#obviously the creators need to change stuff for the adaptation and a lot of the changes are good

[fry-house]

I'm not trying trying to do a full on "the creators are morons" or anything arrogant like that, but I will say that Miguel being the one who programmed Lyla in ATSV is an annoying change. Like the whole "she's his only friend" thing is kinda funny/sad but also...

XINA.

[mournersandfunerals]

Friendly reminder that people are allowed to be apprehensive about the Wicked movie. Fans of the Broadway show have been waiting YEARS for this movie to be made, but unfortunately it's being dropped during a time where adaptations of Broadway shows just aren't hitting the same, because they're not being catered to the right audience.

Even if you overlook the casting, and the fact that they're not even being marketed as the genre (the saving grace with this one is that most people know that Wicked is a musical), the actual musical aspect is enough to trigger a fear of the unknown.

I've seen a lot of people defending the most recent Mean Girls movie by saying, of course the music is going to be different, because it's a different medium and the stage version won't translate well on screen. And I do partially understand that, I get that changes need to be made for it to work better, but they changed the arrangements of the songs entirely, and I think that has more to do with trying to hit a different audience than it does about screen translation. It's a weak excuse when you look at the bigger picture.

Movie adaptions of musicals have been made throughout cinema history, and SO many of them have been successful for the right reasons, and some of them were even recent. Grease, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Into the Woods, Little Shop of Horrors, West Side Story, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Chicago, The Sound of Music, In the Heights, Matilda—the list is endless. And, sure, there are issues with each and every one of them, things we can complain about, stuff we can pick apart, but the one thing that's consistent is that they all have the right energy. Changes were made because they needed to be, but the music and the vibe stayed the same. There's no excuse to revamp the entire thing.

Which brings us back to the fear of how they're going to handle Wicked. If "movie musicals shouldn't have as much music in them to balance it out" then what are we doing here? Because Wicked, in particular, is a musical where the score acts as a driving force for the plot, and if you're going to take half of that out to cater to an audience that doesn't like musicals, or change the arrangements, revamp the numbers etc. then it isn't going to work.

Obviously, we can't judge it too harshly yet, because we've had a 1 minute teaser trailer, but please remember that fans are allowed to be apprehensive.

And, side note, creators of movie musicals need to stop trying to make musicals for people that don't like them. If they focus on their target audience, then they'll be successful—that's filmmaking 101 and should not have to be said but here we are.

[runningatypufullspeed]

@vostokmcclellan you have no clue what you have just unleashed within me. You reap what you sow. You have asked, and you shall DEFINITELY receive

Intoduction to C,honny jash 🔥🔥🔥 (no way fire... like from *gets shot)

CLAPS HANDS TOGETHER OKAY. OKAY. so chonny jash is this really cool singer guy song cover man on YouTube he makes some really good goddamn music and if you like tally hall, will wood, lemon demon (all other alternative/indie music creators and bands) then you MIGHT like him.

I think his most popular work/the work that gets most people invested into his music in the first place would be his album CCCC (chonny’s charming chaos compendium) which is a cover album consisting of songs that were originally from tally hall before jash took the lyrics and the music and like. Molded it to fit his ocs. That’s the best way I can describe it.

The three main characters of this album would be Heart, Mind, and Soul, and people (including me) GO ABSOLUTELY NUTS OVER THEM jash’s writing and singing and like general music skills are so good if you want to get into this album I’d seriously consider checking out his mind electric video first (the twelve minute one, it has 3 songs in total and they all do a pretty good job of introducing all three characters respectively).

Not only is the music like REALLY FUCKING GOOD the entire. Differentiation between sepereate characters based off of jash's artistic skills thing + motifs/symbolism for each one is extremely well thought out and the relationships between the three of these guys are CRAZY and TOXIC and RIVETING and bottom line SUPER GODDAMN RELATABLE to the vast majority of those in his audience. I would definitely recommend it if you enjoy concept albums/piecing together a story based off of several songs for me it was certainly an arduous process but BOY was it rewarding.

The lore/message itself is mostly up to listener interpretation but I personally like to think of that album as being centered around how valuable self acceptance is, how important communication and understanding and empathy is in a relationship, learning to break free from the bars that society cages one within, and just general dealings/causations of psychological turmoil. I think that what I like the MOST about CCCC tho is how lax/free you can be with your interpretations. it allows a LOT of space for creative liberty and overall message variation, and I like that. I like that very much.

OH and if you enjoy witty lyricism/enjoy having a bunch of allusions that you can rabbit-hole yourself into then you’ll probably like chonny jash . His stuff is like a puzzle but in video/music form. Anyway chonny jash changed my life I think everybody should listen to and look at the lyrics of one of his songs at least once in their life this shit is so good

Tergun 🤤

AND . AND TRIGUN. TRIGUN ISN’T A VIDEO GAME it’S a space western anime. Well OKAY it was originally a manga from the 90s that got adapted into an anime in the late 90s and then ANOTHER newer anime in 2023 so it’s actually just a broad term for these 3 pieces of media .

This is very general btw and while all adaptations go about it in different ways all of them center around the same plot; humans completely NERFED earth so they sent out these ships in order to find another habitable planet, and this mission is called “project seeds”. Aboard these ships are a bunch of humans put into cold sleep but OBVIOUSLY they can’t survive without resources, so alongside the cold sleep people are these human-made organisms called “Plants” who produce the necessities + more that humans need to survive.

Still with me? Ok So everything’s all fine and dandy, but then suddenly due to an event that I cannot disclose because of spoiler related reasons these ships CRASH on a deserted sandy desolate planet, and the remaining humans are then forced to survive solely off of the remaining plants (since all the technology from the spacefaring age was lost in the crash).

Now that the worldbuilding stuff’s outta the way, the main character is this dude named Vash the Stampede who is constantly being chased and hunted down because of this CRAZY bounty he’s got on his head and this is where . The main themes of Trigun start to shine through. It’s about morality and the lives of other people, about the cycles of abuse that lead to why people do certain things and it dives quite deep into the psychological and philosophical aspects ESPECIALLY since this is like a “kill or be killed” world and the main character ALWAYS chooses NOT to kill, no matter what.

I started out with watching the newest adaptation (Trigun stampede) but there’s no right or wrong order to consume the three medias, so start with whichever one you’d like ,,,, assuming you do want to start watching it, anyway.

Judging from what little i know about ur interests, I think trigun would be more up your alley BUT ALSO chonny jash is so good ESPECIALLY CCCC AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ENJOY A SMALLER AMOUNT OF CHARACTERS COUGH COUGH COUGH but it's ultimately up to you, this is all assuming you'd wanna delve into anything in the first place. anyway yeah rant over . 👍

[cy-cyborg]

So I have this character and I’ve been having some trouble deciding on what kinds of mobility aids she would use and what sorts of adaptive equipment she might use.

She’s an amputee. More specifically, she was born without feet on both legs, and she had her left leg amputated just above the knee due to a bone infection when she was about 8, and a couple of years ago she had her left arm amputated above the elbow after a workplace accident.

The setting is like basically our world but with magic (more complicated than that but that’s all you need to know for the ask lol.)

I was thinking that she mostly uses a wheelchair but has leg prosthetics for like situations where the wheelchair might be difficult to use (she finds the prosthetics uncomfortable and prefers her wheelchair.) I was wondering what sort of modifications her wheelchair might need to be easier to use one-handed and if you think her choices of mobility aid sounds realistic.

I’m also not entirely sure what sort of wheelchair she might use. I found some guides for choosing a wheelchair, but was wondering if you have any pointers. For reference, she lives in a large city, doesn’t spend much time in nature, and is like an average level of active. She doesn’t make enough to buy more expensive stuff on her own but her girlfriends and friends would probably help her afford stuff if needed. So like nothing ridiculously expensive but she can probably afford most stuff if she saves a bit and asks for help.

Also, she really likes weaving and other stuff like that and I was wondering if you know any good sources for adaptive equipment that people often use for doing that stuff one-handed?

Finally, since her job is making enchanted items and she’s really good at it, I was wondering what sorts of enchantments one might want to put on their mobility aids. I was thinking that since she has different mobility aids for different situations she could enchant them to like magically fold up so they fit in a bag for easier transport. I also think she’d probably make them able to change colours and light up and stuff like that.

(in case it’s important to know, I am disabled but I’m not an amputee) (also sorry this is so long and has so many questions I hope that’s ok?)

Hey there, sorry for the late answer! Honestly, I’m not sure I’m really the best person to help you here, but I’ll try my best!

So for the wheelchair first:

A lot of the wheelchair using arm amputees I know are below elbow amputees, so they were able to just push with their stump, but obviously that won’t work for your character. I do remember playing wheelchair basketball with one woman who was hemiplegic though (meaning one side of her body was paralysed, in her case I think it was her left side). She was able to push an unmodified basketball wheelchair (manual chairs that tend to be lighter-weight, with tilted wheels and in her case, taller than a standard chair), and did so when playing, bu her day chair was a regular, ridged-frame wheelchair that had a kind of modified smartdrive on it. Most of the smart drives I’ve seen attach to manual wheelchairs at the back and are basically an extra, big wheel that’s powered. The one I have works like cruise control in a car, you push your regular wheels, get up to speed and the smartdrive maintains it for you. Her’s though had a detachable control panel at the front of the chair with a joystick that made her manual chair function like a powered one. I also used to follow a creator on youtube who’s unfortunately deactivated her account it seems, who was a trilateral amputee (missing both legs and an arm) who used a standard power chair.

Something like either of those might be a good option for your character, but you’d be better off trying to find someone with either a similar arm amputation (who also uses a wheelchair) or someone with a disability that impacts both their upper and lower body to get advice from on that front.

Cost wise, I can’t offer much advice other than to look up prices for actual wheelchairs similar to what you decide on to make sure it’s realistically in your character’s price range. Where I live, the government pays for my major mobility aids like my wheelchair, so cost isn’t really an issue, therefor I can’t really advise on cheaper alternatives if the things I already suggested aren’t in your character’s price range, sorry.

I’m not really familiar with weaving and stuff like that, so again, I can’t really offer any advice there sorry, but for enchantments:

Either a folding enchantment like you said, or teleportation. my biggest pet-peeve as someone with multiple mobility aids is that they are a pain to carry, and the first thing I would do in a fantasy setting is make them able to teleport to me lol. Other than that and the colour changing ones you already mentioned, the only other enchantments I can think of would be something that would let me use my phone while pushing my chair (like something that holds my phone or other similar device up to me while I’m moving) or something that would let my wheelchair travel over rough terrain without having to swap out my wheels. If you want some ideas for other enchantments though, I’d highly recommend checking out Mustangart on twitter (I think he’s also on bluesky too) - he created the combat wheelchair for D&D 5e which has a bunch of cool optional enchantments you can get for the chair. I try to avoid twitter these days but last time I was there he had the documentation for it linked in his bio. Likewise, Pathfinder 2e also has some cool options for fantasy prosthetics and wheelchairs in the “Grand Bazaar” and “gears and guns” book (I might be wrong, but I think Mustangart consulted with the Pathfinder 2e creators for that book). both of these are for more traditional fantasy settings of course but you might be able to find some ideas. For the Pathfinder 2e ones, the website “archive of Nethys” has pretty much everything for free.

[fandom-frenzy]

“It’s an adaptation, of course it’s going to change things!”

Alright, I want to talk about this phrase. I’ve been seeing it crop up a lot lately. The implication is that movies and shows based on books that do a direct page to screen translation are bad. They are right. The words they’re saying are true and right. But they’re usually said in order to shut down critiques from others about the adaptation.

The vast majority of adaptation critiques are fully aware that changes will happen. Sure, there are the people complaining about diverse casting or who do actually want a line by line film that are making the criticisms in bad faith. But most people when critiquing the thing are complaining about why a thing was changed.

The way I see it, there are three types of changes creators make in adaptations.

1. Changes that streamline plot or character motivation

2. Changes to highlight and bring out less explored nuances/areas of the story

3. Changes because they think their ideas will make more money/cultural impact than what was in the original

I’ve been seeing an awful lot of people calling Tolkien fans hypocrites for complaining about changes to RoP while holding up PJ’s films as a pinnacle of adaptation, when PJ made lots of changes too. These people seem to misunderstand the types of changes. Nearly all of PJ’s changes (in LotR, the Hobbit is a different story) fall under the first kind. Removing Tom Bombadil? No Scouring of the Shire? Streamlining plot. Faramir’s changes are the most inexcusable, and even then the reasoning behind it was still characterization (building up the ring’s influence over Frodo for 2 movies, then a character that just goes “Nah”). Whereas, with RoP, the most obviously glaring change is to Galadriel’s character, and the change is because....well, I guess because a woman who doesn’t swordfight and isn’t headstrong, stubborn against authority won’t sell.

That’s the same problem the Netflix Persuasion had, their changes to Anne’s character made it seem like the creators just didn’t think audiences would like a quiet, soft spoken, introverted main character.

And what I don’t get is why on earth the third type exists! If the thing was good enough to gain a following large enough that using its name and characters will make you more money than not doing that, then you should understand the reason it has a large following is for the plot and characters! THAT YOU’RE CHANGING!! And if it’s not big enough to have a following that makes using the name lucrative, then make your own thing!!

And don’t give me any of this nonsense about how it is being made for “casual fans/people unfamiliar with the thing.” If they’re unfamiliar, then they can enjoy a proper adaptation because they have no prior expectation!! If they’re a casual fan, then they still get it when a big change is made! Even casual fans knew that Perrin/Egwene was not a thing in WoT! So when you change stuff arbitrarily, because you think strong women are only those that wave a sword while quipping, or that audiences need everything spelled out to them, or because people don’t understand that a musical genre automatically includes singing, or because you think your new plot is going to make you the next GoT (Please. Please. Stop trying to become GoT. You cannot force a cultural moment) then all you do is alienate the established user base and make a mediocre product that fades from memory after all the hater-hype has died.

I don’t have a conclusion to this I just was thinking a lot and needed to get it out there.

[thirteenthdyke]

oh yeah. here are my #thoughts on netflix a81 btw. (it’s long)

disclaimer these are just my thoughts from watching it once & all in a single day like two days ago. there were things i liked and things i didn’t like! obviously the biggest thing i didn’t like was melody not being gay but i feel like that’s been gone over so many times and i’ve been angry about it so long i’m kind of just tired so. moving on! 

things i liked: 

- the sound design - i know the creator said they were inspired by the podcast’s incredible sound design, and it really showed. i listened to most of the episodes with earbuds in, and that was definitely the best way to go - sometimes the most enjoyable part of a scene was just how it sounded. 

- ratty was there 💗💗💗 and he even lived maybe 

- i genuinely enjoyed mark’s character i thought he was funny and he had a fun role in the tv show. i do wish he’d had more petty gay best friend energy but i guess that’s harder to show off when dan doesn’t have a girlfriend for him to hate

- i LOVED the cold opens at the start of every episode & i thought that was the closest they got to the spirit of the podcast - it especially reminded me of s2 and all the weird seemingly unrelated tapes that tied into the overarching story dan had to figure out. 

- rat (jacob?) wasn’t there ❤️

things i didn’t like: 

- my genuine biggest complaint (asides from melody making out w samuel) was the change in motivation for melody and dan? one of my favorite parts of s1 in the podcast is how in a way they’re both motivated simply by the need to finish the story. this is more obvious in dan and less so in melody (since she’s also motivated by finding jesse) but it’s still true for both of them, and i remember that being a big draw for me as a person who loves discussion of narrative in media and when characters are aware they are in a story....that is simply My Thing. so to have that taken away to give dan and melody motivations that are? both partially based off of parents (dan wanting to know why his dad is in the tapes/tragic backstory tying in/invested in melody’s fate specifically & melody looking for her mother in visser being her only motivator before getting deeper into it w anabelle & samuel, etc) felt like Such a downgrade for me and evidence of honestly lazier storywriting. 

- how everything was connected and everyone was related. when davenport said samuel was his brother........ bro this isn’t once upon a time it’s a horror tv show. plus melody being dan’s dad’s patient & dan’s family dying because of visser stuff & melody being related to some ancient witches...idk i paid less attention towards the end. OH and melody’s mom being the groundskeeper kjdsghkf like. i’m so sorry i did not care about that at all. 

- related to both of the above but giving dan a tragic backstory made him so less just some guy.....like podcast dan is truly Just Some Guy and i felt like we were missing that. also podcast dan is more of a loser (i mean this in a nice way)  

- whatever was going on with the plot in the 1920s. sorry i didn’t really pay attention i spent most of the time trying to figure out who was playing iris vos cause she wasn’t listed on imdb yet (believe it or not :/ i recognized her from a ouat role from like 2015. also from watching fringe with my dad over the summer. anyway)

- a lot of other people said this but the downgrade from eldritch unknowable leviathans to religious horror/a demon with a name....not fun! not a fan!! i kept waiting for all the religious stuff to kind of like. be something else when the curtain got pulled back but it never happened. especially upsetting since they all kept referencing ‘the otherworld’ and then it was just a weird little dream sequeunce like.....no dude i want the world where the city is!! where the blacktop is!!!! 

- the only canon lesbian being an evil cultist :/ when it should have been melody 

in conclusion: i think it’s a perfectly okay adaptation of the podcast - it makes sense that there had to be a lot of new stuff, as other people have said again they had to expand a roughly 2 hour podcast into an 8 hour tv show so there would need to be a lot of new information. but boy they were not kidding when they said ‘loosely based’ huh  i also thought it was really cool to have a horror tv show with a black lead and multiple important characters of color, and i think all the actors did a really good job! however storywise i felt like the horror was a step down from where it was in the podcast and honestly </3 just wasn’t that scary. i wish they hadn’t been afraid to be weirder - they went there a few times w the cold opens & ratty!! a lot of the other horror stuff just felt very unoriginal to me though. anyway once again these are literally just my thoughts you do not have to agree with them at all lmao. if u read this far thank u i appreciate it and i hope this was legible. i’m gonna go relisten to a81 the podcast again now see ya 

[vowled]

Unpopular Opinion: Johnlock edition

So, I am, as invariably suggested by my blog and username, a major Sherlock fan. I absolutely love it. The first time I watched it, I immediately related to it, and my peabag brain instantly saw a friend in John Watson. Sherlock’s character, on the other hand, was quite unconventional to me. I couldn’t bring myself to quite like him for the first 2 episodes. He was.....different. I knew I wanted to watch the series just for the dynamic duo and their and sweet friendship. The cases I couldn’t at first care for much, but eventually that changed too. I always was completely amazed by how well they had managed to adapt the series to the 21st century and their subtle winks to the original canon too was quite impressive. Eventually, I fell in love with it, and proceeded to watch the entire series thrice. in a row. I was, and still am, completely obsessed. 

Then came the thought, which was also somehow initially suggested subtly by the show itself, ” What if Sherlock and John are in Love?” I must agree, I had read too many conspiracy theories about certain celebs being closeted to not come up with that question. 

At first it was just a thought. But then, critical analyses on tumblr came up. I couldn’t stop reading them?! and so many of them were thought-provoking and persuasive and honestly, I was living for it. The phone = heart theory is still one of the best Theories I’ve read among all the fandoms I’ve ever been in. And that is just one among many. JohnLock was everywhere. Other ships were persistent, but none could reach the amount of fervor as JohnLock. And I was living for it too. I still really enjoy all the adorable fanfics and the ever-interesting theories, and honestly, at this point, my motto is “I’ll find homoerotic subtext even if it kills me”.

Shipping is ok, shipping is good. But here’s the deal we need to talk about:  we shouldn’t justify our ships to the point of interpreting every action as romantic. This propagates unrealistic expectations and results in harmful stereotypes.

Yes, I’m talking about the unending debate on Johnlock. 

From season one itself, Johnlock was phenomenal. It is widely argued that  the show-runners themselves inserted subtle hints, and hence, birthed this beast on their own. The Sherlock fandom remains one of the oldest fandoms in the world, with its beginnings rooted in the Nineteenth Century when ASiS was published, and since then many have argued about the latent homosexual subtext embedded into the writing, my point here being people have been shipping Johnlock for well over a hundred years. Hence, It’s not really a surprise that people are still drawn to this ship. But to be shipped by this magnitude of people? This invariably suggests that there’s material provided to us by the creators themselves that is very blatantly obvious about the relationship. And while in most cases shipping two characters is completely okay in itself, according to me, shipping Johnlock has further validation in the fact that there is proof of intent of it becoming canon eventually (at least in the first two seasons).

Like I said before, shipping is OK, shipping is good. 

But is shipping okay if we take it to the point of over-analysing every move?

Sherlock is a comfort character for me. God knows half of my maladaptive daydreams are about him being a father figure towards me. My entire twitter tl and Tumblr dashboard is stuffed with cutesy or angsty things about him, and that’s great! But being in the fandom for about eight months, I’ve realised how this sort of feed eventually resulted in me completely forgetting the original storyline, and more importantly, in me forgetting how flawed a character Sherlock is!

Everyone(including me, the first time) freaks out in HLV because of how Sherlock isn’t listed as John’s pressure point. I, however, think we should question ourselves: Why should John still consider Sherlock that tantalizingly close to himself as he was in the beginning? John learnt his best friend had died, and he decided to do the bravest thing he could: make peace with it and move on. BUT NO! The Ghost of the man who loved him returned from the grave to haunt him! Here I talk about the other possible reasons why Sherlock wasn’t a pressure point for John in HLV. 

I am tired of this constant sugarcoating of Sherlock’s character. I am tired of seeing constant posts about how Sweet and caring Sherlock is and how much he loves John and how he loved her more than Mary. I am done with over analysis of every single shot where Sherlock looks at John, completely done. This shot below? It’s been overused for so many fanfics and cheesy romantic lines that I forgot that it’s supposed to be a look of GUILT.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sherlock so dearly because he’s a very unlikeable character. That is precisely what sets him so far apart from the other characters. Sherlock started off with a hateful and dismissive character, but through the course of the events he undergoes a lot of emotional development. And that is truly noteworthy. In TFP he said for Mycroft, “ He did the best he could (for Eurus)...” and that is truly sentimental. This sort of development is always heartwarming.

What I want people to understand is that Analysis is, obviously, important. And CRITICAL ANALYSIS more so. And it’s saddening to see so many people glossing over the critical part of the analysis. Why is it so wrong to point out HOW HURTFUL SHERLOCK’S ACTIONS TOWARDS JOHN HAVE BEEN?  Why is it wrong to to point out Johnlockers borderline bully other shippers? 

Can we finally talk about the problematic aspects of Johnlock, or rather Johnlockers?

Even though I’m relatively new to the fandom, I’ve noticed how dismissive people are of anything negative said about Sherlock. In the beginning, it was endearing, really; but now I see this pattern of constantly singing praises of Sherlock’s character, and it has lead me to realize how detrimental it can be to the relatively younger audiences. Sherlock is Rude, period. There’s no question about it. And this constant glorifying of his rudeness and arrogance and dismissing it as  a quirk could very well possibly give the impression that arrogance and vanity are in fact not so bad, and hell, it might make one seem a little cooler even ! Oh, don’t be mad if I act like my comfort character ! I’m quirky like that !

Constant bashing of the creators. And when I say constant, I mean it. This sort of bashing about is never-ending. And when I say this, I don’t mean that the creators were perfect; some of their mistakes were, quite frankly, blatantly ignorant ( like Irene the Canon Lesbian falling for Sherlock), but I don’t see enough people praising it for what it is. Even now there is so much slander against the creators ( and personally I feel bad for Mark Gatiss because he’s actually on twitter and is constantly spammed). Is it really a surprise that the creators hate the fans and especially the Johnlockers? Was it supposed to be so shocking when Martin said that being in the show wasn’t very fun anymore because of the fans?

We just don’t actually analyze anymore! I get that we haven’t got any new content for FOUR muheffing years but please I literally don’t see anything that’s actually interesting or analytical anymore and that kills me because that was the reason I joined this fandom- to read and comprehend the subtext, and the AMAZING META!  All I see are cute couple-ish pics of ben and Martin and tbh we can do so much better than that?!

Johnlockers have so much actual stuff to talk about? There is literally so much going on Subtextually, and yet all I see is people losing their mind over any interaction between Sherlock and John. This is so unfair! AND it’s detrimental too! With people painting every interaction as romantic in nature, the younger teenagers in this fandom who might not have experienced Love or Attraction may glean unrealistic ideas about them! It is difficult as it is to navigate oneself through romantic entanglements, let alone being fed such rose-colored ideas! And I say this because although I don’t know much about the audience on Tumblr, but Stan Twitter is like, (at least) 50 percent teenager-fuelled. It actually isn’t healthy for them at all.

Stop with the Benedict-worshipping for God’s sakes. Are you only in here because of him? We all get it, he’s absolutely stunning but come on, we’re here for the stories too right?

Romantic love is important, no doubt. But you know what’s completely overlooked? The platonic sort of love. And it’s tiring. Sherlock and Molly/Janine/Irene/John are all amazing duos and each pair has it’s own uniqueness and tang to it! Let’s not constantly dissect everything in the name of shipping, shall we?

lol looking back at it, I feel like it’s a vent rant for the prevailing circumstances on Stan Twitter. I apologize if anything I said hurt anyone, it wasn’t meant to. I completely understand that shipping people is for...recreation (?) but this was just my opinion. Let me know what you think about it!

[comicweek]

DEADLINE: Mark, Jupiter’s Legacy, the comic is one series, then, as Ben mentioned, there’s Jupiter’s Circle. Jupiter’s Legacy, the TV series moves back and forth in time a lot, incorporating parts of both to various extents. What was the idea of adapting it in such a fashion, with the main actors playing both their 1930s selves and their contemporary selves?

MILLER: Well, Steven DeKnight must take the credit for the structure, you know, which is genius, which is the idea of telling the old psychiatrist’s story in the present day. At the same time he used the structure that Coppola used from Godfather, and Leone obviously used in Once Upon a Time in America, which is amazing. It would be a tedious TV series otherwise, making a start in 1929, and then you have three seasons to get to the present day. So, I love the pacing here, the fact that you’re telling both stories at once. It makes it so exciting.

I love the idea of using the same actors, we get to be King Lear and Hamlet. You know, you get them when they are young and full of excitement about the future and then older, feeling like, God, I’ve completely failed. Well, except Ben.

DEADLINE: What do you mean?

MILLER: Ben’s Brainwave still has a plan, even as an old guy, you can see the flicker in Ben’s eyes and everything is just falling into place for him, which is so interesting. You knew immediately that there’s something kicking there.

I love this direction and structure, I think it actually works, because when you’re adapting something, you have to mess with it, change it. You know, we tried to do it as a movie, which a lot of people don’t know, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and I over like two bottles of whiskey back in 2015. We started talking about it as a film, but it was too big. It needed something like this. Now it has the Coppola sense of scale and make it unlike all the other superhero stuff out there in the big crowded market.

DEADLINE: So, Mark, leaving whether or not, there is a second season or not, how long do you envision the show running to tell the story you created in the comics?

MILLER: (LAUGHS) You can figure it out by looking at the book, but I never want to say because, you know, things can change. You know, they may end up being longer. It may end up being shorter, but we have to keep everybody loving it. We’re pretty confident but you never know.

What’s wonderful about TV shows, we can go so deep and flesh out so much more with meat on the backbone. My God, Steven added too many amazing elements and went so deep. You know, characters after a few pages can take up an hour’s television time and I love that. I love the fact we were able to make something so crazy.

DEADLINE: In that, I think of the old Marshall McLuhan idea of being outside America can give you a greater perspective on the idea and reality of America, which is so much of what Jupiter’s Legacy is about underneath the capes and superpowered conflict. So, do you think that having a British, or specifically Scottish, in your case, sensibility, and somewhat the same with Ben playing Brainwave, do you think that brings something extra to the mix?

MILLER: Oh there’s no question. I think seeing things from an outside perspective can show you things as they truly are. I remember, I literally was studying medicine and I remember an old doctor said to me, God, I’m really angry at vets sometimes. And I went why, and he said veterinarians doesn’t have anybody asking him what’s going on and giving his opinion and asking what’s happening. The animal just accepts the diagnosis, I think it’s a bit like being a writer outside of America.

DEADLINE: How?

MILLER: American writers are in the chaos of it all, but as we have that outside perspective of their homes. We’re looking at them and see what’s great and what doesn’t work and then, simultaneously, and I’m in love with America, and you know, this complex thing where you can see their problems, too.

Like, capitalism, in some ways, is the best system in the world, but you only have to walk two blocks to see multi-millionaires and you see homeless people, you know, where there’s no infrastructure to look after them. So, I’m fascinated by America. As a little kid I had the American flag up in my bedroom. I saw it as the land of superheroes and everything.

So, Jupiter’s Legacy came to life as a love letter to the American century, the 20 century, and where America is now. That’s the Utopian’s angle, he doesn’t quite understand his place, and power is shifting onto these other people and who are now worried about power slipping through your fingers.

DEADLINE: Ben?

DANIELS: For me, we live in a very black and white world at the moment. You say the wrong thing and you’re cancelled, and the only way that you can explore those gray areas, that we all have as a human being, is in drama. It’s the only way, I think right now, you can talk about the intricacies of life. I really love that about this show, and I don’t know that’s in any other show. It might be and I completely missed it but I think we have something unique here.

MILLER: When I was creating it, the most important thing for me was to do something bigger and better than anything I’d done in my Marvel work. I thought, what’s the point of me doing another superheroes series? Why bother?

And I sat down with my pad, in 2012, when I started to think about it properly and I wrote, it has to be the greatest superhero epic of all time, otherwise what’s the point? Like, I was making notes to myself at the beginning. I thought it has to do all the things the other ones can’t. Then, in terms of bringing it to market, I think you have to differentiate yourself and do something that’s unlike anything else. Not just superheroes fighting supervillains, which I’d done and now was kind of boring.

DEADLINE: So what was your thought process?

MILLER: Well, what is a supervillain? In life, nobody’s a hero and nobody’s a villain but all people who’ve tried our best, and we have shades of gray and sometimes we do terrible things. You know, we don’t mean to.

I came to like the idea that even those superheroes can like no longer have backbone anymore and having actually found to have discussions among themselves. We’re talking ethically. If you have the power to move mountains, ethically, is it right that you let people in some parts of the world live in concentration camps? And ethically, is it right that you can halt starving overnight and you can stop all the terrible things that’s happening, and yet you’re busy with bank robbers?

So, that becomes a great Boomers vs Millennials ethical argument, which is a big part of Jupiter’s Legacy. You know, like a lot of young people now are like, now, I’m not crazy about the world I’m inheriting from my parents. So, I love the fact that nobody’s right and nobody’s wrong. And that, as you’ll see in the show, there’s a big, monumental fuck up coming.

That just feels really exciting to me from a dramatic point of it, much more exciting than catching a supervillain and throwing him in prison. And that’s the TV show we have now, which is really exciting to me

[dualdaospirits]

Do you think if they ever reboot ATLA they would make Zutara canon? Reboots have changed quite a few things(the new She-Ra is vastly different from the original) especially with all the support Zutara got post-series

Hmmm, an interesting question. It depends on many things I think, not the least of which being who the showrunners are and the tone they want to set. We may get to see our reboot soon, actually, since there’s a live action Netflix series in the works (they haven’t started production yet though, so don’t get too excited). As far as I know, Bryke is at the forefront, and while that’s great news since it means another abomination hopefully won't happen, it does mean that a Zutara relationship probably isn’t likely since they’re big fans of the Katara/Aang relationship.

That being said, I think it would be a missed opportunity if they didn’t, and I’ll explain why. (Disclaimer for any non-Zutara fans reading this, being a Zutara shipper is not my main motivation for thinking or wanting it to be canon). First things first, the audience. I don’t know if post-series Zutara support would have much of an effect on Bryke, but it’s possible that the producers or Netflix would notice and try to factor it in. However, I don’t think pandering should be the reason they include Zutara--far from it. The original audience that watched Avatar has grown up at this point. Many of us are in our twenties, give or take. We’ve matured, and it would be foolish of the showrunners for ignoring this fact. If there’s a reboot of Avatar, live action or animation, the majority of the audience will be those that grew up with the show, not kids the same age as the audience of the animation. I think that’s evident enough with the release of Avatar on Netflix (notice how many people are rewatching and falling back into their love for the show?) and the comics. Ah, the comics. Some things they did well, others...not. What they did do well is writing the storytelling more maturely than the show. I don’t mean to bash the original show as it obviously had no problems including the dark effects of a war story in bite size, easy-to-swallow chunks for kids (a good thing). However, they treat the audience more seriously, knowing that not everything needs to be spelled out. You see the same in Korra. And to me, that’s part of what makes the Zutara relationship so captivating and intriguing--it’s mature. It’s not easy, and it has faults. It’s not “hero gets the girl after saving the world”. It’s complex. 

I’ll say this now: there’s a difference between a relationship being canon and being endgame, and it’s an important difference. I definitely think Zutara should be canon, if not endgame, in any reboot they do.

Personally, I’m excited for a live action version if they ever get around to it. It brings many new factors to the table, and the majority of them have to do with adaptation. (I’ll mainly be talking about a live action version for a little bit, excuse the art student that shows). Adaptation, especially between mediums, is tricky to execute. You see many book-movie adaptations that succeed, and some that miserably fail, and others in between. This goes for other forms as well, ex: book to comic, book to animation, animation to film, etc. With any medium adaptation, the story will inherently change. You can't hear a character's inner dialogue or prose written in a book in a film, so changes have to be made or the filmmaker must write or use film language to substitute for it. With adaptation, changes must happen, that's a fact. To me, more often than not those adaptations succeed when the creator embraces that fact and uses the medium to their advantage. Sometimes this changes the story, and sometimes that change enhances it for the better. Take Game of Thrones or Harry Potter. The former deals with many characters and worldbuilding that is extremely complex, and they did an excellent job in getting you attached to those characters. However, they did have to change some things from the books, and while some weren’t as successful, others did remarkably. (Before anyone starts raging, I’m specifically talking about the seasons where they still had books to go off of). For Harry Potter, we have eight movies to analyze, which I will not be doing, but I will say that the weakest films storywise were the fifth and seventh, simply because they tried to do both too much and too little, if that makes sense.

How would this apply to a live action ATLA? Well, it wouldn’t be like the animation, most likely. It’s a medium adaptation, meaning that the approach they had in the animation won’t work the same in live action. Think about it--you don’t watch animation, especially 2d, the same way you watch live action, psychologically and subconsciously. There’s a separation there between their world and ours. It lessens with 3d animation, but it’s much much smaller when it’s live action since it looks like our world, more or less. Would GOT beheading and other violence (you know what I mean) have had the same effect if it were 2d animation? No, probably not. Yes, I know that anime has its fair share of gore that can be extremely realistic and gross, but it still doesn’t have the same impact it would if it appeared on your screen with quality vfx. Now, these are extreme examples. I really doubt that they’ll make the violence that intense or realistic in the show, as they’ll more than likely want to keep it family friendly (there’s still kids that watch the original). Another disclaimer (ik there’s a lot of them, but people can misunderstand this kind of critique as bashing, which it’s not): I am not saying that the original animation of ATLA is not impactful, absolutely not. I have no trouble getting attached to animated characters, laughing or crying with them, etc, especially if the writing is good. However, it was a kids show, and it was written with that in mind. This is apparent to me as I’m rewatching the show now. There’s some dark stuff that happens, as is the nature of a war story, and the animation handles it excellently. But think of how different it will be seeing the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, practically a garden of bones, Gyatso’s included, in live action. Show us all the nitty-gritty of the lower rings of Ba Sing Se, and the corruption up top. Let this affect the characters. Bring this moral ambiguity into light, as it was done in the show. I think that if they’re going to tackle a show in this way, not a movie or series of movies, it would be smart of them to lean into these darker themes, not shy away from them. Like I said earlier, the audience has matured, and there’s so much more to explore with these stories and themes. I’ll say with confidence that they’ll definitely do this, and possibly add a story or two. Otherwise, it will just be a rehashing of the original, word for word dialogue. Not that the original is bad (obv not), but I don’t think we should want that. There’s a lot of potential in a live action series, and I think they’ve learned lessons from the abomination that already tripped over itself. It was an example of adaptation done badly. However, you can change a story without destroying it, but it’s a delicate operation. That’s why having the original showrunners on gives me a bit more confidence. To be clear, I don’t think they’ll go full PG-13 or higher. It’s still possible to have family/kid friendly media without shying away from the darker parts. ATLA is a great example of that. If you want a live action example of a show that balances humor, heartache, and violence beautifully, look at Merlin (bbc). 

I think you bring up an interesting point with She-Ra and it’s divergence from the original. I haven’t seen the original animation, but I can say that the new one was successful in telling a new and fresh story in the same universe. The act almost as parallel stories in that universe. How To Train Your Dragon is the same way--the book and movie have very very little in common story wise, but it’s a beautiful trilogy nonetheless. Would this work with ATLA? Possibly, though I doubt they’d want to stray away from the original’s core themes. Though, you can fight me on this, Zutara does align with those themes, but that’s another post (this one is long enough). However, it’s such a complicated question because it inherently considers countless possibilities, so there’s no definite answer. It’s a beloved show that’s already been butchered once, so how much would they be willing to change?

Now, how does Zutara factor in? (getting to the point now). For many of the reasons above, I think it should be canon. Their dynamic, their rocky relationship, the journey of trust and acceptance, the connection they have, all of it is ripe for exploration, especially in a revamped, inherently more mature story. Instead of a predictable relationship where there was never any real conflict (Katara was always loyal to Aang, and their fights were never truly consequential), you have a relationship coming from a difficult, seemingly impossible place, one that requires time to establish. Like I said, it’s not an easy relationship. Part of it is strengthened by Zuko’s wonderful redemption arc. He needs to build a foundation of trust before almost any of the Gaang trust him (Aang, the angel, is willing to give him a chance almost immediately in Book 1, and though she didn’t care one way or the other at first, he did accidentally burn Toph’s feet). What would a Book 4 have brought us? Despite what Bryke say about it being a false rumor, Ehasz, a co-producer, said that it was at least discussed, plus Book 3 definitely had more to give, so I take it with several grains of salt. Anyways, even wondering about it hypothetically produces interesting theories. We see at the end of Book 2 in the cave that Katara, once she overcomes her immediate, and warrented, repulsion of Zuko, she’s able to connect and see a bit of his heart underneath the layers and layers of angst and anguish obscuring it. This scene is popular in the Zutara fandom for a reason. However, I think that making changes to characters, especially in Zuko’s case should be done extremely selectively and purposefully. His arc is one of the most fantastic accomplishments of the show, and I think very little should be changed. For example, he should still make that doomed, yet inevitable choice in that cave to join Azula, but perhaps they’ll include his mother as a more forefront character, especially when he goes back to the Fire Nation. By all means, give Ty Lee and Mai more than just a conversation to supply their backstory. Thoroughly explore the swampbenders and the Freedom Fighters. Show more of the original airbenders in Aang’s memories! There’s room for exploration without dismantling the world or characters like the M. Night film did. For Zutara, I think that expanding Book 3 and giving the characters more time with each other would be invaluable. Think of how quickly Katara and Zuko grew close, from Katara threatening to off him first time he even hinted at being a threat, to becoming one of the most instinctual and formidable teams in the Gaang, to saving each other’s lives in the final battle. That’s not even mentioning the Southern Raiders.  The conflict over the entire show as the backdrop for a relationship like that, romantic or platonic, is incredibly suitable for a reboot. If it was explored, the outcome would be so powerful. 

I said before that there’s a difference between canon and endgame relationships. This just means that a relationship can be confirmed and explored without being the outcome. If Bryke include Zutara at all, that’s most likely how they’ll do it: adding a love triangle that ends up with Katara and Aang getting together. Honestly, it would be a method of making K/A a more interesting relationship and a way to have the characters grow a bit. However, this has the awful potential of just shitting on Zutara and turning it into a toxic relationship, which I’d rather not see.

But if it wasn’t Bryke running it? Absolutely, I think Zutara would, and should, be canon. Adaptation should take risks and be willing to explore, and I think Zutara is the type of dynamic we should see.  

[ebaeschnbliah]

THE  NEW  RUSSIAN  HOLMES

EPISODE SIX:   HALIFAX  PART TWO   (back to PART ONE)      

Outtake: CREATOR OF A LEGEND

________________________________________________________________

Directed by Andrey Kavun - Igor Petrenko as Sherlock Holmes - Andrey Panin as Dr. Watson

Episodes:   1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8

While John gets a proper scolding by his furious landlady, the detective inspector and the consulting detective plan to leave the police station as unobtrusively as possible. 

TBC below the cut  (with a lot of pics and all the spoilers)  …

Three is company ...

Lestrade and Holmes aren’t alone for long though. They have hardly left the station when Dr Watson turns up ... armed and in disguise ... ready to free his friend.

The most less thought-off hiding place ... 

Sherlock recommends Baker Street 221b because no one would suspect them at home. Mrs Hudson has a good meal ready when the three men turn up, to take a short breather before they continue their dangerous  undercover mission. 

Sherlock uses the time to tell his companions about his deductions and conclusions.  (The doctor’s attentive silence)

There was a secret meeting of four police officers, ensnared by a genius master criminal.

When they finally toast to their bold plan, three of the guys don’t know that they are already dying.

From hiding place to hiding place ...

A prolonged stay at Baker Street is, of course, no advisable strategy. And so Sherlock, John and Lestrade set out for the secret tunnel, built by the now dead burglars. There’s still a lot to be investigated.  

Sherlock needs some special equipment for further examinations and a change of location is necessary as well. 

Lestrade recommends a safe house, known only to a few reliable people. 

Sherlock sends Tom, one of his trusted acquaintances, to Baker Street for the equipment he needs. When the young man returns with the stuff, he warns them to stay at the place for long. ‘It’s a police hideout ... and the whole street knows this.’  

Now it’s John’s turn to suggest another hideout for the trio. He chooses a place ‘not exactly welcoming to the police but with an army to protect us, so to speak’, he tells his companions. The place is an inn, frequented primarily by soldiers. All of them seem to know Dr Watson. It turns out that Inspector Lestrade is also no stranger to the guests. 

They enjoy a good mug of beer and Sherlock explains to his friends how all the puzzle pieces fit together. (When Sherlock Holmes explains a case)

It was not the National Bank .... it will be the Royal Mint ...

The tunnel into the National Bank had just been a deflection. Moriarty never intended to rob the bank, his plan is a much bigger one. The master criminal wants to rob the whole country ... with forged bank notes, printed by the original printing machine. And to achieve this, he first of all needs that machine. Moriarty managed for Halifax to get a job in the Mint, so that the man was able to copy the printing machine. A perfect plan ... almost. 

Halifax did an excellent job. He knew this and was proud of it. A genius, in his own way, just like Holmes and Moriarty in theirs. And so, when Halifax had finished his work, he tricked Moriarty’s men and - using a magical illusion - broke free from his prison. 

He took all his artfully crafted bank notes with him and transformed himself into a charming and obviously very rich gentleman, to whom money is no object. Then Halifax went to the national bank at Saxe-Coburg Square in order to change the notes into bars of gleaming gold. And it wasn’t even just the profit which motivated the man. Most of all it was the thrill of the game, the temptation of a bold and fascinating risk. Spectacular but fatal. Halifax payed for this audacity with his life ....

Sherlock clearly likes that man. ‘Let’s drink to Halifax'

The tunnel beneath the tunnel ...

By now Sherlock is convinced that somewhere in the tunnel to the National Bank there must branch off another tunnel, which will lead to the Royal Mint. Sherlock, John and Lestrade set out again in search for that secret tunnel. They nearly miss it but .... thankfully Lestrade had drunk too much beer at the inn and needed to pee .....

Indeed, the first tunnel leads deeper down to a second tunnel. Scarcely hidden behind the wooden panels, the corpse of the poor engeneer had been desposed. And just as Sherlock had anticipated ... Halifax’s copy of the printing machine has been placed right under the secret entry to the Royal Mint.

Inside the Royal Mint ...

Finally the three companions reach their aspired destination inside the Royal Mint. They position themselves as best as possible and prepare for a long wait.

Slowly time goes by ...

Finally there is some movement underground. Slowly the hatch to the secret tunnel opens and one after the other, a group of policemen enters the room. Immediately some of them start preparations to pull the replicated printing machine out of the tunnel, while others investigate the room. 

The very moment when Moriarty himself is about to enter the Royal Mint, one of the policemen discovers John and Sherlock at their hiding place. Sherlock’s quick reaction saves John’s life but it also warns Moriarty, who promptly ducks down into the tunnel again and disapears without any further ado. (When the first shot gives away the trap)

Escaped ....

All hell breaks loose now but Sherlock is hardly able to function at all. He is devastated. Never had he been nearer to lay hands on the criminal mastermind and again it was all for nothing. 

Another group of policemen enter the room through a door. Shots are fired from all sides. The situation becomes more and more hopless for the three companions. It’s only a matter of time now ... 

Desperate, Inspector Lestrade calls his full name, orders his men to cease fire and drop the weapons. At first his efforts seem to be entirely in vain. Only when he starts reciting the oath they all had sworn the day they had become police officers, some of the men stop the fight and listen to him.  

‘I’m Inspector Lestrade!  ... I, Fitzpatrick Lestrade, do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.’

Slowly more and more of the men follow suit, until finally Inspector Lestrade is in full command of his officers. 

This night the Lestrade decides things by himself again and takes the law into his own hands ....

The day after ...

When a new morning rises over London, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson excange words with Inspector Lestrade in front of Scotland Yard. Lestrade thanks them for everything they did. But there is also a severe warning ...

‘... bear in mind: if anything leaks to the newspapers ... your corpses won’t ever be found.’

John will have to decide very carefully what parts from that case he can use for one of his stories.

°

Back to PART ONE       Outtake: CREATOR OF A LEGEND

Links to watch the series can be found HERE

________________________________________________________________

ALL THE EPISODES:

1 & 2  221B Baker Street

3 & 4  Rock, Scissors, Paper

5 & 6  Clowns

7 & 8  The Mistresses of Lord Maulbrey

9 & 10  The Musgrave Ritual    Outtake: Advice at The Strand

11 & 12  Halifax    part two    part one  

13 & 14  Holmes’s Last Case

15 & 16  The Hound named Baskerville

________________________________________________________________

Again, a big thank you to @spiritcc   and all the people who made it possible to watch and understand this wonderful Sherlock Holmes adaptation.  :)))) 

January, 2021

[blogger360ncislarules]

Burden of Truth‘s Season 3 finale sure felt like a series ender, yet the Canadian legal drama has plenty of story left in it for the fourth and final season, which makes its Stateside premiere this Friday, July 30 (The CW, 8/7c).

“Every season kind of ended in a way that it could have been the end [of the show], but Season 3 particularly felt that way” with a flash-forward to a very pregnant Joanna in her successful law firm with baby daddy Billy, star/executive producer Kristin Kreuk tells TVLine.

The creative team, though, felt they had enough to mine with Joanna and Billy as new parents to warrant continuing the show. “We were like, ‘We could tell one more chapter of this story!’ We could do one more thing, which would be to really explore trauma at the next level, which is like when you have children,” Kreuk shares. “So we went to the CBC with that, and they were happy to do another season.”

Below, the actress previews how Joanna is handling being a mother and why she and Billy “don’t feel particularly connected, romantically” in Season 4.

TVLINE | When you finished wrapping Season 3, did you feel like you had unfinished business with Joanna? Season 3 ended with her having everything. We gave her everything she didn’t know she wanted, but everything that she needed. When we talked about it, it was like the only thing that we would want to do now is take it away from her or threaten to take it away from her just to see how she handled that. And that was the unfinished business. It was just that one little bit more: How much and how would she fight to keep what she loves?

TVLINE | At what point did you know that Season 4 would be the final season? We went into it with that knowledge. [Series creator] Brad [Simpson] and the writers’ room shaped it to be a completion of everyone’s storyline.

TVLINE | The Season 3 finale could have been a very natural conclusion for all the characters. What would you say is the argument for doing another season, storytelling-wise? What did you get to explore that you hadn’t before? I’ve always thought that our show is about intergenerational trauma — and for our characters, Billy and Joanna, having a child means that we look at passing trauma down to the next generation, and how parents can face certain things. Obviously, everybody’s different, but for the two of them [it’s about] learning how to confront that trauma, which is kind of reflected in Joanna facing this case from her past so that they don’t pass things on to their kid. [It’s about] learning that they’re not the people they once were, and that they aren’t their parents, and that they don’t have to become their parents. It’s not some inevitable end point for them.

TVLINE | From watching last season, you can tell Joanna has a lot of nervousness about being a mother, and she would probably say she doesn’t have maternal instincts. So how is she adapting to motherhood, while also juggling this really demanding case? She’s struggling. Billy and Joanna don’t have a big support network. Joanna’s mom isn’t really a part of her life, and Billy’s dad has a legacy of alcoholism and abuse, so they really don’t have anybody. Joanna’s refuge is work. It’s where she goes to feel safe, it’s where she goes to feel competent when she feels insecure. So it’s a difficult thing for her, because they can only take the kid to daycare, and she struggles to breastfeed so she doesn’t feel like she’s succeeding. It kind of is this self-fulfilling prophecy where she needs to feel confidence, so she goes to work, which means she’s not with the kid and not bonding with the kid, and it is this really tough cycle. And Billy has some maybe old-fashioned perspectives about her maybe taking more time off work….

TVLINE | Watching the screeners, I questioned some of the things he said to her. Yeah, I think that’s a big part of it. Billy is a lot more traditional… All of these things kind of come to a breaking point, like they always do. His perspective isn’t correct, and Joanna’s perspective, obviously, isn’t 100-percent correct either, and they’re both just really struggling with their old belief system. Billy’s mom was always there, she didn’t have a job. She was constantly present and now she isn’t around because she’s passed. So he has a romanticized vision of what a mom is supposed to be. They’re both facing really flawed understandings of what it means to be a parent and what love looks like and how it looks in a relationship, as well.

TVLINE | How much pressure is that difference in values and views and the demands of parenthood putting on Joanna and Billy’s romantic relationship? It does put pressures on their romantic relationship. It’s interesting, because this season they don’t feel particularly connected, romantically, although it’s clear that they love each other. It takes this season for them to kind of come back together in a way that’s healthier. Their tension isn’t the main point of the season, but they’re definitely not having an easy go of it. They’re not sleeping, they’re exhausted, they’re working. And then stuff comes up from Joanna’s past, as it always does, that puts them in an even more difficult situation.

TVLINE | Since this is the last season, were there final-season touches that you were able to put on it, in terms of bringing back old characters or closing up lingering questions and storylines? Yeah, with Taylor’s storyline, there’s some amazing closure. She’s chosen to go back to Millwood, which she never thought she would do. She’s had to give up her dreams because of her father and his choices, and she’s had to recraft an entire life. Towards the end of the season, she gets to have this incredible moment of closure that’s really satisfying. Taylor’s storyline is quite beautiful this year.

Same with Luna, who this year is looking at how she’s going to enact the change she wants to see in the world. Is it going to be through the system that exists? Or is she going to try and do it outside of those systems? She’s in her early twenties and very much an activist at heart and has a brain, so she can choose almost any avenue she wants to take. That storyline is really lovely to see how she decides to move forward to help people in her life.

TVLINE | It was recently announced that you’re going to be in Amazon Prime’s Reacher. Coming off four seasons on Burden of Truth, what were you looking for in your next role? I was looking to develop stuff, which I’m also doing right now, but my agent loves the Reacher books. [Laughs] Like, he’s obsessed with them. So this was a fun thing. I could stay home in Toronto, and it’s a small-ish role, so I could do schoolwork and go and play a southern gal from Georgia on a massive action series. They have so much money, it’s crazy!

[rubberduckyrye]

idk if you're looking for feedback for Jaden, but I work with a lot of folks with disabilities. Muteness and vocal chord issues aren't my particular disability so feel free to disregard for any reason. Just based on my experience, whenever it comes to "corrective" surgery, it's a multi-layered decision, based on the risks associated with the surgery (i.e. cochlear implant is a risky procedure), the inconvenience of the adaptive surgery (i.e. is there disfiguring scarring, painful healing process, etc.), cost obviously, availability of a proficient surgeon, support from family and adaptive devices (say, a wheelchair is exactly what they want and need for mobility), and sometimes an attachment to the identity associated with the disability, such as the deaf and hard of hearing community. I also am pals with a guy who's a disability rights activist who talks really passionately about not taking such a route because there's nothing wrong with him, the world just isn't built for people like him. You seem like a thoughtful creator, so maybe you've already thought about all of this!

Yeah, I have thought about this, but it was something I was hesitant to speak on in the initial post since Jaden has a disability that I do not have :’D I guess it feels weird to discuss for that reason?

There is the sort of struggle of what I should do--correcting a disability to better fit in with the world around you, or to demand a world to change for you and those who share your struggles. The latter is, of course, preferred--as you said, there isn’t anything wrong with having a disability. Even if Jaden’s is based off of an injury he received as a child, it is still a part of his character. He gets along fine with whispering and signing, but he’s still at a pretty big disadvantage as well, which causes the dilemma in the first place. Of course, if the surgery has a high fatality rate or has a high rate of something going wrong, then it would of course be something he wouldn’t consider. I already have an “alternative” for him having a voice, which was based on this device and some Ultimate Inventor Creativity. (Honestly I’m surprised no one has thought of using this kind of gesture technology with sign language and text to speech programs. At least if they exist, I haven’t seen them!)

And that is something I want to portray with his character--that he shouldn’t have to get a surgery for the world to accept him or at least for him to be treated well (I.E. because he’s not deaf and not even 100% mute he doesn’t fit in with the deaf or mute communities (A lot of his character has to do with being left behind/being an outcast and sort of isolated, so his experience isn’t meant to be a 1 to 1 with how these things would happen in reality (or at least I’d hope not) but alas) but he is also constantly put in a straining/mentally taxing position by able-bodied people as his disability is not obvious)  at the same time, what is more in character for Jaden to do himself? Look into and possibly get the corrective surgery, since he lives in a world that will probably not change for him in his life time, or does he not? It’s a matter of pros and cons for him, and something he (well, I) would have to research further into.

Then again... NGL, I really forgot about that “Sign to Speech” idea I had back when Jaden was completely mute and before I found out that damaging your vocal chords doesn’t actually make you 100% mute. I guess I scrapped the invention since it didn’t seem like a real tool that was available (as far as I’m aware, please let me know if I’m wrong!) but honestly maybe I’ll just, give that back to him. That’s the kind of solution we should be seeing in our world, after all!

Hmmm....

I’m also like, super god damn sleepy--so my brain isn’t functioning 100% right now xD;

Also thank you I do try to be thoughtful and stuff when it comes to my characters and this sort of this :’D

[thewolfisawake]

Since I’m in this brainrot alone, of course I’m just gonna end up thinking of a Hypmic AU with muses and their friends because I’m trash like that. Anyway, to avoid spamming my discord with the ideas, I’m just writing it on here. So a couple muses and those from @arcxnumvitae and @shxtteredillusions​.

Starting with Kesil just because he honestly doesn’t fit with the rest. His actually came first as I thought of him with his friends from a different platform. He would be rolling with his delinquent/probably doing some illegal shit friends. Their style is more like MTC with the rough and tumble, down and dirty sort of thing. His MC name is actually Shinigami because I gotta stick with his ‘thing’ no matter the AU! I do not know what his mic nor speakers would end up like. I think most of his themes are related to him as a killer as he in this verse likely only learned and became good with a hypmic just because it’s the only weapon he could have. I mean...he probably could sneak one regardless but since most weapons were phased to mics, he probably learned. His rap ability would probably be something like Death Reversal, basically he could deny himself or his comrades of being knocked out as it fits with his actual ability of death force manipulation. Of all the guys I think he’s most like, it’s probably Rio as I don’t feel he’s overly expressive. Not because of lack of feeling but just that cool under pressure sore of thing

--

Anyway onto the Bastion Kids because they’re my faves to mess with

Ofc Lucien’s the easiest to think of this crap for. I do not have a MC name because unlike the creators, I have shame. But probably something wolf related. I feel his mic would be pretty old so look like a carbon microphone (because I think I’m funny) and be pretty simple. Don’t know what his speakers would be like. I think his themes are actually rather mundane when outside of battle. But in battle, cutthroat bastard. He’s like absolute annihilation of his enemy, his words are like the maw of a beast, he’d rip you to shreds. His ability is Cornered Counter, basically as his energy dwindles, his attacks get more powerful. Basically you gotta be decisive with him because the longer he lasts, the more dangerous he is. So obviously his is most like Samatoki’s as it fits his aggressive tone and no back down attitude. 

I have a feeling he probably pissed off the Party of Words and thus if they had the chance to deal with him, they would’ve. Maybe he and his fam had differing views as to how to take this change in the world. I feel like he preferred the old ways but had to adapt to using a hypnosis mic in order to survive. And survive he did. 

Katarina’s was somewhat easier to do because she’s very clear in her presentation. I debate if she’d just straight up use her name or if it’d be something like Prima (either by itself or being Prima Donna), something denoting her regality. Her mic is likely a stand one fashioned like crystalline ice. Her speakers kind of hard to describe other than like a metallic feminine figure that kind of looks like a warlord, armed to the teeth with swords. Her themes are of betterment of the state of her surroundings, how she’ll change it with her own hands and utmost confidence of herself. Her rap ability I am still working on since while the idea currently works with her actual ability...what it ends up doing runs counter to her personality. It’d be called Dazzle and would basically redirect an opponent’s attack to someone else. However the issue is Kat can’t choose who it goes to. Since there’s not much I can draw from with the ladies of hypmic, I would go with CL for her sound although I found Chanmina while searching and thought this hits me for Kat. But if I had to choose a character, it’d be Ichijiku.

 I actually think her mother might’ve been a good soldier for the Party of Words but then she kinda sorta ended up falling in love with the enemy. Whoops. Except like the Party of Words didn’t know she did (supposedly). And so she left and went to be with Kat’s dad, who was a resistance member but wasn’t able to use a mic. So Kat is like the kid that was like...y’know we could live in peace if we’re not super oppressive. I feel like Petra taught her how to rap as it’s the only viable weapon for Kat so that’s what she uses. 

Crowe’s is a pain because he’s a pain. I don’t have a MC name either maybe Shadow? Too basic? I dunno. His mic either a headset or futuristic kind of shades he wears. I’m sure everyone finds it odd. His speakers look more like cameras and briefcases with like a dicey looking umbrella. It’s huge frickin’ homage to spy stuff y’all. And you’ll figure out the function of them when he turns his speakers on you. Electric volt briefcases, umbrella gun, that kinda stuff. His themes are pretty pessimistic, the secrets of others, the ability to get his hands dirty and what those dirty hands can and can’t do. His rap ability I feel would be based on his gorgon blood so likely named such (Gorgon) or Eyebite and would work where he paralyzes an opponent from taking their turn. Who I draw most for him is actually Jakurai although obviously his voice is no where as deep. 

If there had to be a traitor, it’s probably Crowe. He isn’t particularly happy about it but at the same time, it’s not like he’s brave enough to deal with his overlords. Not when he knows the things they COULD do. Or maybe he’s doing spy stuff on Chuuoku and is in a continuously perilous position but can’t or won’t talk to anyone about it. Basically he still has his paranoia but for a different reason. 

Hmmm Taylor’s giving me a lot of problems because I just can’t pin down a lot for her. I don’t have a name for her nor any idea what she’d go with. Maybe something food based? The only ones coming to mind are Red Velvet and Matcha. Her mic? I think she’d use a hand held mic. Kind of like the ones you do karaoke on in terms of shape. Her speakers? * confused noises * Her themes mmm....I think hers are rather upbeat although not without bite! Her rap ability still eludes me. If I’m thinking of sound, I would put it as something like Calliope although again her words are lighter than hers. 

I feel like Taylor’s family ended up with her parents not surviving the war and thus was left with Rhett to try to keep his siblings from being separated from him. She didn’t view a need to learn how to rap--after all a lot of the population doesn’t seem to--but her mind was changed after being kidnapped for ransom and subjected to the effects of a hypnosis mic. She ended up saved by then then ragtag kids and wanted to learn so that she was never in that position again.

Hooo boy, Emil has that instinctual attention to tone shift going mad. Oh god. I do not have a MC name for him either. I feel Prince would be far too on the nose. So something else. I think he’d have a stand mic, I think his would be like I think it’s a certain kind of ribbon mic? Like this? Makes me think of like old school announcers that fits with his lively personality. I feel like his speakers would be more like ice fragments that feels like they should be falling but don’t. His themes are like half light-hearted and inviting, about having a good time with others. But the other times it’s about masks and charades. He is the kind that has that tone drop and you can tell it’s another ‘presence’ to Emil. One that is vicious and will have you sinking. His rap ability is Frostbite, which would essentially have any battle of his become a race against time. His ability starts sapping the energy of his opponent and of course if they drop...it’s game over for them. His sound when light-hearted is more like Hifumi in like vocal tone but with Ramuda’s flow. Yet I feel like the perfect sound for his is Gentaro’s verse in Stella (Emil, I hope you know you are the biggest pain in terms of style) in terms of like how he sounds in alternating between cutting and light. 

I feel like his mom had stayed in the Chuuoku under the Party of Words but had seen Emil’s dad while outside of the ward. And then she fell pregnant and was in love with Emil when he was born despite him being a son than daughter. And when faced with either handing Emil over to his dad or leaving Chuuoku, she chose the latter. This was her baby. Emil had grown up with both but his mom passed away...his father suspecting it to be Chuuoku’s doing, moved away far from the ward. However Emil grew curious of the hypnosis mic that his mother had used when she was alive and so he ran off near Chuuoku, where he met a...unkind mentor (basically his grandma in normal verse stuff) that did teach him but did affect his candor. 

Cipriana I have also am having some trouble thinking things of. I do not have a MC name but I think it’d be cool if she chose one that’s like...reclaiming and being proud of her ‘runt’ status. Also am not sure about her mic. I think she’d have a handheld one though. As her mic, maybe they’re in the shape of spools with like threads all around and at least one connecting her her mic. Her themes I feel would be a bit like that somber hope? Like it sounds a little sad but it’s ultimately about a better day eventually. Which contrasts to how she is in a battle as I imagine she is very loud in presence since this is more or less a fight and she isn’t getting knocked down again (her mindset of chasing down Lucien absolutely frightens and intrigues me). I just thought of her ability being like By a Thread, where she essentially she cannot be ringed out and can be a little harder to knock out. Her set up kind of makes like a net or wrap around her to keep her from falling (also makes her look like a doll in some aspects, oooh callback). I think of her sound very much like Nemu. 

I do not know how she runs in this story except maybe that she was normal and just simply ended up in the whirlwind of hypnosis mics. Although sitting here now, I’m thinking if Arsenio had a mic and had used it against her--since it’s basically inflicting psychic damage--on her even though she didn’t have one (which is illegal btw). And Vini had it with his shit and used his own and having the same mindset as in her original verse, she actually took one of their mics and used her words against Vinicio, still causing their original rift...just worse. A lot of the same plotting from there maybe? Eventually she meets the rest of the kids.  

Aspis has been rather hit or miss. I am still thinking on his MC name but Yaksha has been in there. I am thinking of his mic to be handheld and I can’t think of anything particular for its design. I think of his speakers looking like demon masks with the speaker part within the mouth. It’s kinda intense looking especially since you know he’s so sweet. Gotta keep his contrasting aesthetic somewhere. His themes are usually about mundane things as well. Musings about those of his past and present. I feel he’s the least biting towards others in battles? Like a lot of battles are attacking something about your opponent or about one’s own ability. I think Aspis would rely less on tearing someone down. Not saying he can’t but I feel like it’s gonna be a bloodbath if he does. His rap ability would be called Katashiro, where he links to another person (usually an opponent) where when he is injured, that damage is shared between him and the opponent. Which coupled with his odd endurance, could drop whoever he linked with before he falls. If I think of his sound, I think of Kuko’s flow but also Ichiro’s lyrical way.

I feel like Aspis gonna have all the crap things of being a war orphan for himself. Pretty self-reliant and not one to take help because he kinda doesn’t know how to. But I think music saves him, I think Daza might be a DJ who even if she didn’t have a mic, she got him understanding of flow and the like. And it was just a comfort for him. She probably helped him obtain a mic. And he was friends and the like with Yukina until she went with the Party of Words. 

Aya’s is like Aspis’ hit or miss in terms of what I can think of. MC names are harrrrdddddd. I feel like her mic I alternate between it being the kind you see a cabaret singer use or a handheld. Maybe one of the first that does both??? I can’t think much in design other than ‘shimmery.’ Not like gaudy but like you watch her move or light hits just right and you see it shine...like her. Her speakers looks more like a theater. With like velvety curtain backdrop and everything. And her attacks look pretty until they hit you. I’m thinking like razor flower petals sort of thing. Her themes...mmm, I feel like overall it’s just ‘pop-y’ and light. It’s nothing like her battling. I feel she just sounds pleasant but then has some serious cutthroat bars. Despite this, I think of her rap ability being Renewal, being able to make others’ attacks stronger and cutting the damage they take. Super supportive skill which she probably took a while to figure out about. I actually found her sound while looking at other stuff. Which I think is Jeon Soyeon easily. 

Also not quite sure where she would be in the story other than I think Meg would’ve procured her a mic for her protection. And I think she cultivated her rapping to have a rap ability. And I feel like Meg was worried about it and wanted Aya away from eyes that would witness it. Because although it has no offensive power for Aya herself (at least not that anyone’s made her come to that point), it is useful for like...a team or ally situation. So useful for the Party of Words and what Meg wants to avoid. But she can’t really stop Aya from doing what she wants with her mic. 

[gamer-of-the-day]

Hi! I hope you're well! I'm writing an article on video games for work, and I was wondering (since you like the Sonic movie) what makes a good video game movie? Thank you and stay safe!

Thanks for the ask. One video I always recommend for this is the Cosmonaut Variety Hour’s take on Video Game Movies.

He discusses a lot of the failures around them but also breaks down the success of the Netflix Castlevania series.

Granted this came out before the Sonic movie, but it covers many good beats.

A big thing with bad Video Game movies is that they fail in many different ways, from acting, to scripting, to execution. Marcus breaks down some of the flaws like this:

* Games not having great storylines. Since the medium is more for interactivity games don’t always have the deepest narratives. That’s obviously not true across the board, with a lot of games having their narratives front and center as part of their appearl. However stuff like Street Fighter and Mario don’t necessarily have the most engaging of stories so when adapted writers just kind of make shit up and it’s not always great.

* Sometimes it’s the creators of the film just not being talented. The Silent Hill movie is a great example of this. There’s a lot of love behind the scenes of that movie, the director is clearly a fan and the aesthetic they committed to was top notch, those effects are amazing. Unfortunately the writing just isn’t great and the studio interference really hurt it. Sean Bean basically has nothing to do but they increased his role because the executives felt it needed a male lead. Similarly the writers changed the story to be much more straightforward and cliched. They dropped Harry Mason as the lead because they felt that the parental need to protect a child was motherly rather than fatherly.

Good video game adaptations aim for a balance of love towards the source material and understanding what must be changed for a new medium. Sonic captures a lot of the games’s energy. Sonic runs fast, he’s a “cool” character who’s also a big dork and he’s got a naivete that’s appealing. He’s also got a character design that came from a a place of love (though the effects team tragically closing down is an annoying reminder of how little regard Hollywood has for visual effects artists, the documentary “Life After Pi” is good for this).

Adaptation is always a major process be it from a book, comic, or video game. No audience will be 100% satisfied because stuff will change. Castlevania changed a lot and that was definitely for the better. Carmilla’s more compelling, Issac’s more nuanced story is much more interesting, and both are greatly different from the source material. Dr. Robotnik was changed a lot from his game character. He’s visually different, much more of a prick, and now work’s for the US Government to topple countries. Yet he’s still got the funny air that the game had, the ruthlessness that the comics had, and a great costume that homages his game outfits but updates them. More importantly his mad scientist “I hate that Hedgehog” personality is still intact; which is the character’s core.

Detective Pikachu, Castlevania, and Sonic are much more successful at the delicate balance between keeping what’s iconic about the games, what’s familiar, and what works; alongside what needs to be changed and what would make a compelling story within the time frame allowed. They take what’s identifiable and work within that to tell a story on their own terms.

[salty-dracon]

Some thoughts on The Caligula Effect 2

So I joke about this game getting a second remake to my friends online and the next moment I learn THIS was announced during the Japanese Nintendo Direct. Let me spill out my thoughts to spark discussion as well as provide a record to myself if this game actually does get localized.

Everything is under the cut!

My thoughts on Overdose were that it has a fantastic world... and that’s it. Out of the game’s cast, there were maybe four characters I liked, and the rest had moments that made me lose all sympathy for them. I recall it was common for some Let’s Players to like the villains better than the protagonists, and I’d agree on that front. I actually think the anime is the best iteration of this game’s story, changing up the formula enough to provide a really solid characterization arc to everyone. But Overdose suffers from poor writing issues (killing Eiji offscreen in the best ending was one of the worst decisions they made), rough handling of certain topics, boring and monotonous dungeons, and 500 social links you’re never going to do. I’m incredibly critical of this game, and I’d never recommend it to someone without a LOT of disclaimers, but somehow I still love it.

Already this game looks CRAZY good visually. It doesn’t look like a reskinned Vita game anymore, with something a little more reminiscent of say, the Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth games. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t still implement its fantastic character art, which still show up next to the speech bubbles. (At least the models have moving jaws. That’s important.)

Here’s to really hoping this game won’t be another Caligula 1 reskin, because uh... the game is about a protagonist who realizes that the world is a virtual one created by a Vocaloid who won’t let anyone out and joins up with a group of teenagers who also want to get out despite the fact that their real world lives were horrible so that they can set things right and they call themselves the Go-Home club (and also a Vocaloid gives them weapons made out of black stuff) but the people that are stopping them are basically the servants and guardians of the Vocaloid keeping them trapped in, who also happen to be humans who can’t return to the real world because their real world lives were so horrible, and so they have to fight because the Vocaloid won’t let them out otherwise. I mean, of course it won’t be a reskin, but I’m surprised at just how much of the original story they kept.

As for things they absolutely did NOT keep, DAMN this game looks dark! I was once remarking to a friend about how Caligula’s story would appeal better to me specifically if they’d gone with a religious pressure rather than idol stan theme, and they appear to have really pulled through with that religious pressure. I just realized, while writing this, that the image I showed off above actually has an image of an angel in the stained glass window being worshiped by fans with glow sticks. Furthermore, there’s a gothic cathedral-like altar, a halo behind Regret’s head, and this whole exchange looks like it takes place in a church. While I’m not religious myself, I can talk a lot about church architecture (see: my Fire Force livetweet) and I’m interested to see how this game handles it.

Not only that, most of the character designs seem darker and very different from the original game’s. Take a look at this game’s idol goddess:

Is μ going through an emo phase? I wouldn’t blame her lol. I think she still has a fantastic design that is in equal parts dreary and beautiful, while perfectly matching the color scheme of the new game.

And what a color scheme it is! The world of Caligula 1 had a gorgeous white, black, pink, brown, and gray color scheme framing bold pops of color in the form of flowers. Caligula 2 changes things up by making black the primary color framing everything else. The pops of color are so much bolder, too, from Noto’s bright yellow sweatshirt to basically everything χ is wearing. Do these changes reflect the story’s potential darker tone too? Or are they representative of something else?

We don’t know too much about the characters, but Caligula 2 looks like it’s giving them different weapons. It looks like the protagonists wield double knives instead of double shotguns. As for the other weapons, I see shortswords, katanas, chains, pistols (much smaller than Shogo’s), canes, and Qiyana’s ohmlatl from League of Legends. Definitely a shift from the original game’s weapons. I wonder if they’ll make a comeback? That giant gun was unique to say the least.

The Obbligato (I think?) are this game’s Ostinato Musicians. Italian for “obliged”, they are the ones who defend Regret from any threats. The one shown off most in the trailer is this guy who looks like the 1010 dudes from No Straight Roads. Man, he really looks like Shadow Knife in that image up there...

Also we get a, um, clown astronaut and a crazy high school yandere. Just to name a few. Definitely not the first time I’ve beat up a clown in a video game. Pretty unique as far as villains go, though. I hope this game has its own villain route, where you learn more about them. I’d really like that.

Social links! Looks like you rank up social links the same way you do in the original game. Do you want to make this character spill out all their trauma? Are you SURE about that, despite there being no negative consequences to you, the player? Awesome. Get ready to be sad.

The battle system is, from what I’ve read, similar, but not the same, as the battle system in Overdose. I’m not going to give too many details on that. They still seem to be time-based with combo chains, but they’re pretty vague. Looks like you still get to unleash crazy special attacks against your enemies. And they in turn can unleash crazy special attacks against you.

I absolutely want to see a. better characters and b. better overall writing. In my opinion these were the two weakest points of Caligula 1. Despite the protagonists’ tragedies, some of the little things they did made me sort of hate them. I did not like how everyone in the original Go-Home Club used Kotaro (who you learn is FOURTEEN!) as a verbal punching bag despite him being one of the kindest characters in the club. As for better overall writing, I stated before that I preferred the anime’s interpretation of events, because I thought they were in a better order overall. Besides killing Eiji offscreen, I hated how they wrote μ to be such a monumentally stupid character (I often point to Persona 5 Royal on how to write a villain like her well) and their, in my opinion, poor handling of certain topics like fatphobia. And though the character episodes sort of redeem them, it’s like... not really? The way I described it to a friend was that while the moral of Caligula 1′s story may have been “We live in a society and everyone’s dealing with their own hardships, but you can’t run away from them forever and you can at least be sympathetic to those facing them”, the character interactions end up dumbing it down to “We live in a society”.

Also an anime adaptation would be really sick. The anime just had so much better writing.

As for what I’m really curious about:

1. Who is Regret and how is she related to μ and Aria? We already know she’s a Virtuadoll like them, but if I recall correctly μ and Aria had some more concreteness to their backstories. Specifically, the human characters remember them existing as vocal synthesizer programs before they became the rules of Mobius. Regret’s backstory is that she just kind of showed up one day. Does she have different origins from μ and Aria? By the same merit, who is χ and how is she related to Regret, μ, and Aria? We know that χ opposes Regret and gives the Go-Home club the power to fight back against her, kind of like what Aria did in Caligula 1, but was she a co-creator of Redo like Aria was, or was her role completely different? The fact that she isn’t a little sparkle like Aria was (as a result of losing all of her power) indicates that their roles might be a little different.

2. What relationship does Redo have to Mobius? We know Mobius was created because Aria and μ wanted a place for humans to live without the sorrows they experienced in the real world. However, eventually μ was manipulated by everyone’s negative emotions and Thorn’s actions. This caused her to prevent anyone from leaving, and also the plot of the first game. Is Redo a second, improved iteration of Mobius, or a completely new virtual space? Were the goals behind its creation the same as in the first game? Or was there another force at work? Is Regret trying to copy μ or improve on her work? Or is she doing what μ did independently? I don’t think there’s enough information to predict the answer to this, but from what I’ve seen, there are a lot of similarities between the two worlds, from the high school to the end goal. However, there are some differences in tone. Mobius was a place to escape suffering, while Redo is being marketed as a place to escape regret. Redo also has a more religious bend than the idol theme of the first game.

3. What other links do the first and second games have to each other? People have been theorizing that Marie Mizuguchi/Wicked from the first game may return as Marie Amabuki (I think) in the second due to them having the same VA. There’s obviously the shared artstyle, symbolism, Catharsis Effect, glitchy NPC faces, and general setting. I also suspect that this game takes place after the events of Caligula 1. Not much I can say about this right now, but I wonder how everything joins up. Or if it even matters that they do. I haven’t seen too much on whether or not this game is being marketed as a standalone or a sequel, or if you even need to play Caligula 1 to enjoy Caligula 2.

Conclusion: While the Caligula series isn’t one I’d recommend to everyone, for the way it handles a number of sensitive topics, I will still be checking out Caligula 2 if it comes to the West. Though very little has been revealed thus far, so far I’m interested in the religious iconography used as well as the darker tone and colors presented in the game. As well as the characters, who have more varied and interesting designs including super unique weapons. I’m a bit disappointed that the plot, as it has been revealed, is an exact copy of Caligula 1′s plot, right down to the names of the protagonists’ faction. I was hoping for a bigger evolution to the story, but considering so little has been revealed in the first place, this may be a bit of a preemptive judgement.

That’s it. I hope you enjoyed my discussion of what I’ve learned so far.

[captainsassmanes]

I get the impression that Carina pulls a lot of the stuff she says about Alex out of her ass. Does Alex have PTSD? It's the basis of his whole character duh. So why can't we see it clearly? Well you're just dumb it's subtle but it's there DUH. I'll give her that a lot of Alex's actions can be explained by trauma. But they could be explained by other things too. Nothing that screams PTSD imo. So her metaphorical duh-s are really, REALLY out of place, but yeah sure, the audience is dumb.

I guess sometimes I wish she wouldn’t answer the questions, ya know? Instead of implying that the audience is missing something or telling us point blank “you’re not gonna get what you want,” I’d rather she not say anything. She sees Roswell as her baby, which I 100% get, but like, we love her baby, too, and we help keep her baby fed with a roof over its head.

I think she’s had a whole game plan from when she started, how she wants the story to play out, major plot points, and you obviously have to do that as a creator so you know where you’re going. BUT, I think a creator also needs to adapt to the audience’s preferences and what they want to see. What if Max and Liz ended up having zero chemistry and the viewers were like “oh no?” Would she not change anything? What if everyone had hated Michael? Like, you need to get feedback and figure out how to use it within the structure of the story you want to tell.

This is an incredibly long winded way of saying I wish she would even just appear to be more accepting of fans thoughts sometimes. Not necessarily the unnecessary criticism but their thoughts because of their love of the show. Alex is a gay, amputee, soldier who’s been abused most of his life. Exploring PTSD or at least acknowledging that, perhaps you haven’t discussed it enough, isn’t the end of the world.