#i’m not going to make the distinction between the reboot and the original no | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vickyvicarious · 3 years

Text

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

#leverage #leverage redemption #leverage spoilers #leverage meta #my meta #this turned into a BIG ol ramble #i planned to write like a couple of sentences for each point but noooo

95 notes · View notes

felassan · 3 years

Photo

Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition concept art & assets from a 2016 talk/presentation by Matt Rhodes, titled “The World of Concept Art” [watch link & source]

It’s an interesting and insightful talk which I recommend watching, especially if you have an interest in concept art and related things like character design and how it fits into the overall game dev process. It’s also interesting to see a bit about how the DA team’s art direction/process has changed over time between games, and hear a bit about how they’ve been doing things going forwards for the next game.

This is Part 1. [Link to Part 2]

(Some notes on the commentary given on the images and in general in the presentation under the cut due to length.)

On image 2: DAII had a fast, hot production period where decisions were made very quickly. The devs knew that the central hub, Kirkwall, had been a center of an old slavery-based empire in the past, and wanted to have indications of this [in its art direction]. There were going to be giant statues that the PC eventually fought - on the right is the design for the statues as they originally were. In the top left, this is all they had for the location [owing to the intensive prod period]. They also had a general idea that they wanted to have tableaus that came to life, shown in the bottom left.

On image 3: Going back to the design of the giant statues, the beautiful golden clockwork version of the design doesn’t really say ‘tool of an ancient slavery-based empire’, so they took the model and tried to come up with something that had more of the kinds of shapes that get into the back of your head and say things like ‘aggressive, hard, simple’.

On image 4: So here they had started doing concepts trying to find some of the right poses, accessories etc that these things would have. One of the hearts of the internal ‘DA art [direction] codex’ is “gray and pointy”; if they give a concept like this to [then] Art Director Matthew Goldman he instinctively wants to go “Yes! Approve!”, and so has to kind of reign himself in a little bit.

On image 5: This is where they ended up getting to and how the concept art turned out in terms of the model, with some negotiation back and forth. This is an example of how their art direction process now tries to tell a story with the art (i.e. it tries to support the story through art aspects of the setting and the environment). Historically, they would have just thrown the French-looking, Baroque clockwork version of the statue into the game and gone with it. They are getting more and more intentional with this sort of thing.

On this image: This was an internal image made for internal discussion. The characters in it aren’t ones that exist or that became other characters, with the exception of the Warden, who kind of became Blackwall. In this image, they were trying to think about visual separation among members of a group at the most basic level (simple graphic design principles, like different shapes and colors). This image is part of trying to solve the design problem of having 4 different characters on-screen in the party at once in their games - as in, players of course need to be able to easily tell who is doing what and where.

A general comment: At BioWare, the concept artists nowadays involve themselves in the character design process much earlier than they used to. Historically, as in earlier games, the writers would write up a bunch of characters and then concept artists would be brought in to draw them. Through negotiation and back-and-forth they would then come up with something. Nowadays though, the concept artists are involved from Day 1. The writers now write down 2 words to describe a character and the artists do sketches based on that. The writers then will write a sentence and the artists will do more drawings based on that. Then it progresses to a paragraph and drawings based on that and so on. In this way it goes back and forth and they build it up so that the visual aspects and the writeup/content of the character are developed completely in tandem, complimentary to one another. This is their goal. They aren’t quite there yet, but this is what they’re trying to strive for in this area.

On image 6: These are Dorian concepts. His initial 2-word writeup was “rockstar mage”. They had different artists take different swings at him. The middle concept is Matt’s. The third concept is by Casper Konefal. Everyone was very excited about it and so it was then taken up to a more final stage (image 7).

On image 8: Casper is one of Matt’s favorite concept artists because he goes in and lovingly details absolutely everything - all the pieces of jewelry etc. Each ring has a story. This attention and level of detail and thought behind it adds authenticity and verisimilitude.

On image 9: In game development, there is an effect on character design that can happen during review meetings. The concept/character artist will know what they need visually from a particular character’s design in order to visually tell the story and to help the character support that. Oftentimes, people who aren’t artists don’t have the language to describe this or realize that’s what’s going on in a character’s design, and instead they just see imperfections in the presented faces. What this can lead to is that unintentionally a group review meeting can slowly trim away all the features of a character that make them interesting or distinct. This is why, for many characters across the game industry, if they were shaved and had their facial decorations etc removed, it would be kind of hard to tell many of them apart, as they have all been subjected to this sort of “council sandblasting” process. Casper figured out an idea to help with this; annotating concept drawings with artistic knowledge that artists know intuitively, as has been done here. Artists know, for instance, that certain shapes and angles can allow for certain assumptions about the character to be made (for example, think about Cassandra’s personality and then consider the angular, straight strong lines that make up her face). Annotating like this and then presenting both versions alongside one another helps these aspects of character design be recognized in the review process, and helps characters remain more distinct.

On image 10: They knew that in DAI there was going to be a character who would be with the PC for the whole game - the humble little hermit, non-intrusive, someone quite closed off who the player wouldn’t know much about. “[quote] And at the very end of the game you’d basically find out that he’s Loki himself, or the embodiment of this ancient god that had been tricking you and basically manipulating you the whole time, characterized by a wolf.” And so Nick Thornborrow hung a wolf’s jaw bone off his neck and it was just there in plain sight the whole game. Because this detail was in the drawings at an early stage, it sparked conversations with the audio department, and the audio department could add touches from their end like having wolves howling when he walked into a new area. They could then get all of these different elements and things that could be hinted at, so that when you play the game a second time it’s like ‘They weren’t even hiding it!! It was there the whole time!!’ He loves that.

A general comment: Any one of BioWare’s 3D modelled characters standing in-game talking or animating probably ends up costing them something in the 40,000 - 60,000 dollar range (they calculated this).

A general comment: For DAI, the concept artists also started to get heavily involved in the storytelling side of things at a deeper level, doing things like quick’n’dirty storyboards for the cinematic designers and spending more time with the writers talking about what emotions they were trying to convey at different points and so forth. Since starting doing this, this has become a built-in part of their process.

A comment in the context of giving advice to up-and-coming and student artists, on the subject of how concepts and ideas are naturally thrown out during the process of iterating on ideas etc: “[quote] Right now, the project that I’m working on that I can’t talk about, I have 3 versions of the story in the garbage, and it’s awesome. Because now I’m working on the fourth with our lead writer and it’s so much better than it would have been otherwise and we’re doing it so much earlier so that we can actually change things up.” Said project could be DA4 or something else. (Please remember these comments were made in November 2016. MEA came out in 2017 and DA4 has been rebooted)

[source]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age #bioware #solas #cole #cassandra pentaghast #slavery cw #spirit boy #my lady paladin #long post #longpost #da4 tag for the insight into post-DAI era art direction/design process #& for the reference to the project which may or may not be da4 #highlights compiled in case the talk as-is isn't accessible to someone

217 notes · View notes

centaurianthropology · 3 years

Text

The Babylon 5 reboot, what I would change (and keep)

So apparently there are talks to reboot B5 (thanks for the heads-up @ncfan-1), and now I’m thinking about rebooting B5. We’re going to set aside the fact that it’s going to be on the CW, of all places, and I really don’t see how an old-school space opera is going to fly with their core demographic of teens. It’s just an odd fit.

Instead, I’m going to focus on things that I would love to see change, and things they better keep if they’re not cowards.

To Keep (You Cowards):

- Centauri hair. It’s one of the most distinctive silhouettes in sci-fi. In fact, lean into it. Really get into the sense of fading opulence in their dress and mannerisms. Outrageous hair and fashion, hell yeah.

-Accents. Lean into this one, actually. Everyone is speaking English without a translator, so accents should be everywhere. I love the Minbari being Balkan. I want the Centauri to be Eurotrash as hell. The Narn ... who knows? I just really love the sense that people had to work to communicate in the original series, and it really fed into the themes of the show.

-Grand, Shakespearean tragedy. One of the things I love most about B5 is that it’s large. It’s expansive in its tragedy and its gestures. Things are heightened, a bit melodrama but a lot of Shakespeare. Give me plenty of that.

-The Cartagia Arc. Holy shit, everything about that arc was perfection. I get that most of my Keep-It stuff is Centauri-related, but hey, that’s my jam.

-Lockley. I know she wasn’t the most popular, but if you’re still going to take John Sheridan on his whole messiah thing, I want someone from the other side to be given a sympathetic and interesting voice.

To Change (Sure, why not?)

-Gay it up. There was a ton of subtext and hinting text in the original. Some of it didn’t work out because of actor changes, some because the network wasn’t going to go for it. Now that we’re in the 2020s, give us a proper relationship between Ivanova and Talia. Give us Londo and G’Kar doing the proper enemies-to-star-crossed-lovers thing (and if we want to throw in Vir and Lennier, I personally would be over the moon).

-Cultural differences and relativism. I would love to see a space opera really explore cultural differences in a respectful and interesting way, where each species has different cultures and politics. I know it would be complex, but I would love each faction to be fractious, with different religions, cultures, etc. B5 sort of explored this, but I want to see way more.

-Give the denouement of the Shadow War proper room to breathe. I get that they thought they were being canceled, so they had to rush through the end of the Shadow War so they could get into the Earth War, but after two seasons of killer build-up, it sort of felt anticlimactic. So, a full season of end-of-Shadow-War stuff, with the Cartagia arc dovetailing into it, and then a full season of Earth War to wrap things up (we’re keeping a few things about season 5, but that season needs heavy revisions beyond what I can discuss here. Just ... so many).

-Complicate John Sheridan. His whole messiah arc always stuck me as off. I was honestly on Garibaldi’s side for a lot of it, thinking there was something seriously wrong with it, and I would like to see that explored in way more depth. Have him be flawed. Have him not be messianic, but someone struggling and failing with expectations and ‘destiny’.

-Complicate all the things even more. The best thing about B5 was the muddiness of ethics and politics and the hard decisions and terrible consequences everyone faces. So lean into that. Make things even more complicated. There are people trying to be good, but they will fail. There are people who make terrible decisions and have to find some way back to salvation. Londo’s redemption arc is pitch-perfect in the original, and I would love to see more of the characters get these sorts of arcs and these sorts of falls and slow crawls back to the light.

I’d love to hear other thoughts and ideas about things to change and things to absolutely keep. Feel free to add your own! As we all wait with mixed feelings to see if this reboot even gets off the ground, we can at least have a little fun.

#Babylon 5 #at least I'm living up to my handle again #B5 reboot #this is both a glowing land of possibility #and a place of endless pitfalls #at least we'll always have the original #if this is totally awful

20 notes · View notes

i-restuff · 4 years

Note

I dunno if you’re actively taking ask stuff rn but I’ve just been curious about what you visualize the Animaniacs reboot will be like? Like do you think that it’ll have an underlying arc or something similar to the original Animaniacs series?

since we haven’t got much news from WB about how the show’s going to look like, it’s hard to guess. but i feel like the show would be similar to the original series was. mostly because each season would only have 13 episodes, where one episode probably contains 2-3 segments between the Warners and Pinky & the Brain

And i’m sure there will be less "sensitive” jokes most likely because how strict the censor could be? but honestly, it doesn’t really matter to me. i would down with anything despite how desperate i am to see the warners back on screen, lol. Both the Warners and Pinky & The Brain are funny with or without the sensitive jokes. They are all a bunch of funny toons and hopefully, the writers know how to write them properly.

although, i really hope the show would expand the dynamics between the Warners more. i would say, the comic is a great example on how the writers wrote the dynamics between them.

while sometimes we see them as one unit in the original series where both Wakko and Dot act as crazy as Yakko. the comic, at least from what i think, sorta have their way to make them more distinct? if that makes sense.

in the comic, you could see them having their own conversation in any situation and it really reflects their personality more than in the show. it makes them look more siblings ye know? asdfghjjkl

#animaniacs

292 notes · View notes

thankskenpenders · 3 years

Note

I don’t know if there’s any information on this. But where would nicoles lynx form fall under this? We later see that major elements applied to a character would go back to the creators after the lawsuit, hence sallys family members getting completely replaced and ray losing his stutter. But nicole was allowed to keep her lynx form, would sega/idw be able to use that form in any revival of the freedom fighters or would she be stuck as a computer/need a new animal and design?

I think you’re a little confused on how the copyright stuff works there. Sally’s family got replaced not because Ken contributed elements to their characters, but because he created them. (Max filled the same role as SatAM’s unnamed king, yes, but the two are pretty different.) And any personality discrepancies between versions of the remaining characters is probably more due to the fact that they were trying to stick closer to the games after the reboot, as opposed to Ken owning Ray’s stutter or something like that. I mean, Bunnie and Antoine were still a couple after the reboot, and that was a thing made up by the old Archie writers in the early years

Anyway, as for Nicole: we don’t know! There was no problem letting her remain a holo-lynx after the reboot, so that might just be a thing that comes packaged with the character forever now. There’s a very good chance Nicole the Holo-Lynx is not considered a distinct entity from computer Nicole at all, especially considering she had already been growing more and more sentient prior to Stargazing and the SatAM writers even planned on eventually giving her a body. HOWEVER... Tania del Rio, the writer of Stargazing who gave us Nicole’s holo-lynx form in the first place, seemed to still be doing work with Archie around the time of the reboot, judging by her Comic Vine page. (They even reprinted her Sonic Rush story in a Sonic Select book in 2014.) I’m not sure whether or not that was a factor. But they also made Ian get rid of pretty much all of his old characters even though he was literally still writing the series, so... yeah, who knows

Regardless, if Nicole ever returns, she WILL have to get redesigned to some degree, like the rest of the Freedom Fighters. She might get to stay a lynx, she might not. But in my opinion, if the holo-lynx thing was considered off limits, they could probably get away with making her a different animal, or making her a robot instead of a hologram, or something like that. Again, there were plans to give her original SatAM incarnation a body, too, and her post-reboot origin story is based on scrapped plans from SatAM. So if she did ever come back, I doubt she’d be stuck as Sally’s computer

#anon #ask

45 notes · View notes

happycoincidences · 3 years

Text

Big Kpop question tag

I was tagged by @myeoning-call thank you!! ♥

------

•Song That Got You Into K-Pop: Bae Bae by BigBang. I first clicked on Loser, I wasn’t feeling it completely but liked it enough to give them another chance so I clicked on Bae Bae, that one was on repeat for weeks.

(Idk... I think I might seem like an older kpop fan but I got into kpop in 2015. I’m one of those people who when getting into sth they really dig further until the origin of a thing, especially when it comes to music. So I know a lot about 1st and 2nd gen too, and I am mainly a fan of 2nd and 3rd gen bc I’m more around the same age as late 2nd gen - 3rd gen kpop idols, we grew up around the same time so I relate to them the most. For reference I am 2 years younger than Gikwang (late 2nd gen) and Yongguk (early 3rd gen), same age as Ken (early 3rd gen) and Sunmi (late 2nd gen). I heard about Kpop before 2015 ofc but i was in an industrial/obscure electronic music fase before kpop)

• Song That Gets Stuck In Your Head: The Chaser by Infinite is an earworm

---

• Fav. Male Group: When it comes to male groups, I make the distinction between ults and mains (ults are the most important, but “main” means I listen to them all the time as well, I just don’t feel as connected to them as people).

Ult: B.A.P, Highlight/Beast, iKON, VIXX

Main: BigBang (they were my first group which is special but I feel less connected to them than with my ults), SHINee, TVXQ/JYJ, H.O.T, SuperM, NCT (WayV mainly), 2PM, Super Junior, Block B

• Fav. Female Group: Wonder Girls, 2NE1, f(x), Orange Caramel, Brown Eyed Girls, 9Muses, Ladies’ Code, T-Ara, Kara, 3ye

• Fav. Underrated Male Group: “B.A.P we didn’t deserve them” <- agreed!

• Fav. Underrated Female Group: Spica

---

• Fav. Male Soloist: Lee Gikwang, Taemin, Bang Yongguk, G-Dragon, Jonghyun, Woodz, Ash Island (last one is actually khh, and Yongguk used to be kpop but I guess he’s more khh now)

• Fav. Female Soloist: Lee Junghyun (her debut album “Let’s go to my Star” is my favourite kpop album actually!), Sunmi, BoA.

---

• Fav. Male Choreography: Drip Drop by Taemin is a classic for me + So many other Taemin performances.

• Fav. Female Choreography: Paradise Lost by GaIn, another one would be 24 hours by Sunmi.

(-> I generally like solo or pas de deux (duo) more than entire group choreographies, it grabs the heart more imo. Tbh as I’m writing this I have ballet performances in mind when it comes to touching you emotionally through dance. Kpop dance has some impressive tricks but it isn’t particularly emotional, which is what’s most important to me)

---

• Fav. Subunit: Orange Caramel!! (and WayV if that counts)

• Fav. Senior Male Group: H.O.T if we’re talking about disbanded senior groups, TVXQ/JYJ, Super Junior and Sechskies if we’re talking about still active senior groups.

• Fav. Senior Female Group: Brown Eyed Girls

• Fav. Disbanded Male Group: B.A.P ♥

• Fav. Disbanded Female Group: Wonder Girls and 2NE1 ;;;;

• Fav. Band: N.Flying

---

• Fav. Male Rookie: Idk.. Oneus maybe? I listen to them casually. (I consider them rookie)

• Fav. Female Rookie: 3ye (They debuted in 2019, to me that’s still rookie)

---

• Fav. Male Dancer: Highlight/Beast Gikwang, SHINee Taemin, B.A.P Jongup

• Fav. Female Dancer: BoA

• Fav. Male Rapper: B.A.P Bang Yongguk

• Fav. Female Rapper: Brown Eyed Girls Miryo

• Fav. Male Vocalist: iKON Junhoe (he has a very unique and ‘harsh/rock’ voice for kpop, my fav voice in kpop), VIXX Jaehwan (Ken), Highlight Yoseob and Gikwang (Gikwang has a good voice but it’s not the most powerful one, but I just really love hearing him so.. :)) ♥♥)

• Fav. Female Vocalist: 2NE1 Bom

---

• Fav. Male Debut: Warrior by B.A.P, 7th Sense by NCT U

• Fav. Female Debut: 와 (Wa) by Lee Junghyun

---

• Fav. Music Video: The Closer by Vixx !!

Honorable mentions: Yamazaki by Bang Yongguk, We are the future by H.O.T , Mirotic + Rising sun + O -正.反.合. (정반합) by TVXQ, Lies + Haru Haru + Last farewell by BigBang (those MVs bring me back to when I was a teenager, the low rise jeans, the pink Motorola flip phone.. one of my friends had the exact same one at the time), One Shot + Skydive by B.A.P., Mystery by Beast (both the official mv and their self-made mv) + Adrenaline by Beast/Highlight (a very basic mv but I instantly become happy when I watch it)

• Fav. Underrated Song: The Closer by Vixx, again! Also Outside Castle by H.O.T, Copy and Paste by BoA, Dear. Rude by JeA ft. Cheetah, She’s gone by G-Dragon, and Hikikomori by Bang Yongguk(♥)

• Fav. Male B-Side: Obsession + Divina Commedia by G-Dragon, Blind + 주소서 (Pray) by B.A.P, Love me do + Silence + Trigger by VIXX, Sexuality by Taemin...

• Fav. Female B-Side: Ca teint moi + GX 339-4 by Lee Junghyun (!! the entire Let’s go to my Star album is a no skip for me), Wonder Girls: almost all of the Reboot Album...

• Fav. Comfort Song: (Most comfort songs are either by B.A.P or by Beast/Highlight because they’re the ults of the ults lol)

B.A.P: Save me, Diamond 4 ya, almost the entire Noir album (+ Ya by Bang Yongguk)

Highlight/Beast: Lightless (unplugged version), Sad movie, Curious, Danger, Sleep Tight

Some H.O.T and TVXQ songs

---

Top 5 BG + Fav. Song/s:

B.A.P: Young, Wild and Free (my very first Bap cb and their very first cb after the hiatus and law suit), the entire One shot EP, Power, Feel so Good, That’s my jam, Warrior, Unbreakable, Badman, Excuse me, 1004, Bang X2, Hands up + the ones I’ve mentioned above (+ many of Bang Yongguk’s solo stuff)

Highlight/Beast: Plz don’t be Sad (<- always makes me happy), Breath, Bad Girl, Mystery, Shock, Special, Fiction, Shadow, Good Luck, Celebrate, Love like this, Not the End, Disconnected + the ones I’ve mentioned above (+ many of Lee Gikwang’s solo stuff)

iKON: Killing me, Rubber Band, Bling Bling, Ah Yeah, Dive, Why Why Why, Dumb & Dumber, B-day, Rhythm Ta, I’m Okay

VIXX: The Closer, On and on, Voodoo, Secret Night, Black Out, Hyde, Light up the Darkness, Love me Do (actually produced by Yongguk and it does sound like it could’ve been a B.A.P song♥), Rock ur body, and almost the entire Eau de Vixx album

BigBang: Blue, Bae Bae, Tell me Goodbye, Lies, Last Farewell, Haru Haru, Café, Fantastic Baby, Bad Boy, Let’s not fall in love, Beautiful hangover, La la la, Last Dance (+ many solo songs by G-Dragon, T.O.P and Taeyang)

---

Top 5 GG + Fav. Song/s:

Wonder Girls: basically the entirety of the Reboot album, So Hot, Tell me, Why so lonely, Like this, Like money (the version without Akon), and last but certainly not least So Hot + I Feel You (band version♥)

2NE1: Crush, Come back home, Hate You, Can’t Nobody, I love you, I am the Best, Don’t stop the music, Fire, Goodbye (;;;)

f(x): Pinocchio (Danger), Mr. Boogie, Nu Abo, Hot Summer, 4 Walls, Chu, La Cha ta, Electric Shock, Lollipop (ft. SHINee)

Orange Caramel: Abing Abing, Catallena, My Copycat, Lipstick, Gangnam Avenue, Shanghai Romance, A-ing

Brown Eyed Girls: Kill Bill, Sign, Cleansing Cream, Sixth Sense, Abracadabra, How Come

---

Groups Planning to Stan:

A.C.E: (I listened to them casually for a couple of years but I want to get to know them better and I’ve been binging a lot of ace videos these past 4-5 months.)

After School: (I LOVE Orange Caramel, but for some reason I never listened to the main group’s songs)

Infinite: (been wanting to for years, I know a good amount of songs and been listening to them for years but yeah)

(These 3 groups feel like they have the potential to become fav groups of mine.)

------

I tag: @alldayxia @fashionbitchgd @epiphanicwiring @larktrash @novararavis @224-12 @skyisfull

#slowly but steadily i will be doing more tags that i've been tagged in. this is the longest one i think #ive been very focused on developing certain skills these past months #that pic with gikwang’s shoes spread across his living room is my head rn #so ive been more lazy with tags #this became extensive lol but i probably still forgot stuff #and i even cut some stuff bc i found it too long hjfdfdljl #i had fun doing this #i apologize for the length of it

10 notes · View notes

incoherentbabblings · 3 years

Text

Why TimSteph is nice

Because I honest to goodness think they are. Prompted by @tsukiakari1203 who needed cheering up but also just because it’s that kind of evening you know?

I also have a TimSteph meta tag if you want to go through four years of me moaning about them. I am going to be repeating myself from some of those posts. Sorry. These are just little things which I love to infer more meaning out of then what was (probably) intended.

This is long. As always.

Pre-New 52 there are a lot parallels with each other. Their Batgirl and Red Robin runs copy each other thematically. Their characters over their thirty years of publication flip on the cynicism and idealism scale. Tim is initially good at making and keeping friends. Steph is initially not. Tim comes from a relatively stable home, albeit it with distant at best or neglectful at worst parents. Steph comes from an unstable home, with neglectful at best and abusive at worst parents. Tim pushes his way into the inner circle of the batfam and is successful at doing so on like his second or third try. Stephanie pushes her way into the inner circle of the batfam, but it takes approximately 20 tries plus (nearly) dying to get people to take her heroics seriously. Both form close familial relationships with the originator of the mantle they hold.

Tim starts helping because he believes no-one else can step up to the plate and help Bruce, and he continues to help people because it is simply the right thing to do. After multiple tragedies he loses any desire to exist as his genuine self outside his superhero mask, and the reader is left with the idea that there isn’t really a Tim Drake left at the end of his solo run anymore, only different factors of Red Robin. Stephanie starts helping because she believes no-one else is capable of stepping up to the plate and stopping her father, and over time her spite and anger turns to genuine altruism and compassion, which makes it impossible for her to willingly hang up her costume. After multiple tragedies, the line between her Stephanie self and Batgirl self is practically non-existent. She is never not genuinely herself, and is on the path to get her degree, repair her relationship with her mother, work alongside the new friends she has made and pursue everything that may have been denied to her when she was fourteen years old.

One of Tim’s first major missions as Robin had him face Scarecrow. One of Stephanie’s first missions as Batgirl was to face Scarecrow. As @our-happygirl500-fan once pointed out - Stephanie’s super heroics started with her trying to kill her father. Tim’s super heroics ended with him trying to kill his father’s killer. Stephanie gains Bruce’s unequivocal trust, Tim loses it. The future Tim sees for himself ten years down the line is lonely, dead or in a position he does not want to take (Batman). The future Stephanie sees for herself ten years down the line is being a parent, mentoring younger heroes, living in a nice house, and running around in a beloved mantle (Nightwing).

Both of their biggest fears are simply not being good enough at what they need and want to be.

Onto fluffier things below the cut...

Absolute favourite thing is how they are often drawn holding each other’s cheeks. Hands are a big them for them (for me) so look out for their interactions. Even when they aren’t a couple, their hands are resting on the other or reaching out for the other. It’s not uncommon for Tim to put his right arm around Steph when they are sitting together and press her into his chest.

Tim’s the only person to call Stephanie Stephie aside from her father and Dean, and therefore is the only one to mean it as a genuine endearment. He is also the only person aside from her parents to call her sweetie, though again, unlike her father but like her mother, Tim means it as a genuine endearment.

One of the side purposes of Stephanie’s pregnancy arc was to give Tim and Steph a reason to get to know each other outside of the costume. Early on, even before they got together, Stephanie pushed against there being a distinction between the mask and the person wearing it. She continually both pre and post new 52 decries Tim claiming there is any kind of separation. Stephanie had a crush on Robin, but she fell in love with the boy who kissed her in the cinema, took her to the highest point in Gotham because he thought the views were romantic, and took her to birthing classes with a fake beard on. She loved Tim. There is no distinction. For about a year in universe she was the only person who had a reason to exist in both Tim and Robin’s lives. Giving up one would not necessitate giving up Steph. Though she would insist on dragging Tim back to the surface. Therefore, I think, if the Pre-New 52 universe had been allowed to continue, Steph would have been important in getting Tim back to the surface over Red Robin. Look what she managed to do in their crossover. The mere threat that she doesn’t recognize Tim anymore helps get him back on track. It’s also a thing in Rebirth. Tim is Tim is Robin is Red Robin is Drake is Tim. No difference.

I cannot find exact proof of this right now but there’s a panel where Tim’s on a date with Ari, and he can’t focus on her, as he’s too worried about a case. Tim can’t flipping focus ever with Zo because at that point his mind is just too full of trauma by then.

Steph takes him to the cinema, he relaxes. Steph makes out with him; his mind goes blank. I dunno where I’m going with this. Steph makes Tim feel safe, I guess. He lets his guard down bad with her.

When they’re younger they’re both kind of jealous over the other. Tim (playfully) threatens to shoot a guy who has a crush on Steph, and she does the very logical thing when seeing Tim being kissed and decides to make a Robin costume and force her way into the Batcave. Love was conditional for the both of them growing up, so the concept that they love each other for realsies doesn’t really compute. The other will leave. Eventually. Tim has better prospects and Steph will get bored of Mr Goody-Two-Shoes. Spoiler: They don’t.

Steph trusts Tim with the stories of her assault. She says her favourite things about him are his gentle nature, the fact that he’s not afraid to show her he’s frightened, and his empathy. Tim loves how warm Stephanie is and he loves how consistent her affection for him is. He knows that she only has his best interests at heart, even when she listens to the wrong people for what that is (coughBrucecough). They often can be found bolstering and comforting the other against Bruce’s actions as much as they can be seen supporting him, which makes for some juicy conflict.

In Rebirth Tim only sets the drones to target himself when Steph calls him thinking she’s going to die. In Rebirth the last person Tim chooses to speak to is Steph. In Rebirth the thought of Steph is one of the things that keeps his will to go home alive and his sanity after spending months alone intact. In Rebirth his renewed relationship with Steph was partially unravelling Dr Manhattan’s reboot of the earth (the power of adolescence crushes). In Rebirth Stephanie wins over the bad guys by assuring her boyfriend that a) he is a good person who b) she trusts to do the right thing. She saves the day with the Power of Love. In the bad Batman of Tomorrow future, Tim is looking for Steph, implied that he still has feelings for her even though she says he is essentially dead to her, he goes to see young Stephanie and begs forgiveness from her, then uses her - referring to her as something to possess in one interpretation - to throw young Tim off in a fight. Again, in Young Justice, the thought of Stephanie is one of Tim’s biggest motivators to go home. She is his home. He is her cornerstone.

And that is why I think they are a neat couple.

#dc #timsteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph meta

57 notes · View notes

highkeyweeb · 3 years

Text

Debunking Edens Zero Misconceptions

With the recent announcement of the Edens Zero anime I keep seeing the same questions, confusions, and common misconceptions on absolutely every platform I go on. I thought it’d be helpful to compile them all in one place and try to clear up some things people genuinely seem to be confused about. With Edens Zero being the third work from Mashima, it’s subject to some... opinionated responses. I wanted to create a list of actual facts and information because it’s important for others to be able to learn about it without the individual biases of internet haters / supporters being involved.

If there are any questions you yourself have, or others that you’ve seen commonly asked or given incorrect responses to, feel free to leave a reply and I’ll try to update the list when I get the chance. Also, feel free to share this with anyone you know who might be confused or need clarification, the more factual information we can spread the better.

Lastly, I’ll be staying as spoiler free with this as possible, so if you’ve never seen Edens Zero, or are contemplating watching it, this won’t spoil anything plot wise whatsoever. If anything, I think it would be helpful to read this before getting into the series so you’ll be somewhat prepared for what you’ll see, but that’s up to you.

This is gonna be a monster of a post, so check it out under the cut below!

[Updated: Jan 20, 2021]

Just a tiny disclaimer: I’m not going to be answering questions such as “is this as good as Fairy Tail?” or “is the story writing better than Fairy Tail’s?” because that is extremely subjective. I can make a post similar to this one about my feelings about the series in response to questions like that if anyone is interested, but at least here, I’m aiming to be as factual as possible.

Why does this look like Fairy Tail?

I’ll be honest, it was hard to choose a first question to start this out with. But I believe that this is the best possible place to start.

The reason that Edens Zero looks similar to Fairy Tail (in terms of art style) is because the authors of both series’ are the same guy: Hiro Mashima. Just by looking at Edens Zero, there are notable similarities stylistically and character design wise in relation to some of his older works. So that’s where that familiar feeling is coming from when you look at Edens Zero.

Why are some of the characters in Edens Zero the same as characters in Fairy Tail?

Short answer: They’re not.

Long answer: There are characters in Edens Zero that are specifically designed to resemble characters from Fairy Tail. It’s not coincidence, or even a lack of creativity. Mashima would like people to be able to make connections and draw similarities between the characters of all his works. That being said, he makes sure to include differences between them so that his audience knows they are not the same characters.

If you’re concerned about the personalities of the characters in Edens Zero closely relating to those of Fairy Tail characters, then the series has already given us little to no need to worry. Where a character may fall short of a completely unique design, they often make up for it with their distinct personality and their backstory. A character that has a striking resemblance to one you already know might be an entirely different person in Edens Zero.

So when you look at the protagonists of the series, and they remind you of some familiar faces, those familiar faces are exactly who Mashima wants you to think about. But that isn’t to say they are mere “clones” of the people who came before them. And that goes for more than just the protagonists actually, but they’re the most notable similarities early on.

Is the Happy in Edens Zero the same Happy as the one in Fairy Tail?

No, the Happy in Edens Zero is NOT the same Happy as the one in Fairy Tail. Yes they have the same name and similar designs, but they are different people (cats?) with different backstories and different companions.

Why is Happy even in Edens Zero?

He’s the companion character. Mashima dabbled with making him a different species, but ended up settling on a classic fan favorite design. He sees Happy sort of like his mascot, since he has now represented both Fairy Tail and Edens Zero.

If you look closely, there are other non human characters who pop up from Fairy Tail, as well as Mashima’s eldest animated series, Rave Master.

Does Edens Zero happen in the same universe as Fairy Tail? Alternate universe? (Fairy Tail in space? Fairy Tail in the future?)

The Fairy Tail and Edens Zero universes are completely separate. Edens Zero is not a Fairy Tail time skip, nor are any of the characters in any way related to Fairy Tail characters. (If me hinting at it wasn’t enough: Eden’s Zero is not Fairy Tail Next Generation)

Alas, that would mean that the male protagonist is not the secret love child of Natsu and Gray, but you’re free to write as much fanfiction about that as you like!

Is Edens Zero a continuation/spin-off/reboot/sequel to Fairy Tail?

Edens Zero is a fully original work, unrelated to the story of Fairy Tail. (Does it feel like the millionth time I’ve said that, because it should). So no, it’s not a continuation. Edens Zero also doesn’t qualify to be a spin off because it’s not a subset of Fairy Tail; it isn’t the Fairy Tail story or world twisted / changed in any way because Edens Zero is a standalone piece.

It also stands to reason that based on everything I’ve already said, it isn’t a Fairy Tail reboot either. Edens Zero will take you on a completely different story, because the two series’ aren’t linked. And finally, no, Edens Zero is not a sequel to Fairy Tail because guess what? Fairy Tail actually has a canon sequel! It’s a biweekly manga series that goes by the name ‘Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest’. So logically, Edens Zero can’t be a Fairy Tail sequel when one already exists.

(Also, per the dictionary definition of the word “ripoff” – an act or instance of stealing off of another – Edens Zero doesn’t qualify. You can’t really steal something you already own.)

End Note:

Edens Zero is the third work from Hiro Mashima getting an anime, and it’s understandable that there’s a lot of confusion around it. Especially after the PV dropped and it was clear that the art style was very similar. And not to mention everyone losing their minds when they saw Happy in this strange new world. All of a sudden it raises these questions and there isn’t really a definitive place to get answers.

At this point I’m sure I sound like a broken record. But I’ll repeat these things as many times as needed to clear up the misconceptions and misinformation being spread around. As new people get introduced to Edens Zero, they will likely be asking these same questions for years to come. So I found it useful to just try and catch the problem now while it’s still new.

If the day ever does come where Mashima tells us it was all a hoax, everything was a lie, and he was playing us like an instrument the entire time... then I’ll be sure to update this.

Again, there are probably plenty of questions that I never touched on so feel free to comment anything else you or others need clarification on! I was doing some research for this and wow, Google really isn’t spoiler free, is it? Which is obvious, because it’s just a machine, but I hate that even if someone wants more information on something, looking it up is out of the question because that would give them spoilers about some pretty crucial plot details. That makes me feel awful, as a person who absolutely hates spoilers. So I want this to be a compact, spoiler free, factually based post about a lot of the common questions in the Edens Zero fandom.

Thanks for reading!!

27 notes · View notes

kimberlyannharts · 3 years

Note

As the resident suit f***er what’s ur opinion on the movie suits (both the og and reboot)

1995 suits - fine for what they are; the original suits just on a bigger budget. i'm personally not a fan of the coin insignias on the chests because i think it's redundant and clunky. (though they look good on the ninja outfits. actually the ninja outfits in general are perfect)

2017 suits - completely off the wall bonkers but honestly that's why i like them. it sells the idea better of them being alien armor. hot take but the helmets not really resembling the zords makes sense because the dinosaurs aren't the original forms in this version of the lore, though the lack of distinction between the suits beyond the colors does hurt them a bit. giving the girls wedged heels is dumb and gendered especially if you're going to take out the skirts anyway

#transmission #anonymous

4 notes · View notes

scarlet--wiccan · 4 years

Note

You are the only Romani person that I know who's a witch. I was scrolling through your posts and I know you're neutral/negative to the Chaos Magic thing. I want to ask you: if you could write a rebooted version of the character or adapt her to the big screen, wouldn't you prefer to keep her as a mutant reality warper? Maybe having 1 unproblematic power would be better than having a confuse (bc writers have favs and sometimes they insist real hard on them), nonsensical and problematic powerset.

Wow, I feel like you must have seen or remembered some really old posts of mine-- I’ve avoided describing myself as a witch for the last few years, mainly because I wanted to become a more vocal critic of Roma representation and advocate for the community. As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s a little awkward broadcasting both of those things simultaneously. My involvement in witchcraft and occult practices came from growing up as an outsider in a predominantly white, majority Catholic environment. It definitely started as a teenage rebellion phase, but it’s still a hobby of mine and a field of study that I’m really interested in. It is not, however, a part of my ethnic or cultural identity.

Wanda’s relationship with witchcraft is sort of similar. Her powers, as you know, were originally some sort of psionic mutation, although the exact nature of that mutation was poorly defined. Over the years, her backstory was retconned to include a circumstantial connection to Chthon and the Elder Gods mythos, which is where she gets her affinity for “chaos magic”. She wasn’t introduced to witchcraft until after she’d moved to the States, and her primary mentor in the field was a white woman. Wanda’s involvement with magic and witchcraft was explicitly separate from her Jewish and Roma heritage, and it’s something she came to independently in her late teens/early twenties. To that end, I don’t feel that Wanda inherently represents harmful narratives and misconceptions about her community-- in fact, I believe that she could be used to deconstruct them. It’s a real shame that, historically, writers have invoked the twins’ heritage in order to lean into racist tropes rather than away from them, and so that deconstruction has never been done, at least not intentionally.

I understand where you’re coming from, but if I were to adapt or retell Wanda’s story, I don’t think I would do away with the magic. I like fantasy and I think that a witch is a more interesting character than a “reality warper”, mainly because a witch is easier to write with clear capabilities and reasonable limitations. As long as the distinction between her culture and her field of study remains clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her choosing to enter that field, and it would create opportunities to deconstruct tropes, as I said. The thing about the Maximoffs is that they don’t have to be racist characters. Their experiences, while not universal, are reflective of an important part of our history that is criminally underrepresented, especially in America. As a writer, I would make space for those experiences to inform the characters’ voices and actions while refraining from trying to tokenize or commodify elements of Romani culture. It’s not hard to figure out, and any historical information you might need is pretty easy to find online.

I’ll put down some more hypothetical ideas under the cut.

If tasked with creating a more revised, updated Scarlet Witch, I would definitely streamline her history and edit a lot of stuff out, namely the Chthon plotlines. Her origin story could be edited down to “mutant with erratic psychic powers finds magical practices useful in honing her abilities, becomes skilled magician through study and practice,” and that would stand just fine on its own. The events leading up to M-Day could be cleaned up pretty easily, too-- “witch uses magic to conceive children with sterile husband; things go awry; witch taps into dangerous forces beyond her control in a desperate attempt to save her children; tragic consequences ensue,” is a decent enough story structure without getting into all that stuff about nexus beings, or falsely defining chaos magic as “reality alteration”.

#robintext

56 notes · View notes

whetstonefires · 3 years

Note

Nyz for the ask meme?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

Hm already did this one, but I’m sure I can think of more!

Batfam this time, although I don’t read nearly as much of that as I used to...

More Cass! More...fics balancing an action/villain plot with character and relationship stuff; it’s hard, I know it’s hard, I’m bad at it personally, and I know we focus more on covering the parts canon neglects, but we’d get better at it as a community if it came back into fashion. And then we can mock DC harder for not being able to do it more consistently.

And, hm. More hurt/comfort that’s in-character? That’s a very broad target with this kind of fandom and really I’ve just gotten increasingly picky, but I still feel like it’s gotten harder to find due to the weird convolutions DC’s taken everyone through with all these reboots.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)

According to this definition I have a bunch ig but I don’t, like. Pay attention to them enough to be able to list them. Not very good social media-ing?? Maybe!

I have a whole other load though that I’m intimately not-in because I like reading their fic on AO3 without ever touching the source material though??? I feel like that’s more how I use that term. I have exposed myself secondhand to...Homestuck, Transformers, Miraculous Ladybug, Gravity Falls recently...probably a bunch more, hm. I have also gotten into a lot of fandoms backwards this way, like I like the fic enough I go watch the thing. The above four are ones where I am very certain I will never ever want to do that.

Come to think of it I rarely seek out the fandom of a piece of fiction I like if I don’t already know it’s a good fandom, from having run into it in the wild. My relationship with original fiction and my relationship with fandom aren’t that closely related. Huh.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

Not sure what ‘prompts encouraged’ means...does it want me to make suggestions for other people to write or to do some extemporaneous ficcing? I will Ignore. Hm. Topic. These are always hard.

Okay so you know what’s cool about fanfic as writing practice? (As distinct from all the other ways it’s good lol.) It’s that you’re practicing different things than when you write original fiction.

I’d gone over a decade without ever making any serious progress on any longform original fiction, for mental health reasons, all while writing well over a million words of fanfic. And now that I’ve gotten back into it in a real way for the first time since I was a teenager I’ve found I’m a lot more able to identify specific skillsets that are getting used and either forced-to-improve or allowed-to-be-deployed-with-less-cost in different scenarios.

Like--there are all kind of bad habits you get writing original fiction just trying to get through the exposition to the actual story without losing the reader. A lot of quite good professional authors even have them! But in fanfic the opening exposition investment is so low, between ‘existing familiarity’ and ‘self-written tags and summary,’ that you can condense that down to nearly nothing and go on to focus on things that are actually more important.

Also you accidentally learn a lot of the skills involved in redrafting by spending a lot of time producing writing that’s in dialogue with an existing text. Learning to treat your own rough draft like your treat canon? Useful. An inability to let go of the first version is one of the greatest challenges facing most novice writers, so that’s a cool one they don’t tell you about.

The fact that it’s practice for a different set of skills than you practice by starting or chipping away at new original projects as a developing writer goes under-emphasized I think.

4 notes · View notes

365days365movies · 3 years

Text

January 25, 2021: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The disaster movie is, oddly enough, a subgenre of action, while also throwing in a splash of adventure. What I mean by that is, like adventure, focus is slightly shifted away from the characters acting against each other, and towards interactions between the characters and the environment around them. Essentially, an external environmental factor, outside of humans, is the antagonist, sometimes quite literally.

Now, obviously, humans can still be villains in disaster movies, but the conflict of the film always have to revolve around the disaster itself, with all other characters merely players in a large conflict. In other words, you got a main guy, shit explodes, and our main guy has to survive, sometimes with assholes getting in their way. Disaster movies in a nutshell, right there.

This movie trend began with 1970’s Airport, considered by most to be one of the crown jewels of the genre, especially at the time. They died in the mid-’70s, and the 1981 movie Airplane! (one of my favorite comedies) was the death knell for the genre...for about 13 years. I grew up in the reboot era of the disaster movie, with Independence Day, Twister, The Day After Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Titanic, etc.

But today, we’re looking at what’s said to be the best of the best: the 1972 Academy Award-winning Ronald Neame film The Poseidon Adventure. This is Titanic before Titanic, but also after A Night to Remember...and the actual Titanic, obviously. All I know going in is that the ship is GOING DOWN. Also, Mermaid-Man’s in it. Hi, Ernest Borgnine!

Let’s go! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

So, the opening text tells us RIGHT OFF that it’s New Years Eve, and that this ship, the S.S. Poseidon, is fucked. I’m impressed that we’re getting that out of the way immediately.

We cut to the ship, a cruise liner full of passengers during a storm. The Captain of the ship, Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen...LESLIE NIELSEN???)

From Airplane!? Wow! Never seen him in a dramatic role, so that’s awesome!

Anyway, things ain’t goin’ perfect. While a representative of the new owners of the ship forces them to go full speed (at considerable risk), the passengers include the disgruntled Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) and his wife, Linda (Stella Stevens), the latter of which is going through a bout of seasickness. Other passengers include wide-eyed child Robin Shelby (Eric Shea) and his frustrated teenage sister Susan (Pamela Sue Martin); lonely runner James Martin (Red Buttons); married couple Betty and Manny Rosen (Shelley Winters and Jack “Grandpa Joe Who Could Walk The Whole Goddamn Time The Fuckin’ Faker” Albertson); “modern” preacher Reverend Frank Scott (Gene Hackman) and the more traditional Chaplain John (Arthur O’Connell); and singer Nonnie Parry (Carol Lynley), with her waiter admirer Acres (Roddy McDowall).

We’re introduced to these people in quick and efficient fashion, as well as their modus operandi. Rogo’s a detective-lieutenant, and his wife has a troubled past as a prostitute (and their relationship history is...complicated). The Shelby siblings are headed to see their parents overseas. James Martin’s a fitness-conscious bachelor and haberdasher who goes on morning runs. The Rosens have a son and 2-year old grandson in Israel that they’re going to visit, and are likely staying there. Frank Scott is an outspoken preacher, who believes that God only helps those who help themselves, and has been sent to Africa as a sort of punishment. And Nonnie Parry...well…

youtube

Well, she’s singing the song that won this movie the 1972 Academy Award for Best Original Song. YEAH. THAT SONG. You’ve almost certainly heard it, and its fame has far surpassed this movie at this point.

That night, the song is sung at a New Years Party, at which all of our players are assembled. The Captain leaves for the deck, and discovers that an earthquake has just taken place off the coast of Crete. And underwater earthquakes create tsunamis. And tsunamis...well...the ship’s in for some trouble. Batten down, people. The New Year begins with great bombast and celebration...as the wall of water approaches.

Party’s over.

The ship tips, as the wall of water hits, and EVERYBODY goes falling. And I mean FALLING, it’s one hell of a scene. The ship flips entirely upside down, and people holding on to tables quickly fall. The lights go out. And all is quiet.

As the passengers come to, we get an accounting...of the survivors. After all, no way everyone could’ve survived that. The Rogos, Rosens, Rev. Scott, Nonnie, Acres, Martin, and the Shelbys all survive, although some of them need to be a little rescued from the ceiling.

The ship is now upside down. I’m sure that’ll be an issue eventually. For now, with some argument, Reverend Scott leads everyone in an effort to get up to the former floor, where injured waiter Acres is waiting. They use a Christmas tree as a ladder, and begin to climb up to a doorway out. Although, not everyone is inclined to go. Nonnie is the only surviving member of her band, which included her brother, and is only convinced by Martin to go.

The group of people that we’ve been following go, but literally everybody else stays behind. Sadly, this includes Chaplain John, who’s resigned himself and the other to their likely fatal end. He and Reverend Scott have a heart-to-heart, and Scott makes one last plea to the rest. However, the ship’s Purser (Byron Webster) insists that they must stay behind and wait for help, and the vast majority agree with him. And as soon as our group gets to safety…

This movie...this movie is fucking brutal. The throngs panic and try to climb to safety, but the tree falls...and everybody dies as the ship begins its descent. And the Reverend watches. And holy shit. I’m shook. Real talk, I am SHAKEN by this, about as much as the Reverend is. This is...whoof.

The group head towards the kitchen, and find a fire door sealed in place. The reverend tries to open it, despite Rogo’s very realistic and good warnings about flashover (the event during which fresh oxygen is introduced to an oxygen-starved fire, reigniting it violently and quickly). Despite this, Rogo helps him with the door, and the fire is luckily not a flashover. Rev. Scott goes in and makes it out, scouting a path through the fire (and the bodies).

They all make it through the kitchen, getting closer to the engine room. And that’s when the water starts coming in.

Once again, they all make it through, and begin traversing the next obstacle: a narrow tunnel that leads to a ventilation shaft with a ladder. Also, Linda (Rogo’s wife) is wearing VERY TALL high heels as she climbs up the ladder. Lady. DROP THE SHOES!!!!

They continue to make it through the shaft...and then another explosion hits! We lose our first party member, as Acres loses his footing and falls. Rogo almost goes with him, and Nonnie’s paralyzed with fear until Martin helps her.

By the way, I realize that reading this might be a bit cumbersome, as there are a lot of names here. But when you WATCH the movie, all of these people are distinct enough that remembering them isn’t too bad. And now...there are even more people.

That’s right! There are more people, being led by the Ship’s Doctor (Jan Arvan)...in the wrong direction. They head towards the bow, towards the water, despite Scott’s warnings. Scott’s frustration, the loss of Acres, and Rogo’s stubbornness leads to a confrontation. This leads to Scott making a bet with Rogo. He’ll scout ahead for a path to the engine room, and if there isn’t one, they’ll also head toward the bow. Rogo agrees, and gives him 15 minutes. Scott leaves, with Susan Shelby (teenage sister, remember) following behind. The rest search for food and supplies in the rooms nearby.

To Scott’s great dismay, however, the main passage to the engine room is destroyed. With Susan’s help, they look for more passages, eventually finding a path covered in oil. The Rosens have their own heart-to-heart, with Belle resigned to death, and Manny clinging to hope. Martin and Nonnie go together, with Nonnie breaking down over her lost brother, and Martin comforting her as best he can. They eventually reconvene, with Scott returned from the engine room successfully. However...Robin is missing.

Scott goes back to get him...and that’s when the water comes back.

They all once again make it...but the water’s now flooded the passageway to the engine room. Scott takes a rope and tries to swim through the passageway, with the rope being used to guide everyone else through once he makes it. But, of course, he gets stuck when a metal sheet collapses on top of him. But that’s when a surprising ringer steps up to help.

Belle Rosen, the down-on-herself, most resigned-to-death member of the party, also happens to be a former swimming champion. She makes it through, and saves Scott from drowning...and has a heart attack in the process. She gives Scott a pendant for her grandson...and dies.

And that’s when I start tearing up. Fuck. I mean it, her death really got me. Talk about a heroic sacrifice.

Rogo goes to find them, and discovers that Belle’s gone. Scott tells him to get the others, without telling Manny what happened. But Manny figures it out, diving into the water. The rest follow, although Nonnie can’t swim. Martin tells her that he won’t go without her, and they go together. Manny’s the first to make it to the other side...and he sees Belle.

And that’s when I tear up again. FUCK.

Manny initially won’t leave Belle, and Scott pleas with him to come with. He asks to stay with her a little longer, and Scott relents. He gives Belle one last kiss...and goes to join the others. Thank God. I need Manny Rosen to live, goddammit. In fact...I really don’t want to lose anyone else.

A harrowing climb to the engine room takes place, and we reach the final door. And then, of course...an explosion.

Linda dies. Goddammit. And Rogo lashes out at Scott, blaming him for her death. But there’s no time for that now. Explosions cause a steam pipe to explode, blocking the exit, prompting Scott to do his own lashing out: at God. He jumps to open a valve for the rest, despite the hot steam. He screams at God to take him, instead of another of their lives. And in the process, he shuts off the steam...and his plea is answered in turn.

As Scott dies, he asks Rogo to get the rest through. But Rogo’s listless, not responding at all. Martin reams him out, rousing him again and getting him up to lead the survivors. 6 people left...and only 5 minutes of movie to go. They get to the thinnest part of the hull, where they hear scraping from the outside. They bang on the hull with pipes, and banging responds. A torch cuts through the hull...BUT IT’S NOT A TORCH, IT’S AN EXPLOSION AND EVERYBODY DIES

Kidding, of course, as they get rescued! And as they mourn their fallen, it’s discovered that these 6...are the only survivors. In the entire ship, these six were the only ones to make it out.

And THAT...is The Poseidon Adventure. FUCK TITANIC. See you in the Epilogue.

#the poseidon adventure #ronald neame #irwin allen #gene hackman #ernest borgnine #red buttons #carol lynley #shelly winters #roddy mcdowall #stella stevens #jack albertson #pamela sue martin #eric shea #leslie nielsen #disaster movie #user365 #mygifs #my gifs #action january

10 notes · View notes