#last year's story can't be continued in a way that works as a standalone (and i want to take the chance to make something new ANYWAY) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imreallyloveleee · 9 months

Note

Where do you think it all went wrong with Riverdale?

honestly, part of me is like, the show's over and nothing but fandom matters. so who cares?

the other part of me loves to complain about Riverdale and will continue to do so until the day I die in the parking lot of Michael's Diner in Montgomeryville, PA at the age of 86. so, long-winded answer under the cut

I'm tempted to say it's the s4 b*rchie kiss. It was so wildly out of character for both Betty and Archie that it's laughable. You know how you can tell when something is just blatantly OOC with no justification? They...don't justify it. They find ways to dance around any interaction that might offer clarification. They mute the reactions of the characters who should be devastated by it. And then they jump ahead 7 years so it's easier to just handwave it away as something that happened a long time ago.

but the thing is, I did keep watching after that. I thought: okay, at least we should get an exes-to-lovers arc out of this, which is one of my favorite tropes. there is no way they would spend 4 seasons developing Bughead as this loving, supportive, communicative, sexy, and almost-unbelievably-compatible couple just to tear them apart and never do anything with that dynamic again. maybe it'll be even sweeter seeing them come back together after so much hurt and longing.

boy was i wrong!!!!!!!!!

so, the episode that actually made me stop watching for good, with the exception of some standalones like The Jughead Paradox and the finale, was the s5 musical. that was when i realized that this team of writers was 100% willing, maybe even eager, to completely drop storylines they themselves had been building over the course of a season - do a 180 with all of the characterization and relationships - and then act as though the buildup they wrote never even happened.

in this case, i'm specifically talking about the Bughead reunion storyline they dropped in s5. i'm not going to pretend like it was a GREAT buildup - and it was mostly on Jughead's side, Betty's character in s5 was basically an emotionless misery bot that had sex sometimes - but it was there. Jughead told Tabitha he had unresolved feelings around Betty. that's followed by an entire episode that lays out Betty & Jug's time jump relationship, and how Jughead still believes she's the one who saves him from himself. they work on a case together, they start opening up to one another. Jughead's so worried about her he can't eat.

and then...you know what happens.

(i'll also note here that there was random bts stuff that strongly indicated the musical ep storyline had a drastic last-minute rewrite: lili tweeted a blue dress, suggesting the song with that line was meant for her character; RAS said cole had to do last-minute recording sessions; supposedly crew members have confirmed this was the case, too. since none of it's 100% confirmed you can take it all with a grain of salt, but i believe it.)

it was so fucking insulting as a viewer to give my time and attention to a show made by people who would not only randomly drop the threads they set up, but torpedo them altogether, and then behave like the fans are the ones somehow at fault for expecting a story that actually follows through on its own emotional and plot beats. we're just shippers, so our opinions are dumb and biased! it's just a tv show, so who cares! get over it!

so, i stopped watching, because i knew they would continue to write without any thought or respect for their characters or their audience, and therefore inevitably write themselves into another corner. and, shocker, i was right. they did it again, whisking everyone away to the 1950s because actually resolving any of the scenarios they set up was ToO hArD. why bother when you could just make every single character Righteously Angry and Incurably Horny all the time, lecture the audience about social issues that have already been mainstream progressive for the last several decades, and call it a "love letter" to your fans?

#WHEW ok anon idk if this was what you were looking for but it's what you got #hopefully this has fully exorcised my need to Go Off against the creators of this show but you never know!!#my capacity for bitter resentment is apparently endless when it comes to this show #rd negativity #riverdale #anti b*rchie #anti j*bitha #just in case #anon

146 notes · View notes

jezmmart · 8 months

Text

Unwarped version of the photo from the very end of the Summer Special for funsies.

No more jokes or avoiding questions about exactly how long it's going to be, the Summer Special is truly over now! Thank you all again for reading. I hope it was enjoyable for those invested in the characters and those who just tune in each week for a quick chuckle alike.

It's been a fun challenge to write my first longform story for the comic, as it's far from something I'm confident in. All together it clocked in at 85 pages (though shave a few off in spots where I just used negative space for dramatic effect rather than filling the longer pages with panels all the way down). With the average page taking me 3-5 hours to make, that's about 14 days of work. If I just didn't sleep I could've cranked this out in less than a month, dang! Well, next time.

I've had the jist for this story in my head for a fair few years so it's been nice to finally realise it. I'll get into the nitty-gritty when the trivia posts get this far I'm sure, but while it's still fresh in my mind, here's some off-the-cuff bits regarding the broad story for fun:

(Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it yet!)

* I originally envisioned this as a thing I'd secretly work on behind the scenes and drop in its entirety for download, framed like a traditional "summer special" magazine. But unfortunately I just don't have that kind of time, and knowing that it would be years of work to do it alongside my other output, paired with the fear that not every reader would necessarily ever get around to reading a longform thing when they're used to just tuning in for a 30 second fix once a week and moving on, it became a no-brainer to just make it a "special" in spirit only and make it part of the main comic. And I know myself, the only way this was ever getting done is if I just posted that first one and then locked myself in to having to finish it, one week at a time.

* The fact that I did it in 2022-2023, and the pacing of the story for the first half, was entirely dictated by the fact that Chamomile's update day was due to land on Christmas Day in 2022. If I wanted to make that inappropriate Christmas Day comic joke, it was now or never, and because it needed to be a standalone ridiculous one comic scene in juxtoposition to the rest of the story-driven special, staging it as a dream sequence between the two days had to be the time for it.

* To that end... when I began working on it, I didn't have the whole thing planned out. Day 1 of the trip was more or less sorted but I still had a ton of comics that were just scenes with no jokes yet, and Day 2 was a big question mark that somehow had to lead to Vi's dramatic reveal to Bri and realisation/meet-up with Sam at the end of it. Day 2 was only fleshed out and finalised by around December last year, when everyone was going to bed on Day 1! The idea to more thoroughly conclude Brianna's story in an extra epilogue, segregated off from the rest of the special so Sam and Vi's scene would still feel like a "climax", and also allowing the summer special to continue through this year's summer rather than ending right beforehand, only came to me early this year, and finalising the particulars of it came right down to the wire, with all the comics involved fleshed out and ready to go basically when I began drawing the first (or maybe even second, lol).

* On the note of Brianna, her story here is a lighter version of a story idea I had for her back before Cammie even existed and I was considering making a comic about her - a story in which someone returns to their hometown or a special place to find solace but instead finds out that everything has changed and has to learn a hard lesson about how nostalgia can't save you from adult life overwhelming you etc. In my head it was to be a relatively sombre mood, but tbh I don't know where to begin writing something like that and have it be engaging throughout. All I know is how to do jokes!! So I mourn the loss of that imagined version but I'm happy I made something of it at last. It's impossible to make stuff to your initial vague vision, it was always bound to change!

* While weekly updates meant I never had the time to flesh out their pre-relationship friendship as much as I'd always imagined I would... Sam and Vi have been destined to happen since Sam was introduced to the comic. Been playing the long game in trying to make them inconspicious but shippers gonna ship and plenty of people saw it coming, but that's fine, haha!

* The elongated search for a 20p coin to get into the public toilets and then it turning out that contactless card payment could have been used the entire time was a real thing that happened to me and my partner during our 2016 holiday in New Forest. It was really really funny and I've been sitting on the story in order to use it in Chamomile at some point for years and years.

That'll do for now! Please look forward to the return to regular ol' classic Chamomile antics from Sunday!

#jezmm #art #chamomile comic #chamomile comic trivia #original character #character art #vienna #samantha #chamomile #brianna #layla

33 notes · View notes

arkon-z · 9 months

Text

Now that the shine has worn off, I can look over TOTK with a more critical eye. Spoilers below the cut.

TOTK is an excellent game. It's an open world Zelda game done right, even moreso than BOTW, I think. But it can't decide if it's a proper sequel to BOTW or a standalone game in the same setting. Like, there's a lot of continuity, and lots of things progress as if time has passed, but some things are ignored and we're just not supposed to question it. I understand that they have to write it with the knowledge that every game is someone's first Zelda game, and they can't rely too much on a player's prior knowledge, because some people just won't have any. It wants to be a good sequel, but it just won't commit. Let's take it point by point.

Point 1 - What happened to all the Sheikah tech?

Ancient Sheikah technology is a huge, critical part of BOTW. The Shrine of Resurrection is why Link is still alive. The shrines were built to train the destined hero. The towers... were just kind of there (they had a believable explanation in HW:AOC though). The Divine Beasts were the main threat for most of the game. Ancient Sheikah tech is absolutely the driving force of the plot in BOTW. And in TOTK, all of it is gone and no one mentions it at all.

But it's still there in some capacity! Purah re-aged herself somehow, right? And there's that power switch Josha used to turn on the skyview towers; that's obviously Sheikah tech. The towers themselves seem to employ a lot of tech, so you could argue that Purah cannibalized what materials she could find to build them, and you could also argue that the original shrines sank back into the ground or otherwise deactivated once Calamity Ganon was gone. But it still doesn't explain the Divine Beasts being missing. How do you lose 4 mountain-sized animal Gundams in just a few years? What happened; did people just bury them again?

How it could have been fixed - If Purah really did scavenge all the tech she could find for the skyview towers, have her say so. You don't think she would have bragged about it? Even if it was just to take the credit for what she told other people to do? Actually, especially if she told other people to do it? You know she would have.

Also, make the Divine Beasts set pieces. Put them somewhere out of the way on the map in their respective regions and just them into landscape. Give someone a couple of lines about, "Yeah, once Calamity Ganon was gone, they just stopped working." They could be exploitable, but otherwise inactive. They'd serve as a kind of memorial and reminder of the Calamity. Which leads to my next point:

Point 2 - Why doesn't anyone talk about what happened?

I know that the story has to stand on its own because you can't rely on what the player knows going into it, but this was not the way to do it. TOTK is a direct sequel that refuses to commit. Some characters remember Link, but not all the ones you'd expect. Giving him Tony Hawk Syndrome was pretty funny, though. And while everyone talks about the Upheaval and the chasms, almost no one says anything about the Calamity.

Sure, the Upheaval is the new hotness, since it's directly affecting them in the moment, but very little time has passed between the two games. It's never said directly (this game has such commitment issues), but based on the ages of some of the kids, Mattison specifically, it can't have been more than 5 or 6 years. Even so, they should still say something. More people should be like, "Gosh, it was so nice to have some peace after the Calamity disappeared, but that sure didn't last long!" Or, "Man, just when things were going well with the peace in Hyrule, this Upheaval happens!"

Instead, they talk about it like it happened a long time ago, and the game even encourages you think the same way. The 'nostalgic hairband' and 'nostalgic fabric' nudge you to believe it happened a long, long time ago, rather than what seems to be about 5-6 years. NPCs talk about the events of BOTW like it happened in the previous decade. One of the few things that acknowledges the Calamity is the school quest in Hateno village, where the pre-teen kids demand proof of 'this so-called Calamity' because they weren't around to see it, so how do they know it happened? Like, come on. Even if they weren't born when it happened, they would have heard stories about it from their parents.

TOTK acts like it's trying to distance itself from BOTW so it can stand on its own, but it can't quite do it. It relies on so many established things that not acknowledging them feels so weird.

How it could have been fixed - stop acting like it's this disaster from a previous decade. Have more people comment directly on the situation, or remark on what life was like during the last game. They could even express frustration that they had just gotten their lives back after the Calamity and now this!

Point 3 - What about the Champions?

In BOTW, people loved to talk about the Champions. How cool they were, how much they did for their people and how much they were missed after they were killed in the Calamity. It makes sense for people to be fixated on them - Hyrule has been stuck in a kind of cultural stasis ever since the war from a century ago. Calamity Ganon is still there and thanks to his control of the Beasts and the Guardians, it is still an active threat. The people can't build new villages or explore very much because it's still dangerous. They want the Champions back because they represent hope and safety, which is something they desperately need. So during that whole century, they've become legends and the people revere them, telling their stories to keep hope alive. Everyone in the regional zones will gush about their respect Champion given the opportunity.

In TOTK, you're lucky if you even find one of them mentioned by name in a book.

Again, this is not what people are like. You don't spend a century talking about a local hero and then forget them all at once. There are some sideways hints in certain lines of dialog, like maybe an NPC mentions the weapons of their people's Champion, but no direct names. It's TOTK pretending that many years have passed by making it seem like the people have moved on. But they shouldn't! The Champions are heroes! Everyone talked about them, there were memorials* and songs; some of the older NPCs even remembered them. Not nearly enough time has passed for people to forget them like that. Link himself should be a little upset that no one is even talking about them anymore - he remembers the Champions. They're one of the few things he does remember from his previous life, to say nothing of the fact that he freed their spirits from their respective Beasts. It's insulting in every respect, especially from a meta standpoint. Nintendo went out of their way to hype up the Champions for BOTW in all their marketing, then killed them off before the game started and to have everyone just stop talking about them is so bizarre.

How it could have been fixed - I know this is for the sake of newcomers to the series. TOTK is going to be someone's first Zelda game, and you don't want to alienate them by assuming they know who the Champions are. So what they should have done was still have the people talk about the Champs, though it doesn't have to be as much. In addition, there should be one or two NPCs in town who will mention them directly, and they should have a dialogue prompt for Link to ask about them. This is not hard; both games do this everywhere. It's all you need - a brief history lesson on these important characters from the previous game to satisfy new players, and an acknowledgement of them to satisfy returning players.

Actually, you could do the same to help out with point 2. Each of the towns should have one or two NPCs who mention something about how things have changed since Calamity Ganon was defeated. Link can ask for more info, and it's the same deal - bring new players up to speed, satisfy returning players who wonder why the hell no one is talking about the previous century of plot. And they could have some fun with it too! They could talk about this 'incredible hero who saved Hyrule' and when Link says 'that was me btw', they just scoff and insist that there's no way some short, skinny guy like him could be the hero.

That covers most of the issues I had with continuity between the games. My thoughts on the rest of TOTK's story will have to be in another post.

*Urbosa got done dirty in BOTW. Mipha and Daruk both got statues, Revali had a platform named after him, but what did Urbosa get? Nothing, unless I'm not remembering it.

#botw #totk #totk spoilers #fan analysis #totk discussion

10 notes · View notes

therhythmafterthesummer · 18 days

Note

hai hai haiii it's been sosoos long :((

life has been..... intense heh but i'm okay now!! i remember that the last thing you posted was that cute oneshot of our wr!binnie and the bestest autumn and the stress about their wedding!! and i loved it so much!! i keep coming to re read wereroomies all the time because i truly enjoy how you created their little world, and also because it's a great inspiration!! the last instalement i read was the one about hyunlix and moss because i really really miss them :(

but it's okay. i'm really curious about the boys you haven't posted about in that universe, and also about second and even third parts to some of the fics (even if they're standalones i'm super invested and it feels like the kind of series where every episode has its own story but somehow when you put them all together you see the development and... i just need more kajhkajshaks)

i won't ask for spoilers of your top secret wr!projects on docs (👀) buuut i'll sit here and wait for the next update. i was thinking about coming off anon too akjshkajsd (could you guess who am i??) but for the mean time, are there any of your fav works you would recommend rn? no context, just fun. the ones you have a great memory of, or you're really proud about

have a super super nice day rhythm, - ❤️‍🩹 anon

hi hi hi!!

i'm glad you're okay now! and i hope it continues being that way💜

makes my heart warm to think that you come and reread wereroomies often. it's still shocking to me that people do that sdkjnskjdnfsd

i think that's actually a good way to describe the structure of wereroomies... "a series where every episode has its own story but somehow when you put them all together you see the development", i like that~

i can't wait for the day i get to show you all all the stuff that's partially cooked in my docs jkdfnskjdfn i always wonder how y'all would feel with the storylines and personalities i've given to the other boys... but since i've been struggling to write these days, i'm just taking my time, so i won't be able to share anything any time soon i think ):

as for coming off anon... do what's most comfortable for you!

it's hard for me to figure out who's an anon unless they make it really really obvious, so i've got no idea honestly skdjfhnsjfdn

and finally, recommendations... i think Safe Haven is one of the pieces i'm most proud of. i poured a lot of love and work into it. it's something that still makes me smile when i think about anything related to it (be it the characters or the lore or the story itself...). i'm glad i got to rework it last year so i could make it an even better version of itself. i think it's a fun read for anyone that enjoys long stories that involve fantasy and that bit of sci-fi.

also, Five-Point Star is another one i'm proud of. especially the second part. i just loved coming up with it sdkjsdf

#❤️‍🩹 anon #ask #wereroomies ask

2 notes · View notes

davidmariottecomics · 1 year

Text

The Continuity Conundrum

Hey, welcome back!

As so often happens, I was scrolling through Twitter one day over the winter break and saw the very talented up-and-coming artist Kara Huset post a couple of polls about whether or not the Big 2, Marvel & DC, are due for a reboot. A lot very thoughtful and passionate takes from the people commenting. A little while later, I saw a post I can't source now because I've lost it talking about the idea of elastic continuity and the importance of being able to let it have give and take when you need it for the story you're telling. And then this morning I saw a very good thread from Comrade Bullski on Twitter about the strangeness around the history of the Justice Society of America, tracking them from being the first super-team to being one of the first major retcons in comics that made them from another universe to their extended runs that kept them locked in the past up to the one decade where they basically got to just be a modern day superteam with everyone else and beyond.

Understandably, all of this got me thinking about the value of continuity in comics and the ways in which it serves to enhance and restrict the medium. So, I want to talk about that: the good, the bad, the compelling reasons to throw it out entirely and the reasons it is often one of the most helpful tools a creator can have in their corner.

I've Done a Couple of Hard Relaunches

While I don't usually bring out my bona fides on something like this, I do think in this particular case, they speak to where I'm coming from so we're all starting at the same understanding. I have spent an awful lot of my career in comics working on bring new life and direction to existing, long-running titles. Notably, in 2019, we launched a brand new Transformers universe, often referred to as IDW 2.0, that stood on it's own from all other TF iterations, particularly our previous 13 year run. In 2018, we launched Sonic the Hedgehog, again, a brand-new version of the series totally separated from the last 24 year run with another publisher. I've been involved in standalones for various mini-series and OGNs, revivals of long dormant franchises, and general cleaning-up of stories that didn't always mesh together but that were in need of having some connective tissue. I have preserved continuity, helped build new ones, and have thrown it out completely when it was to the benefit of the story. Having met it in all it's forms, I think I have an insight that not everyone working in this industry does.

Real Quick: What is Continuity?

Again, just so we're working from the same terms. Continuity is the way in which past, present, and future events are connected and their meaning is reinforced as a form of consistency. It applies at all sizes of scales. It can be as simple as making sure that if a thug is drawn holding a knife in his right hand in one panel, in subsequent panels that depict the same thug, he continues to be holding the knife and/or righthanded unless an action in the story requires differently. And when we're talking about characters who have publishing histories of 8 decades or so, continuity allows for the events of previous stories to be remembered and reused in telling current and future stories.

So What's so Bad About it? The big issue that people will point to with continuity is that it is daunting. Action Comics has been published off-and-on for 85 years and over 1050 issues. The characters featured have had many decades and many thousands of other stories published about them outside of that particular comic, that are often still considered meaningful and true to Action Comics. From the exterior, if you thought to enjoy the latest issue, you had to know the exact events of all those other thousands of issues, not because they are necessarily relevant but because they could be, that would be a lot.

When you're telling a story, you often want to make the accessibility threshold low. By being clear and concise, you allow more readers/viewers/whatever to hop in and engage with the work. As more work gets added to continuity, it continues to raise the bar on the accessibility threshold, which can be a major turn-off to potential new readers and returning readers who don't remember/know/have full context for all the details.

It is a system that inherently gets more complicated and convoluted each time a new work is added. It is a dense thing to sort through, often to the point of being impenetrable.

It is also a very flawed system. While the idea is that continuity is supposed to clarify and solidify events in relation to each other, it makes contradictory information very obvious--whether that's two events happening simultaneously when they can't possibly be to rewriting and sometimes ejecting previous stories for the new story to make sense. Taking the earlier example I shared of the Justice Society of America, things that had to be altered at various points included whether or not it made sense for there to be multiple Bruce Wayne Batmans and Clark Kent Supermans, whether or not the JSA existed before the JLA in a single universe, how the JSA members maintained their relative youth despite having been adults fighting in World War II. If they were in their 20s to 40s in the 1940s, that puts them in their 100s now, for the most part, though they still primarily look like they're in their 40s to 60s at the latest.

All-in-all, the problems primarily come to the amount of responsibility that you want to give to creators and readers alike to know the details and the legitimacy of stories (including the making illegitimate of other people's stories) that is built into the system.

Okay, So What Happens if We Get Rid of it?

If you throw continuity out, it often opens up your options. I look at say, the DC young readers books, all of which operate in their own worlds, maybe linked to other volumes by the same creators or loosely tied with someone else's work, but they are largely standalone and easily accessible because of it. Prior knowledge is a tough ask and removing that barrier can open up the story to new audiences.

Open interpretation also can help give characters new life. Before the past decade, if you liked Gwen Stacy, you basically had a handful of Spider-Man comics in the 1970s that she starred in without being the main character, and then the occasional revisiting of that time in stories that reinterpreted/retold it (Spider-Man: Blue) or that changed the circumstances of those stories, often in ill-informed ways (there's a lot of weird stuff with Gwen, Norman Osborn, and the Jackal...). Now, she's Spider-Gwen/Spider-Woman/Ghost Spider, and she's the hero of her stories and she's in a cool band and she's got her own universe of stories. The flip side to that being, so much of what informs the Spider-Gwen stories, particularly the early ones, is being framed in contrast to the understood continuity. It is about how things are different from what the expectation is or how they worked in the Spider-Man comics. So even when you remove a character from the trappings of continuity--you open them up to reinterpretation and not having to be constrained by certain "fixed" events, they are often still subject to it because their story is told is other to what is established.

And therein lies the big issue with why it's so hard to fully remove continuity. Continuity is shared information. For as much as it can be a headache, it can also be a bridge to mutual understandings, and a way of texts interacting and responding to each other. For as much as it raises the bar of the accessibility threshold, it also adapts to create new connection points throughout the publishers' history that aids other readers and creators in bringing things together.

But You Said You had Done Some Reboots I did. And it was hard. There are things that will get left behind: characters, characterizations, ideas, plots, growth, that may never get picked up again in an official capacity. And that's a bummer. But when I've done it, the trade-off has always been quickly starting to establish a new continuity and deciding what pre-existing knowledge to play off of--it may not be in continuity with anything else, but what do we expect the audience to understand about the world or the story that helps ease their burden because they can make more connections more quickly? I've been pretty proud of the answers the teams I've worked with have come up with.

Lastly, as a note, I want to touch on "elastic continuity" again, which I think maybe is often the most helpful thing. The idea of elastic continuity is that the details can be adjusted as long as the spirit is true. If Punisher and Iron Man were both still in the Vietnam War, similar to what happened to the JSA, it would make them much older in the current comics than they're usually depicted. And so the war that Punisher served in and that Iron Man was injured in changes with the times, to keep that central part of their story true while fitting better for the ease of access to a modern reader.

Not to sound inconclusive, but I think there are advantages to reboots. I think there are advantages to sticking with existing continuities. I think often the deciding factor is how much is getting cut or written out or otherwise "lost" (not that most media is actually lost nowadays) relative to how inviting the changes are. And if you are a person looking to work on a property and in a position to pitch something, keep all that in mind when suggesting starting over.

Talk to you next week!

What I enjoyed this week: Vaccine booster (Enjoyed is maybe a strong word, I was out sick the next day, but I do like being vaccinated for the safety of myself and others), Blank Check (Podcast), The Menu (Movie), Chainsaw Man (Manga), Honkai Impact (Video game), Shin Megami Tensei III (Video Game), Nancy (Comic strip), Abbott Elementary (TV show), White Noise (Movie), Sweat & Soap (Manga, finally actually finished it and it was delightful!)

New Releases this week (1/11/2022): Godzilla Rivals II: Rodan vs. Ebirah (Editor) Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King #4 (Editor)

New releases next week (1/18/2022): Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island #4 (Editor)

Announcements: Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival - 2/25! It's a one day comic-focused event in Phoenix, AZ. Tickets are only $10. Attending artists include me, Becca (who once again is dropping some new stuff on their Patreon, see below), Mitch Gerads, Steve Rude, John Layman, Henry Barajas, Jay Fotos, Jeff Mariotte, Marcy Rockwell, John Yurcaba, Andrew MacLean, Alexis Zirrit, Meredith McClaren, James Owen, Ryan Cody, and many more! Come and see us! Becca'll have some very cool new merch, too!

Pic of the Week: Becca made this wallpaper of their character, Drew, publicly available from their Twitter to use as a phone wallpaper. They have more wallpapers as well as an alternate version of this art on their Patreon. They're doing weekly art prompts this year, so there's going to be a lot of art coming! Check it out!

#comics #comics editorial #continuity #superheroes #karahuset #justice society of america #jsa #bunny girl #beccabeean #arizona comic book arts festival #idw

4 notes · View notes

theredhairedmonkey · 4 years

Note

My problem with WS splitting the Saga this way is that, while it ensures they can continue on without Netflix, many ppl will think of outside of the show's context as "extra" and not essential. The video games, books, comics will ALL be considered canon. (They said so in a panel last year) Netflix is already a paywall, and so is the outside the show content. It won't appeal to everyone: non-gamers, ppl who don't want to read the books. They can't put key context in skippable content.

I’m not so sure about that. For starters, what they’re doing is not all that unusual. Before the Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars had this sprawling “expanded universe,” all of which was canon. George R.R. Martin published “A World of Ice and Fire” not too long ago, adding additional worldbuilding to the core ASOIAF books. Lord of the Rings has the Similarrion, ATLA has its comics.

And even standalone tv shows do this sort of thing too. Before Watchmen came out last year, you could find a “report” that details all the major events that happened since 1985 (not to mention the original graphic novel also being canon). Westworld lets you subscribe to emails that add important context to the season’s story (like, did you know that America’s first privacy law wasn’t passed until 2039? Or that Paris had a “thermonuclear incident”?).

But just because something is canon doesn’t mean it’s essential. You don’t have to read the Star Wars expanded universe to enjoy the movies, or the Similarion to enjoy LOTR. That’s because this content isn’t essential to understand what the core story is about.

For the Dragon Prince, adding all this extra content can work for both character-building and world-building, provided that it’s not necessary to understand anything in the show itself. For instance, I used to think that Callum had several motivations for using Dark Magic (saving the dragon, saving Rayla, and boosting his own self-esteem). But reading Callum’s Spellbook, it’s clear I was wrong--it was primarily for the dragon; he casts the spell because, in his words, saving the dragon was the right thing to do.

“Through the Moon” will likely be similar as well. In fact, @raayllum and I were talking about this just the other day how, even though Rayla will be trying to figure out what happened to her parents, Runaan, and Viren, she probably shouldn’t get a definitive answer to any of these. Otherwise, we get the problem you just said, and the novel wouldn’t be skippable content; you would HAVE to read it to learn how the trio knows Viren survived.

This is all a balancing act, and making sure you can round out a fictional universe without making it a must-know is no easy task. But if Wonderstorm can do that, and I’m sure they’re clever enough for that, then the extra content would go a long way to keeping the Dragon Prince fresh in people’s minds, untethering it (partially) from Netflix, and keeping people fed until s4 comes out.

#the dragon prince #canon #expanded canon #wonderstorm #tdp #callum #rayla #ezran #tdp saga #dark magic #callum's spellbook

19 notes · View notes

gendryaweeklyupdates · 4 years

Text

All Updated Gendrya work this week (08-Mar-20 to 14-Mar-20)

Note: all dates are in dd-mm-yy

Redemption by LME ( 16/? as of 08-3-20)

Imagining Arya and Gendry's reunion when the Game of Thrones is finally over. This story is focused on the voyage of 'Arya the Adventurer' on her ship Nymeria, after she asks, "What is west of Westeros?".

Rating:M

Even the Darkest Night will end. by @lianria (12/? as of 08-3-20)

Arya reaches out to old allies for help, and the pack begins to reform. Pack doesn't always mean just wolves anymore.

Rating:M

Runaway With Me - Part 2 by @the-end-is-kigh (14/14 as of 08-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

Arya Stark was not happy when her family was forced to move to King's Landing due to her father's promotion. But at the same time, it allowed her to escape her problems back home, allowed her to meet a cousin she'd never known, get a job doing what she loves and there's the issue of a certain mechanic.

Maybe the move would be worth it?

But the problems from back home follow her, her only hope is to keep running, until she can't run any more.

This is the reaction mostly to the letters Arya and Gendry send back home.

Rating:T

One for the road by @obsessivewriter (9/9 as of 8-3-20)

As a survivor, Arya always knew she was living on borrowed time, five years in remission she had done almost everything on her bucket list until her time ran up.

That time is up now and there is only one thing she never got to experience: falling in love.

Gendry will do anything for his best friend, and really how hard could it be to fall for someone you already love?

Rating:E

The Ghost of the Red Keep by TheDameintheRaininMaine (4/? as of 8-3-20)

Lysa never sent her letter. Bran was never pushed. Five Starks make the journey to King's Landing.

And one day beneath the Red Keep, Arya hears a voice she decides must be a ghost.

Rating:T

Evading Capture by @katlyn1948 (9/? as of 8-3-20)

Arya evades the brotherhood, but fails and Gendry can't seem to keep his eyes of their captive.

Rating:M

A Thunder In Our Hearts by hungerwolves (2/? as of 9-3-20)

In which Arya has to marry lord Gendry Baratheon, the legitimized bastard son of the King in the South, to avoid war between the 6 Kingdoms and the North.

Unrated

Heavy Lies The Crown by OneMoreNight1996 (7/? as of 13-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

When the truth of the Baratheon children is revealed, King Robert orders the execution of Cersei and Jamie Lannister and exiles the children to Casterly Rock. This leaves him without an heir so he is quickly forced to legitimize a bastard blacksmith brought to him by Ned Stark and, in the eye of the King, his heir is in need of a bride.

Rating:E

The Last Time by @yanak324 (14/? as of 9-3-20)

After a decade away, Arya returns home. Encountering the boy she left behind is not in her plans.

At least she’s always known the Gods have a funny sense of humor.

Rating:E

True Love's Kiss by @prettyyvacant321 (2/? as of 9-3-20)

Gendrya Sleeping Beauty AU with a few twists!

Based off the January (oops I'm late but what's new) prompt from @days-of-gendrya on Tumblr.

Rating:M

Head of the River by @everyl1ttleth1ng (13/? as of 14-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

Gendry Waters, multiple Pan Westeros Games gold medal winning rower, has been the highly successful and well-loved Director of Rowing at the exclusive Riverlands Grammar School for six years now. Ser Davos Seaworth has very recently retired as school principal and been replaced by the much younger multiple gold medal winning fencer from the North, Dr Arya Stark.

One morning Gendry finds himself approached by his new boss. She wants him to teach her how to row.

(In which Gendry is still rowing AND Gendry and Arya spend time in a boat together.)

Rating:T

Gym Daze by @dragongoddess13 (5/5 as of 14-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

For years they worked out together. In high school he drove them to the gym every afternoon after school or after extracurriculars. In college, they went first thing in the morning before classes and after graduation, when they both moved down to King’s Landing, they found a new gym and a new schedule.

Or how Gendry and Arya learn to use their frequent trips to the gym in ways that were a whole new kind of satisfying.

Rating:E

I Wanna Be Yours by @sneetchstar (15/? as of 12-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

Gendrya one-shot collection.

Rating:E

When Winter Comes by OneMoreNight1996 (2/? as of 11-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

Winter sets in after the Long Night is over leaving everyone stuck in Winterfell and unable to go south. This causes some tension within the group as secrets are revealed and promises are made.

Rating:E

The odd girl who smelled the rain by @blue-nebulae (5/6 as of 12-3-20)

Gendry noticed her the very first week of the semester.

Something about her caught his eye, he didn’t know exactly what it was, perhaps the fact that she was a very pretty short girl or the fact that she was carrying a bright yellow umbrella, and using it almost like a cane, on a perfect summery day and that was odd.

Rating:T

More Than Words by @keepitmovinshawty (6/? as of 12-3-20)

Arry and Steffon first meet on the beaches of Braavos while escaping their responsibilities. Both ignorant of their true identities, it comes as a surprise when they meet again on a more formal scale and try to handle a relationship while the world watches.

Rating:M

Bad Pick-up lines Work Best by JoPoGirlsKickAss (17/? as of 12-3-20)

Gendry's life is suddenly sprinkled with bad pick up lines--at first he ignores them, then he realizes they might all be from the same person and that person might just be the death of him.

In which Arya flirts hard and Gendry is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[Slow(ish) burn until chapter 15]

Rating:T

The Lost Prince by @psychvamp25 (37/40 as of 12-3-20)

The first Baratheon prince died in his crib, this is known.

Arya Stark comes to King's Landing when her father becomes Hand of King and her sister is set to marry the Crown Prince, Joffrey. Arya journeys to the street of steal and meets a handsome young blacksmith. Little does she know, that her relationship with this blacksmith could change the future of the Seven Kingdoms.

Rating:T

A Dance of Shadows by Faiseuse_d_Histoires (29/50 as of 13-3-20) (significant Gendrya with Jonerys)

It’s been one year since the death of Daenerys Targaryen, called by some "the mad queen", and the North and the Six Kingdoms try to rebuild all that was lost. Jon Snow had disappeared beyond the Wall, his wolf last seen near Hardhome. Queen Sansa "the Wise" is facing unrest in the nearby villages, which leads her to make questionable choices in the eyes of her people. In the South, king Bran the Broken fell seemingly ill and fear for his life makes people uneasy about the succession.

As once again instability risks to break the kingdoms, a hero reappears, with the name of a long-feared enemy, and an old song is beginning to be sung once again, with fire and ice meeting for one last dance.

Not mentioned, but coming: Some news from the iron islands and Dorne, trouble coming from Essos… oh, and some resurrection, perhaps.

Rating:M

The Prince That Didn't Come by @igitnothin (61/63 as of 13-3-20)

On an normal winter day, Hot Pie happily delivered two meat pies and a jug of ale to a waiting table.

There was no interruption from his ordinary work. No happy reunion, no thrilling tales, and no missing Stark girls to steal his food and change the world. There was nothing but another group of hungry mouths to feed.

Or Arya Stark does not visit the Crossroads Inn, and the world of ice and fire is changed forever.

Unrated

then we take berlin by @evax3 (14/20 as of 13-3-20) (equally Theon/Robb)

After Petyr Baelish tragically suffocated on a gigot before he was able to poison Jon Arryn, Westeros fought in united strength against the White Walkers and built up a diplomatic relationship with Queen Daenerys in Meereen after the victory.

So, the land was at peace, the winter was over and 2 years later Theon, Robb and Arya sat together in Winterfell, bored to fucking death.

Fortunately, distraction seemed within reach, as Theon discovered a book in Maester Luwin’s library, maybe solving their problem. Promising the opportunity to travel back in time and experience one of the big battles again, they’d fought in the past.

But mixing the ingredients, something went wrong and instead of arriving back on the field of the second Battle of the Dawn, they found themselves in Berlin of the 21st century, still wearing their thick furs and understanding not a single word.

Putting their hopes in a certain dark-haired goldsmith from California, who kindly takes them in, they tried their best to somehow find their way back home and find a lot more in the process.

Rating:M

Prompts by @psychvamp25 (9/? as of 14-3-20) (multiple updates this week)

A collection of any of the prompts I get. Will be standalone little ficlets.

Rating:G

Through the storms by @nikelaos87 (3/? as of 14-3-20)

The sequel of "An empty shell"

«I won't marry you»

«You can't»

Rating:M

You Feel Like Moonlight On My Skin by @randifrnz (3/5 as of 14-3-20)

After six months in the capital, it is time the future King and Queen of Westeros continue the envoy through the kingdoms of the lands to know and build relationships with their people. Throughout their journey, the crown prince and princess grow even closer and grow up as well. Arya navigates what it means to be a woman grown and what it means to want.

Rating:E

Masterlink for the week: here

#gendrya #gendryaweekly #gendrya weekly #gendrya fanfiction #arya stark x gendry waters #arya x gendry #gendryafics

20 notes · View notes