#instead of an evil man creating a plan to break those two apart its just some insanely complex plan created by mabel candy and grenda

[senipsenipsenip]

I feel like if Dipper and Pacifica ever actually did get together it would just be like...a beat for beat recreation of Much Ado About Nothing

[ofstarsandfireflies]

Alrighty my friends, here’s a junk food movie I was in the mood for.

Despicable Me 2

Gru faces off against love...again.

Stephen is a villain with three adopted children, Peter (Margo), Harley (Edith) and Morgan (Agnes).

They are the reason he is still a villain because no one would dare come after them knowing the power he has and the lengths he’s willing to go through to keep them protected.

And being a villain has this perk, unlike the heroes who are always saving their damsels from him.

What irony.

It unfortunately doesn’t stop his nosey neighbor from trying to pry into his life, even if he is his therapist.

And it most certainly doesn’t stop him from being kidnapped and taken to Avengers HQ, where Nick MF Fury needs his help.

Turns out there have been these beings called Elementals which seem to have escaped from another dimension and are wrecking havoc on different parts of the world and for whatever reason, Fury needs Stephen’s help dealing with the last of them as the rest of the Avengers are busy fighting the other three.

Stephen is taken aback by this sudden information dump.

How the hell do they know these things come from another dimension?

And what they were called?

And where had he heard ‘Elementals’ before?

And what does he mean he needs Stephen’s help? Stephen is a father now, he can’t go off risking his neck for Fury when three lives depend on that neck.

He’s not one of his Avengers.

Fury then asks him if a partner would make him change his mind.

The one who kidnapped him and brought him here.

Stephen wonders who it could be, hoping to every god in existence it isn’t Rogers because he would never live that down.

No, no it’s far worse than that.

It’s Tony Stark.

His arch nemesis.

The love of his life.

Not that Tony knows that of course.

Tony isn’t too thrilled about working with Strange after all the fights they’ve had in the past and the messes he’s had to clean up after the Sorcerer. but tries to put their differences aside seeming how they have to work together.

They decide to meet up the following day so Stephen can see the destruction this ‘Elemental’ left in its wake for himself.

And, of course, the kids want to go with him.

Upon meeting Tony, Peter is polite, Harley is a little shy but gives him a smile which is saying a lot more than words for him, and Morgan asks him if Tony is single.

Tony instantly loves the kids, finding it sweet how they tackle Stephen to the ground to hug him and even though Stephen tries to brush it off and start a fight with Tony over it, Tony just tells him he must be a pretty good guy if those kids can love him as much as they do.

Stephen feels his heart melting.

Of course he’s a good guy. Not a GOOD good guy but a better guy than most.

Villains who go after kids are a whole level of evil Stephen refuses to sink to.

He asks Tony about how Fury got the information about whatever caused this destruction being called an Elemental and being from another dimension.

He knows he’s heard that name somewhere.

And the answer surprises Stephen. There’s apparently a magic user on their side calling himself Mysterio, but that’s all Tony knows.

Stephen knows this has Loki in one of his disguises.

Only Loki would talk such rubbish and be able to use magic.

There’s no one else it could possibly be, not on earth anyway, and no one else would be stupid enough to use some grand alias like “Mysterio.”

But he needs proof.

If he calls him out now, he might do something that could cause more destruction to their vicinity; and with his children and Tony here, that’s not a risk Stephen is willing to take.

Once Tony and Stephen go their seperate ways, his nosey neighbor is back, trying to ask him questions about what he’s been up to and, if Stephen cared, or was interested at all in anyone but Tony Stark, maybe he’d give him some of his time other than what he already pays him for, but he doesn’t, and he isn’t, so he just says goodnight to him and ushers his kids into the house.

And Stephen is feeling pretty good about working with Tony instead of fighting him, looking down at Tony’s number in his phone.

He has Tony Stark’s phone number.

And right when he’s about to call it, his phone rings.

But it’s Fury on the end of the line, wanting to know their progress.

Stephen doesn’t have much to say and Fury isn’t answering his queries about this Mysterio again.

He doesn’t get the secrecy and is about to hang up when Fury tells him that this is Tony’s last assignment.

He’s going to quit being an Avenger.

And when Stephen asks him why Fury is telling him this, he finally decides to answer one of his questions.

Because it’s what Tony wants, and after everything he’s done and been through, he deserves to retire.

Stephen’s ears are almost ringing with the silence after the call.

He and Tony won’t ever fight again?

Won’t ever see each other again?

Maybe it’s for the best they don’t find Loki after all.

If he just drags this out a little, maybe Tony will change his mind?

He looks back down at the number he was going to call.

And switches his phone off instead.

The next day as Tony and Stephen try to figure out how they can make Loki show himself with as little casualties as possible, the kids are off doing their own thing.

Morgan is wishing for Stephen and Tony to get together at the wishing fountain, Harley is stealing coins from the bottom of the fountain for Morgan to continue her wishing, and Peter experiences his first crush when a beautiful red head walks past and catches his eye and leads him away.

Harley and Morgan burst in on Tony and Stephen, who jump apart at the sudden intrusion before anything can happen, Morgan yelling about Peter having a girlfriend.

And just like that, Stephen is off.

He’s not going to let some nobody come along and try anything.

Especially when that nobody could be working with Loki.

If Peter got hurt...

But no matter where he looks, Peter is gone.

And then everything around him goes black, and from the darkness, a face he knows all too well looms above him.

But it’s not actually him, there’s no magic doing this.

He’d know.

He turns around, ready to tell everyone not to fear and to stick close, when he realises Harley, Morgan and Tony aren’t anywhere around either.

He’s completely alone.

And when he hears Morgan screaming, this prankster has officially gone too far.

The surge of power he unleashes causes the face and the darkness to crackle and turn to static before the real world reappears around him.

And the first thing he sees is Tony in his Iron Man suit, protecting Morgan and Harley.

The kids run into his arms and Tony let’s out a sigh of relief as he lowers his hand, but there is still no sign of Peter.

Tony suggests Stephen get Morgan and Harley home while he searches for him.

Stephen won’t be bossed around by an Avenger and he won’t be leaving without his son, but Tony asks that he trust him.

He’s got his suit and he can see through the illusions so he can do this while Stephen takes care of his kids, who need their father.

Stephen looks down at Morgan’s scared face and reads the fear in Harley’s eyes.

Tony promises to find Peter.

Stephen just has to trust him.

So Stephen agrees.

He creates a portal back home and tucks his kids in, sitting in a chair to watch over them and blast away any illusions that could seperate another child from him, overthinking the events that caused two children to be in this room instead of three.

How had someone known what that face looked like?

And then Stephen’s phone goes off.

He instantly checks it, hoping it’s from Tony.

But it’s from his neighbor.

Stephen can’t believe this.

This guy has been trying to get him to go on a date with him for the past several months and won’t take no for an answer, no matter what Stephen says or does.

And then he feels a cold sweat start to break out over his skin.

His neighbor was one of those movie buffs who loved special effects.

His neighbor had been going on about this new movie he was making about Elementals destroying the city.

His neighbor knew everything about Stephen Strange because his neighbor was also his therapist.

His neighbor had his son.

Stephen doesn’t waste any time.

He’s out of his house and past the letterbox that says ‘Beck’ on it, blowing the door half way down the hall as he enters the house standing right next to his own.

Quentin is sitting at his table as if he had been expecting Stephen, sipping his tea rather casually while the Sorcerer demands his son.

Quentin doesn’t answer, just points to the many screens before him.

Stephen gets closer and sees Peter on one of them.

And Tony approaching on another.

But there was something wrong with the way he was moving.

His legs seemed to drag him forward, very unlike the confident strides he had come to know.

Like the suit is being controlled.

Quentin smiles when Stephen realsises his plan.

He has listened to Stephen go on about Tony Stark for years now, and he grew to hate him just as much as Stephen did.

He knew he could do it. He knew he could be the one to kill Stark, to do what Stephen hadn’t been able to do.

He just needed time to perfect his masterpiece.

Now Stephen can be seen as the hero and Stark the Villain.

And Stephen will still have two children after the end of it.

Stephen is out of there before he can hear any more, getting to Tony before he can harm Peter.

Tony is trying his best to wrestle some control of the suit and not freak out as his body is forced into painful angles as the metal encasing him tightens to the point of almost crushing him within it.

But Stephen knows this suit’s weakness.

He knows every weakness he’s ever found in each and every suit Tony has ever fought him in.

This suit in made from Tony’s own nanotechnology, but there are only so many he can store within the housing unit until there are none left to restore the pieces Stephen can hack away at.

And that is exactly what he does, freeing Tony from it at last.

Tony doesn’t care his suit is ruined, it’s not like he was planning on wearing it again.

And that reminds Stephen.

Now that they won’t be fighting anymore, Tony is going to have a lot of time on his hands.

Tony agreees.

Which means...they could go on a date sometime.

Tony laughs.

And agrees again.

Quotes -

“Okay, I see where this is going, with all the mission: impossible stuff, but no. No! I’m a father now.”

Stephen has priorities and what Nick Fury wants ain’t one of them.

“So when are you going on your date?”

“What?”

“Remember? Miss Jillian said she was arranging a date for you.”

“Yeah, well, she is a nut job, and I’m no going on any date.”

“Why not? Are you scared?”

“Scared? Of what? Women? No! That’s bonkers! I just...I have no interest in going on a date, that’s all. Case closed. I’m not scared. Of women. Or dates.”

Stephen doesn’t want to go on any dates and Harley calls him out on it.

“Are you gonna marry Lucy?”

“Are you out of your gourd? No! She just works with me.”

“Plus, you love her. You love her! You love her! You really, really, love her!”

Morgan’s the only smart one.

“Don’t worry about me, Fru! I’ll be fine. I have survived lots worse than this...actually that’s not true I’m kinda freaking out up here!”

“Don’t worry, I will get you out of this!”

Tony never thought he’d need rescuing from Stephen Strange of all people.

Bad to the Bone.

Stephen Strange has no redeeming qualities at all. Nope. Not one.

Or so Tony thought.

Under that villain exterior is a man with a good heart big enough for three orphans.

And maybe there’s room for one more.

Missed a Day? Catch up here!

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9

[saintheartwing]

Promised Neverland, Season 2, Episode 8 Review...

They are SUPER. RUSHING. THIS. It’s just incredibly lame. It’s frankly just insulting. The “new story” that the author decided to adapt? You know what they did? They went the Batman vs Superman “Save...Marthaaaaa” route. 

Let me explain. It begins with Norman meeting Peter Ratri.Isabella introduces him. He’s his “new father”.

“But you can call me Peter. Peter Ratri. I’d like your assistance with my research!”

How exciting! Norman can study all he wants now. But Norman knows what’s up. He knows he’s just a product even now. Maybe not FOOD but...still a product. 

Norman is soon shown taking tests. He hunches over a screen quickly scanning things left and right, it’s super atmospheric alright, and his test scores are amazing. Perfect scores every time despite them increasing in difficulty. It’s fantastic. Lambda 7214 is lucky to have him.

Norman is soon eating alone in his room as the other scientists marvel over his skills. He’s got mad skills, alright. MAAAAD SKIIIILZ.

Peter Ratri is pleased by this. The kid’s perfect for Lambda’s upcoming plans. The era of James Ratri the gatekeeper is over. Now HE’LL control the farms and he shan’t give them an inch  of hope. 

The scientist behind him frowns visibly. And meanwhile, Norman’s found something. A litle puzzle box like a rubix cube. A note put into it. And who put it in there? An African American young man named Vincent. 

We get to briefly see peeks of the folks that Norman would make into his friends. Tiny brief glimpses of horrors...and cute little rooms full of toys and dolls...while on the opposite side, Demons are tearing kids apart...

He will live. He will live and keep living to see everyone again-

Then he begins to cough up blood. Ohhh dear. He’s sick. Super sick. He doesn’t have much time left. He begins to put it together. He has six cameras in the room. 15 personnel at night. But he can gain explosives. He just needs parts for a detonator, he says to himself, playing a chess game. 

CHECKMATE.

And then it happens. SHAAA-BOOOOM! The facility gets blown up. People are dead all over. Blood has pooled around. His plan worked. Mr. Smee, the friendly scientist, helped him pull it off, and gives him a pen as Vincent and he go to save the only remaining older kids left...who would become his gang.  “Are you God?” Barbara asks.

Framed by the red alarm light...Norman looks more like the Devil.

But unluckily for the demons left over and captured, the only ones left alive, well...Norman kinda needs some more data on demons...and, well...turnabout is fair play...

We cut back to the present. Norman knows he’s soon to die. But he wants to create a safe world for Emma...

Meanwhile, Emma and Ray and Don and Gilda are out searching for Mujika and Sonju. They need to find someplace with multiple escape routes that would also be easy to hide in. Luckily, they know such a place, and they found footprints...

Alas, it’s not them. It’s something that walks on six feet. Nope. Small, wild demon. Maybe...this place? Nope. Nope! Nope, nope, nope! They keep looking around, disguised as demons to avoid detection but no luck at all, and time is passing quickly.

Then they get a break. The birds! The birds the two like to hunt. If they’d be hunting the birds, it’d be in a nice, big, wide-open place. But they need to be careful...this is home to a wild demon. A big, huge large one...with really lousy CGI, for the record. 

Their first day has not gone well. They have to set up camp for the night. Four days left...

Norman and his gang are gathering up the potion as our heroes keep searching. Norman seems...preoccupied...

Our heroes are determined to find Mujika and Sonju. Without the evil blood, they can’t fix anything...but they’re quickly running out of time. Only two days left now! 

Our gang is at the very last spot. There’s a lot of wild demons here, so they need to be careful, but...this is the last spot they have left to check. Their last hope. And...

They’ve found horse hoof prints! Could it be them?

Norman, meanwhile, is thinking about how kind Emma and Ray are. He’s determined not to waver. He WILL save all the kids in the farms. If he has to be God OR the Devil...he’ll become it...

And now...it’s gotten dark. Our gang is in deep trouble. A wild demon has found them! They have to attack, using their bows and arrows. Emma decides she’ll draw them off...

As Sonju and Mujika find the necklace Emma drops in her haste! They have to go rescue her. Ray pops out of nowhere, letting an arrow fly, and...THA-SHUDDA! Right in the eye! Center of the head! He deeeeead! That was, admittedly, a real nice moment. But...

Oh shit, it’s NOT dead. In its final throes its maw reaches out to engulf her and then...

SHA-SCHLIIISCH! OFF WITH YOUR HEEEAAAAD! Sonju slices its head off. Mujika and Sonju have found them! They ask what happened, and Emma begins to explain what’s going on...or rather, they’re ABOUT to when--

KA-BOOOOOOOOM! A distinct, loud explosion. 

Uh oh. Norman decided to start a bit early. The town is being attacked. Explosions rocket through the town and the demons begin breathing in the gas...and those that do become monstrous, attacking even their family. 

The experiment appears to be a rousing success. It’s a horrifying scene, admittedly. It looks disgusting. People are burning left and right as Norman and his gang nonchalantly make their way into town to just...watch it burn. It’s one of the only moments where things actually look really, really good...it’s creepy, atmospheric and horrifying to behold. 

The good news is that Mujika and Sonju just agree to start running. 

Meanwhile at the town, the nice grandpa demon that Emma had met in the temple has arrived back at town and found it on fire! And who knows where his granddaughter and family are? And then...

We find out his granddaughter’s name...right when Norman has a big-ass knife and is about to run the girl through the back.

Emma. Her name’s Emma.

...yeeeaaaah. They did the Superman and Batman “OMG OUR MOMMAS GOT THE SAME NAMES” thing. A blatant attempt to try and get Norman to empathize with the demons by showing familial love of demons right in front of him and with the girl having the very same name as the one he so dearly cares for. And then unfortunately it gets bad. They see Norman. They realize he’s a human. And unfortunately...then the gas hits them.

The granddaughter begins mutating...the grandfather isn’t. 

Norman realizes...holy fucking shit. The guy has “the evil blood”. So he tries to stab the guy and...what comes out is red blood. “Emma...drink this blood and run.” Grandpa Demon insists. He has her drink from his hand, Norman looking at his blood-stained hands. Red blood. 

Emma the demon is now crying uncontrollably as her grandpa tries to comfort her. “Even if I die. I want you to at least live.” “No! Grandpa! I want you to live with me!”

Norman is now feeling tears springing to his eyes. He looks around and is seeing the horror being unleashed. Children are screaming for their parents to stop eating people...themselves included. Some brave demon souls are desperately trying to keep the mutated from attacking families. “Why am I wavering?” Norman wonders aloud. “I knew this from the very beginning...there’s no other way...”

Especially not with the time he has left...

Norman can’t bring himself to bring the knife down and then he hears...

“NORMAN!”

He turns around...

And there Emma and Ray are...

And they see him. As he ACTUALLY is. A scared, horrified child with a knife in his hands. 

“This time...I’m not letting you go alone!” Emma says.

And...the episode ends. 

Well...gee. You know...this was probably one fo the best episodes because of the stuff with the town, but thinking about ALL this season sacrificed to get there...

It’s just like...it’s like being served, instead of the meal you ordered, a different meal completely that tastes fine...but you didn’t order it or ask for it. You wanted a steak. Not chicken. Sure the chicken is delicious but...you did specifically want a steak and EXPECT a steak. Not a chicken, no matter how tasty it is. 

[cringe-phase]

Sisterhood of the Travelling Deleted Scene

This is the deleted alternate beginning of....many abandoned ideas. First it was gonna be a quick one-shot to practice stuff in preparation for a multichapter project, but I decided to just start the multichapter instead. I tried to make this work for the beginning of “One Two Three (Four)”, but I was too sold on Draxum being the cause for Don’s amnesia, so I rewrote it and liked the new beginning better anyway. Then I tried to make it work for two other ideas that I quickly lost interest in for being too serious--I like my lighthearted moments too much. 

Nowadays I think it's destined to be forever unfinished...but I still dig it even without a use...so, here just take it in it's abandoned and unedited glory.

Summary: The brothers stumble upon the Foot Clan and get into a fight on the rooftop when Donnie gets blindsided. Takes place early Season 1.

Disclaimer: characters use the concept of using a crutch as an insult and is not a reflection of what the author thinks.

It had all started so well.

Four brothers were on their way to their go-to pizza joint. The pizza joint was in no way their favorite, it was simply their go-to because it was owned by a Yokai and therefore they could dine in for once and enjoy an atmosphere that wasn’t a sewer. They adored their home and all, but no windows and the same view day in and day out would be a bummer to any free spirited teen. So off they went for some well-deserved pizza and socialization on the same night that the universe decided that today it was going to roll the dice.

It was Mikey that spotted the breaking and entering taking place. The little orange turtle immediately pointed it out, and much to the middle children’s displeasure, Raphael’s moral responsibility steered them to the crimes instead of the pizza. Said displeasure was expressed through groans and claims of “The police can handle it, not every little thing had to be our problem bro”, but was quickly silenced by the reveal of the perps and this week’s villain of the week.

“It’s those flame head guys again. For such a big city, we run into them a lot.” Raph pointed out, scratching his chin as they perched on the building next door.

“I think they have a stealing things obsession--”

“Kleptomania.” The purple turtle interrupted the slider.

“--they’re always breaking and entering when we find them.” Leo ignored his brother.

“I mean, that’s probably in the bad guy job description.” Michelangelo said from his seat on Raph’s shoulders.

“....D’you think they’re hiring?”

“Leo!” Raph scolded and Leonardo immediately shrugged unapologetically.

“Whaaat? It was just a little question.”

“No, you are hereby BANNED from joining the bad guys!” Raph nodded at the finality and jumped to the roof of the break-in-in-progress.

Donatello casually joined his blue banded brother’s side as Raph leapt with Mikey still on his shoulders. Leo glanced at him curiously.

“What do you think the pay’s like? Theoretically.” Donatello asked with an interested tone.

“Better than ours probably, considering we don’t get paid.” Leo crossed his arms to pout. “But Raph said we can’t. Oh well.”

“No,” Donatello smirked and looked at his brother slyly before lightly bonking him on the forehead with his tech bo, “Raph said you can’t.”

“What?! Donnie?!?!” Leo gaped as his snickering brother leapt off to join the rest of their quartet. He pouted as he jumped after him, fully intending to snitch on the purple teammate but immediately getting shushed by Raphael upon joining. “I didn’t even--”

“Shh, Leo, look!” Raph gestured to the turning of the knob of the stairway door to the roof. “Hide, now!”

The turtles had just barely all gotten into hiding spots as the door finally swung open, the hand on the doorknob connecting to a large brutish guy. The Brute held the door open for his skinny partner.

“I thought I heard something out here.” The Brute said, suspiciously looking around.

“I told you,” His Lieutenant said, “You need to get your tinnitus looked at.”

“I don’t think it was that Boss, it’s not even that bad.”

“Then you’re being paranoid.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Boss, I’m onto something! Everywhere we go those turtles show up!”

“Hey!” Although Mikey was whispering, he was doing so quite loudly. “They’re talking about us!!”

“Mikey shhh!” Leonardo slapped his hand over his younger brother’s mouth, nervously peeking back around the structure they had both hidden behind. The Foot representatives hadn’t noticed them, and Leo breathed a sigh of relief. He could see Donatello hidden smartly behind the structure with the door the bad guys had walked out of, ready to move counter to their location to remain hidden indefinitely, and Raphael was camouflaged as a gargoyle perched on the corner of the building just out of the light enough to be a vague shape. He looked to his brothers to gauge what the plan was going to be and ignored Michelangelo’s tapping on his wrist. Were they going to wait out the bad guys and follow them in like real ninjas? Were they going to ambush right here right now? Was Donnie hacking into the building right now to locate what the Foot was even here for?

All of a sudden Leo’s hand was warm and wet. “Ew!” He recoiled his hand back and looked at his little brother, betrayed.

“Hey, who’s there?!”

Leonardo hastily started wiping his hand on his brother’s head, ignoring his quiet protests and peeked out from their hiding spot and met the eyes of the Brute. He yelped and quickly hid again.

“Look! Boss it’s the turtles, I told you!” Brute exclaimed. “They’re here just like always!”

“Enough of your conspiracies, just deal with them!” The Lieutenant commanded as he started folding paper faster than an average human.

Leo swore as the Brute ran towards them and grabbed Mikey by his shell to move him out of the way while he wiped his own spit off of himself. A fist came down on their hiding spot as Leo threw Mikey out of the way and ran the opposite direction to get some distance.

“Leo! Mikey!” Raphael sprung into action as the Brute turned to pursue his blue brother. A trio of origami soldiers poofed into existence and cut him off. “We were supposed to be stealthy!”

“He licked me!” Leonardo complained as he dodged a swing and backflipped onto the roof of the doorway. “It caught me off guard!”

“Mikey!” Raph scolded as he blocked a punch and threw one of his own.

“I couldn’t breathe! He wouldn’t move his hand off of my face!” Michelangelo defended as he ran to assist his eldest brother.

“All of my brothers are evil!” Leo continued on his drama streak.

Donatello emerged from his hiding spot in the shadows and landed a surprise attack on the Brute, his tech bo in its hammer format and sent the bad guy to the ground momentarily. “Can we save the family bickering until after we are no longer in combat?!”

“Why do you say that like this is a game?” The Brute asked from the ground, curious. “This is real life, kid, we could really hurt you.”

“Roll for initiative!!” Donnie yelled as a battle cry, using his bo to vault himself over the Brute and toward the Lieutenant, smacking into a hastily made Origami soldier instead while Raph hurried to cover him.

Combat was successfully initiated. Origami soldiers were created and fists continued to fly. (Do better transition)

“As much as I love the impromptu field test of my new tech bo addition,” Donatello swung his bo with a manic grin, the chainsaw application tearing apart the paper soldiers like they were butter, “We’re going to be here all night if we don’t focus on the source!”

“Oh yeah,” Michelangelo thoughtfully added, “Like the spawners in Minecraft! They’re just gonna keep coming forever.”

“I mean, we actually have a decent handle on this. Plus I’m kinda having fun shredding these bozos!” Leonardo had taken the opportunity to practice some more extravagant swings and flourishes. Since upgrading to a single sword he’s been curious about pulling off one of those fancy spin-attacks he’s seen on some fighting games.

“Yeah I’m down with downing more of these paper pawns!” Mikey agreed, eyes alight as he set some origami soldiers ablaze with his mystical kusari-fundo.

“Ok so we got two for having fun with these jerks for once, how about--”

“Raph would like to hurry and be done here!” Raphael yelled from his side of the battlefield, punching a stray origami soldier as he dodged another punch from the Brute.

“You didn’t have to crash our outings, y’know.” The Brute mumbled.

Donatello sighed as he shredded another group of paper soldiers into confetti before activating his battle shell to initiate hover mode. He flew above the field, his younger brothers immediately picking up his slack and cutting through his share of soldiers, and zeroed in on the Lieutenant frantically making origami man after origami man like a well-oiled machine. Honestly, the speed in which he pumped those out was admirable. But, Donatello wanted pizza and he was bored shredding the same kind of enemy multiple times a minute. 

Spinning his tech bo back into its bo format, Donatello dove towards the Origami-spawner and swung, narrowly missing as the Lieutenant jumped out of the way. The jets of the Battle Shell whirred as he hovered back into the air, glaring down at the man with a cocky grin. A better challenge than the Origami Soldiers, which the flame-headed human kept folding and throwing into the battle as he dodged Donnie’s dives.

Donatello swung again and the Lieutenant ducked and blew a raspberry, much to Donnie’s annoyance. He could feel his eye’s want to twitch but honed his willpower to keep it at bay, honing in on taking this disrespectful villain down.

His tunnel vision left him blindsided by the paper hand that grabbed his ankle and slammed him back to the ground, another immediately jumping into his shell jet pack to sabotage any attempts to flee to the skies. He glared up at the human puppeteer, grin replaced by a frustrated frown.

“Not so tough without your little gadget, are you?” The Lieutenant rasped, now the one with the cocky grin. He circled the turtle, examining the spluttering jets shredding the fingers of the paper soldiers holding it down. “Why does a turtle need a fake shell anyway? Is it like a crutch?”

The “crutch” in question immediately sprang free from the purple turtle’s back, sending it and the paper man attached to it directly into the Lieutenant. Donatello immediately swung his bo to swat his legs free of soldiers and jumped to his feet. His glare upon the man sharpened.

“I don’t need a crutch.” He growled, softshell open to the evening breeze. It wasn't a sensation he was used to, but capable of ignoring nonetheless. He raised a judgmental eyebrow at the twitch of the Lieutenant's hands on paper. "Do you?"

The Flame Head immediately halted his folding and narrowed his otherworldly eyes at the teen. He knew he was being baited--he did the same thing to the kid--but he couldn't back down lest his honor and ego take a hit.

Lou Jitsu would meet the challenge head on.

The Foot Lieutenant tossed his paper to the side and took a defensive pose.

[loopy777]

Nickelodeon gives you the task of writing a series based on Korra's earthbending successor with no limits on what you can do. How would you write his story?

Interesting that you say “his.” There’s no rule that the Avatars have to alternate gender, but at this point the fandom assumes it so much that I’d just go with it to avoid controversy.

Anyway, I’d probably turn Nickelodeon down if they wanted me to write Korra’s successor. I have no interest in the future that seems to be getting established in LoK. I want the franchise to stay in the past forever; there’s more than enough room, and I’d even be open to throwing away the concept of “canon” to tell stories that might merely be in-universe legends.

But, I’m going to try to answer the question in good faith. If I was a professional television writer/producer, and my career depended on saying yes to this and trying to do a good job, here’s what I’d do:

Working Title: The Last Avatar

Our star is a poor Earthlands boy. The Earth Kingdom collapsed years ago, Balkanizing into a bunching of struggling nations divided up haphazardly among various tribes, local cultures, and convenient geographical groupings. Our Boy is an Earthbender, but he hasn’t pursued any official training because it’s largely a waste of time and money. Instead, he’s been working his way through an education, learning about robotics and spirit-energy, because demand is high for that knowledge. He repairs old robots for spare money, and even has his own glitchy assistant -- who can transform into a van -- who he likes to trash-talk to show his love. He’s a huge nerd.

Actually, the only reason he can defend himself with Earthbending at all is because of a classmate and friend who’s passed on her own lessons. This girl is one of seventeen young adults who currently use the Beifong name. She’s a Metalbender using her ability to innovate with circuitry, very interested in technology and business, but she also values some of the old ways and thinks Bending is an important part of Earth culture that should not be ignored.

Our Boy knows he’s not the Avatar because the Avatar is a super-famous influencer, activist, pop-singer, and advertising icon. She lives in the Fire Nation and has green hair. You should picture Hatsune Miku for her. There are bigger celebrities, and none of her movies have been huge hits, but the Avatar still has enough culture significance that she was born famous and has managed to stay in the news.

By the way, Fire Nation culture is dominant. All the best stuff comes from the Fire Nation. Their movies, television, music, and video games are popular all over the world. Their technology is better. Their quality is life is better. They have the best doctors, the fastest internet, bigger apartments, the most prestigious schools, and the best jobs. Immigration is limited by law, in order to maintain their high quality of life.

The United Republic and the Water Tribes have seized some former Earth Kingdom territory, so their influence has expanded. The United Republic invested heavily in technology, and they’re now a dystopian cyberpunk nightmare with a government that just does whatever its corporations say. The president of the United Republic is a position that rich men use to become richer. The Water Tribes are a lot better, having managed to transition to a constitutional monarchy and maintain something like a balance between life and technology.

Note that I didn’t say “spirituality and technology,” because the two are one. All technology is spirit-powered. Spirits can meld with the internet. Spirits can inhabit robot bodies. Spirits and humans meet in abstract Virtual Realities where the difference between the two disappears.

And all of this orderly chaos is set to collapse when Our Boy accidentally Firebends during a dangerous action moment. He and Beifong Girl realize he might be the Avatar. But Hatsune Miku has demonstrated command of all four elements. On separate occasions she’s been seen and filmed Earthbending, Firebending, Waterbending, and Airbending, sometimes two at once. So how can Our Boy also do that?

Beifong Girl urges him to contact the Air Nation and the descendants of Avatar Aang to find out. Except, when he does with her family’s help, Dual-Benders -- warriors using two different elements -- try to kill him. He’s been betrayed by the Air Nation- and possibly the Beifong clan. His friend helps him get away, but she isn’t sure she can trust her family. They both go on the run, not sure what to do.

The mystery of what’s going on will drive the whole series. Here’s our cast:

Our Boy: The true Earthbending Avatar, completely untrained. He’s a poor nerd thrown into the deep end of a global conspiracy, but fortunately he has a robot who transforms into a van, so at least he has transporation.

Beifong Friend: Our Boy’s best friend. Not a love interest. She’s the youngest Beifong cousin, an Earthlands patriot who wants to raise the former Earth Kingdom out of its divided state using technology. She’s also far too gentle for her family of power-hungry vipers, but she’s still a great Earthbender and will become a Metalbender warrior before the end.

Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku: An artificial biological/spiritual construct of the Red Lotus, able to Bend two elements at any one time by swapping out a set of four spirits (all of whom are intelligent, devoted solely to her, and have different personalities), and the center of a conspiracy that she’s the Avatar. The Red Lotus built her and are using her to advance their plans. She joins the hunt for Our Boy, officially decrying him as a Disciple of a Vaatu cult trying to destroy humanity. However, she eventually begins to have thoughts of her own and resent how she’s used and abused as a tool rather than a person. She becomes our Deuteragonist, going rogue and having her own journey and arcs that intersect with Our Boy. Depending on fandom reaction, she might becomes Our Boy’s love interest, but might also become just another friend. She eventually frees her spirit friends, giving up all Bending powers.

Water Sage-Candidate: A young man who is training to be a Water Sage/Shaman. He’s a new-age hippie type who distrusts technology but likes people and spirits, wanting everyone to be nicer and more supportive to each other. He’s suspicious of what’s going on with this supposed Vatuu cult, despite his master (a Red Lotus infiltrator) telling him to trust in the true Avatar. When Our Boy and his friends come to Water Tribe territory, he joins up with them to help expose the truth.

Air Detective: An Airbender, a master detective and manhunter, who has been tasked with helping to track down Our Boy. It turns out she’s honest and completely ignorant of what’s really going on, so as she hunts Our Boy, she realizes the greater conspiracy at work- one that seems to have set its sights on the Air Nation back during the height of Avatar Korra’s influence. She’s older than the main cast and largely separate from them, but she does spend a lot of time with Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and becomes something of a mentor to her. She struggles balancing Airbender ideals and her own cynicism about humanity, and is probably the best fighter in the story.

The Red Lotus: Our villains. They have infiltrated every level of every government in the world, and have figured how to replicate what Raava did with Wan- use a melding between spirits and humans to swap out Bending powers. They have managed to get up to a human/spirit combo being able to actively use two at a time, but they’re hot on replicating the full Avatar experience. The idea is that they eventually want to give everyone full Avatar powers, ruining the office of the Avatar and empowering everyone with the strength to topple governments and businesses. Any single person can knock over a building and kill thousands. And for those who are incompatible with the melding process and explode- well, those are necessary losses. Red Lotus foot soldiers will often have, as one of their two elements, Firebending.

Red Lotus Traitor: A NonBender history nerd from a Red Lotus family. The more he sees as he’s initiated into the family business, the more horrified he becomes, but he successfully manages to hide it- which is good, because recruits who balk tend to wind up dead in ‘accidents.’ When Our Boy comes to the Fire Nation, he and his friends encounter the Traitor, which brings them to the Red Lotus’s attention, but the Traitor finally breaks free and gets the group out, joining them.

Boss Red Lotus: The leader of the Red Lotus. A NonBender. She and her family -- siblings, a father or mother we can maybe tie to a character in LoK, and maybe a kid or spouse -- are running the whole show and have inherited the plan that the Red Lotus are executing. What separates Boss Red Lotus is her personal investment in Fake Avatar Hasune Miku. She thinks of herself as Miku’s mother, and has become more interested in creating a higher form of life than merely giving humanity Avatar powers. She grows more obsessed when Miku goes rogue and commissions a more advanced clone.

Fake Love Interest: A love interest for Our Boy who is a little bit weird and a little bit cool, very pretty in a vaguely gothy way, and fond of bugs. This is actually Koh in disguise as a human, and the romance doesn’t work out. It will be awesome, trust me.

The bulk of the series is Our Boy and his growing group of friends tooling around the world in their robot-van, chased by Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and the Airbender Detective, slowly uncovering the Red Lotus conspiracy and eventually rising up to save the world with the help of everyone who isn’t evil. The setting is dark and inspired by science-fiction, and there’s a theme of rediscovering the past, but the past doesn’t always hold the solution. Sometimes, the past merely contains the mistakes that led to today’s problems. The redemption of the world usually comes from getting in touch with the culture of the past, and mixing that with the wondrous new technology available today.

The ending I’m envisioning is a kind of embracing of the Red Lotus’s plan, but a non-destructive form. Everyone gets all four elements, but no one is killed by it, and the power level is completely normal. The Avatar, though, is the sole person to be able to Energybend, and it’s this role -- being able to explore the limitless potential of humanity -- that makes the Avatar important going forward. The significant Red Lotus are all sucked into hell or the Fog of Lost Souls or something, except for those who die outright, with the rest being rehabilitated.

Romance will be downplayed, aside from the fakeout with Koh, but if any of the recurring characters show some chemistry, there’s room to develop it. The Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku should be designed to be the audience’s tortured, angsty, badass waifu.

The next level of development for these ideas should come from the Concept Artist team, especially focusing on the weapons used in this setting. This will be followed by a more detailed revision by me with major plot points, and then going to the writers’ room for development of the first season. Entire characters or concepts may disappear or be added during that time.

Merchandising should emphasize the Tron Lines on everyone’s clothing that glow when Bending. Also, the Robot Van can be expanded to a whole line of transforming robots toys, although the word “transform” should not appear in any official material. We see video games as a major licensing opportunity, with a possibility for “canon” stories set in the same time period, intersecting with the cartoon’s main plot. To this end, final character designs should perhaps be modeled on voice actors, so that face scans or motion capture can be employed for AAA video game appearances.

And that’s my pitch.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s WandaVision: Scarlet Witch’s Avengers and MCU History Recap

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It’s been quite a long break, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is back from hibernation in 2021, starting with WandaVision. As the climactic Avengers: Endgame and its denouement Spider-Man: Far From Home concluded Phase 3, we’ve had to wait the entire chaotic 2020 before Phase 4 could start up in 2021.

You might have a friend or relative asking you, “What is WandaVision, exactly?” and folks, that is a loaded question. Especially if they haven’t watched many or any of the Marvel movies. How do you explain a plot about an ever-evolving sitcom reality that gradually falls apart due to the complicated and traumatic relationship between a reformed terrorist with too much power on her hands and a polite android who shouldn’t even exist? And don’t get me started on the pre-existing supporting characters from other Marvel movies.

To get you or your hypothetical loved one up to speed, here’s a look back at the history of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, in the MCU, as played by Elizabeth Olsen.

THE AVENGERS

To explain the Scarlet Witch, you have to go back to the forming of the Avengers. Once upon a time, a group of heroes from different walks of life banded together to stop an alien invasion. A powerful megalomaniac named Thanos was obsessed with obtaining the Infinity Stones, six cosmic gems that could give its wielder immeasurable power over the universe itself if fully collected. He armed his underling Loki with a mind-controlling staff and gave him his own army of alien warriors in hope of conquering Earth and getting his hands on an artifact known as the Tesseract.

The Tesseract and the gem powering the staff were both Infinity Stones (the Space Stone and the Mind Stone, respectively). Loki was ultimately defeated by the Avengers. While the Norse Gods held onto the Tesseract for safekeeping, the staff ended up in the hands of the worldwide government agency SHIELD.

Having saved the day, the Avengers were beloved by many. But not everyone.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers discovered that SHIELD had been compromised by HYDRA, a science-obsessed offshoot of the Third Reich. For many decades, HYDRA personnel had infiltrated SHIELD and used its resources for its own nefarious ends. In the end, Captain America defeated HYDRA’s plot, but a mid-credits scene showed that the organization was not yet destroyed.

At some point, HYDRA operative Wolfgang Von Strucker got his hands on Loki’s staff and was able to experiment with the Mind Stone. Two test subjects were able to survive the experiments: Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother Pietro.

The two came from the fictional country Sokovia, where they were orphaned by munitions created by Tony Stark’s company. Hating Tony Stark and the Avengers in general, the two allowed themselves to be made guinea pigs by Von Strucker. The Mind Stone unlocked special abilities in the two where Pietro – known as Quicksilver – gained amazing speed powers while Wanda – the Scarlet Witch – could do everything from energy manipulation to telekinesis to mind manipulation and flight.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

The Avengers got together for what was supposed to be one last hurrah as they sieged the last stronghold of HYDRA in Avengers: Age of Ultron. While they made short work of Strucker’s goons, they ran into trouble with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Ultimately, the twins escaped, though Scarlet Witch messed with Iron Man’s head and increased his paranoia that another alien invasion would one day arrive and crush Earth’s heroes.

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner ran their own experiments on the Mind Stone and tried to create a world-protecting AI out of it. Upon being born, the AI immediately went mad and took the form of a genocidal robot with the personality quirks of Stark. Ultron sought out the Maximoffs and recruited them against the Avengers.

Wanda did her damage against the Avengers by screwing with their heads one-by-one and making them live out their personal nightmares. The most disastrous part of this was how she caused the Hulk to lose control and go on a massive rampage. Although he was eventually subdued by Iron Man, the Hulk’s freakout caused massive cracks to appear in the Avengers’ reputation.

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver ultimately turned against Ultron after realizing that he wanted to wipe out billions of lives as part of his plan to “save humanity.” They teamed up with the Avengers to defend Sokovia against an army of Ultron drones. During this time, Wanda found herself mentally overwhelmed by the battle, but Hawkeye was able to motivate her into continuing the fight.

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Quicksilver sacrificed himself to save Hawkeye’s life, filling Wanda with dread and anger. She ended up destroying Ultron’s main, most powerful form. Soon after, all of Ultron’s drones were annihilated and he was fully defeated.

Scarlet Witch joined the new Avengers roster, made up of herself, Captain America, Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, and Vision. Vision, a more human-looking android created by Ultron, was powered by the Mind Stone and had it sticking out of his forehead.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

A mission in Lagos, Nigeria went terribly wrong at the start of Captain America: Civil War. Although the Avengers were able to defeat the terrorist Crossbones, he detonated a bomb on his body in hopes of taking some of the heroes with him. Scarlet Witch tried to move Crossbones’ exploding body away from the area, but accidentally killed many others in a nearby office building.

While it was an accident, it was also the straw the broke the camel’s back. The Sokovia Accords was written up, making the Avengers’ existence a legal matter. In order for them to fight the forces of evil, they had to do so under the orders of the world’s governments. The superhero community disagreed on this ultimatum, causing a massive rift in the Avengers.

The guilt-ridden Wanda remained at Avengers Headquarters, where she bonded with her teammate Vision. While they became close, it was also apparent that Vision was there to keep her from leaving the premises, as certain members of the team thought it would be unwise for Wanda to be seen in public. Hawkeye arrived to recruit Wanda onto Captain America’s side of the war against Iron Man and the Sokovia Accords. While Hawkeye was out of his league against Vision, Wanda’s powers and connection to the Mind Stone allowed her to easily counter the android.

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By Mike Cecchini

A massive battle took place between Captain America and Iron Man’s teams. While Captain America and his friend Bucky were able to escape, Wanda and the rest were defeated and taken into custody. She, Hawkeye, Falcon, and Ant-Man ended up in a special island prison with high-tech restraints keeping her from being able to use her powers. As Iron Man came to see the prisoners, the other three threw verbal abuse his way. Wanda just remained silent.

In the end, Captain America returned to free the prisoners. A new “Secret Avengers” team was put together of Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch. Together, they would do missions from the shadows, against the authority of the government.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

Having figured out the locations of all six Infinity Stones, Thanos decided to make his move. His intent was to gather the six gems, snap his fingers, and use their power to remove half of all life in the universe. It was his own twisted plan to prevent universal overpopulation. While this was bad news for everyone, it was especially bad news for Vision.

Wanda strayed away from her Secret Avengers team in order to have a romantic relationship with Vision. As the two vacationed in Scotland, they were attacked by some of Thanos’ lieutenants. The Secret Avengers appeared and rescued them.

Logic stated that in order to stop Thanos from achieving his goals, they would have to destroy the Mind Stone. While Scarlet Witch could theoretically use her powers to blow it up, doing so would kill Vision. She refused to do so and Captain America backed her up. Instead, they went to Wakanda, where they could seek sanctuary from Thanos’ forces and get the technology and knowhow needed to remove the Mind Stone from Vision without killing him.

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Avengers: Infinity War Easter Eggs and Marvel Reference Guide

By Jim Dandy and 2 others

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Avengers: Infinity War Comics Reading Order

By Jim Dandy

While Thanos was busy gathering the other Stones through the cosmos, his forces invaded Wakanda. Scarlet Witch was forced to abandon Vision’s side in order to help fight the aliens. She and her allies were successful in taking out Thanos’ top henchmen, but by the time Thanos appeared in Wakanda, there was virtually no time left. Vision was still attached to the Mind Stone and the only options were to have Wanda destroy it along with Vision or allow Thanos to take it himself. Either way, Vision was doomed.

With a heavy heart, Scarlet Witch manipulated the Mind Stone into exploding, killing her true love. It was an empty gesture as Thanos wielded the Time Stone and was able to rewind the event. This time, Thanos tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head and left the android’s corpse behind. Soon after, he snapped his fingers and caused half of the universe’s population to vanish into dust.

A distraught Wanda Maximoff was one of those victims.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME

The surviving Avengers took the fight to Thanos, only to discover that he had already forced the Infinity Stones to self-destruct on their own power. Thor angrily killed Thanos and the universe had to spend five years grappling with the loss of countless lives.

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Avengers: Endgame – Complete Marvel Easter Eggs and MCU Reference Guide

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Which Avengers: Endgame Deaths Are Permanent?

By Mike Cecchini

Earth’s heroes finally figured out a plan to bring everyone back by using time travel to gather the Infinity Stones. The good news was that their plan worked. The bad news was that the “time heist” got the attention of Thanos from ten years earlier, who was able to bring a massive army into the present and wage war.

Doctor Strange – one of those who returned from oblivion – appeared along with all of the missing heroes and hundreds of warriors from different parts of the universe. Although this incarnation of Thanos was not familiar with Scarlet Witch, the furious Wanda overwhelmed him with her powers and nearly tore him apart. Thanos had his warships fire at the battlefield in order to free himself at any cost. Scarlet Witch continued to annihilate anyone in her way while Thanos was ultimately defeated by Iron Man. Thanos and his forces were turned to dust after Iron Man activated the Infinity Stones.

Wanda appeared at Tony Stark’s funeral, where she and Hawkeye gave each other support for the deaths of Vision and Black Widow.

Through her story, Wanda had lost her parents, her brother, her boyfriend, and for several years, her life. She’s responsible for much death and destruction and has to live with that. Now she’s the star of WandaVision, where she and Vision get to live out their “happily ever after.”

Except…Vision is still dead. Or is he?

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In the comics, Wanda has always had a bad habit of falling into her powers as a way to deal with trauma. At least once she has irresponsibly altered history/reality with her scarred mind and it looks like that behavior is about to make its way to the MCU.

WandaVision premieres on Disney+ on Jan. 15.

The post Marvel’s WandaVision: Scarlet Witch’s Avengers and MCU History Recap appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[junker-town]

Every Marvel Cinematic Universe villain, ranked from forgettable to iconic

Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for ReedPOP

From Malekith to Loki, we covered them all.

All week, we’re having a little fun and diving into the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The MCU exists thanks to endless battles between our heroes and the villains that torment them. Some of the villains — hello, Vulture — are fantastic. They’re well-rounded, they have depth, and there seems to be a method to their madness.

Then there are the other villains. Their backgrounds aren’t particularly explained, you’re not entirely sure what they’re doing — looking intently at you, Malekith — and motivations seem weak at best.

As part of our Marvel Week, we took the 26 primary villains from the 23 MCU films and ranked them from 1-to-26. Warning: THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW, so act accordingly. Let’s get to it.

26. Ivan Vanko (Iron Man 2)

Be honest. The only thing you really remember about Ivan Vanko is when he said “I want my bird.”

25. Aldrich Killian/Maya Hansen (Iron Man 3)

This movie had far too many plots, and therefore far too many villains. There’s one point in the movie where it’s revealed that the Vice President is in on Killian’s plans, and then it’s not mentioned again. Surprise! Maya Hansen is actually bad. Surprise! The Mandarin is an actor! Surprise! The VP is in on it! I need this movie and its collection of villains to do a little less.

24. Zemo (Captain America: Civil War)

Zemo’s motivations are clear — he is driven by his rage and sadness over losing his family in Sokovia — but he’s little more than an accelerant to get the real conflict of the movie going between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.

23. Emil Blonsky/Abominable (The Incredible Hulk)

The only really nice thing that you can say about The Incredible Hulk is that the fight scene between Abominable and Hulk is pretty cool. Tim Roth is high key the best part of this movie.

22. Kaecilius (Doctor Strange)

Dormammu didn’t have enough screen time for him to be ranked here, but we do get Mads Mikkelsen’s Kaecilius. The fight scenes are awesome, but I spent a lot of time wondering if he was going to start weeping blood.

21. Malekith (Thor: The Dark World)

Malekith? More like Male-kiss-my-ass, amirite? Sorry, trying to delete.

20. Johann Schmidt/Red Skull (Captain America: The First Avenger)

Red Skull is the most cartoon-like villain of the movies, but there’s still something about the first time he rips that Hugo Weaving face off. Also, being a Nazi gets you an automatic top-20 spot. This dude was evil.

19. Ava/Ghost (Ant-Man and the Wasp)

You could make the argument that “The Feds” are actually the villain in Ant-Man and The Wasp, but for our purposes we’re just going to go with Ghost. Ghost is visually a stunning villain as she phases in-and-out while simultaneously kicking serious ass. She’s not higher up on this list because she’s actually ... not a bad person and is instead trying to find a way to end her crippling pain.

18. Yon Rogg (Captain Marvel)

Wow, they really cast the MCU well. Jude Law is the perfect smarmy guy that you think is on your side til you realize that actually he’s a psycho and is trying to kill an entire group of people. Captain Marvel is more about the origin story for Carol Danvers and less about the villains, so not much to write home about with Yon Rogg.

17. Justin Hammer (Iron Man 2)

What a jerk. This guy just stinks. It doesn’t make him much more of a compelling villain, but he’s the perfect insecure guy that isn’t as smart or creative as his competitors. He brings on Ivan Vanko, gets him his bird, and basically lets a murderous mad man easily take over his whole fleet of replica Iron Man robots. His ambition coupled with the “I will literally do whatever to get that government contract” vibes moves him up this list a little.

16. Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

I might be alone in this, but I found Ultron far too boring to be a super compelling villain. He goes from zero to murderous in a matter of seemingly seconds, and he is really only saved by James Spader delivering a stellar performance with voice work. The movie actually gets better upon rewatch (especially after watching Infinity War and Endgame), but Ultron just doesn’t do it for me villain-wise. His motives felt rushed and under-explained, and there are far too many monologues.

15. Lieutenant General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (The Incredible Hulk)

Don’t be fooled. Lieutenant General “Thunderbolt” Ross is 100% the villain in The Incredible Hulk. On the annoying-but-not-that-bad end of the spectrum, he’s an overbearing dad trying to interfere with his adult daughter’s dating life. On the other end, he directs soldiers to open fire TWICE in areas infested with civilians. First, they have an open-field battle ON THE CAMPUS OF A COLLEGE. In the third act, when trying to track down Abomination (a creature he helped create, mind you), Ross has a helicopter — with his daughter on board — shoot at what appears to be an apartment building in Harlem. This man would not only NOT be the Secretary of State later (he makes a reappearance in Captain America: Civil War among other films), he would be in prison for war crimes.

And this dude tries to arrest the Captain America side for not signing the Sokovia Accords. This guy sucks.

14. Mandarin (Iron Man 3)

They really could have done so much more with The Mandarin, especially considering they got Sir Ben Kingsley to play the role. Kingsley is really the only thing that saves this performance, going from a cruel, murderous terrorist to gassy, beer swilling fool in a moment.

13. Supreme Intelligence (Captain Marvel)

ANNETTE BENING IN A BOMBER JACKET!!! Bening plays both Dr. Wendy Lawson and the artificial intelligence being that rules the Kree, but it’s her turn as the latter that gives us some pretty intense evil. Let Annette Bening play more sinister characters, imo.

12. Ronan (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Maybe it’s because I remember Lee Pace as Ned from the quaint 2007 TV drama Pushing Daisies, but I loved this performance of Ronan. He’s shadowy enough that you still get that air of mystery about him, but he’s also just straight-up a mad man.

11. Darren Cross/Yellow Jacket (Ant-Man)

This guy literally goes into the bathroom at work, melts Frank into a small glob of former human, then WIPES HIM UP WITH A TISSUE AND FLUSHES IT DOWN THE TOILET. The biggest of yikes.

10. Obadiah Stane (Iron Man)

Obadiah Stane wanted to run Stark Industries so badly he helped orchestrate a kidnapping of Tony. Some good came from that — namely the creation of Iron Man and all the tech that went with it — but Stane also did some super dastardly stuff. The betrayal of a guy that looked up to you after his father’s death is one thing, but all the war profiteering is just too much.

Oh, and him yelling at and firing William Riva (AKA Ralphie from A Christmas Story) for not being able replicate Stark’s arc reactor leads to Riva joining forces with Quentin Beck in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It’s like a coaching tree of villains.

9. HYDRA/Alexander Pierce/Dr. Zola/Rumlow (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

Those backslashes are doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and honestly this collection (HYDRA) could have been a little bit higher as they have a lot of tentacles (pun intended) in a lot of places. Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce is one of the best castings, and the “elevator scene” is perfection that somehow gets even better in Endgame.

8. Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

IT WASN’T BUCKY’S FAULT. Cap’s best friend in the whole wide world, Bucky Barnes, was somehow rescued after plummeting from a moving train, frozen, un-frozen, and brainwashed to become a brutal assassin. While Bucky is a hero, Winter Soldier is a war machine (no, not THAT War Machine) that even murdered Tony Stark’s parents. Big yikes.

7. Ego (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)

The mystery around Peter Quill’s father spanned both Guardians of the Galaxy movies before we got Kurt Russell dramatically riding around on the top of a spaceship as Ego in Vol. 2. It doesn’t take long to realize something is super fishy, and that that something is Ego spreading his seed — literally — on multiple planets in the hopes of creating a part-god child to help him take over the universe. Quill turns out to be that offspring, but he is able to break Ego’s spell when Ego TELLS PETER HE GAVE HIS MOM CANCER. That’s messed up, man.

T5. Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Spider-Man: Far From Home)

T5. Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Spider-Man: Homecoming)

I don’t know what it is, but the solo Spider-Man stories have gotten two of the best single-movie villains so far. Michael Keaton’s Toomes is perfection as the arms dealing, jet-pack wearing Vulture, but the added depth of him being the father of Peter Parker’s crush is fantastic. They manage to establish him as a guy with a somewhat relatable story (he’s just trying to make things work!), and the car scene between Keaton and Tom Holland is one of the best moments of the whole movie (and top-10 in the MCU).

Beck is low-key horrible. Anyone who tricks poor, sweet, grieving Peter Parker is on my shit list automatically, but Jake Gyllenhaal plays it so well. All Peter wants to do is tell MJ he has a crush on her, and he gets duped into fighting battles and handing over Tony Stark’s glasses. If that wasn’t enough, Beck literally shoves him in front of an oncoming train and leads to Spider-Man’s identity being leaked.

He does give us J.K. Simmons’s J. Jonah Jameson back, though. That’s a point in his favor.

4. Killmonger (Black Panther)

It was really difficult to rank these top eight or so villains. All of them have intense back stories or more character development than we got in the early movies of the series. Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of Eric Killmonger in Black Panther was fantastic, and delivered some of the most meme-able moments of a villain (IS THIS YOUR KING?!).

While the rage and hurt felt by Killmonger over his father’s death is understandable, his actions as the movie’s antagonist are brutal.

This scene is so powerful:

3. Hela (Thor: Ragnarok)

The long-lost sister of Thor has some serious family issues. She’s absolutely ruthless, crushes Mjolnir (and therefore Thor’s spirits for a bit), and has an admittedly very cool wolf pet. Cate Blanchett knocks it out of the park with her portrayal. Hela is horrible and evil and also kind of badass, which shoots her up these rankings.

2. Loki (Thor/The Avengers)

Ah, the anti-hero. Loki is a pretty terrible dude most of the time, but he has his moments of actually doing the right thing. He’s petty, jealous, and the most untrustworthy person in the MCU. In Thor, he tries to kill his brother several times. In The Avengers, there’s the whole opening a portal in the sky to let the Chitauri in to kill a bunch of people and destroy half of New York thing. Oh, and don’t forget about when he faked his death, pretended to be Odin, and was content to hang out on Sakkar with the Grandmaster without helping Thor escape the gladiator-esque games.

1. Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame)

We get glimpses of Thanos’s lilac tinge in a handful of the MCU movies, but he’s clearly the pièce de résistance of the culmination of Phase Three with Infinity War and Endgame. Josh Brolin plays the genocidal maniac perfectly, even leaving some viewers after Infinity War saying, “you know, Thanos might have a point about how we’re destroying the planet.” He’s willing to kill billions of people on countless planets to get a little peace and quiet, and is the reason we lose a lot of characters we really care about.

Thanos gets the benefit of a multi-movie arc to explain the full extent of his cruelty, ambition, and willingness to do anything (including kill his own daughter) to achieve his goals.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY A terrifying centuries-old evil has awakened in the form of the wicked, voluptuous Lilith (Isa Anderson). Lilith, in the updated guise of a beautiful model, infiltrates the offices of a successful fashion magazine with the aim of corrupting the world via mass media and uses her beauty and her insatiable lust as a potent lifeforce which spreads death and destruction to all who dare to succumb to her charms. Lilith becomes the object of insane desire for all who brave her seductive gaze. Only true love can withstand her awesome powers and only one man (Linden Ashby) is strong enough to test them in a frightening test of will and death tango with Night Angel, the mistress of hell.

DEVELOPMENT Night Angel is the third horror film produced by Paragon Arts, the first two being Witchboard (1986) and Night of the Demons (1988). The company was formed two years ago by Walter Josten.

I had heard about people financing films the way we did it in the commodities market-you’re dealing with investors who want to take a shot and hope it hits big. I thought, they’ve got to love a film investment: it’s risky; it’s speculative; there’s a good chance for the upside, and the downside, with video and cable, is buffered. So we went out and looked for a script and came up with Oija, written by Kevin Tenney, who wanted to direct. I liked his philosophy: he wasn’t an artsy-craftsy director; he wanted to do a film that was gonna do some business. We formed a limited partnership, produced the film and went out and shopped it.”

The result was Witchboard, an above average supernatural thriller whose $2.3 million investment recouped $8 million at the box office. This impressive result convinced Josten to attempt a second horror film, Night of the Demons, a $2.7. million investment that traded away much of the charm of Witchboard in favor of a more extensive use of graphic special effects. “You have to believe you’re selling to a certain audience; otherwise, don’t make the movie,” said Josten, who admitted, “Night of the Demons tends to-if I may use the word pander a little more to its audience. It doesn’t have the story Witchboard does, but it has great special effects. We went more for that target kid audience.”

The story of Night Angel was the brainchild of Joe Augustyn, who also produced and wrote Night of the Demons. A fan of old horror movies, Augustyn wanted to create a horror villain based on mythology, as Bram Stoker did with Dracula. “I did a lot of research,” he said. “I read tons of books. I had known about Lilith for a long time, through friends who were radical lesbian feminists in the early 70s. The more I researched, the more Lilith seemed a natural.”

Augustyn pitched the idea to Josten, who immediately liked it. “When Joe presented it, I thought this idea was really good—to have a villainess steeped in reality,” Josten explained. “This person may not be real, but you can look her up in the dictionary and read about her in the encyclopedia, and there’s a lot of lore that’s never been exploited on film before.”

Augustyn’s first draft script then went through extensive revision under the supervision of Josten before the search for a director started. Josten and Augustyn had narrowed their search down to four when Dominique Othenin-Girard popped in on a fluke. He had been in the country only a few months and was introduced to them by his apartment manager, who had written a script for Paragon Arts.

Paragon’s initial interest in Girard’s work came after a viewing of Cop Trap “Piège à flics” (1985), a French TV movie which the director himself acknowledges as “the doorway to my career in the U.S.” Piège à flics became something of a controversy in Europe”. states Girard with more than a hint of pride. It was produced for a prime time television slot, filled with violence and sex and money. And I guess the Americans understood it.

Lilith, female demonic figure of Jewish folklore. Her name and personality are thought to be derived from the class of Mesopotamian demons called lilû (feminine: lilītu), and the name is usually translated as “night monster.” A cult associated with Lilith survived among some Jews as late as the 7th century CE. The evil she threatened, especially against children and women in childbirth, was said to be counteracted by the wearing of an amulet bearing the names of certain angels. – Britannica

Girard battled the European censors in defense of his cut. “A film director is somewhat of an outlaw. We have to break open the taboos society inflicts on the people.” The public flooded him with letters, some seriously accusing Girard of being the actual devil himself. But along with those came others of very high praise. Piège à flics went on to garner top European award nominations for it’s principal leads.

“He had the best ideas, seemed the most enthusiastic, and really understood the subject matter,” said Augustyn. “Ironically, when we had first started talking about a director, we were thinking maybe Paul Verhoeven-we wanted a European director who would bring a level of sophistication to the film. A lot of young American directors come out of film school with certain limitations, especially in the area of sex. It seems anything sexual they lump into T&A. We thought Dominique could bring in the sexuality without being tacky.”

Girard was given a copy of the script and shown two previous Paragon Arts films, Night of the Demons and Tips, the latter a comedy. Said Girard, “I was impressed by the goodwill but not the manufacture of Tips. I thought Night of the Demons was a pretty straightforward, exploitative movie. That disturbed me in a way. I thought it was very empty, but I liked in some way the manufacture of the film.”

Girard continued, “We had a five-hour meeting after the two films, in which they expected me to analyze the films and the script. The script I thought was rather weak, having no real hero nor goal to the hero. Walter, Joe and Jeff Geoffray, supervising producer said, ‘How interesting!’ instead of ‘How dare he! We immediately started to work on it.”

Girard, whose stepfather is an archeologist, was already familiar with many of the world’s ancient myths, including Lilith, and he used that background to help give input to the script. “What was fascinating for me was the (notion of) two kinds of sexuality: the one that links Adam and Eve, where male and female link together in order to reach God, and the other kind, more supported by Lilith, which is just lust, sexual pleasure to manipulate. What was also fascinating was the fact that she is a legendary figure. I dug into the legend in order to find images for the film to motivate myself on how to portray this woman.”

The scripting sessions continued for three weeks while the film was simultaneously going through pre-production planning. “After three weeks, I felt that we regressed,” recalled Girard. “Unfortunately, a lot of these images never made it into the film. I found a lot of restriction on the side of Walter Josten, who thought that some of these ideas were too European, too weird. I don’t think they were, but he was a more conservative figure. I believe sometimes he is imitating too many successful films, instead of going for the original film. That was our conflict. He wanted to apply not only one formula, but mix several formulas into the same film, which I didn’t think was working too well. I was suggesting to him to be simpler about it… But who cares? The film will speak for itself.”

PRE-PRODUCTION The next hurdle was casting the part of Lilith. “We wanted to use an actress that we’d never seen before, who could be anybody, because Lilith takes many forms.” said Josten. Dominique Girard added, “I didn’t want to go for the simple bimbo who could lift up her skirt and take off her bra. That was not the point; the point was the charisma.”

Finally, after literally hundreds of actresses were auditioned, Isa Anderson was chosen. “Some actresses who came in were incredible knockouts until someone tried to direct them to be seductive, and then they were like little girls,” said Augustyn. “We were really lucky to get Isa. She really got what we were trying to do. She read books about Lilith. She is elegant and very sensual. She was a model, so she can pull off a lot of different looks, and she’s a really good actress. Her accent is nondescript. Dominique and I, if we could have run with it, probably would have gone more for a middle Eastern accent, to be true to the myth, but Walter was really concerned. He wanted her to sound as if she could have come from anywhere—which also makes sense, on one level.”

After final script revisions, in order to bring the project to a level manageable on its budget, the film shot four six-day weeks last year on various locations scattered around Los Angeles. “I have experience making small-budget films in Europe,” said Girard. “I have a reputation of giving a very polished look with very little money. I of course wanted to obtain this in order to transcend the formula of an exploitative movie. I believe we achieved an incredible quality. The producers are very glad about it, because they know this film will establish them as a company with credibility.”

SPECIAL EFFECTS The rushed production schedule prevented Steve Johnson’s crew from being able to film many of the planned special effects during principal photography. By that time, Johnson had left to work on James Cameron’s The Abyss, so the additional effects were assigned to KNB. Fortunately, the budget included additional money for shooting pick-ups, so after the principle footage was assembled, the crew shot an additional eight days of effects footage late last year.

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Steve Johnson was hired to handle the psychological requirements. Girard calls the effects artist Magnificent. He was very precise. A great pleasure. He had the hand going into the chest and you could see the fingers, just plunging. The chest piece was a seamless appliance and there was a fake arm used for Lilith, where you could actually see the blood traveling through her veins.”

Likewise, when additional pick up shots were needed, the magnificent requirements continued, even without the services of Johnson.

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Girard found working with both teams to be an educational and rewarding experience. “I had some special effects in my previous movies but never to the extent of Night Angel,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about special effects and learning how to shoot special effects in order to sell them. Special effects people know what they need to get, but they don’t necessarily know how to sell the effect to the audience. That’s my part of the work. I’ve got to push them not only to do the effect correctly, but to give me the freedom to shoot the effect with a specific camera angle and movement. Instead of having a prosthetic person totally steady ���that wouldn’t sell the effect. I need that person to move, and that sometimes makes for incredible complications.”

POST PRODUCTION After completing the effects photography, Girard left the production temporarily, going to Salt Lake City to film Halloween V. Paragon Arts, meanwhile, put the project on hiatus for a couple of months in order to raise money to complete post-production work. In mid-June, Girard and Steve Johnson returned to the production to film an opening prologue sequence; Girard is also supervising the soundtrack’s music and effects. The score is by Cory Lerios, of Pablo Cruise fame.

“If a horror film is successful, it is very much because of the soundtrack,” Girard claimed. “I love films because they are fluid-they are composed more like a piece of music than a novel, to my mind. Corey Lerios is a very imaginative composer. He’s a bit taken short by the number of cues he has to do. There is in the movie an enormous amount of music, but I don’t think we are drowning the film with music. It’s music which clarifies the story, which imposes the threat of Lilith upon our young characters even when she’s not there-because the music carries her. It is a complimentary story-telling point instead of just an accompanying soundtrack.”

  Night Angel (1990) Music Tracks

CAST/CREW Director Dominique Othenin-Girard Writers Joe Augustyn, Walter Josten

Isa Jank        Lilith (as Isa Andersen) Linden Ashby Craig Debra Feuer Kirstie Helen Martin Sadie Karen Black  Rita Doug Jones  Ken

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Horrorfan#04 Gorezone#13 Slaughterhouse#05 blu-ray.com

    Night Angel (1990) Retrospective SUMMARY A terrifying centuries-old evil has awakened in the form of the wicked, voluptuous Lilith (Isa Anderson).

[lazuliblade]

History of YOI fandom

As a YOI fandom grandparent, I felt it was my duty to write out all the fandom explosions for the newer fans who weren’t there to witness the big bang and gradual week-by-week creation of this universe. All the arguments, people blowing things out of proportion, blaming characters, death theories, awesome fans clearing up miscommunications, YOI breaking the internet... 

This isn’t a post to call out specific people on their arguments and theories - I’ll stay respectfully away from restarting flames and picking fights, thankyouverymuch. Rather, this is an overview of the topics and conflicting views that swept across hundreds and thousands of people and prompted strong reactions. I’m doing this now, because I know that 6 months later, 1 year later, 3 years later, etc. there will be new fans who will have many of the same exact arguments. We’ve been there and done that. I see fans now who say things without knowing where the spelling/quote comes from, or who don’t realize how much has changed, or don’t know why there are certain perceptions of characters. So here’s a little bit of passing down history.

I also don’t want to forget the crazy ride this was. Laugh with me at the silly theories; smile with me at how deeply YOI has impacted our lives. For those of us old-timers, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Remember when...

---------------- (Large arguments will be italicized or bold. Special thanks to @sachiro for reminding me of a bunch of stuff I missed, and looking over the draft in its various stages of being written and edited.)

Pre-series

Idea that there would be a love triangle (Yuri P.--Yuri K.--Victor)

Some fans started spelling Yuri Katsuki with two “u” in order to tell them apart.

Victuri ship name created for Victor x Yuri K. (in a comment to the PV)

The title

“lol ‘Yuri’ on Ice? Where are all the lesbians?”

“When it said Yuri on Ice, I thought we would get girls. Y’know what I mean?”

“Yuri on Ice? More like Yaoi on Ice! amiright?”

etc.

J.J. misspelling (English spelling “Jean Jack” instead of French Canadian “Jean-Jacques”)

you can see the remnants of this in the audience banners during the episodes, but it was corrected to “Jean-Jacques” on the official website and the in-show text

Phichit x Seung-gil ship created (there was more art for this than for Victor x Yuuri)

Episode 1

Victor vs. Viktor spelling arguments 

Although “Victor” is the official spelling and seen in-show, people argued that the creators are wrong and that we fans know better than them about Russian culture - thus the “Viktor” spelling was born.

People argued back that spelling is subjective and you can spell a name multiple ways and still be correct - thus transliterating his Russian name into English as “Victor” would be just as acceptable.

The YOI wiki held fast for a time on using official spellings and information from the official website, but the transition of power led to a new team that started using agreed-upon info rather than solely using official info. “Viktor” replaced “Victor” on the website.

this change from “Victor” to “Viktor” on the wiki happened around episode 2~3, but the arguments were in the page comments since episode 1 -- with moderators explaining their reasoning with sticking to official sources.

Victor is a flirtatious over-the-top character who will seduce Yuuri

Victor is the overwhelming seme and Yuuri is the shy whimpering uke.

People dropping the anime because Yuuri is overweight; people commenting that they don’t want to see an overweight main character

in addition, some people dropping YOI due to feeling that the series was “fat shaming” by using Yuuri’s weight as a point of comedy.

Conversely, some people praising that we have a main character that gains weight and actually has an overweight appearance. 

“Japanese Yuri” &“Russian Yuri” or “Yuri K.” &“Yuri P.” were used to differentiate between the two characters since they shared the same official English spelling “Yuri”.

Starting with ep1, “Yuuri” spelled with two “u” became more widespread due to convenience when typing.  

Japanese fandom simply used kanji for Yuri Katsuki and katakana for Yuri Plisetsky. 

Some fans argue that Yuuri is more correct because in Japanese his name is ゆうり(yu-u-ri). Other fans argue that “Yuri” is still acceptable transliteration because there are multiple spelling systems (Hepburn, etc.) and an alternative correct spelling would be with a macron (Yūri).

Fans point out that Yuri’s name would be spelled “Yuri” in official documents anyway due to lack of macrons on many keyboards.

Spoilers for episodes 1-3 were out because of the two Western fans who witnessed the first three episodes of YOI in a Tokyo preview screening.

fans relied on a certain blogger for info on YOI. 

“WHERE DID YOU SEE EPISODES 2&3???” was asked every 5-10 minutes (literally) and became an inside joke with us old-timers.

Yuuri = Yuzuru Hanyu, Victor = Evgeni Plushenko.

Some fans link characters with real-life skaters to encourage anime fans to watch real skating. 

Some fans saw these as one-to-one connections without considering that characters are a mix of various real-life skaters, and then went onto YouTube videos and spammed about “real-life Yuuri.” 

YOI fans being rude to skaters and sending emails to ship these real-life skaters (emails sent even to skaters who are married with kids)

Amazing researching fans:

find Victor’s apartment and the beach from the ending credits Instagram roll.

Love hotel

Makkachin’s name found in magazine Yuko was holding 

speculation starts on what “Makkachin” means and how it should be transliterated (Makkatine, Mocatine, Makkatin, etc.)

Comparisons of Yuuri to the main character from Parasyte due to similar appearances (Tadashi Hiramatsu, the character designer who adapted Kubo-sensei’s initial designs for animating, was the main character designer for Parasyte).

Speculation on the year in-series starts. 

Yoyogi for Worlds doesn’t match with Sochi as the GPF location.

Yuuri’s iPhone model is seen as a clue.

“Yuri on Ice” trends for 6 days on Tumblr

Episode 2

Victor is manipulative:

He’s a playboy and flirting all the time 

In episode 1 Minako mentions that he is desired by millions. 

His wink in episode 1 shows that he casually flirts with fans.

He will break Yuuri’s heart. He came to romance Yuuri, then drop him later.

He’s already pushing into Yuuri’s space with the chin-touching. That MUST mean he’s suave and planning to seduce and drop him.

“Victor calling him ‘piglet’ is so mean!” -- an extension to the fat shaming debate of episode 1.

Yakov’s angry comment to the press = more fodder about Victor being selfish and only there in Hasetsu for his own pleasure.

Victor is horrible because he broke his promise to Yurio x-number of years ago.

All of his happy smiles are a facade and he can’t actually be that nice. 

Counterarguments to trust the creators and wait to see more about these characters because it’s only been 2 episodes.

Koibito translation nitpicking (it’s not “girlfriend,” Victor is saying “lover.” It’s a gender-neutral term.)

people calling this queerbaiting

“It can’t get any gayer!” line starts to make its appearance.

Ship name “Victuri” cemented. “Victuri sounds like victory!”

Arguments about spelling it “victuuri,” because of the trend with spelling Yuri K.’s name as Yuuri to differentiate the two Yuri’s. 

Counterarguments that “Victurio” would be for Yuri Plisetsky, so therefore “Victuri” would be fine for Yuri Katsuki.

Evgenia Medvedeva starts watching around this time and posts comments on her twitter account.

The livestreaming IRC group is started. There were about 15 people tuning in (this grows to the hundreds by the last episode).

Mira makes her appearance (more of an appearance than the brief flash in ep1). Her name isn’t announced yet so some people nickname her “Natasha” (after the Marvel comics character Natasha Romanova/Black Widow)

Episode 3

Yurio was robbed. 

and all the counterarguments against this.

score calculating posts begin to show up.

“Victor is manipulative” evolves into “Victor is evil” 

“he didn’t keep his promise to Yurio”

people ignoring that he actually did keep his promise to choreograph a program

Eros story Yuuri tells Nishigori = parallel to how Victor will abandon Yuuri in the end. Victor is the evil playboy, confirmed!

People fighting this with meta about how Yuuri is the seductress keeping the playboy, and this was all Yuuri’s interpretation -- Victor may have had another story in mind and we’ll never know what it was. (<---until episode 10)

He forgot Onsen on Ice was about the competition and was there playing around as Hasetsu ambassador. He doesn’t REALLY care about the two Yuri’s.

“he didn’t notice when Yurio left and was having the time of his life with Yuuri on the podium”

Victor’s super-serious expression when Yuuri hugged him means he doesn’t care.

“Make a man pregnant” - the start of the ABO fic influx

“Katsudon ga daisuki da yo” is how we say “I love you” in YOI.

Boyfriend shirt has taken on a new level: boyfriend costume.

Yuuri and genderfluidity 

quite a few fics were spawned from this topic too

YOI is not yaoi -  how genre is not the same as tags. Posts clarifying what yaoi actually is and why Yuri on Ice doesn’t fit that genre at all.

Yuuri getting more confident by episode 3 already - initiating hugs and contact with Victor. “How much more gay can we get!? They already said ‘I love you’!”

Fanfic explosion 

due to Victor’s character being slightly more fleshed out, and the relationship between characters becoming more established

Top!Yuuri starts to make appearances

Going in blind to the episodes from here-on-out because the fan report from the screening was only through episode 3.

Real life skaters are noticing and posting on social media about YOI. 

Evgenia Medvedeva, Denis Ten,  Deniss Vasiļjevs & Stéphane Lambiel, Ashley Wagner, Danny O’Shea and many others from here on. 

Masterpost soon created to document all these skaters.

Kubo-sensei tweets about episode 4 being her favorite

Episode 4

Victor has cancer/is dying.

He was so dramatic and playful when he joked about balding. That means he’s hiding something. Balding = cancer. Therefore Victor is dying! (Note that cancer doesn’t cause balding, although it’s treatment with chemotherapy does.) 

Victor being that out of breath must mean something is wrong.

Victor’s comment about injuries = 

he’s hurt but hiding it

we can expect someone to be injured later

Rise of fanfiction featuring Victor with large past injuries he’s kept hidden.

Celestino getting annoyed at Victor = more fodder for Victor being evil. 

No coach likes him - that means he must be untrustworthy and there must be something that he’s hiding that we don’t know yet.

The Old Man in the onsen becomes a fandom celebrity for a while (captain of the ship)

Victor’s comment on Yuuri’s stamina = fic fodder

“You meet me where I am” - fans exploding at how meaningful this all is and how far they’ve come in four episodes.

“What do you want me to be to you”

---Victor said “koibito” but subs say “boyfriend”

---Daddy kink: “A father--” “Yes!” 

this is when we start to see this kink in fics and fanart/comics

Phichit makes his appearance. Fandom explodes with glee. People pointed out his appearance in episode 1 and more explosions of “no detail left behind”

Aeroflot

Enter Lilia and her teaching Yurio.

Evil Lilia and Yakov

“Yurio should have stayed with Victor”

Kubo-sensei laughs at the rumors of Victor dying.

Everyone and their mother tries to learn to make katsudon - various recipes float around; Crunchyroll releases recipe (Nov 4). 

Jokes and critique about YOI dub (Gru!Victor; Russia(Hetalia)!Victor)

Episode 5

Victor obviously knows no Japanese at all vs. Victor obviously knows a little Japanese after living there for 6 months (about whether or not Victor understood Yuuri’s love declaration due to him commenting about the tie and not the confession)

Fan comics/art and fanfiction about burning Yuuri’s necktie

JARAN jacket (that one scene with Yuuri’s jacket misspelled)

Lots of flailing and dozens of gifs of the lip balm scene

awesome fans finding the exact Chanel lip balm

Yuuri’s confident walk = flailing and keyboard smashing moment (gifs with explosions behind him)

Hug meta (back hug; “do the hands on neck mean anything?”)

Minami is a chicken nugget (McDonald’s colors + being small)

First time we hear Victor’s thoughts - people discussing this

Victor’s image shifts away from “evil Victor” towards something a little more positive

Leaks of the Oh! Skatra!!! Tracklisting (Nov 6).

Duetto title makes people freak out

Speculation on who will skate what piece.

Speculation starts on who will appear in which GP series competition.

Pre-episode 6

Jealous/Possessive!Victor due to the ending image in ep5 of him wrapping his arm around a flustered Yuuri.

speculation on where that is and who took the picture

Dengeki, the website that posts teaser pictures and text of various anime’s next episodes, posted a teaser summary on their site that used quite a few innuendos.

Starting from here, YOI episode previews start to be released later and later. This becomes a running gag among fans who stay up to wait for previews. 

Episode 6

Chris makes everyone uncomfortable.

wet ice comments

People freaking out about the hand holding (“koibito tsunagi/lover’s hold”) then about the lip licking

Victor’s innuendo and lewd mouth animation

Victor actually is sexually attracted to Yuuri

Paired with Yuuri being comfortable with Victor clinging naked to him at the restaurant, and worrying that people would think he’s not serious about the competition = fans arguing how far they’ve gone

Queerbaiting arguments still continue ( “fujoshi bait” and “fanservice”)

“Ai ha katsu” (Love wins!)

Georgi is an Evil Witch

Leo = awesome representation (non-white character representing the U.S.A.)

Phichit meme ( “scandalized” with hand on mouth)

Phichit is captain of the Victuri ship

Kubo-sensei posts summary of The King and The Skater 

Pre episode 7

Dengeki, what in the ever living F is that preview summary (twitter)? Along with the shortened version.

Another preview summary wtheck comment - this time from a YOI animator, Itou Noriko

“Drastic measures”??? Will Victor hug Yuuri? Violence? Harsh words? Kiss on the forehead or MAYBE the cheek?

fanfics, comics, lots of speculation

Episode 7

Kiss vs. Hug

drawings/charts/tracings to prove it was a kiss

queerbaiting comments continue

Western fans ask Kubo-sensei for a direct answer; she’s amused that Japanese fans didn’t need confirmation yet Western fans did

Yuri on Ice trends on Tumblr for two days at #1 (previous episodes had trended in top 3 for about a day).

“Japanese censorship is what made them cover the kiss!” -- and the subsequent posts that stopped this misinformation.

“Victor is evil” continues - he was cruel in the parking garage and the queerbait lip hug was obviously just consolation

Chris, stahp! (more wet ice comments)

Guang-Hong is badass, Leoji ship sails further

Georgi is creepy, some people hate Anya, some feel sympathy for her

Georgi’s outfit = figure-skating Elsa (photoshopped pictures)

Head boop

Aired after the U.S. election - “episode 7 is the only good thing that happened this week”

“YOI singlehandedly saved 2k16”

Watchers dropping the anime because Victuri became canon.

some people liked the anime as long as it was still ambiguous. This kiss/hug scene made it much less ambiguous and left them feeling awkward.

some people liked it as long as the pairing was not mainstream - they liked being a niche shipper.

Conversely, more people started watching once they heard it was canon and not queerbaiting/fan service.

Johnny Weir homage with young Victor’s outfit and rose crown at European Worlds.

Johnny hears of this and adds YOI on his to-watch list.

Kubo-sensei tweets about a certain scene - confirms and does not confirm it as a kiss

pre-Episode 8

Will YOI talk about homophobia and LGBT hatred?

They’re going to Russia next - lots of fanfiction about Victor dealing with past and current homophobia, and how Yuuri and Victor would act during their stay in Russia.

Magazine had the titles for episodes 8 and 9 - “Victor returns to Japan” has people theorize about what could be drastic enough to have him return.

Kubo-sensei strikes again:

tweets about looking forward to Dengeki’s summary this week and ends up trolling the fandom.

being one of us and wanting them to get married already.

Makkachin’s name revealed to have no meaning.

Dengeki posts 5 hours later than normal.

Episode 8

Angry fans yelling “Why didn’t they use this chance to address hatred?”

People arguing about how this is nice because we already have so many other series about hatred and would it kill them to let us have ONE nice thing in life? Let’s just appreciate that we get a happy relationship with no prejudice or hatred from the world for once.

Kubo-sensei defending the hate-free world she created.

Seung-gil feather duster/parrot/swiffer comments and comparisons.

Sala vs Sara

official site and subs romanized her name as “Sala” but a more natural spelling would be “Sara.” (sala means living room in Spanish and Italian) 

wihin the week, the spelling was corrected on both the website and subs to “Sara.”

Mila Babicheva was also changed to Mira Babicheva at this time.

Makkachin-related tags and comments

#Don’t die Makka!

#SaveMakka2k16

#Makkachoked

Speculation on what Yuuri will place - and who will make it to the GPF.

J.J. and the cross - many understood it as a religious motion, but it was soon linked by figure skating fans to Yuzuru’s cross motion to check body axis.

Kissing the ice - seen as “J.J. is so narcissistic and kissing himself,” then disputed by other fans as a sign of respect for the ice much like real-life athletes do with the ice, track&field, and court.

Yurio x J.J. shipping starts

Sub!Victor fanfic boom, BDSM, foot fetish, and other related body worship fics

YOI trends over Barack Obama (Nov 24)

Katsudon recipe released by Funimation on Yuuri’s birthday (Nov. 29)

Preview images for ep9 of Sara encroaching on Yuuri - some people worried that this would be in-series drama or that fans would ship it.

Dengeki still posting way later than they used to. This leads to lots of waiting and loss of hope for future episodes until…

Episode 9

Freaking out over the airport scene:

“What did Yuuri’s tears mean???” 

relieved/touched Victor cares for him and returns feelings? All the emotions catching up from their separation and the hard skating? 

guilt over hiding that he will retire soon? Sadness that this will only last 2 more weeks?

Clarifying why Victor brought up “proposal” (“Why does what Yuuri said sound like a proposal?”)

People “fixing” the subs (mis)translate the word “koto” as if it was the word “mono” and end up making Yuuri’s line to Victor sound super possessive/cheesy as a result.

Yuuri mentioning that he’ll win gold prompts discussions about “Does Yuuri need a gold medal to be happy? Is a gold necessary for his character?”

Fandom exploding over Yurio’s pure smile and friendship with Yuuri

People uneasy over Sara and Michele’s sibling relationship.

Mira x Sara ship gains steam and sets sail.

“Hug zombie” - the term given to Yuuri’s hugging spree

Johnny Weir planned to watch YOI “one episode per day,” but failed and watched two episodes the first day. Then binged the rest within two more days and caught up in time for episode 10 on Wednesday.

Naked Victor on the front page of NBC due to Johnny’s tweets

Crunchyroll releases Katsudon Pirozhki recipe (Dec 7)

pre-Episode 10

“Something round and golden” -- gold medal, wedding rings, cock rings, onion rings, golden snitch

Kubo-sensei fanning the flames

we were losing hope for teasers until... our saviors, Animate, took over for posting them. Dengeki still posted the identical teaser pics on their site, but did so at a later hour.

Preview lines about Yuuri recalling the previous year’s nightmare banquet.

Translation confusion led to people thinking it was a “nightmare bucket” “nightmare baguette” (and other attempts to find the correct foreign word) until someone pointed out that figure skating competitions have banquets.

Theories about what happened at the banquet. 

Episode 10

Rings

Yuuri buying one ring (with Victor buying the other) vs. Yuuri buying pair rings as a set 

would later be confirmed in a magazine post-series that Yuuri bought both rings

Are they really engaged or not?

Best plot twist ever.

The ending changes everything we ever knew about this series 

 people analyzing all the interactions since episode 1

“Poor Victor” comments and tags appear

“Victor was pining all along!”

Victor seen as super patient and willing to let Yuuri drive the pace (because he never brings up the banquet in order to respect Yuuri’s shyness). 

Victor flying to Japan with his dick out. 

Victor had a crush on Yuuri since the beginning.

“Victor is a dork who would do anything for love” mentality sweeps away previous malaise.

fanfic and fanart explosion of dorky, loving Victor 

This is when the loving!Victor image squashed any lingering remnants of evil!Victor 

Eros parallel re-interpreted as Yuuri being the playboy and Victor being the woman seduced and left behind. 

Victor is savage for making a program based on the banquet and thinking to skate it for a season. 

Pole dancers comment that the moves in Yuri on Ice reference actual moves (Yuuri is pretty good and has great grip strength; a couple of Chris’ moves are incredibly hard)

Otayuri (Otabek x Yurio) becomes a pairing

Beach scene discussion - was Victor angry or not, and why?

Hype for Kubo-sensei revealing that the GPF would have the most realistic animation of all the episodes.

Animate posted late (only a few hours before airing), but Dengeki even later.

Episode 11

“Scoring system is broken!”

Yurio’s score is literally impossible using the current real-life ISU scoring system (he’s about 5 points too high)

Yuuri scored low despite low number of technical mistakes

J.J. given a higher score than should be allowed because of his huge errors.

Discussion on Victor looking out at the ice during Yurio’s SP (“what was he thinking?”), and discussion about his flashback and burden

Chris’ mystery man ( “Chris’ boyfriend”? “Who IS that guy???”)

Half the fandom dies with Yuuri’s last sentence; half the fandom trusts Kubo-sensei (and comforts the other half)

Evgenia posts a tweet trusting everything will be alright

People’s view of J.J. changes - some sympathy and “??? I never expected to actually care for this guy!”

It seems everyone pitches their predictions about who will be on the podium.

“Phichit’s hamsters predict the podium?” theory

pre-Episode 12

We give up on teasers because they’re so late. Animate releases them a few hours before the episode airs.

Oh!SkaTra!!! Yuri!!! on ICE Soundtrack released about a day before the final episode aired.

“Spoilers” (but not really, because we had the tracklist since episode 5). We confirm the last two songs are the exhibition skates. People avoid Tumblr until the episode airs because of the “spoiler threat.” 

Episode 12

Breaking Tumblr, Crunchyroll, and Animate.

Crunchyroll released a statement on Twitter about YOI’s high traffic breaking it.

Tumblr crashed (traffic volume too high) right after the CR simulcast/subs came out around 4PM EST. It wasn’t fully fixed until several hours later.

Animate’s website crashed for the same reason as above.

“It wasn’t gay enough”

People feeling disappointed about the relationship between Yuuri and Victor because there was no second kiss or explicit “I love you.” People wanted something that could not be denied (wanted an “uncensored” kiss).

Others counter-argued that relationships can show deep love without needing an “I love you,” and point out how the relationship was built steadily throughout the series.

People feeling betrayed because Yuuri didn’t win gold.

“Otabek was robbed!” and “J.J. overscored!” complaints circulate

“I won’t kiss it unless it’s gold” prompted a legion of pictures/comics, and fics.

Gushing over the liberate use of ring flares

“History Makers” in the end credits - the extra “s” felt like an Easter egg to some.

Ice dance vs. Pairs - many fans mistake the final Duetto exhibition skate as Pairs when it’s actually based on an Ice Dance routine

How will Victor do both skating and coaching?

Will we get a Season 2? “See You Next Level” means a second season, right? 

After the series, we saw Oh!SkaTra!!! and the DVD/BD volumes sell ridiculous amounts - easily placing in either 1st or 2nd place on Oricon’s charts for DVD, BD, CD, and CD digital release. The Blu-ray and DVD volumes continue to hold high sales. Magazines continue to be translated. Some ideas/meta are confirmed and others become defunct.

It was a wild ride from way back when YOI was only a website and PV. Every week brought new ideas, writings, meta, art, and discussions. It was to the point where some weeks you would get in-depth meta and polished art just hours after the episode aired. In fact, there was so much made that you could easily reblog hundreds of posts in a day for the more explosive episodes, and meta would either get hundreds of notes or be lost in the current of new stuff appearing every few minutes. At the rate that it’s still going with new campaigns, events, and merchandise, Yuri!!! on ICE will be active for quite some time.

[zippdementia]

Part 16 Alignment May Vary: The Drowned Tower

Welcome to the continuing adventures of the Tomb of Haggemoth, a DnD 3.5 adventure converted to 5th edition, and with some extra material thrown in that’s meant to build up to a second campaign, the well known Red Hand of Doom.

The first night that the group spends with former soldiers Xavier, Biggs, Fritz, and Samuel is rife with difficulty. Abenthy tends to those wounded in the shipwreck in a harrowing fifteen minutes of roleplaying, during which he tries to keep one man from losing a leg while another screams in agony from a fever that won’t abate. The remaining crew, pushed to their limits, debate killing the screaming man to end his suffering, while Abenthy tries to buy more time. Eventually his healing powers prevail and he collapses into an exhausted rest. In the end, only one life is lost of those who escaped the ship: Igor, the man who was native to Friezorazov and who had become a drunk in Ottoman’s Dock after being run out of his native land. Igor took an injury to the head while escaping and dies as they reach the island. Karinna keeps an amulet he had around his neck, sensing it was magical, not knowing it was something he had stolen from the giant’s tribute, all those years ago.

The day after brings more confrontation: Clem wants to set to building a raft so they can all leave the island as soon as possible. Others believe they can stay on this island and survive until they can craft a more seaworthy vessel. Still others ask why they are considering leaving at all, as the island seems to have enough food and water to provide for a small village. The group is split on what to do, though they all agree they must get back to their quest as soon as possible. Zennatos will succumb to the curse at some point, after all.

They do not solve the problem right now. Instead, the three companions go hunting (a clear need is food, so why not focus on that?), and on the trip they come to a bluff overlooking the sea. Here they spot a familiar ship sailing into a cave far beneath them, a ship with a Red Hand painted on its sails. Then a branch snaps behind them: three Ratzotto pirates—identifiable by their grungy appearance, their tell-tale curved cutlasses, and the tattoos on their necks—emerge from the woods and attack!

It’s fun, as a player, to take on the same enemies at different times, as a measure of your own growth in ability. The last time they fought these pirates, they won, but not without taking some massive hits. It was a long, drawn out fight. This time, they wipe the floor with them. One they even capture, and after tying him up, Abenthy casts Zone of Truth on him....

Abenthy knelt next to the large man and cuffed him the rest of the way awake. “Tell me,” he ordered. “Tell me what you were doing here.”

The man smiled and responded, “We are here because HE has found someone he wants to put through the ritual, the ritual in the tower. He says the girl is perfect for the ritual, that she has powers like him.” The pirate’s eyes went wide and his mouth drooped in an “O” of shock as the words that came out of his mouth were not the lies he had planned, but rather the bald truth.

“Show us where,” Abenthy growled. “Show us where and you can have your life.”

“Yes! Untie me and I will stab you in the back first chance I get!” The man shook his head in confusion as the truth was forced out of him by the spell. “I want you to go fuck yourselves!” he added.

The sentiment was, after all, also the truth.

Eventually the party disposes of their prisoner and find on his body a scrawled message in runic. Karinna uses her Comprehend Languages spell and reads a curious doublet:

These phrases will get you through the traps. Commit the words to memory, destroy this message.

The Tide Rises.

Embrace the Cold Sea!

The note is signed at the bottom: TARGARYEN.

Dungeon Analysis: The Drowned Tower

By nightfall, the group has traced the footsteps of the pirates back to their tower. It is a ruined, sunken thing with only its top still visible above ground:

Within the dense swamp, hundreds of feet of thick mud splits apart revealing the stone roof and battlements of the Drowned Tower. Half of the roof is still covered in mud. A deep pit likely once held fires that could be seen far out over the coral sea. A broken staircase leads down into the buried tower while part of the stone roof has broken away revealing rotted wooden support beams and shadows of the room below.

This tower is taken with little change from an adventurer’s league dungeon, from the Elemental Evil season. I wanted a short dungeon, something water themed, to tie in with the pirates. This dungeon comes with a fun end boss that suggested a good fate for Targaryen, filling in for me the gap of what had happened to him since his “death” aboard the Red Hand of Doom ship many sessions ago. The hook I replaced with “rescue Jade (Targaryen’s sister) from whatever Targaryen is planning (the players rightly assume Jade is the “girl” the pirate referred to). The dungeon actually ended up taking two sessions to get through, so I won’t go through each and every moment. I will touch on some of the major events, though, and finish next time with the boss fight.

The basic premise of the tower is that it is buried in mud and still slowly sinking. With the increased activity at the tower, the speed of its sinking has increased so that the players are made to feel like it could collapse in on itself at any moment. There’s no real mechanic to govern this, but it does create a cool atmosphere.

Of course, the writing on the Adventurer’s League modules is always rushed and so there are confusions here about how some of the dungeon works. One of the more egregious examples are the glyphs protecting two of the rooms, bypassable by saying the passwords above. One is hidden under water, without a very good indication of how a player is supposed to detect it without making a random, cautionairy perception check. The other is protecting a door which I can’t tell if it is open or not. The read-aloud text says it is open... but the room description says it is closed. I just picked closed because otherwise the glyph trap is pointless.

Otherwise, I like it because it has really well self-contained encounters, several of which operate more like traps than combat experiences. If not handled intelligently/cleverly, these encounters can lead to a total party kill pretty quickly. I like this, because it breaks the mold of “walk into room, fight enemies, roll dice until one side is dead.” Having enemies much more powerful than the players can face but which have their own restrictions on attacking and moving makes things more exciting.

The more normal encounters are against a combination of reavers (fishmen pirates) and fathomers (fishmen pirates who can turn into water serpents), both enemies from the elemental evil campaign. It makes for a cool thematic touch to our campaign, as in our story the Ratzotto pirates were comandeered by the demon pirate Testain Reeves after the events of the Moon Sea from which only Karrina escaped. Tagaryen still had possession of the Jade Statue when Reeves claimed his soul, and the combination of dark powers has been transforming the pirates into monstrous versions of themselves, and Targaryen, as the players will discover, is no exception...

The Black Pudding

What is possibly the Tower’s hardest challenge is probably never seen by most parties. In what seems an odd design choice, there is a door guarded (see above) by a glyph, but which is also CLEARLY not the way to go forward. The reward for going through the door is the possibility of finding some treasure (monetary, not magical) and to fight these guys.

That looks painful. This is one of those rooms which operates like a trap. Once discovered, the Black Oozes will follow the party around, trying to trap them in a room or force them to blunder into another trap. They are not to be trifled with, either. Black Ooze hits like a truck, with acidic weapon and armor destroying damage that makes the party less effective at surviving the next hit and dealing out damage of their own. And being unintelligent Oozes, it is not inconcievable that they will sit on an unconcious player’s face, forcing critical failures on their death saves until the player dissolves into a spongy mass of bone and muscle.

Our group encounters them when they flee other terrors in the tower and go looking for healing items and powerful weapons to help them get further. They find an old library and begin to poke around, disturbing the current denizens of the room. Tywin at this point is level 5, and that means he gets a potential of five attacks each turn: an extra attack each time he uses the attack action, a bonus action with his off hand, and if he uses one of his abilities, an addition attack action (and subsequent attack). And in DnD 5e there is no such thing as full round action, meaning he can move in between any and all of these attacks. His strategy, then, has been to take point, moving to the nearest enemy and cleaving them, then moving on if he takes them down and has movement left. If his first attack doesn’t take them down, he plants his feet and goes at them until they drop.

And that is the absolute worst strategy to use against a Black Ooze. But of course, Tywin doesn’t know that. So he rushes in, slashing, and immediately splits the Ooze into multiple Oozes. He realizes his error and pulls back... but he underestimates how fast the Oozes can move (he pulls back 15 feet, and they can move 20). They are on him in seconds, pulling him down into their acidic depths, enveloping him in a corrosive slime that quickly sends him into unconsciousness. Worse, he pulled back to the doorway, meaning that the Oozes are now blocking the way out for Karrina and Abenthy.

Karrina, though, is slippery as heck. She disengages and darts past the Oozes, dragging Twyin’s body with her, force feeding him a potion, and then escaping with him even as the Ooze latches onto his legs, burning him so badly he falls again unconscious. 

This leaves Abenthy trapped in the ruined library with four or five split Oozes. Thinking fast, he climbs a nearby bookshelf, then starts bashing a hole in the decrepit roof. Just as the Ooze is beginning to climb the shelf, he bursts through into the light of dusk and escapes the tower.

The encounter forces them to take a long rest. During the middle of the night, Abenthy (on guard) sees a bright light erupt from the tower and then quickly fade. It leaves him feeling concerned for the fate of Jade, but there is nothing to do except let Tywin’s wounds heal and then tackle the tower again in the morning.

The next day, they come up with an intriguing solution to the Ooze (which has coalesced and is filling the lower hallways, blocking the way back into the depths of the tower). They find a room filled with zombies (incidentally, Karrina recognizes them as islanders from back in her adventures in the Moon Sea, taken prisoner aboard the Red Hand ship), and Abenthy shepherds them into the Ooze using his Turn Undead ability. While it is busy gorging itself, the party slips past without incident, though the tower is looking the worse for wear today:

Perhaps it is magic that held this tower up so long, magic now finally fading, or perhaps it is simply that time has caught up with the tower, or maybe whatever ritual Targaryen planned here upset the delicate balance of the tower—in any case, today as you walk the ruined halls, the smell of damp earth is more pungent and around you echoes the slight sound of trickling mud and shifting earth. Every so often, a thin stream of mud falls from the ceiling as the tower settles even deeper into the earth. You can almost feel the weight of hundreds of tons of rock and dirt pressing around you, like a great hand gripping your chest. The tower does not have much longer to stand. Soon its stone shall return to the stone of the earth and anyone left in here when that happens will be buried forever.

Splash

One of the more interesting encounters comes from a room where two Reavers are walking around carrying giant flasks that look to be glowing slightly and filled with liquid. The party is quick to snipe them as soon as they enter the room, Karrina scoring a critical on one of the pirates and killing him instantly while Abenthy is locked in mortal combat with him. His flask drops and...

The flask falls to the ground with a crash, shattering on impact. The liquid inside sprays out in an oddly contained manner, as if it is a single pool of water spreading through the air, rather than many droplets scattering everywhere. The pool settles on top of Abenthy like a blanket, the stone and mud floor suddenly sinking underneath him with a slurping sound. Abenthy tries to cry out, but his mouth fills with liquid and he cannot breathe! 

The other reaver, seeing this, curses and throws his own flask into a well of water in the middle of the room. He chuckles evilly as the well begins to bubble and ripple, and turns to run. Out of the pool comes hands, many hands, and they reach quickly across the room to grab Twyin, pulling him closer to the water’s edge..

These are Water Weirds, and they are an unusual enemy. Very powerful at this level—with powerful attacks and the ability (and intention) to drown players whom they manage to get a hold of—they are limited by their confinement to water. This means that in this room they make a trap. They have a fifteen foot reach, meaning their attacks of opportunity are pretty vicious. 

Tywin and Abenthy barely manage to break free and flee the room with Karrina, slamming the door behind them. They can hear the cries of the remaining Reaver through the door until they are abruptly cut off. Without anyone else to attack, the weirds turned on their captor.

This is the fight that convinces them to go looking for treasure upstairs, leading to the disastrous encounter with the Ooze. The next day, the players return and this time they use a clever combination of disengaging, dashing, and dodging to tactically move their way across the room. Even so, Twyin trips just before the stairs leading down and out of the room and is grabbed again. Only a mighty strength roll lets him burst free and escape with the others. It is a close call, and Tywin wonders how many lives he has left to spend as he descends into the darkened final floor of the tower.

Next time, Old Debts.

[pa0231leonedwards]

Proposal.

My film is the classic story of boy meets girl. If that girl were a serial murderer and that boy was completely unaware of that. We begin, as every short lived romance does, in a bar. Our main man Julian is standing at the bar minding his own business when all of a sudden in she comes, Mia, the girl Julian desperately wants to spend at least the next 2 weeks or so with. Julian decides to make a move and she seems interested. Go get her tiger. So they leave together and while they're walking Julian decides to take a look at his social media accounts because he needs to keep up the appearance that his life is way more interesting than it actually is. Unfortunately for him this means he misses some vital signs that his new companion may be more than she seems. A wanted poster featuring someone who looks awfully like Mia, The screens in a TV store broadcasting a news report of a suspected female killer who has left at least 14 people dead. It's amazing how important a short walk can be, everybody needs fresh air and life saving information.

2 days pass. Julian is assessing a blank space on his apartment wall. Mia has found a hammer that she thinks would look really good embedded in Julian's skull. So she sneaks up behind him and swings down the hammer. At around this time Julian turns around and see's Mia seemingly giving him a hammer, Which just so happens to be what he's looking for, What luck! Julian takes them hammer and uses it to hang the professionally taken picture of himself he had commissioned a few months back. Now his home is truly something to behold. Mia however doesn’t seem too impressed, She needs more time to plan her next move.  

A week passes. Mia has observed Julian's behaviour and has a new plan. She goes to the kitchen and finds Julians half filled beverage. She's going to refill it for him, She gets the bleach and her special salt shaker filled with poison (strychnine to be specific) and makes him a 'special' drink. Excitedly Julian returns and grabs his drink. He turns around and trips over his own laces, smashing the glass and spilling the mixture everywhere. Another failed attempt from Mia.

A further 4 days go by. This time Mia is determined, why bother with subtlety anyway? Julian is busy testing out some new headphones, Mia approaches him from behind and lines up her gun with the back of his head. She's getting excited, this can't possibly go wrong. Just as she pulls the trigger Julian reaches for his coffee and Mia misses. Julian somehow hasn’t noticed, how loud are those things anyway? No big deal, she'll just shoot again. So she lines up her shot again and pulls the trigger... Nothing. She pulls again and again, still nothing. No bullets. Irritated Mia throws the gun through a window.

The next day. Mia isn't around but Julian isn't too worried, He's got Facebook to keep him company and he's making himself a delicious meal for one. While responding to a particularly amusing status on his phone he reaches for what feels like salt, applies it heavily to his food and places it back on the shelf. We however can see it is actually Mia's poison from earlier. Julian does not notice and sits down to eat. Some time passes and we see only Julian's cod motionless body sprawled across his couch. Rest in peace.

My idea was subject to a few changes over the course of the module. Originally my idea was darker and more serious which I decided I would struggle to actually write. In the beginning it was about a girl who is attacked by and proceeds to fall in love with a serial killer and she goes to extreme effort to track him down only to be killed upon their meeting. I think the most obvious flaw in that idea is its portrayal of a woman as the victim who is silly enough survive an encounter with and then actively try to date a serial killer. Somehow this didn’t cross my mind until it was brought to my attention in a group presentation so I decided to rethink things. It was suggested that I swap the genders of my killer and my victim around. I like this idea because it lines up with the popularity of the 'Harley Quinn' bad girl type characters. From there on the killers character didn’t change much, her goal was simple. The victim however changed quite a lot. Initially I was thinking about making him so pathetic and so desperate that an attempt on his life could be interpreted as a sign of affection in his eyes. But as a person with no experience with stockholm syndrome or abusive relationships I didn’t really know how to justify the character behaving like this. Due to this I opted to make him completely oblivious to all the violent tendencies displayed in his presence and for some reason I thought this idea was quite funny. I sort of turned him into this character that could not be put down in his own way, somehow avoiding every attempt on his life completely by accident. This decision changed the attitude I approached this project with, I feel really it lightened up my idea and made it far more fun to create ideas for because I like the fun I can have with a dark comedy.  

I also shortened the original idea, The first draft spent lots of time having the main character track down the killer which again, I wouldn’t know how to make interesting or how to write it, I've never had to track anyone down before and nor do I wish to. So instead of having some convoluted multi layered plot to predict where the killer could be found I made my characters meet at the very start. This worked well in the new idea I had because it allowed me to get straight to the interesting parts of my film. I feel like this heightened the pace and helped keep my idea at least somewhat entertaining.  

When I was coming up with my ideas I wanted people to be on Mia's side. I wanted viewers to want Julian to die. I think I have failed in this. I didn’t make his actions outrageous enough for him to be viewed negatively, he doesn’t really do anything wrong. We know he's vain enough to hang a picture of his face on his apartment wall but other than that he just seems like a regular guy. Maybe a little too distracted by his phone and a little too dense to notice he's dating a murderer but other than that he's not a bad guy, He's just kind of a dope. I feel I should have really exaggerated some of his behaviors to a fault.  On the other hand Mia doesn’t come across as likeable enough for people to side with her. She's kind of just a one note character all she does is try to kill him and get frustrated when she fails. I really should have gave her a motive to try and get people to want her to win or at least made her funnier to watch so people would enjoy her acts of evil more than whatever Julian gets up to. Ideally I would have liked my characters to have more of a dynamic, Julian should have been easier to hate and Mia should have been funnier to watch.

I feel I also should have spent longer on my characters from a design perspective. More specifically Julians design because there are slight differences between the initial designs and the way I drew him in the animatic. Even within the animatic I couldn't seem to keep him as consistent as I was keeping Mia. Maybe he needed some more visual quirks or just something to make him more recognizable. There are the proportions of my characters too, they keep changing which makes it a little confusing when it comes to the height or weight of my characters. I also believe I should have settled on a visual style more unique in its appearance, just for the sake of looking a little different to things that already exist. I feel like I also should have spent more time thinking about how the locations they visited would look. For the most part I made them up as I went along and wasn’t sure how these rooms and streets really fit together at all.

The animatic I produced was very short. I believe that it shows my story in a way that is clear enough to get the basics but I think some of the visual gags may go unnoticed. I probably could have stood to make certain shots last longer just so exactly what was happening was slightly clearer. I did however enjoy producing it, it gave me a chance to experiment with storytelling and come up with an idea that I actually really like and I feel shows more of my personality than some of the other work I have produced, which is nice.  

My film is fairly easy to break down into the 3 act structure. The first act is fairly short and consists of my characters meeting for the first time and leaving the bar to start the period of their lives together, dropping hints that Mia may be more violent than she lets on. This leads nicely into the second act which immediately confirms these suspicions. Act two is the series of murders Mia attempts to commit on Julian, all the while he remains completely unaware. And finally the third act which is also fairly short. It starts with Julian on his phone while making food and because he isn't giving the cooking his full attention he accidentally applies Mia's leftover poison to his meal which he then proceeds to eat. This in the end proves to be the thing that kills him. His own attention span.  

Following the changes I made and despite the flaws there are in my work I believe it would have potential if it were to be made. I'm aware the joke here would not be successful in longer productions at least not without adding more to both the joke and the story itself but  I do think the idea at its core is strong enough to entertain someone to at least a substandard level for between five and ten minutes. This is because I believe that finding out how Julian is going to avoid death this time around is engaging enough for a short form film. For instance the roadrunner cartoons are mostly based around a similar joke, How will Roadrunner escape Wile E. Coyote? I'm just using the slightly darker tone of humans and murder rather than animals the food chain. Darker takes on comedy have also proven highly successful in the past among people of all ages, younger people can enjoy films like 'The Addams Family' while there are aso productions definitely not for children such as 'Shaun Of The Dead'. This is evidence that the combination of darkness and comedy can work well. So using this to boil my idea down would result in a darker take on the roadrunner, which sounds like a decent premise to me at least.