#altho i did it wrong bc. i did it based on the us version and this is obvs the uk version. LOLLLL i thought the hair had just faded

[marsbotz]

my touys

[tacagen]

did you know that negaduck from darkwing duck was based off reverse-flash? yeah, that doesnt even BEGIN to describe what's actually been going on between their character histories..

first, negaduck wasnt just inspired by or a reverse-flash parody. he's a literal copy-paste of silver age thawne with a very few changes of origin place from future to parallel universe and identity from some random future guy to main hero's evil twin, because originally eobard was fixated on being a Criminal and not particularly flash's nemesis. back in the day, thawne constantly mentions how much he loves his criminal life. half of his lines are negaduck-worthy purely because the rest is related to being a speedster scientist. my personal favorite as an example:

he passes the speed limit law in central city so that barry couldnt use superspeed without breaking it but thawne still could because he is 'a hardened criminal'. he invents rays that turn everything inflicted evil (something even negaduck has never done (ig solely because megavolt's already done it in the negaduck episode where he accidentally splits darkwing into good dw (posiduck) and bad dw(negaduck, with a black and gray color scheme), and while yellow negaduck is a different character this is basically how the idea of him was born and the writers just decided to keep him in a different form bc the gray one merged back into normal dw at the end which is super funny. imagine coming up with a duck villain and going 'oh this guy actually reminds me a lot of reverse-flash with all that opposite/negative thing. LET'S PAINT HIM IN THOSE COLORS AND GIVE HIM THE SAME PERSONALITY AND SIMILAR ORIGIN THIS TIME'), altho he DOES test the power gem on a cat in jail bird like thawne did with evil rays). he repeatedly tries to get poor former dr alchemy back to crime just because 'crime fun. why cant you see that. im doing it for your own good' and negaduck tried something like that with morgana in feb 14th episode my valentine ghoul (+that brief scene with gos from 2016 comics run where he believes she must be bad deep down inside out of comparsion to nega!gosalyn). negaduck also travels from a whole other world just to fuck around here for fun (there was this bronze age flash issue called flashback where thawne gets lost in the timestream because barry pushed the wrong buttons in his time capsule which is almost exact negaduck's fate in life, the negaverse and everything) and one of another few differences related is that negaduck is shown to be a dictator of his universe's St. Canard who is bored to live somewhere he already has all the power so he travels to another universe to cause problems on purpose.

second. dc's new52. eobard is rewritten again, now he and zoom are kind of one character. but guess what else is new in this version that never happend neither in zoom or professor zoom's lives? thawne is a fucking dictator in his own time. and people tried to fight his rule in flash's name just like friendly four needed darkwing as inspiration to finally fight back for their world.

he gets his own team, acolytes of zoom (i wish i could call them local fearsome 4 but there are 5 of them, making it more of a sinister 6 if you count thawne) which he trains for centuries to fight the flash and betrays later by trying to steal their powers just like negaduck stole f4's in jail bird to become mega-negaduck and if all that wasnt enough, without the mask he straight up looks like negaduck humanization. look at him. this mf is only missing a hat and a cape.

also these sudden black parts in his new speedster suit design? either it is some absolute fucking bonkers of a coincidence or someone on the flash writing team really went 'hey guys you know what would be real funny? lets base new thawne off negaduck. like he was originally based off thawne. i swear no one will notice' and everyone went with that. (i could also mention he has the same dumb motivation for being evil (having shitty childhood/being deep down sad about mistreatment and loneliness) as 2011 dwd comics run negaduck but imo that's too far of a stretch to actually be included)

third. yall know the deal of the first season of cw's the flash? yeah, what if i told you the whole thawne messes with the particle accelerator and causes barry to gain superspeed thing already fucking happend in darkwing duck, episode going nowhere fast?

(the way i lost my mind over this back in the day when i decided to watch dwd just because negaduck reminded me of thawne(i didnt even know he was a direct rip-off, i just went 'oh wait dt universe has this evil fuck that wears the same color scheme as reverse-flash? girl i AM checking the whole thing out just to see if he's anything like thawne'.) and first watched the episode... priceless, still haunts me to this very day. how the hell was that written in 1991. did cw writers just take the idea from dwd too. honestly i cant be sure about anything anymore).

and remember in the duck knight returns (2011 comics run arc) flashbacks there was a super funny thing with negaduck not knowing dw's secret identity and being so proud he cracked the case? remember cw!og!thawne looking for flash's time period and not knowing his identity in 2nd season cameo episode? what the hell was even up with that!!! like guys. guys one of you is the most devoted flash fan from the future and there is NO way none of that kind of information was left a CENTURY after (i mean come on dude couldntve you just asked gideon. she literally had that 2024 newspaper about vanishing and thats at the very least not mentioning she was created by barry) and another is straight up the same fucking person as the hero with the same fucking relatives and enemies. idk take a wild guess??? ((i really wonder if anybody on the wirting team of 2011 dwd run saw not just life, the negaverse and everything but any episode featuring negaduck at all. not only do they ignore the existence of nega!gos in the 'oh he mean bc alone :(' approach, they ignore the very definition of negaduck's character which is literally evil drake mallard. i mean sure hes dumb and may miss obvious clues because of being the same dw just evil but come on, such a comedic situation and never addressed by drake whos literally been in the negaverse and knows they are the same person or by anyone else he coluldve told that? oh well unless drake is also dumb af and thought there never was any drake mallard in the negaverse in the first place and that negaduck is some other guy. which is a real probability i suppose))

also. negaduck's death by being split on billions of evil particles in crisis on infinite darkwings and thawne, being 'exorcised' from nash's body in a form of a negative speed force stream with sparks in 6x15 of cw's the flash.

fourth! yall did watch ducktales 2017 reboot, right? specifically the duck knight returns episode? they introduce a whole new version of negaduck there! and guess what. jim starling, an old darkwing duck (in-universe 90s tv series) actor obsessed with his role, goes fucking nuts because there is a new darkwing duck actor in a new movie and he didnt even know. because he feels forgotten. because no one remembers neither him nor original series (objectievely not true bc obviously launchpad and drake but to jim they just dont count bc reasons. he seems to count only children but calls lp his fan when anthagonizes drake for taking even that from him in the end). because he was replaced and no one even bothered to tell him. he causes a fire on the set, almost kills drake but does have a change of heart at the end after launchpad's speech about what darkwing duck stands for and seemingly sacrifices himself to save drake and lp from the explosion. then they have the worst idea they could have in relation to jim's character ever: for drake to be a real life darkwing duck to honor jim's sacrifice. so naturally he hears that from the sewers or wherever he was hiding to see their reactions(look i am. 100% sure that this is what happened bc that makes so much more sense than jim getting brain damage or whatever from that explosion and waking up to choose violence again for no other reason). he gets hit with the being replacable and forgotten thing once again and renders back to negaduck tendencies, for all we know for good this time as his darkwing suit changes to the yellow-red one. yk who else went on a rampage because he felt forgotten and replaced? you guessed it! the return of barry allen, a 90s classic where thawne goes to 21st century for the first time, thinks he's barry (original-ish flash) because dissociation from trauma of seeing himself being killed by his hero and acts exactly like starling, having the same issues as motivation aka him/barry being forgotten and replaced by wally. he implies wally taking on the flash mantle is most disrespectful to barry. he rants about how he's the only flash and threatens to destroy not only the flash family but the whole central city for forgetting that. he and wally have a conflict of legacy similar to jim and drake's conflict in dt17. he is The starling blueprint only a lot more mentally ill. also we've heard something like the duck knight returns in running scared (this one is less reminiscent of jim but still features some things that werent in the return of barry allen). it's a rebirth arc that introduces another new origin of reverse-flash. now, he's been hyperfixated on barry allen his whole life (on a whole new level i mean) and there was the first meeting in 25th century where they Connected like thawne always believed they would. that day ended up in a fight and thawne's imprisonment because he set up casualties to get attention and praise for being the flash of 25th century but unlike all other versions this thawne has a change of heart after the fight, too. he promises to 'fix everything' including himself, he even goes to therapy afterwards. then he goes to the 21st century to tell barry how much he accomplished since they last met and then sees barry saying to wally one meaningful phrase he said to thawne that perfect day. like it wasnt something special only barry and eobard shared. like the day they met never happened. like he forgot thawne ever existed. like he was replaced as barry's speedster partner/friend/whatever he thought they were after that day by wally. and that shatters thawne so much he runs back to 25th and just decides to become the reverse-flash and make barry suffer until he gives him attention and recognition he deserved. frank angones, i am inside your walls. you CANT deny you based your versions of dw and nd off flash comics and thawne particularly. and more, you legit made reverse!eobarry au and put it in dt in duck forms. i have been losing my mind about it for 3 years now. i am exposing you and there is nothing you can do to escape that.

fifth(ish). yeah, and btw about friendly four from life, the negaverse and everything. did you think they actually escaped being mirrored in the flash? ha. i present to you reverse-rogues from the 25th century aka the renegades, carefully created by zoom and thawne himself, thinking it would somehow be funny.

cant believe hunter once saw it on tv put 2 and 2 together and went 'eobard my dude we need to go full negaverse with the 25th century. we need a friendly four to your negaduck. i swear it'll be Hilarious'. god the only thing they lack at this point is nega!gosalyn (i mean. hunter actually did try something like that with inertia, saving him from the museum and trying to teach him how to torture flashfam into improving them but thad was more of a nega!honker and reverted hunter to disabled powerless state just because. love that kid)

and that's all i have so far, if anyone here also into both yellow-red mfs with no life feel free to comment or even add more because there sure is or at least will be more and no one has the power to stop it.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl-

i didn’t die i just fell in love with that skill tree creator and have done nothing for the past few days but make skill trees and sleep for 3 hour intervals. im very excited for the gameplay on Wednesday but oh man oh me oh my i gotta catch up on a lot of posts lol

tl;dr: Fl4k is a badass. Stop misgendering them or I’ll show up at your home at 3am local time every time and then eat your spine. Bonus: Mr. Chew being an ‘Eridian skag’ is probably due to some funky mutation from eridium/slag/eridian stuff. Kinda like how Threshers have the ability to make singularities because they are native to Elpis, which is a big ol’ Eridian base (which i totally addressed in this post lol). I also gave my opinion on Fl4k’s skills in general, if you’re interested in that. Overall, a very awesome trailer! Definitely lived up to the hype.

i said it before, this trailer was one of the best ones. definitely #2 for me, Zane is still at #1 because i actually laughed during it. the music in this one is definitely the best out of all 4 tho. seems like they’re all variations of the same song, i like this one best. I need this soundtrack sooo bad.

also i know probably no one else following this blog watches one piece but like

that first footstep with the studded boot and the sound effect immediately flung me back to katakuri. god katakuri was a badass. i was so excited to see that fight animated.

mr chew spinning around is my favorite thing ever. i love that you can tell the personality of the pets just from watching the intro. 

i know fl4k is like a real badass in this trailer, but i get the feeling they’re going to end up being at least a little soft for their pets. i mean... they have stuffed animals of them ffs.

so... we’re near Sanctuary-III in this trailer? I gotta keep my eye out then. i also want to see if that one claptrap area guess i had is correct or not... this looks like an entryway for the garage so im guessing i wasn’t, but let’s seeeee

there is a raised bit up and to the left

also im wondering if this means we’re going to have to rescue ellie from the CoV.

hmmmmmmmm

hmmmmm i don’t think the signs match up.

mr chew is the goodest boy. im so glad we can pet/interact with him!! i want to know what the names of the other pets are

also, a bit off topic but

i could have sworn fl4k’s jabber was cryo/shock. it was blue, wasn’t it? i wonder if they changed it or if it’s skill upgrades change its color. i thought the upgrades just gave it better guns.

yeah it was! i guess possibly upgrading it with the guns gives it a new color scheme? maybe? this could be the gunslinger upgrade!

it looks like their jabber went through the most design changes out of all of the pets. that or this is yet another upgrade (since each pet has 3 states). maybe this is the beefcake version.

‘bitch’. i love how expressive fl4k is with just the eye. very well done.

ohhh you know what that building is in the back?

[we’re near the intro to the game!]*

and tbh i don’t think this place has the building for Ellie’s Scrap in it... i don’t see it anywhere. maybe this is the actual scrapyard and the building is on the other side?

not quite sure tbh. but at least we know this place may also be near sanc-iii, just maybe not the same area as the actual Ellie’s Scrap.

i mean... there IS a shitload of cars everywhere. i wouldn’t surprised if it’s near her garage cause it looks like a scrapyard.

but also where in the fuck are all these ‘normal’ looking cars coming from?? it’s not like we see them being used on pandora. all the ones we see in bl1/2 are clearly dilapidated and rusting. big thonk. at least the vans/busses kinda make sense.

oh yeah that is definitely the same building. [it’s the recruitment center!]*

this scene with the rakk is my favorite out of all the trailers. so fuckin cool

i do hope the jabber goes back to being blue at some point. i like the red design too, don’t get me wrong, but i much prefer the glowy blue. it’s my favorite color and you guys know i love glowing things 👀

<Huge Selection!!!> lol

cat/doggo/monkey. mr chew is my favorite pet but i love the jabber panting like a dog lol

i never knew this is where spiderant mouths were

i always assumed they were below that... f r e a k y

“he likes to chase cars”

fl4k probably took them to the scrapyard for this exact reason ngl. fl4k being a big softie to their pets confirmed

(also, notice how fl4k uses ‘he’ for mr chew. it’s almost as if they understand the concept of gender, chose their own pronouns, and your argument that they only are nonbinary only because they “don’t understand yet” is invalid! Fl4k is canonically nonbinary and uses they/them/theirs pronouns as confirmed by both SungWon Cho and their in-game skills. 

Now that you know, use they/them/theirs for Fl4k or get off my blog. Because by not doing so, you are disrespecting the devs’ wishes for this character AND the nonbinary people who find representation in them and I won’t support that. if you feel like arguing your reasons to purposefully misgender them even after knowing this, please DM me so I can block you. thanks! 

For those of you out there actually making an effort: mistakes happen, especially if Fl4k is the first NB person you’ve learned about. Just make sure to correct yourself then move on, and we’re okay. Everyone has to learn sometime and it’s better to put in the effort than not care at all. It will become second nature.)

Fl4k is such a badass, they really are way different than i expected (personality-wise), but i am not complaining. gearbox knows me better than i know myself, so i know i’m going to end up loving Fl4k anyway. ProZD did such a fantastic job, i honestly did not recognize him at first! i can tell with certain words now, but wow i am blown away. 

i hope we’re able to climb that bird’s nest lookin’ thing in the back. it would be perfect for sniping and/or placing ur clone for maximum coverage.

seriously, what a badass.

idk i feel obligated to give my opinions of Fl4k over here since they were recently released. I am digging them 100%, tho i was kinda surprised (not in a bad way) they’re not as... i guess soft as i was expecting from their character design with the plushes and the face on the backpack and the smiley face pin, but i imagine that’s different when they’re interacting with their pets. im super curious to see how this VH group’s dynamic is going to go. 

mechanically, their skills seem perfect for people who loved sniper Zer0 and in general Mordecai, with a splash of Salvador tossed in for good luck. I am a dirty melee Zer0 main and i prefered Phasewalking over Bloodwing (altho i still play mordy bc he’s best bl1 VH) so, while I am definitely going to give Fl4k a go, they’re not my main bl3 Vault Hunter, that’s reserved for Zane and his lovely ability to befuddle enemies and run around. Funnily enough, I’m not even a fan of pet classes, so Fl4k being second in my play order is pretty funny. Tho, yeah, Amara being last is also pretty weird. I guess I don’t necessarily enjoy melee, I just enjoy messing with the bad guys lol

ohh, also, I am most interested in the upgrade for mr. chew that gives him the ability to create singularities and is called ‘Eridian Skag’. 

so I’m not saying my theory that the threshers on the moon were connected to Eridians was right, I’m just saying they’re the only form of wildlife we know that has a singularity ability (outside of Mr. Chew, apparently). 

im just saying gearbox, you should hire me to write your deep lore for you cause i’d do it for free

im wondering if we’ll be seeing skags with wormhole abilities in bl3. maybe the constant exposure to slag is starting to mutate them further beyond just elemental bonuses (on badass skags). We know Maya’s phaselock has a singularity ability (so does Amara’s phasegrasp), and that is sorta ‘occurring naturally’ (you know, as natural as siren powers can get) unlike the singularity grenades we encounter which use our known technology. plus, uh, whatever happened to the destroyer’s eye in TPS that made it create a singularity/wormhole by injecting it with a fuckload of slag. that probably has something to do with this as well.

but geez i really hope mr. chew is okay with being all slag/eridium-ed up. i guess being badass elemental skags doesn’t appear to hurt them, just make them more powerful, unlike humans. maybe that has something to do with sentience, if slag/eridium/eridian stuff actually is driving bandits crazy. could explain why/if the jabber doesn’t get an element like the skag (eridian skag) and spiderant (fire) do, since they’re described as semi-sentient...

anyway.

Fl4k is cool. Definitely a neat trailer- my second favorite for sure- and the skill tree drop blew me away because i was not expecting it. im expecting a lot of Fl4k mains in the first few weeks of gameplay because they look like a lot of fun!

EDIT: i was wrong, in the newest IGN vid, it turns out we ARE near the recruitment center, because that IS the recruitment center

they gave them little orange flags! good to know!!

[dillydedalus]

december reading + top10 of the year

books.

a feast for crows, my main man grrm (#4 asoiaf) tbh i think this one is underrated - i understand feeling a bit underwhelmed on a first read bc it’s so much slower than asos & half the major characters aren’t in it & you get a bunch of new ones instead, but the thematic depth here! brienne seeing the devastation of the riverlands, thinking about outlaws & broken men & vigilante justice, sansa & arya both embarking on their apprentice arc & losing their identity in the process, the political intrigue in dorne, & the fucking hilarious shitshow that is cersei’s kings landing.... love it. 4.5/5

herkunft, saša stanišić (audio, sadly abridged) really good memoir/reflection about belonging, origin (national, ethnic, linguistic, familial, emotional), family, and living in germany as a refugee.  it’s really smart, really heartfelt, really funny, and i’m sooo annoyed that my library only has the abridged version. oh yeah it won the german book prize shortly after peter ‘serbian war criminals’ #1 fanboy’ handke won the nobel prize, which was nice. 4/5

a brief history of seven killings, marlon james (uni) marlon james probably laughed his ass off at calling this 700-page book (very small print) a brief history. anyway, this is about the attempted assassination of bob marley in the 70s, the cultural and political context in jamaica at the time, and the fallout of that event. honestly, reading this on a tight schedule for uni was just wrong for this book bc i had to rush thru it & ended up skimming quite a bit. it’s an impressive achievement, but i can’t say i enjoyed it very much. 3/5

she would be king, wayétu moore a magical realist story about the foundation of liberia, told thru three characters - an indigenous woman, an ex-slave from the us, and a mixed-race jamaican - all of whom have magical abilities. i really wanted to like this, but while there are a lot of good ideas, structurally this is kind of a mess (the first part, which introduces the characters is way too long & not very interesting, the connection between the three is supposed to be super significant but it really doesn’t come across, one character gets way more page time than the others), the writing is occasionally p awkward, and there is an odd thing where the narrator (kinda a ghost, kinda the wind) intrudes literally only to call one of the characters her darling or whatever & it’s irritating af. 2.5/5

a dance with dragons, grrm (#5 asoiaf) tbh this is by far my least favourite of the series.... it’s just way too long, a bit of a slog (especially the tyrion chapters...) & there is not a single sansa chapter which is fucked up. a lot of the storylines are really good tho (jon, THEON, asha, jaime...). i ended up liking the parts i used to dislike a bit more this time around tho if i ever read it again i will probably do the combined affc+adwd read bc that sounds fun & interesting. 4/5

the sellout, paul beatty (uni) smart & pretty funny satire about the idea of a post-racial america, in which a black man in the LA region tries to segregate the local community. there’s a lot of cool stuff in here and i really liked the ambiguity & refusal to present any clear-cut answers, solutions, or closure. 3/5

tamburlaine must die, louise welsh fun little novella about the last days of kit marlow, which made for an entertaining 2 hours altho the ending is pretty weak imo & the language slips into entirely too modern occasionally. kinda disappointed because based on the blurb i’d assumed that tamburlaine actually, literally came to life out of marlow’s plays which. is not the case. but would have been super cool. 2/5

radiance, grace draven not to reveal how profoundly problematique i am: this is a book about a human noblewoman entering into an arranged political marriage with a dude from the off-brand dark-elves dynasty & it is. way too wholesome, there is little angst, ildiko & brishen get along very well from the start & like, where’s the fear, the tension, the delicious, delicious ANGST?? 2.5/5

water shall refuse them, lucie mcknight hardy atmospheric witchy folk horror set in a small village in wales during the '76 heat wave - narrator nif’s family comes to live in a cottage there to take some time off after the accidental drowning of nif’s younger sister - the mother is consumed by grief and guilt, the father is trying to hold everyone together, and nif is constructing a witchy creed out of bird eggs and bones and magical thinking to cope, comparing weird witchy practices with local outsider mally. i liked this & altho i saw the twist coming miles away, it still makes for a pretty disturbing ending, and the way the book evokes the dizzy blurry heat and nif’s state of mind - detached, angry, confused, compulsive - is really effective. 3.5/5

a knight of the seven kingdoms, george r.r. martin dunk! is! babey! (except for moments where he displays staggering BDE) anyway these are three novellas set about 100 years pre-asoiaf, about dunk/duncan the tall & his squire, egg/aegon, the OG secret targaryen. the stories are wholesome, funny, cute, have a lot of dunk being a true knight but not a real knight which is extra-sweet when you realise that he’s almost definitely true-but-not-real knight brienne’s (great?)grandpapa. 4.5/5

my cousin rachel, daphne du maurier philip ashley, our narrator, really is like ‘hmmm have i been misogynistic yet today?? better get on that’, he’s awful & so is his older cousin ambrose, who marries distant cousin rachel in florence & then gets ill and dies, making phil rather suspicious about rachel. did rachel poison ambrose? is she trying to seduce and/or poison philip? or are they both just paranoid assholes who hate women (they def. hate women)? this is some good psychological thriller type stuff, what we can construct out of philip’s distorted view of rachel is intriguing (and like, if she poisoned ambrose? #goodforher), the narrator is an ass but well-written, and the first/last lines.... chills. 3.5/5

top 10 of the year (no rereads!)

antigonick, anne carson

a canticle for leibowitz, walter m. miller

dedalus, chris mccabe

the complete maus, art spiegelman

the artificial silk girl, irmgard keun

o caledonia, elspeth barker

the sparrow, mary doria russell

sleep of the righteous, wolfgang hilbig

how to survive a plague, david france

rain wild chronicles, robin hobb

(the last three are kinda randomly picked from the high-4s based on my mood in the moment but they’re all really good so.)