion, THEN WHOS PILOTING BLUE????” …….. heh… peep this………..

- ADAM elsammak-althani(thank u mal @fuckvld for ur gorgeous arabic adam hcs..): (age: 32) [gay] i dont have much to say about him other than read mals hc lists and that ADAM LIVES IN MY REBOOT and he also joins the voltron team and pilots the blue lion (i FIRMLY hc that hes a very free/wild spirit and just loves to make jokes and is just.. a really fun guy to be around and obviously blue would open up to him in a SECOND. dont even @ me) (endgame lion: BLUE!)

#VOLTRON #this is SO long im sorry mobile users :^(#ALSO..... HEH...... ill draw them soon...... someday... i promise..#also if i messed anything up just tell me and ill fix it.. muwah #Anonymous

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kalinara · 7 years

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Rip - honour. Rip - intelligence. Rip - savvy. Rip - interactions. Rip - groups. Rip - pride, hubris, arrogance. Rip - resiliency. Rip - attraction. Rip - relationships (any/all kinds). Rip -privacy. Rip - secrets (both keeping them and being out of the loop). Rip - touch. Rip - respect. Rip - love (all of them). Rip - disaster. Rip - loneliness. Rip - leadership. Rip - ever be ready/willing to have a relationship again? Rip - relaxation. Rip - nemesis.

Rip - honour.

Hah, that’s an interesting prompt because my gut instinct is that he is an honorable person…for the most part.

And for a certain definition of “honor”. (Sorry, American. I have no time for an extra “u”.)

I think he tries to follow a code of honor when he deals with the team, as much as possible. He lies to them, yes. But he also tends to be very open with the risks and their chances of success. For example, when he recruited them against Vandal Savage, he might not have told them the whole truth, but he never let them believe it was anything but a nearly-impossible quest. He always offered to take them home, and when Mick and Snart took him up on it, he didn’t make any attempt to stop them.

But at the same time, I think that he’s used to working on a bit more of a grand scale, with stakes that make honor and fair play a bit less of a priority.

Certainly, as we’ve seen, he isn’t inclined to a fair fight. He’s got that stunner for a reason. And while he’s a good hand-to-hand fighter, he does his best work via sneakiness and ambush. But he’s a scrawny man with no superpowers, so it’s debatable as to how fair some of these fights would be anyway, if he didn’t cheat. :-P

In the end, I think he’s a pragmatist who wants to be honorable, and tries to be honorable to an extent, but is willing to push that honor aside when the stakes are high enough.

Rip - intelligence

I think Rip has a lot of ingrained assumptions and prejudices with regard to intelligence and/or education. I think that it’s a quality that he values very highly. And I think we can see that in the way he initially responds to the crew.

He seems to immediately find a common ground with Martin. They clash at times, but there was an immediate mutual respect. As bad as he often was as a leader, he was usually pretty decent at managing Ray. (And for that matter, in Fellowship, he seemed to be even a little better at keeping Nate in line than Sara usually is.) He seems to have a lot more patience with the kind of accidental insubordination of distracted geeks than he does with other folk.

He gets along reasonably well with folks like Sara and Jax, who may not have the fancy degrees, but have a lot of natural intelligence. He respects, although distrusts, Snart.

And it probably, subconsciously, fed into his issues with Mick at first. Mick is not stupid at all, but his intelligence is on a social/emotional level that the Time Masters aren’t likely to value or even recognize. And I think Rip’s personal history adds some interesting layers to it.

Rip spent the first formative years of his life starving on the streets. We don’t know much about that time, but I’m inclined to think that if he’s so quick to stab an adult when feeling threatened, it probably wasn’t particularly pleasant. I think we can probably hazard a guess that there wasn’t much in the way of educational opportunities there either.

But that changed when he got recruited to the Time Masters. Suddenly, he was in this warm, safe, place, where he could eat his fill and no one could hurt him. It must have felt like a completely different world. And of course, the Time Masters didn��t just give their orphans housing and an upbringing, but an education as well. (and a healthy dose of indoctrination).

So I tend to think somewhere in the unconscious part of Rip’s mind, he associates education/intelligence with all of the good things like food, comfort, safety. Basically civilization. Whereas the lack of education/intelligence ends up associated with the fear, cold, terror, hunger of his very early past.

I don’t really think it’s the key reason he didn’t like Mick at first. But I think it’s tied up in all sorts of other issues. Mick is a criminal. Mick is brutal. Mick is angry and uncontrollable and violent. Mick is uneducated. Somewhere in the back of Rip’s mind, Mick basically is associated with everything that Rip has been raised to hate about his pre-Time Master past. And of course, the odds are that street-kid Rip would have met people that, on surface level, seemed a lot like Mick. And those likely would not have been fun or positive experiences.

None of this, of course, is fair to Mick. (Fortunately, Rip seemed to realize that after the Chronos debacle, and their dynamic shifts significantly and positively in the second half of the season.)

Rip - savvy.

Okay, so I was going to type a lot about how I think Rip values shrewdness and practical knowledge, but that’s boring and I just typed a lot about intelligence anyway. So instead, I will talk about pirates.

I think that Rip is secretly a big fan of pirate type media, and may have, at some point during rebellious adolescence considered running away and becoming a time pirate himself.

Gideon was always a little sad that he never followed through with it. His pirate dreams were a lot of fun, and she always thought she’d make a good pirate ship.

Rip - interactions.

I think Rip has no idea how to interact with people on a normal, person-to-person basis, without some sort of great goal or mission in mind.

I mean, can you imagine the poor guy trying to engage in small talk?

Rip - groups

So, the most interesting thing about the JSA/Spear reveal in season two, to me (as a single-minded Rip fan) was that it showed that Rip has actually worked with a group before. And surprisingly enough, seemed to be really effective at it.

I suspect a lot of it comes from the fact that by the time Rip recruited the JSA, they’d been working together for more than a decade. And even back in 1942, they were pretty calm, focused and disciplined. So it would have been pretty easy for Rip to present his case to them, and once they’d agreed to help, they would have devoted that calm, focused, discipline to the pursuit of their mutual goals.

But as we’ve seen: Time Masters tend to work alone. So I doubt he had any real appreciation of the work that goes into creating a team like that. Recruiting the Legends would have been a nasty surprise.

Rip - pride, hubris, arrogance

I think that Rip does tend toward a certain arrogance. I hesitate to call it hubris though, because I don’t think he tends toward “excessive” pride. (I think Rip’s deadly sin is more wrath than pride, honestly.)

Rip’s arrogance comes from his abilities and experiences. He’s a Time Master and he’s a damn good one. He’s Captained the Waverider for twelve years. He’s feared by time pirates. He has a shit ton of skills and training to back that up.

I don’t however think he’s a snob. I don’t think he has an innate sense of aristocracy, or the belief that he’s better than other people. He was pretty quick to treat his team as his equals. He respected Martin’s ability to use time equations, Jax’s ability as ship’s engineer, Sara’s ability to fight and to lead. I think that his initial issues with the Rogues weren’t so much feeling as though he was better than them, as they reminded him of an origin/life that he very much wanted to forget. There’s an interesting distinction there that might fuel its own blog post one day.

Rip’s secret keeping probably does have an element of pride, but I think it’s less about an inflated ego, and more a sense of “this is MY responsibility, I can’t put this on someone else’s shoulders.”

Now the Time Masters on a whole? The epitome of hubris. There’s a reason that I think of them as the time-space Order of Hermes. They scheme, they manipulate, they control, and they tell themselves that it’s for the best. That they’re the best people to make these decisions. And in the end, their machinations led to their own destruction.

Rip - resiliency

Rip is a survivor. He kind of has to be. We’ve seen the trauma list. But I wonder if maybe his resiliency hasn’t met its match. Rip’s been different since Land of the Lost. More shaken, less certain. And I don’t think it’s entirely about confusion over his place in the group.

I’ve described Rip as a festering knot of rage and sarcasm wrapped in a duster (a description that I am rightfully proud of), but we haven’t seen any of that rage since Rip woke up. Even when the poor guy was face to face with Eobard, all he managed was a tired sounding “in the brig”. It’s worrisome.

Rip - attraction

Okay, so I mentioned before that I officially claim Rip Hunter as an asexual character. Dude fell in love with a disembodied AI, whose only visual image is a floating blue head. He’s one of us.

That said, it’s clear that he has romantic attraction. We see that with Miranda, Jonah, and Gideon. It’s not a very large sample size, I’ll grant you. But what can you do.

But based on those, I would say that Rip seems to be drawn toward passionate, somewhat domineering personalities (Gideon’s subtler about it, but it’s definitely there), with strong convictions. And he seems to especially like beings with a wild or uncontrollable streak.

So this is where I reiterate the headcanon that Rip is romantically in love with his entire damn team.

(I suspect he also may have a bit of an oedipal/electra complex.)

(Bonus, slightly disturbing thought: if you look at Jonah Hex and then you look at Mick Rory, then it starts to be possible that there may have been yet another element involved in Rip’s initial difficulty in dealing with Mick. Just saying.)

Rip - relationships (any/all kind)

Hm. Well. For a Time Master, whose ethos specifically forbids most types of attachments, Rip seems to have collected a lot of them.

Miranda and Jonas are obvious, of course.

But there’s also the team, who he loves so much that even when he’s amnesiac he’s trying to save them.

There’s mentor/father figure, Druce. Mary Xavier. There’s Gideon. The JSA (at least Heywood and McNider. Courtney seemed more distant.) Jonah.

There’s even that fucked up obsessed villain dynamic that he has with both Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne.

I mean, really? That’s a lot of fucking relationships. He’s really bad at the no-attachment thing, isn’t he?

(Awkward crossover AU idea: Rip Hunter in the old Jedi Order. or possibly Rip Hunter, the galaxy’s worst accidental Sith ever.)

Rip -privacy and Rip - secrets (both keeping them and being out of the loop)

I think privacy among the Time Masters must be a really interesting concept. They have AIs that monitor dreams. Councils that regulate romantic relationships. Devices to literally invade people’s minds.

That’s not a society that puts a lot of stock in privacy.

But I’m reminded of something I read about Japan, when I was much younger, which discussed how even though physical personal space was very different there than in the United States (as anyone who’s ever been crammed into a Japanese subway can attest), many Japanese people had other ways to establish personal boundaries and maintain some measure of distance from one another psychologically, even if it can’t always happen physically.

And it makes me wonder if the Time Masters don’t have their own ways of psychologically creating some measure of privacy for themselves.

It may explain why Rip finds it so difficult to open up to his crew. What do you keep for yourself in a society where even your dreams are monitored?

That said, to Rip’s credit, he isn’t prone toward hypocrisy. He doesn’t seem to have much of an issue when the crew keeps secrets from him too. (He was concerned about Sara’s bloodlust, but he didn’t seem to be upset that she didn’t tell him about it, for example.)

Rip - touch

I think this is one of the ways that the Time Masters really fucked Rip up royally from day one. Because Rip is so standoffish most of the time, so rigid and closed off, that he pretty much breathes “don’t touch me” vibes.

But as has been pointed out and illustrated in lovely gifsets, Rip is remarkably touchy-feely when people are injured. Shoulder pats. Face holding. Hand holding. And it’s not a matter of him tolerating their need for comfort. He’s the one who reaches out.

He’s the one that, as soon as he’s freed from the brig in his mind, immediately clings to Gideon (though when it came to the kiss, she pretty much jumped up to meet him half way. But that’s a different bit of meta.)

And then there was that weird sort of lean/not-lean into Jonah Hex’s space when they’re bantering about laser guns.

I think ultimately that Rip is not touch-averse at all. He’s touch-starved. He wants to reach out to people. He wants to offer comfort and receive it. He’d actually really enjoy a shoulder pat or a hand-shake, or a god-damned real, corporeal hug. But he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

He gives “don’t touch me” vibes because he doesn’t know how not to. And that’s so very sad.

Rip - respect

Okay, this one is more tangential. But I always find myself wondering about Magister Druce. I mean, specifically, his role in young Rip’s life. Because Rip respects him and trusts him so damn much for most of season one. EVEN after being lead into an ambush. EVEN after knowing about Chronos. EVEN after he issues the Omega Protocol.

And has that actor EVER played a good guy? Ever?

But Rip’s utter shock when he learns the depths of Druce’s betrayal is unmistakable.

And the thing is, I’m not sure that the regard is entirely one-sided. I’ve mentioned before that the entire Oculus reveal was basically unnecessary. Rip was captured and likely to be executed, exiled, or just imprisoned for life. Druce had no reason to remove him from his cell and explain everything. Unless he seriously thought something would be gained by it. I wonder, if Rip had given into despair and surrendered, if Druce wouldn’t have actually brought him back into the fold. I kind of think that was the intention. (Especially given the parallel cuts to Mick’s re-brainwashing.)

It’s pretty clear that they were mentor and student at one time. But it seems like a little more than that. This isn’t just a student’s respect and trust for a mentor. It’s bigger, blinder, more unconditional than that. It’s a child’s trust, and as we’ve seen, Rip isn’t particularly good at trusting anyone.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Druce had been grooming him from a very young age. He might have even been the one who initially found little Michael on the streets and brought him in. It would explain a lot. Particularly the level of self-loathing that Rip has for his younger self. Mary Xavier wouldn’t have encouraged that, and instead seemed gently tolerant of Michael’s issues. Druce, however, may have.

And of course, then it leads to more speculation. Rip may not have trusted the Time Masters, but he trusted Druce. How much did he trust him? Did Vandal Savage know how to find Miranda and Jonas because Rip told Druce where they were?

Rip - love (all of them).

All of the types of love or all of the characters?

Okay, so, this is another “I blame the Time Masters” bit, but I suspect that eros and philia are really easily mixed up in Rip’s brain. It’s what comes of a society that stigmatizes normal human connections the way it does.

I’ve mentioned before that I imagine Rip sees gestures of romance in the same way that we look at overtly sexual acts, and I stand by that. In a lot of ways, I think he’d be more comfortable seeing sexual acts, as that’s just primitive biology. Romance and friendship, concepts that prize connections between people, that prioritize certain people over others or even the world… those are truly dangerous for a Time Master.

And considering that Rip did help break time specifically for his team, the Time Masters may have had a bit of a point.

But anyway, this is yet another chance to state my sincere belief that Rip Hunter is deeply in love with his entire team. Even Martin. Even Mick. And of course, Gideon. And he has no idea how to begin to parse out these emotions or what to do with them.

I think the Time Masters probably have a really interesting stance on storge. There are certain implications that it’s frowned upon as well. Certainly Jonas was a problem. And I suspect there’s a reason Rip had to cross his own timeline in order to seek his mother’s help.

The one storge type of relationship that seems to be tolerated is Rip’s regard for Zaman Druce. But perhaps that makes a lot of sense. If the young Time Masters’ are only allowed one outlet for human connection, they will likely be very dependent on it, and therefore more easily influenced.

Agape is probably the love most favored by the Time Masters. But I think it’s the love that Rip is least suited to. Agape requires a level of emotional distance that I don’t really think Rip has. Rip goes all in.

Rip - disaster.

I feel like that dash should be an equal sign. And that pretty much says it all. :-)

Rip - loneliness

One very consistent character trait of Rip’s is that, in the end, he really needs to have people around him. We’ve seen what he does when he’s alone: he either ends up succumbing to despair or engaging in tremendously bad, self-destructive ideas.

The truly depressing part about Rip’s story so far, however, is that he starts out as a man who is (except for Gideon, to be fair) completely alone with his grief, rage and guilt. He ends up gathering a makeshift family of misfits and assholes. But he still ends up suffering alone.

Rip - leadership

Wisecracks aside, I don’t actually think that Rip is THAT bad as a leader. As we’ve seen in the Spear flashbacks and in Fellowship: when there’s a clear goal, with a clear direction, with a team that’s willing to listen, he does fine.

Furthermore, there are a number of really good decisions that he made in season one that he never really gets credit for:

For example, naming Jax as ship’s mechanic. This wasn’t just a lucky spur of the moment decision. It was a decision made in the context of a growing issue.

If you recall, the relationship between Martin and Jax was a pretty important arc in the beginning of season one. Martin had kidnapped Jax to bring him along, to begin with, while Jax had expressed doubts that he’d be any use on this kind of team. They were also dealing with Martin being overprotective and domineering toward Jax, as a result of dealing with Ronnie’s death. Martin had to learn to trust and back off of Jax.

So looking at that, then we can see why naming Jax as the ship’s mechanic was actually a legitimately brilliant management decision.

Jax didn’t initially have a lot of self-confidence. He saw himself as the normal guy. An ordinary mechanic surrounded by super geniuses and assassins and so on. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a mechanic.)

But Jax was a mechanic and a very good one. And he was much smarter than he gave himself credit for. This made him an ideal choice. (And since he’s patient and mature, he’s far better suited than Ray, who while brilliant and mechanically inclined, is a bit too erratic for this kind of job.)

So Jax discovers that he has it in him to be an awesome Chief Engineer. Instant boost of confidence.

It also has nothing to do with Martin or Firestorm. As we’ve seen with Ray, when you have powers or cool tech, it can be very easy to put all your self-worth into one specific role. And when you’re partnered with someone who can be a little overbearing, like Martin, then that can be a lot of added stress or a recipe for co-dependence.

But this way, Jax has something that proves that he has value as a teammate besides just being Martin’s partner. It’s something that’s all his. And it gives him more of a way to argue on equal footing.

And it gives him a way to seek privacy and vent if he needs to. Need some time alone? Important repairs.

Another good decision that Rip made was to pair Kendra and Sara in White Knights. This was, if you recall, right after the episode where Sara had revealed her issues with bloodlust. And of course, we learn that Kendra’s having a great deal of difficulty managing her Hawk powers and memories.

Neither woman would have likely sought the other out on their own. As we saw, both had a considerable amount of distrust for each other at the time. Furthermore, Sara’s used to suffering in silence, while Kendra was understandably overwhelmed with the changes in her life.

They’re both good people though and even though they’re not likely to ask for help for themselves, both women were inclined to try to help someone else.

So Rip pairs them up, points out to each how she’s uniquely qualified to understand what the other is going through. And voila, both women are able to help each other, and then embark on a lasting friendship.

I don’t point this out to give Rip credit for either Jax’s achievements or Sara and Kendra’s. He is certainly not the reason that Jax was a good mechanic or the girls became friends.

But in both cases, he was the one to recognize the potential that these characters had, and pushed them into a position to discover that for themselves.

And that’s pretty good!

In the end, Rip’s biggest obstacle as a leader is, I think, a measure of confidence. He doesn’t have the confidence to open up to his team. He doesn’t have the confidence to exert authority over his team. So he is never able to quite direct or control them successfully.

Rip - ever be ready/willing to have a relationship again?

That’s a hard question. I think at some point in the distant future, he would be ready/willing to have a relationship, but honestly, he’s nowhere near that point right now. He’s not quite the jagged chasm of despair that he was in season one, thank goodness, but I think he’s still a bit too fragile.

One of the reasons that I ship Time Hex is that I think it’s the only relationship that I could see actually working right now, because all the groundwork was laid a long time ago. Even if you don’t think they had something going on then, there was still a level of trust and camaraderie that predates Rip’s current fragility.

Prior to Turncoat, I thought Time Canary had a chance to work too. He’s still kind of broken, but she’s kind of broken too, so I thought they might be in a place that they could help each other. But then there was evil Rip. And even though I think Sara’s already forgiven him, and had basically as soon as they saved him if not sooner, Rip isn’t anywhere near ready to forgive himself.

And really, I don’t think Sara would pursue it either right now, even assuming she’s interested. She has some idea of how lost and fragile he is right now, and how hard he’s trying to adjust to the changes of the crew, his role and hers. Pursuing a relationship right then and there would probably feel like a potential abuse of power. And I think Sara is someone who is always very conscious of that kind of thing.

Oddly, I also don’t think Rip is ready for Time Ship at this juncture, and I kind of wonder if that wasn’t maybe some subconscious push for him to leave the ship. Because he and Gideon have been partners for a very long time. She’s a rock and a sole point of stability for him. But suddenly, thanks to his own impulsive gesture, there’s something new and chaotic in the mix. I don’t think he’s remotely ready to process that.

Rip - relaxation.

I’m not sure that I believe Rip is able to relax. Even before his family died. He just seems like the sort of person who is constantly focused on a goal or idea.

I’ve mentioned that I don’t see Rip as much of a chess player. I think of him more as someone who would be putting together a giant 5 billion piece puzzle, or making something. Basically solitary and creative pursuits.

Rip - nemesis.

Hmm. Well, so far we had Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne? I admit though, I’d love to see the introduction of some rival ex-Time Masters or something.

But really, I want the return of Zaman Druce. He was such a great villain. I’d love to see him cross swords with Rip again. (Also, Leonard Snart would be back too. I know a lot of folk would enjoy that. :-P)

#Anonymous #rip hunter #legends of tomorrow #headcanon storm

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neist · 7 years

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Get to Know Me Tag

Get to Know Me Tag, tagged by @expectogladiolus. Thank you for the tag.

Tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know. I’ve been on Tumblr for years, but still haven’t quite sorted out in my head how it all works, so I’m not at all good with the tagging. I’m also in a pretty odd but highly emotional place today & brain is not working well, so forgive me if I fuck it all up. Tagging @ravatogh, @lattehappy, @arcanelibrarian, @ardatli, @chocobro-daydreams, @chocobrodreamteam, @dancing-aqua, @for-lack-of-a-better-world, @greatswordgladio, @ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade, @khirsahle, @kaciart, @lily-mina115, @miss-scientia, @sunshine-porcelain, @standbyme-ffxv, @tulipnight, @winemum-ignis

If any followers want to do this, consider yourself tagged by me, and if anyone I tagged doesn’t do this kind of thing, just ignore it :D

Nicknames: Nope

Zodiac sign: Taurus

Heigh: 5′6

Last thing you googled: just got a new combo lap-top/tablet so have been busily googling security freeware and aps

Favorite music artist: I notice there’s no”age” question here, but this answer might give me away anyway... Tori Amos, no question. The only artist to have held my interest throughout their entire career. I have every album, several singles and a shit load of downloads, and have only missed one concert in my area. “Little Earthquakes” spoke to me, and it really doesn’t matter that none of her songs since that album have resonated the same- that’s simply down to lives & experiences. I still adore her music (mostly- there’s been the odd duff song).

Song stuck in your head: for the sole reason of the wording of this question, it’s now “Can’t get you out of my head”. Good song, but once it’s there you’re stuck with it. Thanks, whoever wrote these questions!

Last movie you watched: Guardians of the Galaxy 2- very fun, highly reccomend

What are you wearing right now: jeans & a flowery top

Why did you choose your URL: for my main blog (Neist) it’s as simple as a place I adore. For the FFXV blog, I wanted something both photography & FFXV related. I was pleasantly surprised to discover “lovethelight!” was available. Realised about 3 months later that this was, probably, because I can’t type and accidentally stuck an extra “l” in there...... Ah well.....

What did your last relationship teach you: my sole “relationship” taught me that relationships aren’t for me

Religious or Spiritual: extremely anti-religious (although I try to respectful of others’ rights to their beliefs). Not spiritual either, but I could concede a theoretical possibility of some sort of energy that we can’t conventionally sense

Favorite color: varies, but midnight blue and forest green always soothe me

Average hours of sleep: damn, I could sleep forever and die happy. Absolute bare minimum of 8 required. Honestly I’m at my best with between 10 and 12. I LOVE sleep. I’ve claimed before that Billy Kaplan may be my spirit animal, but maybe it should be Noctis....

Lucky number: is, to me, a vaguely ridiculous concept

Favorite characters: OK, sit back and make yourselves comfortable.....

Ignis Scientia (FFXV): intelligent, kind, devoted, selfless, sassy, beautiful & altogether perfect except for the whole “fictional character” business

Billy Kaplan (Wiccan, Young Avengers): cute, sarcastic, super powerful gay teen wizard geek, struggling with some serious self-esteem issues and depression

Tara Maclay (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): sweet, gentle, loving lesbian witch, whose death I’m still not over.

Kaylee Frye (Firefly): sweet, gentle, horny brilliant engineer.

For brevity (hey, I’m trying, OK?), I’ll put all my Discworld favs together: Granny Weatherwax, Sam Vimes, the Patrician, Death, the Librarian, Nanny Ogg

Claire Temple (Netflix’s Marvel shows): she’s actually been the standout for me in all of them so far- interested to see how things progress for her (which does sadly mean I’ll need to brave Iron Fist at some point...)

How many blankets do you sleep with: I see this question so often, & it always confuses me. Blankets? Isn’t that a bit of an old concept? I remember having blankets at my Gran’s house, but even she had changed to duvets by the time I was 10. Is it an American thing? Or are we Brits the odd ones?

Dream job: wow, now you’re asking. Having just today become informally unemployed, with my former boss and HR both suggesting I think about a career change, I guess it’s a good time to think about it, but I’ve really never had one. I’m, perhaps, slightly above average competency in a lot of areas, but no one wants a jack of many trades when there are aces, kings and queens of specific trades. And there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted to do. I like taking pictures, and I quite like writing, and I love singing, but I’m nowhere near good enough at any of those things to do them for a job. If someone wants to pay me to sleep, hell yes.

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siircns · 7 years

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okay, so i’ve been meaning to do this for a while because i’ve had a bunch of new muses that i want to put out there. so under the cut is some information about a variety of new and new-ish, some returning and some that just don’t have much, muses that i’ve got. give it a quick read, and then give this post a like if you’d wish to have a starter from them! (i’ll come to you about which muse).

tenley harding. 23. aspiring screenwriter, personal assistant. los angeles. barbara palvin.

so tenley is my precious little bean, she’s such a sweetheart. she loves soft things, she loves to write, her favorite place in the entire world griffith park because there’s this little spot she always goes to sit to write. she’s a stationery fanatic from hell, she spends way too much money on it (she gets it from me, sorry). but honestly she’s just an unintentionally reclusive sort of person--she’s not shy by any means, but she always ends up by herself, which she’s not entirely against. super friendly little bean. tenley is currently working as a personal assistant (where is dependent on verse or plot) while she’s trying to make it with her screenwriting. super friendly, but sometimes comes off as flakey because of her inevitable, unintentional habit to be reclusive. pansexual, biromantic.

dahlia taylor. 27. travel photographer and journalist. from melbourne, australia, but her present location is always changing. margot robbie.

tbh she is the most relaxed, most laid back, most chill of the chill people you will ever meet. dahlia has basically been travelling ever since she finished high school, never really feeling like australia was the place she was supposed to be even though she’ll never call anywhere else home. she’s always had this sense of adventure--kind of made her the most problematic child in the entire world because she’d always go wandering off. dahlia picked up photography when she was about twelve or thirteen, and when she decided to leave home, it seemed like the best thing to do. she’s very used to roughing it on her travels, camping frequently unless she knows someone or meets someone willing to put her up wherever she is. heterosexual, heteroromantic.

isa laghari. 30. ceo. new york city. priyanka chopra.

honestly the most ruthless and heartless human being ever. she just cares about getting the job done, rarely has a personal life other than the occasional active efforts to get some sex in to blow off some steam. she honestly spends more time shopping and going to couture shows than she does having genuine human interaction tbh. also an avid workaholic, and don’t expect her to apologize for it. i mean she HAS a heart but good luck finding it y’all. heterosexual, heteroromantic.

valentia benitez. 18. college freshmen. washington d.c. madison beer.

okay so her dad was previously the head of the fbi and as well as an analyst for the cia, and now he serves as secretary of state. she was born in new york while her feather was at the fbi there, but has lived in washington since she was about seven or eight years old. val is very much a little preppy baby, and she’s a-ok with that. she lives of ralph lauren and tommy hilfiger, and spending summers up at the hamptons and out on yachts. but my little angel is studying sociology and political science because, while she’ll never admit it, there’s a lot about how her father conducts himself and his politics that she doesn’t agree with. she’s very used to being the perfect daughter, daddy’s little princess, that she’s still very very far from finding out who the hell she is all on her own. bisexual, heteroromantic.

rylee agrona. 26. underground boxer, fitness trainer, bartender, single mother. new york city. elizabeth olsen.

so she’s my tough lil cookie, she literally will kick yo damn ass if you even look at her the wrong way so #havefun. literally takes no shit from no one; has no tolerance for men who don’t have their shit together or can’t handle her. her daughter is three years old, basically had her with some guy that basically didn’t have his shit together or was able to handle her, so... she’s not even sure where he is now. but rylee literally kicks ass on the weekends to make money to spoil her daughter and everything. she’s always been the tomboy??? type and honestly the thing she gets the most amusement from is guys hitting on her at the bar she’s working and basically like throwing them out herself #suchfun. bisexual, biromantic.

javier vargas. 35. physical therapist. chicago. oscar isaac.

my lil dad bean he’S MY ONLY??? DAD muse oh my ok so he’s got two kids (his eldest is his daughter who is about seven or eight, and his son is around four)--his marital status is verse dependent, so like yea those kids can be your female’s or whatever, just let me know what’s happening, but his kids are non-negotiable. his kids are his whole world. he works as a physical therapist so he’s like pretty well off for money. even before his kids, javi has always been the type that tries to take care of those close to him. he’s like the reliable friend. but do not??? take him for a pushover, this bitch gets pissy when shit not looking up tbh. he sounds cliche i’m sorry pls love him. heterosexual, heteroromantic.

rhett cohen. 33. pediatric surgeon. denver. taylor kinney.

ok precious bean he’s so good with kids, he’s such a lil smarty pants, so he became a pediatric surgeon. he can be a bit??? of a hardass, he’s very good at remaining professional when he needs to be, but he’s also the cutest lil softy with the biggest heart. he actually comes from new york where he grew up among the bratty upper east side, and after his little sister died, it kind of drove him to do what he can to save??? lives. he moved away from his gross ass robotic parents to denver, and he always spends christmas over in other parts of the world doing charity work because he’s?? i don’t wanna call him the do-good type but he’s very much in line with the idea that he should use his many privileges to do more than just spend too much money on houses and clothes and penthouses and stupid decor. heterosexual, heteroromantic.

paxton miller. 21. MIT student, part time software designer. boston. jack gilinsky.

y’all he’s my lil itty bitty nerd. he’s literally glued to his computer all day long. he’s been into computer since he was about nine, could build one on his own easily, and is intending to work in engineering on a much more....space-related level. he’s my precious babe that knows way too much about all things science, HATES geology (don’t ask) and ya. he’s not overly experienced in the world of romance, but my lil babe loves hanging out with his friends so pls don’t mistake him from one of the incompetent geeks of the big bang theory thnks. bisexual, biromantic.

#that took way too long for such a half-assed effort but there u go #anyway #【 ❝ bella speaks ❞ 】#indie rp #indie smut rp #open rp

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ploppythespaceship · 3 years

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Discovery Season 3 Review

Spoiler free version: I enjoyed this season much more than the first two. It feels like it’s being written by entirely different people, who want to work with the Star Trek universe rather than against it. It’s definitely not perfect, and it has some pretty glaring flaws, but overall the setting and characters are strong enough to carry it through. I’m pleasantly surprised and... almost a little angry, because the first two seasons could have been more like this and just weren’t.

Spoilers under cut.

What I Liked

There are no terrible out of character Klingons this season. Literally, that’s my favorite part. I am sick and tired of terrible out of character Klingons.

The premise of this season is really strong. A 23rd century starship being pulled in the 32nd century, aiding a Federation that’s been utterly devastated by a mysterious apocalyptic event. It works incredibly well and brings up a lot of interesting themes. Honestly, I wish this had just been the premise of the show from the beginning.

The universe has been carried forward in a lot of interesting ways, like the shrinkage of the Federation and Vulcan and Romulus having achieved reunification. There are also some good tie-ins with Picard that don’t feel too forced. The first two seasons felt like the continuity was at odds with the previous shows, but this season feels like it fits into the universe. I might not enjoy every decision they’ve made, but at least it all makes sense.

This season also has a much better balance between episodic and serialized storytelling. The episodes flow together and follow one continuous plot, but still have their own self-contained stories to be enjoyable on their own. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the non-stop everything of the first two seasons.

Book is a wonderful new character. He’s not like any empaths we’ve seen on Trek before. Plus David Ajala is fantastic and there’s something so immediately likeable about him. (He and Michael also have more chemistry within five minutes than Michael and Ash had in two whole seasons.)

Saru getting to be captain is well-deserved and long overdue. He’s a great character, and it’s nice to see the first non-human series regular captain on the show. He wasn’t really the the best captain at times, letting his personal motivations get in the way of things, but it was a fascinating development for both him and the show that made logical sense. And it was nice to see it.

Tilly is the best she’s ever been. Her being made first officer works surprisingly well, despite her inexperience, and it offers her character so much growth. I love how kind she is, and how her emotions are treated as strengths. And I adored her being acting captain for the most intense parts of the finale. Getting her to that position was a bit contrived, considering she was outranked by basically all of the bridge crew, but I can’t even mind it that much. It just works.

I found Stamets to be pretty insufferable in seasons 1 and 2, since he fit into a category of snarky genius asshole that I’ve never particularly enjoyed. However, in this season he’s fully transitioned to awkward engineering dad and he’s infinitely better as a character for me now. I don’t think he’ll ever be a favorite, but I have a new appreciation for him that I just couldn’t muster before.

Culber finally develops a personality this season! In past seasons he felt like a cardboard cutout, but now he feels like his own character. He has a sass and determination to help others that may not necessarily want his help, often reminding me of McCoy.

Some of the bridge crew have been getting more focus this season, particularly Detmer, and it’s nice to see these characters finally be more fleshed out after essentially being extras for two seasons.

Adira is wonderful. A genius non-binary 16 year old who unexpectedly becomes a Trill host to preserve their boyfriend’s memory in some way. Beautiful story, beautiful character. And I’m very grateful that Adira isn’t non-binary because of Trill nonsense, they were just already non-binary, because non-binary people exist and don’t need sci-fi nonsense to “justify” it.

There’s a lot of really delicious character tension, and most of it works. Characters act selfishly at times, but it’s understandable. Motivations are at odds with one another and it creates very genuine conflict where you somehow root for all of them at once. It feels earned and plays out naturally without feeling forced or overdone, unlike previous seasons which had conflict tossed in for arbitrary reasons. Moments that stand out are Saru and Michael’s conflict when she goes against his orders, and Paul getting furious with Michael for not letting him go back to save Hugh and Adira.

The scene where Discovery finds Federation headquarters and geeks out over the ships and the technology... I’m still thinking about it weeks later. There was such joy and wonder to that moment. And all the little touches and homages that didn’t take it too far over the top, like Voyager J and the USS Nog.

Admiral Vance is also a surprisingly compelling character. Oded Fehr is just fantastic in the role. And you can feel that he’s very different from the admirals of previous shows, because the Federation he oversees is so different. It’s refreshing to have a recurring admiral that isn’t an insufferable ass.

What I Didn’t Like

I still hate the spore drive. It should say how wildly out of place in the timeline it was that even 900+ years in the future, this technology vastly outclasses anything else the Federation has. It’s handled slightly better in that it’s treated like a valuable asset that must be protected and used sparingly, which makes it a bit less of a magical plot device, but it’s still overpowered and awkward.

Mirror Georgiou has very much overstayed her welcome. She’s a constant reminder of why the mirror universe only works in short bursts, and isn’t meant to be taken all that seriously. She’s so cartoonishly over-the-top evil, yet the show doesn’t seem to be aware of that... somehow everyone adores her now despite her being awful, constantly. It makes for a character with an arc that doesn’t gel with any of the rest of the season. I mentally checked out for pretty much all of the mirror universe two parter, as I was bored out of my skull watching her do... whatever she was doing. I don’t even remember. She also gets this extremely long-winded and touching goodbye where everyone reminisces about her, which takes up entirely too much time and doesn’t make any sense. The show is genuinely better off without her, and her absence was felt immediately -- in a good way.

While this season does better than past seasons at getting us to know and care about the minor bridge crew, there’s still not really enough. Nhan gets an emotional departure scene reminiscent of Airiam’s death in season 2, but much like that moment there isn’t nearly enough buildup or attachment to her character. It’s an utterly unearned moment. And several times in the finale they cut to a woman who was part of the core group getting their emotional sacrifice moment, but I still don’t know who the fuck she is.

This show probably has the strongest cast of all the Trek shows, in terms of acting ability. Unfortunately, this means that the few who aren’t holding up their end stick out like a sore thumb. Tig Notaro is easily the worst, making me dread every moment Jett is onscreen. Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz are usually tolerable, but are noticeably flat when compared to most other characters (though I do think Rapp did well with his emotional scenes in the finale). And while I liked Gray as a character, I was a bit disappointed with Ian Alexander’s performance.

The Emerald Chain was underutilized, and Osyraa quite underwhelming. I thought her writing was pretty good, especially towards the end of the season when they started to humanize her a bit more, but the actress just didn’t have the gravitas to carry it. There were also hints of interesting themes, especially where the scientist under her genuinely thought she was a force for good and had to confront that he’d been helping a monster, but the show didn’t quite seem willing to commit.

This season had a similar issue to the first season of Picard, where the setting is so interesting and has so much fantastic political potential, but the plots don’t take full advantage of it. Osyraa’s proposed alliance with the Federation could have been a fantastic talking point that lasted longer than the ten minutes they allowed it, but instead we flew past it for more shooting scenes. (I think the finale could have benefitted from being a three parter rather than just two.)

Ultimately, I wasn’t terribly satisfied with the answer to what caused the Burn. I didn’t find Su’Kal to be terribly compelling and I didn’t like how detached it was from the rest of the plot. It was also very pseudoscience-y, and while Trek has definitely had its share of that... I don’t know, something about it just didn’t work for me.

#personal #reviews #discovery spoilers

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neptunecreek · 4 years

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Future Ada: Tech Organizing Through an Intersectional Lens

Ada Lovelace's work on the first analytical engine helped lay the path for our modern world and continues to serve as an inspiration to people worldwide, including Electronic Frontier Alliance member Future Ada.

Based in Spokane, WA, Future Ada was founded in 2017 to advance opportunities and support for underrepresented genders in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. That same year, Forbes noted that closing the gender gap could increase U.S. Gross Domestic Product by two trillion dollars, yet work environments in many of these fields are so hostile to women that over fifty-percent will leave the sector as a result.

"Just because you're not a master at your skill or you don't have something published in your name, doesn't mean you can't bring something to your field."

Since their launch, Future Ada has grown into the understanding that establishing a genuinely representative sector requires an intersectional approach, and that creating inclusive spaces, where individuals from all diverse backgrounds want to be, is key to that mission. In the days leading up to our recent collaboration on panels at this year's HOPE and DEF CON conferences, I spoke with Rebecca Long and Emilie St-Pierre—respectively Future Ada's founder and Security Ambassador—to find out what they've learned since the group’s founding, and how they have adapted to the needs of their community and this unprecedented moment.

How did the idea for Future Ada come about? What inspired it and what were some of the first steps you took toward making it a real thing?

Rebecca: In 2017, I was really struggling with my career. As a woman in tech, I was dealing with some discrimination and sexism in my own career, and I wasn't feeling supported by the leadership in my company. Honestly, I was feeling like I should quit all of tech. I felt like, ‘nobody wants me here, I don't feel welcome, and the messages that I'm getting are that I am not good enough to be here—and no one wants to help me improve to meet whatever mysterious gap that no one will disclose, then maybe I should just go do something else.’ Thankfully, I ended up going to a conference called Write/Speak/Code that happened to be nearby in Portland that year. I went with another woman on my team who's a developer. At this woman- and non-binary-specific tech conference, they had everyone divide up into two groups. One was for the people who were newer in their careers, and one who was for people who were further along. I ended up in that [second] group.

Throughout the week, we had to come up with projects and talk about them. At first, I didn’t know what to do. Then I got a text message from an old boss—also a woman—and she was expressing the same feelings. That’s when I got mad. I felt like, ‘maybe I don't belong here, but I'm sorry, I know for a fact that you belong here because you're awesome.’ I thought, what kind of nonsense is this that we're both feeling like we're being driven out of tech? I have a ton of experience—over a decade of experience at that point—and she had even more than me. I felt, ‘we're well trained and we have every right to be here.’ So, I channeled that into this project at the conference. I decided I was going to create a nonprofit.

I was already running a user group called Spokane Geek Girls and active in the community. I had already been feeling like there was more I wanted to do to help people that were coming to me for mentoring, and help, and feeling similar to me. I had this idea of a nonprofit that would be what I’d need. But, I also felt like ‘no, I don't know how to do that. I have no idea how to start a non-profit or run an organization. That's just a ridiculous idea.’ But it was at this conference I decided, nope, that's not a ridiculous idea. This is really important and I'm going to find out how to do it. So, I bothered all of the organizers of this conference to tell me everything they knew. How do I do this?

I made some friends and they helped me develop our original mission statement and our name. They were all wonderful soundboards for me. There hadn’t been anything like this in Spokane. I just tried to channel all of my anger at the industry for lack of support and all that I'd been experiencing. I thought ‘we need to do better. We need to channel that into positive energy, and I want to help other people.’ It helps me to help other people and I know other people are in similar states. Maybe they don't feel comfortable speaking up, or maybe they just haven't woken up to what's going on around them. Maybe they don't understand why they're never getting that promotion or why they're not getting these career opportunities.

It sounds like maybe that conference was an awakening moment for you in the way that you and other women were experiencing Imposter Syndrome. Are there any tools or strategies that you've been able to use that help women identify that that's what they're feeling and overcome that?

Rebecca: Every speaker—and these are folks who are accomplished, wrote books, high-level management—and they're like ‘I also feel this way.’ And it was just like, ‘what!?” That's incredible. At some level, I'd always known that. But I think hearing it, and hearing it again, and hearing everyone share their stories, that was most powerful for me. Because you feel that you aren’t good enough right now, that doesn't mean that you actually aren't good enough. It's a facade that society or various things are trying to tell you and convince you of.

Hearing other people, who are very successful, talk about that kind of stuff, and share their stories and how they work through it—even if it's ‘I just powered through,’ that’s been really helpful for me.

I try and speak about this stuff and be open with my own experiences with people, and help others know that it's okay if you are also feeling this way. That doesn't mean that you have to stop. That doesn't mean that you don't belong here. It doesn't mean that you don't deserve a promotion or that nice salary or whatever your dream job is. You can still make an impact.

In the last few years, I’ve been picking up the storytelling mantra as a tool. I want to highlight other people's stories and give people a platform, so they feel safe to talk to me about their story and I can share, with them, my story.

One of the other things that, thankfully, Emilie was able to bring was an emphasis on security. Security has always been a passion of mine but it's always been on the side, because it's not really my main job. So, I've been really happy Emilie's been able to help bring some of that to our organization with our open office hours and with our security workshops. To really make these things approachable for the whole community. We want everyone to feel like technology and all of these things are safe, and you can do it. You don't have to be some math genius to do any of this stuff.

Emilie, have you had any experiences with Imposter Syndrome or starting to buy into folks devaluing your work or your contribution?

Emilie: Yeah, fully. To this day it comes and goes. I have to say, sometimes it’ll come back in moments where I'm going through something hard at work. But I definitely had Imposter Syndrome when I was new to the security industry. I'd hang out at conferences like DEF CON when I was still new. I was learning a lot, but even though I had some skills, I constantly compared myself to the security researchers that had found vulnerabilities. These people that were presenting at these conferences, I was like ‘well, I don't have something like that to bring to the table’ so I just figured I wouldn't belong. But just because you're not a master at your skill or you don't have something published in your name, doesn't mean you can't bring something to your field. I think it took me a while to realize that. Later on, training people that were new to the field helped me realize that. ‘Oh, I can easily tell this person what they can bring to the field so why is it harder to say that to myself?’ I've gotten better with that over time, but it's very relatable.

The name Future Ada, I imagine it's an ode to Ada Lovelace, but can you talk a little bit about how you arrived at that name?

Rebecca: Yeah, it is totally in honor of Ada Lovelace. I find her very inspiring. Our whole computer industry is thanks to her. We have a tendency—over history—to erase certain people from their contributions. She was one of them. Having her as part of our name, I get to talk about her. I can say, ‘hey did you know that computer science, the whole reason we have technology, is thanks to a woman? Did you know that?’ That's been really awesome.

I want our organization to help create future Ada Lovelaces. Ada Lovelaces of today, of tomorrow, of the next day. Our next generation. Where we're inspiring folks to go out there and break those molds. Because she definitely broke molds back in her day. That's what we need to be doing. That's how you get really awesome things and you can change the world. That's what we were going for when I came up with the name.

How did you find Future Ada, Emilie?

Emilie: Thanks to the Diana Initiative, which is a small conference that tags alongside others during hacker summer camp. So, DEF CON, Blackhat, and B-Sides Las Vegas. I had just moved to Spokane, and I had already been doing these workshops over in Las Vegas about security and privacy, and had been hosting crypto parties, and I wanted that to continue in Spokane. But, Spokane is different. There wasn't a hackerspace that was open weekly. So, I just focused on seeing what I could do with other folks. When I saw that Rebecca was speaking at the Diana Initiative and it said she was from Spokane, I was so excited. I went to see her talk, and then after the talk let her know I was also from Spokane and that I’d love to do something together. I told her that I’d been doing these workshops and was looking to bring them. She was super receptive and very welcoming. Since then we’ve been doing these workshops. Learning as we go along. Now we get to offer them online, which is really cool. So, yeah, it's been fun to see our partnership grow and where we took it from there.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you faced creating the group and finding the right people?

Rebecca: Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was surprised that I had people coming to me. I was trying to keep it kind of on the D.L. that I was doing this until I had it really formulated, but word started getting out, and people were saying ‘I want in on this,’ ‘I want to be on your board,’ ‘let me help you.’ That was really inspiring.

Challenges? I'm not a marketing person, that's not my specialty. We don't really have anyone on our board that's a marketing expert. So we learned a lot on that end. I feel like we're learning a lot by doing things wrong. Not wrong, but not very effectively. We think ‘this will work great’. And it works, sort of, but we want to have a bigger reach. Learning more marketing will help us on that front but that takes time. It is a challenge.

We want to be really careful with what we do. We want to make sure that when we expand our board, that we're bringing in the right people. That we’re really mindful about that. We’re also aware of our 100% white board. As we work to expand our board, and organization leadership, we are being mindful to diversify ourselves and bring in better racial perspectives. We are working as an organization to learn how to grow and best speak on the topic of race and injustice. It's a process and it's important so we aren't shying away from it.

Are there any other challenges that you didn't anticipate?

Emilie: Creating the workshops and letting people know that we are available to help them. We spend time creating these workshops. We spend the time to get volunteers to come to workshops and be there to help folks. I thought our biggest challenge would have been managing the demand, because we literally offer free tech support—and privacy and security support—but it's actually been very easy to do that. We have open hours for folks that we want to help, but we're obviously not reaching as far as we can. For me, marketing is like an alien planet. My background is really privacy and security. I think that's the challenge I've never faced before. And definitely the hardest one from my end.

Rebecca: We've had some really successful programs. We ran March for Science last year in Spokane. It was great. It was kind of a last minute thing. We came in to help as the new parent organization, and it was super successful. We had a huge turnout but that was one event. A one-day thing. And, then we've had other one-day events that have been really successful. But then our recurring workshops aren’t even an hour and we have low turnout. We haven't unlocked that piece yet.

Since moving online because of the pandemic, we've seen higher participation in our workshops, and I feel like we're going to have higher participation across the board. So, we're working to transition everything. Next year when we restart some of our year-long programs, they'll be online or a majority online. Maybe part of our problem is that Spokane is a little different and folks have different priorities, but attending something from home, where they don't have to worry about travel or parking, I think that kind of helps avoid it and it's less of a dent in their day. I'm really hopeful that this actually can be a really positive thing for our organization. and that it also expands our reach outside of Spokane. Anyone can participate. Which is really cool because it helps broaden our reach.

Are there any other partnerships in your area that you’ve found to be effective partnerships?

Rebecca: Emilie’s been working with Volunteers of America.

Emilie: Yes. With Crosswalk. We teach teenagers about privacy and security. Online privacy and security. We've even done some introductory cryptography stuff. I'm very big on making sure that it's something fun. It’s a puzzle. We actually use some of EFF’s crypto tools for that. At the end of the workshop I told our participants ‘did you know that crypto is math and you just did math?’ They thought it was really fun and really cool. For kids that are maybe told that they're not good at math, or are uncomfortable with the idea of math, after that they realize that there's all sorts of ways to look at math. That's a big partnership for us.

Rebecca: There's another nonprofit in Spokane, that is more of a general tech nonprofit called Inland Northwest Technologists (INT). Our original Vice President came from that organization. He had brought to Spokane, with INT, this event called Code in the Dark. The last two times that event has been held in Spokane, it's been a partnership between that organization and ours. We bring in more of a diversity, and really work to help and make sure it’s an inclusive space. The first few years they ran it, it was nearly all men that were participating. Only men were in the top three winners. October of last year, the last time we held it, was the first time we had a woman win the competition. It was amazing.

We have been trying to work with the YWCA in Spokane, to help bring some of these security principles and privacy principles to their domestic violence survivors. Emily and I are very passionate about that and we want to be supporting this group of our community. We know the YWCA has been very busy. Just in general. So getting the momentum to really get that partnership off the ground has been a little slow. We're still hopeful. We're not going to give up on it anytime soon.

Emilie: We are already available for service for survivors. When we have our open office hours on Saturdays we are ready to accept survivors. We have a clinical approach to detect compromise. So, we can accept anyone that is in that situation and help them navigate their technology or help them navigate compromises or any kind of stalkerware, spyware. We are ready to do that already.

I think switching to online has been wonderful for certain aspects of what we offer. The workshops are available to a larger population, and more accessible in some ways. My only concern is office hours. We would typically do them downtown at the Spokane Library. This also gave us the opportunity to help homeless folks. We had a few people come in that don't have a computer at home. Don't have a home. How do you make sure that you're helping that population? So that’s something that, when things start to open up, we'll definitely want to make sure that we're not overlooking certain segments of the population that we might be able to help. We said we're going to focus on being very online but not 100% online, because we don't want to miss those folks that we might be able to better serve that way.

No two communities are exactly the same. That’s one of the reasons it’s so critical to have groups like Future Ada that are rooted in and can adapt to the needs of their city or town. What are you finding are the core needs of your community? Is it different from what your original expectations were?

Rebecca: My original intention was really limited. The organization was focused on gender diversity. I thought we would just focus in on that. What I've found is you can't really solve that problem without taking an intersectional approach. If you care about women in tech, then great, you're gonna need to have an inclusive environment. Hey, you know what? That also helps all these other people. So, really, focusing on shifting our mindset to be inclusive and approachable really helps everybody. That's been kind of a shift for me that I guess I was a little surprised with, but I'm really happy that we've made this turn. I'm also learning how many people in our community could use more basic support. Not necessarily learning how to program, but ‘how do I fix this on my browser?’ Really turning folks from being afraid of technology to helping them feel that they can do this. That's been a little surprising to me, but I'm really happy that that's something that we can help with. Wherever the community is, that's where we want to be to help lift everybody up.

What is Future Ada’s decision-making process like? What are the voices that are involved? How do you work together to come to a shared path?

Rebecca: We have different committees. Anything security or privacy related, Emilie is in charge of that. So, anything she says we're probably just gonna back it. We have our career mentoring committee. One of our other board members is responsible for that. It’s the same thing, whoever is responsible for a committee we've entrusted them with leading that and reporting back anything that seems more pivotal or in need of a larger decision. But, generally speaking we meet once a month as a board, and we discuss things on a regular basis. I think we're all pretty much in alignment. We're also still a really small group, board wise, and our committees are still pretty small. Once we get bigger we're gonna need a more formal process, but at the moment we're all pretty well in sync, I think. Emilie, what do you think?

Emilie: I was smiling when nash asked that question, because I was like ‘how do we come to decisions?’ Well, first we share all of our cats and cat videos during our meeting. And once we've done that, then we start really having these discussions. But what I like is that everyone is very very receptive and generally considers everyone's point of view and opinion really well. It's been a really nice dynamic, and I think it has a lot to do with, you know, starting the meeting off with cat memes and showing off our real cats, if we can. It makes a big difference.

Future Ada’s work to lift up and support Spokane women in STEAM has extended far beyond their local area, while still being focused on the needs of their own community. As members of the Electronic Frontier Alliance they have been instrumental in contributing to the development of related work for allied groups throughout the U.S.

If you are a member of a community or student-led group in your area working to protect digital security, free expression, privacy, creativity and access to knowledge, consider joining the Electronic Frontier Alliance.

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Bill Nye the Science Guy released the first installment in his best-selling middle grade series, Jack and the Geniuses, co-written with Gregory Mone, this past April — and now he’s gearing up for a second book.

Jack and the Geniuses: In the Deep Blue Sea follows Jack, his genius siblings Ava and Matt, and their pal, inventor Dr. Hank Witherspoon, as they investigate a project by tech billionaire Ashley Hawking and engineer Rosa Morris that’s mysteriously being sabotaged. While they meet a wide cast of suspects (including surfers and a cat-loving former Navy SEAL), they also learn all about the ocean and green energy.

EW can reveal an exclusive excerpt from this second installment, in advance of the book’s Sept. 12 release date. Check it out below.

Excerpt from Jack and the Geniuses: In the Deep Blue Sea by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone

Chapter 1

Inside the Underplane

The cliffs of Nihoa Island stood tall as we soared above the calm blue water. Nihoa means “toothed” in Hawaiian, but the jagged mass of gray-green rock jutting up out of the Pacific Ocean looked like the rotten molar of a sea monster. We were flying low in a small six-seater airplane, and I really, really didn’t want to crash into that tooth. For about the fifteenth time, I checked my seat belt.

Our pilot, the bazillionaire computer scientist Ashley Hawking, was rambling about the annoying birds that nested on the island. But I didn’t care about finches or swallows. An eagle could have chest-bumped my window and it would not have shifted my focus. If we continued on our current course, we were going to smash into the jagged wall like an egg launched from a slingshot.

The plane’s engine roared.

My stomach spun.

Next to me, my brother was staring straight ahead, eyes bulging, with his thin black notebook computer open on his lap. I grabbed his shoulder. His muscles were as solid as rocks and his face was a greenish shade of white. “Matt?” I asked. “Is she pulling up?”

His mouth barely opened. “I hope so,” he mumbled.

Our sister, Ava, was sitting in the row behind us, watching the flashing red and green numbers on the electronic control panel. A vein on the side of her head pulsed. She didn’t notice me staring back at her. Meanwhile, Ashley Hawking was grinning so wide I could see the edges of her smile from my seat directly behind her. Our mentor, the geek-famous inventor Henry Witherspoon, or Hank, glanced back at me from the co-pilot’s seat, his awkward smile flashing too many teeth. Was he trying to make us feel better? If so, he was failing.

Hank leaned over to Ashley. He held his hand out flat and swooped it up toward the roof of the cockpit. “Should we, you know, ascend?”

“What?” Hawking asked. “No! Of course not. Ascend? I thought you knew!”

“Knew what?”

Hawking let go of the controls and waved her hands in a sweeping motion. She sighed with disappointment. “This is one of yours!”

“One of my what?” Hank asked.

“One of your designs!”

Hank spun in his seat, scanning the interior. His mouth was all bunched to one side. He was squinting. And he was completely stumped. Only Hank Witherspoon would struggle to recognize one of his own inventions. His mind was so productive that he dropped out new ideas with about as much thought as a chicken laying eggs.

Matt reached forward with one of his long arms and pointed. “Ummm . . . cliff?”

“What was that?” Hawking yelled back.

We couldn’t have been more than a few football fields away from the rock wall. “I think he’s wondering if we’re planning to avoid that cliff,” I said.

Below us, out the left side of the plane and far from the island, a large dock with two boats tied to the sides floated in the middle of the ocean. The water was neon blue and smooth as glass. We probably could’ve landed on it, but I hadn’t noticed any pontoons when we climbed into the aircraft that morning. The thing clearly wasn’t a seaplane. So the only safe choices were up, right, or left. And if Ashley Hawking didn’t pick one of those soon, we’d keep heading straight. Into the cliffs. We’d be smashed to bits, and all the headlines would read, “Four Geniuses Die as Plane Crashes into Tooth.”

No, I wouldn’t be the fourth. That honor would belong to Ashley Hawking. The world would mourn the loss of the two accomplished adults and my brilliant brother and ingenious sister. Me? I might be mentioned in the story somewhere, but I’m no brainiac. I’m average. Maybe a little above, but not by much, and only through effort. I have to work hard, and read all the time, to keep up with the geniuses.

But anyway. Back to that nasty nine-hundred-foot-tall cliff sticking straight up out of the water in front of us. Maybe the Millennium Falcon could have made the turn, swooping up at the last second, but I wasn’t liking our chances. “Ms. Hawking?”

“Ashley! I told you already. Ashley. And not because I think of you as an equal. Not at all.” She laughed to herself. “I simply prefer the sound of my first name. Now, honestly, Hank, someone of your intelligence . . . I assumed you’d see.”

Hank was panicking now, his head turning from side to side in jerks, like a broken sprinkler. “I don’t . . . when . . .”

Suddenly my sister leaned forward and pointed at a large orange button in the ceiling, covered by a clear plastic case. “Are you serious?” she said with excitement. “Is this the underplane?”

“Yes!” Ashley fake head-butted the dashboard a few times, then looked up to the ceiling. “The child gets the answer. Finally!”

Although Ava was relieved, I found this news to be more than a little frightening. “You made a plane out of underwear?” I asked.

The moment the words escaped I realized I’d probably misunderstood. But no one noticed. Or at least no one bothered to make fun of me. Not yet, anyway. Ava and Matt were pretty skilled at remembering my mistakes, though.

“This is the underplane?” Hank asked. His eyebrows rose so high they nearly touched the top of his head. “You actually built it?”

“I did. But enough talk. You’re right, Jack,” she said, swiveling around to look me in the eye. “We are getting awfully close, aren’t we?” I nodded. The acknowledgment was nice, but I really wanted her to turn back around. “Are we buckled? Good. Would you like to do the honors, Hank?”

“You’ve tested it?”

“Of course! Once. But it worked beautifully. Go ahead. Press it. Do it. Now.”

“You’ve only tested it once?”

On the dashboard between them, a number in the center of the screen was blinking red and decreasing rapidly. “Yes, once, and a thousand times in simulation. Be confident in your ideas, Hank! Press the button already.” She pointed to the flashing red number, which just kept dropping. “Really. Now. Three hundred meters is pushing things. I haven’t felt this much adrenaline since I climbed Everest.”

Matt mumbled something about the cliff.

Hank hesitated.

Ashley had Manga eyes.

I don’t know what Ava was thinking or doing.

But this was no time to sit and wait. I slouched forward in my seat, reached up with my right foot, flicked open the plastic covering, and kicked in the orange button with the heel of my high-top sneaker.

Ashley let out a long, almost disappointed breath. “Finally,” she said.

Hank had his right hand out, three fingers extended. He counted down from three. A moment later, the engine stalled. The aircraft turned strangely quiet, as if we were suddenly flying in a giant paper plane.

“Now the chute?” Ava asked.

Before anyone could respond, something exploded behind us.

Yet nobody but me panicked.

Ava put her hand on my shoulder. “A rocket-launched parachute,” she explained. “Don’t worry. That was supposed to happen.”

Firing a parachute out with a rocket didn’t make sense to me, but the plane slowed, rattling like an old roller coaster, then began circling to the left. Away from the cliffs. So I exhaled. The lonely floating dock came into view ahead of us. Out through the window, I noticed two wooden boats rounding the corner of the island. Matt was staring at his computer screen again, mumbling to himself. He had a big test coming up, and he’d been studying constantly. One of the downsides of being a genius is that everyone expected you to ace all your tests. I don’t think Hank cared, though. Matt put more pressure on himself than anyone else did. But was this really a good time to prepare for an astronomy exam? No. So I reached across and closed his laptop. He didn’t protest, which was pretty much a thank-you.

“Wow, it works,” Ava said.

“I told you I’d tested it.”

“Yeah, once,” Ava noted.

“And a thousand times in simulation,” Hank added.

The others laughed. Apparently this was funny.

Normally I avoided asking for an explanation when everyone else understood. Hank was always saying there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but I was pretty sure I proved him wrong twice a day. And I hated reminding them that I lived on a lower level of the brain game. But there were times I needed to know. “What does ‘in simulation’ mean?”

Ashley looked back at me like I’d just asked the difference between salt and pepper.

“It’s a computerized version of reality, Jack,” Hank explained.

“It’s like the difference between Street Racer and an actual street race, with real cars,” Ava added.

Now I understood. She knew how to speak my language. See, I was actually kind of awesome at Street Racer, and I had this feeling that I’d be a sick driver in the real world, too.

A brown, wide-winged bird swooped in front of us. “Is that a petrel?” Matt asked.

“They’re frequent visitors to the island,” Ashley said.

Great. Now they were bird-watching, and yet we were still in a plane without pontoons, gliding over the ocean without any clear runway in sight. Sure, we were finally descending, but the underplane turned about as easily as the Titanic. As we swung closer to the cliff, I held my breath. No one spoke. I’m not sure anyone even breathed. Ashley and Hank leaned to their left, as if that might help, and the tip of our right wing passed within ten feet of the rocks. Next to me, Matt’s face was still that greenish-white color, and he was breathing carefully and gripping the armrests with enough force to dent them.

“That was close!” Ashley said, her voice more excited than relieved.

“So, umm, what’s next?” I asked.

“Well, you see, this is the first phase of the transition,” Hank said. “The first parachute allows for a more gradual descent, but there’s also a braking chute to slow us down further.”

“And then?” I pressed.

Hank’s eyebrows arched twice. “Wait and see,” he said.

Ava tapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I think you’re going to like this. It is called ‘the underplane,’ after all.”

I still didn’t get what boxers or briefs had to do with the five of us landing safely. But I wasn’t about to ask. “So, about that braking chute . . . can we use it now?”

“Not until we slow to thirty miles per hour.”

Hank cocked his head to the side, struggling for a view of the parachute suspended above us. “Amazing. Truly. I don’t know how to thank you, Ashley. I never thought anyone would ever build one.”

The plane soared through a wide loop. We were still about the height of a four-story building from the glassy sea. We swung toward the rock face of Nihoa again, only this time at half the speed and with much less chance of crashing. The color in Matt’s face had not changed, but I knew better than to ask him how he was feeling. When Matt was hurt or sick, he didn’t want anyone to know. He’d rather hide off by himself somewhere than let you see him aching.

The two boats came into view again. They looked like museum pieces. The masts were tall, the sails all rolled up, and a few people on either side were digging into the water with long black paddles. “What are those?” I asked.

Ashley Hawking squinted, gagged for a three-count, then breathed in, shook her head, and smiled. “Friends of mine,” she said. “They think we’re enemies, but as I’m sure you know, kids, those two are one and the same. As Sun Tzu said, you should treat your enemies as if they are your best friends.”

“Is he one of those jazz guys, Hank?” I asked. Our mentor had strange taste in music, but I was growing to like some of the tunes. I’d been trying to learn their names to impress him.

“No, that’s Sun Ra, and he only really began as a jazz pianist—”

Another jolt cut his answer short. Ava pointed to the control panel. Our speed was dropping rapidly. And we were circling closer and closer to the water. Hank turned. I thought he was checking to see if we were okay, but he stared out the small rearview window instead. His smile vanished. “You used a larger braking chute.”

“Yes,” Ashley said. “I had to. In simulation, the chute you suggested didn’t slow the plane quickly enough. Your design was completely inadequate. No offense.”

Hank paused before answering. “None taken?”

We were at least a few city blocks away from the island, gliding through our third full circle, cruising at the speed of a bike down a steep hill, when the plane finally skimmed the surface of the sea.

We bounced.

Hank whooped.

Ashley hollered.

Then we bounced again and again, lower each time, like a stone skipping across the water.

Ava quietly beamed, and my still-green brother relaxed his grip. When we finally stopped, my heart was thumping. My hands were cramped. Apparently, Matt wasn’t the only one squeezing the armrests. I looked out the window. We had to be a mile away from the shore. Was this really the right place to land? Were we floating? Or sinking? And what did all this have to do with underwear?

Ecstatic, Hank pointed to the button on the roof, then asked Ashley, “May I?”

“You’re the guest,” Ashley said.

Hank pushed the button with the heel of his hand. Above me, something clicked. A thud followed, somewhere behind us. Then two loud hisses on either side of the plane. Below me, I heard the sound of rushing water, like a quickly filling toilet bowl. Suddenly I needed to go to the bathroom, but there were more important things happening.

Glancing out the window, I noticed that the wings were dropping below the surface. The plane was sinking. And no one else on board seemed particularly bothered. “This is supposed to happen?” I asked.

Matt pointed his thumb out the window and swallowed. “Why not shed the wings?” he asked, struggling to get the words out.

“The aerodynamic profile of the wings is hydrodynamically efficient, too,” Hank answered. “In both cases, you’re just moving through a fluid.”

Ava put her hand on my shoulder. She wore several colorful beaded rings. “What he means,” she began, leaning forward, “is that you don’t need to drop the wings because—”

“I know,” I said. And I didn’t, really, but the geniuses are always explaining things to me, and I wasn’t in the mood for a lesson. So I pulled out my new notebook. Before we’d left for Hawaii I had a great idea. Or a great idea for me, anyway. Whenever the geniuses said something I didn’t understand, I’d jot down a little note about it, then do some research later and learn about it on my own. That way I wouldn’t have to admit it when I wasn’t following along. And sure, I could’ve checked on my phone, but then they’d notice. I held the notebook down in the space between my left leg and the side of the plane, so Matt couldn’t see, and scribbled “hydrodynamic” on a blank page. After a second, I added “Sun Something”—unfortunately, I’d already forgotten the name of the guy Ashley quoted.

The plane was sinking faster. The dock with the two boats was only a few pool lengths away; part of me wished we could’ve just swum over. But the blue water was already climbing up the sides. The surface reached the bottom of my window, then rose higher and higher until it climbed over the top. A few seconds later, the underplane dropped below the surface and began gliding down through the blue sea.

Oh.

Right.

The underplane. As in underwater plane. Not an aircraft made out of old boxer shorts.

Our ride had transformed into a six-seat submarine.

Since we met Hank seven months ago, I’d been introduced to all kinds of strange machines and vehicles and experiences. I’d been to the bottom of the world and fought off a crazy Australian and flown in an inflatable vehicle that wasn’t supposed to fly. I’d even had some experiences with miniature subs, since my sister had built one. But I’d never been inside an actual submarine. And certainly not in the Pacific Ocean, with who knows how much water or how many deadly creatures lurking below me. On the one-to-ten scale of soul-stretching, brain-twisting experiences, I’d give this one a fourteen.

The water was filled with specks that sparkled in the sunlight. A group of long silver fish darted past our windows. I’d always imagined that riding in a submarine would be like staring at the fish tanks in an aquarium. But now it felt as if we were the ones trapped in the tank. And I kind of wanted to get back to the air. “So that was fun,” I said, “but can we go back up now?”

My ears popped.

“Up? Of course not,” Ashley said.

The underplane nosed down in the direction of the island. But we weren’t going to Nihoa. Not yet. Far below us, an enormous, brightly lit underwater building hung below the dock. It looked like the headquarters of some kind of powerful secret society or nefarious villain. The outside was swarming with huge fish.

“You still want to go back up, Jack?” Ava asked.

I could practically hear her smiling. “No,” I said with a grin. “Not anymore.”

30 May 2017 | 3:06 pm

Isabella Biedenharn

Source : EW.com

>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Nevers Star Laura Donnelly Answers Burning Finale Questions

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The following contains major spoilers for The Nevers episode 6.

The star of HBO sci-fi series The Nevers has never shied away from the fact that the show’s sixth episode would be a big one.

“Six is an extraordinary episode,” Donnelly (who plays Amalia True) told Den of Geek prior to the series premiere. “It provides a lot of the answers to the questions that the audience might have. It seemed like a very natural cut-off point.”

Whether episode 6, titled “True”, is a natural cut-off point remains to be seen. Due to the coronavirus pandemic suspending production, the show’s initial 10-episode first season order was shortened to six and “Part 2” (containing six more episodes for a total of 12) is set to arrive at a later date. It’s hard to argue though that episode 6 is anything but extraordinary.

How HBO’s The Nevers Explores a Very Different Vision of Victorian Girl Power

By Lacy Baugher

“True” doesn’t merely provide some answers to long-running Nevers questions – it basically upends the premise of the entire show. It turns out that creator Joss Whedon’s initial vision for The Nevers wasn’t merely Victorian ladies with supernatural powers, but that of a much larger story about the human race on the edge of collapse and a dimension-hopping alien species intent on helping us.

Whedon departed the project during the production delay so when the show returns it will be up to new showrunner Philippa Goslett to shepherd this bold new vision. To get ready for that, Den of Geek spoke with Donnelly about the many revelations of episode 6 and what the future of The Nevers entails.

For those looking for a more complete rundown of just what happened in this truly wild episode, check out our explainer over here. But here Donnelly does an admirable job of unwinding “True’s” many twists.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Den of Geek: I participated in the press day interviews before the season premiered. Now I’m wondering what was that press day experience like on your end? People ask you “So what’s your show about? What’s going on?” And then you just kind of have to sit back and lie!

Laura Donnelly: It’s the most frustrating thing ever. I wanted to go into some details but honestly it felt like I could say nothing without unraveling an entire six-episode arc. People would ask me “How did you research to get into the role?” I can’t say that I researched what it might be like to train in the army, what combat would be like with PTSD, things like that. So I’m left going, “Oh, I just read some books on what it’s like in Victorian times.” It made me sound like a really lame researcher.

You mentioned back in those pre-air interviews that when you first had the meeting for this show, Joss gave you kind of the “whole picture.” Was this episode what that meeting was referring to? And what was your reaction like when you first heard it all?

Well, it was obviously then that I realized I was not dealing with Victorian X-Men. (That meeting) introduced the idea of having an entire backstory of somebody who has been through so much and then gets thrown into this situation and has to deal with it. I just knew that that was going to be such a deep dive into this character and that there was going to be so much to be able to explore with it. Then it was bringing in the elements of how the show is relevant to today, not just in an allegorical sense, but literally – how they are trying to go back in time to make sure that humans do better.

I couldn’t believe that a mind or a show could hold that much. And I knew that I had to be a part of it. What blew me away about (episode) six was that I didn’t know the details, how the story would be told and everything. Now I just can’t believe that with this single hour of television, they managed to tell all of these separate stories with such beauty and nuance. And not just with a ton of exposition, but instead, showing these things in the most clear way possible and that you find out so much in such a short period of time.

Definitely. The first chapter in this episode is really filled with futuristic sci-fi jargon and there is very, very little expository dialogue. Maybe this is a non-sequitur, but have you ever seen the movie Primer? It kind of reminded me of that in that sense.

No.

It’s a time travel movie made by Shane Carruth a while back (Editor’s Note: 2004). And all of the dialogue is just complete jargon that only an expert in theoretical physics would understand for basically the whole runtime, but the audience is still able to pick up what’s happening for the most part. This episode just reminded me of that.

Yeah. I love it for that. I love it for the fact that it rewards intensive viewing. It’s not the show that you can watch while you’re scrolling on your phone. If you are willing to just buy into that, you realize that on first watch you get the important information: the Galanthi are an alien race that are here to help humanity from itself, and that Stripe is Amalia. Then everything after that the more passion you bring to watching it, the more you get out of it.

I finished my first re-watch right before this interview and I think I finally understand just now how and why Stripe got sent back in time by the Galanthi. Because things are too far gone now. The Galanthi are finally going to really help and their version of really helping is just “We’ve got to go back. Humanity needs a fresh start.”

Yeah! I loved that there were things that I realized from watching it that I hadn’t picked up in the reading of the script. When they suddenly realize that the portal is an exit one and not an entrance one, that makes Knitter (Ellora Torchia) in that moment lose all hope. But what you come to realize is that that is not a moment of despair actually. You realize that the reason that they had an exit portal was because they had a plan and they weren’t coming back. You see that with the Victorian artifacts in the room. In fact, this plan was brought together with the scientists. They were working on that together. That was only something that I caught from watching it.

What was it like watching Claudia Black play your character?

I thought she did a really, really beautiful job. It was strange for me because I wanted them to shoot that before I shot my Stripe stuff, so that I would have a lot more to go on to replicate when I first land in the asylum. But it just couldn’t work out that way and they had to shoot all of Claudia and the future stuff after I’d already shot in the asylum. I went in and watched a lot of their rehearsals and got some video footage of their rehearsals and stuff so I had a good idea of what it was that she was doing with that, but it was just amazing to watch the whole thing put together. It’s like the final piece of a puzzle that I didn’t even have any say in. I was just kind of glad really that it matched up to what I had in my head, because I’d been having to make a lot of guesses when it came to playing Stripe in the asylum.

It occurs to me now that for five episodes you’ve been playing a woman with a North American accent doing an old-timey Victorian British accent. What was that process like?

It allowed a little freedom actually because, on her part, it’s a learned accent. I didn’t have to be hugely strict about the rules of what would be particularly Victorian. I allowed myself to bring a little more modernity to how she would phrase something. I kind of hoped that people would pick up on the idea that Amalia seemed, in some indistinguishable way, slightly anachronistic. I also then kind of hoped that there would even be the odd person going, “Oh, well her accent’s slipped there, she got it wrong there” or whatever, because I kind of felt once you then see episode six, they’d see why.

When you think of the character in your head, what name comes to mind first: Molly, Zephyr, Amalia, or Stripe?

Amalia, actually, but the second one that would come would be Stripe. It’s funny, “Zephyr” is the last one I think of and I think that that is probably true of Amalia as well in that it is so far pushed down. It is so far into her past for so many different reasons. It would be too painful to have all of the implications that the Zephyr name carries in the forefront of her mind. In her soldier way of being, she just needs to constantly move forward.

Again, back before the season premiered when I spoke to you and Ann (Skelly), my first question was about characters’ names and how they were a little odd. Perhaps that was a bit prescient because in the far flung future names are sacred. What was your impression of that concept and why do you think names have become sacred?

I wonder if it’s just the idea that it’s the only little bit of recognizable humanity left for them. I think that people will always find a way of making something sacred. You need what is sacred to you at times when things are most difficult. You’re looking at a human race that doesn’t even have real food. Everything is engineered and they can’t even breathe the air outside. The sacred can be very important in moments of deep, deep despair like that. A name is something that everybody can have, and a name is something that everybody can therefore keep for themselves.

At the same time, it also speaks to the idea that everybody then is involved in that war on one side or the other. It doesn’t seem to me that you’ve got the army and then you’ve got citizens. It seems to me like everybody at that point in humanity as they’re coming towards the end is on one side or the other and is fighting. That means that everybody is being called by their rank, and so Stripe is known as Stripe That also makes a name more sacred because it’s the part of you that isn’t involved in this war. It’s the last vestige of true humanity that you might have left.

Any updates on the production process for part 2? I believe last time you had yet to see any scripts.

I’ve had lots of conversations with (new showrunner) Philippa Goslett and with Ilene (Landress), our producer but I have as yet not read a script. I’m just waiting, but I’m in prep. I know enough about the next couple of episodes to know what fights I need to learn and things like that.

I cannot imagine being in Philippa’s shoes right now. Showrunner changes happen all the time but this is one of the more unusual narrative circumstances to fall into, I think.

Absolutely. I mean, the show is wild, but I think that, whatever else happened, we were so fortunate that episode six became this very natural break point in the story for obvious reasons. So much has been wrapped up. I feel like the world is built and the characters are established, you know. It really could go pretty much anywhere from here and it just needs somebody’s brilliant imagination to do that.

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Now that the real plot behind the curtain was revealed, does the name “The Nevers” have any more added significance?

Not that I’m aware of, no. I think the only thing that I have to go on about the name is something that Joss said several years back about the idea that these people never should have existed. They’re anomalies or even the more pejorative term – abominations.

Do you think future seasons and storylines of the show will take things past Victorian England and inch closer to that dystopian present?

I mean, I would love for it to. It makes sense to me that it started in Victorian times because that was a key moment of change in so many different ways in how the world communicates. There are kind of several revolutions going on at once, technological being one of the main ones. But it would be really interesting then to see how that progresses, and the issues at hand get dealt with, depending on the social aspects of different countries or different decades. The key to all of that is can you find a really cool way of doing it? Because my head isn’t able to come up with that. Whatever keeps the storyline the most interesting, keeps the characters true to themselves, and doesn’t jump the shark, I’m well up for.

The Nevers season 1 part 2 is awaiting a release date at HBO.

The post The Nevers Star Laura Donnelly Answers Burning Finale Questions appeared first on Den of Geek.

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My Hero Academia: The Rise of Jiro and the Future of Dubbed Anime

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Funimation is one of the leading companies in the anime business and they’ve been instrumental in bringing many popular series over to America, along with producing excellent dubs that are actually able to improve upon the source material. My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan are easily some of the biggest anime of the decade and Trina Nishimura voices two pivotal characters in the series, My Hero Academia’s Kyoka Jiro and Attack on Titan’s Mikasa Ackerman.

The anime dubbing industry has had to roll with a lot of changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn’t stopped Trina Nishimura or Funimation from getting the job done. Taking some time to discuss her career at FunimationCon 2020—a virtual anime convention—Nishimura opened up on the meteoric rise of her My Hero Academia character and how she’s terrified over Mikasa’s safety and how the dust will settle in the final season of Attack on Titan.

Den of Geek: The final season of My Hero Academia got impacted by COVID-19. What has the process been like to record at home?

Trina Nishimura: It was really hard! It was a challenge to go from having so much support in a professional studio environment and being together with the director and engineer, to then immediately be in a situation where you’re in a closet and do everything yourself. I’ve never really done a lot of engineer work, where you like edit and move things. It was initially a little daunting, but Funimation was really kind and patient about it all. Just so nice. I think I had a two-hour session where they just walked me through everything and I just silently dealt with my heart palpitations.

It was challenging in a lot of ways, but it’s just been so cool. I have a small little setup, but some of the other people who are recording from home have much more advanced stuff. With My Hero Academia, Funimation made sure that there was always support that you could call like before your session if you’re freaking out.

It’s been interesting to witness that from the other side of things, too. You guys have developed a real rhythm for the releases and kept up with everything.

It’s the future!

You play Kyoka Jiro in My Hero Academia who’s typically not a huge character, but she really takes the spotlight during those final episodes with the performance that the class puts on. Was that a fun change of pace?

I’ve been looking forward to that particular character arc for a while now! I’ve been really excited and nervous for it, but then COVID hit and we were like four episodes away from it all! It was really scary! Actually, My Hero Academia was the last thing that I recorded in a professional studio and the director Colleen [Clinkenbeard] was amping me up for the arc coming, but then everything closed down.

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It was intimidating to have this arc that’s so important to the character and something that I’ve been looking forward to for forever, but then need to record it all from home. It was scary, but Funimation and specifically Colleen were such a calming force through all of this. It was just great to finally get into that arc and show a little more of what Jiro is really all about.

I think those episodes have made a lot of people Jiro fans. I’ve definitely noticed an increase in Jiro fans since then.

Yeah! I’ve been getting a lot more messages concerning Jiro lately, which has been such a fun experience. I play a lot of quiet characters and Jiro is certainly one too, but it was a lot of fun to see her come out of her shell more and own who she is.

It’s also a fortunate situation that the song that Jiro performs is already in English, but was there discussion over you re-recording the song?

I did not re-record the song. It’s a beautiful song though. It’s just beautiful. I’ve rocked out to it myself! It’s just so sweet and happy. I really like it.

That performance is such a high point for the series. This was easily my favorite season and seeing Eri smile from that song is so sweet.

I feel like in any good media or story it can be exhausting if it’s just constantly heavy and full of that weight. Now I say this, but I’m also on Attack on Titan! But those little moments of calm and hope that bring it back to the characters and focus on them as people are so important.

On the topic of Attack on Titan, that anime is heading into its final season and Mikasa is such a beloved character in a series where everyone really gets to grow and change. Has it been rewarding to get to voice someone so complex?

It’s been really cool to voice a character that goes on such a drastic journey and experiences so many tragedies and hardships, but then watch how she changes from a child to a young woman. It’s really rewarding. I love Mikasa for a number of reasons and I love Attack on Titan for the same reason that I’m fond of the character, which is how they approach gender roles. It’s so important and reflective of today’s society.

Mikasa is a woman, but she’s also such a strong fighter. Armin on the other hand is a man, but he’s also the least physically strong character, but highly intelligent and emotional. He gets to cry, which men often don’t do in media. There’s also a character on the show whose gender is never specified. I think not just that portion of it, because there are so many layers to Titan, but it’s amazing to be a part of that world and in Mikasa’s shoes. It’s been incredible. Attack on Titan has honestly changed my life for the better. I’ve met so many amazing people through it.

More than any other series, Attack on Titan is a show where I’m just legitimately worried for the characters as they head into this final season.

I’m terrified! We don’t get the manga ahead of time, so I’ve been expecting to get killed off since season one! I don’t know what’s happening and I’m just hopeful everything works out. I’m not at all prepared for what’s to come. Actually, during the very beginning of the show, the English dub’s director, Mike McFarland, said that he wanted me to go on the journey along with Mikasa and be as blind as she is. He said that there are things that are going to happen to Mikasa that she doesn’t know about, so I shouldn’t know about them either. He didn’t want me to read ahead or anything, which is great because that’s how I prefer to work anyways.

Now some of that has to do with how Mike and I are familiar with each other. We’ve worked together before and he’s such an amazing director and a great leader. But it can be heartbreaking to head into a session with a cheerful mood, record two hours of depressing content, and then leave a wreck because you didn’t know it was coming. So I’m in the dark on what happens, just like a lot of other people, but I’m such a colossal fan of everything that the show does. I’m so excited and so scared.

We’ve talked about a bunch of your bigger characters, but are there any other roles that really stand out for you?

Kurisu Makise from Steins; Gate is my jam! She was such a fun character to voice because of her emotional depth and all the trauma. Actually, I don’t know what that says about me…”Hmm, this character cries a lot and is so messed up in the head. Wonder if Trina’s available?”

But the sillier ones also made a big impact on me, like Francesca Lucchini from Strike Witches. She’s hilarious. Navirou from Monster Hunter is another one who was super close to my heart. That series had like 54 episodes so we worked on that show for like a year. I love all of my characters for different reasons, which I know a lot of people say, but it’s true!

My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan are both available to stream on Funimation.com.

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