#kind of. these are old thoughts

[oliveroctavius]

been itching to get back into the 1610 comics, of all things. but first a rundown of what I remember my feelings on them being (having read only up to Peter's first death)

didn't enjoy:

extreme sliding timescale pacing. those first 133 issues of USM don't portray time moving whatsoever. like it's still the same school year and the seasons haven't even changed. in ASM that number of issues spanned at least 4 in-universe years!

pacing again: it's like they're racing to get every notable thing that ever happened to ASM Peter in under the wire.

great job on writing authentic 00s teenagers but boy can they be annoying especially when they aren't aging out of it

SHIELD swooping in at the end of every other arc to send Peter home and clean things up (and/or make things worse). More interesting to me when a Spider-Man has to deal with the consequences of their own actions completely unobserved

Why switch so many plot beats/traits between Gwen and MJ? I don't get it. At some points it feels like they switched names and it doesn't make either character that much more compelling

These Goblin designs are so generic-monster I'd concluded I didn't like a transforming goblin until I saw the Spiderverse re-tool

Venom is much less interesting as a nonsentient synthetic Parker invention instead of a freaky drift compatible alien beast

in general, the efforts to weave the story together more tightly by making everything interrelated is maybe well done, but to me feels artificial and world-shrinking.

gut eyeroll at 2000s edgelord bullshit

why is doc ock magneto powers and also the jackal

really enjoyed:

by the 90s/00s, mainline marvel was also full of edgelord bullshit; things are handled in an intense but usually super interesting because-of-the-intensity way here.

Aunt May characterization. letting her be the POV character in some situations and express complex feelings on raising this crazy kid was just great. Uncle Ben being a fully realized guy was great too. In general the adults are well-realized from the start

the teenagers were written pretty authentically (see above). They hate each other except when they don't and it's great.

I like Kenny Kong! he's an interesting new player

Once they ran out of things to copy from ASM I started liking the original developments more in general

Nonpassage of time aside, events have consequences. Sticking with the same writer + couple of artists for an extended period of time solves like 80% of my modern mainline marvel quibbles. Subtext doesn't get obliterated by writers without the time or will to actually think about past comics!

I know this is a stupid sucker thing to like but the Raimi movies being a thing within USM and Peter hating them is great.

Despite my earlier SHIELD complaint, I think resonates strongly for a modern high school age Peter to feel surveilled and railroaded. He's out of his depth all the time and blisteringly angry about it. Even if I prefer an adult Spidey that IS the teenage experience.

I grew to enjoy SHIELD when it was actively imploding. The shadow government cleaning up after our hero and sending him to bed is boring. A badly managed government agency stooping to ask a 15 year old to help them chase a flaming naked goblin man through Trump tower with full understanding of how stupid and irresponsible that is? Now we're talking.

I LOVED the Norman Osborn characterization in his first "death" arc. perhaps my favorite Norman of all time. just ideal combo of steely control freak and off-the-wall deluded guy

[kendyroy]

Seeing Logan in the TVA makes me laugh so hard for some reason? Like I know he’s lived to see technology evolve and stuff, but there’s something so funny about a guy from the 1800s standing in some kind of retro-futuristic timey wimey agency to me. Man is confused as hell.

like what da hell is a polar bear doin in arlington texas

[many-gay-magpies]

i think my favorite thing about the old guard was how much and how obviously they all LOVED each other. like. the baclava scene. those first hugs between andy, nick and joe. andy cradling booker's face while she begged him to wake up, and the tender forehead-touch when he did. how they all (barring andy, who i assume was taking a guard dog-like position) slept so closely together in the church. how quick they were to all surround andy when they found out about her mortality. how KIND andy was, even when coming out to tell booker what his punishment would be. how they waited and looked to each other in relief every time they died—and how the first thing they thought of when they felt nile's presence was that they had to help her, because they all knew how scared and alone she would be feeling right then. hell, even booker's motivation for his betrayal wasn't the typical scheming double-crosser's motivation; he just wanted to help, to try and give the rest of the guard (mainly he and andy) a means of control—a way to REST. to decide when to stop on their own terms. they weren't just a team of badass immortal soldiers dedicated to protecting the earth; they were friends, with relationships centuries in the making, and it showed. they were a family.

[lilybug-02]

I like to think Ogrim put his professional voice on for that little speech. (Next page will be out January 6th. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays)

Bug Fact: Some snails have hairy shells. The hair-like structures are used to keep them moist and improve camouflage. Pictures Below.

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[bungobble-my-balls]

OK correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the main 'yin/yang' parallel with Atsushi and Akutagawa is not something like 'this one is bad but secretly has a good side and this one is good but secretly has a bad side'.

I feel like it's more about 'who they are at their core vs who they choose to be'.

At his core Akutagawa is kind and at his core Atsushi is not. But despite this Atsushi tries every day to make the kinder choices and I love him so much for it. He has to work so hard to be good.

He wants to be a bitch SO bad I know he does but he tries his best to help people and be nice (sometimes he fails but that's OK <3)

Atsushi doesn't always WANT to help people, a lot of the time he's selfish and scared, but he does help people anyway. He keeps helping people over and over again. There's still some selfish motivation to it, and his initial motivation for helping people was because the headmaster told him that's all he was worth, but overall he does care about the people he helps and it weighs on him if he fails to save them. And of course, as the series goes on he starts helping people more because he can rather than because he feels like he needs to.

In Akutagawa's case, he's still capable of being kind but his environment led him into being someone who chooses to hurt people. But he's always been a protector at heart. In the start he was bad compared to Atsushi because he was choosing to hurt people and keep the cycle of abuse going. Just like how Atsushi developed in why he saved people, Akutagawa starts to get redeemed when he chooses to not just act on his rage. Not only does he start to spare people, but he speaks more kindly to them (apologising to Higuchi and telling Kyouka he's proud of her). It all culminates into the moment he chooses to help Atsushi and sacrifice himself for him, going back to his core value of being a protector. Even when he's finally revived, he keeps this role in his new position as Aya's Knight.

I kind of see the streaks of white in Akutagawa and the streaks of black in Atsushi not as their 'hidden sides' but as their fundamental selfs. That's who they are at their core, and their main colours (black for Akutagawa and white for Atsushi) are how they're presented to everyone else and how they try to have people see them as.

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[canisalbus]

hey there!! i'd been checking this blog for a while, and I really wanted to say you're a great source of inspiration haha! I really love your dog characters and your lore! The amount of research and dedication is really amazing!! about ludovica's gf, do you mind if I come in with my vision as well? I think she'd be a really fluffy dog, maybe with curly hair. so my mind went to the portuguese water dog; but then i thought of two versions: long hair and short hair. so i drew both (tried my best to make her look like a lady and not a grandpa haha)

.

[duckngk]

so sad for the people in the timeline where agent stone was only a character in the first movie. i cant believe that sonic 3 was written with stone having an incredibly integral and heartcrushing part to the narrative, just because lee and jim worked so well together and a bunch of freaks on the internet liked him too much

[annabelle--cane]

is the implication that gertrude started as head archivist while she was still a teenager probably just the result of a writing mistake and a timeline mixup? yes. does it nonetheless give me room to imagine a plethora of distressing tragic backstory for her? also yes <3

[otaku553]

[mcsiggy]

i was born today

[deadsetobsessions]

Okay, so maybe Tim has no business being in Bludhaven. Tim maintains that since his parents fail at parenting, he can do whatever he wants.

Besides, it's for a good cause. Like, not letting Tarantula get her dirty hands on his big brother in another time line. Tarantula had popped up in the Bludhaven servers - by that, Tim means the endless amounts of threads and underground fronts for criminal activity that he stalks on a regular basis- by being seen with Nightwing. Tim had immediately booked a ride to Bludhaven and bought another burner. He'd try to take care of her himself, but if worse comes to worse, he'd call Deathstroke. He's totally aware of the weird tension Deathstroke has with Nightwing and Tim's kind of banking on that.

Dick's been back in Blud for two months now, Jason having assuaged his mother hen tendencies enough for Dick to get sick of the Manor. Tim hadn't meant to follow since he had plenty of projects to work on now that "SAVE JASON" wasn't blaring at the top of his head.

But then Tarantula appeared and Tim saw red, remembering the way Dick spoke about her and what she did to him.

He bids the driver goodbye. The driver doesn't question his being on his lonesome mainly because 1) Gothamites mind their own busines, 2) Tim gave him a $500 tip to make sure he remains a "good" Gothamite cabbie, and 3) Tim made sure he was dropped off in the swankiest, most ostentatious hotel Bludhaven had to offer.

"Rich people," the cab driver had muttered as Tim closed the door. Perfect.

Tim got his keycard, having checked in under Alvin Draper over the phone. Normally, they'd require an in person visit, but money talks. And people listened when Tim had a lot of things to say.

Tim even feels like he's trained enough to go out! Lady Shiva's training was ingrained into his memory, and Tim's built enough muscle to make use of some of it. He is still nine, after all. He's so much stealthier this time around. Plus, he's got almost his full tool set back. Sure, some of the tech is ancient, but he managed to finagle it to make grappling guns and smoke pellets more along the quality that he's used to.

Tim waits until nightfall, looping the surveillance around his window to mask his exit. Tim adjusts his domino, eyes scanning the city skyline as his handheld computer (god, he can't believe he has to invent wrist computers) tracked reports of Nightwing through Tweetings.

Ah. He's around Seventh. Tim grimaces as his untested joints adjusts to the grappling guns. His dark clothes make him hard to spot, to his advantage as he tracks down Nightwing.

Tim watches, perched on an adjacent roof as Nightwing takes down a crowd of goons with the flips Tim remembered watching from afar and up close in another timeline.

"Blockbuster'll kill everyone you love, Nightwing!"

Tim winces at the rather brutal crunch that followed, Nightwing having punched the guy and knocked him out in one move. He watches Dick sigh, tugging at his hair in stress.

Tim could... no, no. He shouldn't think of murder as a first option. Well, no, he shouldn't think of Deathstroke as a first option. But he'll need to take Blockbuster out before anything happens. And he needs to threaten the new Tarantula before anything happens. He won't allow her to even get close to Dick.

Maybe it's unfair to punish her for a crime she hasn't done, but unlike murder, rape can never be defended. Catalina Flores is a dead woman walking.

Tim stalks his big brother back home and then broke off to begin his short reign of terror over Bludhaven's underground. If he can't get Dick to take a break (and Tim's tried, a lot, over the years) then he'll make sure that the next month is as gentle as possible on his older brother.

Step 1. Murder Take care of Blockbuster

Step 2. Threaten Catalina Flores and her brother.

No. Wait. Tim has a better idea. He's got dirt on them, on top of the murder thing. He'll fabricate Catalina's tax returns, embezzle a shit ton of money from the IRS, and get her and her corrupt brother (because getting your sister out from murder charges is considered corrupt) arrested and locked away. And he'll make sure they stay locked away with some good old blackmail on Amanda Waller.

Tim grins, tranquilizing the building with an ungodly amount of knock out gas pellets, to riffle through the police precinct's files.

Step 2. Threaten Catalina Flores and her brother.

Step 2. Cripple Catalina Flores and her brother with blackmail and the IRS.

In three hours, Tim has everything he needs to begin a temporary hostile takeover. He's got the names of local mob bosses, the big players, and the names of practically every police officer that takes bribes and their... sponsors.

He'll have to cut off Blockbuster's lines of supplies first. Then, blacklist him from local suppliers, mobilize the police precinct against him (by imitating his M.O. perfectly- Tim's not a fucking amateur- and pretending to rob the precinct blind), and then break his knees.

Step 3. Profit

Tim takes out his shiny new burner phone, enjoying the loud sounds of the police squawking through his planted bugs. He lounges on the building next to it, keeping an eye out for Nightwing just in case the man decides to respond to the crisis.

[Unknown: It's RR.]

[Deathstroke: New phone?]

[RR: Who dis?]

[Deathstroke: What?]

[RR: Nevermind. I'll give you forty thousand to shoot someone's knees out.]

[Deathstroke:... That's it? Who?]

[RR: Blockbuster. Bludhaven. Extra twenty thousand if you tell him he's got the spine of a sea slug, kick him in the balls, and post it on Tweeting.]

[Deathstroke: What did he do to you? Deal.]

Tim ignored Deathstroke's question.

[RR: Half sent. Confirm?]

[Deathstroke: Confirmed. Timeline?]

[RR: Three weeks. 21 days.]

[Deathstroke: Confirmed.]

----

Tim grins ferally, all teeth as Catalina Flores looked on in horror at her computer screen.

"Get out of Bludhaven, and don't come back. If you even think of going near Nightwing, I will rip what's left of your pathetic, sniveling swine of a brother apart. You will not enjoy the consequences."

Tim clicks off, watching Catalina and her brother launch themselves into mad packing. He tapped out a short message to Amanda Waller for her and her team to intercept them at the state lines. They'll never get away from Tim's fury. Never.

[Waller: It's done.]

[Waller: I will find you.]

[RR: You can definitely try, Waller. Good doing business with you.]

Tim can see the blood vessel the woman popped after he sent that last message. He laughs.

He saves Deathstroke's video from Tweeting onto his actual, spoofed phone. He destroys the burner phone, less shiny now that he's dragged it through two and a half weeks of breaking heads and terrorizing the Bludhaven Underground. Nightwing hadn't even gotten a whiff of his activities, this Dick being far less experienced and known in this version of Blud.

One more week and Tim can continue his other projects.

----

Nightwing, going about his vigilante business: wow it sure is peaceful

Feral Tim Drake, Nightwing's scary dog privilege: try me, bitch

[erebus0dora]

look, today i was. um. inspired, okay? and i haven't tried this new pastel set of watercolours. and the cotton paper also seemed nice. and the general lilac colour pattern was appealing. and-

-i wanted things done and i did them, all right xD

[mylittleredgirl]

i will always love the original version of the deep space nine theme song best, but i do understand why they put more zip to it in the later seasons. breathtaking musical composition, but yeah it's kinda slow for an action/adventure tv theme song, so if you're already remaking the opening sequence to add the defiant, go ahead and punch it up. good idea, good execution.

fully hilarious though that enterprise tried to do the same thing ten years later, because as memeable as faith of the heart is the Skip Intro era, it's really hard to overstate how much vitriol people had about the theme song in real time. i will say that fandom history overstates this a little because it wasn't universally treated as a sin against god, there were at least twelve diehard trekkies out there (including me) who looked at this gorgeous intro sequence paired with a mediocre cover of a rod stewart song and went "hmm. weird choice, but you make a good point, i would like to have strength of the soul and reach any star."

but the star trek fans who like being mad about star trek were frothing at the mouth. it wasn't just silly and bad this was the rallying point for how enterprise was an affront to star trek. they were NOT going to take it lying down, they had torches they had pitchforks, they were nailing a list of grievances to the church door and THE FUCKING THEME SONG HAS LYRICS was thesis #1.

(followed by "why are the vulcans jerks :(" and an itemized list of every single canon inconsistency)

so it is so, so fucking funny to imagine the network meeting that must have taken place sometime in late season two when they were bleeding audience numbers and UPN started making the worst previews of all time ("tune in for next week's SPECIAL ENTERPRISE EVENT: ✨Canamar✨!") (the previews also spoiled the ending of every episode for months, like they weren't just bad they were actively damaging) (it was soooo so hard to have a good time as an enterprise fan in 2003).

so this meeting happens and they go okay. we know what to do here. first up. put "star trek" back in the name (it was just "enterprise" for the first two seasons to "attract a new audience"). next. is there a way we can make this about 9/11. great great good job. can we put jolene in a different catsuit? and then some intern whose job it is to monitor the forums on television without pity timidly reminds them about the torches and pitchforks and they're like oh yeah we should remix the theme song! and the intern is like WHEW so should i book an orchestra for like an hour to do an instrumental version of the closing credits and then bermaga or some clown at UPN is like no no no you're not getting it. the lyrics aren't the problem. they just don't understand our vision because there weren't enough bongos.

[sporeclan]

😻?

[From this prompt list (New Requests Closed!)]

😻: Favorite ship in the clan?

So, I'd say it depends! For ships that are canon in SporeClan so far, I'd have to go with FoxFox <3 I just love that classic energetic and kind x shy and really easily flustered dynamic, I think its cute every time :'D

But for ships that aren't a thing (as of yet, at least(fingers crossed))... I am OBSESSED with the idea of Riftbranch and Puddle's dynamic. Big goofy woman and her strange strange little husband. He just finds her so fascinating to listen to and thinks she has the most profound philosophical quandaries he has ever heard, but they're all stuff like "do you think water is wet" and "how are you gonna feel pain in your leg if you lose it in battle (because it is gone)". Man who thinks way too much before he speaks and woman who speaks before she thinks every single time. I love them so much

[scarapanna]

I liked your art, you won🎉🎉🎉

WE WON NO REDEMPTION WAHOOOOO/silly

I'm still terrified of the redemption route for this clown though hdhghfg, I want his silly self to stay evil and wimsy and goofy and with redemption uhhh

We're like

I dunno I'm sooo scared devsis is gonna take away that aspect which is what makes him just so funnn. Please pretty please let him be god awful and rotten and rude and goofy if you take that route Devisis I want him to keep his funny wimsy qualities. Please please pleaseeee write him well y'all are doing sooo good with him don't fumble by taking the redemption route (And if they do it better be good and he better stay chaotic and goofy and sassy and condescending and all his "rotten rabid thing" qualities)

If they do him (And his fun aspects justice in this dreaded hypotetical) then I may be cool with it. Though the mean ass possum has grown on me so much I'd 100% miss that evil and unhinged part of him TONS, devsis have mercy pretty please/silly

[Longer more insane ramblings are in the tags hsfhfhhv]