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sapphyreopal5 · 6 months

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"Dark Knights" interview with Nicholas Knight, Jared Padalecki, and Jensen Ackles (Oct/Nov 2008)

The following tidbits of text are from the Supernatural Magazine Issue 6 (Oct/Nov 2008) interview "Dark Knights" with Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and writer Nicholas Knight (pages 10 to ).

"Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki will readily tell you that working on Supernatural has made them much less likely to get scared by the strange things that creep along just out of sight and lurk in the darkness. So what does it take to scare them nowadays? A writers’ strike.

“The obvious news of [season three] was the writers’ strike,” Padalecki emphasizes. “It scared a lot of us over here. Everything was up in the air. TV itself was up in the air. People wondered: ‘Is TV going to go to reality? Is TV going to go to news only? Is [all this] stuff gonna go to the Internet?’ Magazines like this one and the companion books really helped to ensure that our show would come back, and it did come back. So on behalf of everyone here, a big 'Thanks!' to everybody; we’re all very grateful to the fans and to the people who just enjoy the show, because we enjoy the show as well, and we enjoy making it.

“As soon as that strike hit, we were all saying ‘See you later,’ but a lot of us were scared it was going to be farewell. It was good to come back!” However, that doesn’t mean it was easy coming back. Ackles admits that it was hard for him to jump back into character. “In fact,” he says, “I sat down and watched three episodes just to get my head back into the whole show and the character, and find that [brotherly] relationship [again]. “I didn’t even see Jared the whole time the writers’ strike was going on, because he was traveling off in Europe and I was home in Texas. We just [all] kind of tried to utilize that time off as much as possible. Not to mention that we see enough of each other when we’re working together…” Ackles laughs, but it’s an unnecessary cue because it’s been well documented how well the two actors get along both on and off screen.

Although happy to be back, Padalecki also admits, “It was weird. Since the Pilot it’s the longest I’ve gone without playing Sam Winchester. Between seasons one and two and seasons two and three, the breaks were two months, and this time it was over three months.'"

Is Sam going to turn evil? “That’s a great question,” Padalecki says.

“I hear it all the time and I always wish I knew the answer. As of right now, I think the audience would be very against it, so I don’t think [Eric] and the other writers are going to let that happen. But it’s somewhere I’m curious to go; I’d love to see what happens if Sam goes that way. As far as the scripts and outlines I’ve read, it seems like the only way [for Sam] to save his brother is going to be by embracing his evil side for even a moment, so I’m curious to see what happens if Sam goes ‘dark side.’ The audience probably doesn’t want it, and of course my parents and family don’t want it either, but I think it’d be interesting to see Sam maybe get weak a little bit and give in to that [impulse]."

"Maybe I was powerful initially, and now that I’ve died and come back it’s almost like when Obi-Wan [Kenobi, from Star Wars] said, ‘If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could [possibly] imagine."

"No Rest For The Wicked left us wondering if Sam not only is a fully fledged demon, but if he’s more powerful than Lilith. But do we actually know how powerful Lilith is? “She’s pretty powerful, obviously," states Padalecki. “I know that Kripke and the writers love playing with the color of the demons' eyes. Black-eyed demons are run-of-the-mill demons, but the Yellow-Eyed Demon, he’s even worse, and the red-eyed demon is the Crossroads Demon. And here we see Lilith with her white eyes and we know that she is gun-running to be essentially the leader of Hell, opposite Satan. We don’t know where Satan fits in, but Lilith is the big badass in Hell, so we know that we’re going to have to answer to her. From what we know, she's essentially all powerful. We don’t know a way to stop her. Even Ruby, who is a demon (doesn’t know how to stop her]. She's obviously been trying to weasel Sam into embracing his demonic abilities a tittle bit more, but Sam's been so against it and doesn’t want ' to go [down] that route… but he wants to save his brother…"

"Something that's harder to balance with all the dark and dreary are healthy relationships. Dean and Bela aren’t likely to hook up in Hell - although stranger things have happened - and Sam and Ruby are now unlikely to get friendlier.

“I don't know," Padalecki chuckles. "I don't think so. I think she has a clear and obvious purpose in the show, and a great purpose that she serves well, but I think that our die-hard fan base just wouldn’t be interested in watching that love story. Jensens done a love scene, and I've done a love scene, and they're interesting and serve their purpose, but I don't think the boys would work in a relationship [with anyone]. I think it'd Just be a weird dynamic. I mean, what, would Ruby ride in the back of the Impala? It’d be kind of odd [to] wheel out. I don't think it'd ever pan out. But if it did, I’m sure the writers will work it in seamlessly. Besides, it'd kind of spoil the mood if during love scenes her eyes turned black. “Exactly. 'Uh. am I supposed to kill you now?' It was hard enough for poor Sammy waking up und fighting a werewolf. So it'd be even worse if he opens his eyes and there are some big black eyes staring down at him!"

Hmmm, were The Seers [what deities and The Khala collectively call themselves] possibly hinting to Jared in his divine hearing about Ruby and Sam in fact hooking up in Season 4? Very interesting that even Jared didn't think that this would be a suitable story to add to the show...

"I definitely don’t want to go on if Eric’s not willing to." Ackles proclaims. “If you lose the mastermind of all this brilliant story creativity, then you Just turn into a puppet. I’m passionate about the stories that Eric writes, and if he stops writing them I would be scared that the passion I have for the show would start to (diminish]. I don't want to be a part of a show that lasts past its expiration date. It's been a motto in Hollywood for many years that you always want to leave the audience wanting more. I think it still makes sense, even for television shows. Once those stories reach that pinnacle, or that plateau, get out before it starts declining. Go out on top! So if Chat's his decision, then I support it."

Unlike Ackles, we’re willing to make a prediction: Regardless of whether Supernatural runs for five, seven, or 15 seasons, fans’ support will never expire!"

Odd, it's just like the writer here was hearing The Seers speak of Supernatural ending after either 5, 7 or 15 seasons (alas the show end up lasting for 15 seasons).

#j2 #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #spn cast #spn family #Supernatural Magazine issue 6 #Dark Knights Interview #Supernatural #divination #psychic predictions #the khala #The seers #deities

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sagegarnish · 2 years

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So I’ve been watching the wank about Deborah Chow referring to Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship as a “love story dynamic” through Episodes 1-6, and how she hopes to channel that in the series.

“For me, across the prequels, through the original trilogy, there’s a love-story dynamic with these two that goes through the whole thing,” Chow said in the interview with Vanity Fair. “I felt like it was quite hard to not [include] the person who left Kenobi in such anguish in the series… What’s special about that relationship is that they loved each other.”

Well, first things first.... calling Obi and Ani's dynamic a "love story" in an official interview is clearly intended as a non-sexual one. I would go further to say it's not romantic in our modern definition, but would likely fit into "Arthurian romance" with themes of adventure, courtly (chaste) love, and chivalry.

It's interesting to me how the anti-Disney rightwing are REALLY focusing on it as a “gross gay groomer” thing. Bigots and homophobes are using the very idea of Obi and Ani loving eachother as some proof that Disney is “encouraging grooming” and using it to fuel their current boycott.

Meanwhile... anti-shipper, pro-censorship, pro-harassment types are either claiming “people who ship Obikin don't understand Chow meant it to be familial! freaks are taking it wrong!" or they’re taking it literally as the rightwingers are and saying “this is disgusting, I can’t believe they’re making this gross shit canon”. They’re just as furious as the rightwingers, despite being ostensibly left and many of them being queer themselves.

However... it's OBVIOUS TO ME that what Chow said about the story is absolutely true, but it's about these men loving one another PURELY, CHASTELY, NOBLY.

There is actually no way that Chow intended it to mean a sexual romantic relationship. I firmly believe this simply fits along with the recent trend of marketing things as “bromance” or “unconventional love story” between stuff like buddy cop stories, to get clicks and sound like they’re skirting the edge of things, when all they’re doing is showing men loving eachother AS FRIENDS. Which is great as a CONCEPT. You should love your friends!

Is it fun to go "HAHA THE CREATORS SHIP IT! OBIKIN WINS. OBIKIN CANON"? HECK YES. BECAUSE I SHIP IT! BECAUSE IT’S A GREAT DYNAMIC. (my definition of “ship it” is “I simply enjoy thinking about their relationship, and the many permutations of it, specifically in a romantic/sexual way. I don’t particularly care if it becomes canon and I don’t want to pressure the studio to do it, and I also am not a tinhatter, as in I don’t think they wrote it intending to be that way. Well, Matthew Stover’s book is borderline... but I digress.)

Do I actually believe they're going to make them queer and IN LOVE with eachother? Of course not. Like, literally, they NEVER intend that. And I won’t be disappointed! I like the canon relationship AS IT IS! But watching people get bent out of shape and super homophobic and calling people names and attack others over this is wild.

It’s canon that Obi-Wan cares deeply for Anakin, and if you look at the movies 1-6 arc alone, it’s really evident that their relationship as it exists is VERY IMPORTANT for the entire Star Wars narrative. Obi-Wan ignores the warning signs of Anakin going darkside because he’s attached. He cares about Anakin. He’s BIASED, and he’s a Jedi and they’re supposed to be above attachment, above bias. Meanwhile, when Anakin is manipulated into thinking that Padme and Obi-Wan were having an affair or conspiring or keeping secrets or turning Padme against Anakin... Anakin is SO DEEPLY HURT by that because he trusts Obi-Wan. He loves Obi-Wan and he is sure Obi-Wan feels the same. The betrayal is so much worse because he trusted him, loved him.

The script and novels make it more overt, since we can’t see what’s inside a characters mind onscreen, but it’s still there.

Obi-Wan goes to Tatooine to watch over Luke, Anakin’s son. He does this out of love. Once again, it’s NOT SEXUAL LOVE. Not in the canon. But simply saying they love eachother isn’t sexual, and I’m sick of people getting hostile over it.

I’m very intrigued to watch the upcoming show, because making sure the canon love is expressed there as PART of the reasons for the anguish sounds like a REALLY COMPELLING story.

(I love that she said ANGUISH, I want these men to SUFFER)

#vaderwan #obikin #technically #but also not obikin at all #this is about their canon relationship #and why i love it #long post #star wars meta

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sarcasticdolphin · 5 months

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So. The plan.

I am now done with family stuff so I plan to try and do one of these (all oneshots (maybe? probably?) aside from the Theresa and Ornithology) a day until I have to go back to work.

I'm not sure how far this is between overambitious-goal and reasonable goal. I also may do some drabbles if some of these end up being very short.

In no particular order:

ASOIAF: Evil Bran fic. Dany POV and Theon POV. The ending we deserved.

Supernatural/Criminal Minds: Fem!Sam fic #1. Dean has been caught by the FBI. Dr. Reid decides to interview the spoused serial killer's sister to get a better picture on Dean's psyche.

Supernatural: Fem!Sam fic #2. Dean spent 40 years in hell, and he feels it every day of his life. Sam spent 1800 years in the cage with Lucifer. Dean thought getting Sam's soul back would help. And it did. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Hannibal: Todesengel!Will fic. Hannibal is doing Rippery things when a remarkably rude angel of death shows up to collect the soul of his victim.

House of the Dragon: Viserys sees the discord in his house and starts forcing his children to socialize. Then he has the incongruity to die while Aemond is on his mandatory visit to Dragonstone.

Star Wars: Qui-Gon survives the duel of the fates. And Obi-Wan Kenobi's life falls apart because of that. Why shouldn't he accept the offer to the personal assistant to the new Supreme Chancellor?

Harry Potter: Tom Riddle had been searching the records for his father for three years. The last thing he needs is Professor Slughorn's interference. Let alone help.

Harry Potter: Fem!Harry. Harry, Hermione, and Ron spent 21 long days in the Forest of Dean as the whispers of the Horcrux grow ever louder.

Elisabeth das Musical: Alternate Mirrorverse. Taaffe lives a little longer. After all someone is going to have to run the government and it's not going to be Todolf.

Elisabeth das Musical: Keep working on Theresa

Elisabeth das Musical: Keep working on Ornithology

#fic plans :)

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clonewarsarchives · 2 years

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IT’S CAT VERSUS JAT! (#123, FEB 2011)

Padmé Amidala’s voice in The Clone Wars, Catherine Taber (CAT!), negotiates aggressively with voice of Obi-wan Kenobi, James Arnold Taylor (JAT!) in our exclusvei interview!

CAT: If you were a Jedi Knight, what color lightsaber would you wield?

JAT: Nobody’s ever asked me that. Everybody always wants to know about Obi-Wan. Blue is pretty good. I like blue; my car is blue, my eyes are blue. I look good in blue. Maybe I would change it just a shade darker. Gunmetal blue.

JAT: If you could be anyone in the Star Wars universe at all, who would you be?

CAT: I’d say Padmé is very much like me in a lot of ways. People think she’s wimpy and a pacifist—no she’s not! She has decorum, but when the time comes for it, she will fight. I played her daughter, Leia [in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed], who would be another great choice. I want to play Jaina Solo as well! Padmé has the greatest clothes, though—let’s just get that out there!

JAT: It’d take the whole day to get that headdress on!

CAT: She’s got them lined up in the closet, ready to go. Or maybe she just has a really good hair and makeup person? I would only like to be her for a day, since I know what ends up happening [in Revenge of the Sith]. I would really like to be Jaina, because she’s also a Jedi! With Padmé I don’t get to wield a lightsaber, unless I steal it from someone else.

CAT: If you had the Force in real life, how would you use it?

JAT: What do you mean, “if?” [In Obi-Wan voice] Well, I’d use it for good and never evil. [JAT voice] On the show, I wonder, Why didn’t they use the Force there, why didn’t they use it there? I think the coolest thing is when Obi-Wan walks into a room and makes the chair spin around, then sits down—that type of stuff is simple. That’s what I’d use it for. Those simple things.

CAT: Would you use the Jedi mind trick?

JAT: Well, see, now that you say that, it does sound tempting. Actually, just to help somebody along? [Obi-Wan voice] You want more Obi-Wan in this episode. [JAT voice] But that won’t work on Dave [Filoni, supervising director of The Clone Wars], he’s completely immune!

JAT: What would Padmé’s ringtone be?

CAT: It would probably be the Naboo National Anthem. She’s definitely proud of her home world.

CAT: If you could visit any Star Wars planet on vacation, which one would it be and why?

JAT: Oh, man. [Obi-Wan voice] Well, I certainly won’t want to go to Mandalore. [JAT voice] Let’s see, that is a great question. There’s no beachfront properties, though. I’m a beach guy.

JAT: What’s the best thing about Star Wars fans?

CAT: Hmmm, their enthusiasm is so great for the whole universe, that it causes them to be just so appreciative. When you meet someone at a convention, they’re so happy to meet you. Talk about having a good day!

CAT: In real life you drive pretty much the coolest car in the world: a custom-made Testa. What mode of transportation would you choose in the Star Wars universe? I actually have four choices for you: a) a luxurious Imperial cruiser; b) a sporty TIE fighter or X-wing; c) the Millennium Falcon; or d) a tauntaun or dewback?

AT: Yeah, I would go for a dewback! No, Obi-Wan is not going to be choosing any space travel. I would go for the greener route: A tauntaun. I know they smell bad.

JAT: OK, here’s a classic question, but given a Star Wars slant. If you could have dinner with anyone in the Star Wars universe—not just characters, but people like George Lucas and Ben Burtt—who would you have dinner with?

CAT: If I could have dinner with a character, it would certainly be Yoda because of the way he teaches. If it was a real person, I think we would all love to have dinner with George—that goes without saying! I would also love to have dinner with John Williams, because the music is such a major part of Star Wars. It would be really interesting to see what his process was like.

JAT: This is a silly one: Han or Anakin?

CAT: You know, that’s funny because that has changed throughout my life. I really liked Luke when I was younger, and then I suddenly one day went, “I like Han.” Now, with Anakin, the way he’s portrayed by Matt [Lanter], he’s so heroic, and he’s cocky. I do like the scoundrel part of Han.

CAT: You voice many characters in The Clone Wars, but which one were you the most nervous to tackle and why?

JAT: Oh, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Not for the reason people would think—the main reason was because this character is so beloved. I had to do this justice. I really wanted to keep the role. When I started doing this it was for the micro-series, and then the videogames, and I thought, I hope something else comes of this. There were always rumors that they would do this show—I wanted to be able to be attached to this character for the long term, because of my love for it, and the privilege to do it.

JAT: How is it that Obi-Wan and Padmé end up being as close as they are in Revenge of the Sith, where she trusts him? In Episode I and II, he doesn’t trust her—something has happened during this time and we don’t know what that is. I think that’s a great opportunity for a story. It would be fun to explore that because we generally don’t get to exchange lines that often.

CAT: Obi-Wan often comments on my wonderful shooting skills. JAT: It would be a great storyline that could have some action in it, so Padmé’s not just stuck behind a desk, so to speak, and you know I like my gunplay!

#Catherine Taber #Padme Amidala #James Arnold Taylor #Obi-Wan Kenobi #Season 3 #insider #i123 #cast #the clone wars

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yuristarwars · 10 months

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Alright, I read Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade

So the newest Star Wars book was Rise of the Red Blade, a book from the point of view of an inquisitor, something we don’t really see in Star Wars. Its obviously gonna be an interesting perspective from an objectively bad person... if the writer can say that she’s an objectively bad person.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that there are a lot of things that this book does well. The world-building is interesting, the Inquisitorious is cool, honestly probably the best part of the book, and there is an interesting part of one of Palpatine’s Spies in the Jedi Temple, which I think is a cool concept, really showing how he truly is ten steps ahead of everyone. It shows the Jedi’s point of view during the first Battle of Geonosis, something I don’t believe we’ve ever seen before.

I also really like the way she writes fight scenes. There are some at the end of the main story I enjoy a whole lot, and the fights in the epilogue are really damn good too. She has quite an energetic writing style with fights that I really like and she does a whole lot better than a bunch of other Star Wars books.

That’s all the good things I have to say about this book. Two thirds of the book weren’t even her being an inquisitor, and those two thirds are not good at all. Every single Jedi is an uncharacteristic asshole to her, with the sole exception of Obi-Wan Kenobi (classic). Yes, she did do something really bad in her Youth that made a whole bunch of Jedi weary of her, but those characters should be relegated to children and some Jedi who don’t understand her, not every single Jedi character.

One of the plotlines that is set up at the beginning of the book is just not followed through with. At all. It literally says it in the book itself, that she tries to follow where it leads, but it leads to no where, which is a complete waste.

There is the plot of her trying to discover her species and the mystery of this woman her master talked about in her dying words, but none of that is ever even remotely interesting or add anything to her character. When she does discover her people, this doesn’t change her character in the slightest, and she simply fucks off to do more inquisitor stuff.

The worst part is, this could all be relegated to an “Unreliable Narrator” and that would make this book ten times more enjoyable. Anakin’s story during the Clone Wars and ROTS are really good because he’s an Unreliable Narrator, but that’s because George Lucas understands that.

Delilah S. Dawson seems to think that the “I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor” excuse can be carried over to Genocide and war, but she basically admits multiple times through her commentary on the book and in interviews, that Iskat is her self-insert as someone with Despression, Anxiety, etc. Now, I probably can’t speak on how well that’s portrayed in the book, but I can say using those things as an excuse to commit war crimes, is pretty damn stupid.

Overall, the quality of this book hinged on how enjoyable the protagonist was, but she wasn’t at all. She was intellectually and emotionally idiotic, the most interesting plot threads led to no where, the most iconic characters were mis-characterized completely, and the best part of the book was stolen from a comic written by a better writer than her.

I was generous before when I gave it a 7 out of 10, but I’m still feeling generous and am gonna give it a 4/10, those points based solely on the ending fights and the world-building elements.

#star wars #star wars books #rise of the red blade #writing #star wars neg #Phasma was actually pretty good #which is why I wanted to read this one #but she dissapointed #she disappointed me a lot

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ahsgotham · 1 year

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somebody had requested a masterlist but i lost my draft as a response for it, so i’m gonna write it out here and hope they say it. these are my main interests and what characters i’ll write for, there are still tons of things not mentioned i’ll write for (such as, i’ll still write for ahs and gotham.)

i primarily write smut now, which is why i post on ao3 more, but i’ll still write sweet stuff, sad stuff, etc.

DEXTER

- dexter morgan

- debra morgan

- joey quinn

- angel batista

- rita bennett

- brian moser

- miguel prado

- travis marshall

- oliver saxon

PENNY DREADFUL

- ethan chandler

- vanessa ives

- sir malcolm murray

- dorian gray

- victor frankenstein

- brona croft

i’ve only seen up to the end of s1 so far, but i will write for dracula and jekyll in the future <3

PREACHER

- jesse custer

- tulip o’hare

- proinsias cassidy

- eccarius

- jesus

AMERICAN GODS

- shadow moon

- laura moon

- mad sweeney

- bilquis

- mr world

- tech boy

- mr wednesday

STAR WARS

- originals (han solo, luke skywalker, leia organa, boba fett, lando calrissian, darth vader)

- prequels (anakin skywalker, obi-wan kenobi, padmé amidala, bail organa)

- sequels (finn, poe dameron, general hux, rey skywalker, han solo, d.j.)

- stand-alones (cassian andor, bodhi rook, han solo, lando calrissian)

- shows (din djarin, cobb vanth, cassian andor, syril karn, obi-wan kenobi)

HORROR

for these ones there’s too many characters i’d write for to list off, so just request someone and see if i’ll write them. if not i’ll tell you.

- the scream films

- the final destination films

- the evil dead films/ash vs evil dead

- interview with the vampire (1994/2022)

- fright night (2011)

- twin peaks

- the mike flanagan-verse

HBO SHOWS

same deal as horror, rq someone and i’ll let you know

- true blood

- boardwalk empire

- six feet under

- the righteous gemstones

- band of brothers

- the sopranos

- succession

- veep

- true detective (only seen s1 so far)

MISCELLANEOUS

- anything i’ve written for previously

- sons of anarchy

- the magic mike films

- you (tv show)

- the top gun films

- scoot mcnairy characters

- mozart in the jungle

- ray donovan

- workaholics

i’m sure i’m forgetting some things, but here you go !! <3 rq and i’ll get to it. some things i might post on my ao3, ianmckinley.

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captainshadowgirllostfan · 2 years

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I honestly don’t find Harrison Ford charming, like at all. Maybe because the recent interviews I’ve seen of him is generally him being freaking old but there are a LOT of old actors who have life in them. People find the “I don’t care” attitude of Harrison Ford kind of idk breath of fresh air and I’m like no I’d rather hear from an actor passionate about his or her own work, THAT TO ME is a breath of fresh air because to me celebs and actors are more interested in themselves rather than the work their in. It’s crazy how far Ford has gone when his general attitude to me ABOUT EVERYTHING is just “I’m in it for the money.”. It seems those are the types of celebs and actors who actually succeed in the world.

Compare that to Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen... though mostly Hayden, because when Hayden talks about star wars or any of the work he’s in, he’s really invested in the story telling and character he’s playing. He appreciates every one, even the characters that have set his career back. I mean I would think he would resent playing Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader much like how Natalie Portman had come to resent Star Wars and playing Padme, but he isn’t and it’s just so incredible to me. He’s so humble and grateful of the stuff he’s in and never shows this characteristic attitude shown by actors of how they’ve been wronged just because they’ve been in one bad movie that fans and critics have demolished.

Actors have it hard, but Hayden... all he did was buy a farm and move on with his life.

And he still talks about Star Wars, what a honor it was playing Anakin, and how much of a fan he is as well.

Mark Hamill is the same.

Man... Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen are so underrated. I wish we saw more of the them, or that we will anyway. Mostly Hayden anyway. I don’t like how Mark treated Rian Johnson. Mark’s attitude in things with Star Wars seems more aligned with what the fans want, while Hayden seems to respect the creator’s vision while telling fans they can want whatever they want but in the end of the day, art belongs to the person who creates it and what they wanted their art to be. Art is a form of expression by the creator. It’s never about what your fans want, it’s about what you want to bring to the table.

Still both Mark and Hayden are FAR more interesting than Harrison Ford, whose name I just forgot just by talking about Hayden and Mark ONLY because those two can talk about the stuff their in and I’m invested. Ford on the other hand always seems like he just got out of bed and can’t find his thoughts whenever you ask him a question. Maybe it’s old age, idk. But like why in the world to people love actors who are just there for the paycheck?

I mean where’s the passion?

I guess life is just about working for the paycheck and we know actors get a buttload.

Can’t say anything about Ewan. I think Ewan takes his job seriously and he loves Star Wars, I mean he’s the reason Obi-Wan Kenobi became a tv series (even though I feel like the show was unnecessary, I love how it brought back the prequel love and I’m grateful for that.) Ewan is so damn likable, you can’t really say anything negative about the guy. I’m so glad his career has become so diverse over the years. Wish the same was for Hayden, but Hayden has been in some great some and I am sooo gonna bingewatch that shit, once I very very slowly finish some pages on my bullet journal, watch some youtube videos I have open and read some articles too lol.

I also need to start watching some movies on my movie list too.

And clean my room...

#so much to do #just wanted to rant because i saw a video on Harrison Ford at a Star Wars convention #I mean I don't have anything against him hating Star Wars #but I truly wonder #is there any work he has been in that he's genuinely proud of?#And I'm sorry but I don't sympathise with actors who resent their first work they were in that brought them to mainstream #I mean compare that to actors who've been destroyed by a franchise like Hayden who is still grateful for being part of said franchise #despite the ill treatment #and then you look at people like Ford and Jennifer Anniston and Johnny Depp who always say some neg stuff about their first work #or talk about how they want to separate themselves from that character or expand or whatever #like god it's just so self-absorbed and egotistic to me #sorry to judge #but like you are in the mainstream you are relevant precisely because of your first tv shows and movies #like be fucking grateful #i might be being stupid and harsh #but i just don't care for people who are careerists

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damianwaynerocks · 4 years

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Zuko & The Waynes

atla/batfam crossover

taglist: @bi-fr0000g

Part 2

Summary: Prince Zuko has just seen a light; the Avatar has returned. He was just about to go capture him, when he falls through a portal, and lands in Gotham City. He’s angry. He was just about to regain his honor, to regain his father’s love. After he is adopted by Bruce Wayne and becomes Zuko Wayne, the second youngest child, Zuko starts to have second thoughts about regaining his honor. Living as Zuko Wayne makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he’s deserving of love just the way he is.

pt 1

Part 2:

"Word of advice; never check your hashtag."

Zuko muttered a thank you to Dick as he set his phone down to take a cup of tea being offered to him by his older brother, who say down himself and leaned his elbows on his knees. He smiled softly as he looked at Zuko. "Look, everybody thinks that we care about their opinion. They feel like their opinion on things we do matters, especially the negative ones. Plus, a lot of it's just for attention, just to get us to see it and say something."

"Don't worry about me," Zuko sighed, "I'm used to people saying things like that."

"I'm sorry about that." The two say in silence for a few minutes, before Dick perked up. "I forgot!" he fumbled to grab the remote, "I was going to show you Brooklyn Nine-Nine!"

"What's that?" Zuko asked, taking a sip of his tea. "This is really good, by the way, almost as good as my Uncle's."

"Thanks, Alfred makes the best tea," Dick replied, going to Hulu on the tv, "But Brooklyn NIne Nine is amazing! It's a cop show but so funny at the same time!" He pushed play, and sat back to watch.

It was funny. Zuko laughed a few times. He couldn't stay focused for long, though. He was nervous. His interview with Gotham Gazette was coming up the next week. He'd given interviews as Prince of the Fire Nation, but he'd always been with his father and sister, never really speaking unless agreeing with his father.

As if sensing his nervousness, Dick spoke. "Hey, I know you're nervous about the interview, but I promise it'll be okay. It won't be televised, and Bruce paid the Gazette to allow a family friend, Lois Lane, to interview you. She knows about all of this, including you being from another dimension, so it'll be easier."

Zuko took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Who is Lois, exactly?"

"Superman's wife," Bruce said as he walked into the room, holding a manila folder in his hand. He smiled. "How are you doing, Zuko?"

"I'm fine," Zuko said, crossing his arms after he set his tea down on to the coffee table.

"It's okay to be nervous, it's your first interview," Bruce said kindly, sitting on the other side of him "I was for mine." Zuko looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You? Nervous?"

Bruce laughed. "Oh, yeah. I was terrified. I was about your age. The Gazette wanted an exclusive about the new Healthcare program Wayne Enterprises were putting together- which I had little to no part of since Lucius Fox was running it for me."

"What'd you do?" asked Zuko, shifting to face the man.

"Alfred phoned the Gazette and played the sad orphan card for me so I could get the questions in advance," Bruce explained, smoothing the folder on his lap. "Lucius told me the answers to all of them, and so I knew what to say when the interview came."

"Lucky," Zuko snorted. Bruce smiled softly.

"No. Not luck. I just had people that loved me looking out for me." He handed Zuko the folder. "I called Lois and asked her to send over the questions she's going to ask you. Look through them to prepare for your answers, and if you need help, just ask." He ruffled Zuko's hair as he stood up and left.

Zuko blinked, and opened the folder. He read a few of the questions, and groaned. At Dick's questioning look, he said, "Half of these are way too personal, and I don't know what the other half of these mean! Current tv obsession? What lyrics from a song mean the most to you? Anakin Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"What about Anakin Skywalker?" Duke piped up, sticking his head in the room. "I don't know what we're talking about, but if it involves Anakin, I want in it."

"Lois sent over the interview questions for Zuke," Dick explained, ignoring Zuko's protests against the nickname, "And some of them involve pop culture." Duke looked at the paper over Zuko's shoulder.

"I can help with these," he offered, "After that month mission in San Fran, I'm taking a week break. I can educate you on the icon that is Anakin Skywalker and all the other stuff."

"Okay, thanks," Zuko replied. Duke grinned.

"Now come on, we're binge-watching all the seasons of Clone Wars."

Zuko and Duke were inseparable for the next week, constantly talking about the interview. Duke was telling him all about Star Wars, showing him his Spotify playlist, going to the Gotham Fashion Show, and trying new foods, to name a few.

"You're taking my sparring partner, Thomas," Damian had snapped on the third day.

"Sorry, man, Zu and I have stuff to do!" Duke had replied as he dragged Zuko to the garage by his hand, not looking very sorry at all. Duke had taken to calling him 'Zu' and if he was being truthful with himself, Zuko didn't mind it. They'd become very close.

It was the day of the interview. Zuko was nervous as he and Duke ran over his answers again.

"And remember, if you forget one, just say what you think," he was saying as Bruce straightened his tie. Bruce nodded in agreement.

"And I'll be right behind the camera," the man added, "If you get overwhelmed, tap your leg three times, and I'll interrupt you so you can get a break. Zuko nodded.

"Thank you," he breathed. Bruce and Duke smiled at him.

"Zuko," a woman with long black hair in a white blouse got Zuko's attention, "We're ready."

Zuko took a deep breath as he walked over, sitting on the couch they'd brought into the room for him and Lois to sit on. A broad man with black hair and glasses was behind the camera- Superman, Zuko remembered -smiled encouragingly at him. Usually, Bruce had told him, a man named Jimmy was Lois' partner, but Bruce had requested Clark just in case Zuko had accidentally revealed something incriminating.

"Okay, Clark," Lois said, making a motion with her fingers, "Let's do this." A red light blinked on the camera, and Lois turned to Zuko with a smile. "So! Zuko!" she grinned, "It's nice to meet you! How are you feeling?"

Just say what you're thinking, Duke's voice reverberated in his head. Zuko's voice didn't tremble when he finally spoke, "I haven't felt anything in years."

Lois blinked. "Oh? Did you have a rough life before you met Bruce?"

"Something like that." Lois smiled sadly. She knew the truth, as Clark had told her.

"I'm sorry about that," she said, before clearing her throat. "So! The Gazette put together the 'twenty-one questions' questionnaire for you to go over! Does that sound good?"

The interview was a blur. He remembered telling her that he liked Anakin more than Obi-Wan and that his favorite song was Choke by I DON'T HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME. He told her that his favorite part of living with Bruce was Alfred's tea because it reminded him of how his uncle would make it.

"Thank you for your time, Zuko," Lois smoothed her skirt in her lap as she smiled warmly, "It's been lovely to meet you."

"And we're good!" Clark said from behind the camera, giving the two a thumbs up. "You did great, Zuko!"

"Thanks," Zuko replied, releasing a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding.

"Hey, dad!" a boy around Damian's age in a Superman hoodie with black hair and blue eyes flew down the stairs until he right in front of Clark. "Can I spend the night?"

Clark looked at Bruce. "If it's okay with Bruce, sure. As long as you're back tomorrow by noon."

"It's fine with me," Bruce agreed. Jon grinned.

"Yes! Damian, it's a go!" he threw his arms around Clark. "Thanks, Dad!" he turned to Zuko and held out his hand for him to shake. "Hi!" he chirped, "I'm Jon, Damian's best friend! It's nice to meet you!"

"Uh, nice to meet you, too," said Zuko, taking the Kryptonian's hand. Jon's eyes lit up.

"Do you like smores?" he asked. Zuko's eyebrows furrowed.

"What's that?"

"Jon," Bruce said sternly, "You and Damian are not starting a fire in this house. Not after last time." Jon’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

"But Mr. Wayne-"

"Jon," Clark cut him off with a look, "Bruce said no."

Jon sighed. "Aw, fine. But come on, Zuko, let's go!" he picked Zuko off of the ground with startling strength and carried him to Damian's room.

"Don't carry me!" Zuko snapped, shoving the boy off of him and dusting off his clothes. Jon laughed.

"Wow, Damian! He's just like you!"

Damian scoffed from where he was sketching on his bed. "Don't be absurd, Jonathan." Jon raised an eyebrow.

"Let's see; grumpy, not liking being carried at first," he was counting on his fingers, "Trauma, a little scary, black hair, little to no social skills-"

"Hey!" Zuko and Damian interrupted simultaneously. Jon laughed.

"I'm just saying! Anyways, Bruce said we couldn't start a fire for smores."

Damian groaned. "That is so unfair! The chandelier incident was not our fault!"

Zuko blinked. "That... what incident?" Damian waved him off.

"Never you mind. Father is just being unreasonable." he paused. "Jonathan, what exactly did he say?"

Jon cleared his throat before lowering his voice several octaves in an impression of Bruce. "You and Damian are not starting a fire in this house." Damian smirked.

"So we cannot start a fire, but he said nothing about Zuko, the firebender!" he turned to Zuko, "We will go get the supplies. You stay up here. We'll use these to communicate." he tossed an earpiece into his hand. Zuko frowned.

"We need an earpiece just so we can get food?"

Damian gave him a disbelieving look. "Zuko, at this moment there is a Kryptonian, my father, Drake, Thomas, and Lane in this house. We have to cover all of our bases."

Zuko rolled his eyes but put the device in his ear anyway. Damian did the same. Jon was staring at the door, using his x-ray vision to see if anyone was coming. He didn't need an earpiece due to his superhearing.

"Alright, I will go get the marshmallows and graham crackers, and Jonathan, you go get the chocolate from Drake's room," Damian commanded in his voice typically only used for missions. "Zuko, you stay here, and do not let anybody know our plans."

Jon and Zuko nodded, the Kryptonian's serious and the firebender's condescending. Damian gestures to the door. "Let's be off, Jonathan." the two left the room, leaving Zuko standing.

Zuko looked around Damian's room. The walls were bare aside from two swords mounted above his bed and a framed picture of all of his bets above his television. Zuko was accepting the fact that he would be bored whenever there was a knock on the door.

Clark walked in, looking for Jon, but frowned when he didn't see his son. "Where are Jon and Damian?" he asked.

"Play. Dumb," Damian hissed in the earpiece. Zuko put on a confused expression.

"Who's Damian?"

"Not that dumb!"

Clark rolled his eyes fondly, clearly not believing him, but not wanting to push him. "Whatever. Tell Jon I said I love him."

Zuko nodded. "Will do, sir!" he said. Clark nodded, and left.

Jon was back in the room shortly after with a box of chocolate under his arm. "Golly," he gasped, "Tim's room is booby-trapped to the extreme! I barely made it without tripping any of them!"

"That is because you are an imbecile," Damian said from the doorway with a box of crackers in one hand and a bag of marshmallows in the other. He looked at Zuko with a deadpan expression. "You have much to learn when it comes to lying."

"He believed me, didn't he?" Zuko countered, crossing his arms over his chest. Damian rolled his eyes.

"No, he did not, he just heard a distress call from Metropolis and he did not have time to wait," he replied matter-of-factly. Jon's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"I didn't hear a distress call."

"That is because you were too busy trying not to get trapped in one of Drake's childish snares."

"Why does his room have those, anyway?" Zuko asked.

"Because he is worried somebody will come in and steal his things," Damian explained, "as he thinks that anybody with time on their hands would care enough to snoop through his stash of Penthouse magazines."

"What's that?" Zuko and Jon said at the same time.

"Pornography," Damian replied, opening the bag of marshmallows and pulling one out. He put it in between two of the graham crackers, and grabbed a square of chocolate to add. He looked at Zuko expectantly as he impaled it with one of the swords on the wall.

"Light a fire, Zuko," Jon explained, doing the same thing as Damian. Zuko obliged, a fire igniting above his palm. Damian and Jon put their smores in the flames, letting them toast. After a minute, Damian pulled his out. He handed the sword to Zuko.

"Here, eat." It was more of a demand than an offer, but Zuko didn't argue. He took the smore from the tip of the blade and took a bite. His eyes widened.

"This is amazing!" he praised, taking another bite. Jon smiled brightly.

"Right? They're the best!"

"They are a delectable treat," Damian agreed, taking the sword back from Zuko to make himself one. "Even if they are for children."

"Don't forget forbidden."

The three jumped at the voice, the flame fizzling out from Zuko's hand as he saw Bruce standing in the doorway with a frown on his face. "I thought I told you all that you could not start a fire!"

"On the contrary, Father," Damian contradicted, "You said that Jon and I could not start a fire. You said nothing about Zuko."

Bruce narrowed his icy blue eyes. "You're a smart boy, Damian, you knew what I meant. No patrol tomorrow!" Damian's eyes flew open.

"But Father-" he protested, but Bruce cut him off.

"No, Damian, you disobeyed me. And you, Zuko," he turned to the firebender, "No going to John Mulaney's show with Duke tomorrow."

Zuko's jaw dropped. "But-"

"And you, Jon," the Bat ignored him, setting his eyes on Jon. "I will be informing your mother of this." Jon paled.

"No," he whispered, "Not that. Anything but that."

"Yes," Bruce said sternly. "Now, I have work to do." Before he could walk out, Zuko's voice stopped him.

"That's it? Aren't you going to hit us or something?" he asked, confused. That's what fathers did whenever their children misbehaved, after all. They disciplined them.

Although it was impossible to tell, Bruce's heart cracked at his son's bewildered face. "No, Zuko," he answered, his voice much gentler now, "No. A father should never hit his children."

After Bruce left, Damian groaned, throwing his arms into the air. "This is ridiculous!" he seethed, "No patrol? For making smores?"

"My mom's gonna be so mad," Jon whimpered, closing his eyes as though that would erase the image of Lois' disappointed smile out of his head.

Zuko, though, was silent. Bruce's words were running through his mind. A father should never hit his children.

Zuko awoke the next morning to texts from the group chat.

Frowning, Zuko opened his twitter as he stood up, stretching. His eyebrows furrowed as he read.

"What the heck?" he muttered as he texted the group chat a response.

"Well," he said aloud as he put on a shirt and prepared to go downstairs for breakfast, "Alrighty then." As he made his way to the kitchen, the voices of the other boys reached his ears.

"If we were in a band, I would be the lead singer!"

"No you wouldn't, you can't sing!"

"What the hell do you know, Drake, you have barbecue sauce on your toast-"

"Damian don't fucking swear-"

"Jason! Stop teaching him those words!"

"How I eat my toast isn't relevant to the fact that Dick can't sing-"

They stopped arguing as Zuko entered the room, sitting into the seat next to Tim and rubbing his eyes. Seeing Tim dipping his toast in barbecue sauce, he wrinkled his nose in disgust and got up from his seat and moved to the one beside Duke.

Tim didn't seem phased. He pointed his toast at Zuko. "You went on a midnight drive with Dick, right? Was he a good singer?"

"No," Zuko replied bluntly, meeting Dick's pleading look. The acrobat scowled.

"That is false! False! I am a great singer!" he huffed, "Just ask Superman!"

Jason laughed. "Dude, Clark was lying! He's too nice to tell you the truth! You royally suck."

Bruce was sitting at the head of the table reading the newspaper, sipping his coffee as he tuned out his children's argument. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"The gala's tonight," he said, "And I want everyone on their best behavior."

The gala was for Zuko. An event to celebrate the Waynes bringing in another child.

Zuko was not excited about it.

The day was spent with preparations. Getting the ballroom ready, running over what to say when Gretchen Milliana made you comfortable, and ballroom dancing.

Zuko was not very good at the last one.

"Okay, so, you might need more professional help," Dick admitted after the second hour had passed. "Never fear! We'll get Cass."

Cassandra Cain, the only female Wayne, was in the dance studio. Zuko had only met her a few times.

"Hey, Cass!" Dick greeted as they entered the room where a girl of Asian descent was practicing ballet. "Any chance you can help Zuko get the waltz down before tonight?"

"Sure," Cass replied, stilling her motions. "Come here, Zuko." She placed his right hand on her waist and put her own on his shoulder, interlocking their other hands. "Like this."

She began leading him in the dance, but within two steps, Zuko stepped on her feet. "I'm sorry," he muttered. Cass shrugged.

"It is alright," she paused, "Think of it as if you were in combat. As though you're learning a new fighting technique."

That worked.

After ten minutes, Zuko was starting to get the hang of it. Cass was a good teacher. And surprisingly, Zuko found himself having fun.

The two danced around the room to a Beethoven song. Zuko had a smile, a real smile on his face. He liked it. It was peaceful. It was graceful. It was fun.

"Very good!" Cass praised, "You're a natural!"

Zuko laughed nervously before asking his question. "Do you think... do you think you could show me ballet sometime?" he asked, his face red. Cass smiled.

"Of course! You're a great dancing partner!"

Eight hours later, Zuko was in a suit. He pulled at the collar nervously. Duke saw this, and stepped in front of him to straighten his tie.

"No worries, dude," he said, "It isn't that bad. Besides, aren't you a prince? You've probably been to a ton of these things."

Zuko shrugged half-heartedly. "Yeah, but it's different."

"Then don't make it different," Duke replied, "Just put on your Prince Zuko face and pretend like you know what you're doing even if you don't. Fake it till you make it."

Zuko did just that. He put on his Prince Zuko face and acted.

He stood by Dick most of the time, his older brother doing most of the talking for him. But, as all good things must come to an end, Gretchen Milliana asked him to dance.

"You're a good dancer!" the forty-year-old woman purred, "Who taught you?"

"Cassandra," Zuko replied simply. "She's a good teacher."

"She must be," Gretchen smirked. The conversation continued, Gretchen flirting with the sixteen-year-old until he was red in the face. Finally, the song ended, and he said a polite good-bye and went back to find Dick.

"How was it?" Dick asked.

"Take a guess," Zuko grunted. Dick sucked in his teeth.

"Yeah, she's something else. Very yucky." Zuko raised an eyebrow at the word choice.

"Yucky? How old are you?" he taunted. Dick rolled his eyes.

"Twenty-three, which makes me your elder and therefore deserving of respect." He showed Zuko his phone. "Look at my post!"

Zuko looked up at Dick. "Where'd you get that picture?"

"The paparazzi work fast, my guy.”

After the gala, Zuko was making his way to his room, when Tim stopped him.

"Come on, I have a favor to ask!" he said, leading him into the Cave where a girl with blonde hair and star earrings was waiting at the computer.

"Zuko, this is Cassie Sandsmark, also known as Wonder Girl," he introduced. Cassie shook his hand.

"Nice to meet ya, Zuko!" she greeted.

"You too," said Zuko, before turning to his brother. "What do you need?"

"So, my team and I have been tracking a magyntite dealer for months," Tim began, sitting on the chair in front of the computer. "Magyntite is a chemical that, when coated over something, makes its durability increase ten-fold. Like, if you made this stuff into a suit, even a punch from Superman wouldn't hurt you."

"It's from the planet Tatooine," Cassie added, "No relation to the Star Wars planet, though. Total coincidence."

"We tracked the dealer to Gotham, and he's having an auction at one of Falcone's clubs. They're calling it 'Masked Magicians Monday,'" Tim said, cracking his knuckles.

Zuko interrupted him. "What does this have to do with me?"

"We need to infiltrate it," Tim explained, "and we need your help to do it, Zuko. You and Cassie are going to pretend to be a magician couple."

"No offense, Zuko," said Cassie with a glance at him before looking at Tim with a raised eyebrow, "But why isn't Bart or Kon doing this?"

"Because they don't have experience acting as a fancy socialite. Zuko does, being a prince as well as being apart of a gala."

"I don't have experience either!"

"I know but like, you're the only girl." Tim rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly at her glare.

Cassie sighed. "Alright, what's game plan?"

"You and Zuko go to the party in Carnevale masks- I got one big enough to cover your scar-" he added as Zuko opened his mouth, "And when it's time to bid on the magyntite, you get it. I've got $50,000,000 in cash."

"Sounds easy enough," Zuko said. Cassie nodded in agreement.

Tim sucked in his teeth. "Yeah, this is where it gets weird though. Whoever the dealer is is bonkers. Really weird rules. You have to have a date to get in, and you have to be in a relationship with the person. And you have to be convincing. Like if they suspect you're faking, you'll get kicked out."

"That sounds fake," Zuko grunted.

"That's what I thought, too, but it isn't," Tim argued, "This dude only wants couples. Maybe it's a sex thing?"

Cassie scrunched her nose in disgust. "Whoever this guy is, he sounds like a creep. Why does he care?"

"Who knows?" Tim shrugged, "And another rule is that you have to show that you can do magic- real magic, not that children show magic -at the door. I figured Zuko would light a fire in his hand."

"Does he have to say a spell?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah, just come up with something," Tim said to Zuko. "Also, for obvious reasons, you guys need to think of fake names. I have your ids all set up, but I was gonna let you pick your names so it's easier to remember."

Cassie turned to Zuko, putting her hand on her chin and scrunching her face up in an exaggerated thoughtful expression. She furrowed her eyebrows. "You," she pointed her finger at Zuko, "Look like a Dylan."

"Dylan?" Zuko echoed with a frown. "I don't like it. That doesn't sound regal enough."

"Oh, you want a regal name, Your Majesty?" Cassie bowed dramatically before flashing him a grin. "Okay! What about Henry?"

"Henry is... acceptable," Zuko replied, rolling the name around in his head. Tim furrowed his eyebrows, his mouth agape.

"Tell me you didn't pick Henry because Timothée Chalamet played Henry V in that movie."

"That's completely the reason and I'm not even remotely sorry about it," Cassie huffed, placing her hands on her hips dramatically. "I've said it before and I'll say it again; if I don't marry Timothée Chalamet, my life has been a waste." Tim stared at her as if she'd grown another head.

"You've saved eleven people from dying this week alone."

"A waste, Tim. A waste." The corners of her mouth turned up as she looked at Zuko. "Your turn, fake boyfriend, pick a name for me."

Zuko sized her up, thinking, but the only name that came to his mind was 'ty-lee' and he certainly couldn't give her the name of his sister's best friend.

Cassie shifted her weight from one leg to the other impatiently. Zuko's eyes zipped around the room and landed on an empty starbucks cup. "Uh, what about Larissa?" he finally said

"Larissa," Cassie hummed, "I like it!"

Tim gave Zuko a strange look as if to say why did you give her the name of our favorite starbucks barista?

Zuko gave him an anxious look in return as if to say I don't know I panicked.

"So what about last name?" Cassie asked, seemingly oblivious to the silent exchange. "Are we married or what?"

"No," Tim answered, "You're engaged."

"Ooh, that means a fancy ring! Score!" Cassie cheered. She gave Zuko a friendly nudge. "And you'll get one too! Though you're probably used to fancy things, being a prince and then being a Wayne and all."

Zuko shrugged. "I'm not really a jewelry person."

"Well too bad, fiancé of mine," Cassie wrapped her arm around Zuko's waist and gave him a playful side hug, "You are now! Come on, we should get ice cream or some thing else so we can get used to each other so the chemistry seems real and all."

Zuko sent Tim a glance over his shoulder as Cassie grabbed his hand to pull him to the motorcycles. She handed Zuko a helmet and revved up the engine. "My mom doesn't know I have this, so keep it a secret."

"Your secret's safe with me."

Cassie was a bad driver.

Zuko didn't get scared often, but riding with Cassie on a motorcycle? A terrifying experience.

"I can see why your mom doesn't want you to have one of these," Zuko gasped as he hopped off the motorcycle, putting a hand over his chest. "You're a terrible driver."

"No, I'm not!"

"We almost died!"

"But we didn't!" Cassie countered. She walked ahead of him towards the building. "Anyways, let's go eat ice cream! Your treat, since you're rich and all."

"This ice cream better be good, or else," Zuko grumbled. Cassie laughed.

"What are you gonna do, break off our engagement?" Cassie had a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke. "Whatever shall I do?"

Zuko rolled his eyes and led her to a table. Their waiter arrived shortly, holding a notepad and pen. "What can I get you two?"

Before Zuko could say anything, Cassie interrupted him. "Vanilla milkshake please, two straws," she said sweetly. The waiter chuckled, his eyes flicking between the two of them, and walked to the back.

Zuko gave her a look. "Two straws?" Cassie shrugged.

"Hey man, the event's tomorrow night and no offense but being romantic doesn't seem to be your forté. We're gonna have to do a ton of couple stuff so you get used to it."

"I can be romantic!" Zuko protested, "I've had a girlfriend before!"

"Oh yeah? How old were you?"

"Thirteen!"

Cassie laughed. "In my book, any relationship thirteen and younger doesn't count."

"Well, we must be different then," Zuko grumbled, crossing his arms.

Cassie's eyes softened. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"You didn't."

Cassie clearly didn't believe him, but she didn't press it. "So! What do you like to do for fun?"

"I don't do fun," Zuko replied, looking out the window. Cassie rolled her eyes.

"Oh wow, you are so Bruce's kid. But seriously, Zuko, everybody has something they do for fun! You have to have an idea."

"I mean..." he wracked his brain for an answer, and remembered Cass. "Turns out I like dancing. It was outlawed in the Fire Nation, so I'd never danced before. My sister Cass was teaching me how to ballroom dance and I actually really liked it. We're gonna start doing ballet together." His face turned red as he realized what he'd just admitted. A boy? Doing ballet? His father would have scoffed at him, calling him pathetic.

Cassie shocked him by giving him a warm smile. "I love that! Cass is the best ballet dancer I've ever seen, you're super lucky to have her!"

Zuko looked down. "I'm not lucky," he said darkly, "It's like my father always said; my sister was born lucky, while I was lucky to be born."

Cassie scowled. "Well, that's awful to say! I think you're very lucky! I mean, hey," she leaned back in the booth, putting her hands behind her head and smiling, "You get to fake-date me! The great Cassandra Sandsmark!"

Zuko snorted a laugh, which made Cassie's grin widen.

"Score! I made you smile! We'll be a believable couple in no time."

The ice cream arrived, and Cassie put the two straws in. Telling him to 'drink up,' Zuko took a zip.

"This is really great," he said. Cassie grinned.

"Ice cream's so good, man, I'm glad you like it."

"I'm exhausted," Zuko complained, leaning back. He was still in his suit from the gala.

Cassie waved. "Hi, Exhausted, I'm Cassie!"

Zuko gave her a weird look.

Cassie frowned. "You know? You said you were exhausted so I said 'hi, exhausted?' It was a joke."

"It was a bad one."

She scoffed. "As if you can do better!"

"I have plenty of jokes!" Zuko argued.

"Oh yeah? Tell one!"

All Zuko could remember was half of the joke Iroh had told him the night before he's arrived in Gotham. "My uncle used to tell me this one all the time. I don't remember all of it, but the punchline was 'leaf me alone, I'm bushed!'"

Cassie sucked in her teeth. "Tt. You know, a joke is only funny if you tell the entire thing."

"Okay, Damian," Zuko retorted, referring to her use of the sound Damian constantly vocalized.

"Speaking of Damian, what's it like living with him?" she rested her elbows on the table. "Tim says he's a nightmare, but surely he's got his moments, right?"

Zuko didn't respond for a moment, his mind wandering to a few days prior, whenever Damian had invited him up to his room to paint the sunset with him.

The two were silent, nothing but the sound of paintbrushes gliding along canvases filling the air.

"The League of Assassins told me many things." Damian's voice broke the silence, not looking up from his canvas. "They told me that they were great, that they- that we were only killing because we had to. That we were doing good work. That we were going to make the world a better place, start a new, good world order, and that I would lead it."

"I know what you're trying to do," said Zuko shortly, not looking up from his painting.

"I am simply relaying facts to you," Damian denied, "Anyways, I believed that I was doing good. The murder, the cruelty- it was all for the greater good. But... but it wasn't. It wasn't good. Murder is murder. We were using murder as a way to gain power, to gain control over everything. Not to make a good world. They didn't care if the new world is good, as long as they got to rule it." His eyes flicked to Zuko briefly, before returning to his painting. "It took me a long time to realize that. That I was being used. I was a pawn. They didn't love me, I was a weapon. A tool. Something they could use to get what they wanted."

Zuko didn't reply. Surely his father wanted to love him. After all, he was giving him a chance to regain his love. He only had to capture the Avatar. And the Fire Nation was the greatest of all. They were doing good, helping the world.

And yet, the more he thought about it, the more Zuko realized that he couldn't find any instance of the Fire Nation doing something that would directly benefit the Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom, or the Water Tribes. The more he thought about it, the more he noticed the similarities between the Fire Nation and the League of Assassins.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized how different Bruce Wayne was from Fire Lord Ozai. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how different his relationships with Tim, Duke, Damian, Dick, Jason, and Cass are from his relationship with Azula. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much safer he felt at the Manor than he ever felt at the Palace.

And the more he thought about it, the more the hand holding his paintbrush shook.

"Living with Damian gives you a headache," Zuko finally answered, taking another sip of their milkshake.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Ewan McGregor Updates on the Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi Series, Possibility of a Standalone Season

https://ift.tt/3hn5P6f

While an update on the Disney+ Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff series has been overdue for quite some time, new comments from its role-reprising headliner, Ewan McGregor, seem to imply that the show’s 2021-scheduled production still has the high ground over the proverbial Dark-Side-turned apprentice of delays.

McGregor paints an auspicious picture about the Obi-Wan Kenobi series in a podcast interview with Empire, which is the latest example of the dribs and drabs of updates that have been slowly surfacing about the long-gestating project. Indeed, set to work under the auspices of director Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian, Lost in Space), the actor is clearly excited to return to the role he played in the 1999-2005 Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, continuing to build upon a legacy started by Alec Guinness’s portrayal in the Original Trilogy. As McGregor lauds of his impending return:

“I’m more excited about doing this one than I was doing the second and third one [of the prequel films] that we did before. I’m just excited about working with Deborah Chow and the storylines are going to be really good, I think. I’m just excited to play him again. It’s been long enough since I played him before.”

The update arrives shortly after a seemingly off-the-cuff comment to ET Online in which McGregor expresses his (for now unconfirmed) belief that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be a single-season event, stating, “As I understand, it’s a standalone season. We’ll see. Who knows?” Yet, possible limited nature of the series notwithstanding, McGregor’s elated Empire comments also point to the technical breakthroughs the show will utilize, which stand in contrast to industry standards from when he last played Obi-Wan; something that should excite cynical Star Wars fans who remain unimpressed by the artificial nature of the prequels’ blue-screen-centric visuals. As he explains:

“The first three [Star Wars films] I did were really at the very beginning of digital photography.” He adds, “We had a camera with an umbilical cord to a tent, it was like back to the beginning of movies where the camera didn’t move very much because there was so much hardware attached to it. Now we’re going to be able to really create stuff without swathes of green-screen and blue-screen, which becomes very tedious for the actor.”

While McGregor’s excitement over reprising Obi-Wan can be attributed to the 15 years that have passed since the release of climactic 2005 Star Wars Prequel Trilogy closer Revenge of the Sith, it might also be explained by the delays that have hit the project. After all, it was initially set as a theatrically-aimed feature film; a plan that was eventually nixed after the underwhelming performance of 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story exposed the finitude of the franchise’s box office clout. Thusly, the project took shape as a serial offering for the Disney+ streaming platform, as confirmed at the D23 Expo back in August 2019 with the official announcement of the Obi-Wan series and McGregor’s return. However, the series hit a snag in January 2020 with the dismissal of writer Hossein Amini, resulting in the heralded production being put on hold until January 2021; a move that actually proved fortuitous with the eventual COVID outbreak. While the following April saw Disney tap Amini’s screenwriting replacement, Joby Harold (Army of the Dead, Underground), the project has been in stasis as the script was rewritten.

Movies

Daisy Ridley Reveals Original Plan to Connect Rey to Obi-Wan Kenobi

By Joseph Baxter

Books

Star Wars: Should Yoda Be in The High Republic?

By Megan Crouse

Yet, there is an aspect of the excitement that ties into the (arguably) redeemed status of director George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel films—The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005)—after they were the contemporaneous target of derision from Original Trilogy purists, and have since quietly become accepted in the wider mythos, especially as the era of those films were provided poignant context in the celebrated animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Plus, the subsequent (some might say cash-grabbing) evolution of the franchise under its eventual Disney ownership—with the Sequel Trilogy and the attempted spinoff movies—helped the Prequels shine a bit brighter in hindsight. As McGregor explains of this redemptive phenomenon:

“You know, our films weren’t much liked when they came out, by my generation who loved the first ones. I think people of our generation wanted to feel the way they’d felt when they saw those first three movies when they were kids, and George [Lucas] wanted to take our ones in a different direction, he had a different idea. It was tricky at the time, I remember. But now, all these years later, I’m really aware of what our films meant to the generation they were made for, the children of that time. They really like them. I’ve met people who, they mean a lot to them, those films, more so than the original three, and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

That, however, is the extent of what is known about the currently-untitled Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series. With the long-set rescheduled production start of January 2021 still hopefully on track to avoid any COVID-caused complications, it shouldn’t be much longer until we see McGregor fill some crucial gaps in the arc of the eventual sagely desert hermit destined to help Luke Skywalker take his first step into a larger world. In the meantime, your next Star Wars serial fix is imminent with The Mandalorian Season 2 set to hit Disney+ on October 30.

The post Ewan McGregor Updates on the Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi Series, Possibility of a Standalone Season appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3bW8HWH

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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irinapaleolog · 4 years

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While JJ Abrams has said relatively little in the wake of the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, writer Chris Terrio can’t seem to stop talking about it. In a number of interviews, including this latest one from GQ, he talks about writing Rise of Skywalker and why various things came to be the way they are in the film. And while transparency is nice, I don’t think many of his answers are going to satisfy folks who have issues with the film.

Terrio seems like a bit of an odd pick for Star Wars, given that he’s coming off of Justice League and Batman V. Superman, two not-amazing features while this is a Star Wars movie ending a nine film, forty year saga. Terrio has been locked in endless debates about how those DC movies turned out (where’s the Snyder cut?!), and now he’s having to defend Rise of Skywalker in a similar way (where’s the Abrams cut?!).

I’m going to pull a few of the more…head-scratching quotes from this interview, all of which leads me to believe that maybe sometimes, less is more when it comes to explanations of certain decisions. At least that’s proving to be true in this case. Again, I recommend you read the full GQ interview here, which ends rather oddly and abruptly.

Terrio explaining how they approached the final film: “So when J.J. came to me to come and write with him the... "series finale," was how we thought of it, of this amazing television show that's been on for 42 years.”

Given how rare it is to see a well-executed series finale for most beloved TV shows (Dexter, Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother will scar people forever), this seems like a weird way to approach a final film, even if I sort of get what he’s saying.

Then Terrio gets asked about the hard left turn about Rey’s origins (spoilers follow).

“Well, we weren't convinced that it had been cleared up, because there's still this highly troubling vision that Rey had in Episode VII, which is the shop with her parents leaving the planet. Also, the events of The Last Jedi are literally just after the events of Episode VII—within 48 hours, Ray has had a force-back to her parents and then the very next day is told "your parents were no one and they were junk traders. None of that matters." And we thought in a way that would be too easy because of the idea that Rey had been longing for her parents for so many years. We just felt like there was something more going on.”

This explanation does little to change my opinion about how this came off in the film, like JJ and the writers were upset that Rian Johnson threw away their set-up for Rey’s origins (back in Force Awakens, it seemed likely she’d be a secret Skywalker or Kenobi), so they had to adjust on the fly by throwing out his idea that she was no one, and they’re dismissing it as a trick by the dark side. Then we’re stuck with a situation that makes little to no sense, that Rey’s parents did love her, and their way of protecting her was…selling her to an abusive junk trader on a desolate planet. This is opposed to say, Obi-Wan protecting Luke by giving him to relatives and staying close by, or Leia, by making her quite literally a princess. It’s bizarre, and this explanation does nothing to fix that.

“Rian sort of set up a challenge not only for the filmmakers, but for the characters. At the end, everyone is left with almost nothing. So as a storyteller, you have to start using all your tools because you're left with a lot of questions and not a whole of answers. So we had to recommit to a few aspects of the story and perhaps be a bit more inventive about what was going on in the galaxy.”

This is how he dodges the question of when the Palpatine stuff entered the “plan,” when the answer is very clearly that it was never the plan and they had to pull the idea out of an old comic book to try and salvage (in their eyes) what Rian had left them by killing Snoke and Luke and erasing Rey’s origin mystery.

And finally:

“We think of Star Wars as a fairytale. Two twins: One is sent off to be a farmer and one is sent off to be a princess. Rey is kind of both.”

Hard to find the words for this one. Just going to end with a Geralt “Hmm.”

No more interviews man, we’re good. Let’s just move on to Clone Wars season 7 and Mando season 2.

#the rise of skywalker

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gffa · 1 year

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I don't know if I'm being really cynical, and I probably don't have a leg to stand on since I haven't watched any SW content since Mando S2 (and never finished Rebels), but I am really side-eyeing the Dawn of the Jedi and Rey rebuilding the Jedi stuff cause I'm afraid they're going to show the new Jedi and the formation of the Jedi as having attachments and marriages and such and imply the prequels Jedi were doing things wrong and had lost their way cause they don't do attachment, and perhaps that's me being cynical cause from what I understand, The High Republic does not do that and shows the Jedi at their peak and they are a lot like prequels Jedi, but I do not trust Disney to adhere to that, not to mention after TOTJ focused on two Jedi who left the Order...

I don't know, my doubts probably don't have merit, but I just needed to address it to someone who is pro-Jedi might be able to address my worries. Sorry

It's a reasonable worry and it might happen, we won't know until we get those shows and they might be really good, they might be mediocre, they might be really bad. It can be tough not to let your thoughts spiral and worry! But you know what those movies can't do? They can't change the first six movies + the first season seasons of TCW. They can't change the foundation of George Lucas' Jedi Order. Would it suck to have to deal with a franchise that dropped the ball on the Jedi? Yeah, it would, but it still can't change that those movies exist, that those interviews with Lucas exist, that Rebels exists as it is, that the Obi-Wan Kenobi show exists as it is, that Padawan exists as it is, that the Age of Republic comics exists as they are. And even if we have to deal with a franchise dropping the ball and fandom talking about it, we have a large enough fandom that we Jedi fans have built here that we don't need anything outside of ourselves. What's the point of fandom? To talk about things we liked, to build up cute scenarios we liked, to read fic we liked--we can do that already! We can continue doing that in our own corner and have a perfectly great fandom experience, because that's what a fandom experience is when you get down to it. If we have to retreat to just Lucas' Star Wars and ignore any other content, so be it. That's still a big enough playground to play around in! And maybe they'll be good, maybe not, but at the end of the day, we still have the foundation of what we've already built and each other, we don't really need anything more. We can just sit back and have a good time with the things we have already and whatever else comes along that we don't like, we can ignore, and what we like, we can fold in with everything else.

#lumi.txt #jedi order

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eirenare · 4 years

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I’ve just read the new “The Rise of Kylo Ren” interview with Charles Soule (the writer) and Will Sliney (the artist) and thought I’d do a post about it because there’s some very interesting stuff

And also I may or may not be absolutely amused at some descriptions for the former leader of the Knights of Ren

[More under the “read more” because of spoilers of TROKR, and because of speculation/theorizing of TROS.]

“They call him Ren, but that wasn’t always his name.

“Born out of the flames,” as artist Will Sliney puts it, the leader of the Knights of Ren in the opening pages of the new comic Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1, arrives battle-scarred and wearing a fearsome, featureless mask — a blank expression save for a smattering of claw-like gouges. Concealed within is a charismatic leader, the exact type of person who would be able to seduce young Ben Solo away from the path of the Jedi.”

They’re going to talk about “The Rise of Kylo Ren”—they spent the first paragraphs mostly talking about Ren

And... *arching eyebrows at the first phrases* So... “They call him Ren, but that wasn’t always his name”, and “born out of the blames”, and “fearsome, featureless mask”... Yeah, this totally does nothing to stop me from thinking Ren’s gonna be future/alternative Ben

Alexa, play “Dark Horse” *looking sideways at Dark Rey and Ren*

“I wanted him to read like a charming Darth Vader,” says writer Charles Soule. “A Vader who is charismatic and who is appealing. That’s why [Ren’s] skin is burned and he sort of looks the way that he does. He’s embracing the seductiveness and the damage that the dark side does. Darth Vader, as impressive and imposing and terrifying as he is, is remote and cold and distant because he has the suit surrounding him. Whereas Ren isn’t hiding behind it. He’s someone you could have a beer with, in theory.”

Oh, so are we going parallel territory with the Darth Vader, like previously with Ben and Anakin? Interesting... *munches popcorn* Also lol at having a beer with him

“Designed purposefully for the new comic series, with issue #1 out now, Ren feeds the evolution of Kylo Ren. “The entire seductiveness of the dark side poured into one character engineered for Ben Solo is Ren,” Soule says. “He’s sort of a charming evil rascal that can be really fun to write and I really like where he goes in the series. But if Kylo Ren is going to take over the Knights of Ren, which we know that’s what happens, there should be some transition.”

I didn’t think I’d see Mr. Hottie McHotHot aka Ren defined like a “sort of a charming evil rascal”, but yeah, that’s kriffing funny and awesome and I can’t wait to see what happens in January

But now... now comes the super juicy bits...

“The creative team engineered some surprises for this charming dark sider, a foil in many ways to Darth Vader hiding beneath his protective covering. “You expect the dude hiding his face under a mask like that to be all messed up, particularly with his body looking the way it does,” Soule says. But in issue #2 we’ll see what he’s truly concealing, a reveal that speaks to Ben on a whole other level.”

Why does this sound familiar? ... Ah, yes, because it’s kind of the way they described Ben‘s unmasking in TFA, the whole “you expect a monster but you got this young tortured prince”. Sounds like that a lot. Also, the fact that what he’s hiding under the mask seems it will be a huge reveal to Ben and that they’ve “engineered some surprises for this charming dark sider”? Not to mention that, again, we have a comparison with Darth Vader

Yep, this definitely does nothing to keep me from going on with my Ren/Ben theory

“I think the key to writing Ben Solo is to write him as a lost teenager who is deeply in touch with emotions that teenagers often feel,” Soule says. “He feels like no one understands him, no one sees him the way he actually is, he’s utterly alone and there’s no one else out there in the universe. So when he sees Ren, he’s like, ‘Wait a minute — maybe there is somebody like me in the universe. Maybe there is a path for a guy like me. Look at the choices he’s made. I could make those choices, too, and I could be cool.’”

Okay, so, who the kriff is cutting onions in the room? *Ben feels intensify*

Also there might or might not be a certain Disney song going on my head right now reading this lol

“The story also calls for the re-introduction of a younger, seemingly kinder Snoke, wearing a little cap, no less. When we meet him in the series, the future Supreme Leader of the First Order is essentially a gardener. “When we were in the design process, Snoke is someone that you know is going to defy expectations and it’s not going to be the Snoke that you know,” Sliney says. “And it’s important because we’re going to see a very, very different relationship that Snoke and Ben have. It establishes that this is not the Snoke that’s going to Force-choke Hux and slam him into the ground. He’s playing the long game…so it was important to portray Snoke differently.

And true to his festering nature, Snoke inhabits a place that on the surface seems serene and beautiful, but is rotten at its core, a script note that spurred Sliney to google “rotting fruit” for artistic inspiration.”

Snoke is a scary predator. Whatever he is, whatever it’s his relationship with Palpatine, that’s the thing—they’re both scary predators, and I can’t even begin to imagine all the shit fed to poor Ben’s head

Also, about that world... Another thought that came to me (besides Mortis stuff) is that maybe it could be the deserted/stormy place we see in the TROS trailers, like the planet finally rotten inside and outside, kind of as a reflection as to how appearences have fallen apart and all that’s left to show is the rotting

“Like Sheev Palpatine, the once humble senator of Naboo, “Snoke is someone who knows the playbook,” Soule says. “It’s a similar play in terms of, ‘I’m a nice guy who’s just trying to help you,’ which is kind of what Palpatine did. But Snoke’s path to power, Snoke’s seduction technique, Snoke’s message and teachings are, I think, pretty different from the way Palpatine did it…. His job is not so much to corrupt as it’s to represent an alternative to the legacy [Ben has] been presented.” In concert with Ren presenting an alternate path, Snoke’s suggestive philosophy is appealing to a young boy who feels lost. “Everyone’s telling you you’re X, but what if you’re Y? What feels correct to you? Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi or maybe you’re something else?” Soule says. “All you need to be is whoever you are and no one’s letting you do that…and maybe, shouldn’t you go someplace where you can be who you are?”

Now that’s a specially terrifying way of predating—you may be able to get away from all the people you love, detach from them so as to protect them and protect your heart, but you can’t run away from yourself and your thoughts and feelings, and that’s what Snoke targets with Ben

“To bring these characters alive on the page, Sliney pulled reference material from Celtic myths and poured over books featuring the art of Star Wars. “I don’t think I’ve ever studied as much as I have,” he says. “Everything Star Wars. I have all those art books, whether it’s the modern ones or the ones from the original movies or the prequels. I love the art…I think it’s important to pay respects to the amazing concept art that have made these movies along the way.”

Those artists, of course, famously took their inspiration from earlier works, so Sliney went back even further. “I’m going backwards as much as I can in terms of the feel of it,” he says. “It needed to feel epic and it needed to feel powerful. It’s bringing it back to that mythological kind of feeling. I have a big influence from a lot of old ancient Celtic stories that date back thousands and thousands of years. These stories of lone warriors who died on the hill…. Those ancient books, they carry that gravitas.”

That’s interesting. Maybe the big “dead” tree around the machinery comes from Celtic mythology? After taking a look at some info, I’d say this screams “tree of life” to me, which would pretty much fit like a glove with the Force and the balance because it represents harmony and all that. Also, if you want to know something funny, according to this webpage (Irish Around the World), “trees were a connection to the world of the spirits and the ancestors, living entities, and doorways into other worlds”, it says, among other things

And, to finish:

“Meanwhile, Soule pulled much of his writing inspiration from the Skywalker saga itself, save for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which was still in production at the time. Soule went back and studied the first time we see Kylo Ren on screen, wondering to himself about the implication that Ben Solo had met Lor San Tekka in their younger days. “There’s a lot of data hidden between the subtext and text,” Soule says. “It’s about doing the research on that level just to see what connections might be made, but it’s also the feel of it.”

After all, Ben Solo’s bloodline makes him Star Wars royalty. “This is a story about legacy,” he says. “It’s a story about family and expectations and the fact that Ben Solo is part of a vast network of galaxy-changing individuals from his mom and his dad, to his uncle, to his adopted uncle, Lando, to his namesake Ben Kenobi, to his grandfather, Darth Vader…Within one step of him are arguably some of the most important people in the galaxy. So his story is their story and you can’t tell Ben Solo’s story without knowing all the other ones backwards and forwards.”

Interesting, about the writing inspiration... I’m really curious to see how it’ll fit with TROS

Can’t wait to see TROS tomorrow, both because of the movie itself and to start thinking where TROKR may land because, hey... we’re still 3 issues away from the comic to end, 3 months

#Baby boy Ben Solo #Ben Solo #Kylo Ren #We also have content of Mr. Hottie McHotHot aka Ren the former leader of the Knights #Ren the Knight #TROKR #The Rise of Kylo Ren #Star Wars #SW #Star Wars TROKR #Star Wars The Rise of Kylo Ren #SW TROKR #SW The Rise of Kylo Ren

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starwarsstreettalk · 5 years

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Star Wars Street Talk Chats with SW Friend “Melissa”about Episode IX

Star Wars Street Talk wants to know what “people on the street” are saying about Star Wars and in particular the still untitled Episode IX, which we will refer to as EPIX. The idea of getting random opinions on Star Wars is why I really started this handle/blog/Twitter.

My first interviewee is my friend Melissa C. Not exactly someone I met on the street, but hey at least it’s not only a blog about my opinions! Melisa was a willing participant and a good sport allowing me to interview her late on a Saturday night after a good dinner and drinks. I’m glad she didn’t at look at me too strangely when I told her that I started a Star Wars blog on Tumblr.

Our conversation ran the gamut from characters to plot lines. But what I really wanted to know is what does the typical Star Wars fan want to see in the next movie, probably not having seen supplemental canon material such as “The Clone Wars,” “Star Wars Rebels,” and novels such as Bloodline and others which are considered “new canon.”

Note: I did not audio record the conversation so this post contains excerpts from our conversation captured in not-so-copious notes. Next time, I’m definitely going to record it!

SWST: So let’s talk Star Wars and the upcoming Episode IX. What do you think will be happening when EPIX begins?

MC: I think they will be hiding on a base somewhere like in the beginning of the Empire Strikes Back, on some remote planet trying to figure out what to do next. Kylo Ren is taking on Emperor duties but maybe he is fighting some corruption, like General Hux, or something. I think he is still trying to find himself as the new leader of the First Order.

SWST: What do you think about a possible “Bendemption” (redemption of Kylo Ren)?

MC: I think Kylo Ren is like Qi-Ra in Solo. He got a bit corrupted, but he still thinks that he is the good guy and he is intrigued by Rey but doesn’t have the strength or motivation to leave his position for her.

SWST: What would it take for you to accept or believe in Ben Solo return?

MC: He is in too deep at this point, like Qi-Ra. He is looking out for himself. Maybe he loves Rey, but he let her get away.

SWST: So nice Segway to my next question. Do you think there will be a central or some love story in the last movie?

MC: Yes, probably, there usually is. But not Kylo and Rey. She’s over him. She has other stuff to do. Maybe Rey and Finn, because they have a little chemistry going. But maybe also Rose may get Finn if she steps up as a force to be reckoned with.

SWST: What about Poe?

MC: He may have a bigger part but I don’t know if he will have a love story.

SWST: Speaking of love, do you think Leia will ever see her son again? She was so sad at the end of the last movie, almost giving up on him.

MC: Maybe. That was sad. I hope she is united with her son! We’ll see.

SWST: What do you think they will do with Leia’s character?

MC: The way they showed her at the end of Rogue One was awesome, so maybe they can do something like that? She is the last ‘original’ so I think she will survive and pass the torch to the next generation. She doesn’t just die of old age. Maybe she retires somewhere, feeling fulfilled by knowing the Rebels/Resistance defeated the First Order.

SWST: Are there other characters you are looking forward to seeing?

MC: It will be cool to see Lando. A lot of people want to see more Luke, but this is not his story anymore. It belongs to the new characters. He can be a force ghost, just hanging out with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yoda is cool too. I like in the last movie when they brought Yoda back as the old school puppet, not C.G.I.

SWST: What would be your ideal ending for the Star Wars saga?

MC: Maybe they can find a new compromise? The story does not have to be too neatly wrapped up.

SWST: Do you think we’ll find out that Rey’s Parents are really NOT nobodies who sold Rey for drinking money and are died and are buried in paupers’ graves on Jakku?

MC: Does she even know who they are? Did Kylo Ren just convince her they were nobodies and she believed him? I’m not sure what direction the new director will go. I just hope they don’t try to reboot that story and throw the baby out with the bathwater. They set up some interesting things with the Last Jedi.

SWST: Are there rumors you hope are true or rumors you hope are not true?

MC: Well I’m not really aware of any rumors. But I hope they don’t try to say that anybody can be a Jedi. Being a Jedi is a gift, not anyone can be a Jedi. I just hope Kylo and Rey don’t get together.

SWST: Do you want to make any episode IX title predictions?

MC: A New Destiny!

Follow me on Twitter: @sw_street_talk

#kylo ren #star wars #rey #reylo #luke skywalker #general leia #poe dameron #bendemption #star wars episode ix

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clonewarsarchives · 3 years

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TAYLOR MADE (#129, NOV 2011)

James Arnold Taylor can make the prestigious claim of having played Obi-Wan Kenobi longer than any other actor. With Season Four of Star Wars: The Clone Wars taking the show in exciting new directions, he tells us why the character is the rock at the center of the drama. Interview: Jonathan Wilkins

Why do you think Obi-Wan is so popular?

His accent! And his charm! Actually, I think that the biggest reason is the prequels. The prequels kind of turned Obi-Wan into a leading man, even though the story is about Anakin and Darth Vader and the Skywalkers. I think that he had a new grace with Ewan McGregor, and now The Clone Wars has taken the character even further.

Obi-Wan constantly attempts to keep everybody on track, but he also tries to be realistic. You saw that in The Citadel episode in Season Three where they’re losing clones left, right, and center. I remember when we were in the studio voicing that stuff, Dave [Filoni] kept telling me that Obi-Wan is the one who says we must move forward and we have to keep going. I had to strike a balance when recording those lines to show he has sympathy and heart for the clones, but at the same time he knows the mission. I think that sort of sums up the character. He’s strong when other characters don’t necessarily know what to do, and he’s a voice of reason.

What can we expect from Obi-Wan in Season Four?

There are some things in this season that took me by complete surprise. It’s going to be an awesome season for Obi-Wan and the fans who follow him. The fans on Twitter and Facebook always say, ‘More Obi-Wan! More Obi-Wan!’ Well, I think they’ll definitely get a lot more Obi-Wan this season. Oh, there are a lot of things I want to tell you, but I just can’t!

The drama got pretty intense last season. Is that something you anticipated when you signed up to do the show?

You know, I think it’s something I hoped for. Star Wars is essentially about a dramatic series of events: they’re fun and exciting, but there’s also a lot of intensity to them. Even if you go back to The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo’s put into carbonite-that’s dramatic and compelling. As a kid I was like, “He’s gone! He’s dead! They’ve killed Han Solo!” I think with the way filmmaking has progressed, we’re able to push things so much further now with The Clone Wars. The drama in it feels real, and it also goes back to Dave Filoni and George Lucas’ vision, which tells us that life is sometimes filled with challenges but if you keep on the right path, you will always prevail. They’re made The Clone Wars into exciting, compelling TV that you want to go back to.

Do you think it’s unusual for an animated series to be that deep?

I never would have expected it on any other show. Even if you compare it to a film like [2007’s] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where we did get pretty deep, The Clone Wars has taken it to a whole new level. It’s like those sci-fi adventure shows that I love, such as Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes, which have that level of drama, realism, and characters you care about. Well, the makers of The Clone Wars have created that in 22 minutes every Friday night! I think that not only goes back to the writing, but also the artistry of it all.

Has it been important to have people on board like Christian Taylor who have a background in live-action?

When he did the “Mortis” episode, my reaction was, “Wow, this is something we haven’t ventured into before!” I really admire Christian’s writing and storylines. The writers take it from a viewpoint that it’s live-action. And with the technology they have now, the animators can do that—they’re making live action in a virtual world.

When do you get the script during the recording process, and what kind of work do you do before you even start recording?

It’s changed a bit over the last season. Some of that comes from working on such a tight schedule, but it’s also due to the top secret nature of it. Generally speaking, you’d get scripts 24 hours in advance, but now we get them when we go to the session.

But we do get a chance to go through everything before the session starts. Dave sits down with us all as a cast and goes through the story, and then talks to every person there, whether it’s a guest star or whether it’s Matt [Lanter], Ashley [Eckstein] or myself, who are there every week. He takes his time with each person and gives us pictures or descriptions of what’s happening, and provides background on the episodes either side of the one we’re recording. It really helps.

That approach also adds to our ability to change things. Dave might go, “Oh that doesn’t really feel like Obi-Wan. What if he said this instead?” Or I might say, “This is a great line as it’s written but when I say it, it doesn’t come out right.” There’s a freedom for us all to act as we might on camera.

The process of recording is intense, though. As voice actors, we really have to think on our toes. We run through a scene three to eight times on average, and try to make it different each time.

Prequel producer Rick McCallum says that a hint of romance between Padmé and Obi-Wan was cut from Revenge of the Sith. Is that something you’d like to see in The Clone Wars?

(Laughs) Cat [Taber, who plays Padme] and I are such good friends and we always joke around with Dave and say, “Come on, man, we’ve got to see a [romantic] episode like that!” In Episodes I and II, Obi-Wan thinks she’s a politician like Palpatine, and doesn’t buy what she says. But then somewhere down the line there’s a connection and a bond that’s made between them. In the show, we do get a chance to explore what happened and why they’re closer by Episode III.

Obi-Wan is quite straight-laced. Do you ever wish you could play more comedy with him?

Ewan [McGregor] did have some great moments, especially in the elevator scene in Episode III; Obi-Wan was having fun! You could see that playful nature in his relationship with Anakin-you could see they’re like brothers, not father and son. We do get some of those moments in The Clone Wars now and again, too. Several times each season, Obi-Wan has a quip that just cuts through and you’re like, “Oh behave, Obi-Wan!” So it’s definitely there, but it would be fun to see a bit more.

I play Plo Koon as well as Obi-Wan, and they’re very serious parts. I’m so honored to play these two Jedi because they hold such weight in the storyline, but it would be fun to have a character who could go a bit more crazy every once in a while, as well!

He has an intriguing relationship with Asajj Ventress.

Oh yes, there’s a lot of playfulness between those characters. I mean, they really get to flirt! Fans often ask me: ‘So what’s the deal between Obi-Wan and Ventress?” [Adopts Obi-Wan voice) “Well,I can’t possibly say....”

Also, Nike Futterman [who plays Ventress] is such a fantastic actress. In fact, the very first scene we recorded was the one you see in The Clone Wars film, where she and I are having our battle. She brings me up to a different level as an actor.

You also had some great banter with the Duchess Satine in the “Duchess of Mandalore.” Was that as much fun to play as it was to watch?

It was. Anna Graves, who plays the Duchess, is such a talented actress. She and I have done promo work in the past, and for us to have a good old battle of words is great!

I love the comedy in their relationship. Like that bit in the second part of the story, when Obi-Wan is hanging upside down and about to be crushed, and he says: “I’m a little tired up here!” But there’s also a love between those characters, too. I think that’s the main thing—we joke with the ones that we Love. Obi-Wan has a heart for all of the characters, and I try to keep that in mind when I’m doing it, so it doesn’t come across as too mean or snarky.

How do you think Obi-Wan’s relationship with Anakin is progressing? Do you think he’s at all aware of Anakin’s dark side slowly coming to the front?

I try to keep that in mind, especially in the last season when Mortis appeared. It’s one of those parts where you’re like, “How do I play this?” Because right now we’re in between Episodes II and III: I know what happens in III, but I can’t let that affect how I play him here. I think that he feels—and this is the way I play it—that [the attraction to the dark side] is always going to be a part of Anakin and any other Jedi. But Obi-Wan knows the strength of Anakin and thinks he’ll overcome it.

I don’t think Obi-Wan expected anything that happened in Episodes III to V. I think he was so trusting in Anakin and the Force: he had hope and faith. I really don’t think he expected the dark side to be so heavy and actually take Anakin away from him. And of course that’s a pain that we see in Episode III.

And it also reflects his trust in Qui-Gon.

That’s a good point. I always think about that. I mean, we always think of Yoda as his teacher and instructor, but really the father to him was Qui-Gon. When we had the surprise of Qui-Gon appearing in the “Mortis” trilogy, I was like, “Oh this is so awesome!” And what a great honor to have a scene with Liam Neeson!

When we did that scene, I actually, very subtly, youthed my voice up a little. I went back to The Phantom Menace, watched that a lot, and gave the voice a slightly lighter and softer tone. Because Obi-Wan reverts back to when he was younger. I thought he would be very off-guard and revert back to when he was with his master.

Did you get to meet Liam Neeson?

I didn’t. He was in New York when we did it, and he recorded his part there. It’s funny: that is such a heavy part of voice-acting. I’ve been able to work with just about everybody in showbiz today, but usually the scenes are recorded completely separately so I never get to meet them. Take Patrick Stewart and Samuel L. Jackson—I’ve been in five or six projects with each of them, and yet we’ve never met. Even though most of our scenes feature the two of us having conversations! One of these days it would be fun to meet them, but alas, that’s the work of a voice actor!

If you could play a character from the movies who we haven’t seen yet, who would it be?

I’d love to see a young Han Solo, but I know that’s not possible! It would be interesting doing Uncle Owen—we haven’t seen him [in The Clone Wars], but we know he’s kicking and right now. That’s a voice that would fun to explore. I’ve always felt that the character goes deeper than we ever got to see. I’d love to learn more about exactly what he knows. That would be fun!

#James Arnold Taylor #Obi-Wan Kenobi #Season 3 #insider #i129 #cast #interesting...

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Anime in America Podcast: Full Episode 3.33 Transcript

Now that virtual conventions have taken over out of necessity in 2020, the Anime in America podcast is back with a followup to episode 3. Read on for a full transcript!

The Anime in America series is available on crunchyroll.com, animeinamerica.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

EPISODE 3.33: You Can (Not) Attend

Guests: Mary Franklin, Adam Sheehan

Disclaimer: The following program contains language not suitable for all ages. Discretion advised.

[Lofi music]

So you may have noticed our convention episode left off on kind of an optimistic note about the future of anime conventions and… umm… yeah, some stuff has happened since then, so we’re adding a bonus episode to go over the massive transformation that has taken place in the convention landscape now that COVID-19 has made large gatherings inadvisable, against the backdrop of possibly the largest civil rights movement in American history, which I have to stress is more important than anime. Yeah, it’s been a year.

I’m Yedoye Travis, Black Lives Matter, and this is Anime in America.

[Lofi music]

Surprisingly, this episode might also end on an optimistic note, but this tectonic shift in conventions affects a lot of people, from the owners and operators of convention spaces, to the staff of anime conventions themselves, anime licensors, publishers, celebrities, dealers, independent artists, and yes your common anime fan.

[Voice echoing] In case you’re an alien listening to this podcast after its broadcast traveled the vast darkness of space to your solar system, probably only reaching you once the human race has already gone extinct so this doesn’t really matter anyway [echoing stops], I will just go ahead and recap the whole pandemic thing. Experts began warning that a virulent new strain of coronavirus, SARs-CoV-2, was rapidly spreading in late 2019 and developing into the disease COVID-19, which escalated to a worldwide pandemic in early 2020, finally resulting in a wave of national quarantine orders spanning the globe mostly beginning around March. So now that the aliens are caught up, let’s continue.

Needless to say, many event coordinators had been sweating since January which is where we’re gonna take a first look under the hood at the whole situation. Anime fans were growing nervous in February since many conventions had suddenly gone dark on social media, which is where we’ll start with an inside prospect courtesy of Crunchyroll’s own Mary Franklin and Adam Sheehan:

Franklin: I’m Mary Franklin, I am the Head of Events at Crunchyroll, and I’ve been here for a little over a year. My background is in fan passion events, I started at Lucasfilm in 2001, was there for 14 years working as Head of Events and Family Relations on shows like Star Wars Celebration and all the other great things Lucasfilm did. Then I went to ReedPop, launched Comicons in multiple countries, which was super exciting. And now I’m at Crunchyroll which, I’m here because I love the way Crunchyroll treats their fans, and that’s why I’m really excited to be creating events for anime fans here.

Sheehan: I’m Adam Sheehan, I’m the Director of Events over here at Crunchyroll, which of course I work for Mary doing all the cool stuff. I’ve been at Crunchyroll since 2015, my second day on the job was AX, well luckily I’d done before because I spent 10 years before that at Funimation, before that doing some anime card game stuff and travelling the country in a Dragonball Z hummer. But that’s a story for a different time. But overall, basically talking to fans, being a fan myself of anime for my whole life, and basically getting the chance to be getting into conventions since… I think our first con was in ‘96, I started working at cons in ‘97, it just was in our blood. Basically the best way to do cool things for the fandoms. And I loved anime, so it made a lot of sense and [I’m] extremely happy to be a part of the founding team that brought Crunchyroll Expo to life and really happy to continue to see where it’s going into the future.

Upcoming cons had stopped announcing new guests and panels, and stay at home orders were beginning to look like a certainty in the U.S., but the cons weren’t cancelling. Rest assured, the organizers of your favorite annual events were not trying to make off into the night with your early registration money. Many of them were just caught between a rock and a hard place.

Franklin: Well some of them, you just hope, you hope it’s going to get better, I think. They just hope. You just want, you work so hard, you worked all this time on the show, and you just want to do it, you’ve got everything lined up. With some, there’s the business reason, because if you cancel or the convention center cancels first, like who loses the money? There’s some kind of weighing those kinds of things. Like playing chicken with the convention center, who has to make the call first? So some of that. And yeah, I also think that states, I’m not trying to get political here, maybe I sound it, I think the direction in different states, too, is so different. Like here, it’s been very clear. Phase 4 events are not going to happen until X, Y, and Z. So you know, concerts, conventions, sporting events with fans, like this, this, and this have to happen. So we’ve had it pretty clear, with these things have to happen. Some states, it hasn’t been. At all. And yeah, I think that it’s much murkier for some of those event people to have to decide what they’re going to do.

Muddying the waters even further and, I can’t believe I even have to get into this on an anime podcast, is insurance. As of January 2020, most event cancellation insurance policies mysteriously changed their exclusions to include pandemics or diseases suspiciously similar to COVID-19. But even policies purchased well before this point often include language requiring either a state of emergency declaration by the state, or for the World Health Organization to declare the disease a pandemic before they’ll pay out, and obviously you can bet insurance companies will do their best not to pay out, regardless.

Since many states and counties were designating a state of emergency at different times thanks to a slow response on the federal level, cancelling before the requirements of your policy were met by outside forces entirely out of your control could mean a massive financial loss and so many conventions were forced to hold out the hope. They weren’t just sitting there with their finger hovering over a big red “CANCEL” button…

Sheehan: I forget how many stages of grief there are, something like that, like first it’s denial, then anger, and the exact order of them, I’m sure I didn’t go in order, but as online was like “oh, that’s a little rough, that one got cancelled.” We actually came back from C2E2 in Chicago and then quarantined ourself before the mass quarantine came out, because we’re like “oh, well let’s just be safe, let’s all go back to the office.” And then like a week later is when we got like “no, no, no. No one’s going back to the office.” This is only like a month or so, right? Like, we can sweat this out, no problem. No, no, no, this is for reals. When the first couple cons were cancelled, I forget which ones they were, it was like “oh my goodness, that one cancelled! Then that one cancelled, then that one cancelled.” And then after a while it was like now you’re expecting them to be cancelled or go virtual, or something along those lines. So it began with like “oh, this isn’t that big a deal, we’ll figure it out,” to “holy crap, holy crap. Holy crap.” To “okay, where do we pivot to, now? Because clearly this is going to be a bit.” So that was my passthrough of time, for dealing with that when I first heard about it.

Finally the cancellations of March conventions began to roll in and the writing was on the wall. Many of the major anime cons are between July and October and it was becoming increasingly clear that the situation wasn’t going to blow over by then. So organizers had to ask themselves… what now?

Well, turns out the answer was pretty obvious: The internet.

In what’s becoming a theme on this podcast, the first great steps in this brave new world of anime fandom were made by fans. The very first virtual anime convention was a fan run event called Anime Lockdown, a free 3-day convention from May 1st to May 3rd featuring mostly fan-submitted content but which pulled in some special guests, including voice actors Kyle Herbert and Veronica Taylor to hosts Q&As, as well as Discotek and Rightstuf to hold industry panels. DJ Obi-Wan Kenobi held a late night performance on Saturday and the con even featured its own Discord channel and a virtual dealers room and artist alley linking to the sites and social media of private artists. Honestly a pretty complete convention experience, all things considered.

The industry’s been quick to follow but this transition has caused some major discussions among companies that already technically do the things a digital con entails, like releasing hosted video content, watchalong streams, voice actor and staff interviews, online announcement events or, say, putting on an annual livestreamed award show? The question is figuring out how to distinguish a digital con from business as usual.

Sheehan: What’s the difference between an online promotion and a digital event? And it really came down to what we just thought we defined it as, not what everyone in the whole world is definitely decided as seeing, people defining as different things. It’s, if you’re just doing like a one-off, something that just lives in some spot, it’s a promoting one IP, it’s a promotion. If you’re doing a collection of stuff or basically a day of things or it’s a bigger, there’s a lot more tendrils to it, it’s an event. So it really comes down to like, the Anime Awards. That’s a virtual event, because basically it is a wake of multiple, it’s an award show, award shows are considered events. If I’m doing a promotion where I’m doing an interview with Japanese guests about Tower of God, and it’s just that, I would say that’s an online promotion. So it’s really kinda basically the scope, scale, and well quantity we’re putting out there online.

Definitions may vary by company, but they did pivot, with UK-based Anime Limited leading the charge on May 30th with Cloud Matsuri, an online convention with an impressive slate of guests from Studio Orange, Science Saru, and Polygon Pictures. During the convention they also showed off Screen Anime, a hybrid streaming service and film festival with a rotating roster of newly released and premiere anime films and series.

Funimation also announced their first convention of any kind, the digital Funimation Con which happened on 4th of July weekend back to back with Aniplex Online Fest. Each featuring a ton of headline musical guests with Funimation announcing a slate of dub voice actor panels and Aniplex featuring many of their biggest hits from the past few years.

Strangely, these two online events were scheduled during the same weekend that the biggest anime convention in the U.S., Anime Expo, held the free online version of their annual convention, dubbed Anime Expo Lite.

For those hoping this whole thing will blow over later in the year and maybe you can attend some late 2020 conventions in person. Bad news. Otakon will be going digital with Otakon Online and yes even Crunchyroll Expo will also be online this year.

It’s a tough pill to swallow but there are definitely advantages. While we’re missing out on the bustling in-person convention feel and the cosplay you painstakingly constructed will go unseen by all but those who pay for your OnlyFans, digital cons definitely have their advantages… beyond the whole not catching COVID thing.

[Lofi music]

FOMO is entirely nonexistent in 2020. You don’t have to carefully contemplate your vacation days or budgetary concerns to decide which cons you absolutely must attend, only to discover one of your favorite creators is attending a con that didn’t make the cut after you’ve already paid for your plane tickets. There are no plane tickets or hotel reservations whatsoever. While you’re missing out on the cool hotel room parties you’re definitely regularly invited to, not being around people also means dodging that dreaded con stink. Which is a phrase I invented, that is- people smell bad. At cons.

Basically there are trade-offs, but the most important question is: do these new digital conventions provide the same attractions? It goes without saying that conventions are both important to fans and a huge promotional tool for the industry so you can bet event organizers, publishers, licensors, and distributors are all heavily invested in some big solutions right now.

So things are kinda... hectic.

Franklin: I’m still kinda throwing spaghetti against the wall. I still haven’t gotten out of this spaghetti phase yet. Cause we were going to do, just one of the many things at the live event, like a Yuzu cafe that was really a cat adoption cafe. Like, for real. Yeah, figure out like how we do this virtually? And can we have a karaoke room where friends can get together and sing live, like just with their friends? Can we have this, or can we have- and we want games, and we want live DJs, and we want this and that, and so I’m still throwing spaghetti, I’m not past that yet.

Sheehan: Yeah, when we record this, probably at the end of May, and this is going to come up a lot later, the world might be sideways, upside down, and purple. But at the time of this, we’re still definitely in that blue sky world where we look at the team and we just go “here’s all the ideas. Let’s just go, let’s expand as wide as we can.” And then we’ll go “okay, what actually can we do?” We know we can’t do it all, but we basically have to at least look at everything and dream as big as possible, and then go to other companies that are doing this and say “hey, help us with this,” and they go “I can’t do exactly that, but I see what your goal is, and I can do this.” And we go that’s either better than what we were maybe thinking, or damn close and we can grow it to be down the road to be better, with some feedback. So blue sky moments are right now mostly what we’re working on and what we want to do and how we want to grow it. But basically the general junky part which is the “what about this, or what about this?” Basically like with the previous spaghetti reference we’re basically in Italy, going mad.

Conventions aren’t just panels, dealer halls, and getting drunk in hotel rooms. They're cafes, gaming areas, meetups, quiet rooms, screening rooms, artist alleys, a pool full of plushies you can dive into… A lot of little things that all make up the convention experience. The smallest details are being looked at for ways they can be made into a virtual experience, even if it’s just navigating a packed convention center or spotting a cosplay of a character that you like in the hotel lobby.

Sheehan: I thought it was awesome. Lot of love for Fanime around here, clearly. I saw like people basically moved to making groups, chats, and sharing different stuff, obviously. Someone I think created Fanime on an Animal Crossing island, so you basically visit the artists alley room. I know someone in Minecraft who created the hotel for Anime Central. So basically, there’s people out there like, they have this energy and they want us to be their friends and it’s either user created or it’s the convention creating the sets. And like, we probably can’t do much now, but please come and just feel a little bit of this, like this weekend. So we’re seeing them trying to say “we’re sorry, we know it’s not our fault, but we’re sorry that you can’t be here this weekend, but let’s try to do something together special to just remember this weekend, and we cannot wait again to see you until next year.”

Franklin: We want to make ours more like, a little more like feeling like your in a physical event space with friends. Like, we really want to have friends be able to choose to chat with each other so like they can go around the convention with their friends to go to a panel, leave the panel, go to the art show, leave the art show, go back to the panel, you know, do different things. So for us, an event is going to have different aspects, like you would find at a show floor. Like exhibitors in the exhibit hall, artists in the artists alley, panels and screenings and premieres in the theater area. Like that. And how it’s exactly going to look, visually, we’re still working on that. We don’t know.

Discord channels to hang out in and chat with your friends, virtual hotel lobbies made of blocks, and even custom Animal Crossing outfits instead of free posters and those branded drawstring bags. Conventions are undergoing a digital renaissance as organizers deconstruct all the individual elements that make live events so attractive and find new ways to deliver them. It’s tumultuous but to a lot of people on the ground floor it’s also very exciting.

Sheehan: But so the day-to-day has really just been switching also gears from “we are an expert in this, we’ve all done this, we have a great team for this, we’ve been doing this for a long, long time. We know how to do this.” Now we’re getting thrown a huge wrench of things we don’t know that’s changing every day. So as Mary mentioned on research, we’re looking into a lot of stuff where we know how to project manage, which is basically events where project managers would’ve gone to a lot. We could’ve woken up and just been like “the show’s happening, whether we like it or not. Just get it done, one way or another.” We’re basically cool with that, and we have the wonderful teams and people at Crunchyroll as wonderful assets for content for all the things like that. So we’re used to leaning on them to get promotions and pieces. Instead of setting up a photo op in a booth, how do I do something like that on digital is where we’re learning stuff. So a lot of our day-to-day’s been a mix of talking to companies to basically get what we need onboarded properly; research, research, research, which is- harkens back to when we first did CRX, I know I spent at least a year looking at other conventions and saying “what are they doing differently? What do we want to do?” I remember when I first walked into Blizzcon going “AHHH! This has got some cool things here that no one else is doing.” And basically taking some of those ideas of what we wanted to build down to CRX down the road kind of moment. So the data has changed in those areas, at least.

Franklin: Yeah, and we have such a good team. The Events team has been so flexible, they’ve been willing to jump in and research ideas that at first some of them just seemed completely nuts, and now actually, they’re making them happen.

Sheehan: They’re still completely nuts, but doable.

Franklin: Yeah. They’re making them happen.

[Lofi music]

Obviously the most important aspect of any convention, however, is the Japanese guests. Creators and voice actors that worked on our favorite shows coming in to share their thoughts, conduct interviews, and obviously sign a lot of shit. Or even taking a step back from that, how are you gonna stream a celebrity into an event? Ask them to set up a webcam in their living room with their home internet connection? Well, this has struck up some intense back and forth over the Pacific and turns out other countries actually have very good broadband.

Sheehan: From the ones we have been talking so far about this, because you know it’s still early on with talking about this, and we’re going to be talking to a good chunk of them about switching from being physical guests to virtual guests. A lot of them are feeling, because of the situation going on, better. They were worried about travelling over to the States for a multitude of different reasons. And when we said “hey, no, you can stay right there, we’ll bring it to you,” and not only was it the guests, but it was like “oh, wow, that’s great. I feel much safer.” It was also the agencies, the licensors, and everyone else said “I still want a way to promote your brand, can we bring some awesome content to the fans? But basically you can stay right there in the States.” And they were like “oh, cool.” So they care a lot more about getting a lot more details about what you’re thinking about, because they also- luckily enough we’ve worked with a lot of these companies before. They know when we do something it’s like, I don’t know what to expect from Company A, but Crunchyroll’s going to try something that’s really cool or different, I better get some more details. So because of that, basically they’re asking a lot of questions about it. But once we normally answer generally about like “here’s what we’re thinking about like what we should do, here’s how we’re going to pull it off, here’s the tech side of it,” they normally start going “oh, that’s really cool. Okay, cool, let’s keep doing it, let’s keep going.” So overall it’s been relief, then excited.

Franklin: Yeah, and I think we might end up being able to get a bigger variety of guests because, like you know say we’re talking to a studio about a new show. And maybe all we can afford to bring over like with all the travel and everything is maybe like two voice actors and an artist, which I mean is great, but now like we have the option of you know maybe we can talk to more voice actors, director, more artists! We have actually the ability to maybe get more people involved from each studio, which I think could really add to the programming. Maybe in the future, too, like you think about when we go back to live events and we bring over two or three of the cast and crew from a show, and they can be joined virtually by some other people for a panel. That’s something that maybe could work well.

Sheehan: Yeah, yeah, I think this is basically in a good way, I think that technology is going to- high tides raise all ships kind of thing where basically it’s going to be a certain we get used to and then they’re going to start demanding some aspect of virtual like that, too. I’m not sure if they’re quite going to be like “and here’s a hologram of Hayao Miyazaki, basically hi-fiving Tim” before that, quite yet, but I mean there might be some kind of element basically ties Tim in, too. And it’s funny how fast this has come along. I can’t- I think it was only two years ago, or maybe three, max, basically ComicCon they were like, they had to bring in Steven Spielberg, who was on set somewhere in the desert. So Hall H at San Diego ComicCon, live video between the two. And it was like the biggest news, like they got Speilberg, but he’s not really in the building. And I’m like, and that’s not 2005, I’m talking like 2017 or 2018, and it’s like, now they’re like “yeah, of course you did, that’s just what you do.” I’m doing that right now, just- it’s not that hard. But it’s amazing with how fast we’re growing the tech and what expectations of it are now. So I expect and I think we can expect this is that this is just going to be a part of the- the good part of the new normal.

Franklin: We did a live Q&A with Hayden Christensen for Star Wars Episode II or III, I can’t remember, he wasn’t there. I think it was Episode II. And- cause that was a long time ago, that was 2002. And so we had people in the audience asking questions and had him remote on set somewhere, and I just remember the tremendous amount of work we had to do for that at that time. I mean, that was just, that was such a major undertaking to make that work live. And I think that he was in Australia, actually, shooting. And it was just huge, and now it’s just all ready, it’s just, still evolving, but it’s already so much simpler.

Some growing pains are inevitable, but in the present we might be able to look forward to an even greater diversity of guests without the cost and effort of putting everyone on two 12-hour flights. Plus, I dunno about you, but a lot of them are probably looking at more free time than they’re used to having, leaving them with some room to jump on a Zoom call for a couple of hours.

One day it may be safe to stand less than six feet away from another human being. Who knows? But the work that’s being done right now could revolutionize the way we do conventions in the long term. Cause If we’ve learned anything in the past few months, it’s that we are all way more accessible than we thought we were, so the thought of having a guest call in from 5,300 miles away and then streaming that panel to viewers in space or wherever the fuck doesn’t seem so farfetched. I am recording this podcast on Zoom.

Franklin: Another good part of this is that when we go back to physical events, which I believe we will, because people like to get together, when we go back we’re going to have new tools that we didn’t have before. And we’re going to be able to combine them with live events and reach more people around the world, which that’s a good thing. And I’ve said it to the team, we should probably have been looking into these things before this [Chuckling], but it’s making us- it’s making us do it now, so we’ve ramped the game up.

Sheehan: Yeah, looking at the upside of all this and seeing the situation that’s going on in the world is that basically we are all, events and beyond, being forced to do things and think of things that we’re like “I’ll put that off ‘til later.” There is no “later,” there is only now. And because of that, basically I think that I think that when events come back, are going to be stronger because of the virtual ones. But the hunger for the virtual ones will not go away, because I remember seeing many surveys over the years asking people, not at conventions, just asking people through surveys out there like “how would you love to be at a convention?” And like 80, 90% of them were. “How many people basically have ever been to a convention, or had access to a convention?” It’s like 20%. So there’s a gap. So basically with the excitement, we’re going to figure out making a virtual Crunchyroll Expo and virtual events in other areas, because you really sell folks on the point of this is to add to the physical events in the future, because not all will be able to say “hey, we actually have some things you can interact with, maybe like AR-style,” or whatever it’s going to be in the future. Basically actually going to a physical event. But also if you can’t be here, you can still be here. And that’s what it really comes down to is we love connecting the fans definitely face-to-face, but if you can’t be here and just want to connect somehow, I think everything’s going to ramp up now to be more [so] virtual feels less like a screen, and more like actual conversation or a connection. Because we’re going to be training ourselves to be doing that over this coming times.

Conventions going digital means that not only can corporations like Viz continue selling their products, but attendees also don’t have to make a huge financial investment just to get into a physical space where, for lack of a better phrase, they get to shop. Conventions are shopping. Technology helps level the playing field both financially and physically so, especially in a time when people are more acutely aware of the pitfalls of capitalism as an economic system, the move to digital means that within this dual economic structure, everybody can benefit. So it’s positive. I did it! It’s done.

So sit tight with a slightly more relaxed convention season in 2020 and look forward to what new things 2021 will have to show us. In the meantime, stay safe and wear your goddamn mask… I don’t know what else to tell you.

[Lofi music]

Thanks for Listening to Anime in America presented by Crunchyroll. If you enjoyed this, please rate us and share this podcast with a friend. Also check out CrunchyrollExpo.com to learn more about Virtual CRX happening September 4-6.

Special thanks to Mary Franklin and Adam Sheehan for giving us their insights.

This episode is hosted by me, Yedoye Travis and you can find me on Instagram at ProfessorDoye, and Twitter @YedoyeOT, if you want. Researched and written by me and Peter Fobian, edited by Chris Lightbody, and produced by me, Braith Miller, Peter Fobian, and Jesse Gouldsbury.

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