#do the showrunners know that other countries exist????

[lnsfawwi]

Heroism in TFATWS

Let's establish one thing which is that the show operates in a superhero trope, which means there are good guys and bad guys, and the good guys always win. This is not to say that characters are morally clean-cut between good/bad. The Flag Smashers acted out of good intentions; Walker did want to do good things when he took over the mantle. But that doesn't mean they aren't the bad guys in the story, because a person is not only judged by their intentions but also the means and the ends of those intentions.

Sam and Bucky are the heroes in the story, they beat the bad guys (the Flag Smashers) and saved the world. That's how the story ends. That's how all the superhero stories end.

But the show isn't quite that simple, not in the sense that it deals with moral greys, no. Rather, the show really fucks up the boundaries between good/bad, right/wrong, and by extension, the heroism of the show.

Let's say Karli has some vague cosmopolitan worldview, and let's say that's better than the state system so Sam is justified to sympathize with her cause, and sam is rightfully asking the governments to be better. What's the actual, feasible way to achieve Karli's vision? Nice speeches notwithstanding, Sam isn't offering a solution. States aren't going to abandon the system that made them a state just because some hero dressed in an American flag descends from the sky and tells them to. Forced displacement and/or re-settlement happen because the population distribution is screwed, especially in Western Europe where Karli is from. Those states simply do not have the capacity, spatially and financially, to accommodate all the people while the others would be faced with devastating labour shortages. Statecraft is not just about morals, some IR scholars would even argue it's never about morals, you have to do the rationalist calculation. (also sam's speech to the politicians is so.........wrong. it sounds like a 16-year-old wanna-be socialist who spends too much time on leftist tiktok)

Here's the thing, you can agree with the political ideology or not, because it's not about whether it's right or wrong. It's about Sam being a hero who comes from a heavy political background, who represents a set of values that is meant to transcend a single country, advocating that ideology whilst being completely naive about it.

Steve embodies a similar idealism that makes him a hero, but not a leader. He's a leader because he can lead, he assesses the situation, sets a goal, and gives out tasks to achieve that goal. In the show, Sam is not demonstrating effective leadership, although not entirely his fault.

When you have the 'hero' indiscriminatorily endorsing the villain's philosophy, it doesn't mean the hero is empathetic, it means the hero is fucking bullshit. What makes a hero isn't merely stopping bad guys, it's also offering a better alternative even when the villain kinda makes sense. Superheroes are supposed to offer moral lessons through their heroism, which often takes place as they defeat evil. Without that, they're just dudes stopping fights, not heroes fighting for causes. The only moral lesson Sam offers is 'hey maybe radicalization is bad', which is completely ignored by both Karli and Zemo.

Sam's sympathy towards Karli is even more absurd. Even if he agrees with her cause, she's an unrepentant killer. 'Don't call them terrorists.' really, Sam? What would you call them? Just bc the Soviets fought the N@zis doesn't mean they were the good guys.

Furthermore, we see the contrast between her and the other flag smashers. They were invisible victims while her body was gently carried by Sam as phones and cameras were recording. In a show where they tried to make sense of racism, the stark contrast between Karli and the rest of the group happens to be mostly PoC is kinda hilarious.

The problem isn't Sam. It's the terrible horrible writing. You can't take a Watsonian take when it's so obviously a Doylist problem. The show claims to be a lot of things it got wrong is just pathetic.

What about Bucky? His arc is pretty detached from the main storyline and he basically did nothing significant in the show so I don't even know what they want to convey about his heroism. He was literally just running around punching people (not even very good at it too) while being blamed for things he wasn't responsible for. He only told Karli that killing was bad. What a novel lesson. Again, there is nothing from the good guy.

Who is the hero then?

Zemo is the true anti-hero of the show. Throughout the show, Sam and Bucky - the good guys - oppose killing in general, but their method is proven ineffectual and in the end, all Flag Smashers are killed with a majority of them killed after they were lawfully arrested. The Flag Smashers were terrorists, they were the villains, therefore narratively, this makes Zemo's end goal - killing all supersoldiers, in this case, the Flag Smashers - right. His ideology - the desire to become superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideas; supersoldiers cannot be allowed to exist - is positively reflected in the story. His success inevitably justifies his ideology, which stands in contrast to both Sam and Karli. I'm not saying what he did was heroic, but from a storytelling perspective, Zemo is the 'hero' who ultimately eliminated the evil in this superhero trope.

The result is that Sam, the supposed hero of the show, has done nothing. He didn't stop the bad guys, he didn't offer an effective alternative to Karli (or Zemo) practically and ideologically, while Zemo did all that. What does it say about heroism and the idealism that comes with it? That it's nice to talk about but useless when a real battle takes place? That end does justify means? Because that's not what Cap trilogy conveys.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://www.lifo.gr/stiles/optiki-gonia/kaos-einai-i-shesi-mas-me-ti-mythologia

Can they stop with modern labels? Every time they try to say that ancient Greece was a queer paradise where it was far from this.

It was criticised in society unless the man was powerful and rich. Like it was a tiny minority and they create this narrative of ancient Greece have over 50% being queer or something.

It's time for our xenoi friends and followers to learn another Greek term. Xenolatreia. It means "worship of anything foreign (mainly from the western countries)", which is a widespread phenomenon among Greeks for the past 2 centuries. It's the following sentiment: "Anything that comes out of western countries is good and it should be praised because we here in Greece are a bunch of illiterate monkeys who live on trees, and cannot see the Deeper Message our Superior Westerners show."

Lifo has had some decent articles over the years but this one reeks of xenolatreia. Lifo supports that the Greeks hate the series because it has queer people in it. so it goes on a campaign to show that Greek mythology had queer people. Which, sure, I don't disagree, but it misses the point. While some Greeks surely have been offended just by the existence of queerness, Lifo misses the REAL reason why Greeks in large felt their mythology was butchered by KAOS. They even wrote it in the article themselves:

"Zeus is a paranoid authoritarian dictator in mid-life crisis who fears losing his power and murders his aides to vent. Hera is a promiscuous goddess who repeatedly betrays Zeus and has mutilated mute priestesses for protection. Dionysos is a spoiled and immature zoomer who, apart from pranks, indulges in orgies with all genders. Poseidon a sadistic god of the sea, who tortures the crew on his ship for fun. Prometheus is gay and killed his lover so he could overthrow Zeus. Orpheus is a famous pop singer and Eurydice does not love him. Theseus is black and gay. The Erinyes are tough-as-nails mechs that look like they stepped out of 'Sons of Anarchy'. The Fates resemble a three-member jury in a talent show. The Trojans are a terrorist group that acts against the gods. Crete is more reminiscent of California than the Mediterranean."

Queer and diverse identities in general are nothing bad. The way KAOS mixed everything into a salad is the real bad thing, and the showrunners hide behind the queer representation when they are met with any other kind of criticism. It's the same tactic Lifo follows here. Only extremely stupid people would have an issue if Ganymees and Zeus were a couple in the show when it was also a part of our mythology. The problem about KAOS for the larger population is not the queerness.

Lifo continues:

The idea we have of Greek myths is, at best, a jumble of bits and pieces created by the Greek school: Zeus has sexual relations with mortals, Hera is jealous, Dionysus engages in revelry, Persephone for some reason resides in Hades , a bird eats the flesh of Prometheus, Aphrodite is the most beautiful and Athena the wisest of the bunch, Artemis hunts, Apollo plays the lyre: a very general and vague idea, much more chaotic than the mixing of myths which "Kaos" attempts.

What a shitty argument. Did you pay any attention in school, I wonder?? Do you know that we know our myths also outside the Greek school and that the Greek school teaches based on the ancient sources, and we often read the ancient text itself?? Also, no, the situation here is not more absurd than what KAOS does. The mythology is what it is. KAOS takes an already established thing and makes a turd out of playdoh.

Instead, we demand that a series aiming for commercial appeal follow our preferred script line and stay true to what? In our own obsessions, revisions, angulations and Christian puritanisms?

To our freaking culture, dear Lifo. To the myths we wrote and passed down for two and a half millennia, dear Lifo. They are fairly widespread and they are very difficult to get wrong.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/ecoterrorist-katara/743680863675580416?source=share

I know that you have already talked about the "female gaze" more than once, but what do you say about this?

Let's get the easier parts out of the way:

1 - The showrunners consider Aang the angel on Katara's shoulder on The Southern Raiders because Avatar is a kids show and the moral of the episode was "Hey, kids, even if you ever meet a truly horrible person don't immediately respond with violence, it could backfire horribly or push you to do something you'd regret later" not because they think she's an object that Aang gets to posses and control - hence them having Aang give her advice on what to do, but not try to prevent her from leaving nor judging her for not forgiving her mother's killer.

2 - Katara's point was NOT central to Zuko in that episode, at least not at first. By the end of the episode he understood and felt compassion for her and her family, but at the start he was only looking for a cheat-code to make Katara stop hating him because it reminded him of his screw ups. It was Zuko being entitled and trying to avoid consequences.

3 - "This thing is like the PLATONIC version of a thing that sometimes happens in romance" If it's platonic (you said it, not me) then it's not a "win" for your OTP. Zuko and Iroh's falling out after Ba Sing Se has lots of dramatic, super intense and heartbreaking moments, just like romances do - but their storyline is obviously not a romance and they are explicitly treated by the narrative as father and son.

4 - "Katara isn't hiding any side of her personality from Zuko" Katara doesn't hide any side of her personality for ANYONE - family, friends, rivals, enemies, strangers. Highlighing that she is herself with Zuko is pointless because she is herself with everyone, including people she does not like, which was the category Zuko fit into at the moment.

Now, onto yet another absurdly long take by this annoyed feminist that has had enough to the "Male Gaze VS Female Gaze" bullshit.

(Check this previous post before reading the rant in case you don't know these terms or what they mean/were supposed to mean)

Zutarians gotta learn that just because a trope is popular, that doesn't mean it is present in every story, and that NO TROPE appeals to a whole group of people, no matter how much they keep insisting that their ship is the "female gaze" - like that thing could ever even exist.

To give a practical exemple so people understand what I mean: Imagine that a woman wrote screenplay about a lesbian romance, which is then filmed by a female director, and edited by a woman. The actresses playing the lead roles also have their own perspective on the story and characters. The movie is then shown to 200 women, every single one of them has their own opinion on it.

Which of the women I mentioned above is going to speak FOR HER ENTIRE GENDER, and decide if that romance fits "the female gaze"? Do we take a survey and whatever points are repeated the most are taken as objectively correct due to being how the majority feels, and thus any differing opinion is treated as lesser and "not what women like" regardless of how many women feel that way? Do we only listen to the proffessional criticts in that audience of women and completely disregard the opinion of any woman that didn't study anything regarding cinema and writting?

Even if somehow it is decided that the movie fits into the "female gaze" - if all those women rewatch the movie years later and some of them feel differently about it, would that affect the definition? If their grand-daughters watch it 50 years later and don't agree with their grandmother's takes on it, does the definition change? If the movie is shown to other groups of women, from different countries, and they all have their own opinion on it that is radically different from that of the first group, which group of women gets to say "OUR culture's way of interpreting this story is the TRUE way women feel about it, everyone else doesn't count"?

If the movie is then shown to 200 men and they all like it, does that turn it from "female gaze" to "unisex gaze"? Does it become "Male Gaze" if the guys get aroused by it, even if the movie was designed to appeal to women and not to them AND there was no exploitation involved? If the 200 women then watch a movie that has scenes that are considered as having been made to appeal to guys, but some or all of them ALSO enjoy it (story of my life), does that make it change from "male gaze" to "Female Gaze"?

Gender is simply ONE out of many, many, many things that can impact how one views fiction - and it doesn't exist in isolation, being affected by generation, culture, language, religion, class, etc. The "Female Gaze" doesn't exist. It CAN'T exist because humans are more complicated than that. It is a concept that is almost fully divorced from reality.

Also I can't help but notice that, because of the way these terms work in the assumption of absolutes, no room for nuance, "MALE Gaze" is meant to describe lazy writting/film-making that is sexist towards women and cases of full on exploitation and abuse in which men were the abusers, and sometimes the label even gets attached to harmless things as a form of bad faith criticism just because guys like it - but "FEMALE Gaze" is NOT about lazy writting/film-making that is sexist towards men (say stories that full on say that a guy hitting a woman is bad, but a woman hitting a man is funny, or using "guys always want it" as justification for scenes of female characters forcing themselves on the male characters).

Instead, Female Gaze is meant to either neutral or POSITIVE. "This appeals to women" is used for praise, "this appeals to men" is used as criticism. Women are harmless, men are dangerous. Women are helpless victims, men are evil abusers. Women need to be protected and put on pedestal, men need to be hated and feared. Female desire is inherently pure, male desire is inherently objectifying. And, of course, any woman that disagrees is bad and a traitor and needs to be "called out for being anti-feminist" (aka be condescended to or full on attacked).

This is sexism, pure and simple. Anyone can be a victim, anyone can be an abuser. Anyone can like any kind of story, trope, genre, ship, etc. Desire is a morally neutral thing, and it doesn't become "pure" or "inherently corrupt" depending on the gender of the person who feels it.

The "Male Gaze VS Female Gaze" thing is nonsensical at best and perpetuates a dangerous double standard at worse, and I'm so fucking tired of it never being questioned because people are afraid of being labelled misogynistic.

[invested-in-your-future]

I don't know if it's just me but I don't give a shit about that last minute lore dump about the brothers god in V9,I find it unecessary like no I don't want to know about these two gods origin I wanna know where Summer and Raven go in the flashback instead

Well that's an issue with entire show, no?

People wanted to see how Yang bounces back, people wanted answers about Summer, about what Raven is up to, about where the things will go after V3.

All the theories about the moon since the trailers, all the questions about Ozpin and Cinder's motives and everything.

And the show just isn't interested in that - it treats it all as a throw-away "boring" stuff.

(seriously how do you take A SHATTERED MOON IN THE SKY and make the explanation boring and pointless?!!)

The Two Gods are Miles and Kerry's babies - their true creative input into the setting that is just theirs. In their eyes its where everything else leads and nothing else matters. For them it "raises the stakes" away from "all the boring stuff" - why watch Yang's recovery when you can have Qrow deliver a monologue about relics or an entire episode about two gods?

Even when dealing with Atlas situation and a pretty solid conflict set-up (that they mishandled), the show can't help but keep going "Hey but what about Salem and relics?! Look she's an approaching threat!"

Everything eventually leads to the two gods now, so it's no surprise that the big infodump of V9 focuses on THAT and Summer stuff feels like a way-too-late afterthought.

But the issue is - the gods are boring and pointless.

And more importantly redundant.

The show already has two ancient beings in conflict, so why add two higher ancient beings? Okay now the show has two ancient beings and two higher beings, so why add another even higher being???

The show already has four concepts of unimaginable power that break logic and rules of the setting and are shrouded in mystery - so why add four relics that do exact same thing but are inanimate? They still have to write Maidens as characters so it's not like it's a shortcut. But oh wait, if four relics do the thing then the two gods will do big thing that breaks the logic and rules and is very dangerous apocalyptic event! But the show already has four beings and four items, each with near-apocalyptic level of powers and a threat of eldritch abominations so why add another layer? But oh wait there's an entire whacky realm where logic doesn't work and even more superpowered things exist!

The showrunners are desperate to make the Two Gods plotline "exciting" but they mistake quantity for quality instead layering bunch of similarly unexciting things on top of each other.

The issues they have with focusing on Two gods rather than fleshing out interesting lore and story aspects on macro level are the exact same issues as with focusing on Jaune rather than on interesting characters and dynamics on micro level.

But that's not all.

There's also a fundamental issue with structure - the Two Gods stuff is completely disconnected from EVERYTHING - the entire setting(characters, countries, everything) that came before they retconed them couldn't be further removed from the concept even if they tried.

So you have weird structural issues where characters are doing something and the narrative is like "but wait, let's switch up to talk about the Two Gods related stuff":

There's this huge conflict between opposing viewpoints in Atlas and character tor-.... BUT WAIT the Relics! Salem is coming! She will start Biblical Apocalypse! The Gods!

Raven is this mysterious character who appears and disappears randomly and is all cryptic a-...but wait Salem! She needs to talk about how scary Salem is! And Relics! Just fill the rest with random nonsense of bandits!

Silver Eyes is this mysterious concept th-...but what if we made allusions to it somehow tying to the Two Gods?! Because, uhhhhh, Two Gods are powerful and scary and they are reason for...stuff!

There's an extreme disconnect where the characters will keep doing things that only tangentially relate to Relics/Gods and then the show will dump like a hour long detour about how Gods are important.

It's almost like they are tacked on concept that doesn't mesh with the rest of anything and writers keep forgetting it's a thing they have to tie things back to (just like Ever After).

Imagine if V9 had no Ever After and was just a road-trip of Team RWBY traversing Vacuo, racing against time to get to the city before Salem gets there as they encounter other survivors, fight monsters and struggle with what they did in Atlas and Ruby ends up actually having moments of self-reflection and learning things about her mother(and the eyes), while Yang gets to confront Raven(who had saved them from the dark void they fell into with her dumb teleport semblance) about everything and Weiss grapples with Atlas and everything she knew being gone and whether there's anything to the Schnee name than just being a destructive capitalist fraud, Blake struggles with lack of purpose and realization that she fixed nothing in Atlas OR Mistral. Meanwhile Blake and Yang finally get to speak about end of V3 and then about having killed a person together, as they finally start to unwrap the tangled mess of conflicting emotions between them and grow closer together.

Imperfect, but at least something.

But no, see that has nothing to do with Two Gods or Four Relics and we can't have that. That also only had one Salem mention too! And no Jaune! We can't have that.

RWBY is real adept at focusing on everything but what audience actually wanted to know.

And when it does, everything is offscreen.

[tangledbea]

Could I maybe ask, what do you know about the Sundrop and the Moonstone?

Like, were there some original concepts for them?

Are there some original ideas that didn't make it to the movie or series?

How many original arts are there of them, and had they different designs?

Were they ever supposed to be more than just our sun and moon, like if they were actually cosmic?

On Tangled wiki I read that the Sundrop Flower and the Moonstone Opal actually symbolize everything positive and negative in the universe. Is there something to base this claim?

Had they ever more or different powers than shown in the movie and series?

We know very little about the Sundrop and Moonstone beyond what was in the movie and series. There's a little bit of concept art from way back during preproduction of the series, from before what the moondrop would become was finalized.

Tom Caulfield imagined it as a flower:

Shiyoon Kim's concept art had a floating, glowing stone:

We never got any production lore on the magic of the series. For the movie, there was only the Sundrop, and all it did was heal/de-age (which can be seen as a form of healing). When we look at the entire Demanitus Scroll, it looks like they were implying other powers, but I don't know if that was the case, or if the person who designed the scroll just added a bunch of cool stuff with no direction.

After all, what's with that person with plants? And what's with the animals? Are they meant to be related to the Sundrop and Moonstone, or are they supposed to be something separate but equal? We may never know.

As far as I know, they're just supposed to be the sun and moon of the version of earth that Tangled takes place on (not necessarily "ours" since it clearly fails to be an exact copy of our world, including magic and countries that don't exist), especially when you take into account that a) the movie - which is a more canonical canon than the series - actually shows the drop of sunlight falling from the sun and b) it all starts out as Disney's version of a fairytale. It starts "Once upon a time," and everything. We're not supposed to be thinking that deeply about it, but then the series came along and expanded upon the lore without ever explaining anything.

Also, there is no basis to the claim that they are supposed to represent everything good and evil, as far as I know, though that may be something the showrunner said in an interview or something.

But the series is over! If you're asking me this as research for a fic or something, feel free to make up whatever you want in order to make it all work for you!

[ncisfranchise-source]

NCIS: Sydney will feel very familiar to fans of CBS’ well-watched franchise, while also being uniquely Australian, showrunner Morgan O’Neill tells TVLine in the exclusive Q&A below.

The premise for NCIS: Sydney: As international tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific, a brilliant and eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a multi-national task force, to keep naval crimes in check in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.

The cast also includes Sean Sagar (Fate: The Winx Saga) as NCIS Special Agent DeShawn Jackson, Tuuli Narkle (Bad Behaviour) as AFP Liaison Officer Constable Evie Cooper, Mavournee Hazel (Neighbours) as AFP Forensic Scientist Bluebird “Blue” Gleeson, and William McInnes (Blue Heelers) as AFP Forensic Pathologist Dr. Roy Penrose.

The first international NCIS offshoot’s eight-episode season will premiere on CBS on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 8/7c, and also be available live and on demand that night for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers. (“Regular” Paramount+ Essential subscribers can stream each episode the day after it airs.)

Check out the exclusive key art poster above (click to zoom), then read on to see what series boss Morgan O’Neill has to say about the NCIS franchise’s trip to the land Down Under….

TVLINE | What was the genesis of NCIS: Sydney? Was CBS looking for an NCIS set on another continent, or was it, “We need a show for Paramount+ Australia”? MORGAN O’NEILL | I think it was more the former, although the latter is probably a good upside for it, too. My understanding is that CBS was looking to expand the franchise beyond [the northern] hemisphere. Since the show revolves around naval crimes, naturally they looked at “the world’s largest island,” and then they pitched the idea to Bev McGarvey who runs Paramount+ Australia. She’s a massive fan of the franchise, so she said, “Let me take it to Endemol Shine Australia (ESA).” They then came to me and said, “We have this incredible opportunity to expand one of the world’s biggest franchises into Australia. How the hell would you do it?” I got together with the head of scripted at ESA and worked up what this show might look like and pitched it back to Paramount+ and to CBS. They flipped for it at lightning speed, which almost never happens in our industry.

TVLINE | Is there anything that a U.S. viewer should know before watching this, with regards to what’s different about law enforcement in Australia? The first and most obvious difference is that while NCIS exists in Australia in real life, they don’t have the same kind of jurisdictional authority as they would in the U.S., because they’re in a foreign country. So when NCIS works in Australia they work in conjunction with our highest law enforcement agencies — in particular the Australian Federal Police, which are our equivalent of the FBI. From the perspective of our show, what’s going to be very, very different is that it’s effectively the first “blended family” where NCIS has to form a team with the Australian Federal Police and operate in conjunction with them.

It’s Australians and Americans working not always in concert, but certainly together, and working through cultural differences, working through the clashes that would naturally exist when you bring two disparate organizations together. But ultimately they find that there is this core DNA that they share between the two organizations that actually bonds them into a team really quickly, but with unexpected results.

TVLINE | So, each case will need to involve some sort of U.S. serviceman…? Absolutely. The basic premise that NCIS has to find a connection, a nexus back to the U.S. Navy, will continue, but what’s interesting in Australia is that it’s not just the Navy. If there is something that happens in Australia in the Army or the Air Force or the Coast Guard that pertains to the U.S., NCIS does the investigations. So, in a funny way they actually have a bigger remit than they do in the U.S. because they’re looking after the four other arms of the Armed Forces.

TVLINE | What are some fun character dynamics to watch for? Well, No. 1 on the call sheet, the person who gets to kind of call the shots out here, is [NCIS Special Agent] Michelle Mackey (played by Olivia Swann). She’s a former Marine captain/chopper pilot and somewhat of a maverick, so she’s kind of a problem child who’s been handed around NCIS for a little while as they figure out how to handle her. She drops into Australia where we are, in and of ourselves — how should I put it nicely for my fellow countrymen? — a bit “antiauthoritarian.” So sparks fly naturally, which is great.

Then there’s a core group of characters, which in some ways will feel familiar to an NCIS audience, because they know that in the world of the show there are investigators and forensic pathologists and forensic scientists involved. They’ll look at the show and see a familiar architecture to it, but three-quarters of them are Australians and that makes for a very, very different experience. A lot of the things that Americans take for granted about the world will be put up into relief here a bit, and interrogated, but ultimately what’s fascinating about these characters and the first season of this show is that it doesn’t actually take very long to realize that they’re kind of cut from the same cloth.

TVLINE | Did you try to cast the Australian side of the cast with 100% percent Australians? How did that net out? It’s interesting — the show is an entirely Australian show. Its cast, it’s crewed, it’s written by, it’s produced by, and it’s commissioned by Australians. All of the Australian characters are Australians, and that’s 95% of the cast including guest cast. But when you work on a show that’s as big as NCIS, which is is 200 territories, in 60 different languages, with trillions of hours of this show watched, the great relief from a showrunner’s point of view is that I don’t really have to go out and find “stars.” The show is already the star; I just get to cast the greatest actors on the planet! So we were able to cast really wide, really broadly, to find the best actors to slide into these pretty unique roles. And we were able to find a couple of actors out of the UK, as it would happen, who are just remarkable, in Olivia Swann and Sean Sagar.

TVLINE | I know Olivia from Legends of Tomorrow, and she’s great. She’s incredible, and I had sort of been following both her and Sean. I’m a huge fan of [director] Guy Ritchie and Sean is one of Guy Ritchie’s favorite actors to work with.

I’ve worked on a lot of shows and I’m a huge believer in the idea that whatever the vibe is amongst the humans that make the show somehow translates to the screen. And in this case, as we wrapped production on Season 1, even though some actors when they wrap you never see them again, they kept coming back to set. In fact, Olivia wrapped up on the very last day of shooting, but Todd Lasance, who is her No. 2, made a point to be there. It’s a real vibe, and we’re really excited to see what the rest of the world thinks.

TVLINE | Will there be nods to any other NCIS shows along the way? “I once met Leroy Jethro Gibbs at a conference…” or something? Look, there are a couple of little Easter eggs there. I won’t spoil them, but they’re definitely there. One of the things that I think audiences love about this show is the fact that it feels like a universe, not individual shows. And while they each have their own DNA, I think that’s what was really clever about the way CBS developed this franchise is they didn’t go out to make the same show twice. If you look at the original show, the mothership, it’s very different from L.A.…

TVLINE | Oh, NCIS: LA was chasing stolen nuclear materials, like, every other week! Correct. Each show gets a different tonality, a different vibe, a different pace, a different rhythm, a different color palette, a different sensibility. I feel like what CBS did really cleverly was they realized that they needed to expand the audience and to expand the universe, but not just replicate it. So when they came to us, I kind of sat down and watched about 950 episodes of NCIS [programs] in the space of a few weeks to get myself up to speed — I feel like I have a PhD in NCIS! — and what I realized was that they were looking to capture the authenticity of a place. So I went back to [CBS Studios chief] David Stapf and his crew and said, “In order for this to be successful, I think it really has to capture that authentic rhythm, that authentic cultural sensibility of Australia — the colors, the flavor. We should lean into it.” And they said, “That’s music to our ears. Go for it.”

TVLINE | I was going to ask: After a person gets done watching this first season — and if they like me have yet to pull the trigger on an Australian vacation — will they kind of feel like they’ve been to Australia? I hope so, I really do. You’ll certainly feel like you’ve been Sydney. I’m actually kind of surprised in some ways that they haven’t come here and created a franchise sooner. As I said to you before, Australia is the world’s largest island and Sydney Harbor is the world’s largest harbor. And our naval base, which is called HMAS Kuttabul or Fleet Base East, is right in the middle of that harbor. Like, our entire East Coast Navy Base fleet is based in town, so you’ve got an almost indefatigable, inexhaustible supply of stories right in the middle of the world’s biggest harbor on the world’s biggest island. And then you throw in the geopolitical realities of the part of the world that we live in, in that the Indo-Pacific is kind of the hotspot for all sorts of geopolitical tensions right now. It’s the most hotly contested patch of ocean.

TVLINE | The trailer plays that up a lot. I mean, that’s the situation. Pick up the New York Times and I dare you not to find an article about tensions between China and the Philippines, or contested maritime rights in the South China Sea. It’s an incredibly diverse and vibrant part of the world. Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation on the planet, is just to our north — friends of Australia obviously, but it’s diverse. You’ve got one of the world’s biggest shipping nations in Singapore [3,900 miles away]. You’ve got the world’s second biggest island, Papua New Guinea, right there. You’ve got all these islands dotted across the Pacific, which fall under our sphere of economic cooperation, in terms of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and all of them are contested places at the moment. There are lots of forces vying for economic, military, social partnership.

The trailer mentions the AUKUS Agreement, a military alliance between Australia, the U.S. and the UK, which has only recently been signed. It’s a big deal and it’s literally there because we are in a really contested patch of the world right now. The show tries not to too political, obviously — that’s part of the appeal of it, I think — but the reality is we have basically an endless supply of stories pulled from the front page of the newspaper that seem to be really applicable.

Photo : CBS

TVLINE | What specific sites or locations were you excited to squeeze into the show? When we started out, we looked at the Australian Navy base in the middle of the harbor, which is where all the American ships come into, and said, “Wow, it’d be fun to get on that, wouldn’t it? It’d be fun to be able to shoot on the actual operating Navy base.” So, we contacted the Australian Navy and said, “Look, we have this little show you might’ve heard of — NCIS? We’ll be doing a franchise here in Sydney, would you like to help out?” And believe it or not they said, “We’d love to, send us a letter with all the things you feel like you might need across the season.” I went, “Well, we need Seahawk helicopters, and we need access to your biggest ships, we’d like to get onboard your subs, we’d like to work and shoot on your Navy bases all around the country, we’d like to get some air assets….” And they came back and they were just incredibly supportive.

In the trailer, that Navy Seahawk helicopter flying at 50 feet above Sydney Harbor? That’s a real one. There’s no CG. We had to clear the harbor, we had an air exclusion zone, and we had the pilots from the Australian Navy flying up from their base down south and landing on a small aircraft carrier and taking off. It was an incredible thrill.

TVLINE | Were there any more “touristy” locales you filmed at? When you film on Sydney Harbor you kind of spin the camera around and see the Harbor Bridge, you see the Opera House, you see this vast harbor….. We shot at Bondi Beach, which is Australia’s most famous beach. We shot in Kings Cross, which anyone who’s ever been a U.S. serviceman arriving in Sydney will know; it’s the red light district just up the hill from the base, so it’s seen its fair share of U.S. servicemen and women across the years, in all capacities.

One of the things that people think about when they think of Australia is the Outback. Obviously Sydney is not in the Outback, it’s a big urban center, but not too far away you drive up into the mountains and suddenly you’re in this pristine wilderness that’s very uniquely, quintessentially Australian. So, we find ourself up there.

TVLINE | And that lets you include a kangaroo and koala in the trailer! It does!

TVLINE | Someone at CBS was like, “Yeah, we saw your first pass at the trailer, and there’s no kangaroo. You’ve gotta give them a kangaroo.” It was a shameless plug for Australian wildlife, what can I say?

[zevranunderstander]

i think the esc is so... hm. because on the one hand it's a shitty colonialist and imperialist festival that is trying to rebrand colonizers into quirky modern nations and is so performative in all political messages and their collaboration with israel is literally unforgivable and its literally just nations giving each other points bc they want to politically appeal to them in the weirdest and most pathetic way ever etc.

but also. a lot of the culture of the organizers is in direct opposition to what the fans really watch for? like, macron or whomever isnt watching and personally taking notes on which of his neighboring countries voted for france, but the juries act like all politicians do this, and they use their time hosting as this massive branding and propaganda campaign, and they try to come across as kind of "modern and relatable", but don't want to be the "weird" entry, like. for westerners, this is kind of about "prestige", while at the same time they are refusing to send any compelling candidates?

and i think to the countries and organizers and the politics behind the esc this event is about showing a politically favorable image of their country that seems modern and prestigious, while the actual appeal of the show is to find artists that usually arent found on the international market and give a stage for more camp and artsy performances, and the people watching want an entertaining time, where they see songs that actually stand out and are fun to watch and listen to, whereas the juries just vote for an entirely different set of entries.

so like, a lot of people are watching it for the camp and queer and "unique" entries, while it's actually a show made for the boring ballads and shitty pop songs, because all the jury and the esc care about is, what is gonna sell and what isnt (this might take a new interesting turn, now that tiktok also has a big say in which songs become popular and which ones dont, but right now they know that generic pop has more sales than "too quirky" entries)

this is all ignoring that the thing was soooo obviously rigged this year so that they can do the "50th anniversary of ABBA" next year in Sweden, and that the jury almost always seems to tend to give points based on politics and not on music, and that i genuinely think that they are even manipulating the audience votes occasionally so that certain entries that win arent "ridiculed" because they got like, 21 points from the audience and 360 points from the jury.

and its like. probably 60% of the audience are queer people or people who are watching to see fun & campy and queer entertainment, and the showrunners know this, so all their bits are queer, they have queer hosts, they use their show break for drag performances and talk about "the first gay kiss of eurovision" and there's pride flags, and the iconic "quirky" entries make reappearances with new songs, while the boring ones almost never get a big re-invite. but they do all of this as a sort of fake promise, like, "yes our show is so gay and so camp and so fun and legendary for the fun entries hahahaha, anyways the jury vote goes to some guy pretending to be Imagine Dragons and none of the interesting entries because we cannot widely market homosexuality", and only when the audience vote is so truly overwhelmingly for one entry that they can overpower the juries, it promises marketability.

they will never abolish the juries because the juries exist so that marketable songs win that bring the ESC a lot of money, the type of hosting and their internal politics will never change because this is a contest that they can use to generate sympathies to a country. this whole thing is a fucking colonialist's PR campaign, like, "yeah, israel has a bad rep, but look at how cool all of these places in israel look and how fun and modern and #feminist and #gay our entries are! how could we possibly be an imperialist force who is actively commiting genocide?"

the esc is inherity tied to nationalism and imperialist propaganda, and while it pretends to care about international music in people's native tongue and artists that usually wouldnt be on a international stage and queer entries of all kinds, it really only cares about money and promoting one's own image as a country and that is never going to change.

and i don't think you can't at all watch the event, but it is literally insane how few people who watch it are aware of any of the politics happening within the event and who call it the "gay event of the year" or whatever with no idea that they are being sold and pandered to so that they spend more money on a product (votes and tickets), and give their undivided viewing time to a program that you can only call a continent-wide propaganda event. i hope i make sense

[lovelycleon]

So I decided to make an analysis about the last scene of Infinite Darkness

But before I start with the fun part, I just want to tell you that my history with “angst ships”

I had a bad experience with another ship, soul mates full of angst tropes and true love, beautiful... and a really bad ending because the showrunner fought with the actors (I wasted years watching and I regret it).

Anyway, after suffering that kind of pain, no other ships and angst scenes can hit me hard enough. I'm numb or just got used to it. You choose.

So maybe the scene of Leon and Claire's argument wasn't that impactful for me because of that. But for all the fans who felt hurt, I understand and it's okay to feel that way, because the scene was meant to hurt. The scene exists because of that. And your feelings are valid.

So let's get to the fun part.

spoiler alert, it's not that fun, it actually hurts 😅

The scene starts with Leon going to meet Claire at the gates of the White House.

I don't think anyone denies the fact that, whatever Leon is doing, he just wants to protect Claire. And he doesn't want her involved because of it.

But this dialogue makes this even more evident if we analyze how it begins.

Nothing in a show or movie is by accident. Everything is handpicked for one reason or another. The meaning is not always that deep, but there is still a meaning behind it all.

So when – of all the ways a conversation can be started – they decide to make Claire joke that she sneaked out of the hospital, Leon takes it seriously and she has to clarify that it's a joke, there's a reason:

Show that Leon is taking what happened to her too serious, and Claire not that much.

When Claire makes a comment about when he's going to stop treating her like a kid and he says probably never. There's a reason:

Show that Leon wants to protect her (or being overprotective) and Claire doesn't like it.

Of course, some might argue that this specific line is capcom trying to show that their feelings aren't romantic and sink the ship completely. And, ok, people are free to think that.

But if they really wanted to sink cleon forever, they shouldn't have done the scene of Leon saving Claire the way they did. They did it because they knew it would tease a certain part of the fans... They knew exactly what they were doing...

And there's simply no reason to tease a ship you want to sink.

So no, I don't think that's it...

For me the scene means the classic and simple: "stop being worried about me🙄" "noooo🗣️"

Another way to intensify Leon being overprotective is Claire's broken arm. A reminder that she was injured following his plan. Just as she was hurt the last time they saw each other in Harvardville.

And yes, I know Degeneration made Claire hurt to take her out of the action. It is undeniable. But somehow I don't think the same situation and reason applies to Infinite darkness.

Because Claire was already out of combat, following Leon's plan and showing no intention of doing anything different. It's not like she's going to attack the monster that is several platforms higher than where she is. She couldn't fly around and there were no guns where she was anyway.

So why hurt her to get her out of combat if the story itself has already done that?

Again, you are free to think differently. Capcom made Claire dirty, she was underestimated and they wasted her potential. I won't argue with that, I'm also on the team Claire deserves better.

I just don't think it fits this specific situation.

The injured arm is there and a awkward conversation about Leon being overprotective starts because of it. I think it makes sense.

So moving on.

Claire mentions the chip and Leon looks disappointed for a moment and says he thought they were going to dinner.

This is to indicate that he didn't come to see her with the intention of breaking their friendship. Leon just wanted to spend a good time with her and nothing more. Some place a little more normal, maybe?👀

But Claire wants the chip and tells Leon her plan. The same plan that Shen May was killed trying to convince her partner to follow. Is there a parallel here?

The only difference is that Jason broke her neck while Leon decided to break Claire's heart.

Okay now I could show more parallels between them, but I won't because this is already too long and I know maybe I'm reading too much into this. Resident Evil isn't that deep most of the time 😂

Anyway, Claire asked for the chip and Leon said no.

And that's the point, right.

The climax of the conversation and the turning point in their relationship.

Note that Leon took a few seconds to say he couldn't. That was the moment when he made his decision...

He went to meet her for dinner, remember? He didn't expect to have this conversation or make a decision like that. But he had to.

Now, I'm not from the US and I don't trust politicians in general, fiction or not. But I admit this sounds realistic.

Just imagine if the president makes a speech about peace and prosperity and whatever and the next day the media reveals that members of the government are involved in BOW and planning an attack on another country.

At the very least, it won't look good.

In the worst case, it will be a catastrophe 😂

So... I don't agree with Leon, but I understand why he chose this.

It's an important decision, however. And how long it takes him to say something and how he's quiet after saying it shows he knows what's on the line. Not just the security of the country and “peace”, but also his relationship with Claire.

And despite everything... He didn't lie to her.

It would be much easier for Leon to simply say "the chip was destroyed in the fight" when she asked. Claire would never know about it and probably never doubt him. And they would still be fine with each other and having dinner.

But he didn't lie. Why?

Because their relationship is not based on lies. And it's not based on betrayals.

And while it may be hard to believe right now and it hurts to think about it, this relationship is still based on truth and trust in each other. And now their relationship is being tested.

It's easy to trust someone you're on good terms. How hard it must be to trust someone who has let you down.

There is a lot of room for development here.

Obviously Claire felt hurt in this moment. Maybe even betrayed. Heartbroken. I think we all feel that same way.

But Leon played fair there. He said he had the chip, showed it to her, and then said he wouldn't give it to her.

He was honest with her. And this act also shows respect.

They are two people with different points of view and that truth hurts.

There is silence as they look at each other. She never asked his reasons and he obviously never told them. The exchange of glances is enough for them to understand what was happening.

When Claire says “you do things your way and I do mine” it's almost like “do you know what that means? ”

Then Leon nods and another moment of silence. The time they need to accept that the relationship is broken.

Now that's angst

Interesting choice of camera angle. Showing her broken arm as a visual reminder of why he was pushing her away like that.

Claire leaves, but looks back and says again that his outfit doesn't suit him.

What's interesting here is that the director has done a few interviews over the past few weeks and he always said that the suit is a representation of Leon's position in government.

Claire commenting that it doesn't suit him is basically the writers/producers/directors admitting that this position doesn't look good.

And while all the characters praising Leon for his success, Claire is the one who sees this reality and who he truly is out of the suit (position)

And that's good angst.

Claire walks away and Leon with a sad look watching her leave and he has to say to himself "I will stop this".

Could it be just one of his one-lines? Yes.

Could it be a way for him to remind himself why he's doing this, even if it means sacrificing his relationship with Claire?

It's already done, now he has to make it worth it.

Whatever happens after that is a mystery.

I don't think Claire believes that Leon is going to cover up the government's involvement in things (their discussion would be much more intense if that were the case), she probably thinks he's going to resolve it internally without taking anything public, which is precisely what she wants to do.

I also don't think Leon believes Claire is going to give up on the investigation, he probably thinks it's going to take some time to her to get real evidence and he has time to carry out his plans.

But this is capcom... They are masters of forgetting plot points. So who knows.

Angst is only good if it has a good closure. I hope they keep that in mind.

In any other tv show that used this kind of angst trope and drama I would be completely fine...

I would expect a sequel to this plot. The characters find each other unexpectedly, having to work together and acting awkwardly because they don't know how to stick around each other after the argument. Then the story would develop and they would gradually mend their relationship.

That's the trope.

So that's all I can hope for.

[rasairui]

Maybe it's petty to still be mad about this but honestly the amount of dumb shit I get every time I'm like "hey maybe don't be racist at Asian people" is infuriating lol. Like if someone made a post about how painting gay people as inherently predatory and depraved is homophobic, and someone responded to that post talking about how "hey actually but there are a bunch of gay people who ARE predatory and depraved" I'm pretty sure most people on this site would have the common sense to think "hey that's messed up and out of line, this is not appropriate this is not the time or place."

But I make a post about how it's racist to automatically associate Japan with p*dophilia and general depravity, and then half my notes are people doing exactly that. And yeah I know there are a lot of issues in Japanese media. All of these problems exist in other (whiter)countries too, and those countries do not have the same reputation. America also has a huge issue with sexualizing minors irl but none of you mention that hmm wonder why! The amount of times I've heard people say shit like "I refuse to watch anime because all of it is gross" or "Japanese showrunners are more likely to be pedophiles" do you people hear yourselves? Grow the fuck up. Some of you are very obviously using virtue signaling as a shield to get away with being shitty. You all need to learn how to criticize foreign media without being racist about it.

[killldeer]

excitement for seeing the seanchan on-screen vs fear for how the showrunners at Amazon Dot Com will handle all of the (gesures vaguely) that comes with them as obligatory baggage. duality of man

SIGH. THIS IS, UNFORTUNATELY, THE VIBE

[show-only fans: i am about to discuss spoilery material that spans pretty much the entire series, so please skip this post if you don’t care for those!]

I have such a complicated relationship with the Seanchan. On the one hand they are absolutely fascinating when we get to see inside their heads in POVs during the books, and for a good chunk of the series Robert Jordan did a fantastic job of making them the most terrifying, loathsome force in the known world. They are so alien and fearsome and fun to hate. On the other hand, however… you are so extremely right. There are a lot of things I really, really wish RJ had done or not done when he wrote the Seanchan, a lot of which have aged pretty poorly (and if we’re being honest were already pretty iffy when they were written).

My opinion is that there are going to be several different sets of goalposts we’re going to have to get through, each of them very different in terms of how much awareness and context is needed, for me to consider the Seanchan a successful adaptation:

The lowest-hanging fruit, where the bar is fucking underground, is altering their aesthetic – which is largely composed of elements which have been stolen wholesale from existing cultures and slapped onto a horrifying imperialist tank of a country. I’ve been really happy about the costume design so far, and if those promo pics from today are any indication then I actually have a good amount of hope for this one!

Second is the way in which the sul’dam and damane are shown and contextualized – i.e. making it known, unequivocably, that there are no good Seanchan, because all Seanchan are responsible for and benefactors of the literal actual slavery that forms a cornerstone of their society. I am looking at you, Egeanin. This one’s going to need a little more tact; I’ve put my trust in the showrunners so far, but this fundamentally being an am*zon production still makes me really nervous about it either way.

The third and most difficult test, which is all the more nerve-wracking because we won’t know if wotonprime has passed it for a long while, is Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag. Tuon, in my humble opinion, is the single biggest sin Robert Jordan committed while writing the Seanchan. She undoes so much of his hard work so quickly it’s almost comical; she continuously exists on the edge of realizing the Seanchan are The Worst but never actually does, and somehow takes like half the main cast with her into being Reluctantly Cool With Slavery. I do not even know where to begin on the travesty that is the end of Mat’s arc at her hands.

tl;dr: I Am So Scared!! Here Goes Nothing!!!

[dudski]

Tagged by @succdale who did not think I would do this based on twenty years of observed behavior BUT CURVEBALL I'M DOING IT ANYWAY

Three ships:

1. Buck/Eddie 911, THE FIC FIXATION DU JOUR. Sometimes I find a son and I say "my boy needs a LOVING FAMILY" and then he meets a single dad who becomes the person who knows and trusts him best in the entire world, and whose kid he loves like his own, but the showrunners are COWARDS and CRIMINALS and it's just not going to happen, hence: the fic.

2. Buck/Taylor 911. Sometimes cowards and criminals make some points? BUCK/TAYLOR...IT FUCKING RULES ACTUALLY. I am extremely high on them this week because @succdale just watched S5 and Finally I Am Understood. It's fandom and we all know this but HAVING A FRIEND TO SHARE THESE FEELINGS WITH IS A BEAUTIFUL THING!!!!! Listen. I watch 911 with a heart full of love but also rage, constantly keeping a mental tally of a) Who Is Supporting My Perfect Son Buck Who Has Literally Only Done One Wrong Thing Ever And It Wasn't Even That Big A Deal, and b) Who Is Inexplicably Not Supporting Him And Needs To Answer For This At The Hague. AND TAYLOR SHOWS UP! SHE'S DOING THE WORK, FOLKS! IT'S GOOD! IT'S EXTREMELY GOOD!

3. Rich Joe/Poor Joe from 2 Joe 2 Millionaire. (It's not called 2 Joe 2 Millionaire but it should be.) I don't need more people to watch this show for the sake of having there be conversation around this show, because the show is whatever. I need more people to watch this show so that THE WORD CAN GET OUT THAT 2 JOE 2 MILLIONAIRE AUs NEED TO BE A STAPLE OF EVERY FANDOM WE'VE GOT. THESE NEED TO BE THE NEW COFFEE SHOP AU. The Joes can't be 100% honest with anyone but each other? They keep going on group dates with all these women where the Joes have to step away for some alone time so that Rich Joe can talk Poor Joe through an absolute meltdown brought on by this one woman that Rich Joe wishes Poor Joe would see isn't any good for him? They start and end every episode in quiet domestic bliss at THE GENTLEMEN'S QUARTERS? I don't care if anyone else ever learns these men's names but I need that one breakout hit AU to exist so that other people can be like "okay, this is exquisite" and it can become a common premise.

First ever ship: I'm going to say this was Rachel/Tobias from Animorphs. Nine year old dudski lived for that shit.

Last song: Last song I listened to was Liz Phair - Why Can't I, last song added to the rotation was Travis Tritt - Bible Belt aka the end credits song from My Cousin Vinny.

Last film: 12 Angry Men! I said it in tags already but THAT MOVIE FUCKS? Like I knew it was a classic but I was WILDLY invested the entire time.

Currently reading: I'm reading a book a week this year! I'm about to start Blood Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier bc the ebook was (and still is) on sale for 1.99. I read Of Mice and Men the other day because it was the end of the week and I hadn't read anything and needed a quick gimme.

Currently watching: Weekly: The Righteous Gemstones, The Gilded Age, The Amazing Race, Abbott Elementary, Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer. Just finished Yellowjackets yesterday, starting My Country: The New Age this week.

Currently playing: Adding this in! I'm in the middle of three games right now which is usually a no-no for me but eh, with these three it works. I take a break between cases in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles so I don't burn out, Slay the Spire has no story so it's easy enough to balance with other games, and I'm like two thirds of the way through A Night in the Woods.

Currently consuming: Cinnamon raisin English muffin and iced coffee...the breakfast of champions.

Currently craving: I don't really do food cravings BUT I NEED A NEW PHONE

I'm not tagging anyone this is where those years of observed behavior come back in

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Honestly I find the current series of posts/asks decrying black actors in European settings quite uncomfortable, as a Greek born and raised in Greece. Especially the fact that it started from bashing the new LotR show, which is not even mythological or traditional folklore. Seems to me there's a xenophobic undertone y'all might need to examine in you. While I would like to see Greeks or people with Greek heritage being hired for Greek roles, I think Hollywood is ultimately a US industry catering to US needs. Our own TV presents other cultures in a just as distorted manner, because it caters to Greek needs and ideas. That's just how cultures work. If at least that role is given to a black brother/sister instead of some WASP, I'm just gonna be glad and happy their career was uplifted by getting a decent role (unlike the majority of roles black folks usually get).

Hi, I am answering this a bit late due to time constraints, sorry for that. More under the cut!

It depends on the setting, to be honest, and what cultures are described and what type of contact they have. If it is consistent with the universe, I don't see why not include people from different backgrounds. And historically we know these people existed in Europe.

It didn't start from LOTR, this discussion. It's been going on for many years, actually, about mythology and folklore of other countries including Greece. Naturally, Greeks cannot always be hired for roles. A Chinese production is not going to be asked to find 50 Europeans to create a play on Odyssey for example.

"Hollywood is ultimately a US industry catering to US needs." I mean yes, it is a US industry. Its reach is global though, so whatever they create it will eventually arrive to the people they are meant to represent. So these people later talk about that. US is a whole empire as of now, to the point it controls many foreign armies and our army with it (sending it to fight against Yemen), while having multiple bases on our soil if it wants to bomb more Middle Easterners and Eastern Europeans. (true historic examples) I am asking for some accountability from the US society here, for them to gain some awareness of the power and privilege they have as a country, and that they don't live in a bubble.

"Our own TV presents other cultures in a just as distorted manner, because it caters to Greek needs and ideas." This is a bad thing on our part, as well and I believe we should improve. In the age of information and adequate resources for a large part of the population showrunners have the capability of doing fairly good research and hiring actors from the backgrounds they want to represent. I am judging Greece in a similar way I judge the US, it's just happened that the discussion around that wasn't as prominent or popular.

If at least that role is given to a black brother/sister instead of some WASP, I'm just gonna be glad and happy their career was uplifted by getting a decent role (unlike the majority of roles black folks usually get). Here I agree with some parts and disagree with others. A Black Greek/Afro-Greek is as much as a brother as anyone else and their presence shouldn't be a negative element in any way. There is also the fact that creatures, gods, and heroes of a nation don't reflect the minorities of a country. Say a Black brother's family comes from Nigeria (I am using the country a lot because many people will be a biiiit familiar with some Yoruba gods). His family wouldn't want the depictions of their African old gods and heroes to change, too, despite Nigeria having large minorities of Europeans, Americans and Asians. If you asked this person to see a movie with his favorite Nigerian national hero played by a dark-skinned South Asian he wouldn't find the adaptation faithful.

I totally understand why that happens, and since I wouldn't ask it from the Nigerians I wouldn't ask it from any other culture because for the majority it feels offensive for the same reasons. Heroes, gods, and creatures were described by the locals through the centuries to a certain degree of agreement. Mythical Congolese heroes looked a certain way and we know it from the sculptures. I don't see any arguments of "But Middle Easterners existed in the country in antiquity! So the mythical kings must also reflect them!" In any case, I don't see this replacement as meaningful corrective action.

A Greek man may not be able to play Hercules because of his height, I am not fit to play any Japanese goddess, and so on. Yes, we are going to lose this very specific opportunity. If I am trying to play local goddesses or spirit in Swiss movies it's common sense I won't much coin. If I don't resemble any local deities then why should I ask I embody them? In another country, I will know that the local creatures and heroes are not meant to represent me, the 0,005% of the population, specifically, and I am not a norm in the country. This fact can coexist with the reality of South Europeans facing some bigotry and racism in North Europe, and South Europeans asking for better treatment.

Not everyone is meant to embody everyone. I don't find anything offensive with this idea and there a multitude of POC don't find it offensive as well. National figures and creatures looking a certain way it's not groundbreaking to them, and they follow this principle in their countries as well. They also know that by following that principle they don't lose any rights in other countries. What they want is purposeful change, no pandering or second-hand depictions from figures that are widely known to be non-Black (they want new roles and historical roles about them and their history), and more steps to be taken by famous platforms towards true equality and opportunities. I had to present this position briefly but, naturally, it would be better to search their comments and see it from their perspective.

[scarlet--wiccan]

To be honest, Wanda’s whitewashing isn’t the only problem with her in the MCU. The way they portrayed her character in age of ultron as basically a hydra worker, neo-Nazi anti-freedom organization even though she has never worked with hydra. And why would she, her former father, magneto and son billy are Jewish and she has Jewish history. And sokovia- it’s literally marvels awfully done version of Serbia. And how she never takes accountability and responsibility for her actions. Now comic wanda, isn’t always held accountable in the comics, but she has tried to make amends so hard while MCU Wanda never tried at all. Like comic wanda tried to raise hundreds or thousands of dead mutants in genosha to try and make up for house of m. MCU Wanda flies away to her little cottage after mentally and physically abusing thousands of people- didn’t even give them an apology or anything. Maybe I’m just overthinking things.

You’re not overthinking things-- the character has been written poorly, and the MCU franchise really drops the ball when they try to address things like international affairs; American interventionism; mass deaths and destruction in foreign countries, particularly the loss of Black and brown lives; and, last but certainly not least, fictionalized modern-day Nazis. But, hey, what the hell do you expect from a franchise that is literally in the Pentagon’s pocket?

I don’t see MCU Wanda as a likeable or sympathetic character, at least not one whose sympathetic points outweigh her actions and the troublesome writing around her. Unlike her counterpart in the source material, MCU Wanda’s poor treatment isn’t character assassination-- it’s her only characterization. There’s no other material to fall back on and say, “look, this is Wanda when she’s being well-written.” They know what they’re doing, too-- WandaVision literally lampshades the HYDRA thing in its eighth episode.

In my mind, though, these issues don’t outweigh the racism-- and I hope you understand that the issue of racism with MCU Wanda is deeper and more complex than simple whitewashing, both within and without the fiction. For one thing, whitewashing of the Maximoff family in the MCU, and especially the XMCU, is more than miscasting. It’s historical revisionism, and it’s the projection of Roma experiences onto white gadje. Furthermore, Whedon, Olsen, her costars, and the WV showrunners are all guilty of exploiting racist stereotypes and pejorative language in the development of this character. This behavior is enabled, and virtually never held to account, in the film and tv industry. Professionals in the comic book industry have largely endorsed this treatment, and fans on both sides of the camp go out of their way to shut down criticism. 

I don’t really care about the characterization of a fictional woman. Wanda Maximoff doesn’t exist. Her actions don’t mean anything. I care more about the racist actions that are taken behind the scenes, the ignorance that is perpetuated on screen, and the fact that this problem has been broadly ignored by consumers. For me, those things outweigh the flaws in the fiction.

Also, not to nitpick, but I really, really hope you understand that portraying Romani characters as neo-Nazis is offensive and distateful regardless of their proximity to Jewish characters. I need you to understand that the Romani population was targeted by the Third Reich and suffered enormous losses during the Holocaust, and that this history merits consideration on its own. This generational trauma merits consideration on its own. Roma people merit consideration on their own.

[invested-in-your-future]

What are your biggest issues with the first three volumes?

Hmm.

The Vagueness

The show, from the very start, has been way too vague about specific things it shouldn't have been vague about- be it the racism or how ANYTHING works.

Do other countries have military or did all of them randomly dissolve it? If so then why does Atlas still do?

How does anything in the world work? What was the great war beyond few weird snippets?

What can or can't Aura do? What IS Magic?

WoR has some context here and there, but it's also pretty sparse for a lore video. And the show grows sparser and sparser as it goes.

Shaky foundations could be fine if the later Volumes expanded upon the world but...

They really didn't.

The Faunus/WF Subplot.

The milquetoast "violence bad" takes, using WF as generic mooks, the Faunus discrimination overall not being expanded upon, the way team RWBY handles Velvet bullying - it all stinks of ignorance and unwillingness to actually delve into it all at all.

This is basically the depth of RWBY's take on discrimination:

The Faunus are "angry at discrimination" but "being angry and violent is not right, they should protest peacefully and out of sight".

What discrimination? What do we see of that beyond just one school bully instance nobody does anything?

Why do Faunus appear only when the show needs someone to get beat up? What drives them to join WF in such numbers?

HOW do Vale's citizens view Faunus? Is it different from other Kingdoms?

Nothing.

(And yes I know that V2 subplot is just something they lifted straight out of Korra, but Korra had an entire show beforehand showing multiple benders as oppressive and powerful beings that made the world tremble - the idea behind the non-benders being fearful at least makes sense, especially since we DO see benders who exploit others through the Book One)

Heteronormativity

The showrunners, all of them, shouted from the rooftops about how Remnant is an inclusive world and yet in show the LGBTQ+ community existence was reduced to weird gags (sometimes literally going against the "inclusivity" comments like when entire school - all women paired up with men in the background - laughs at Jaune in a dress) or bait (sometimes intentional, like how in V2 commentary Miles talks about how they put in Ruby and Weiss scenes to attract shippers).

And yet the showrunners kept talking about how the gay people totally exist and how the world is inclusive and how they are just planning things and "getting better" at writing while they had no issues throwing in a TON of straight ships into the mix or highlight heteronormative romantic interactions and attractions.

The weird thinly veiled sexism.

Literally most of Jaune subplots pretend to be about how Jaune is in the wrong, and yet it's the women who are in the wrong - "Jaune hit on Weiss and Weiss said no? Oh how evil and selfish of Weiss to not give him a chance!" and all.

Some are okay like the Cardin blackmail idea but the execution just grinds everything to the halt.

Screentime and Focus Disbalance

Jaune gets A LOT of focus, while Ruby gets barely any. Now it would work fine if you assume the show is just building up to her development as she reacts to Fall of Beacon and all that - but the volumes after don't do that and instead keep giving focus to Jaune.

Specific character allusions.

Some character references are...uhhh, yeaaaah.

Like, I love the first three volumes a lot and I love the trailers but there are flaws - I was just more forgiving of them because of the usual growing pains and because there was always that promise of the show doing better going forward which they never fulfilled.

You can like something flawed and derive enjoyment from it. As long as there are things to like and the flaws don't overcome whatever good is left in the story.

[mfs-research-institute]

I know this is not the case, I mean until this point the information we have got from the series is that Alder may be responsible for the surge of the spree but not directly. Yet isn't it a little bit fucked up that in someway Alder ( or the witches in general) needs the spree and the caramilla to justify their existence, like if they don't exist, if there is not a tangible enemy, witches are not necessary and sometimes I think that Alder plays a major game manipulating the perception of these enemies with the purpose to keep the army necessary, cause civilians are the true and biggest enemy of witches and maybe ALders the only one who knows exactly what happens when civilians turn against witches.

Oooof this is a loaded question! Let's see what people are thinking:

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Dan on our Discord: My first instinct is that isn't that the basic vibe of all major conflicts? Both in the MFS Universe and our own timeline? Armies only exist to 'protect' nations from other countries and vice versa, which only in turn creates more conflict in its own fucked, self-sufficient cycle.

--

@Jalehh: Yes, Alder and her actions in Liberia (forcing dodgers to conscript, them resisting, Alder deploying Sgt. Nicte Batan's new work and making surrendered people kill themselves) seem directly responsible for the formation of the Spree to me.

It also seems like America in this 'verse still has colonies (the showrunner called the conflict in Liberia a colonial war) and is a major player in world politics with India and China being at different stages of rivalry. Even if there aren't open wars among nations, and no asymmetrical conflicts like with the Spree, a well-maintained military will help to secure a powerful position on the world stage... plus you never know who wants to be the next bully on the world stage. Si vis pacem, para bellum. Pretty sure there would be enough to do for witches... even if it's 'just' training exercises or civil aid works done by the military or some 'good' old gunboat diplomacy.

Of course, it would be nice to prepare for peace and maybe transform the witch army into a peace or technical relief corps. But, being the Army/Armed Forces seems to have given at least some witches quite some power - Alder and Petra Bellweather come to mind and with the past they had (Burning Times) - and anti-witch sentiments still very widely accepted, I understand why they would be afraid to give that up. Plus, witches in the army are organized and no longer scattered all over the land... which makes them a bigger target, but also allows for a strength and unity that would otherwise be lost.

--

@baby-horse: Same coin but different side - I wonder if the civilians want to keep the army around, purely because it puts (almost) all the witches in one spot; easily handled. I think it's mutually beneficial, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons.

That kind of answers the question as to why the civilians don't just abolish forced constriction for witches, since they're so upset about their 'daughters' being taken. Because the obvious answer to "not our daughters" is to just get rid of that law. But once you do that, then witches would be in the community, which is Bad News.

I guess the question of 'what happens when the world discovers they no longer need witches' is being answered this season. Spoiler alert = it's not good for witches.

--

@crazyintheeast: Personally, I was wondering about a different direction. If civilians would actually be in favor of witches. We know little about the general attitude of people. Yes of course there is the Camarilla and we know of others bigots like the guy who got into Tally's face. But we have also seen another side. The man who proudly gave Tally his ticket, the women who came to Raelle for healing and were extremely grateful, the large parades in honor of witches. Even with the protest against them I felt that only some of them were actual bigots while the others merely hated the army and didn't want their daughters enslaves.

I would find it really interesting if a significant portion of the civilian populace is actually in favor of witch liberation. Some out of moral principle because they oppose slavery but also many out of purely practical reasons. Imagine if instead of being limited to the military they had Fixers in every hospital who could save countless lives. We already know that witches assist in disaster areas but they could do even more if allowed. Witches actually being a part of society instead of being isolated in the military could be something that many want.

But also, I was left with the impression that China and not Spree are the main adversary and not all nations are in The Hague. I am not exactly sure, but I always saw Spree as merely assisting local witches in various countries rather than leading themselves. Similar to how CIA would train various guerrilla fighters and try to destabilize countries.

But I could actually see a full-blown civil war emerging. The current situation in the MFS strongly reminds of the historic situation of the Ottoman Empire where their slave army had become so powerful that they had serious influence on all rulers. And when new technology emerged the Sultan used the new tactics to attack his salve army and eliminate it.

Although, considering the existence of the Hague, this may even grow into a World War if Wade is removed from Alder’s influence and Silver becomes president. Maybe he’ll try to use the Camarilla and other troops to eliminate US witches? And without nukes to go full MAD this could be a massive war that has been building for a long time.

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Thank you for the ask! As always, if you would like to join the conversations on our Discord, please shoot us a DM for an invite!

[ncisfranchise-source]

NCIS has gone international.

NCIS: Sydney is the latest series in the very popular franchise, and it premieres on November 14 on CBS (in a time slot familiar to fans, Tuesdays at 8/7c, where the mothership aired for its first 18 seasons). It sees U.S. NCIS agents and the Australian Federal Police team up to keep naval crimes in check in Sydney, with NCIS Special Agent Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann) leading the task force. Her 2IC AFP counterpart is Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey (Todd Lasance).

Showrunner Morgan O’Neill introduces the new team.

Across procedurals, we’ve seen agencies working together, but usually, it’s just an episode or two. But you really get to explore that over the course of the series itself. What does that allow you to do?

Morgan O’Neill: Being the first international version of a global franchise comes with all sorts of challenges, one of which is how you integrate it into the new country. NCIS exists in Australia, but when it exists in Australia, it does so under Australian law, so there has to be a kind of jurisdictional power-sharing that goes on. NCIS: Sydney was built around that exact concept, which is that NCIS Sydney comes to town and they instantly have to work with and under the authority of the Australian Federal Police. So in that sense, you’ve got, I think, in the history of the NCIS franchise, the first blended family where you’ve got these two agencies coming together, these two very different cultures coming together, and they’ve got to make it work. And that’s a lot of fun, obviously, because sometimes it does come together easily and sometimes it doesn’t. There’s obviously culture clashes. It’s a very different world that NCIS has to operate in. From that perspective, there’s a huge amount of story and a huge amount of fun to be had because it really is the coming together of two very different worlds.

What should we know about Mackey and JD as leaders and their histories?

The office is run by Captain Michelle Mackey, who’s a former Marine Corps chopper pilot. She’s a hothead; she’s a maverick. She’s very hard to work with. She’s been moved around NCIS a little bit while they try to find where she can do the least damage. But she’s incredibly good at what she does. She’s very instinctive in terms of the way she runs her investigations, but it means that she’s a really tough task master and she’s a real hard nut to crack. And so it makes it especially interesting to see how the 2IC, who’s an Australian Federal Police force sergeant, Jim Dempsey, gets to manage her because effectively he’s managing her for the rest of the team. In a funny way, it’s this kind of dance between the boss and the real boss. And it’s interesting, JD has to adjust the way he runs a squad to take into account the fact that he’s working for this maverick.

Daniel Asher Smith/Paramount+

And they clash a little bit at first, I won’t lie to you; as you’ll see in the first episode, they really do butt heads. As you can imagine, there’s a sense of pride at who has control of the situation, who runs the investigation, whose jurisdiction it is. The nature of NCIS is that there are a lot of crimes that kind of fall in that gray area between jurisdictions, and that’s where a lot of the fun is to be had in the episodes. So they come together like bulls initially, and what’s exciting is to see how they work through those problems.

As you would know, being a fan of the show, one of the key things about NCIS is that it’s really, at its heart, a family drama, and we have the opportunity, as I said, to create this first blended family within the history of the franchise. We really have an opportunity to see these people coming together for the very first time. Because, unlike other iterations of the franchise where the audience drops into a group of people who already know each other, who already function as a team, we see them from day one and everything that entails and all the building of trust and sometimes the fracturing of trust and the testing of those bonds.

It seems like the only thing that they can agree on is they don’t want to be working together. What does it take for them to open up to each other? Is it one case? Small moments over multiple cases?

They have to come together as a team really quickly because it’s not like the crimes are going to stop for them to work out their jurisdictional issues. You actually see it in the opening episode. There are moments where, almost in spite of themselves, they feel like they’re coming together, like a small bond is forming, moments of trust, moments, where they see each other, reflected in themselves, moments where they’re quietly impressed but begrudgingly don’t want to really admit it. [They have] two very different ways of approaching law enforcement. And while at first, they seem really far away, actually, when you look at them, and across the course of the first season, you actually work out that JD and Mackey are more like yin and yang than they are competitors. They really do complement each other, and they grow kind of close.

What excited you the most about exploring the rest of the team — Evie (Tuuli Narkle), DeShawn (Sean Sagar), Penrose (William McInnes), and Blue (Mavournee Hazel)?

I lived in LA for a long time, and I met a couple of guys who reminded me a lot of DeShawn as he emerged from the page. His fundamental quality is he’s got this endless curiosity, and for me as a creator, it’s a beautiful concept to work with because he can be the eyes of the rest of the world, endlessly curious about Australia, working out who these weird people are that inhabit the world’s largest island on the southern tip of the Southeast Asian archipelago. DeShawn is able, through his curiosity, to really pull the lid back and look at what makes us tick and who we are and what this country’s all about. So that kind of sense of openness, I describe him as a kind of American Paddington bear.

Daniel Asher Smith/Paramount+

His openness comes directly into conflict with Evie’s kind of sassy territorialness, I suppose. It’s funny — when we first cast Tuuli Narkle, who’s a relatively new but incredibly gifted Australian actor who’s just won a bunch of awards for basically her first big role, I said to her, “Do you know the show?” She said, “I love the show. I’m a massive fan.” I said, “Who’s your favorite character?” She said, “Oh, it’s a no-brainer. It’s DiNozzo [played by Michael Weatherly on NCIS].” It was interesting because she’s got a little bit of DiNozzo in her. She’s got a little bit of that constantly chipping away at her colleagues, enjoying taking the piss a little bit. From that perspective, the combination of an endlessly curious and a sassy, kind of provocative, territorial character makes for a huge amount of fun. We were blessed with the reality that the actors who play those roles ended up really getting on, so that brotherly sisterly banter comes pretty naturally to them, which I hope is a lot of fun for the audience to see.

The challenge when you’re creating another iteration of such a famous franchise is that you don’t want to repeat characters. You don’t want to just take the cookie-cutter version of something and make it your own. And when it comes to a character like the forensic scientist in a show like this, people go so quickly to the character of Abby [Pauley Perrette] because she’s so iconic. She kind of defined that role. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t replicating that. Then we found Mavournee Hazel who plays Bluebird Gleeson, who is out of her depth. She has complete imposter syndrome like she shouldn’t be there. She’s too young, she’s too inexperienced. She’s carrying a whole bunch of really unusual, interesting backstory that we’ll peel away as the seasons go on. But she’s incredibly good at her job. She’s kind of socially awkward. I just found the combination of all those things made her feel very real to me. I’ve worked with a lot of people who work in the world of science, and she just felt like she resonated that sense of intellectual power and social awkwardness, which I loved.

So she comes into the first episode, not really even deserving to be there. She’s on a probationary program that the Australian Federal Police has run. She’s not even a fully-fledged forensic scientist, and she’s forced to work with the oldest, wisest owl on the crew, Doc Roy, who’s a former Australian Navy medic and now forensic pathologist. He’s emotionally shut down for some reason that we’ll get into as the show evolves. But what’s really interesting to watch is watching Blue slowly reanimate the emotional side of Doc Roy. There’s a beautiful dance that goes on throughout the first season where she just slowly gets under his skin and slowly brings him back to some kind of emotional life, which is what happens in families sometimes. I’m biased; I cast them, but they’re such beautiful actors and lovely people that watching that relationship flourish is, I think, part of the real joy of the first season.

How did you want to make the headquarters unique? 

I’m partial, but I think we have the best headquarters of all. We’re the only version of the show, I believe, whose set is actually on location. Sydney is the world’s largest harbor, and it has a huge foreshore. We were very fortunate enough to find a huge warehouse that sits right on Sydney Harbour that looks out onto the harbor so that when our characters get up from the bullpen to go and see where that case begins, they literally walk out through the front doors and they’re on Sydney Harbour. That, for us, is an enormous advantage because there’s no trickery in making it feel like it is where it is. It is there, and you can hear the sound of the ferries passing and the Navy ships passing in front. You can hear the slap of the water on the piers below. That, for us, was a huge advantage, I think. It really gave a sense of authenticity to the show because so much of the show was set in that headquarters.

Interestingly, we had some of the real NCIS agents come through on a set tour, and I was talking to one of them, and he was shaking his head. I was like, “What’s going on? You don’t like it?” He went, “No, no, it’s amazing. It feels like my very first field office in Connecticut.” He said their NCIS office out there was a little rundown. As you’ll see when you see the show, it feels like an old Navy storehouse because it is an old Navy storehouse. He said that his very first office was very similar to that, which made me very excited because it felt like we were really tapping into the authenticity of that world.