Saw a take somewhere about Gunn’s DCU that I heavily agree with, though I can’t find it right now.
Essentially, it argued that Warner’s announcing of movies and their vibes, premises, and slate before they even have directors and screenwriters attached does more harm than good. At best it’ll be a hollow imitation of the marvel formula in an already oversaturated market, and at worst, it’ll take the worst excesses of the recent Marvel flicks and create flops that can’t properly get the franchise off the ground when it’s most critical.
Look closely at what Warner does well, critically and commercially in the post-pandemic world. It’s not the halfhearted attempts to conjure a cinematic universes out of IPs like the Wizarding World or the ill-fated DCEU. It’s films led by directors who are deeply passionate about the source material like Dune (2021) and The Batman (2022) who have been largely liberated from the need to adhere to studio expectations about franchise building.
On the Gunn/Safran/DCU side of things, you have movies whose loglines and themes and iconography are already publicly known years before they’ll have directors attached in an attempt to generate hype. You’ll have a studio (one that believes AI to be interchangeable with flesh-and-blood writers) inclined towards adherence to a top-down generation of creative ideas as opposed to artists injecting their own unique ambitions - however untested they might be - into the franchise. This isn’t a problem for Gunn’s Superman flick because he’s in charge of that, and clearly he has an idea of where he wants to go with it, but it *is* a problem for the legions of qualified directors and writers who are itching to write a Batman film, but are confined to a premise that has been dictated by CEO Gunn from the beginning. You can kiss out there ideas like “what if we do Kurt Cobain Batman” goodbye. It’s a surefire recipe for homogeneity and conformity; a creative architecture that encourages archetypal tentpole manufacturing in a landscape already littered with failed cinematic universes. This doesn’t mean you won’t make great movies; it means you will produce enough average or unremarkable projects that you cannot hope to play catch up with competition that itself is flailing for the same reasons. It means that you will devalue the goodwill and prestige of intellectual properties that have the potential to be recognized as exceptional, because you will produce so much average. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don’t think it’s going to be the Peacemaker guy who does it.
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DP x DC Prompt
…
There are no more heroes.
Well, okay. Rewind a bit.
Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)
The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.
And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.
Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?
Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.
So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.
There are no more heroes.
Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.
Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.
Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)
In other words:
Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.
Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.
(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)
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hi....scrapped wip again. im rlly not built for color. yap incoming
sorry my productivity tanked my 7 year old laptop is nearing its final breath and im just stalling buying a new one as long as possible to not violate the boycott but she (laptop) is making this shit DIFFICULT
im gnna be so honest w yall i havent had the drive to do shit all lately like. i need dopamine kicks to function but nothings working for some reason ??? i bought a jjk book and i fucking love jjk so i should be excited but im ??? not????? fucked up how that works
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Genuinely RIP to Captain Jack Harkness and I am NOT being a hater. But it's very funny to me that it took him over a century to find The Doctor again while Donna was like "yeah lmao it took less than 2 years". I know part of it was The Grand Machinations of the Universe but truly I believe part of it was a: that's she just better at knowing where to look and b: The Doctor is overall MUCH less avoidant of her. Actively seeks out having her in their life even.
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i really dont get when ppl are like "liberals need to stop pressuring ppl to vote bc the liberal president is literally doing [x terrible thing]" and its like. yeah? all presidents are going to be fucked up pretty much. but do you want one thats doing some good things and some really bad, or ONLY extremely bad things????
when theres been studies that if all younger of-age people voted this place would be WAY more liberal than it is, i think theres only GOOD that can come out of encouraging more ppl to vote, and consistently. NOT disillusioning them early on and making them feel like nothing fucking matters (esp when you list no alternatives to voting for trying to change things)
it doesnt mean everythings gonna be all fucking sunshine and rainbows just bc theres a democrat president. but if we keep on the trend of liberalism we can get SOME progress done in this godawful country
if the current liberal president is doing shit you dont like. BE LOUD ABOUT IT. LET POLITICIANS KNOW YOU WANT PEOPLE EVEN MORE LIBERAL. AND BE LOUD ABOUT WHAT YOU DO LIKE. SHOW WHAT YOU WILL AND WONT ACCEPT.
THIS SHIT IS A GRADUAL PROCESS AND WE WILL GET INCREASINGLY BETTER PRESIDENTS IF YOU JUST LET US GET OUT OF THE RED HELL THAT IS THIS WHOLE COUNTRY
like holy shit, what would yall have rather TRUMP stayed in office ??????
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"Talia can never be redeemed and her romance with Bruce can never come back because *falls for Grant Morrison's/DC's extreme racism towards asian and arab characters in the 2000s/2010s"
Yeah, sorry, but shut the hell up. It never fails to astound me when DC actually tries to fix the mistakes they made with Talia/the al Ghuls in general these last two decades and the fans manage to be even worse than DC by clinging to the blatant racist/sexist writing of the past instead of embracing the turn for the better.
"But she did this and that!"
She's a fictional character in a fictional universe that is aware that it goes through continuity changes/retcons. What Grant Morrison did to her character was a a complete retcon of her 30 year history and characterization with zero respect for her. Why am I supposed to take Morrison's bullshit as gospel and reject any attempts to fix her from writers who know better?
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