I feel that rewrites get a bit of a bad rap, at least in the idea that deviating from canon inherently taints it. A lot of my favorite stories and franchises thrive on constant reinvention and rewriting of the source material to fit the interests of the creative staff, even when they run contrary to what came before. Is Rise of the TMNT a bad show because of its shake ups to the traditional team dynamics? Is FMA 2003 a bad show because it decided to switch gears midway and tackle different themes than the manga? Are any of the Sonic cartoons bad because they don’t follow the games canon? I don’t see too many people mad that Starship Troopers The Movie was the total thematic opposite of its original book, so I don’t think rewriting an existing media is the issue here, exactly.
In my opinion, the problem with bad rewrites is the same problem that bad fanfiction runs into, in that both are largely reactionary pieces to an existinting source material. These aren’t your characters, this isn’t your story, your playing with toys and what you do with them says a lot about your priorities as a writer, whether keeping to canon or throwing it out when its convenient. Fanfics and rewrites hit a ceiling when its a writer trying to “fix the flaws” of the source material to their liking, because its all too easy to make it not about bulding a strong narrative, but airing out your grievances without poetry. Does focusing on this one character actually help the story? Maybe there’s a reason why this element was cut? What does it say, for example, that you feel the need to have these characters reconcile when the original story had them broken up for a reason? At best, you get a dry retelling with extra fluff but no personality, and at worst you make a 7/10 series look like a 10/10 with your fixing attempts.
To use an official example, I think a lot about the Dragon Ball Super manga that ran in tandem with the anime. Both followed a set of guidelines from Toriyama about how events would play out. Toyotaro would often introduce his own ideas into the story. That in it of itself was never the problem.
His ideas, however, were either ignored later or were needlessly convoluted.
Toyotaro introduced a stamina weakness to Super Saiyan Blue, that when you use it multiple times in a row it decreases its power by 10%. This was used to explain Vegeta losing to Hit during their U6 Tournament fight. The weakness does not sound like a bad idea in it of itself, until later events in the series ended up having Goku and Vegeta use Super Saiyan Blue repeatedly. The weakness never came up again.
Okay, but that was a minor plot hole in the grand scheme. A much bigger problem is when Toyotaro decided to forgo the anime’s ending, where Zamasu became an evil spirit that destroyed the universe (somehow), we have an ending where Merged Zamasu is repeatedly split and multiplied across ever slice by the heroes. That sounds much more logical then? Not quite, because Toyotaro still keeps the ending where Future Zeno erases the universe due to Merged Zamasu’s influence. In the anime, Future Zeno was getting rid of a cancer afflicting the entire universe. In the manga, Future Zeno comes across as more of an asshole, because all he had to do was erase the Zamasu clones instead of wiping out the entire timeline. Sometimes, what sounds like a logical fix may in fact make your story worse, especially without thought put into making it work in context.
A good rewrite can come from spiteful places, but they can’t grow from there. Even as you’re tearing down something, you have to offer something in return, or else the rewrite becomes boring. If you’re going to rewrite canon, tell a story, even if it goes against the original! Ask yourself, what is this rewrite trying to do, how can I make what I want happen in a way that’s narratively satisfying? If the original isn’t finished, then all the more reason to deviate and plan out your own ending.
Tl;dr, if you’re going to rewrite canon, make sure you write something good out of it.
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If you're on the fence at all about whether or not you should vote in the upcoming election, or if your mind is pretty made up that you're not going to vote, I absolutely beg of you, please vote. No your one vote probably won't change the course of history and swing the election one way or the other, but if you're considering not voting because you don't think it's important, think about how many other hundreds or thousands of people in your constituency are thinking the same. Those votes collectively can and will impact the result. I understand that the possibilities for pm are all shit, but remember that you're voting for your member of parliament, to represent you, not voting for a prime minister. Look at who the people running in your constituency are and choose whichever of them you most want to represent you in parliament, even if it's not the most tactical vote for getting the Tories out. What's important is that you use your right to vote - voter turnout is always shockingly low, especially with young people, do what you can to help those figures go up and also to have someone you agree with representing you in parliament
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was thinking a lot about optimus and bumblebee, especially the hc of bumblebee bein really young at the start of the war and optimus being there for him ... they are big comforts for me so i really wanna draw them a lot! so many hcs i need to get out.. a little look into my mind
heres the flat colours cus i really like them :]
i wasnt going to shade this or give it a background originally but... i got ... carried away .. . .
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