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lizardsfromspace · 2 years

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Miss that period from like the 1990s to the mid 2000s where every year there'd be two high-profile films with the exact same premise. Like, not a rip-off made after the fact, but two or more similar films made and released around the same time, with one clearly made to counter the other, but with it often unclear which was the original or if there was an original or just cinematic convergent evolution

Like, you had 1997's two volcano movies, Dante's Peak and Volcano, with the former taking a much more serious/accurate-ish tone than the other, a pattern repeated by 1998's asteroid movies Armageddon and Deep Impact. 1997 also had two movies where one guy on a hijacked plane must take it back (Air Force One & Con Air) and two movies about the youth of the 14th Dalai Lama (Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet). Why? Who knows! 1995 had two talking pig movies, Gordy and Babe, but in that case Gordy was actually made in 1994 and dumped into theaters to cash in on Babe.

The 2000s brought us 2006, the year of two magician movies (The Illusionist & The Prestige), two Truman Capote-writes-In Cold Blood movies (Capote & Infamous), and two classic Hollywood noirs based on infamous deaths movies (The Black Dahlia & Hollywoodland). And then, the trend seemed to die off, with maybe the last gasp 2009's "metaphor aliens revolt" duology of Avatar & District 9.

Sometimes this clearly represented a broader trend. EDtv was The Truman Show but worse, but there was a big wave of "reality is not what it seems" movies of the late 90s, from Dark City to those two to The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, and eXistenZ. Something was going on there

This was big in animation and for a while Dreamworks would make a copy of Disney/Pixar's next film out of spite. You had the two ant movies of 1998, A Bug's Life & Antz, the two Mesoamerican comedies of 2000, The Emperor's New Groove & The Road to El Dorado, the two fish movies of 2003-2004, Finding Nemo & Shark Tale. Then there's the absolute golden age of this trend, the "these two endangered animals MUST FUCK" genre of 2010-2011, where Alpha and Omega and Rio proved strong enough to kill off Pixar's endangered animal fuck fest movie, Newt.

The peak moment for this whole thing, though, was March 1990, where two films about a dance craze called the Lambada (in the US, it was a mostly manufactured attempt at a craze, and by then people were already questioning its true reach; it was a huge hit in Europe but never hit the top 40 in America - or even the top 20 dance songs) came out on the same day

#long post #movies #film #tv tropes has a page for this but as is the norm with that site people have filled it with useless examples #and broadened its scope to list all films in conflict with each other?#another odd one I couldn't fit in here is that the Goodfellas guy had TWO movies made about him in 1990 #one of which was a comedy #but the writer of that film was married to the writer of the book about him so they shared research #hence why

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thenightling · 3 years

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My opinion on some of the Netflix Sandman rumors

We fans don’t have much in the way of substantial news about The Sandman Netflix series. All we have are rumors and gossip. I have compiled some of the rumors here along with my opinions on those rumors. Consider this a disclaimer. I am only a fan. I do not have any inside info. All the rumors here are ones that can easily be found on various sites online. Now to begin...

Rumor: Morpheus will be captured in 1916 but will not escape until present day.

This rumor has been confirmed true by Neil Gaiman on his Tumblr account and other Social media websites. In my opinion this was wise because it enables Morpheus’ capture to continue to overlap with the real-world sleeping sickness outbreak of Encephalitis Lethargica.

Rumor: Michael Sheen is playing Lucifer.

This rumor was debunked months ago by Neil Gaiman but I surmised that the one who started the rumor had found out he was playing Lucifer for The Sandman audio drama and had gotten confused. I was right. I DO however suspect Michael Sheen and possibly David Tennant will have roles in The Sandman Netflix series, just not the same role Michael Sheen had in the audio drama.

My Opinion: I’m all for Michael Sheen having a role in The Sandman Netflix series. Him and David Tennant.

Rumor: Doug Jones is going to be in The Sandman as a supporting character.

This rumor comes from two clues. The first being that Neil Gaiman has spoken about his like of Doug Jones and Guillermo Del Toro almost did a Sandman adaptation with Doug as Morpheus. Doug Jones even brought this up recently, which suggests that the subject might be on mind.

My opinion: Doug is an excellent character actor and I want this to be true. He should be in Sandman. I love Doug. And there are plenty of characters he could play. Lucien, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Doctor Destiny, various nightmares.

Rumor: Liam Hemsworth or Dacre Montgomery will play The Corinthian.

Opinion: I like Liam Hemsworth. He deserves a shot but Dacre is also good.

Rumor: Tom Sturridge is playing Morpheus.

Opinion: I am 90% sure this rumor is true. There are a number of sources claiming the same thing. Also just google how the man looks. I think he’ll do a fine job. I thought Oliver Farnworth would have been excellent too but I’m sure Tom Sturridge would be fine.

Rumor: The Netflix Sandman series will see Dream take many forms including a female form.

Opinion: This isn’t really new. We saw Dream’s feminine side in Overture. If it bothers you to see Morpheus might have a feminine side, you probably shouldn’t be watching something like Sandman anyway.

Rumor: Death will be played by a black woman.

The source of this rumor comes from Neil Gaiman saying something about loving the actress chosen for Death but feeling some people will complain.

Opinion: ...So? She’s an Endless. She can look any way she wants. I would have liked to have seen Jamie Chung in the role though. She voiced her for the Death short that accompanied the Wonder Woman: Bloodlines Blu Ray.

Rumor: Morpheus’ extended capture will effect his reunion with Hob.

My opinion: Uhhhh Duh.

Honestly though this makes me VERY curious as to how their reunion will play out. I hope it is just as sweet as the comic.

Rumor: The Corinthian will appear fairly early in the series and even advise Roderick Burgess how best to contain Morpheus.

Opinion: Well, according to the leaked Corinthian audition this is true. I don’t mind it at all. It makes sense. It fits.

Rumor: Alexander Burgess’ story is now more sympathetic and he as well as his father will age slower because of Morpheus’ capture.

Opinion: This seems likely based on certain leaks. And I kind of hope this means Morpheus will be able to punish Roderick and not Alex.

Rumor: Alex will now have an older brother who died during World War 1, a brother that Roderick preferred, and he takes out his grief on Alex in abusive ways. it also gives Roderick a new motivation for wanting to capture Death.

Opinion: This is likely true based on certain leaks from last February. I have mixed feelings about this because sometimes parents are just assholes. They don’t need a tragic loss to set off their abusive behavior. It also made Roderick worse (in the comics) that he treated his only (known) son the way he did. It’s been recently established in the comics that John Dee was actually Alex’s half-brother. I guess it all depends on how this is done.

I also don’t think Roderick needs to be grief stricken in order to want to control Death. This is a cliché, a cliché we saw in Disney’s Gargoyles and even in Hercules and Xena. Someone loses someone they love and tries to capture Death in order to bring them back. Roderick doesn’t need this trope. He was an occultist who wanted to be a big shot in the world of early twentieth century magick users. In my opinion that should be enough but I’ll keep an open mind.

Rumor: They were supposed to start filming in May but it was delayed to late October because of Covid.

This one is true.

Opinion: Hurry up!

Rumor: Roderick Burgess has no real magick in the show.

Opinion: Sadly this is likely true based on a character description leak from the casting call. I shall miss seeing Sykes’ head explode... Honestly I kind of hope this is wrong. I’m tired of magick being diminished in comic book TV and film.

Rumor: The first season of Sandman will combine Preludes and Nocturnes with The Doll’s House.

Opinion: This is likely true. I’m fine with it. It might flow better for TV this way.

Rumor: The “A game of you” storyline will have trans people writing.

Opinion: This makes sense And this is pretty much already confirmed true.

Rumor: The Netflix show will have the same cast as the audio drama.

Opinion: Though I would not mind this, I know it is not true. This is likely the result of an IMDB listing for the audio drama mistakenly calling it a show and some fans mistaking that IMDB page as being the one for the Netflix series.

Rumor: The Netflix Sandman series is canceled and the audio drama is all we’re getting.

This rumor is absolutely false! It’s a stupid rumor made by those who had no idea the audio drama was happening before the pandemic even hit. The audio drama is not compensation because there will not be a Netflix show. Both will exist.

Opinion: Shame on those leaping to this conclusion and spreading it as fact.

Rumor: A character named “Ann” is being cast and she’ll be a major recurring character.

Opinion: I’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s how you hide what character they are trying to cast. Clearly this is a major female character for the show and probably was a name used as a place holder for Death of The Endless or even Rose Walker. I’m not too concerned about this. Some fans are upset and already raging that they’re making up a new character just for the show, ala Chloe Decker in Lucifer. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about here.

Rumor: Tom Ellis will not be playing Lucifer.

Opinion: Tom Ellis has wanted to move on from Lucifer for a while. He wants season six of Lucifer to be its last. Let him move on. Neil Gaiman also wants his Lucifer to be different from the Lucifer TV show version. The Lucifer TV series deviated heavily from the comics and it might confuse people with the big differences in lore. It is probably for the best that Tom Ellis not play Lucifer.

Rumor: The Sandman is why Lucifer is being canceled.

Opinion: No. Lucifer has been canceled three times now. In fact the first time it was canceled The Sandman TV series had not been picked up by Netflix yet. Lucifer has had six seasons. For a paranormal police procedural that’s a good, long, run. Not everything can be Supernatural. Forever Knight (and most shows of that type) only had three seasons. Lucifer out lived the norm for its type of show and survived two cancelations. Let it go. Do not blame Sandman. The Sandman is what gave us Lucifer, not took it away. The Sandman is where the story of Lucifer quitting, opening Lux, and taking up piano came from.

Rumor: The Sandman is the most expensive show DC has ever made.

According to Variety this is true.

Opinion: It probably has to be expensive. Look at all the stuff they need to show us, the sets and special effects needed.

Rumor: Lucien might be played by a woman.

Apparently this rumor started because some of the Morpheus auditioners let slip that they auditioned with a woman as Lucien.

Opinion: I’m not sure how I feel about this. I love the character of Lucien. A a woman version might take a little getting used to. I don’t hate the idea, I just prefer how he appears in canon. Further note, I kind of hope he has a full head of hair like he does in the recent comics. There is a very high chance she was just reading his lines since at the time the role being cast was Morpheus, not Lucien.

Rumor: The Sandman could air as early as Summer of 2021.

Opinion: *Insert bitter laugh here.* I wish...

Rumor: Alexander Burgess is gay.

Opinion: And in other news water is wet!

Rumor: Desire will be played by someone who identifies as Genderfluid or nonbinary.

Opinion: This is very likely true.

#The Sandman

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cometcalloway · 3 years

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I see that meme on the dash, & I don’t know of 5 tv tropes off the top of my head, but I know Sparrow fits the one for Apocalypse Maiden [xxx]

When The Hero is in charge of preventing The End of the World as We Know It, imagine their surprise when they find out the threat comes not from some Evil Overlord, but from one of their friends or family destined to bring about the end of the world. The reasons for this can vary.

Maybe they have inherited a form of Enemy Within or Superpowered Evil Side capable of destroying worlds, or have been possessed by an Eldritch Abomination. Most heart wrenchingly, they are completely innocent yet their mere existence acts as a Butterfly of Doom that can destroy the Cosmic Keystone. Either way, they're going to somehow bring about the apocalypse in some form Because Destiny Says So.

negativity tw below the cut, thoughts on pop culture

I actually don’t vibe with that site all that much (no shade to anyone who does) because it’s about pop culture, and I’m here to do a different thing. It’s just about impossible to write dignified and realistic stories about trauma within pop culture without ending up in territory like the Lovable Coward Trope [xxx]. This describes my Kafei muse pretty well when some kind of action movie scenario comes along, but I can’t use the trope as a thing that describes him because it’s just not very flattering! And being antsy around literal violent combat situations is literally the norm, not some kind of comedy moment or incompleteness!! There’s an assumption that snuck in somewhere with this framing, that a story must be an adventure with violent combat situations, and that the most noble/dignified/rational/admirable/mature characters in the story must be the ones who feel at home with that. This isn’t wrong for specific stories (& ‘fighting and beating the bad guy’ is a wonderful metaphor for personal growth of any kind). But it’s incredibly bizarre as a metric for every story. So many legitimate perspectives a real person might have can become forced into side character material or “before picture” material in a pop culture story.

I remember a plot event in that N.etflix S.he-Ra cartoon where a character willingly dies for the cause because they reflected on the way they were handling situations and realized that they hadn’t been brave enough. They conclude that this means their life couldn’t possibly be worth as much as another character’s life, so the best thing for everyone would be for them to go out in self sacrifice so the braver character can live and go out and do more in the world than they ever could. Like, that’s a horrifying implication of the show’s “let’s learn to be brave!” energy!! Like, hey kids, if you don’t learn to be brave, we can’t have that around here... you literally deserve to live less than other people deserve to live... go ask your friend with a scary home life why she doesn’t just realize that she can be brave and then go do something about it... the sort of emotional meritocracy just does not vibe. Everybody is already maximally worthy, and any personal growth or whatever is extra.

The T.win P.rinces from D.ark S.ouls (a franchise with a large fanbase, definitely not an indie game not many people have heard of) are noticeably absent from the tv tropes page for Apocalypse Maiden. L.othric does not occupy the pop culture sphere as a friend and neighbor the hero unfortunately has to consider murdering, but only because it’s the only way to save the world. How did he lose his innocence in the eyes of the jury, when he committed no crime besides setting a boundary about who may or may not take his life? Was he not kind and sweet and convenient to the character in the coveted role of Hero? Was he supposed to act like a conflicted and agitated victim instead of choosing himself with steely-eyed resolve? Did his very humanity and worth depend on being more declawed and less certain and comfortable in his own identity and needs? Can he not be the hero in his own story, from his own side of things, can the clashing perspectives not be relative and equal, because his perspective does not meet ‘hero’ criteria?

I dunno, man. I grew up on pop culture & I look for a much different relationship with it now. I need to see it as a very specific thing, with its own merits and limitations, and not the craft of storytelling itself. My issue is less with pop culture in of itself, and more with this kind of sneaky built in assumption that it’s how to tell every story that it took me a while to really notice. I definitely come at rp writing as a creative writing hobby that isn’t specifically a pop culture/fandom hobby. (No comments worded like education or advice, please!)

#this feeds into the difficulty of sometimes catching myself presenting my muse as a sort of funney trope #when I actually would like people to treat them as equals on the same level as other characters #or very well-meaning people sometimes interpreting my muses as trope-ish & assuming it's how I want them to react #nothing that happened recently dw dw but something that's happened in the past (& isn't diabolical on anyone's part ofc)#the tropes can be so!! hungry!!!!

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veridium · 4 years

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dragon age day

I know today might be a bit overwhelming for the fandom since it is, of course, the day (the day of all days). When I thought about what I wanted to contribute, if anything, I could only think of saying thanks. As I am in the midst of finals and grading assignments, I don’t have many spoons to spare, except to reiterate what I have said so many times before: dragon age has provided me with so many blessings.

CW: discussion of toxic relationship, emotional abuse.

Some of you know that around the time I joined the fandom in 2018 (after having only played Inquisition for several months beforehand), I was in the midst of an incredibly toxic, emotionally abusive, and failing relationship. I had just graduated college and was at a crossroads. Because the relationship was the longest and most serious I had ever known I was incredibly attached to it, even as it became detrimental to my happiness. We were planning on getting engaged this past summer. Our entire lives were planned and I was in it for the long haul.

Earlier that year my ex had gifted me Inquisition after I kept seeing it in GameStop and saying I had always wanted to try it. I played it once, got infuriated by the Hinterlands, and put it down for a long time. Around the time I finished undergrad I decided to give it another try, and quickly became hooked. I would spend hours and hours in front of the TV learning by trial and error how to play. My ex was the more prolific gamer but that quickly started to change.

That wasn’t the only shift that was happening.

One of the symptoms of my ex’s and her family’s toxicity and its impact on me was that I had become incredibly detached from art. I have been artistic since I was strong enough to hold a crayon in my hand. My family swore for years I’d be an artist, or an actress. But I have learned that, what all-too-often happens when you choose to love something that doesn’t love you the way you deserve in return, you lose touch with all the things that remind you of why you’re so worthy of a great love. You don’t invest in it, you don’t nourish it, because it becomes all about preserving this person in your life and what you believe they bring to it. When things turn dark the natural inclination is to sacrifice more in order to save it: to prove that you can be as loyal as your promised.

A year later and I am still unpacking the trauma that was inflicted upon me during that time of my life, trauma I didn’t know by name as it was happening because I had given my all to someone I loved and the future we wanted. But not everything was rosey and blissful, and I am reflecting upon that. I think back to what finally woke me up, and it’s quite literally this: I turned into a huge, enthusiastic, and clumsy nerd.

Playing a game with such a vivid world took what was perhaps one of the last surviving matchsticks there was, lighting it, and dropping it on me. My imagination consumed Thedas like water after a 40-year drought. I began theorizing characters, researching the prior games, and scrolling through the wiki site hunting for lore. I realized the universe was so much bigger than what Inquisition represented.

Then, I bought the first sketchbook I had in over a year.

My characters became my muse, and over time, their portraits grew into stories. I looked up Tumblr and rejoined specifically to engage with the fandom and see what sharing my love with other people could do for my creativity. Even though art and writing were lifelong passions of mine, I had no intention whatsoever of writing fanfiction until I read other people’s work, saw the fun they were having with it and what it was doing for their healing, and I decided to go out on a limb.

The more stories I wrote the more I remembered my marrow: I was so much more than what my relationship, and my partner’s family, warped me into seeing. My original characters started out as projections of the qualities and traits I loved and missed about myself, as well as love letters to the women and queer people in my life. And in the canon characters I grew attached to I saw hope and inspiration for surviving adversities. Tests of faith, conviction, and courage under pressure. In their stories I found refuge and reliability for a terrible era of my life where I felt so completely alone.

As I gave more and more time to my passions, my relationship strained even further than it had. I was no longer hopelessly devoted to its endurance, I had something that was purely mine again, and my partner’s encouragement waned. It turned into jealousy -- for this and many other parts of my life I used as an escape from the sadness -- and rather than bend as I had done before, I pushed back. I protected what was my own and I did not sacrifice it. To be fair it wasn’t always healthy: I would log hours and hours into the game to escape the stress of the relationship, to distract myself from the fact that my mental health was the lowest and frailest it had been in years, and the cold, hard truth: it was over, or else I was going to commit my life to something terrible.

Months later, I said enough. I ended the relationship once and for all. I was moving my life out of an apartment I had lived in for years, saying goodbye to everything I had fought so hard to build. In your early 20s everything feels like a vast unknown and you have a manual with no writing on its pages. Every serious decision feels like invoking a storm you have to hunker down in. I still deal with that, and am learning from it with every new season. I have also learned that sometimes destruction, and creative recklessness, is about so much more than loss. I had given up security I was paying for with my emotional well-being.

But I kept me, and my sketchbooks, and my art supplies, and my stories. I had my cat, too, but you know, technicalities (haha).

So, for as imperfect as my fandom experience has been, and for as grumpy as I have become with society’s bullshit (which is quite the high level), I will always be grateful to these games for existing. For giving me something to hold onto when my life was falling apart, a world I could slip away to when I wasn’t ready to face the evils in my own. Because when I was finally ready, and willing to be my own warrior, my imagination was ready to make something out of nothing. These games and this universe helped me save myself.

Thank you to Dragon Age, to the fandom community I have made in its name, and to everyone who makes it worthwhile. But it wouldn’t be me without saying: fuck off to every single bullshit game writer who used its medium to perpetuate harmful tropes and norms, fuck off to fandom racists and racist apologists, to queerphobes who hated my meta on account of it using the word queer even though it was my explicit voice as a queer creative on queer issues (did I forget to say queer? queer!), to Vivienne haters, sexist gamer bros, fetishists; but explicitly to romanticizers of unhealthy power dynamics between couples and friends alike. These horror stories (yes, horror stories) exist enough in real life, take it from me. We don’t need them made into romanticized, co-opted, and misused fictions here.

The reason why I and so many others write for this universe, and participate creatively, is to combat these influences. With our own blood, sweat, and tears as artists, might I add. I am so, so proud to be included in that community.

So, happy Dragon Age Day, ya’ll. Let us keep warm on this, our trash can fire.

#dragon age day #DALoveDay #dragon age #fandom love #fandom positivity

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