#the fact that it's the last scene in the old animation style...

[scribblekingdom]

I just watched the London Special and oh.. oh my god... oh my GOD OH M

[monpetitchattriste]

Something something this being the last scene of the old animation style

Something something bittersweet

But also the fact that it ends with LADYNOIR LEANING ON EACH OTHER

With one last final pound it

I am just

[katzske]

Thoughts on Earthspark Season 2 (first half)

Spoiler Free:

I must admit I’m dissatisfied.

The animation and rendering definitely looks cheaper. Sometimes it feels like frames are missing, animations not polished, scenes not fully rendered. 2d and 3d poorly blends. It’s quite noticeable unfortunately. Characters also do the TFP Megatron stare now.

That being said, time was taken to revisit old models of characters and give them a new appearance. (4 i’ve noticed) It makes sense given a lot has changed during one year time skip.

The writing often feels either like exposition dumping or naruto filler episodes. I was never at the edge of my seat even during the climax. I ended up skipping through episodes due to the lack of relevant plot information.

Something ES managed to maintain were carefully composed shots that make great still images. While that’s nice for screenshots and redraws, I also feel like it’s the only unique aspect of ES’ animation style that remained. The rest, as previously mentioned, has lost quality.

Character Details I’ve noticed and want to talk about (spoilers ahead)

half of season 2 part 1 is filler. optimus trailer episode, great america with cosmos, a pachycephalosaurus-truck fighting mushrooms, hashtag taking ten years to dispose of hard drives…. each episode did have a few minutes of either cute or important moments. but the majority is a waste of time.

I was hoping that we would learn more about the decepticons. now that they’re free, what are they up to? how are their dynamics? how did season 1 finale change their perception on things? would they try to convince the terrans THEY are the good guys? nothing like that though.

There is no satisfying character development for starscream. ES Starscream was perfect to explore a more neutral version of him, who does not do bad things out of pleasure, but due to necessity; following his desire to be free. In the show he mentions he wanted to get rid of his oppressors (in his eyes autobots and humans), but a real “bruh” moment was when he told Hashtag the only reason he opened up to her last time was to tell her “take care of yourself first”. It completely disregards the fact he came to help in the season 1 finale after reflecting on Hashtags words. It also aggravates me that the writing could have been a very easy fix. “hey i’m not being selfish by destroying this town. im doing this for the decepticons, we have lived under the control of the autobots and then of humans. this needs to stop, we deserve freedom and i will do anything it takes.”

the show managed to establish some friction between starscream and shockwave but for deception standards it was very tame. overall i think it was written okay; he purposely let the Terrans escape with the fragments, and he bailed on Starscream once he went bonkers. I hope that he gets to be a Decepticon leader in the second half; i don’t think we have seen that in any TF TV show before. i also like that his antennae and eye color give away his emotions now.

i feel like the autobots are treated even worse than the decepticons this season ngl. they merely exist; and when they do have the spotlight it’s often for comedy.

why the fuck did shockwave not wait for hashtag to just dump the hard drives and leave. if someone walked up to me yelling “give me your trashbag” as i’m trying to dispose of it i’d be weirded out too lol.

i hope the chaos terrans don’t return. aftermath imo was, plot wise, redundant. spitfire at least was interesting and had an impact.

i wish there were more interesting fights like in season 1 instead of, oh no they’re hitting the trailer with sticks, oh no we are an abomination of dinosaur and vehicle for what feels like 15mins straight. i miss seeing soundwave slay.

[autobots-one-half]

the Nerima Wrecker Crews' Guide to Ranma Fandom for Newcomers

With the release this month of a brand new anime adaptation of the eighties manga Ranma ½, a lot of new fans are joining an older fandom that may leave them...confused about some details.

See, when the Ranma manga began in 1987, series creator Rumiko Takahashi was already solidly-established from her success with the runaway hit Urusei Yatsura. It only took two years for an anime adaptation to begin airing....for a mere eighteen episodes, before being canceled. If you go back to the '89 anime, you will almost certainly notice some drastic shifts in art style and tone from the first eighteen episodes to the remainder, and that's because only a single season was produced by Studio DEEN before production shifted to a new directorial crew, who dubbed the following season Ranma ½ Nettōhen (Fierce/Hot Battle Chapter).

The thing is, between the original eighteen episodes being made while the manga was still relatively early in its nine-year run, attempts to draw in better ratings by heavily promoting fan-favorite characters, a need for filler episodes to let the manga catch up to the pace of the anime's releases, and even the biases and friendships of the respective directors and writers...some things wound up being different.

And as a result, the Ranma ½ of the Eighties and Nineties is very different from what we're going to get with the 2024 anime. The 2024 series is based on a manga that had been finished for decades, and between the official releases so far and some unfortunate early leaks, it shows plenty of signs of being far more faithful to the original manga.

So, we of the Nerima Wreckers' Crew are here to introduce you to a few of the things you might run into as a new Ranma ½ fan exploring the existing fan content that has accrued over the past few decades!

Be aware: you're about to read spoilers for a four decades old manga. Questions about something that we don't cover in this post? Leave a comment asking for more, after the jump!

Something to get out of the way first: we're the NWC as an in-joke: as both Transformers and Ranma fans (and in some cases, fictive introjects), we wanted to combine the 'Wreckers' group name from Transformers with the English-language Ranma ½ fandom's nickname for the group of martial artists, students, teachers, monsters, and other characters who populate the series:

The Nerima Wrecking Crew.

The principal setting of Ranma ½ is Nerima, a ward of the metropolis of Tokyo. There are 23 special wards, and Nerima is a real-life one that is found in the northwest of Tokyo—in fact, it was the 23rd and final ward! In English-language communications, the local government identifies the ward as Nerima City, so that's how we'll speak of it here.

Nerima is a large city that still retains a very suburban, even exurban character stretching back to its history of farming. There are even still farms within the city limits, including at least one dairy farm last we checked! It's part of Tokyo, but it has a kid of old-fashioned peaceful character...that makes it the perfect place for anime characters to disrupt. That kind of disruption led the English-speaking fandom to dub our favorite crew of violent martial artists the "Wrecking Crew", presumably after their propensity to bust down walls and buildings.

A lot of anime and manga take place in Nerima. Takahashi's previous hit series Urusei Yatsura, the cat-robot classic All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku-Nuku, the anime adaptation of Stop!! Hibari-Kun, even Tokyo Ghoul...okay, some of these are not quite the same genre as the others.

This is often attributed to the large number of anime studios based in the city, but Ranma's adventures in Nerima have a special bond with the environment that seems to go beyond, stretching back to the original manga. Ranma is often seen walking along (or falling from) fencetops above canals just like the above image from Wikimedia, and scenes set in nearby parks map fairly well to specific ones in Nerima City, so we can generally assume that the neighborhood where the Tendō Dojo is found is roughly in the Ōizumi area along the Shirako River seen above.

More specifically, it's in an imaginary neighborhood somewhere nebulously within those boundaries, a neighborhood that parts of the older fandom know as Furinkan-chō, AKA "Furinkan Town", after the Furinkan High School that Ranma and Akane attend—drawing a connection to the more official identification of the cast of Urusei Yatsura as living in Tomobiki-chō and attending Tomobiki High School.

A sober, dignified edifice to education...populated by a bunch of martial arts lunatics.

Some of whom are probably going to be pretty different in the new anime!

Meet the principal of Furinkan High School. Yes, this is a native Japanese man. Yes, he has problems.

Principal, Headmaster, or in Japanese Kunō-kōchō (no given name provided) is, unfortunately, the unfortunate father of the equally unfortunate series mainstay Tatewaki Kunō. The Principal here visited the USA for a while in order to learn from our education methods and came back an even worse problem than he'd left, becoming obsessed with the trappings of Hawai'ian tourism and the English language. In the original Japanese, his dialogue is heavily peppered with random English words and phrases (and an obnoxious Woody Woodpecker-style laugh).

The thing is, it's hard to translate a character randomly speaking English...into English. So, the official English translations of the original manga and anime had the Principal badly pepper his speech with Hawai'ian Pidgin phrases. It's going to be a little while before he shows up in the new anime, so it's hard to say for sure how he'll be translated...but it probably won't be that. So, new fans: you're probably going to encounter a few fanworks where there's a random fake-Hawai'ian man threatening teenagers with bad haircuts.

Teenagers like Hikaru Gosunkugi.

This is Gosunkugi. You'll probably see him next season, because we're going to perform acts of supervillainy if they don't make a second season. He shows up pretty early on in the manga, and has an important role to play in a major storyline...but he didn't show up in the original anime for 94 episodes after he was supposed to appear.

What we got instead was Sasuke Sarugakure. There's some debate about exactly why the anime-only character Sasuke was added: a diminutive ninja with thick eyebrows, prominent whiskers, buck teeth, and a miserable lot in life as the Kunō family servant. Seemingly...the only servant. Sasuke's role in the original anime seemed to have been not only to fill in for Gosunkugi in an early storyline, but to act as a comedic foil to the overblown antics of the Kunō family—especially absurd since the anime took the already comical wealth of the Kunōs from the manga, and exaggerated it to an absurd degree that seems all the more ridiculous when you learn that Sasuke sleeps in the crawlspace and gets by on fewer than three meals a day.

Oddly, this characterization as a comically impoverished ninja is a recurring bit in Takahashi's stories: Urusei Yatsura featured the job-hunting missing-nin Kaede, and the last few volumes of the Ranma ½ manga introduced the threadbare kunoichi Konatsu.

Get used to this image. It's probably all you're going to see of Konatsu for a good few seasons...because the original anime never got to that part of the manga.

Konatsu is a thorny topic in the fandom due to matters of gender that aren't helped by the original anime never getting to those stories, and the original manga chapters taking forever to be available in English. What can definitely be said is that Konatsu A: identifies as a kunoichi, specifically a title for female ninja, and B: is AMAB.

But this is a series that's all about playing with gender.

For example...

The Girl. An anime-only episode of Nettōhen presented a story of Ranma taking a blow to the head, waking up not long after and insisting on actually being a girl—identifying her life as a boy as being something akin to a bad dream. This version of Ranma knows she was assigned male and turns back into a male body when splashed with hot water, but she demonstrates a visceral dysphoria about it that is painfully relatable. The episode's plot is concluded and the status quo is restored when the pacifistic girl is struck once more in the head at the end, restoring the Ranma who is a confident martial artist and self-identified man among men...but an increasing number of highly-rated fanworks reference this single-episode anime-only story.

This isn't the only time an anime-only episode touches on the idea of Ranma who is solely identified as a girl:

Ranma and the Evil Within starts off with Ranma joking about staying a girl forever, only for it to be taken seriously by the recurring problematic antagonist Happōsai (seriously, he's just the worst, and for some reason the original anime production team decided to make lots of anime-only episodes featuring him). A magic incense is brought into play, splitting off all the femnine 'yin' from Ranma's masculine 'yang'.

This split-off half is characterized as unbalanced, magically powerful, and a threat to Ranma's life. So of course, she looks sick as fuck. But just like The Girl, she's a one-off character. Don't worry: if the anime runs long enough to cover all the manga storylines, we'll still get a story about a female-only duplicate of Ranma. But it's going to be a little while.

Speaking of girls in Ranma ½, let's touch on Akane's female friends!

Mostly going unnamed in the manga, Akane has several female classmates and friends who received more prominent roles in the old anime.

(gif by @roseillith)

The two most notable of these are Yuka (lighter brown hair), and Sayuri (darker brown, often in a ponytail). These names do get called out in the old version of the anime, though they don't seem to have much personality beyond "girls who are friends with each other and Akane".

This role is sometimes filled by others in the old anime. It's much harder to find episodes where any other girls in the class are named, but due to two of them recurring, fanworks often bring them up as Akane's other friends:

Meet Asami (wavy shoulder-length hair) and Hiroko (short hair and freckles)...or is that Makoto and Shikako? Sources vary on these names, and English language websites disagree on which are the 'official' names. If anyone can track down an episode where either one is named on-screen, we'd appreciate it!

Akane isn't the only one with school friends: Ranma's got a few recurring acquaintances among the male students, as well.

In the old anime, these two are specifically named as Hiroshi (lighter colored hair and wider eyes) and Daisuke (dark hair and narrow eyes). They're often treated by both the source material and fanworks as Ranma's sole "normal" guy friends, and in general behave like stereotypical high school boys...including openly lusting after Ranma's girl form, even after they learn that she and the male Ranma are one and the same.

Hiroshi and Daisuke show up more consistently as a pair than Akane's friends in both the manga and the original anime, and fanworks often pair them romantically with Yuka and Sayuri. But even with how common Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Sayuri are (down to their incredibly average names), they deserve mentioning for new fans...

...Because the new anime renamed them all! "Hiroshi" is now "Shingo" (しんご), "Daisuke" is now "Kiichi" (きいち), "Yuka" is now "Noriko" (のりこ), and "Sayuri" is now "Tomoyo" (ともよ).

That's it for now, because there's a brand new episode out that we haven't had a chance to watch while we wrap up this post on our lunch break. Until next time, this is the Nerima Wrecker Crew, signing off!

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Miscellaneous Sea Creatures

It's the penultimate* Bestiaryposting, and we have sea beasties! Yarrr... okay that's as much as I'm doing of that.

*Strikethroughs explained in the Aberdeen Bestiary section.

Anyone not sure what this is about can consult https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting, which I have fallen terribly behind on updating, but at least after next week I can't possibly fall any more behind.

To read about these Sea Beasties, click here:

For our next and, as I've alluded to repeatedly (assuming I've been counting correctly), last Bestiary Post, click here:

Without further ado, art below the cut.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has all eight here, and has made the majority of them Not Fish to give us a good oceanic variety. The reasoning behind the Alrittraes (see the linked post) is pretty good, I think, and I'm fascinated by the design of the Radwahrekh.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has given us a similar top-to-bottom oceanic scene in a different style -- these are making me nostalgic for those big illustrations of All The Different Sea Critters I enjoyed staring at as a kid. The Alrittraes is very good in this one too -- I swear I've seen that critter on an old-fashioned Map of the Ocean somewhere. I also like the verging-on-draconic design of the Blochmokan.

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn all eight and attached naturalistic descriptions, as is their wont. Honestly I'm always impressed by how well those descriptions scan as Probably Real Animals. I think the designs of the Alrittraes and Blochmokan are particularly charming here, which is becoming a theme.

So, the Aberdeen Bestiary. No illustrations at all in this section, which is extremely disappointing. Probably due to the author's terrestrial bias. After the above list of creatures, the author goes on an extended digression about fish in general, their feeding and mating habits, and... and apparently Past Me was lazy enough to just skim this whole section on account of each folio just being labeled "Of fish, continued".* Which was a mistake, because it does transition back into talking about specific animals (a number of which are 100% not fish).

*I believe the folio labels are based on the manuscript's rubricated headings, so I can't pass off the blame on them for not making note of this.

So next week isn't the last one, because some of these critters are pretty good, and I can't let Past Me's laziness deny them their time in the spotlight. Once I've typed up this post, I'll go queue up another one to be the actual final Bestiaryposting. A Bestiarypostscript, if you will.

Anyway, the critters from this post.

Alrittraes

I think the water-spout thing flagged to many that this is the whale. Here's the unredacted end of that entry:

Whales are beasts of huge size, so called because of their habit of drawing in and spouting out water; for they make waves higher than other sea creatures; the Greek word balenim [balein] means 'to emit'. The male is called musculus; for it is alleged that the females conceive by intercourse.

In fact, the Ancient Greek phállaina just means 'whale'. (Its original etymology is apparently obscure.) I checked into what balein and balenim might mean just to be sure -- the former is Dutch for 'baleen', which makes sense. The latter is apparently the Czech word for 'package' in either the singular instrumental or plural dative form. So... I don't think this etymology is correct, is what I'm saying.

The bit about conceiving by intercourse, I think, is because they're mammals. Someone either made some observations about genital anatomy or actually observed whale sex out on the high seas somehow, and this was noted as unusual because fish aren't supposed to do that. (The medievals were fully aware of the external fertilization process, they just didn't think it counted.)

I have no idea why this means it is called musculus, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary is not helping.

I was about to continue with this and make some suggestions about the specific design of a mantlet, but honestly I think it's just the author (or, more likely, Isidore of Seville) making up nonsense etymologies.

Update: here I present the entirety of the entry for "mussel", from several pages later, which I think sheds some light on this:

Musculi are small shellfish; oysters conceive from their milk. They are called musculi, meaning, so to speak, masculi, 'males'.

So... maybe. Still weird.

Blochmokan

So this one confused me a bit, because the translator of the Aberdeen Bestiary simply calls it "flying-fish", but that seemed wrong to me because the heading says:

De belua que dicitur serra: Of the monster called the flying-fish.

And I think to myself, (a) why is it a monster? and (b) there's no way serra translates literally to 'flying fish', what is that word?

In an obvious-once-you-see-it moment, serra means 'saw' (whence English serrated). The definition 'sawfish' is also presented, but this is clearly not the same animal we call "sawfish" in English. Nor is it, I strongly suspect, the same one we call "flying fish". (Not least because bestiaries often have a very hierarchical order to them, and why would the flying fish be number two right after the whale?)

Hoping there is an explanation available on the great wide Internet, I Google "serra" "flying fish", and... who should I see as the number one result but the inestimable @a-book-of-creatures. They explain it better than I can.

Kearmoltir

So this is the dolphin, which is quite odd because apparently it means the "certain kind of fish" described here is not actually this guy like we assumed but instead a species of dolphin. Which is wild.

Meldilragg

The translator just renders this as "sea-pig", which I'm not really sure about, because as far as I know sea-pig or mereswine is an old word for 'porpoise'. Maybe they didn't translate it that way because they know something I don't.

Olnranming

This is of course the swordfish.

Radwahrekh

This might be the sawfish, but it does say serra again, so... who knows.

Shikwaewik

This one is the pike, which tracks; I don't think that needs to be elaborated upon.

Gurnwatlea

This one is the mullet, which I was surprised to see. I'm not sure why, maybe it's just because it seems like such a mundane and commonplace fish. But of course we also had some pretty mundane and commonplace mammals in that miscellany, so it's not really that weird.

Anyway, that's... a portion of our sea creatures.

[sistersorrow]

Finished Harrow the Ninth a couple hours ago

I'm not a reviewing type, so I'm just gonna include a bunch of things that made me have reactions and other miscellaneous things about my experience with the book

I don't care what Gideon says, the waters may be choppy, but the Harrow x Ianthe ship ain't sunk yet

TV Tropes is a godsend for me, cause it wasn't until I read the Foreshadowing page that I remembered a bunch of details I'd completely forgot about

I didn't bother to actually google how you pronounce Ianthe until 300 pages into the second book

People sold Gideon the Ninth as "lesbian necromancers in space" but Harrow the Ninth is the one where Harrow and Ianthe are both down horrendous

I had a vague inkling that The Locked Tomb was set in our future just because there were nine houses on nine planets and the Ninth House sounded like Pluto, but I did not expect this to be all but confirmed through a 10,000 year old immortal necromancer referencing the "It's for church honey" Facebook post and God himself mentioning None Pizza Left Beef

This does not however explain not 10,000 year old Gideon referencing Llamas in Hats

No one is allowed to say they Fucked Nasty Style anymore unless it involved cutting off your partner's arm and replacing it with a necromanticly animated bone one

The author confirmed on Reddit that partway through writing that scene she realised how sexually charged it felt and ran with it

My pronouns are She/ cause I'll never be Her (toxic immortal lich wife Ianthe, who killed a man and ate his soul to attain unlimited power and get her face on posters)

The author has stated that Ianthe is a very intentional Draco in Leather Pants character with the core differences being that she's a woman and as a sense of humour, which is why she is in fact Best Girl

I was left wondering if I'd imagined all the memes being referenced cause TV Tropes didn't make mention of a single one, so I checked the Locked Tomb subreddit to make sure I had not performed The Work on myself

If there are any Homestuck references, I didn't notice, cause I have expunged most of my knowledge of it

Dad jokes are the pinnacle of all humour

The Emperor is really bad at gaslighting

Harrow may have died with the last thing she ever saw being a nudie mag that doesn't exist, which is just hilarious

Ianthe did everything wrong, and that's why she's the best

Reading this book has reminded me I'm very bad at picking up on foreshadowing, hence scrolling through TV Tropes right after finishing the book

That threesome is the most uncomfortable I've been in weeks, which makes it good writing

I'm probably gonna read the short stories next then start Nona the Ninth sometime next week

[cerastes]

How do you rate the gacha booty shooter?

NIKKE sure is a game! It's the funnest mixed bag I've played lately. As a side game, it's been pretty good, because it's good at what it does good, and not terrible at its weak points, leaving you with a pretty "Ok :)" feeling overall.

So what's up with Nikke? Yeah, let's have a talk about that so I can explain a bit by what I mean with "fun mixed bag".

Nikke's setting is the same old tired, you've seen it a million times: Once day, humanity was almost decimated by a mysterious enemy that came out of nowhere... We call it... The Enemy! They were simply too strong, so humanity had to deploy its strongest weapons: Anime Girls. And you are the lucky Authority Figure that commands the Anime Girls to defeat The Enemy! But... The Enemy and Anime Girls have more in common than it seems...!?

Replace "The Enemy" with "Rapture", "Anime Girl" with "Nikke", Authority Figure with... Technically "Commander" but more on this in a bit, and you've got Nikke. In other words, the game's setting and premise are just a few word swaps away from being Punishing Gray Raven, Snowbreak, and a bunch of other properties. But here's the thing: Whereas Punishing Gray Raven tells you its story with all the charm and pizzazz of a Wikipedia article, and Snowbreak... Uh, stands there staring at a wall Blair Witch style because nothing ever fucking happens in Snowbreak, Nikke actually has good moment to moment flow. Allow me to elaborate.

Read More break here because I wrote a lot more than I intended:

Nikke has probably the dumbest premise to open with: The Nikkes are basically superpowered cyborg girls (war machines with human brains) that look like supermodels on purpose because they were created, in the game's own words, "with the ideal form in mind". That's all a wordy way of saying they are super hot girls with very powerful guns and superhuman physical capabilities. The dumb part is that Nikkes are treated like absolute shit in-universe by humans. You're telling me humanity is making cyborgs -- not even full on robots or AI, these are straight up people getting turned into weapons -- that are hot as fuck and have tits bigger than my head and asses that could crush cars under their sheer heft and then decided to hate them and treat them like shit, and also these cyborgs are the ones actually keeping humanity alive? Well yeah we need a reason for the Main Character (you!) to be Special and bond with them, so your thing is that You Don't Treat Nikkes Like Shit. In fact, you care for them.

Now, this is all absolutely fucking stupid, but then, the game sort of... Realizes how stupid it is? And some may say "this was always the plan" but to me personally it feels like they kinda realized how god damn stupid this all was as a premise, and they started veering the car mid-trip because for a while this all feels REALLY sincere, not in a foreshadowing way, but then you have some developments such as "no yeah, Commanders are a dime a dozen, are brainwashed into seeing Nikkes as walking garbage and that they'll be heroes, risk their lives for pennies and are extremely expendable", and there's also what I consider a really good and consistent thing the game has done: Nikkes were always a desperate last minute rushed product as a concept, so the safety measures in place so that they don't rebel against humans were never perfect.

This is what I mean by the moment to moment being good: The plot is absolutely whatever, the setting is something you've seen a million times, but the actual scene by scene, beat by beat, is fun. On the micro level, the game knows how to be entertaining and interesting, and when they expand these micro nuggets of gold to a macro level of writing, it's when they end up with their best bits of narrative and world building. I want to use two examples about the whole safety measures thing: Crow and Rose.

Crow is a Nikke that hates humans and is part of a squad of known dangerous elements that Missilis, the most irresponsible of the Big Three companies, is responsible for. This squad is Exotic, and Exotic works with you (your squad is named Counters) on this one mid-game chapter. The thing is, they never really intended to work with you, and Crow wanted you dead because Crow wants to spark a Human Vs Nikke conflict in the Ark (humanity's last big home), because you might quell the hostility between both sides. But, Nikkes can't intentionally kill humans (accidents happen and a Nikke may be ordered to subdue a human, but they are hardwired to not be able to shoot at them or kill them). So, how does Crow go about it when she betrays you? She has her squadmate Jackal plant a steel plate on the ground, and then shoots the plate in a way that the bullet ricochets and hits you. NIMPH, what's used to, among many other things, make sure Nikkes can't turn on humans, was so, so easily circumvented, and this is consistent with what we've been told about the Ark and Nikke in universe development in general: It's sloppy, it's lazy, it's not good. Rose, the other example, is a Nikke from a flashback story around a hundred of years before the start of the game. Rose was a prototype Nikke that was geared for melee combat instead of ranged combat, as all Nikkes are, and she was one of ten such units. Basically, Rose realized that their human Commander was intentionally trying to get them killed until one remained, which would be deemed the success of the line in Darwinian fashion. Rose got so immensely, justifiably angry at this that she plotted to kill the Commander. How can she do this, though, with the NIMPH that prevents her from doing so? Well, Rose was an actual swordmaster, and what she did was wear a blindfold, convince herself that what she was slicing was not a human, but a Rapture, and then she easily killed the shit out of him, unimpeded by her system. The NIMPH, end of the day, is sloppily made, highly dependent on the mental state of the Nikke, and easily circumvented. This is a very important plot point throughout the story, and the way they show this in multiple ways is really good.

Another thing I like is how the game goes about the player's title. It's technically "Commander" but the truth is, most every single Nikke calls you a different way relative to your relationship with them or their impression of you. Rapi and Anis some of the few that call you Commander, because they are in fact your subordinates, but Rapi says "Shikikan" while Anis says "Shikikan-sama" in a sarcastic way initially and after a while in an affectionately playful way, Neon calls you "Master" (Shishou) because she likes the way you use firepower, Liter calls you "Greenhorn" because you are, well, that in her eyes, Moran calls you "Partner" (Ototou, "little brother" in Japanese) because she's the head of a crime syndicate and she considers you as a cool person under her protection, the sports inclined ones call you "Coach", the school themed ones "Teacher", Viper, the flirty one, "Honey" or "Darling" depending on the scene, and so on, the old timey Scarlet calls you "My Lord", the religious Rapunzel uses "Believer", and the coarse, rough around the edges Snow White just uses "You" (Omae). It's a great touch that I like when it's done.

So, basically, you have a charming combination of a setting that's been overdone infinite times with plot beats that vary between legitimately good (the NIMPH and its logistics) and legitimately bad (Whatever the fuck Chapter 18 was, to name one case), and moment to moment that's really charming and entertaining.

The gameplay is honestly extremely unbalanced, and the sheer disparity in strength between units of the same rarity makes you wonder if they have anyone in the team that actually cares about balance, but honestly, putting the issues of balance aside? It's fun to point at stuff and shoot a million bullets and rockets, and they even get pretty creative with the fights sometimes in terms of enemy types and how they use them against you, so gameplay balance is awful, gameplay itself is suprisingly good for how simple it is.

I know people are going to be like "Dreamer, You Didn't Even Rate The Asses" so okay here:

First of all, the ergonomically perfect ass of the VIXEN that lured me into the game in a moment of weakness, Scarlet:

And next up, the Clothed But Massive Ass of Snow White

In fact, I appreciate the variety, because if it was just bare cheeks and panty shots, it'd be kinda whatever to me, but bodysuit ass and clothed but noticeably huge ass? Fresh, to be honest.

Also notable is that progress in entirely gated by passive production of resources and daily stuff because there's no stamina system. Bold!

But yeah feel free to ask more specific questions, but this is pretty much how I've felt about it.

[thecrazygamingzombie]

How Viviziepop kickstarted the third wave of indie animation.

Okay, I've been seeing a lot of people talk about the tweet below and how Viv doesn't deserve to take credit for the success of other indie animation projects online but the fact of the matter is...she does, in an indirect way at least.

First, let's start off with a brief history of indie animation:

everything started out on a site called newgrounds, I'm sure you've all heard of it. Created by Tom Fulp in the 90s to show case some of his half baked game ideas. Which eventually evolved into a place where indie creators could post anything they wanted without fear of censorship; the rating system that automatically removed any posts that dropped too low being the only source of quality control.

This gave indie animation it's initial foothold online but without any way of obtaining a revenue stream it never really moved beyond a fun hobby done to practice one's art/coding skills or just screw around with friends online.

This problem got more significant as time went on and many of the teenage artists that gave newgrounds it's inital success, such as RicePirate and Tom Fulp, grew into young adults who needed a revenue stream. Luckily they found one in the form of youtube.

With these monetization policies, many indie animators were actually able to go into animation practically full time. Their pre-existing income bolstered by that of youtube and what followed was a golden era of animation, just an explosion of content across the board. You had stuff like Eddsworld, Salad Fingers, ASDF movie, and tons of other creators bursting onto the scene.

all putting their content out there on Youtube for the world to see. All bolstered by revenue coming in from Youtube...but the good times never last

See, back then youtube's monetization policies were pretty simple: the more views your channel got, the more money you'd make. Great for short form animators and also great for clickbait youtubers who abused the system with deceiving thumbnails and titles!

To combat this, Youtube changed it's monetization policies in March of 2012: instead of being rewarded on view count, monetization would instead reward the time watched during a video. Which created a system where longer videos with frequent uploads were rewarded

In theory this was supposed to stop clickbait videos as people would just watch for a few seconds and leave. But in practice? It meant that animators were put at a heavy disadvantage as now they'd have to put in significantly more work for the same result.

This caused a complete and total crash of indie animation online. Between an unfair algorithm and the rise of gaming channels, most indie animators couldn't gather the same level of funding they could before and had to either quit or scale back.

Only the big name animators who could coast by on brand recognition such as Harry Partridge and TomSka among several others, or larger channels with dedicated teams similar to tv studios such as Mondo Media and Rooster Teeth. Were able to keep going.

This started a brief dark age for online animation until the advent of story time animators. People like Jaiden Animations, Swoozie, and TheOdd1sOut who relied on simplistic art styles with minimalist animation that focused on content reminiscent of old vlogs where the animators simply share stories from their everyday lives that allowed them to put out longer videos faster; thus working around the monetization system that had put so many animators out in the cold.

While they didn't solve the problem, in some ways they made it worse by starting a trend that attracted countless copycats, they did help sustain an interest in indie animation online and ensure there was a consistent audience for such a medium.

Now it wasn't a total wasteland mind you, as I said there were still plenty of animators who survived the purge. There were even a few channels such as Shut Up Cartoons and Mondo Media, again, that helped produce dozens of animated series from indie creators.

But even at it's best, these series were still very amateurish. The passion was obviously there but these were still very simplistic flash or stop motion animations with low budgets and small teams, focusing more on episodic skits than any sort of overarching plot

This environment of amateur passion projects, where animated series were usually very small scale and never really escaped from the limited sphere of youtube, went on for several years and kept the animation community alive. Until Viv posted Hazbin Hotel and brought about the third wave of indie animation.

Unlike the previous examples, Hazbin Hotel was a VERY different beast from most indie animation. Not only did it have an extremely distinct visual style but the animation was so fluid, so professionally made, it felt like something you'd see out of a mainstream studio. It felt leagues above the average indie project in terms of quality.

Now Viv had already a decent audience from her Zoophobia webcomic, her speed draws, and the die young video. So it wasn't like she was starting from nothing. But there was no denying that this new form of animation caught people's attention and caught it FAST.

You all can probably recall the explosion of discussion that surrounded the original pilot and how it was all the internet was talking about for awhile. Viv road that wave and used the momentum to launch 'Helluva Boss' another indie production with a similar style.

This made her even more popular, especially when she started cranking out new episodes of the latter series with the same high quality as before, and soon her fanbase swelled to millions. A fanbase that was more than happy to crowdfund Viv's work through patreon and merch sales. Then other animators saw this and realized that there was a sizable audience for animated content; one that could not only sustain professional level animation, but was desperate for more content of this scale. Soon several other series started cropping up like MurderDrones, Lackadaisy, Monkey Wrench, and the Amazing Digital Circus. All of which followed Viv's lead of producing high quality, fluid animation with overarching plots that drew funding entirely from legions of online fans.

For the first time in a long time, indie animation was breaking out of it's original platform and reaching far more mainstream audiences than it ever has in the past on a scale never before seen and it's all because Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss kicked off this new animation renaissance!

Now I'm not gonna say Viv was solely responsible, the series we enjoy now have thrived primarily on their own merits and the creative minds behind them.

But as it stands, her work played a big role in setting the stage for other indie animation projects and creating the perfect conditions for them to thrive amidst the current digital landscape. Like it or not, Viv is the catalyst for modern indie animation. To deny Viv her rightful place in history out of spite is nothing short of historical revisionism.

Give the gal her due, she's done some amazing things for this crazy world we live in.

Here's the videos I got most of my info from, it's important to cite one's sources after all!

[wolves-in-the-world]

With the aim of joyful and indiscriminate celebration, may I present all the Mr Quinn (Leverage) artworks I'm aware of, collected by @darkfinch and myself!

Ideally this would in fact be everything (except for one that the artist took down, because it seems fair to respect that), but I came to the fandom late and haven't paid much attention this past year, so it's gonna be missing things. Feel free to add them on if you know them!

Arranged alphabetically by artist, and with my apologies for the descriptions:

—

Besuited bastard man drinking a cup of tea by @buttercookie-art

Quinn taking a nap on Eliot by @buttercookie-art

Three pieces for the Last Dam Job plane ride by @buttercookie-art, with one of them - Quinn napping on Eliot's shoulder - also posted seperately

-

Sleepy morning curly hair hitters by @creepyspytruck

Small Quinn learning from his Uncle Rabbit (darkfinch's OC) by @creepyspytruck

Quinn trapping Eliot while they spar, based on a trivalentlinks fic, by @creepyspytruck

-

Weird little man in a thrift store frilly shirt by @faorism

Tidings of a peaceful day (Quinn/McSweeten) [on Ao3] by @faorism

-

If Mr Quinn was the sniper in The Rundown Job by @kayvsdoodles

Fixing a then-notable lack of Quinn fanart by @kayvsdoodles

Special guy in a party hat by @kayvsdoodles

Small Quinn reading a novel by @kayvsdoodles

Sitting on Eliot to keep him from injuring himself further by @kayvsdoodles

Mr Quinn versus Eliot's weird roommate in sweatpants (featuring tattoos) by @kayvsdoodles

Just a guy doing classic guy things (he's here to drink tea and work his job and he's just about finished his tea) by @kayvsdoodles

Doodles of a guy by @kayvsdoodles

Bastard gets a haircut by @kayvsdoodles

Two squishy baby faces and a tired old guy (a small Quinn and darkfinch's OCs Masha and Rabbit) by @kayvsdoodles

Eliot does everything & He's just Quinn by @kayvsdoodles & Beverage boys in the same style

-

Mr Quinn supporting a bloody and bleeding Eliot by @lemissingmask

Last Dam Job AU (angst warning), with Quinn and Eliot and Sophie by @lemissingmask

First aid and Eliot whump, four pieces inpired by a fic, by @lemissingmask

-

Eliot never told anyone about Moreau... sober by @party-gilmore

Weekend at Eliot's (corpse warning) by @party-gilmore

Mr Quinntacles by @party-gilmore

Leverage S04E18 - The Last Dam Job ENG SUB (7/8) 240p by @party-gilmore

Cozy Quinn in his Leverage International team sweater by @party-gilmore

90's anime Quinn face by @party-gilmore

-

"Don't" (that's it, that's the ship) by @starling-dust

-

Quinn and Eliot, security knife sketch by @trivalentlinks

Mr Quinn and Pancake the cat by @trivalentlinks

Trap your hitter to keep him from finding more trouble by @trivalentlinks

Eliot braiding Quinn's hair by @trivalentlinks

Norway Christmas scene (nsfw) from a divineprojectzero Quinn/Eliot fic, by @trivalentlinks

—

That's forty artworks, and an incredible treasure. My thanks to the artists, commissioners, encouragers, and enjoyers all!

[thekingofwinterblog]

Ok so, having seen the Gameplay trailer that Bioware pulled out of their ass in the aftermath of possibly the worst videogame trailer in history, i have to say im not impressed... But i almost am.

Because they ALMOST got it right. Like all the building blocks are there, but it's always just one step off from being great.

Like the character models dont look anything the like the complete joke that was the fortnite DA trailer... But while you can tell the animators put their heart and soul into the models, they still look awful.

And it's ALL the lighting and coloring's fault.

The thing is, the models and enviornment doesnt look terrible in a vacuum... but the problem is that it ALL blends together. It's all just a mixmatch of colors and shades that makes the entire thing look like an uncoordinated mess with no rhyme or reason behind it.

Take this shot of minarathous. It's not just grey, on top of grey, but it sure looks like it. The colors, rather than contrast and embolden everything to make it look striking, instead makes it one, big, sloppy looking mess.

Here is one, single shot from Inquisition to illustrate the poiny. Notice how everything is very grey here too, but the way the lighting is, you can easily differentiate between everything, every character sticks out so much better and looks infinitly more interesting and memorablr just by virtue of not looking like they're part of the background.

It's not a coincidence that the only part of this gameplay showcase that looks absolutely stunning is Solas, because he is the only character who actually has the lighting to stand out, both when illuminated by the blue magical energy withouth the purple, white and blue mess that is now how magical energy looks, but also in the shots where he's illuminated by the veil.

I can tell you why it looks like this too.

The lighting and colorists of the development team was trying so, so very hard to make the concept art lighting translate to 3d models and enviornments... And it just doesnt work.

Maybe there is a way to make these pieces work in 3d, but this sure aint it.

Maybe the enviornments that are set in the daylight will look better, but i can tell you, that with this engine and style, every single nightshot is going to look absolutely atrocious, regardless of wheter the models look better than that horrible fortnite trailer.

Then there is the dialogue.

Now there are a lot of complaits that a lot of the dialogue is the usual by now terrible Marvel "banter" that the MCU unfortunately popularized.

You know, the quirky, dont take itself too seriously style of writing that almost never works outside the MCU pre Endgame.

But that's actually not my main vomplaint with it.

My complaint is how... Lifeless the voice actors sounds.

I just listened to these lines, and the thing that struck me is not that they're bad, but how i KNOW both Varric and Solas Voice actors are so much better than this.

"People are dying right now! You need to listen!" "People are always dying. It is what they do."

Like... These lines SHOULD work.

I know the common joke is that this is the usual terrible dialogue in the vein of "My face is tired from dealing with you", but the fact is that it's actually good on paper.

Varric here should sound like he's pleading, making one, last, final plea to his old friend Solas, reminding him that people are fucking dying all around them(Though the rest of the scene dont exactly convey that).

A plea to his humanity.

And solas throws back that he knows. He KNOWS people are dying. That's what they always do.

For anyone who knows Solas at all, this is such a good line. You dont need him to go into a spiel about how his entire reason for doing this is so that people no longer have to die all the time, that the entire reason they do die is because of him...

It should work... but it doesnt.

Solas Actor is NOT giving it his A-Game. At all. And neither is Varric's.

He doesnt sound like the emotional Solas we saw in Inquisition, and frankly neither does Varric. Any and all charisma both had are seemingly gone, replaced by two actors who make the characters sound like themselves, but eithouth the emotion that made them work.

Just hearing Solas telling Varric that this story does NOT end with his downfall just makes me think that the actor either didn't give a shit, or was bored... Which was just hammered in further when Solas just gives a pathethic scream of "Noooooo!" When his big plan is foiled.

Maybe it's that the rest of the writing is just so bad that they just gave up, or they had the same level of quality for their voice director that george lucas gave his actors during the prequel triology filming.

Either way, this really just hammered in the point for me of kind of game we're getting here... And i didnt even touch the gameplay in this post.

[mikuni14]

Ngl, but I will say that The Sign has been failing me for the last 3 episodes and I don't vibe with this series like I did at the beginning. As a matter of fact, I have the impression that episodes 1-5 are completely different than episodes 6-8.

First of all, an explanation: I watch BL series for pure escapism, I really expect nothing else, but to have a nice time watching the romance of beautiful boys 😎 I don't add any high values, any ideology, I don't have ANY high expectations from BL series, I'm an old school fujoshi. Life is shitty as it is, what's happening around us is depressing - I just need a break from reality, which was previously given to me by books, manga, anime, and now mainly by BL series.

If a BL series tries to be something more, gives me something beautiful, deep, that gives me food for reflection and analysis, such as The Eighth Sense, then I treat it as something extra, like an additional bonus, a gift from the benevolent BL gods 😀 I don't take it for granted as something that, idk, has to be there. For me, BL series are supposed to give me a good time, they have to spark joy (and what never ceases to amaze me is how, with such minimal expectations, so many series still can't do even this minimum lol). Despite everything, I can forgive a lot, as long as the couple and their romance make me feel good. Like, A LOT.

The Sign in episodes 1-5 was EXACTLY what I expect from BL series: a killer couple, great chemistry between the actors, an interesting story (even if stupid and chaotic at times). I praised this series for Phaya and Tharn (emphasis on Tharn) and their MANY high-quality scenes together. Their romance was tender and hot at the same time, the attraction between them was visible from the beginning, their relationship developed logically and linearly, the series made me feel joy and hope.

But something broke down from episode 6. The romance went into strange fluctuations, depressive lows and sudden bursts of euphoria, the number of their shared, high-quality scenes decreased dramatically, in episode 6 there were even no such scenes, and in 7 and 8 I counted like 2 of them. I CONSTANTLY GO BACK TO THEIR SCENES FROM EPISODES 1- 5, AND FROM EPISODES 6-8 I ONLY GO BACK TO ONE.

What else I loved about PhayaTharn's relationship was how equal they both are in the relationship. Since episode 6, there is no equality, the person who is constantly striving and fighting for their relationship and constantly giving of himself is Phaya. And only Phaya is shown as someone who even has a nervous breakdown due to being rejected by Tharn. Tharn is shown as if everything he does is calculated coldly, the lack of contact with Phaya is not shown as if it was even some kind of nuisance for him. Tharn became a double victim of the script and the narrative: firstly, because he is a character who is afraid that Phaya will die and therefore rejects him, and secondly, the script is unable to present it in a way that is sympathetic to Tharn. I know that Tharn is afraid. But it's not about what I know, but how I perceive it. And I perceive Tharn with irritation. (in The Eight Sense, Jae Won also rejected Ji Hyun after the accident, but in this case I knew why he did it and in addition, the series presented Jae Won in such a way that my heart bled for him. That's what a good story is, it makes me feel satisfied when looking at the scene and the characters both objectively and emotionally)

Another thing that is starting to take away from my enjoyment of watching this series is the constant leaks and spoilers that suggest a breakup, Tharn's "sacrifice" for Phaya, that somehow karma and Chalathon will win and love and Phaya will lose. Just yesterday I listened to a song sung by Babe and read the lyrics of this song… I'm, ok, like, it's totally not my style lol. This is no longer my escape from reality, reality has caught up with me in my yaoi dream 😂

Saturday was The Sign day for me, I never made any plans just to be able to watch the show when it came out. But guess what, I might have potential plans for this Saturday and after my first reaction of "no, I have to watch The Sign", my second thought was whether I really wanted to watch an episode that would probably be depressing again, with maybe one nice scene, and that's assuming that Phaya will wake up? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess I'm not in a rush 😄

I also want to say that on instagram I mostly see stuff about Babe and Billy, and the tag the sign on tumblr is kept alive thanks to the heroic efforts of about 3 good people lol whatever content appears, 90% are scenes from old episodes and from new ones, there are mostly from the love scene. Soooo, I suppose people are not too hyped about recent episodes as well... 🙂

Anyway, I am begging this series to bring back the vibe and way of presenting PhayaTharn's story from its beginnings. I have nothing against angst, tears, even temporary breakups (during the series, NOT at the end). This is how it was in The Eighth Sense, MoD, LoA, To Sir, With Love, and in fucking The Untamed where the breakup lasted for years and The Angst was served in BUCKETS lol. But what I want is for their love to be their strength, for watching them together to give me pleasure and joy. I would like to see more scenes with them, even if they were fighting (not this rejection/ cold days bullshit), but for them to be together and for there to be some good emotions. I want to return to the obsession this series made me feel, to endlessly analyze their scenes together, to blush and squeal like a little girl. And not to wait with increasing dread for the ending like in MODC 😶

(besides, the series just became a little boring and even more chaotic, like, I don't even know (and care for that matter) whose body they pulled out of the water in the last episode and how many open cases they are having at the same time lmao and now there will be also Tharn's personal revenge, this is crazy 😂)

[kaythefloppa]

New S7 WK Eps - [Spoiler Free] Review + Predictions/Thoughts:

New Wild Kratts Season 7 episodes are on the premises after a 4-month hiatus. The episodes were found on https://metadatabank.pbs.org by a few Twitter users, with premises to boot.

Two of the episodes were uploaded on the TVO Kids' YouTube Channel. For anyone who doesn't know, full episodes of PBS Kids shows are uploaded on that channel and are only accessible directly to Canadian viewers. The only way U.S. viewers can access them is through a VPN.

To prevent heavy spoilers, especially for those who don't have a VPN/want to wait until the episodes come out in America, I won't provide any links. I have watched the first two episodes of the new batch, and I will be doing a [spoiler-free] review of them below the cut, again, because I know that not everyone is going to/is able to immediately hop onto a VPN and watch the eps months before they air on television. The other 2 episodes are yet to be televised or uploaded, so anything I say about them will be pure speculation until the U.S. airdate.

This is not a 100% spoiler-free thread. If you have seen the episodes on the VPN and intend on reblogging with spoilers, use the spoiler tag/cut appropriately; Spoilery comments in the thread are prohibited overall because there's no way to loop around that, so bear in mind:

Backpack the Camel:

The gang travels to the Gobi Desert to discover the last remaining wild camels in the world. They experience the harshness of the desert landscape and are rescued from it only by the wild Bactrian camels and their amazing survival skills.

No Name Dream:

Martin has a dream that he's forgotten to name some baby animals and awakens in a sweat. Aviva tries to reassure him that he named them all, but Koki, after checking the data base, confirms that Martin's right! The Wild Kratts' mission is to go back and name all the ,unnamed, and along the way, learn more about their creaturenality and share some wow facts about their animal friends!

Fish Out of Water:

After a Creature Power Disc mishap, the bros become marooned in the world of a mudskipper, a fish that can walk on land. They must find their discs within a foreign world of intense competition, with unexpected dangers at every turn

Our Blue and Green World: Parts 1 & 2:

While doing their annual Laundry Day, the Kratt Brothers disagree on what's better; blue oceans or green forests. Can the gang get Martin and Chris back in synch in time to save Planet Earth from Zach and Paisley's villainous plans?

Again, no confirmed airdates, so we know what we're in for, but we'll just have to wait. But I'll post my disjointed thoughts and predictions on each episode in this big-ass compiled post bc I'm too lazy for separate posts:

—————————————————————————————————

Backpack the Camel - REVIEW

How the fuck did it take us 12.5 years to get a camel episode? There was literally a live-action opener featuring camels and llamas which segwayed into a fucking Koala episode? I know it doesn't really matter, but it's so jarring

The episode's humor is..... not that good. It feels like they were trying too hard to make it "meme" material with a recurring facial gag but it gets old really quickly. Luckily it's not present throughout the episode, and compared to previous scenes in the show (ex. that awful dabbing and floss scene from the ant episode), it's pretty tame.

The camels in this episode are beautifully animated. I swear to god, you could clearly tell that they wanted the camels to look as detailed as possible but still retaining that WK-style look.

The Camel Power Suit, I thought it was going to be awful and at first I hated, but it actually turned out to be pretty good. It gets right what a the more recent quadrupedal power suits get wrong. Though I’m fairly certain that this is going to be an unpopular opinion once the episode comes out.

Wild Kratts has a pretty good track record for debunking animal myths so if you're frustrated with how the mainstream media misrepresents camels or how many myths and misconceptions about them are spread, then this episode is definitely for you.

Ranking: 7/10

No Name Dream - REVIEW

We started off the season with Chris angst and now we’ve got Martin angst. I can’t comment too much on the dream sequence but… let’s just say that the animators were having a lot of fun with it. It’s giving Zooboomafoo vibes if anything.

I feel like MK IRL realized that there were some unnamed baby animals, and decided to write this episode as a meta ref to that. Overall, it feels like the most self-insert-y episode of the show to date (even moreso than Liturgusa Krattorum)

This episode highlights what Wild Kratts does better than most shows nowadays. It knows how to do fanservice correctly. Mainly in the form of callbacks to inventions/locations, power suits, and animals that we haven’t seen in years. The reason they do this correctly is because they don’t do it for the sake of it, there’s a very intriguing plot around it that gives it a point/purpose and it overall makes sense. The crew goes around naming unnamed baby animals from past adventures. That’s something I have wanted to see in years (I even made up my own fan-names for some baby animals that didn’t get a name, though one of them is rendered non-canon in the ep.)

In fact, the modern seasons of the show do this pretty damn well, what with the return of Aviva’s rollerblades in the S6 finale, the tellurium crystal cameo in the raven episode, giving Paisley Paver a solo role in this season, and this episode, where we get a lot of cool callbacks to the earlier seasons when the crew travels around the world to name the unnamed. I think the reason they do this is because they know that after 10 years, people are going to get nostalgic - That and because PBS Kids’ horrible scheduling that forces viewers at home to wait months or even years for new episodes to come out, makes the show runners try and work their way around it through the episode’s quality, so that if it’s great, or hell, even if it’s good, that would compensate for the episode’s wait. It’s one of the many things that gives me hope for Season 7.

I kid you not, there is one scene in this episode that made me scream at my iPad when I first watched it. It’s clearly fanservice, but in the best degree. I’m not going to give ANY hints because it’s too spoilery, but let’s just say, as someone who is a longtime viewer of the show since S1, and has been begging for years for untapped stuff in the earlier episodes to make a comeback, this certain scene in this episode felt like an extremely detailed love-letter to my childhood, if not a very clever witty response to my brainrotting on the blog. This scene is kinda why I’m very adamant about the “no spoilers” thing; The majority of the fandom needs to see this scene televised.

The baby animal’s names vary. Some are cringe, (I guess,) some are okay, and then some are actually alright. Also, cute baby animals!!!!!

Ranking: 8/10

Fish Out of Water - Predictions/Thoughts:

Again, almost 13 years to give us a mudskipper episode? If it wasn’t for that one episode of Octonaughts, I wouldn’t have even known what a mudskipper was if you showed it to me. Side-note, mudskippers are cool.

Ok but a Creature Power Disc mishap? Even after getting disc-holders, these mf still loose these damn discs 😭

Going back to the “WK magazines show Creature Powers of future episodes,” there was a page of a mudskipper shown in a magazine from 2019 that I cannot for the life of me find.

Mudskippers live in Borneo. I hope this implies that we’ll see more animals/Creature Powers of that location since we haven’t gotten it since S4 (more than 5 years ago).

Here’s a Wow Fact about Mudskippers: Their eyes bulge out of their heads unlike other fish and can move independently from each other (not unlike chameleons). They can also live on land apparently and, well… they skip pretty well. I’m expecting the name of a mudskipper to be something like “Skippy” or “Skipper” or something along those lines.

Oh, these motherfuckers can also CLIMB.

Our Blue and Green Earth - Predictions/Thoughts:

This episode was hyped during the premiere marathon week of S7, where Martin originally called the special “Blue and Green: The Living Earth” and listed the animals we’d be seeing in the new special.

Honestly, am I the only one who’s kinda bummed that this is the 8th/9th episode of the season? I mean, didn’t the article that first disclosed this special say that S7 would be breaking the 200 episode milestone? I feel like a huge one-hour special with an aesthetic title like that would be a good contender for Episode 200. Unless this was 200th episode of the show to be produced, but the network fucked up and broadcasted this special early and had another one in its place… it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done that though.

I’ve gone on about a Paisley/Donita team up, but Zach and Paisley also fit too. Both have a grey aesthetic, have alliterative names, are executive CEOs who are both implied to get away from the law via nepotism/capitalism. And both villains have engaged in logging and habitat destruction. Whilst Donita and Paisley have an “opposites attract” thing going on with them when you put them together (which is one of the million reasons why I hardcore ship them), Zach and Paisley are like two peas in a pod.

I guess this is another “disagree” episode, like in Fireflies, Bass Class, or Wolf Hawks. Don’t know how they can drag it out for 40 minutes but let’s see how they do it.

I think they may be planning this as an Earth Day special. Blue and Green, whilst associated with the Kratt Bros, are also associated with the Planet Earth, so it makes sense to air this on Earth Day. Additionally, the 100th episode, Animals Who Live to Be 100 Years Old, had aired as an Earth Day special, as part of a week-long Earth Day marathon of S4 episodes (including Spirit Bear, Paisley’s debut episode). So I think it would be thematically appropriate to air this episode on Earth Day.

I think it’d be like, really funny if the double-episode had the “blue” as one part, written by Martin, and the “green” as another part, written by Chris.

I predict that the climax of the episode will involve the brothers having to defend the opposite climate of their preference. Like, Chris using Blue Whale Powers to defend the ocean animals from the Zachbots, and Martin using Indri Powers to rescue the forests from the Pavers. This is what brings them back in synch after realizing that blue and green are equally important and can rightfully co-exist… just like them (awww).

If there is not a Blue Whale Suit, I might actually cry.

Let’s hope that these episodes air on TV at the end of the year because this hiatus is killing me.

[heinzpilsner]

Some more (supposedly unpopular) thoughts on Zuko's image in atla

'cause apparently that's what I think about these days, geez

Okay, so, I'm not a great expert in style or character design or anything obviously, but I have some general theoretical ideas about it.

Here they are, basically:

1) In practice, attempts to "soften severe features" with, well, soft decorations more often than not make potentially attractive people to look just meh;

2) When you can't hide some feature, it makes more sense to incorporate it as an organic part of your overall image (yes, Zuko's scar, I'm talking about you);

3) Good man doesn't necessary have to look all soft and fluffy to remain a good man. If softness of decoration collides with character's constitution, it makes the audience more emotionally confused than anything, even if just subconsciously (e.g., thoughts like "So, he's a good guy now, but I am less attracted to him than before. Does it mean that I find good guys less hot in general?". ... Yes, it was surprisingly specific. And no, I'm not gonna elaborate.)

If we go all back to beginning though, originally, 13-year-old Zuko's elegant facial features allowed him to go in many different directions with his style.

... That's until Ozai made this choice for him permanently, oh dear that's the one way to put it.

Actually, Zuko was kinda lucky with his scar's shape (considering all the possible alternatives): it ended up looking more like a warpaint or a Bowie-like face decoration than a disfigurement it is wow, almost as if it was specifically designed by professionals with this exact tought in mind lol. And while I totally understand the human in-character desire to hide it behind hair, from the stylistic point of view, that's exactly what Zuko shouldn't do. With such a face, all attempts to avoid people's attention will only lead to the opposite effect.

Also, to hide the scar behind some fringes means to hide Zuko's overall striking features as well, which is a freaking crime against aestetics, if you ask me. His face bears so much more potential than that.

So, what I'm trying to say is this: paradoxically, Zuko manages to look good (yes, good) with supposedly "awful" season 1 haircut, and just meh with supposedly "sexy" season 3 haircut. Because "awful" haircut, while pretty eccentric, opens his features, turns the scar from a weakness into a strengh, and hence translates more character in a harmonic way, apparently.

While later-season-3 Zuko doesn't exactly look bad either (which is especially true when animators make a deliberate effort to depict him extra pretty for dramatic scenes lol I'm not blind guys), he mostly looks... unimpressive? Actually, more often than not he reminds me of a shaggy puppy that just made a puddle nearby, lol. Alternatively, he looks like some simple guy next door - kinda cute then a light hits right, but nothing special. And although I can understand the general thought behind this choice (symbolic humbling as well as he-needs-his-hair-to-wear-the-crown-in-universe-logical), "cute simple guy" is exactly what Zuko isn't. And no, bryke, he's not an emo boy either. He can be awkward turtleduck sometimes, yes, but never someone ordinary. His whole appearance was initially created with this idea in mind.

So, "Bad prince with awful haircut" vs "Good prince with sexy haircut" lens helps to keep things in simple boxes, of course, but there's so much more nuance to Zuko's appearance than that, for better or for worse.

So... ponytail rights again, yay! Gods, I need more season 1 au zutara

(Btw... Am I the only person who remembers what Katara canonically kinda defended Zuko's ponytail to Sokka? And they were enemies back then! I mean, you may think she has a bad taste if you like, but the fact remains).

... Lee-the-refugee-before-the-Jasmine-Dragon haircut is my fav though. But just like all the good things in Zuko's life, it couldn't last long, could it? (Ouch, negligent shagginess looks nice on Jet, but it doesn't do many favors for Zuko's high-contrast aristocratic beauty. I kinda hated it, honestly.)

/typing all this on my phone from memory also without trusty google translator, so yep, no pictures. just my blunt words in poor english with no evidence for you to call me on my bullshit lol.

Also, I have no idea how people react to my posts, or whether they react at all. Ignoring tumblr notifications kinda helps me to keep my sanity intact, lol. But if you found this amateur-and-totally-subjective analysis of mine interesting for some reason... Thanks for your attention, I guess?

... But why I have this sinking feeling what I potentially managed to offend 2/3 of the fandom for completely different reasons without even trying? Lol, whatever./

[natlacentral]

There's no better way to commence IGN Fan Fest 2024 than with an exclusive clip and deep-dive on Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. Our reporter Alex Stedman chronicles her visit to the set and what insights she learned from the series’ creators and stars. She also provides a preview of what the cast told us in their upcoming Fan Fest interview streaming this Friday, Feb. 23rd. (Here's how to watch IGN Fan Fest 2024.)

It’s June 2022, and the Fire Nation is attacking the Northern Water Tribe. 

Or, at least, that’s what’s very much playing out in front of me and a gaggle of other journalists on the Vancouver set of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the day, we watch the thousands of LED panels within the volume shift around the real-life actors, who twirl and jab and dance in various martial arts styles to bring to life the battles of the animated classic. It’s surreal and immersive – at any moment, a group of Water Tribe residents might get in the snack line behind you. Or, just maybe, Aang himself will pop over your shoulder to get a glimpse at your notes.

It’s something that’s noticeable throughout our visit to the set. For a lot of the young cast, this is their first time doing interviews about their live-action translations of these beloved characters, and there’s a sense of nervousness… behind just about everyone except for Gordon Cormier, who arguably has the most pivotal role in the show as the titular last airbender, Aang. If the 13-year-old (now 14) feels the pressure, he doesn’t show it – in fact, he seems perfectly at ease as he chats with the journalists throughout the day, his father always close in tow.

Plus, the kid just seems like he loves it here on the set. When I ask him what the most complicated scene he’s shot yet is, he can’t sit still while he recounts the story of filming his fight with Zuko in Omashu. Instead, he jumps out of his seat and performs.

“Zuko is like, ‘I'm going to get you.’ I jump over the table, I get over, he grabs a staff, he tries to swing at me,” Cormier says, miming a punch.

“Then I'm like, ‘Uh-oh,’ I duck under the table.” You guessed it – Cormier ducks under the table.

“Then I hop back up, I grab a bowl – and this took, I don't know how many tries – but after I duck under, I grab the bowl, I flip it, I catch it, and then he stabs into it,” he continues, acting it all out as he goes. “Then he has this staff, I kick it and it hits him in the face and I just run away.”

Eventually, Cormier sits back down, satisfied, if a bit frazzled: “I just lost my train of thought.”

And, as Cormier hops around in front of us, all childlike excitement and curiosity, it’s little wonder that showrunner Albert Kim and the bevy of other producers just couldn’t get their minds off Cormier after his initial audition.

“You see someone, and you realize they've somehow captured the essence of a character,” Kim tells IGN. “That's what it was like when we first saw Gordon. He just seemed like Aang.”

He revealed as much in a wide-ranging interview with IGN a few weeks ago, the culmination of a year and a half of coverage on Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender for this digital cover, anchoring IGN Fan Fest 2024. With various interviews with the showrunner, cast, crew, and more, we’re gearing up for the release of the eight-episode adaptation, hitting Netflix on February 22 – and hopefully giving you the most comprehensive preview, too.

For his part, Kim always knew casting on his Avatar: The Last Airbender “was going to be probably the biggest challenge of them all because you're asking a hell of a lot from some very young performers.” 

They are, indeed, asking plenty of this young cast. Aside from the complexities and growth behind each individual character, there is a lotof pressure behind the adaptation. Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is not only one of the most beloved animated series of all time, but it’s probably safe to say it’s one of the most beloved television series period, animated or live-action. Plus, there’s no erasing the stain of the much-derided 2010 M. Night Shyamalan film adaptation (which Kim has purposely avoided, he revealed previously).

Basically, there are a lot of eyes on Kim, Cormier, and the entire production, and Kim knows it. He even reveals that his own son was hesitant about him taking on the project, given how protective fans are of the property. 

“He is in the contingent of fans that think you cannot improve upon the original,” Kim says. “So he was a little wary. And he was also probably a little worried for me because he also knows how ruthless the fans and the online community can be if you get something wrong, so he was a little bit protective of me on that side, but I think we won him over.”

The pressure increased, too, after original Avatar creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko announced in 2020 that they were leaving the series. Originally executive producers, DiMartino and Konietzko said in an open letter that “things did not go as we had hoped.”

“Having them leave was a blow,” Kim admits. “And we had to think about whether or not the vision that we had set forward really reflects and honors the spirit of what they had created. And we felt like it did, so we went forward with it. But it's not to say that when they left, we said, ‘Forget everything they've done.’ That was never going to be the case, regardless of their involvement with the project. So I think that hopefully we honor, like I said, the spirit of the show that they originally created in the version we made.”

And at the heart of that spirit: The Last Airbender himself, Aang.

Finding The Last Airbender

All that pressure and pre-established fame made casting even more difficult, too, given that the process would need to be shrouded in secrecy. Therefore, all the young actors auditioning couldn’t know who or what they were auditioning for – but Cormier pulled through anyway.

“He was acting as some character named Alan in a show about mathematics or something,” Kim recalls. “We saw in him something that was kind of an essential version of Aang there. And we kept coming back to him. We saw lots of other actors as well, but after every round of auditions, we were asking ourselves, ‘What about Gordon? I mean, they're not as good as Gordon. Can we go back?’“

Not that knowing who the character was would’ve made that much of a difference for Cormier. He admits, somewhat sheepishly, that he didn’t have much familiarity with the series before he auditioned. But don’t worry, that’s changed.

When I ask how many times he’s seen it now, Cormier won’t give me a straight answer – at least, not right away. He makes me guess.

“5?”

“I’ll give you a clue,” Cormier says. “It’s a lot more than that.”

“12?” I’m not even close.

“I’ve seen it 26 times,” he proudly reveals once he’s taken pity on my guesses. “It’s my favorite show.” Oh, and actually, 26 is just when he stopped keeping track – he’s seen it a lot more since then, too.

With a resume like that, Cormier knows Aang pretty darn well at this point. While the showrunners have been open about the fact that the live-action adaptation won’t be slavishly loyal to the cartoon – with Aang in particular, Kim says they gave him more of a “narrative drive” from the beginning – Cormier says the way he’s playing Aang is “as similar as it can get in a live-action.”

Cormier attended a six-week boot camp to perform the stunts.

Cormier relates to the character, too, in perhaps the most wholesome way possible.

“I mean, me and Aang, we are so happy,” he says. “I don't know, sometimes I might be too happy, but I feel like that's one of our similarities.”

And, despite all the fun Cormier is clearly having here on the set, he takes it seriously. Like the rest of the main cast, Cormier attended a six-week boot camp to perform the show’s stunts. Luckily, Dallas Liu and Ian Ousley, who play Zuko and Sokka respectively, were already martial artists, but all of the actors had to learn various styles during that month and a half of training.

“They taught us all four elements in that boot camp,” Cormier says. “We learned Bagua for airbending and Wushu for airbending. We learned Tai Chi and Wushu for waterbending. We had Shaolin kung fu and Wushu for firebending and Hung Ga and Wushu for earthbending.

Plus, it goes beyond physical for the young actor. If it seems like he really is Aang, that’s kind of how Cormier feels, too.

“Most people, they'll study the script and they'll read the scene a hundred times,” he explains. “Me, I'll read the stage directions once or twice, I'll memorize my lines. And once I get there and I hear the other person speak, I just sink into it. So when I do that, I am Aang. I'm thinking, ‘Zuko is coming for me,’ all these things. And that's all up there. So yeah, I think that I get pretty deep into the character.”

It helps that he speaks to the group of us in full costume, blue arrow painted across his bald head. To nail that Aang look, Cormier says he has his head shaved every morning, and he compares the arrow-application process as something akin to getting a henna tattoo, but with more medical supplies. 

Of course, Cormier isn’t the only one taking on a big role in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hell, he’s not even the only one who has to have his head shaved daily.

Everything Changed When…

Up close, Zuko’s burn scar might look a little gnarlier than you might expect. Or at least, the Netflix version of it does, as Liu, who’s taking over the role of everyone’s favorite troubled Fire Nation prince, sits in front of me.

As he explains, it’s a two-hour process every shoot day. “I think it’s a rubber piece or plastic, something along those lines,” he says. “And it’s glued to my face.” 

“It's cool because I can totally feel it on my face,” he says, running his fingers over his pseudo-scar. “And with Zuko, the scar is a huge part of his identity, at least at the start. So with this scar, I think it also plays into how I play Zuko.”

Elizabeth Yu, who’s taking on the role of Zuko’s sister Azula, says her costume – “wearing leather armor that was molded to my body” – helped her get into character, too, especially since she’s much kinder than Azula.

"It was cathartic to be able to play that character because I'm so opposite in real life,” she laughed in an interview with the cast for IGN Fan Fest. “It's like therapy. It's very therapeutic to be mean."

Speaking of Azula, her role is decidedly heightened in this live-action adaptation, at least early on. Azula, as well as her and Zuko’s father Fire Lord Ozai (played by Daniel Dae Kim), don’t really show up until later seasons of the animated series, but fans can expect both to pop up quite a bit more in the early days of the Netflix version.

"We needed to know more about the background for Zuko."

That’s no accident, of course. Showrunner Albert Kim explains that it was a “conscious decision” to push those storylines more to the forefront, largely in service of Zuko’s character. In fact, he confirms we’ll even see that fateful Agni Kai (a firebending duel) between Zuko and Ozai, the one that granted the former that famous scar.

“I felt like we needed to balance out the storylines,” Kim says. “We needed to know more about the background for Zuko, and why he's doing what he's doing, and set that in the context of his family dynamic, and how he fits in with his father and sister.” 

“And that's something they get to later in the animated series, but we had a little bit of a benefit of hindsight,” he continues. “We knew where that was going, so we could pull some of those elements up front into the first season and make the first season a little bit richer and a little bit deeper in terms of character storylines.”

Plus, Kim admits, it’s a travel show with a lot of locations, so being able to return to the Fire Nation throughout the eight-episode first season helped from a logistical standpoint, too.

Liu, though, says he’s staying focused on those early days of Zuko’s character development. Basically, he’s not watching the entire series 26 times as Cormier did, but keeping his thoughts on Book 1, at least when I spoke to him on the set.

“I wanted to stay in that mindset where he's still fighting to capture the Avatar, and that's pretty much his only life mission, and that's all he knows,” he says. “I think capturing the Avatar is pretty much Zuko's identity at this point in the story, and we'll see where he goes from there.”

And, as fans know, where Zuko does go becomes one of the most beloved redemption arcs in TV history – but that’s later. For now, he’s a ferocious enemy, reserving seemingly his only soft spot for Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). You can see Zuko and Iroh team up in an exclusive clip below.

That aforementioned redemption arc is why Zuko is a favorite among fans – and it’s also partially what leaves Liu with such big shoes to fill. The other part of that legacy is Dante Bosco’s lauded voice-performance in originating the character, but Liu makes it clear that he’s not simply just trying to replicate Bosco’s angsty teenage charms. In fact, that was Bosco’s own advice for him in the various conversations they had, Liu revealed during the Fan Fest interview.

“He said he was passing me the torch, and I don't think I really felt it until we finished the [season] and I got to really talk to him about my experience on the show and becoming the character fully,” Liu says. 

“He really wanted me to make Zuko my own,” he continues. “There's Dev Patel (from M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 adaptation) and Dante Bosco, which are two inspirations. So actually, he was hoping that I could do my own thing, maybe grab some inspiration from him, some from Dev, just make this big mash-up my own Zuko."

Asserting some of that Zuko confidence, Liu proudly reiterates, “It’s gonna be my Zuko.” 

Of course, Aang isn’t on his own as Zuko chases him around the world. He’s famously joined by brother and sister duo Sokka and Katara, played by Ousley and Kiawentiio respectively.

Going with the Flow

Funnily enough, despite the aforementioned secrecy of the audition process, Liu eventually deduced who he was auditioning for – “I was like, ‘no one hates their dad this much,’ “ he jokes. Ousley, however, didn’t know he was auditioning for Sokka… at least, not for the most part.

By the time Avatar came along, Ousley was in the thick of searching for roles in general, estimating that he was probably doing about three auditions a week at that point:

“That's what you do as actors, is just self-tape, hope you hear something, self-tape, hope you hear something.”

Sure, he was aware that Avatar: The Last Airbender was casting – but for this untitled Netflix project to be it? Nah.

“I was flying to help my sister drive back to LA from college and I was like, ‘I don't want to say this, because there's almost no probability it's true, but the only thing I can think of is Avatar,’“ he remembers on the set. “‘But I can't even fathom that, because that would be insane.’"

If you couldn’t guess from that, Ousley, like the rest of the cast, is a fan of the animated series. But, unlike Cormier, he grew up with the show and even remembers being at the pool as a kid and running his arm over the water, trying to waterbend. (Ironic, then, that he’s playing the only non-bender of the main cast).

“(Sokka’s) kind of the more relatable one. I thought I was Zuko (when I was a kid), but in real life, I'm Sokka,” he jokes during our Fan Fest interview.

Sokka, too, is a big part of the comedic relief of the Nickelodeon show. That balance between humor and the massive stakes of the series, Kim says, was part of the “essential tightrope that we had to walk.” 

“You wanted to stay true to the original, which had a large component of humor, lots of action, lots of darkness too,” Kim says. “...So for us, it was about striking that right balance, of making sure you were true to the D.N.A. of the original. But at the same time, we had to make it a serialized Netflix drama, which meant it couldn't just be for kids. It had to also appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones. And so, it had to feel grounded and mature and adult in that way too.”

Ousley feels that balance in Sokka – he highlights the character’s comedic elements as the aspect he was most excited to bring to life. Somewhat echoing Kim’s sentiment, a big part of Sokka for him was finding that “happy medium” between the humor and the emotional moments, while always trying to bring comedy to the table.

“He's deadpan, he's kind of outrageously realistic at times, which is pretty funny,” Ousley says. “But yeah, he's always high stakes. A lot of times his comedy, I feel like, almost comes from this situation.”

“We see a lot of Katara’s traumas and a lot of her insecurities.”

Ousley also teases that a major part of delving into these characters more is exploring their relationships, and a big one for Sokka is no doubt the one with his sister, Katara. Hers is also one of Avatar’s most famous arcs, starting less sure of herself and ending the series as a much more self-assured warrior. She goes through a lot to get there, of course – when asked what future scenes she would most like to play as Katara, Kiawentiio mentions the dark bloodbending arc that comes much later in the series.

But, we won’t get to see that unless Netflix orders more Avatar: The Last Airbender. When talking about what we’ll see here in Season 1, Kiawentiio says, “We see a lot of Katara’s traumas and a lot of her insecurities.”

“We see her kind of struggle with that, particularly throughout the season,” the actress says. “Without giving too much away, when she starts to feel more confident in herself, there's an obstacle. And that really kind of pushes her to be completely confident in herself and not let anybody ruin that.”

Like the rest of the cast, Kiawentiio, too, points to the bonds she’s made with the other actors throughout filming. Ousley even mentions during the set visit that he’s roommates with Liu now if you can picture Sokka and Zuko trying to live together.

Throughout all the interviews, that’s one feeling that remains – yes, all eyes are on this big-budget production of a beloved property, but it’s hard to deny that it’s fun just to watch them have fun. 

During our Fan Fest interview, for example, Cormier, Kiawentiio, and Ousley struggle through laughter to share a story of Cormier filming a particularly serious Aang scene. As Kiawentiio explains, they got into the habit of yelling “slay!” at various moments throughout the production… and took the opportunity to do so while Cormier was trying to be very serious as Aang.

“We're trying to build morale,” Ousley says. “We're low-key in a rush at the end of the day. So Kiawentiio was like, 'Wait. Slay.' "

“So me and Ian are in the back going, 'slay!' And we're like 'Gordon slay!’“ Kiawentiio laughs.

Cormier’s response, through tears? “I can’t slay right now!”

It’s charming anecdotes like those that cut through the high stakes surrounding the series, but make no mistake – Netflix is investing a lotin Avatar: The Last Airbender. After all, it’s a fantasy series that’s built on travel, and none it works if it looks cheap.

Bringing it All to Life

The actual filming of Avatar: The Last Airbender is pretty innovative regarding tech. As Netflix announced back in 2021, it partnered with VFX and virtual production studio Pixomondo to create an absolutely massive virtual set in Vancouver that’s 84 feet across and 28 feet high, featuring 23,000 square feet of stage and more than 3,000 LED panels. It’s the kind of volume that The Mandalorian made famous and one that’s necessary for a show with as many locations as Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Or, as virtual production supervisor and Pixomondo head of production Josh Kerekes puts it, “Have you heard of The Last Airbender? It's effectively a travel show. It's a fantasy travel show, and every episode it seems we're almost in a different bio.”

“We're relying on a very new technology to build probably the most amount of environments I've ever done on a show personally within a TV budget, TV schedule,” Kerekes says on the set. “That in of itself is quite ambitious. We're going from the South Pole to mountains, to tropical seaports, to ships at sea, to flying on a sky bison, sometimes all within the same week. We're just rapidly changing between very different types of environments, very different feels and moods.”

To get more specific, Kerekes says Pixomondo built about 26 different set-ups, with almost 100 “different scenarios.” Take the Northern Water Kingdom, for example – sure, that may be one location, but it goes through various states throughout the first season. Kerekes says there’s a pre-attack version, then one where the kingdom is 40% destroyed, then 90% destroyed.

It, as Kerekes describes, is not a seamless process, but trust me – when you’re standing in the middle of the virtual set, it sure feels that way. At a certain point during our set visit, we journalists were allowed to wander the volume, experiencing first-hand as the LED screens surrounding us changed our location. At first, we’re in the Northern Water Tribe as it’s under attack – moments later, seemingly with little effort, we’re in the depths of Bumi’s mansion in Omashu.

“In order to be successful in that, everyone needs to be really collaborating seamlessly with each other,” Kerekes says. “In order to go from the South Pole to the North Pole, it takes a small army to ensure that all those pieces look and feel right.”

For scenes where Aang, Sokka, and Katara are flying about the world, there’s a mini set with a giant rig of Appa right in the middle.

It’s not all digital, of course, with physical props throughout the volume and elsewhere on the set to help the actors interact with them. One of the most notable examples of this? Everyone’s favorite sky bison, Appa.

For scenes where Aang, Sokka, and Katara are flying about the world, there’s a mini set with a giant rig of Appa right in the middle. It allows the cast to hop on the creature, yell “yip yip!” and truly be immersed across the world – and it helped them conceptualize just how dang bigAppa is.

“When you go back to the animated series, he varies in size throughout the episodes,” Kim says. “If you really pay attention, you go, ‘Oh, wow, there's not really a set size for Appa.’ So we had to do this process, where it was done with virtual reality goggles. I put them on, and we just looked up at our different models, and we had different sizes of Appas. And you just had to decide, ‘That's too small, and that's too big. That feels just about right.’ So it was kind of that process.”

The team, too, has plenty of other VFX concerns outside of the locations and creatures. Obviously, a big part of The Last Airbender is the bending aspect of it, and you can just ask Shyamalan – if that doesn’t look good, none of Avatar does.

Executive producer, director, and VFX supervisor Jabbar Raisani spoke in more depth about bringing the various styles to life in a trailer breakdown with IGN. Part of it, he explains, is even making the bending between various characters feel different, like in the above clip.

“We really tried to differentiate the bending as much as we could while making it feel like a unified event, as in all of our firebending should look like firebending, but Iroh's looks slightly different than Zuko's, which looks slightly different than Ozai's, which looks different than Azula's,” Raisani says. “And we also try to differentiate them with sound design. So if you listen really closely to when Iroh bends, you'll hear almost a dragon sound underneath all of that bending.”

There’s, obviously, quite a lot to it. Even though Kim says firebending might’ve been the easiest to bring to life, Raisani cautions that not even that was the least bit simple. The most complicated, though? 

Well, let’s just say water physics are difficult.

“When someone gets wet, we expect to see that amount of wetness,” Raisani says. “We expect to see it travel or track throughout a scene. So that was the thing that was a real challenge.”

This was one of the many balancing acts The Last Airbender had to juggle: where do they focus their efforts in a series that can be so difficult, logistically, to pull off in live-action?

“It's like, ‘Okay, when someone does get hit with water, how long does that water have to exist before the audiences will accept that it's no longer there?’ Because we're just literally just running up money on something that isn't really telling any more story,” Raisani explains. “That [is what] we're really trying to focus our efforts on. Where does the money tell the story? And after that, when will the audience accept that it's no longer there?”

And those are just the visuals; the story – and what liberties you do and don’t take – is just as important.

"This is a remix, not a cover."

Bending the Rules

Kim has been open about the fact that his Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t a 1-to-1 adaptation of the animated series. After all, even the structure is different, going from 20 20-minute episodes to eight hour-long episodes, in addition to the switch to live-action.

“I've used the term that this is a remix, not a cover, in that you've got to hit a lot of familiar notes, but you can't forget that this is supposed to be a new song,” he says. “So obviously, there are story points and characters that you have to do fairly faithfully from the original. But at the same time, you're literally translating something from 2D to 3D, and that meant dimensionalizing the story, taking it into new places, filling in some of the gaps.”

“And when it came down to directing it or the visual effects on it, I mean, we were really watching the animated series, basing our sequences off of that, using as many shots that we could lift from that as it made sense within the context of the story we were telling,” Raisani says. “And that stayed true all the way through post-production and visual effects.”

It’s another sentiment that runs true throughout chatting with the creatives, cast, and crew: the foundation may be the same, but the journey will be a little different. It may be a controversial approach for a property as beloved as Avatar: The Last Airbender, but Kim and Raisani are confident – or, at the very least, hopeful – that it’ll be embraced by the fans.

“I think, as a fan of the (original) show, they're going to get the live-action version of the show they've always hoped they would get,” Raisani says.

“This is the version of Avatar that I would want to see as a fan,” Kim concludes.

And the fans will get to see soon enough.

[superman86to99]

Super Titles Round-Up (May 1994)

This month: Superboy gets animated! Supergirl gets even! Steel gets that cool-ass Jon Bogdanove cover up there!

Superboy #4 (May 1994)

Superboy is pretty sick due to that pesky Clone Plague running through the Superman titles, so his friends try to cheer him up by showing him the pilot episode for Superboy: The Animated Series. The episode is about two villains called Lock 'n' Lode trying to kill Superboy's manager, Rex Leech, depicted as a handsome "philanthropist and adventurer" in the show (because he's the one who paid for it). Meanwhile, Dubbilex appears as Rex's "wacky telepathic D.N.Alien butler" and Roxy Leech as an "undulating mass of primordial slime," which neither of them appreciates.

The animated scenes are drawn by late Batman Adventures artist Mike Parobeck in that classic broad-chinned Bruce Timm style, so this issue serves as kind of a preview for the other animated-style DCU titles that would come later in the decade (I always thought it was funny that Superboy got an "animated" design before Superman himself did). Anyway, in the show, Lock 'n' Load are defeated thanks to Rex's cleverness, mastery of geometry, and flawless marksmanship, though Superboy helps too. We even get a happy ending for Roxy, as an accident in the "Super-Grotto" causes her to evolve into fungus.

Unfortunately, things are less cheerful in the real world, since the issue ends with Superboy collapsing in the kitchen and his friend Tana remarking that he's not breathing. TO BE CONTINUED!

Supergirl #4 (May 1994)

Final issue! After finding out that Lex Luthor Jr. has been playing her for a gosh-danged fool all these years, the all-new, all-edgy Supergirl goes around the world torching Lex's properties (after making sure all employees have evacuated them, because she's still a sweetheart deep down). Lex figures out what Supergirl is doing and sets an explosive trap in one of his properties that leaves her as a pool of protoplasmic goo on the ground.

But Supergirl was only playing dead, so she uses the fact that Lex thinks he killed her to surprise him at LexCorp Tower. However, once she reaches Lex's office, Supergirl finds out that the red-haired adonis she was expecting to see has been replaced with a frail bald guy in a floating wheelchair. The shock of seeing Lex like that makes Supergirl drop her guard for a moment, which is enough for him to try to kill her again. Lex crawls into his Team Luthor armor for protection, but an even-more-pissed-off Supergirl tears him out and actually throws him through a window to a certain death.

For better or worse, Superman shows up just in time to save Lex, even though he looks like he might drop dead any second anyway. Supergirl is shocked to learn that Lex wasn't lying about his sickness, especially because she would have gladly helped him if he'd just asked her instead of sneakily cloning her to try to make a cure. Supergirl morphs back into her old self as she flies away in tears.

In the epilogue, the Kents let Supergirl know she's very welcome to come live with them again, but she decides she wants to travel the world and grow as a person/sentient lump of protomatter. The miniseries ends a few months later, with Supergirl going to Paris to reunite with Lex's ex-wife Elizabeth Perske, who agrees to be her new mentor. Perske will appear in a few issues of Supergirl's solo series, but the more interesting part in this flash-forward is the mention that U.S. Congress has "passed a measure approving aid for strife-torn Metropolis." Look out for some strife in the main Superman comics, coming soon!

Steel #4 (May 1994)

Steel's evil former employers at Amertek want to get back at him for destroying their headquarters last issue, so they hit him at a place where they know he'll be: at the funeral for a kid who died during a gang fight due to their weapons. Did I mention they're evil? They send a shirtless dude hopped up on Tar, the drug that turns people into Rob Liefeld characters, to crash the funeral, and since John Henry doesn't have his armor on, he has to hit the attacker with church pews until the drug runs out. (Would have been cool if he'd built himself a new armor out of church pews on the spot.)

The attack intensifies the gang war going on in the tough streets of D.C., resulting in another little kid getting shot (an adorable boy named Paco who wanted to be a gang member when he grew up). Then, the issue ends with John's niece Natasha getting ran over by a gang member's car as she's going to the hospital to see Paco. I have a feeling this comic is trying to tell us something about gangs, but I'm not sure what it is.

Oh, yeah, this issue also features a cameo by Lois Lane: John calls her (at home, since she was just fired by the Daily Planet) to figure out what he can do with the CD full of incriminating evidence he got from Amertek's HQ. She hooks him with her college roommate, policewoman/hacker Shauna Beryl (the lady on the cover up there), who will become a recurring character in this comic.

The Ray #1 (May 1994)

In the first issue of his solo series, Ray "The Ray" Terrill takes a trip to Hawaii on the same day that a little troll creature prays to Darkseid next to a volcano, causing a giant lava monster called Brimstone to emerge (Darkseid created a previous incarnation of Brimstone during the Legends crossover). Superboy shows up to help fight Brimstone, but instead of working together, Ray spends most of the issue thinking about how much he hates this kid and calling him a cheap poser. Eventually, after Brimstone has been "defeated," Superboy has enough and punches Ray to finally get him to shut up.

By the way, this issue and the next one are supposed to take place between Superboy #3 and #4, meaning that Superboy was already seriously ill while fighting Brimstone, so I don't blame him for losing his patience with this hater. Ray then hits Superboy back with a big blast of energy and looks mighty smug for a moment... until he notices that Superboy isn't moving or breathing. Yes, that's two comics in one month that end with someone yelling that Superboy is apparently dead. Oh, and then Brimstone wakes up. TO BE CONTINUED, TOO!

Damage #1 (April 1994)

I missed this issue during the April '94 round-up (shout out to Neil in the comments for alerting me of its existence!), so here it goes. Our old pal Metallo is the main villain in the first issue of this series, which is about a wimpy kid called Grant Emerson who occasionally has bursts of explosive strength that allow him to total cars with his fists. Some mysterious villains broke Metallo out of Stryker's Island and gave him a new giant body just to send him to kill Grant at his school. The most interesting part for me is that this backstory is told in the same format as Metallo's backstory in John Byrne's Superman #1, with the green flashback panels at the end of every row.

Damage defeats Metallo, but also destroys his entire school in the process, and then other villains show up to capture him… but that has nothing to do with Superman, so it's none of our business.

NOTE: Our post about Adventures of Superman #512 went up earlier this week, check it here out if you missed it!

[synthient]

Do you think the Exile club scene changed in any noticeable way between the original trilogy and Resurrections?

As a matter of fact. It just so happens that I have a year-old abandoned fic fragment. which was supposed to be about Berg having a one night stand with Smith. and then having to justify to Morpheus 2.0 why he fucked his dad (1 of 3) (probably the worst one to find out your shipmate just fucked). Anyway I only got as far as sketching out the Io club scene where they meet:

“Okay,” said Morpheus, “I feel like you guys are hyping this place up way too much.”

“Yeah, no, I’ve been to a lot of clubs—like, a lot,” Berg assured him, ignoring Lexy’s eye roll and the elbow she dug into his side. “This one really is on another level.”

“Sure, sure, I’ve watched the cutscenes, I know about the cave orgies—”

“Eh,” said Seq, whose avatar moved across the Construct City sidewalk with just a subtle sense of weightlessness and lack of friction, compared to the program and the podborns in the group. “I like to think we’ve come a little farther in sixty years than ‘cave orgies.’”

“It’s like they say,” Bugs said, as she slung a companionable arm over Morpheus’s shoulders. “No one can be told what the Rabbit Hole is.” Her eyebrows waggled. “You have to see it for yourself.”

Morpheus laughed, and Berg drank in the sound: hard won, over weeks of the Mnemosyne crew coaxing the program out of his shell, showing him it was safe to let down his stoic façade and be himself. Berg let himself admire the ease in Morpheus’s posture. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he bantered with his crewmates. The personality packed into his latest outfit—okay, and the well-tailored way it hugged his waist. Berg couldn’t pretend he didn’t appreciate that. Morpheus had chosen a suit in a deep shade of violet for tonight. In the darkness, it looked like one solid color, but as they passed under a streetlamp, a silvery floral print shimmered under the surface.

Around them, the streets thronged with people. The humans and programs were outfitted in a dizzying array of styles, and the synthients had taken every digital shape imaginable: from the roughly humanoid, to a giant metal manta ray who was floating tentacle-in-hand with their human date.  The IO nightlife offered plenty of destinations to choose from, but a good chunk of the crowd seemed to be headed the same direction as the Mnem crew.

On the building up ahead, a set of animated neon signs flicked through their tableau: a rabbit, legs outstretched in a sleek, bullet-shaped pose, leaping sideways into a hole (Lexy’s eyes traveled far enough back in her skull that, for a second, only the whites showed). Their crew joined the press of bodies surging toward the entrance. After a minute or two of amicable jostling, the bouncer waved them through, and they were in.

“Woah,” said Morpheus, eyes shining. The first time Bugs had loaded up an infinitely-stretching rack of clothes for him in the Mnem’s Construct, he’d had the same look of awe. “Yeah. Okay.”

The music, the rainbow lights, the dancing and drinking and making out: all of that could have been found in any decent nightclub in the Matrix. The free intermingling of humans and machines was different, of course. But the real show was happening on the ceiling. Several stories above their heads, the Construct’s physics engines had been modded to completely ignore the law of gravity. The clubbers danced in midair. They were oriented in any and all directions: right-side up, upside down, horizontal, vertical. As their crew watched from below, one couple floated toward the center of the room, drifting slowly like astronauts, locked in a passionate embrace.  

With a tour guide’s flourish, Bugs took Morpheus by the arm and led him forward. Morpheus cast one last disbelieving grin back at the others, and then the two of them vanished into the crowd.

“Welp,” Lexy deadpanned, looking over at Berg. “Guess we both have to find a new date for tonight.”

“You two have it easy.” Seq shifted so that his hip wasn’t clipping through a barstool. “Some of us have to meet someone in here, jack back out, and then walk twenty minutes to their apartment complex.”

“You poor thing,” said Lexy. “Will it make you too jealous if we get drinks?”

“I’ll live somehow.”

The three of them made their way over to the bartender. As Lexy ordered, and as Seq stared longingly at the lineup of fancy liqueurs, Berg scoped out the room. Most of the clubgoers tonight were strangers to him. But hey, there was Facsimile, from the Horus’s crew. There was someone who he was pretty sure lived a couple doors down from Hano. And over there, across the bar, was…

“Ohh my god,” Berg found himself saying aloud.

“What?” Lexy followed his gaze, and sucked in a sharp hiss of breath.

“Oh, shit,” said Seq, mildly.