#leviathan series

[soranatus]

A sneak peak at the visual development for Leviathan (2025) at Anime Expo 2024

[rainybearstudio]

Where my Leviathan fans at now that they’ve announced a Netflix adaptation‼️

rainybearstudio.com

[theladysherlock]

It really is lovely to see everyone coming out of the woodwork after seeing the Leviathan Anime Announcement. It's like watching Cicadas come out from the ground after over a decade to scream and fly around wildly going "WAIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS REAL"

[unclefungusthegoat]

I just burst into tears watching this, I still can't believe it's real. These books were my absolute favourites as a teenager and seeing Alek and Deryn animated so beautifully like this, as I'd hoped and wished for so long, is overwhelming. I'm desperate to hear the voice actors now, especially bringing Sharp's colourful swearing to life hahaha

[ecrivainalene]

Leviathan Panel at Otakon 2024

I was OVERJOYED to be at the Leviathan panel during Otakon 2024! I'll do my best to recap it below, but if you want a more coherent play by play, this Twitter user did an excellent job.

I've got a handful of photos, recap of Sharp Gender Discussion, plus misc. things I remember.

Not everyone was up for the entire time, but I snapped this photo near the end when everyone was on stage! From left to right: Waki Kiyotaka (Studio Orange), Yoshihiro Watanabe (Studio Orange), Scott Westerfeld, Christophe Ferreira (Quibic Pictures), Justin Leach (Quibic Pictures), Katrina Minett (Quibic Pictures), and Diana Garnet (ending theme vocalist).

New concept art! Looks like Dr. Barlow, Klopp, Alek, and Sharp, right before the Germans attack the Leviathan.

More under the cut!

Alternative shot of that art bc I couldn't get my lighting right:

Clanker and Darwinist technology designs. Watanave explained that Studio Orange's early days were spent doing contract work on Gundam anime, so I can't wait to see how that translates to the Clanker machines.

Some more concept art:

By the way, the entire series is being adapted at once - so we'll get the complete story at once! That in mind, the second image here makes me think of that maneuver near the beginning of Goliath to pick up the cargo.

Sharp!!! Look at them!!!

I don't have much to say about these but I'm fairly sure I hadn't seen them before. I am wondering if they downsized Alek's crew for the sake of the story, or perhaps we just haven't seem Bauer and Hoffman yet.

We got some new character art! The panel was very cryptic about who the character designer is. Apparently they're pretty well known, but they can't share it yet!

Volger I am so sorry your photo was unfocused. Forgive me.

The panel jokingly described him as "Alek's dad," which feels accurate. And maybe I misunderstood, but it sounds like he plays an even more important role in the anime than he does in the books. I've always considered Volger to be a pretty important character, so I wonder what else he'll do in this new series.

Klopp looks exactly like how I pictured him in my mind!! They said if Volger is Alek's dad, then Klopp is like his mom. Which is very fair but also made me laugh a lot.

Dr. Barlow!! She looks amazing. There was a lot of talk about the dynamic between her and Volger and how they're often playing mental chess games with each other. I'm really glad they're leaning into that dynamic.

And one more concept art:

This looks like the visit to Istanbul, which I'm desperately hoping means we'll see my favorite chaotic bisexual, Lilit.

That's all of the photos I have! They also showed us a preview of the show plus a live performance of the ending song with Diana Garnet. No video recording was allowed and I don't break rules, but believe me when I tell you it was stunning. The world feels so full of life and adventure and I can't wait to see the final show.

Tbh I was too busy holding back tears of joy but one thing I remember distinctly is there's a shot of Sharp getting ready for the day, and we see a sheet of paper with a bunch of names written and crossed out before finally (I think) "Dylan" is circled.

Which actually brings me to the Q&A part. TLDR, between the use of "Sharp" for Deryn's name, Scott referring to Sharp as "she/he/they" during the panel, and the scene I mentioned earlier, I feel really hopeful about how they're approaching Deryn's gender and identity in this adaptation.

I asked a question about this at the Q&A and voice recorded it, so I'll try to transcribe it here as best I can because the audio is not great lol. I stumbled through my question so I trimmed it down here but I'll transcribe the response as clearly as I can!

Me: I just finished re-reading [the series] for the first time since I was probably in high school, and one of the things that interests me about this adaptation is the approach to Sharp's character... I guess I'm just interested, like, was there a lot of thought put behind, or what kind of thought was put behind how to approach their character in the anime, I guess as a chance to re-approach the story however many years after it was originally written.

Scott Westerfeld: Yeah, there's a lot to that. The "girl dressing as a boy" as a trope was something completely different in 2007 when I started writing this than it is now. And so we really approached Deryn's identity as what was at stake rather than just... rather than just her being in disguise, it's about their recreating themselves and becoming a different person and transitioning and, and so... but it's always been interesting to me that the words that I wrote back in 2009, 10, 11, y'know, as an old guy who grew up in Texas in the 70s - who was David Bowie fan! - but otherwise didn't have a lot of access into issues of gender, I'm amazed at how many people have been [able to?] adopt Deryn/Dylan as one of their own. I just got an email a week ago from a trans boy whose chosen name is Dylan. So it is amazing to me how whatever imperfections or whatever problematics there are in the text, people still find their way into what they need from a character. And as a writer, I can say that I always respected that character, I always respected their choices, I always respected who they were. I never tried to stick them into a dress and have everyone go "Ooh now you're pretty 'because 'cause you're in dress!" We didn't do that, and I think that what may be important for people and I think that's why it's still what's gonna work here, but it's been fun to be able to update it and everybody on the team's been really great about understanding that.

TLDR I don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high, but I'm really appreciative of the care that's being taken with Sharp's story and identity in this adaptation. It seems like Scott and the others on the team are taking that into account, and I'm excited to see how it plays out.

Other random things I remember:

THERE WAS AN ALEK COSPLAYER. I took a photo with them but I won't post it without their consent. Just trust that they looked fantastic.

Scott said one of the first things he was told was that Alek can't actually kill Nikola Tesla because he's too well loved by people in Japan, which I think is the funniest possible reason for a change to be made in an adaptation.

Diana Garnet (they/any) mentioned how much they love Sharp (don't we all) and also how they used to work at a Barnes and Noble and remembers selling lots of Westerfeld books!

Scott said his approach in writing Leviathan was taking everything he'd always wanted to write about and basically throwing it together, because he was just coming off of the success of Uglies and figured he could get away with it.

If I remember anything else I'll add on to this post! Overall, it was a wonderful panel and I'm incredibly excited for this project.

[aldoodles]

I’m rereading 😎

[gouachemole]

Dalek Week 2024 - "Dress Up"

Why I thought doing a Leyendecker study would be fast was beyond me 😬 but better late than never I guess!

[aelithart]

I CANT AND WONT SHUT UP, LOOK AT THE HUXLEY, LOOK AT OUR NONBINARY/TRANS MASC. LOOKING AT THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR I LOVE YOU DYLAN SHARP.

Held my hand in highschool, these two. Held my nerdy arse queer little hands freshman-senior year of highschool.

Gave me crumbs, delicious crumbs of LGBTQ+ Rep that I was so starved for, canon, headcanon, it makes no difference which because the difference it made for me as a closeted little trans kid was big and I loved these books. GIVE ME THE AX TRAILER, I MUST SEE IT, I MUST SEE MORE!

[moriohpissky]

in honor of anime announcement (still can’t believe I’m not dreaming) here’s some deryn and alek 💗🫶☁️

[umbralstars]

We got food?????!!!!!

[soranatus]

A new look at LEVIATHAN (2025) From the Studio Orange reel 2024

[amnesiamilk]

A girl’s favorite characters walk into a bar

[theladysherlock]

🎵So hand in hand I wonder where we'll go🎶

-

I immediately fell in love with @roshambeau 's Leviathan visual development work (here, if you haven't seen it yet, please go check it out) and was supernaturally compelled to draw their designs for these two.

I have lots of thoughts about this piece, but I put the full director's cut underneath the read more because I tend to get ramble-y.

Beau's story treatment ends with Behemoth, but I couldn't stop thinking about what the events of Goliath would look like. First, if the revolution in Istanbul fails, I really don't see Alek using Providence to guide his decisions anymore (that coping mechanism has FAILED him). And without Providence telling him that he's meant to stop the war, he doesn't put nearly as much weight behind Tesla and Goliath. So I really don't think that those plotlines would play out much at all.

Secondly, this version leans into the idea that Alek and Deryn have to decide for themselves what kind of life they want, regardless of what the adults in their lives have laid out for them. If a main theme of their character arcs is rejecting the schemes of people like Volger and Dr. Barlow, there is absolutely no way that these two join the Zoological Society. It has to be a separate, third option; one that doesn't involve any of the adults in their lives.

Another major theme of this story treatment is the idea of "not in-between, but both". The locations in Goliath are all cultures that have incorporated both Darwinist and Clanker technologies, but America is the only one both of them consider staying in long-term. This is also the only country in the novel that offers actual opportunities for either of them-- Deryn could be an aerialist for a stunt show, Alek could be an engineer.

Anyway, after considering all that, my conclusion is that the story ends with them running away together and getting an apartment in New York City. This scene in particular feels like a happy ending, at least to me. They've been there long enough for the apartment to have some of Deryn's sketches framed and hanging up on the wall. They have some proper furniture, even if it's not fancy. Bovril is comfortably snoozing in the corner. It's a home and it's theirs, no one else's.

I also really loved Beau's use of color theory in the entire visual development book! Darwinists are green, Clankers are blue, and you can see highlights of both of those colors on Deryn and Alek, respectively. Neutral, of course, is Red. Red is a safe color. The illustration of Alek and Lilit in the market uses red and other warm colors for a scene where Alek is happy, while Deryn in the background (who is trying to bring him back to the Leviathan) is colored with more greens and blues. So obviously I had to make the apartment red. I also wanted to play with it a little bit, though I don't think I did it nearly as elegantly. There's an intentional mis-match of the colors and their representations in the room-- Bovril is on a blue stool, the mechanical gramophone is green.

Good lord that was a lot. All that to say, I adored this visual development so so so so much and I wanted to play in this space as well. and I will draw Volger and his mechanical arm at some point this is a threat and a promise

[fabuloustripodfish]

(waiting Leviathan trilogy anime panel)

[ecrivainalene]

I'm rereading Leviathan for the first time since like 9th grade and we can all agree that this series is gay as hell right

[aldoodles]

‘Thank you’

Bonus: