#ESPECIALLY without executive meddling

[lancecharleson]

Playing Bioshock 1 again for the first time in a long while, it made me realise just how much of 7th generation gaming we take for granted.

Among all the piss-filtered dark-age talk of how so many AAA games around this time eventually became homogenously Gears of War/COD-like in order to capitalise on their success, we tend to memory hole how this generation started off with a bang with titles like this, Prey (2006), Kameo: Elements of Power, and Little Big Planet.

It was also the last time we would ever see this many original single player games with AAA backing debut in a generation, until the 2010s where said industry would start going all in on the live-service multiplayer model.

While the indie/mid-budget gaming scene has picked up the torch of continuing to bring us fantastic SP games that have themselves become legends in their own right, there's something I find truly magical about playing a SP game that, not only has a solid premise and design philosophy going on, but also has the kind of high production values that AAA can afford them.

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

Batman #137 - "The Gotham War II" (2023)

written by Chip Zdarsky art by Jorge Jimenez & Tomeu Morey

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay so I saw this post about dark percy (really him reaching his Limit and fighting full strength with everything he had) and I was imagining the potential fallout of that. Pretty bad, as you can guess.

The thing is a lot of percys strongest moments happen out of view of the olympians, especially in hoo. The hurricane atop the glacier in alaska, the poison scene in tartarus, bending the depression river and the one in the palace of nyx.

Stuff like the St Helens eruption got him washed up on an inescapable island literally removed from reality until calypso gave him the OK, the achillies curse he got tricked into losing by hera. Smaller moments, the minotaur, fighting ares, the stolen pirate ship, walking on water vs hyperion, freshwater sources, him knowing both Latin and Greek, they're more easily brushed off or at least mostly due to cunning, sword skills and sheer luck and grit.

But basically the olympians don't actually know the full extent of percys strength and divine power. They have hints - percy standing on the throne, winning against ares, his many victories - but what they aren't willing to brush aside in the heat of (an important) battle there have been pretty strong consequences for.

Heck, just look at Frank, he's no prodigy with weapons, he's polite and respectful, but his distant relation to two olympians letting him inherit shapeshifting earned him direct divine meddling and his life force tied to a hunk of half toasted firewood. Man is a honey bear with lactose intolerance and he was punished with a mythical death curse for being too strong.

If Percy's true strength came out, he would risk losing everything. His freedom, most certainly. If he wasn't straight up executed he might wind up in a Greek myth style imprisonment, the way of atlas, prometheus, calypso, or something like the myriad of ways Greek heroes met their end. Good scenario he survives a dozen curses and gets on with life with a dozen new disabilities, best case scenario he's stripped of every inch of divine power and dropped back to the mortal world, not even clear sighted. Total separation from the Greeks and Romans. Oh, annabeth would marry him either way, and his friends would hardly abandon him despite the gods wishes, but they'd hardly be able to see him, and no long range contact without the ability to IM him or vice versa.

All of that to say Percy is hiding his true strength from the gods themselves - maybe not consciously, and it's not even power he particularly wants - but if they ever find out?

It's game over.

But why is he so strong? I don't know. What I do know is that the half bloods of the books are so much stronger than the ones of myth. Used to be that divine blood would get you divine favour and a great fate whether you liked it or not. Maybe some cunning and bow skills. A spot of spell casting if you were really lucky. Achillies got his curse after he was born, Perseus had a dozen magic artifacts, orpheus had something going on but hercules is to my knowledge an outlier. Now? Everyone in camp has some special power. Flight, fire, necromancy, hypnotism, dream walking etc. However it's happening, half bloods are slowly but surely getting a lot, lot stronger every century that passes. Meta? I mean I guess. But.

What no one has done before is something that their godly parent couldn't.

Except.

Except Percy.

Except Percy, in tartarus, at his mental, emotional and physical limit, controlling poison with his mind, overpowering the goddess of poison in her home, making misery choke on misery. Feeling something in his chest crack. Doing something poseidon could not, and doing it better than the person who could.

Down there, hidden away from the gods, he evolved. For that brief moment, he did something, was something new.

And that was how the gods overthrew the titans.

And that's why they must never find out.

[mxchaelsdiary]

"Is that the impression you get from me?"

･ ｡ﾟ★: . Headcanons. :☆ﾟ. ･

History

★ Michael was the first angel created by Father, and the eldest of the angels.

★ Michael's decision to cast the brothers out wasn't a punishment, but rather an act of desperation. He realized his heart couldn't bear to fight against the brothers any longer, and that if the war continued they'd surely lose and pay for it with their lives- either at Michael's own blade, or at Father's hand as execution for their crimes against the Celestial Realm. And so, in a split-second decision, he cast them out as a desperate attempt to end the war without any further bloodshed. More about this can be read here.

Hobbies

★ Prior to the Great Celestial War, Michael prided himself in his swordsmanship and often did fencing with his siblings during peacetimes. However, ever since the war he has not been able to bring himself to pick up a blade.

★ Michael collects enchanted artifacts, and keeps detailed notes on their histories.

★ Michael has had a range of different hobbies and interests over the millenia, with many becoming all-consuming phases for short periods of time. For every long-lasting hobby that's defining to his character, there's another ten random subjects he happens to know a lot about because he was obsessed with it back in year 547BC or something.

★ Michael is secretly very fascinated by both the Human World and the Devildom- though he'll never admit a fascination with the demonic, and he's far too busy nowadays to get much opportunity to engage with either.

★ Michael is a huge maximalist fashion-wise, owning and wearing lots of jewelry and other accessories.

Abilities

★ Michael can be easily startled out of a disguise; often, any kind of physical pain or significant surprise will be enough to shift him back to his own form.

★ Michael is clairvoyant, able to see and know things without actually being there. It's limited but powerful, and he likes to keep others on their toes wondering what he knows and what he doesn't.

★ Michael is capable of dream manipulation. On occasion, he'll check up on his brothers' dreams and change bad ones to good ones - or pester them in their dreams if he's feeling lonely. As dreams are a product of a subjective and fluid subconscious, sometimes his meddling has unintended effects.

★ Michael can manipulate space and time, but isn't as proficient in it as Barbatos. He also rarely proactively uses his time abilities anymore, having developed a healthy fear of it following an incident when he was young and dumb where he nearly collapsed the entire timeline using time magic to win a battle. Nowadays, he really only uses it to clean up Nightbringer's Solomon's others' mistakes.

Miscellaneous

★ Michael is prone to sleepwalking, especially when stressed.

★ Due to the trauma of losing the brothers, Michael has developed pretty serious separation anxiety with his remaining family. For the sake of the exchange program, he's working on it.

★ Michael's feathers have strong protective and fortune-granting properties- as such, they're rather sought after, much to his annoyance.

★ Michael's wings are similar to a swan's- he has hard, bony spurs underneath his feathers that make his wings rather efficient blunt weapons in combat. His wings are also absolutely massive, so they're usually folded to his back so he doesn't accidentally whack someone.

★ Michael loves to spoil his brothers, but he tends to take it a little too far.

[the-eeveekins]

I don't think Gundam fans who don't consume queer media regularly understand why there is a strong belief among G-Witch fans that G-Witch was canceled for Metaverse and the SEED movie.

Queer and sapphic media, especially animation, is canceled all the time. There's almost no queer media that tried to be more mainstream that didn't have to fight for it's depiction of queer characters or wasn't buried in a late timeslot or canceled for it.

So when you look at G-Witch and how rushed the 2nd season was, how it was only half the length of a traditional Gundam with no 2nd half announcement despite its popularity, it's easy to see why fans who are used to seeing this with other queer media would assume G-Witch was canceled or interfered with. Especially when you consider it was a female-focused entry in a typically male-centric franchise and Bandai's own homophobic statement a month after the show finished.

Yeah, Metaverse and Seed Freedom have been in planning for a long time, but even without them, fans who have seen this song and dance with other media are going to assume foul play when G-Witch was given less than other AUs. Even if Bandai did nothing to G-Witch, if you think sexism or homophobia couldn't have played a part in it's short runtime or rushed ending, it shows a staggering amount of ignorance towards how queer and sapphic media is often treated by corporations.

Personally, while I don't think Metaverse or Freedom had much, if any, impact on the show itself (the gunpla is a different story), I definitely believe there was some homophobia and sexism involved in why it was only given 24 episodes, and never more, and why the 2nd season was so rushed. You just can't convince me that Bandai didn't meddle in this queer show with the long history of executives and corporations meddling in queer shows, especially after making a homophobic statement afterwards.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

Have you listened to the “witch trials of JK Rowling” podcast? I think it’s incredibly interesting, especially how the idea of “questioning trans rhetoric in public is, in itself, bigotry” is explored.

i listened to it but i kinda had mixed feelings. on the one hand it was great to line up the late 90s satanic panic-style backlash with the accusations of bigotry she's getting now, but then the host doesn't really do much with it. instead she kinda brushes past it, like "wow, this lady got two moral panics centered around her, weird right?" without digging deeper. you'd think someone raised in the westboro baptist church would be able to spot the dynamics at work but it still feels like she's working through that herself, and right now she's in this headspace of like "why can't we all just be nice to each other" that leads her to giving far too much weight to both sides and taking people at face value when she doesn't have to. like the contrapoints episode has a lot of him talking about joanne's bigotry and her hateful comments, but without ever giving examples. you have this unique opportunity where jk rowling is giving you an interview along with the people she's supposedly bigoted against and megan didn't really push too hard on either one. maybe she's just not a great interviewer, maybe executive meddling making her cut out touchy questions, who knows, but all around it felt like a really big missed opportunity

full disclosure tho i listened to it when it came out so i might be forgetting some details, and the contrapoints episode was so annoying to me that i didn't listen to the last couple so if she did turn around at the end and tie it all together then great

[mabelsguidetolife]

Yes, on the original loaded lp sweet jane had its bridge cut to make the song more commercial. They really wanted a hit song, finally have some mainstream success, didn't happen, but in my opinion that desperation for radio play benefitted the song. I love the bridge, it's beautiful, but without it I think Sweet Jane becomes seriously the best rock and roll song ever made, it's perfect

loaded is a good album but it’s very clearly hit by executive meddling, especially when you listen to demos versus the final versions — sometimes, it’s like night and day, but i usually like both versions

[scarrletmoon]

For the fandom asks: 5, 8, 13 💖

5. something you see in fics a lot and love

comedy is so difficult to get right, so i find it especially impressive when people are funny in fics, especially when they nail swede's brand of charming cluelessness. that's our little nordic angel 💖

8. you hope more people will come to appreciate ___ (a ship, a trope, an episode, etc)

i've been thinking about this with that one poll going around asking of oluwande is a well written character. i think he got sidelined in s2 and maybe i'm naive but i think a large part of that is executive meddling, bc he's not the only one who got scraps

that said, s1 olu means so, so much to me bc he gets to be so kind and nurturing without being turned into sole caretaker of the entire crew. he's the one guy on the ship holding the last brain cell, but he's also not expected to run everything on his own. he gets to be silly and funny, and a little dumb when he has a crush. he has the respect of his crewmates, not because he's the strongest, most aggressive, most stoic man there. they love him because they know he has a level head on his shoulders and the power wouldn't go to his head if he got it

olu exudes the kind of black masculinity i want to embody and that i rarely get to see, because he's a fully realized black man who gets to be soft

13. your favorite type of fandom event (gift exchange, ship week, secret santa, prompt meme, etc)

i do love a secret santa event even though i only did it once (and i think my giftee didn't particularly like the fic i wrote 🥲) but i'd do it again. also people pull out aaallll the stops for kinktober. i think i'm burning out on kinktober so i'll do a lot of muting if it happens again this year, but it's nice to see everyone having so much fun with it

[aotopmha]

I saw glimpses of that AI Princess Mononoke trailer and it's the perfect springboard for talking about something that's been on my mind (that I've talked about before as well).

Earlier this week I also saw an article about the creation of basically a "fan committee" for creating stuff and anyone who has any idea about how fandom works knows how terrible that idea is.

I hate this dehumanisation of art. I hate it so much.

These are different sides to it, but both of them devalue the artist in pretty horrible ways.

AI "art" is about claiming the recognition an artist gets without putting in any of the work. It's theivery for selfish validation and feeling special, for getting those clicks and getting to feel the "feeling" that you put in the work.

Whereas creating a fan committee specifically forces any creatives in a box very similar to any of the business executives meddling in the creative proccess puts them into because fans don't actually often understand why something is good.

Fans are more often consumers, not creatives themselves, especially modern audiences.

So letting fans decide/have control over the direction of what they love might seem very cool on the surface, but what it really does is further silence the creators themselves and their voices because even if the creatives themselves are wrong about their characters or plot points they create, this comes about from their minds, their perspective.

It's authentic because it's what they wanted to create, not something they were assigned to create by someone else. Simply put, the piece of art becomes that of the committee, not the artist, even if it's by people who care.

So truly property written by Reddit or Twitter.

Both of these are solely about creating a product to get more money, as well.

I didn't think stifling unique creative voices could get even worse than it was already getting, but here we are.

But hey that death that might be incredibly important to character development? Gone now because it's someone's favourite character.

See that tragedy involving difficult decisions and topics? Gone now because it's too "upsetting".

Any of the less loved cast, even if they have essential participation in the narrative? Bye bye.

Or even any basic conflict that isn't immediately resolved and mysteries that aren't immediately explained because they're "plot holes"?

Any scene that doesn't "further the plot", but regardless is important to make you care?

Nope. Need to have that instant gratification.

And I think it's all stuck in the system being focused on profit to the most extreme degrees.

I think it'll all eventually catch up; it already is when looking at comic book movies, but a lot of slop does, in fact, bring a lot of money still.

(Disney live action remakes.)

[girltakovic]

word vomit as i try to parse a work frustration. stand by

so since ive been back to work i'm having a bit of an issue with one of the sous chefs - basically he's new to expoing and gets really nervous when we're in the weeds, and instead of focusing on calling the tickets correctly (ahem.) he tries to "help" me with my dishes, often without explaining to me what he's doing or how this will affect my all-day totals. and as you can imagine this makes me a little insane! i appreciate that he's trying to help keep ticket times down, but on the other hand: oh my god i need him to fuck off entirely and do his mf job and let me do mine. correctly, perferably, but im open to a solid c+ in accuracy if that's all he's feeling up to at this point.

so given that, we had a particularly busy service a couple of weeks ago and he was being particularly invasive vis-à-vis starting and finishing dishes without telling me, and at one point i was standing directly behind him holding a frying pan full of smoking clarified butter while he was standing directly in front of my hot pan tray. so i told him "hey man, you need to move." those were my exact words. verbatim. but apparently he did not see the giant pan full of boiling fluid in my hands and thought i was just telling him to fuck off? i guess? because he got his feelings hurt and told our executive chef about it, who has proceeded to dance around the issue to me and only vaguely indicate that the sous is trying to help and that we should just all get along. which if you know me at all you know that succeeded in doing little else besides pissing me off. so today another, higher ranking sous pulled me aside and told me that the ec is going to tell me that my ticket times have been too high, and that she knows it's because of the weird dynamic between me and The Meddler and basically that im not in trouble as far as she's concerned, but that the ec is going to be all mealymouthed about it and tell me to let The Meddler do his meddling. and i appreciate the warning from her 1000% but im debating whether or not to kind of give the ec a piece of my mind about all this, because its making me feel insane. like apparently the meddler is saying in his weekly diagnostic emails that my ticket times are too high, but he won't say that to my face, which makes me want to take a filet from the fridge and put it in my mouth and shake ir really hard like a dog trying to kill a squirrel to be completely transparent.

this is a completely separate discussion but i have made my peace with the fact that im just not a very empathetic person, but i cannot stand working in a place where i feel like i'll be told im not being a team player if i try to take charge of what i'm working on and not let other people take the lead on my station. like i know im very territorial when it comes to that kind of thing, im an only child so i don't play well with others, im well aware of that. however, i don't think standing around and not telling people when they're doing something that's hampering the effectiveness of the team is going to get us anywhere!! i'd much rather be told "hey, hurry the fuck up and plate that" than have to wonder what i'm doing wrong because two out of three of my direct superiors have little bitch disease. and on the flip side i want to be able to say "hey man, i'll finish my tickets if you'll get back to expo and take a minute to figure out an (accurate) all day, and then delegate from there." without feeling like the sous is gonna get the vapors about it and tell the ec that im harshing his vibe and now his feewings awe huwt 🥺. because quite frankly i don't care if i hurt his feelings, especially not if he's doing something that's throwing everybody off and making our ticket time problem worse. im sorry but that's the only way i know how to put it. they have little bitch disease. and it's terminal.

i feel like i need to tell the ec all of that so that he'll get his head out of his ass and grow a pair essentially, but i also like my job and don't want to get fired. but i also don't want all our communication issues to get even worse, because with the way the ec runs things they will get worse because nobody has the requisite balls to tell each other when they're doing something that's dragging other people down. anyway. this has just been an exercise to help me organize my thoughts so that i don't tell the man who signs my paycheck that he's being a pussy to his face. go in peace and i'll let you all know if i get fired

[navree]

...at least it's not the snyderverse? i'm trying to remain optimistic. 😣

Confession time, I have ambivalent feelings about the Snyderverse. There's stuff I didn't like but there's also stuff I liked a lot.

For one, I think it had really solid casting. Cavill nailed the look of Superman, J.K. Simmons as Gordon is brilliant, Ray Fisher was really good as Cyborg, Jeremy Irons is brilliant in anything and God almighty I wish they'd kept him for The Batman as Alfred cuz I loved his Alfred, and Ben Affleck is a really good actor and he had some great moments and great looks as Bruce Wayne. The only duds were Ezra Miller, who's psycho, and Gal Gadot, because she's not a very good actress (most of the success of Wonder Woman, which I loved, came from Patty's writing moreso than anything intrinsic in Gadot's performance).

There's also some good ideas and good bones to Snyder's ideas for the DCEU. I like most of what he was trying to do with Superman's origin in Man of Steel, and honestly, Batman's motivation for his conflict in Batman v. Superman makes a lot of sense. Bruce is someone whose abhorrence of senseless violence is the cornerstone of his beliefs; his parents were killed in an act of senseless violence, and brutality for brutality's sake without a thought to consequences is something he fights against at all times. It is absolutely reasonable that Bruce, seeing not only wanton destruction from someone who is making no attempt to mitigate it, and has infinitely more power to do real harm than anything else Bruce has seen, has serious concerns and wants to at least be prepared in case he ever goes rogue, not to mention the movie does give us solid reasons for it to be personal with how he loses people in the destruction of the WE building (and also that scene of him running into the danger while everyone runs away? brilliant). I also like that this is an older, more jaded Bruce who has been distinctly marked by the death of his child and the havoc that wreaked on him (though I don't give a FUCK what Mr. Snyder says, that is not Dick Grayson, when has Dick Grayson ever been the dead Robin, that is Jason Todd, I accept nothing else, it's Jason who Bruce lost even in the Snyderverse). It's canon to the comics that Jason's death made Bruce more violent, more volatile, and actively changed him for the worst in a way that not even Jason's resurrection has been able to fully heal, so that being part of Bruce's issues in the Snyderverse works as well.

And I also want to acknowledge that Snyder has absolutely been shafted by WB. The director's cut of BvS does make more sense and have more to the story than the theatrical version. And then there's the whole mess with Justice League, even though I don't fault Snyder for leaving production due to his daughter's death, and I'm fine with the push to see his version that came out of it, especially given a) how bad Josstice League was and b) Joss Whedon being a shithead in general. And there's the fact that WB was clearly gunning for a DC MCU from the getgo, without understanding that, for all its myriad of sins (and oh boy are there many), that took time, and you really had to build up a lot of those characters individually before slowly mixing them into a shared universe that could be its own entity. WB didn't get that, so demanding a Justice League before we even got solo movies for any of the players besides Superman was always gonna be doomed to fail, and executive meddling can't be laid at Snyder's feet.

And I do want to mention that the Snyderverse had movies that weren't created by Snyder or had much input from him, both good and bad. Wonder Woman and Aquaman, I thought, were great, and those were made by different creatives, and Suicide Squad (2016) was atrocious (though I did like that Affleck was willing to make cameos to lend credence to the universe, and that it had Harley as a participant in the death of Robin, because most people don't really grapple with the fact that, even though Harley didn't exist when ADitF happened, any retcon to have her involved with Joker from the getgo is going to have her as a likely participant in the torture and murder of a child, and it's an interesting way to delve into her character and how her own agency intersects with her being a victim of the Joker's abuse).

But there are some serious, serious issues with the Snyderverse that did make it really hard to root for.

Most glaringly, Snyder has good ideas, like I outlined, but I don't think he's a very good writer. Take, for example, the much derided Martha scene. I get what he was going for, Bruce is lost in rage and Clark's focus on saving his mother not only reminds Bruce that Clark too has people he loves, just as Bruce does, but that he has his own underlying humanity, humanity that Bruce cannot ignore anymore and has to confront, that Clark is more than a threat, but a full person. It's a way to highlight how lost Bruce has become in this mission, and to show how humanity comes from who you are, not where you're from, and that Clark is good to his core in a way that's admired. That's the point of the scene, I get that, I understand it, but there had to be a better way to write it than that. I mean, Hell, just have Clark start talking about "my mother" as Bruce is getting ready to gut him, which can lead to confusion on Bruce's part because "your mother's an alien", which leads to Clark struggling to explain that his mom's in danger even as he's near death himself (and also idk why Lois is there, I love Lois as a character, though I wasn't overly fond of Amy Adams's version despite my love for her as an actress, but she shouldn't be there). But instead we get the Martha thing, and it ends up reading as Bruce realizing, somehow, that there are more people named Martha than his mom, and it ends up reading really stupid. This is what plagues a lot of Snyder's DC stuff, especially in BvS and with Bruce, which is that the ideas work but his execution in the minutia really doesn't and bogs the whole thing down. (I will say that I did like the writing of Bruce in the scene at Luthor's party, especially when he was being sneaky, that was good).

Snyder also is a good director in terms of visuals, very good, I like his visuals in a lot of his stuff. But I don't think he's a very good director when it comes to performances. He can't really pull anything stupendous out of any of his actors. And some people, like Ben Affleck, are good enough that you can still get good stuff from them irregardless, but some of them are not. And Henry Cavill, however much I love him in The Tudors, is one of those actors who does need a director to guide him to give a truly memorable performance, especially if he's as outside of his wheelhouse as he was with Clark. So Clark, who's our first introduction to the Snyderverse and also its emotional lynchpin a lot of the time, falls flat, because Snyder doesn't really seem like an actor's director, in spite of his visual eye.

There's also the killing thing. For one, just off the bat (heh), Batman shouldn't kill. Ever. It is the antithesis to who he is on every level, and there's a reason why he sticks to it so rigidly in comics canon and why any attempt to make him a killer, even via inaction (cough Nolanverse cough) rings false and hollow. For two, Superman is a killer in this universe. Not great, but Superman has killed in the comics too. But somehow, this doesn't really seem to bother him. Clark is, indirectly, responsible for a lot of civilian casualties after Man of Steel, and BvS really should have shown him grappling with that continuously, in a serious way. He's standing as a symbol for hope, he wants to help wherever he can, and there are now scores of people who've left behind grieving loved ones, because of him. It should affect him a lot more than it does, drive a lot more than it does, especially as we watch how those deaths harden Bruce, and yet we don't really see anything from him, and it affects his character. Not to mention it makes him a hypocrite when it comes to Batman. "Oh the Batman branded someone while stopping them from sex trafficking young girls, he's so terrible!" you have literally snapped someone's neck, shut the fuck up. And also, yeah, Clark killed Zod. That should also affect him a lot in the next movie, not just because of how killing and loss of life should affect him in general, but because Clark, a Kryptonian orphan with no connection to his homeland, no people like him, has just decimated the only concrete connection to his home that he has. If BvS wants to highlight Clark's solitude, Clark's loneliness as an alien and how that affects him AND the people around him along with the general populace, his feelings on having to cut off a Kryptonian connection to save human lives should get a lot more screentime.

And, while I do laud Snyder having good base ideas, some of the base ideas didn't work. I understand wanting to shift Lex into being the kind of billionaire most people in the 2010s would recognize as "classic billionaire", make him more of a Zuckerberg or an Elon Musk, but the way they went about it didn't work at all. Doomsday coming in last minute didn't work, having Death of Superman this early didn't work, making Batffleck an angry Batman rather than the sad Batman he was born to be didn't work, Jonathan Kent's death didn't work, etc. And honestly, having it be a Dark Knight Returns adaptation really didn't work. Even beyond the general cultural stuff that influence TDKR, and my issues with it as well as Frank Miller as a creative, the Batman against Superman stuff didn't work in the Snyderverse, because Snyder doesn't seem to get why those stories hit so hard. They work because Bruce and Clark are friends, best friends, closer than brothers, they love each other so dearly and would risk so much for each other, put their lives on the line for each other no matter what, be there at their lowest (there's a World's Finest issue dedicated to Clark trying to help Bruce with the aftermath of Jason's murder, it's really good). Seeing them at odds, seeing them fight, it hurts because we know what was once there, and seeing it fall apart into enmity and violence is painful. Longtime friends turning on each other hurts to witness. It doesn't work if Clark and Bruce don't know each other and don't have any personal connection, because that takes away the edge that makes those stories tug at our emotions.

Like I said, ultimately I'm ambivalent. There's stuff that worked, especially in concepts and in broad strokes, and there's stuff that didn't, like Snyder's writing decisions once detail had to get involved. And between that and the ten million behind the scenes issues, like the studio constantly meddling in everything, like Ezra Miller's issues, like Amber Heard having the nerve to be abused by her husband which got everyone real mad at her because he was popular twenty years ago, it ultimately made the whole thing a giant mess that was doomed to fail, even if Snyder had been flawless (which he really wasn't, but the outside stuff that kept coming up in every single installment certainly exacerbated everything).

I'm hoping the studio backs off Gunn, and that he keeps up his good writing streak that we've seen with stuff like Guardians, and that the decisions I've seen that are worrying me turn out fine (or are at least rectified and dealt with in pre-production why is the FUCKING FLASH DIRECTOR in charge of Batman why God why?????? and also again please don't have the starting Robin be Damian I have strong feelings about that even though I love my dear boy), but it's early so we'll see. Fingers crossed.

[menacing-anon]

I’m kicking off my set of posts on season 1 overall, especially as an adaptation, with this one about structure, additions and omissions.

Alice mentioned somewhere on Tapas that she initially intended for Heartstopper to be a novel, but showing events in the characters’ lives without escalating and resolving overarching conflicts was better suited to a webcomic. The show changed it to allow that, and I think they really pulled it off! I have a long explanation in me about how pretty much every issue I’ve seen people have with Love, Simon doesn’t happen in the novel, and I believe most of them are the result of adaptation to cinematic convention, so it’s inextricable from my thoughts about adaptation across mediums and my go-to example of it being at the expense of the story. Heartstopper, on the other hand, is a nice example of retaining a good and similar story while staying in keeping with the TV season format.

What’s also super interesting is that the changes can be subtle and add up, because the show has a lot of the same scenes, in the same order, sometimes even with almost identical dialogue, but the adjustments they make collectively shift the story. That’s also why they’re easier to notice when looking at the whole season. The best example might be Charlie’s apparent low self-esteem: there are multiple instances of Charlie being down on himself added to scenes of the comic. Here are my posts on how the two versions of Nick and Charlie individually are different.

The show kind of stretches the comic: it often takes a couple scenes and has a whole episode surrounding them. I would say that its additions do a few things that all come down to fleshing out the story: they, a, build plotlines more gradually, b, develop and escalate conflicts, and c, take the opportunity to further explore major themes. I’ll elaborate on each 🙂

With regards to the more spacious buildup, it’s things like all the fuss surrounding Tara before she comes out to Nick, and it can be a little fillery. In the comic, Tao tells Charlie that he heard Nick likes a Tara Jones from Higgs, and the next we hear of her is when Harry meddles at his party. And that works. So, strictly speaking, Charlie asking Elle to find out whether Tara likes Nick, Tara coming out to Elle and thus also the viewers beforehand, Elle reassuring Charlie, and Harry and Christian discussing Nick’s opportunity to talk to Tara are not indispensable — they’re just other events surrounding the ones that give us key information. However, this type of additions let us spend more time with and get to know the characters, which is awesome, and the greatest benefit from it probably comes to Taoelle. In the chapters of the comic corresponding to season 1, we only see them together at the bowling alley, and most of their romance is just direct characterization: other people note that they like each other a couple times. In the show, we get to see a lot of them together, their romantic storyline is set up and progresses, and there are scenes dedicated to it.

In terms of brewing conflicts, I’d say the conflicts in question are with Nick’s mates, Tao’s concerns, and Charlie’s insecurity. For instance, Nick actually undoes telling off Harry at the party, so Harry can stay the crux of Nick’s social pressure. But honestly, this whole storyline is one of the biggest changes from the comic, I think: it’s really relevant in the show, it’s almost The conflict, but it barely exists in the source material. Tao’s conflict, too, is way more significant. Both call for their own posts, linked here for Nick's friends and here for Tao. And most of the aforementioned post about Charlie could work as an elaboration on the third one. Anyway, they all reach boiling points in the last two eps of the season, unlike the comic, which moves pretty uniformly. There’s also Ben’s little comeback, which might’ve been intended as part of Charlie’s crisis, but then I think it could’ve been executed more effectively, since what Ben threw at him wasn’t really what Charlie was worrying about. It may also have been thrown in for structure in its own right. Show seasons and movies often have a low point where every storyline has gone to s***, then they’re resolved one by one; Ben Benning again pulls the show closer to the rockest possible bottom and creates another step to take up.

Finally, about exploring themes, I’m mainly thinking about Tara’s coming out storyline. The show has a mostly closeted LGBTQ+ character other than Nick and an opportunity to show, through her, other experiences related to coming out. And I’m glad they do! Here’s a post about me really liking how the season explores coming out 😅 The storyline with Imogen, which is entirely new, can also be seen as fleshing out the major theme, because it slots cleanly into the expectations and pressures Nick faces; and maybe secondarily as bulking up an existing conflict, because it fans the Tao flame.

Through all three types of additions, most characters get to be if not more impactful, then more present than in the comic. Isaac is about equally present to Aled, whom he kind of replaces, Elle makes many more appearances and actually has some influence on the plot, and Tao is waaay more involved. While Darcy hasn’t really gotten her own focus, her participation does increase along with Tara’s, who has an episode that notably explores her coming-out. Heck, even Harry and Ben have more to do.

I’ll touch on omissions briefly, because I don’t think there are many, but they did take some useful and really interesting stuff out for no clear reason, I thought. I’m pretty much just thinking of Tao in the bathroom explaining that he’s as worried as he is about Nick pulling something because Charlie was bullied really hurtfully and Tao was powerless to fix it. This definitely would’ve made it easier to see Tao’s desperation as coming from a place of hurt and fear. But also, Nick in response to that conversation saying that he wishes he had done something about it at the time, and Tao noticing that Nick is flirting with Charlie and doubting the sincerity of that, not their friendship in general. But perhaps most significantly, Christian, Sai and Otis — acronymed, that can make COS, so I call them collectively Cosine (or… Co-Sai-ne?) — blur into the other mates in the show. HOWEVER, credit where credit is very much due, you can see them being uncomfortable in the cinema in the show too,

so I assume they’ll be back and this is some great attention to detail for the retrospect. In that case, though, there will be an unnatural spike in their involvement: they would be apologizing to Nick and starting to be treated as his friends shortly after the viewers learn their names.

[spider-xan]

It's quite jarring to see how much love and passion was put into msm1, and in msm2 you can FEEL Sony breathing down on Insomniac's neck. It's not the worst AAA game, I've seen other triple A titles that ended up way worse due to corporate meddling. And all things considered, msm2 ended up being good despite the obvious flaws in its execution, compared to other titles that had a similar fate. Still, doesn't mean it's not a shame that they didn't have more creative control over the project. I'd love to see a director's cut. pc port maybe? Ghost of Tsushima got the director's cut treatment for the pc port despite the game having a positive reception

Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about MSM2, esp in comparison to MSM1 tbh - it's definitely not the total disaster that is the worst Spider-Man thing ever like the fanboys are arguing (and their arguments are like, ridiculous and not actual problems), and overall, it's still quite good and I like most of it, all things considered, but it's a shame that there was obvious corporate meddling that put undue pressure onto the creative team and developers to get the game out before it was truly ready to be released and forced them to cut a lot of content to make the deadline; I absolutely feel like the last third of the game especially felt really rushed and like it jumped from major event to major event and went around in circles without any breathing room, and outside of all the time devoted to Harry and Peter at the beginning, a lot of characters and relationships felt undeveloped compared to the first game, and I don't think it had to be that way.

Like, I definitely didn't expect, say, Peter and Curt's relationship to get the same level of development as Peter and Otto, but I expected more than a quick intro where they barely talk before Curt disappears for hours of gameplay until the Lizard plot, and it's frustrating knowing that Curt had a bigger and more active role in the early script outline that also addressed some of my issues with him in the final game, ie. barely doing anything for the symbiote plot despite being the symbiote expert outside of some phone calls that go nowhere versus originally actively researching the symbiote to help Peter and proactively keeping it out of Oscorp's hands and helping create the Anti-Venom suit with Mister Negative.

But yeah, it's a shame bc I absolutely would have rather waited for longer to get the truly finished game the developers wanted to release than the rushed by corporate one we're stuck with and isn't their best or intended work, through no fault of the creative team, bc yeah, unless they do a director's cut, this is all we're getting bc it's too late to redevelop the entire game through updates and patches; like, it's not just the major writing and gameplay issues, it's also frustrating that they dropped things like the social media feed, character bios, podcast archives, etc. that made MSM1 fun and developed.

That said, I feel like Insomniac really wants to move on from MSM2, which is probably also partly due to the leaks as much as corporate, bc yeah - no DLCs so far or even announcements about them, updates that have mostly been weird suits no one likes, the weirdness of giving into fan demand for a Venom game bc they bitched so much about Eddie Brock not being Venom and wanting Lethal Protector shit (like, I'm not a fan of Insomniac's Venom bc it seems like they didn't know what they wanted to do with him exactly, but come on, let it go at this point), the art book being delayed and not having as much textual content, no script book, etc. - it feels like such a stark difference from the energy around the first game, and I hope corporate steps back for the third and hopefully final game after what happened here, but I doubt Sony will have learned their lesson.

[depressedhatakekakashi]

I have a question about Hiroki. When he came back to life as a god, why did he not seek out his Rogue papa/ try to help the rebelion as well like Kakashi and Yamato were? Was it because it because he was too young of a god/ didn't know how to use his powers? Was he told he was not allowed to interfere and watched over by another god to make sure he would not give special treatment? As a new god himself, did he not have the power to interact with mortals yet since his worship circle was so small (I heard some gods get their power from direct worship. So without regular worship/ tribute, they can't really do anything.)

Just thinking it must have been devestating to see his papa grow up in such a horrible time, as well as his home continuously go downward, while being forced to sit on the sidelines and unable to help. Especially after Gai's dads were killed and then at the end when he's executed.

Honestly there’s not much for Hiroki to do.

He’s the god of Children’s medicine/healing. The inly way he’s really rolling up is if Gai’s son is sick and in need of healing. Gai can’t go to the village to have his son seen by a doctor. It would be too much risk

It’s only in those moments that Hiroki would make an appearance and it’s for a few reasons

He has no other reason to be there other than sentimental which is something he doesn’t want to dwell on. Like Nakano he’d rather not open himself up to more hurt.

Even the gods who are there arn’t actively doing anything. Like if Kakashi had a choice he would save Gai, but the gods have restrictions to how much they can meddle. Especially after Madara and Gai’s fight. Hashirama and Mito put in a LOT more rules about interacting with Mortals. Yamato is providing shelter which involves him mostly just making sure the royal knights get lost af whenever they enter the forest looking for Gai’s gang. Kakashi is mostly there for moral support and slight suggestions on how to better tackle certain situations. Hiroki is like his Papa and would want to be hands on helping and that’s not really allowed

That being said, him showing up to heal Lee and other children who may be in the ranks of Gai’s group for whatever reason (children they saved from a raid on the orphanage, or maybe they’re building a little hideaway in the forest for people who escape the village, just for them to stay until they take down the corrupt royalty) would probably be the major start to him being worshipped

As you said he’s not well known outside of being a demi-god like person who ultimately died but did a lot of good for the village

But if he shows up a few times to heal sick kids and help them get better it would become more well known that he’s actually a god now, which would start to spread and would open up to the royal family deciding to honour him even more in a show of ‘good faith’ which could be the ultimate reason they decide to built their statue of him, while the villagers have already had a long standing statue of him that they created themselves

[munchkinmarauder]

issue summary: Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are no longer on speaking terms. So when the Wizard corners each of them with his new army of Frightful Four Hundred, it will take all their ingenuity – and all their power – to survive. But can the twins save themselves without unleashing something worse? And are they really as alone as they think?

So this is a gorgeous cover. Dauterman never misses and I am fully aware of the reason why Vision is on this cover but I am super dissapointed that a Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver official cover doesn't actually include Quicksilver and instead includes Vision.

Covers are never indicative of the actual story (look at the uncanny avengers covers) being told and when I did ask Dauterman about it he said this is to represent the fact the twins are not on speaking terms which I respect but I also wonder why then Vision of all characters had to be included, why not Wanda on her own? Why not one with her and Tommy as her ally. Why not a connecting cover with both twins facing away from each other to represent their distance? For me this kind of feels like executive meddling due to that aweful WandaVision show but I love Dauterman as an artist and will respect and take his words at face value. So long as the story gives the twins equal focus (especially given how much Steve Orlando has been emphasising this is a story about the twins) and vision is a small part of it there will be no complaints from me ultimately.

Dauterman has confirmed he was really happy with Pietro on the cover of the third issue to maybe if Pietro is the main focus of the third issue that balances things out! Like ultimately I want the twins to have equal focus as coleads. Vision really doesn't need to be in this story and I think he's ultimately detrimental to Wanda's character. She's moved on let's keep it that way. Fuck movie synergy it's not done a single good thing for the majority of characters included in the MCU.

The book is also ultimately about a brother/sister bond and I don't think we should focus on romantic relationships or promote then. Having a romantic relationship the MCU promoted feels cheap. Wanda and Vision is the worst one but I know I wouldn't have been happy either if it was Wanda/Jericho, Pietro/Crystal or Pietro/Monet. Given how much MCU synergy has screwed over the twins and Pietro in particular I can't help but worry but let's see! The issue summary sounds promising and it's best not to judge but this admittedly beautiful cover has certainly dampened the optimism I had after reading the AITP interview with Orlando.

[klysanderelias]

So much of the Ring feels like it's fighting for its life to hit the beats of a schlocky monster movie. There's a certain point where, aside from just preferring Ringu as a movie and wishing they hadn't bothered doing a remake, I wish that they hadn't picked THIS to do such major edits on. Like if this is the story you were going to end up with, a) why pick Ringu at all, and b) why not edit it MORE.

Like, if they actually watched Ringu and liked it enough to adapt it, why strip away some of the emotional core (and a lot of the structure of the story) to get this, but also if they just wanted to do the whole 'seven days...' angry ghost in a well plot, why not radically rewrite the entire story to accommodate that? How much of it was executive meddling? How much of it was the climate of the time?

And like, I've jokingly said during this project 'the ring would be so good if it was good' and I think genuinely, that's not true. This movie is built on a core that I think is unsaveable, and that's intentional - they had to make it this way, to cut pieces away from Ringu until it was unrecognizable.

Because the Ring is empty of compassion, and that's something that was so present in Ringu. Even more than just the twilight level of flat acting, the whole thing is just based on 'what if a ten year old was evil' and I just can't get behind that. I think that there COULD be stories in that vein that work, because it's always possible, but it's just not interesting to me, especially here.

And it makes me wonder what was the goal - what was the horror? Because like, it's not uncommon to have 'scary kid' horror, that's relatively straightforward, but is there something deeper that doesn't suck shit? What were they trying to do?

Especially that beginning scene, it painted such a clear picture, and that just didn't carry through for the rest of the fucking movie. The first three scenes with Rachel and Aidan make NO fucking sense compared to the rest of their writing. It's just wild.

And there's a certain point of like, where is the compassion for Samara, but also like, what is the goal of writing this in the first place? Is this just edgy bullshit? Was it really just putting 'scary kid' up on a whiteboard and everyone nodded along? I think it'd be easy to critique something by going 'this is just thoughtless and stupid' and sometimes, you're right! God knows there have been enough movies where it was just like 'fuck it man, get something on screen', but I always try to keep things in mind.

Because y'know, it's an adaptation - who did the script? Did they adapt the script or the book? Did they read either? Was this an American studio cashing in, or was it a genuine attempt to recontextualize something for US audiences? How much of this was influenced by other movies coming out in the US - I know the Grudge was 2 years later, but was there another 'creepy kid' movie that came out beforehand that drove certain ideas?

And of course, I'll never know for sure, I don't think there's ever going to be a good answer (and even if there was AN answer, it'd be hard to know if it was whitewashed, or honest, or a PR save, etc).

And I dunno, maybe it works. I didn't watch this movie until after I saw Ringu anyway, so I can't experience it without context. It clearly had a certain amount of staying power, I remember 'seven days...' jokes when I was growing up. But it's also failing to follow through on any major themes in my eyes. I don't know, maybe I'm just not seeing it, again possibly because I've got Ringu on the brain, but it's just so underwhelming.