atlasofremembrance

[atlasofremembrance]

a dangerous criminal

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So, this actually adapts a plotline I was planning for my fanfiction opera magna, a fusion of early 2010s Marvel Comics status quo and Worm, but it can also be done without the fusion element: merely change the actual magical reality warping into a shared consciousness illusion.

Something something Infinite Tsukuyomi, some might say.

Anyway, it's Amy that does it. Of course it is, she's the one that goes through a similar arc as Wanda, a transformation into a villain through being a victim. There's even the potential reality where they mind control a blond love interest, too.

So, Amy plugs everyone she knows into the fleshy Matrix or something along those lines. What's the world inside the shared dream, shaped by the subconscious of say... All of the Brockton heroes plus maybe a few more people caught up in it that are secretly dastardly villains because all heroes would be boring.

Of course, Victoria is the center, this kind of an House of D scenario, one might say. And one thing all the House of M background tie-ins did was basically illustrating how that world was close to a For Want of A Nail scenario. So, maybe it's some sort of Noblebright version of Earth Bet where people did, in fact, get powers because they're nice, good, triumphant and righteous.

That's how it happened for all of New Wave in fact. No trauma to be seen! Nobody was ever kidnapped or shot or anything of the sort.

No, that's what happens to bad guys, with ugly powers. And Amy? Why, she's got no power at all.

If I had to pick a protagonist, the first to "wake"... It might be Alec? Either him or Aisha. Not only do they have excuses for it (fucked up emotions, Stranger power she has to suppress), but they would actually have interesting reactions to being held in Amy's Lotus-Eater machine.

Of course we need a penultimate-issue twist. Maybe the real culprit was a hidden Master that was swept along when his order backfired? Maybe the real architect of the Cape Instrumentality Project was Carol Dallon from the beginning? Who knows.

So for those of you who don't read twenty-year-old marvel comics a lot, the 2005 Marvel Crisis Crossover was called House of M. The basic premise of this was that this was smack dab in the middle of the Scarlet-Witch-is-Having-a-Normal-one arc that was very, very loosely adapted into Wandavision; in her initial breakdown, she'd killed several of the Avengers, wound up in the protective custody of Magneto, and the recently reformed team was debating whether or not they were going to have to kill her before she deleted reality on accident or some such thing. But when they're on their way to Magneto's stronghold to have a "talk" with her, the world is enveloped in white, and Wolverine (the initial POV character) wakes up in a world where Mutants are 98% of the human population and have been for decades, and Magneto and his family (the titular House of M) are leaders of the global political order, and Wolverine is one of the only people in this realigned world who remembers that it was ever different.

Wolverine initially is operating under the assumption that Magneto cajoled Wanda into rewriting reality in his family's favor, but after rounding up and waking up several of his allies, he realizes that what actually happened is that Wanda rewrote reality so that everyone she knew would get everything they wanted- Magneto being in charge with a 98 percent global mutation rate is just the inevitable byproduct of that. The resulting world is an amalgamation that has to accommodate the conscious or subconscious "perfect life" of every superhero on earth, in a way that acts as a fascinating characterization tool, often with a monkey's-paw angle. Spider-Man is a beloved celebrity wrestler, and Uncle Ben and Gwen are both alive, but he attained that status by pretending to be a Mutant and he lives in constant fear of being exposed. Mystique, Rogue, Nightcrawler and several of their associates are the tight-knit family unit they were always kept from being.... as the elite jackboot of Magneto's regime. Luke Cage and Hawkeye lead the human resistance, standing in perpetual principled opposition to the powers that be, but with no real hope of accomplishing anything. Captain America didn't lose years of his life to the ice, but he had to live through a global authoritarian takeover he ultimately couldn't do anything about. Wolverine gets to remember his entire life, but that includes remembering that his current ideal circumstances were manufactured to keep him placated. And on and on and on. Lot of really interesting character takes packed up in there, paired with the equally interesting project of packing as many of them as possible into the same timeline without contradicting each other- after all, from the word go you have to contort everyone's happiness around the basic conceit that Magneto rules the world.

Anyway. House of M AU for Worm. Discuss.

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It might actually just be a way to diegetically explain how the Class Score system works, or rather how Ritsuka explores new facets of it.

After every Ordeal Call, the Class Score boards related to Extra I (Avenger/Ruler/MoonCancer) and Extra II (Foreigner/AlterEgo/Pretender) have opened up. However, when you actually enter the boards, you witness first the Alter Ego and then the Avenger symbol lit up, but not those of the other classes they share a board with.

So, my interpretation is that each Ordeal Call (and maybe some Events?) is needed for him to viscerally understand an Extra Class so the Class Score can open up the way to Chaldea.

Is it just me, or are the Ordeal Calls turning Ritsuka into an Extra Class servant?

In Paper Moon, Sion confirmed at the end that Ritsuka in the Paper Moon was actually an Alter Ego as well. Thought of what she wasn't sure. But I noticed that they seemed to not be able to turn away from the wrongs of the world and try to fix them.

Now in ID, they're pretty much going all Avenger . They pretty much have all the Avenger theme and parallel going on. Almost become one too until they pull off because they couldn't go through with forsaking saving people for the sake of their revenge.

Now it's probably only Ruler class left of ordeal call.

On a side note, wouldn't it be cool if in the Grand Final Battle, like the very last battle of FGO, it would be Ritsuka themselves fighting Solo? With the fighting spirit and everything? Maybe calling Shadows Servants of their closest bound ala Shimosa Manga Style. With their class changing with each Ordeal Call Spirit Origin(Alter Ego, Avenger, Ruler) to match with the Enemy and Situation.

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This Wednesday, a special called Web of Spider-Man came out. A 55-page containing rapid-fire previews about upcoming stories.

Now, while you're still feeling from the godawful *Spider-Gwen: The Ghost-Spider* title, let me tell you how bloody messy this is.

First of all, the only reason these stories can be grouped together at all is who edits them: the Spider-Woman book and the Miles Morales are fairly divorced from every other story here, while the (sigh) Spider-Gwen story is kind of tangentially linked with the "Spider-Society" (aka Gwen Stacy in a Goblin costume beats up Miguel O'Hara - and we don't even know which Miguel this is) one.

The Chasm and Kaine stories are actually one and the same, but following different characters, so it might share an unannounced book, but I have low hopes for it, and if it does appear, the threat of more Greg Land art does make me recoil.

Spectacular Spider-Men is a prequel to a book that is already out and might have its own continuity.

The ASM beats are just the Tombstone plot overstaying its welcome a bit more and more hints that Norman Osborn is eeeeeevil once more (oh noes! Marvel being unable to keep any kind of positive change? I never saw this coming!).

The only positive was more of Cody Ziglar's Miles Morales and the return of Freak, one my favorite Spider-Man villains made after OMD. Unfortunately, even the Spider-Woman book has been hit by the spirit of evil editorial as they Jon Kent'ed his baby into a Nazi called Green Mamba

Man the Spider-Man books suck so much shit right now

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Wait, are they going to ignore developments in the Flash book again!? Jai decides he does not want to be a superhero and DC starts thinking of putting him in a team book? Like, are writers not reading the books actually being printed any more? The exact same thing happened with Donna and Garth's kids!

It's likely that upcoming Steph book is either Teen Titans or Young Justice considering that the West twins were also recently revealed for it, plus there was some Damian artwork from a while back that Travis Mercer was also working on.

Very interested in seeing what it is.

My hope is Steph isn't aged down for this particular title, but tbh she can be 18-19 and still be on either team I mentioned.

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I think the point I disagree with is "Aqua has no reason/shouldn't go along with this".

Aqua is suicidal. Aqua has no future beyond the end of the 15 Years Lie. And he knows he's going to hurt the people around him with whatever murder-suicide plan he's cooking up.

And more importantly, he knows it'll hurt Ruby. What reason does he have then, to not get along with whatever she wants? Sure, he might be reluctant, but as he says, he would only be socially dead if it came out, and it's very likely he's gonna be physically dead relatively soon.

Ch 143

i mean i think we all knew deep down the kiss was gonna happen based on the flow of the story but i think this chap reveals a lot about gorou and sarina

(uh warning this got a little out of hand so its pretty long lmao)

so.

i dont think anyone's completely in the wrong, but i definitely don't think they're in the right either. (not that i condone incest; its just that their motivations led them to this specific point. would the story have been fine without it? hell yeah. please i actually prefer it that way. but this is the direction the author decided to take it, so we have to take it as it is as a point of learning more about the character's motivations)

Let's first analyze sarina and gorou's relationship pre-reincarnation. I think I covered this in my last post where I rambled about onk, but gorou is doing a doctor thing where he "accepts" sarina's proposal just to make her happy. We learn in this new chapter that he basically catered to her every request, and that's what started that infatuation. we know from previous chapters that her bio family's shitty, so the only place she would get this love is from gorou. we also learn in this chapter that it's not actually a romantic love but a fanatic love, for lack of better terms. she sees him as her idol. does sarina even know what it feels to be romantically in love with someone? she spent her whole first life in a hospital, isolated from others her age. she spent her second life very curated and protected because of her mom and her future career; she couldn't really live a normal life. (we'll get back to this point later) all she knows about love is through her idols, so she's channeling it into (what she thinks is) romantic love for gorou.

gorou, on the other side of this, is an actual adult who had an actual life before all this, so he knows what a normal life is like. assuming sarina is one of his first patients, its obvious to see that he got attached, which is a very risky situation for scenarios like this. we see this attachment made her death worse, as he threw himself into following Ai to cope for her death. not gonna go too in depth about this here because, again, i made another post for this that i'll probably link at the end bc im referencing it more than i thought... continuing! he knows sarina doesnt have long left so he wants to do what he can for her, thus creating that "idol" persona sarina has for him.

we see in his regret in this new chap that he actually knows what he's doing and is aware of the consequences of his actions. ruby doesn't. she doesn't regret anything. as someone who reads a lot of isekai/reincarnation stories, its easy to joke that ruby and aqua are their old age + their new age, but that isn't necessarily true for ruby. sure, aqua is old and this could apply to him. but ruby? she didn't make it past 18 before she died. she's like,,, 13 times 2. double 13. she never fully developed in her first life, and she's developing in this current life. it's like a continue from where she left off. aqua actually was an adult, so he has all the knowledge and wisdom of an adult. why does this matter? shift your attention back to the concept of love for a bit. aqua knows what she's doing is bad and is trying to stop her, but the knowledge that she's sarina is making him automatically succumb to her wishes. a part of his brain, because of the trauma, still sees ruby as the sickly sarina he was caring for.

ruby is naïve. she doesnt know what love is. all the love she's ever been exposed to is whatever she saw online: idols. i dont even think she fully knows what the concept of family is. aqua is her brother? nope. aqua is the doctor she proposed to and now she has a chance to follow through like all the shows she's seen. she's closer than ever to him, so why give up the chance? even as ruby, she wasn't exposed to a lot of normalcy because of idol culture. she isn't able to learn about the difference between platonic love and fanatic love. we even see this with ai, who she sees more as an idol than her mom. the joy is in her idol being her mom, someone who's supposed to care for her. it's like shes living a fantasy made just for her. because aqua was so obsessed w revenge, he didn't have the chance to teach her anything, and it's not like he needed to learn bc he already knows. ruby doesn't.

aqua, as the one who understands these nuances, should have sat her down and explained things, but he didn't because of the trauma of sarina. ruby is ignorant and is treating things like a tv drama, now that her dreams as sarina can finally become true. aqua doesn't realize how serious ruby is about this because in his mind this is just a child playing house. ruby is like,,,, imagine you die and you wake up actually being sold to one direction. or whatever happens to you in your fav self-insert scenario/fanfic. idk a better analogy lmao but its like finally being able to play out your fantasies irl. she doesn't realize the real world impacts of her actions because, frankly, she doesn't care. she gets to live out her life as she wants. aqua was shocked after the first kiss with ruby because he realized then she was being serious, but he didn't speak out about it because, again, the trauma™. (we see him again uncomfy with the whole situation in the next page, but his lack of objection could be bc it's a scene in the documentary and he finds it more important to get revenge rn) ruby kissed him then because she purposefully created the mood like that so it would fit in the story she was writing in her mind.

so what does this mean? because of their shared pasts, aqua and ruby are put in this situation where ruby can do what she wants and aqua goes along with it. even if he knows its morally wrong, he can't bring himself to break ruby's immersion in all of this. BUT. big but. aqua shouldn't act like this. they're both capable of living out their lives as normal (barring the revenge and the whole idol stuff). he doesn't need to act like this anymore; ruby's not terminally ill. he's not a doctor. what he should have done was firmly deny her stuff he knows is wrong because then he can educate her about the reason why. as much as their personalities are inspired by their past lives, sarina and gorou are dead. they need to move on and live a aqua and ruby. (Harsh, I know, but because of this scenes like *gestures vaguely to the newest two chapters* happens. if aqua stood his ground and taught ruby about familial love and that what she's feeling is probably not romantic, i think this could have been avoided. but alas, we need it for the ~drama~)

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sorry that went on way longer than i thought lmao. i think i covered everything i wanted to say but im too lazy to read back so fingers crossed

if you made it this far and are curious about the other post i mentioned in the beginning, its here. i just think its some context to my thought process but not necessary to understand this post

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Reblog if you also think Toph shouldn’t have been a cop.

I want to see how “unpopular” this opinion really is outside cop-worshipping Reddit.

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By far the biggest casualty of Civil War, I think, were the New Warriors. Of course, the New Warriors are generally a casualty of history, their unashamed '90s-ishness anchoring them to a point in them left behind by audience and writers alike, but Civil War damaged the characters well beyond their team brand.

The first issue of Night Thrasher came out past week. That book is still largely about the aftershocks of that one 2006 event, eighteen years later. And while of course that story is a very interesting one, there's one that interests me more.

The story of Vince Astrovik after Civil War. Avengers Academy was perhaps the biggest spotlight shone on Justice since the time Busiek and Perez were still on Avengers, and admittedly it was a book I enjoyed. But of course, it was the 2010s, so of course he had a relationship with a student. Bad romance drama with fucked-up power dynamics was at peak popularity, then.

Unfortunately, all of this had to lead to Outlawed, another one of those "anti-superhero laws" arcs, running practically parallel to Mayor Kingpin's efforts. Turns it was all an excuse to put super kids into prison and turn them into a brainwashed army, or something, who the fuck would trust a paramilitary outfit named C.R.A.D.L.E. anyway? Well, Vance Astrovik would. It wasn't even character assassination, he was never written as a particularly sharp tool in anyone's shed.

But that, more than anything, was a symptom of a downward spiral that the character had been in for a while in the background, and even as someone who read anything with the New Warriors on it published since 2008, it somehow came as a surprise. It shouldn't have, though. High highs and low lows are kind of the name of the game for the brand, but I had just enjoyed seeing him having an actually kind-of-cool moment in Fantastic Four (2018) #40, by Dan fucking Slott of all people.

Vance was last seen over on X-Men Unlimited, as he was beaten up, imprisoned, humiliated and then used as a prop in his ex-girlfriend's infiltration of O.R.C.H.I.S.' fascist regime, without his consent. It was kinda sad.

While I'm thinking about it, the thing about Civil War is that it's an event that conceptually makes total sense as something that would eventually happen in the Marvel Comics universe as it had been depicted up until that point, particularly in the early oughts- the center obviously was not gonna hold. The hammer eventually coming down is inevitable, the tension between the wild cowboy soap opera antics of the superheroes and the government trying to reign them was well-established by 2007.

The problem is that once you pull the trigger on it, you can basically never go back. You can never plausibly have Iron Man or Mr. Fantastic or Captain Marvel return to a working relationship with any of the antireg people ever again after they spend a year and change running the extradimensional virtual reality gulag for all of their colleagues who wouldn't kiss the ring. A bunch of people died and a couple of the less popular ones even stayed dead. It's the kind of thing that happens in a bad future that you have to send Kitty Pryde back in time to prevent because it would so obviously be an irreparable annihilation of the status quo were it to happen in the main timeline. And yet, after a few greater-scope threats and a reconciliatory whimper, to the status quo we inevitably return. Comic Books Babey

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Slide this fast and look at the magic

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Reblog for good luck if you saw purple!!!

Original post here 

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Ah, yes

The "In Memoriam" series

Featuring such classics as "AI-generated Squished Aegis" and "Trapped Forever Dauntless (Funny Hat Edition"

Protectorate NFT sale of capes who died in Endbringer battles

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I hate comic book fans, because my first instinct was to go "AHCKSUALLY, Kate would of course know who Sublime is, given she recently time-travelled to the era of his and his sister's creation 2 billion years to the past and fought Cable's evil clone there with her pirate crew".

God I loved Marauders.

Check my Patreon out if you’d like to support the comic, even a little bit helps. Or just to check out the reward tiers, there’s some neat bonus stuff and I tried to make them fun: https://www.patreon.com/waitingforthet

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I feel like these are a bit too surface level, because the truth is that Taylor is a Sayaka.

The core of Taylor is that she must devote herself to something, otherwise she pretty much falls into misery spirals. Whether what she devotes herself to is a delusion or not is irrelevant: the mermaid will give up anything to fulfill her dream, and damn herself through it.

Conversely, if she ends up saved, it is through others sacrificing themselves or parts of themselves to her, and it inevitably ends up in bittersweet tears for either party.

And there's a lot of potential Kyokos around to get hurt as the hurricane she is passes through, too. From formerly homeless dog girls to vulgar martial artists.

Alright I've got some PMMM brainrot. Taylor is Homura on the surface, she's a weird and offputting girl with an unhealthy devotion to a cause that consumes her and leads her to doing very unethical things (saving Dinah, and then saving the world. To clarify, this is the cause she has an unhealthy devotion to, it was not unethical to save Dinah or to save the world) However, to Lisa and pretty much no one else she's Madoka. She's someone Lisa tries again and again to save, but in the end she leaves Lisa behind to go become god/save everyone because no matter how hard Lisa tries, Taylor at her core is incredibly self sacrificing and will die in a heartbeat to save other people. Taylor is Homura because she will do anything for her goal, Lisa is Homura because her goal is to save a girl who's impossible to save.

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Which college major would the main cast of either book have chosen for themselves?

I always thought of Taylor as a PoliSci student myself.

Ask me anything about Parahumans (but it can’t be about Victoria). Or reblog with questions.

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Galactus.

Mostly because it would be, instead of a fight, a philosophical argument. Galactus is a person yes, but also a fundamental force of the universe - and he does offer a way out for a planet if he does not have a herald at that time.

Would either take the choice? To possibly condemn an exceptional number of other lifeform to death to save one planet? Or if they chose to fight, how would they take this impossible foe?

Equally interesting would be, rather than an enemy, a scenario: how would they take something like the Beyonder's Battleworld? Would the pressure get to either? Depending on who else is present, would they even survive? Or maybe we could take a spin on the concept- instead of the version hosted by the Beyonder, how about that one time The Stranger conducted the affair, and one of the participants was an imposter? (from the mini Beyond!, 2006.)

Victoria and Taylor but they have to deal with a Marvel/DC villain.

Who would be fun to see them face off against?