#swamp thing 2011

[somewherefornow]

ETRIGAN in SWAMP THING (2011)

[keycomicbooks]

Swamp Thing #1 (2011) Yanick Paquette Art, Scott Snyder Story, 1st Appearance of Swamp Thing (Calbraith A.H. Rodgers)

#SwampThing #1 (2011) #YanickPaquette Art, #ScottSnyder Story, 1st Appearance of #SwampThing (#CalbraithAHRodgers) "Raise Them Bones" One of the world's most iconic characters has returned to the heart of the #DCUniverse, and every step he takes will shake the foundations of the Earth! #AlecHolland has his life back...but the Green has plans for it. A monstrous evil is rising in the desert, and it'll take a monster of another kind to defend life as we know it! https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/Swamp%20Thing%20Vol%205.html#1 @rarecomicbooks Website Link In Bio Page If Applicable. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA #KeyComicBooks #DCComics #DCU #KeyIssue

[some-triangles]

This is the order of events as nearly as I can reconstruct them.

In 2008 I start following a webcomic called Problem Sleuth.

In 2009 Problem Sleuth wraps up. The author, Andrew Hussie, begins work on 🤡's next project, a mixed media piece called Homestuck.

In 2010 I become an evangelist for Homestuck. I spread the word to my college friend Stephen. He joins an online Homestuck RP group. I move to New York. That fall, Stephen visits me and introduces me to a guy from the group named Josh, who plays Rose. I am immediately infatuated.

In 2011 Stephen starts development on a real life Pesterchum app. I organize a Homestuck group cosplay and we go to Anime Central with our whole college anime club dressed up as trolls. I sit in a field with 50 Daves. I write my first Homestuck fanfiction, which is also my first anything fanfiction. Josh moves into my apartment. Stephen is dating a pair of bisexual cosplayers. Act 5 concludes. It is Peak Homestuck.

In 2012 my girlfriend tells me that I am no longer allowed to talk about Homestuck with her. The What Pumpkin organization - Homestuck is too big to be one person's project anymore - launches a kickstarter for a Homestuck video game, which raises 2.5 million dollars. At the same time, it is becoming clear that something is wrong with Homestuck itself. The author is fed up with the project but is now financially bound to it. The content becomes increasingly mean-spirited and critical of its audience as What Pumpkin tries to turn itself into a game company.

In 2013 What Pumpkin loses a significant chunk of its Kickstarter money - how much we'll never know - through a comical series of development boondoggles. Stephen launches a Kickstarter to fund an expansion of the Pesterchum app - now the haunt of a large online community - and What Pumpkin shuts it down. Josh no longer reads Homestuck but we're still living together and we start a podcast.

In 2014 Homestuck is mostly on hiatus. When it returns I start this blog, which was originally called "Two Triangles," after Dirk's shades. Most of the old crew have stopped caring about Homestuck but I am a die-hard. I write more fanfiction, mostly lesbian fluff. I begin to meet new people who are still invested in the whole thing. This and the podcast become the core of my new social world. Homestuck itself is getting more and more chaotic and diffuse but I still believe Andrew can tie it all together.

In 2015 I break. I write a fanfic called "Theatre of Coolty," which is my Dear John letter to Andrew Hussie. (I kill him in the story, which is par for the course.) It becomes the most popular thing I have ever made, and is most likely the most popular thing I ever will make. It is translated into multiple languages. A person called Naked Bee (who becomes another dear friend) turns it into a short film with puppets. I have grown to hate Homestuck but it is now my primary source of external validation and the foundation of my social media presence.

In 2016 Homestuck ends. The last year of its existence is an extraordinary act of creative self-erasure. Hussie vanishes by degrees, and by the time the finale rolls out no trace of 🤡's writing or art is left in the product. It is an abnegation worthy of Prospero. To complete this act of conceptual self-destruction, 🤡 ends up selling the entire product to Viz, who let it corrode. (Nine years later, homestuck.com is a dead link, mspaintadventures an abandoned swamp of broken pngs.) Meanwhile, I provide the narration for Bee's audio adaptation of a novel-length Homestuck fanfiction called Detective Pony, which she later turns into a feature film. The author of the fic/novel goes on to Kickstart a dating sim based on the 2016 Republican primary, which he calls Grand Old Academy. It has yet to be published.

In 2017 I leave New York. My friendship with Josh deteriorates and our podcast ends. I am no longer a Homestuck fan. As such I rebrand - the number of triangles I am is no longer anyone's business.

--

In 2021, Andrew Hussie releases a visual novel called Psycholonials. I do not read it.

--

In 2025, I am back in New York, albeit not in the city. I'm married to someone I met through this blog. Most of my closest friends are people I met either through Homestuck or through the projects that came out of it. Even my college friends - the ones I still talk to - are the ones who went through the wars with me. My wife thinks Psycholonials is worth reading. One night we sit down and play through it together.

Psycholonials is a nasty, nihilistic little story about a fucking idiot who accidentally creates a movement and then runs away like a bitch when it gets to be too much, back into the bosom of 🤡's trust fund. It's also really good. It has all the things I loved about Homestuck, all the stuff I missed as 🤡 left it to rot. It demonstrates that 🤡 is not washed, that the failure of Homestuck was not because 🤡 lost the juice. 🤡 abandoned us on purpose. 🤡 chose 🤡 over us.

This was objectively the correct decision. And when you come right down to it, 🤡 never signed up to change my life. It just happened.

Still, I can't say that it doesn't hurt a little, sitting here in my 40s. I guess everyone follows at least one failed messiah. So, yet another farewell to the cool big brother I never had. I hope this is the last one.

[stealingyourbones]

Friendly challenge for you and those in the notes to share your top favorite DC media; be it comics, radio shows, video games, or shows: animated or live action

I love learning what people are passionate about

My favorites are: Batman the Animated Series, the live action Catwoman (including so you know I'm trash), Swamp Thing (2019), and Black Lightning

Oh absolutely!!!!!

Some of my absolute favorites:

Literally ANY The Brave and The Bold comics. Hero team ups make me so happy and they’re so fun to read.

Batman Universe. It’s a 6 part comic series and it’s delightful. If you like good Batman it’s up your alley. The interactions in it bring me joy

Batman White Knight. Comic

Superman the Radio Show (not recommended for folks with severe audio processing issues most eps have the quality of 40s audio i.e. bad. Remember it’s of its time!)

Batman: Unburied. Spotify podcast. Wonderfully written and damn good Elseworlds story

The Riddler: Secrets in The Dark. Spotify Podcast. For anyone who wants to get into the mind of a Gotham rogue it’s so fun I LOVE this version of the riddler sm.

Speedrunning the tv shows I like: Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, Justice League Action, Batman the Brave and the Bold.

John Ostrander’s The Spectre comic run.

The current Flash run is super fun. Pick up literally any of those comics and read em y’all.

Animal Man by Grant Morrison. My fav comic of all time.

Animal Man (2011) comic run.

The New Frontier. animated movie

Any Batman and Judge Dredd crossover comic.

Plastic Man (2018)

[shyjusticewarrior]

Women led comic recs for International Women's Day

Catwoman: Trial of the Catwoman - DC Compact Comics Edition.

Gotham City Sirens (2009-2011.)

Batman: One Bad Day: Catwoman. It's also written by a woman.

Harleen.

Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey: the Hunt For Harley. Co-written and drawn by a woman.

Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder. It's an anthology, about a third of the writers and artists are women.

Poison Ivy: Thorns. Written and drawn by women.

Poison Ivy (2022.) Written by a woman, main cover artist is a woman.

Poison/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees. Written by a woman.

Birds of Prey (2023.) Written by a woman.

[hmslusitania]

Heya! I'm curious about your DC fics because I really like your writing! But I'm only passingly familiar with the DC comics as marvel used to be more my thing, so is there any particular series you'd recommend? 😄

Firstly thank you so much!

Secondly, I’m not sure if you mean comic series to read to know more about DC or my fics so you can have both answers!

Per my fics: I always, always regardless of fandom try to write them with enough internal context given that you don’t really need to be familiar with the source material to understand what’s going on. They have gotten increasingly more informed by actual DC comics canon as time has worn on and I have read more of them but I’ve still tried to keep to the necessary context provision.

Per DC comic runs I would recommend: firstly, I’ve been in the questionable habit of reading overarching events more than runs to try and catch up on stuff, largely because I want to support my local comic book shop that’s around the corner and the best way to do that is by adding current comics to my pull list. That said!

Completed (both in publication and by me; partial list):

Young Justice (1998-2003). Forever recommend. It is such a microcosm of the late 90s and early oughts and its great both because of and in spite of that

Outsiders (2003-2007). Among other winning qualities, it introduces the characters of Grace Choi and Anissa Pierce

Titans (2016-2018). This is a somewhat questionable thing to recommend. I know there are many who aren’t thrilled with some of the characterisations that appeared here. But it was Rebirth so they were trying to undo the bullshit from the new52 and it was also the first DC comics run I read so I have a huge soft spot for it

Justice League Dark (2018-202[1?]). Sometimes a comic book team is a vegas stage magician, talking chimp with a detective agency and a sword, a man who is also a bat who is also a scientist, a man who is also a scientist who is also a swamp, a guy whose sold his soul to demons too many times, and also Wonder Woman.

Zatanna: Bring Down the House (2024). This was just a miniseries and it was out of main sequence but I absolutely loved the atmosphere they built in it between the 60s mod art and the story in Vegas showlands

Ongoing:

Birds of Prey (2023-). I love Kelly Thompson ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Batgirl (2024-2025). I think this one’s a miniseries but it’s good so far!

Green Arrow (2023-). The first part of this run finally dragged the last members of the arrowfam out of the limburgatory they’ve been in since 2011, and in the last couple months they’ve traded creative teams ans with that have gone very back to Green Arrow basics in a way I’m enjoying so far

Superman (2023-) & Action Comics (um… time immemorial?).

This is not my full pull list, just the stuff I’m currently really enjoying.

[hypersanity]

Philosophy and Elitism - Comics https://www.reddit.com/r/DemonicsGamingDomain/comments/1ijkm9t/thinking_about_a_subscription_to_dc_infinite/

So I've been learning about kite man, who is one of my new favorite characters/archetypes - the cyclic pattern of always starting over - applying new information from failures to slowly overcome obstacles not faced by normal standards and experiences - reflects one of the methods I use to learn since memory's different (and memory and understanding are completely different and misunderstood).

And I happened upon a character I've literally never heard before - Animal Man.

Seems to have ties to swamp-thing, which makes sense that he's reminiscent of a druid - but in like a venom style where things aren't black and white but a spectrum of shades.

Vegan anti/hero? https://www.dcuniverseinfinite.com/comics/book/animal-man-2011-1/85ebe20d-c87a-4cdc-bf15-65d1b3de400b/story-animalman-the-hunt-books

"Evolve or die" - actually an activist superhero that understands there are no heroes without a world to live in. By standards today this would be seen as "radical", when in actuality, it's being ethically consistent in ones abilities and choices that can be entirely avoided - but chosen NOT to.

About holding YOURSELF accountable in actions that lead to a global effect and collectively, instead of waiting for a point of no return.

---

"The believer": Here points out he's (Animal Man) an auto-didact who's not satisfied with just doing one thing and sticking to it like everyone else.

Philosophy

Something that I find hilarious and intentionally ignorant as fuck, is that people say philosophy isn't good for anything, not for music/ movies etc.

But without philosophy, there's nothing compelling - without philosophy, there's no imagination, no philosophic archetypes like kite man/animal man/venom/magneto and many others archetypes that use philosophy to add depth.

Otherwise everything would be grey without philosophy, archetypes strictly confined to pre-determined "forms" of philosophy.

Elitism and narcissism make an intersection when someone says that "oh this belongs to author x" - philosophy is a human invention, someone doesn't have to read x amount of books or specific books to learn philosophy.

One doesn't need to have a degree - this is ultimately reminiscent of a fascist.

The first people to invent philosophy - didn't have books to create new forms of it.

Many philosophies borrow from others to create a new one.

A philosophy itself isn't inherently good/evil (minus exceptions for those literally designed as such) - but in how someone uses it.

The worst kind of malignant narcissists say, "you have to purchase x amount of something to be x".

You don't have to read books about philosophy to learn about it, you can learn from archetypes, mythology, experiential experiences or wiki.

No-one starts learning at the same periods, no-one starts on the same resource -

Saying you have to understand philosophy by solely reading specific books, is the most un-human way to approach something.

The best movies and comics use philosophy, if you say otherwise, you're not actually proving it - you're just asserting your belief, despite not actually being interested enough in philosophy to engage in a way that's not just parroting the most famous philosophers and saying it's not.

Because that would be malignant elitist narcissism that aligns with any society that hates learning and doing so in a way that's fun. "just read books and never have fun, OR learn", as having fun is paramount to learning and assuming everyone learns the same way is literally fascistic gate-keeping. Grifters say buy my book that teaches you everything while stealing a phrase from another author- despite not fighting climate change due to "aliens" - DeGrasse Tyson. Oh, so you only believe in an education for people who can buy books, and methods not possible/conducive to their learning. - Which ties into anti-AI hysteria and disinformation - TBD.

[april-is]

April 24, 2024: How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This, Hanif Abdurraqib

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This Hanif Abdurraqib

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown & lord knows I have been called by what I look like more than I have been called by what I actually am & I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

--

From the poet:

“I was at a reading shortly after the [2016] election, and the poet (who was black) was reading gorgeous poems, which had some consistent and exciting flower imagery. A woman (who was white) behind me—who thought she was whispering to her neighbor—said ‘How can black people write about flowers at a time like this?’ I thought it was so absurd in a way that didn’t make me angry but made me curious. What is the black poet to be writing about ‘at a time like this’ if not to dissect the attractiveness of a flower—that which can arrive beautiful and then slowly die right before our eyes? I thought flowers were the exact thing to write about at a time like this, so I began this series of poems, all with the same title. I thought it was much better to grasp a handful of different flowers, put them in a glass box, and see how many angles I could find in our shared eventual demise.” —Hanif Abdurraqib

Today in:

2023: Lit, Andrea Cohen 2022: Meditations in an Emergency, Cameron Awkward-Rich 2021: How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River, Barbara Crooker 2020: Ash, Tracy K. Smith 2019: Under Stars, Dorianne Laux 2018: Afterlife, Natalie Eilbert 2017: There Are Birds Here, Jamaal May 2016: Poetry, Richard Kenney 2015: Dreaming at the Ballet, Jack Gilbert 2014: Vocation, Sandra Beasley 2013: Near the Race Track, Brigit Pegeen Kelly 2012: from Ask Him, Raymond Carver 2011: Sweet Star Chisel, Dearest Flaming Crumbs in Your Beard Lord, John Rybicki 2010: Rain Travel, W.S. Merwin 2009: Goodnight, Li-Young Lee 2008: Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje 2007: Meditation at Lagunitas, Robert Hass 2006: Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke 2005: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

[luvo27]

tagged by @mintchocochipsposts!!! i love love love talking about things i'm reading so thank you!!!

If you have a To Be Read list/pile (comics, books, whatever):

What title(s) are you currently reading?

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang ( this one's a poetry collection!!! i've been enjoying it a lot!!)

and ok i feel like i'm reading five hundred different comic runs very slowly at the same time so here's a few:

Wonder Woman (1986)

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight

Uncanny X-Men (1981)

What title(s) are up next on your reading list?

Gravity Lost by L.M. Sagas (sequel to a novel i enjoyed!)

Doom Patrol (1964)

Titans (1999)

Green Arrow (2011)

What title(s) are your emotional support TBRs and you’re planning to get around to them. One day. When the stars align?

Every comic run I'm currently reading falls on this list because of the way i switch between things all the time!! but I definitely want to read more of kamala khan's ms. marvel. oh also i've been told I'd enjoy silver surfer. and i want to get more into green lantern. I've also been meaning to get around to On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong for ages. also i've been recommended Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer. oh, also, Elaine Lee's Starstruck.

Have you taken anything out of your TBR pile recently, and why?

I borrowed Please Stop trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab from the library, and the formatting of the story wasn't for me. also, I started reading The Sandman maybe a year ago? took a break to read something else shortly after and i always figured i'd come back to it eventually, but well. yeah nah officially off the list. also, not recently but i think about it all the time so i'm going to talk about it: Swamp Thing (1982) because there are some strange comic book things that you just can't move past, and for me, Swamp Thing getting pregnant with and giving birth to himself (with fetus!Swamp Thing pov) clears that bar. by a lot.

no pressure tagging @alfalfairy, @rrat-king, @gnomewithalaptop, @shoot-i-messed-up, @spoilerqlert, @remidyal, and anyone else who wants to play!!

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Yale Climate Connections:

Asheville, North Carolina, seemed like a good place to escape the worst of a warming world. The city’s appealing four-season climate includes summers with a typical daily high around 84°F – unusually low for the Southeast U.S. – and winters that aren’t too frigid. There’s typically plenty of moisture throughout the year, but with a mountain rain shadow that keeps Asheville a bit less wet than most of its neighbors. And the city takes climate seriously: findings from a climate resilience assessment have already been incorporated into Asheville’s comprehensive planning document.

In a 2018 Rolling Stone article, Jeff Goodell profiled one climate refugee who had considered the Tampa area before settling on Asheville. “No place is without risk, but in Asheville, the risks seem manageable,” Jeff Kaplan told Goodell. A 2021 Blue Ridge Public Radio segment portrayed Asheville as a climate “winner.”

Then came Hurricane Helene. After striking the Florida Panhandle at Category 4 strength, the storm took a quirky left hook across the southern Appalachians, pushing mammoth amounts of moisture upslope. Making matters worse, a predecessor rain event ahead of Helene had dumped six to 12 inches of rain across the region a day before the storm itself arrived.

The result was one of the most devastating, prolonged, and deadly hurricane-related U.S. flood disasters since the cataclysm of Katrina in 2005. Across the southern Appalachians – including Asheville – Helene destroyed roads, knocked out power and water lines, crippled communications, and took dozens of lives.

Among the things that make Helene different is that it arrived at a time when hurricane behavior is being measurably amped up in multiple ways by human-caused climate change. And it hammered a place now widely viewed to be at least somewhat insulated from the worst impacts of that changing climate.

Many folks seeking out climate-change-protected places in the U.S. have leaned toward small, progressive cities in relatively cool parts of the Midwest and East. Spikes in heat, drought, and wildfire that have plagued the West seem more likely to be tempered in these apparent havens. And in many of them, climate adaptation efforts are already underway.

As it turns out, most of the country east of the Rockies is getting wetter. Especially over the central and southern Appalachians, some locations saw a 5 to 10% rise in official annual precipitation when their 1980-2011 climate averages were replaced by the 1991-2020 figures. In Asheville, a typical year’s precipitation jumped from 37.32 to 40.61 inches.

Along with Asheville, a couple of other often-cited climate-change oases in the U.S. Midwest and East have experienced landmark rains and floods in recent years.

Duluth, Minnesota, referred to in a 2023 New York Times writeup as “climate-proof Duluth” (and the subject of a study on how climate migration might change the city), experienced the worst flooding in its history on June 19-20, 2012, when the city was swamped by a record 7.24 inches of rain in 24 hours. Colossal rains were even more widespread across northeast Minnesota on June 18, 2024, when a number of stations reported 5-7.5 inches of rain – a daily total with an expected recurrence interval of 500 to 1,000 years, according to the National Weather Service.

Vermont has long stood out as a potential U.S. climate refuge, with its environmentally friendly reputation, ample greenery and mountains, and normally mild summers. But when former Hurricane Irene ripped across the state as a tropical storm in August 2011, it brought massive rainfall that triggered one of Vermont’s worst disasters on record, rivaling or exceeding the notorious floods of 1927 in some areas. Then in 2023, weeks of early-summer wildfire smoke filtering south from Canada were followed by the Great Vermont Flood of July 10-11. Triggered by up to 9.61 inches of rain, the floods caused more than $2.2 billion in damage across northern New England and triggered the region’s first-ever flash flood emergency.

[blindrapture]

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING (Table of Contents)

While this book has many names and many people in it, all the events and opinions portrayed are fictitious. Some real names were used, with permission, but only for aesthetics’s sake. People often express confusion over some of the emoticons in the story. Most are self-explanatory, but just bear in mind that every one has eyes and a mouth. .w. has the periods as the eyes and the w is related to the "kittyface" of :3, with the former emoticon intended as an expression of humble happiness (something like "Aw, shucks!"). The < in <:D is intended as eyebrows, not a party hat, no matter who tells you otherwise. This story is long. The first draft was started in 2011 and continued until 2013, the second draft finished the story in 2013, the third and fourth drafts were refinements of the whole and came around 2014. The fifth draft added a lot more content, introducing an element you'll see as the "Attacheds," and this came in 2015. This formed the basis for the sixth draft in 2016, which was published on Amazon as the First Edition. That draft saw refinement and tweaking for several years (the seventh draft). What you are looking at now is the Second Edition, the eighth and final draft. The point of all this is: I have had many opportunities to change this story. I have taken many things out. The content and how it is treated will make you uneasy, somewhere, somewhen. It is best to read this story by yourself, where you can feel your emotions rawly and give them space. Privacy is a theme here. There are many more themes for you to discover. Good luck.

OVERTURE May 20 (Modern Invocation) May 21 (Title Drop From Red Sky)

ACT I May 23 (Donnie) May 24 (The Pillar) May 25 ("world with empty eye sockets") May 26 (Aubade feat. Mistress Dread) May 27 (In Blackpool) May 28 (Cipher for a Million Years) May 29 (Everyone's Benefit) May 30 ("Cakes mean the party funds") May 31 (Tropes) June 1 (Kissing a Corpse) June 2 ("le bouffon blanc") June 3 (Great Dodongo of the Congo) June 4 (SLCEM) June 5 (Womp Womp) June 6 ("Doppelganger") June 7 (The Minotaur of Lloret de Mar) June 8 (Vorke, the Face Stealer) June 9 (Systematic Chaos) June 10 (Clearly Exaggerated) June 11 ("Promise you'll never?") June 12 (Donnie Goes to London) June 13 (missing) June 14 (There Were Strangers at the Birth of the Earth) June 15 ("How are human minds biggest") June 16 ("I'll kneel.") June 17 (Going Brazilian) June 18 (In the Name of Comcast...) June 19 ("ENGLAND'S THEIRS NOW") June 20 (Tally Marks) June 21 (Bad Jokes) June 22 (Classic Jokes) June 23 (Ten Years in Jail) June 24 (Tell Us Yourself) June 25 (Liverpool) June 26 ("Fears. There's the rub.") June 27 (Secret Friend) June 28 (The Fourth Rake of the Apocalypse) June 29 (Rael's Exodus, I: Start with the Pronouns) June 30 (Rael's Exodus, II: Indisen) July 1 (Rael's Exodus, III: Fear the Day) July 2 (Rael's Exodus, IV: EAT) July 3 (Rael's Exodus, V: The Anatomy of Everything) July 4 (Rael's Exodus, VI: Wishful Thinking)

ACT II July 5 (Duck and Cover) July 6 (American Anxiety) July 7 (Ciphers of the Blind Man's Book) July 8 (The God Machine) July 9 (School Bus) July 10 (Family Expression) July 11 (Sempiternity) July 12 (Grimaldi's Mad Language) July 13 ("Operation: Rise Against Fear") July 14 (Guy Fawkes) July 15 ("yes, quite nice") July 16 (Infinite Series) July 17 (The Grand Gtheru) July 18 (A Conversation with Tiresias) July 19 (More Tally Marks) July 20 ("red ochre corridors") July 21 (Who Once Ruled the Streetlights) July 22 (Walking) July 23 (Goodbye, Swamp Queen) July 24 (Sanctuary Francisco) July 25 (Avoidance) July 26 (See, the Thing is...) July 27 (Maybes and Mysteries) July 28 (Synecdoche) July 29 (Crotch Museum) July 30 (King Real) July 31 (Ground and Pound) August 1 (Don't Speak Its True Name, I: Peace) August 2 (Don't Speak Its True Name, II: Mirrors) August 3 (Don't Speak Its True Name, III: Colors) August 4 (Don't Speak Its True Name, IV: Music) August 5 (Don't Speak Its True Name, V: Dominiere) August 6 (Don't Speak Its True Name, VI: The Ghost) August 7 (Don't Speak Its True Name, VII: Friend)

POST WILL BE UPDATED WITH EVERY LOG

SEE THE WEBSITE VERSION FOR THE IDEAL READ

(and for bonus rambles talking about the creation of the story, see here)

[fantastic-nonsense]

Hi! I was looking to see if you know of many comics with Batman's villains at the lead!? (Besides Harley and Selina, who've had multiple series and are pretty easy to find). Other than the "Joker" Novel and Penguin: Pain and prejudice, i couldn't find any. Any good suggestions for Joker, Ivy, Two-Face, or any other villian from the Batman universe?

the tldr is that Ivy has several, Two-Face has a handful, the al Ghuls have a couple, and everyone else has had a couple of single issues starring them.

In general, the Batman Arkham series functions as a Batman Rogues Gallery "Greatest Hits" collection. While most of the stories collected in these trades don't feature the rogues as a protagonist, they all explore the characters and their backstories/motivations and feature them in a starring role!

On principle, I generally refuse to recommend Joker comics. Clown man has enough stuff starring him and they're generally easy enough to find without me promoting him more than he already is. Also, to be honest with you I occasionally go out of my way to avoid stuff starring him because he's frankly bored me ever since DC decided to emphasize him as a psychopathic serial killer instead of a funny villain with a clown gimmick.

However, The Joker's Five-Way Revenge (Batman vol. 1 #251) is a fun read, Joker: The Man Who Laughs and Joker's Last Laugh are both good, and Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles is decent as well. Another fun one that's a little out of the box is Superman: Emperor Joker.

Other than that...I generally recommend the following for Ivy:

Batman Arkham: Poison Ivy (basically an 'Ivy Greatest Hits' collection)

Batman: Poison Ivy (1997)

No Man's Land (yes, it's long. No, Ivy's not a 'lead'. yes, it's also ground zero for Ivy's redemption arc and features her in a major role)

Gotham City Sirens (2009)

Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder (specifically Vol. 2, Family Tree, and Vol. 3, Rotworld: The Green Kingdom)

Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death (2016)

Poison Ivy (2021) by G. Willow Wilson (curently ongoing)

Ivy also pops up in Ram V's Catwoman (2018) run and pretty consistently in Harley's solo books after 2015.

For Two-Face (my beloved), read Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory (which function as a double feature). Then read any of the following:

Batman: Faces (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #28-30)

Batman: Two-Face (1995)

Batman Annual #14: "Eye of the Beholder"

Gotham Central, which has an extended Harvey-Renee Montoya subplot

Batman/Two-Face: "Crime and Punishment"

Batman/Two-Face: Face the Face (2006)

Two-Face: Year One (2008)

Batman and Robin (2011) 23.1: Two-Face

Detective Comics #1020-1022: “The Ugly Heart”

Two-Face: One Bad Day

And for a couple of stories that aren't Harvey-focused but feature him as a prominent antagonist...read Robin: Year One, A Lonely Place of Dying, and Batman: Prodigal.

For the al Ghuls, apart from the Batman Arkham collections you're primarily looking for Tales of the Demon, the Demon Trilogy (Birth of the Demon, Bride of the Demon, Son of the Demon), Batman: The Chalice, and Batman Annual #26 (the prologue to Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, which is also fun). Two of Damian's Robin solos (Robin: Son of Batman (2015) and Robin (2021)) also prominently feature Talia. There are...certainly other options, if you want to read about the al Ghuls, but they're rarely well characterized in those (except Talia's LexCorp CEO arc; all hail Talia's Lexcorp CEO arc).

Clayface (the Basil Karlo version) prominently featured as a protagonist in Tynion's Detective Comics Rebirth (2016) run.

Everyone else...apart from stories where they're the prominent antagonist, there were several Villain takeover issues during the period of Batman and Robin (2011) when Damian was dead, Year of the Villain had a few issues focused on the Batman Rogues, and the One Bad Day series focuses each issue on a different Bat Rogue.

There are plenty of other stories centered on various members of Batman's Rogues Gallery, but hopefully this gives you a solid starting place!

[aboutzatanna]

can we get a summary of Zatanna’s interactions with Swamp Thing? And/or Madame Xanadu?

(Sorry it took a while to answer to this. Not being able to answer this has been bugging me for a while)

Outside of JLD, the most notable interactions I can think are:

-For Swamp Thing:

Although her Dad died as a guest star in a Swamp Thing, Zatanna and Swamp Thing never really interacted in that specific arc.

There was a Swamp Thing mini series in 2011 by Len Wein (Swamp Thing's other Dad) and artist Kelly Jones (perfect fit for the title) which revolved around Swamp Thing/Alec Holland looking for a cure for his condition with his friend, Matt Cable which leads the two of them to Zatanna's place.

Continuity wise, it a bit of a mess. What with Matthew Cable being...well....alive...human and...not one one of Morpheus's crows. Plus references to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run but ST is a human turned to swamp creature instead of a swamp creature who thought it was human. That said, Alec Holland was brought back to life thanks to the events of Brightest Day so that's not as egregious as Matthew Cable.

Zatanna is the magician who gets the biggest focus. Her characterization is the same as her preNu52, same goes for Phantom Stranger and Etrigan. But this mini fits neither the Pre Nu52 continuity nor the Post Nu52 continuity. I think it can be enjoyed and read on it's own. It's just stuck in a weird middle ground continuity wise because it was published in a time when nobody at DC was sure if the Nu52 was a full, clean slate reboot or partial reboot and no one could decided what should remain in continuity and what shouldn't.

-For Madame Xanadu:

The first major story to have Zatanna and Xanadu interact with each other was Spectre Vol 2 #7-8 titled 'Pieces of Zatanna'. It's a rare body horror story involving Zatanna where she finds her limbs and other parts of her body disappearing and returning but she knows they are not her original limbs.

So Zatanna quickly runs to Madame Xanadu for help. Although this is the first time readers see Zatanna and Xanadu interact, the two are already aware of each other.

The story is meant to resolve loose ends from Zatanna's final appearance in Justice League of America Vol 1 #257 as well as give Zatanna some closure for her fathers death in Swamp Thing #50.

Zatanna later appeared in Spectre Vol 2 #11, this time, of all things, the limo driver who chaueffer's Xanadu, Bronze Tiger and June Moon to a meeting arranged by the Spectre involving all the magical beings so they can discuss their roles in the human world. Not sure why Zee couldn't have just teleported them there, but then again, maybe they just wanted to enjoy a nice drive and limo is implied to be Zatanna's.

Years later, in Madame Xanadu's own series Madame Xanadu #9 we learn that Xanadu and John Zatara had dated in the past which goes a long way towards explaining how Zatanna knows her.

In Spectre Vol 3, around #16, there was a story arc where an Eclipso possessed Spectre went on a rampage. Zatanna appeared in the story arc but didn't get to interact with Xanadu as she was recruited to by Phantom Stranger to be on his team alongside Etrigan and the Inza Nelson Doctor Fate. Xanadu made her own team with Father Creamer and Ramban. Notably it's Xanadu's team that ends up succeeding at stopping the Spectre's rampage but cutting to the heart of the issue and confronting Corrigan's spiritual crisis directly.

Aside from that, Xanadu and Zatanna often appear together in ensembles during events like Obsidian Age and Day of Vengeance but they are not always notable.

I always thought that Xanadu could be a cool step mom figure for Zee since the latter operates in a male dominated world.

I haven't read Bendis Justice League in full yet but around the time the JLD back up feature was getting cancelled we did get to see Zatanna and Xanadu team up to fight a possessed Black Adam in Justice League Vol 4 #73:

[cellarspider]

23/30 Characterization speedrun

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We return to a movie that exposits with all the grace of an inebriated hippo on rollerskates, Prometheus.

Y’know, I have a soft spot for the first movie adaptation of Silent Hill (2006). Yes, we're tangenting to talk about something else I like better, but I swear it's for a purpose.

It mostly sticks to the first game’s content, meaning it limits the number of themes it has to handle. It makes some alterations that affect its interpretation–it switches the gender of the protagonist, alters the religious elements, cuts out the bit where you basically fight Baphomet at the end of the game, but that always felt weird anyway. And, of course, there’s a required appearance by a certain tetrahedron lad, reanalyzed as a punitive figure turned outward on the world rather than inward toward the person that conjured him. I’ll allow it, partly because I saw it when I was a teenager and I thought he was badass.

But what it really nails camerawork, creature effects, and set design. So much so that a lot of the visuals of following games lifted from creative decisions made for the movie. The Silent Hill movie is more a thing of vibes than anything else, and the vibes are appropriately awful.

[Video description: Rose (Radha Mitchell) and Cybil (Laurie Holden) encounter a Lying Figure (Michael Cota), AKA Armless Man or Straightjacket. There’s only a tiny amount of CG here. It was pretty much all Cota’s unnerving shuffle and his willingness to be shoved into blinding, deafening, arm-tying monster-bondage with a breathing tube hidden around butt-height.. We salute you, Mr. Cota, possibly with our feet.]

But where the movie trips and falls is right near the end, where the vibes screech to a halt so that the movie can sit you down and explain the backstory that it already intimated throughout the rest of the runtime.

On a totally unrelated note, Janek has something to tell Shaw.

This barren moon, believe it or not, isn’t the Engineers’ homeworld. Y’don’t say.

You know what would’ve been a better way to set this up? Have somebody ask “hey, there’s nothing but rocks and ominous buildings here. What gives?”, but they literally never do. Not even the biologist, who does no biology in the movie. The geologist, who also doesn’t do any geology, doesn’t note, say, a lack of siltstone that’d indicate running water, no coal of any kind that’d indicate previous growth of plant matter, no signs of oil or natural gas deposits derived from ancient microbes. Lord knows the poor bastards weren’t swamped with work before the script ate them.

But no, there’s no questioning of this. Shaw dictates in her notes “Was there an outbreak here?”, after exploding the head. But that’s it. No, we leave it to Idris Elba explain, as seriously and as military guy-ily as he can. This is a weapons lab or depot, something went wrong here, Janek’s going to do a self-sacrifice if it seems like the weapon might get to Earth. He even says the weapons are in “those vases”, in case you didn’t notice them before.

Consider: Principle photography for Prometheus was done in 2011, from March 21 to June 10 (cite 1). On November 14, Filming began for Pacific Rim, in which Idris Elba gots to play a serious self-sacrificing military guy with the exact same mustache who has an actual character arc, AND was allowed to use his actual accent.

In Prometheus, Janek apparently had more characterization planned, but it was stripped entirely away until all you’re left is a christmas tree, a plot-mandated laxity in keeping track of passengers, and incomprehensible flirting with Vickers. On balance, that’s more than pretty much everyone else gets, but at the same time, what does that tell us? We are left with a man who’s going to pull a heroic sacrifice, essentially because he’s the only other character we know about.

In cut material, Janek was originally going to give a sympathy monologue to Vickers after she killed Holloway, about a traumatic event in his military career: he watched a bioweapons lab suffer a breach that ended with its destruction. That was cut. His motivation was cut. And more, too, you can see the ragged edges of the script. 

“Right, ‘all you do is fly the ship,’” quotes an exasperated Shaw. “That’s right,” says Janek, who told Vickers that in a cut scene.

Despite these pieces missing, I haven’t been drawing on them very often. Why? Because the movie was still full of baffling decisions, regardless of how they edited it down. The movie that’s shot never looks like what gets shown in theaters, but it is still a representative sample of the material, one that was prepared for us to watch.

While Janek’s entire motivation fell off him in the editing room, Vickers gets undermined by what they did keep. Turns out she’s not just nasty to her employees, she’s nasty to her boss as well, because he’s her dad. She’s presented as obsessed with making sure he dies, which, fair, we’ll soon confirm that his only begotten robo-son is pretty big on that too.

…Except this also means they have the same character motivation, which… That can work, but how well does it work as a twist? 

I am not convinced. Vickers has constantly been pulling power plays on David, who’s pushed back a little in return, but they don’t have to functionally be siblings to make this work. Nor does the weird, occasionally robotic behavior from Vickers have to mean “aha, you see, they are both Weyland’s children with daddy issues!”

She could just be a disposable asset of the Weyland Corporation! She’d have a more sympathetic arc that way, because unlike corpos of Aliens past, she doesn’t want to be there at all. She didn’t want them to talk to aliens, she didn’t express any of the usual flimsy “we can profit off of this uncontrollable killing machine” stuff we’ve come to expect. She seemed to just want to get the fuck out of there. And obviously, she’s gonna die, this movie is frequently aping Alien and Aliens, the corpo does not survive. That could be tragic!

But apparently she wanted to be here, taking five years out of her life and career to sit on ice and do literally nothing but make sure her already dying dad actually dies. Okay. 

It’s especially, structurally weird, because the very next scene has David explaining his motivation to Shaw.

“What happens when Weyland isn’t around to program you?” “I suppose I’ll be free.” “You want that?” “"Want"? Not a concept I’m familiar with. That being said… doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?”

This is what happens when you leave a hyperintelligent newborn alone for two years with nobody but Peter O’Toole as a role model. 

This scene and the pre-caesarian one set up a weird dynamic between David and Shaw that didn’t seem sufficiently motivated by the rest of their interactions, in my opinion. It suggests that David has latched onto her in some way, which the next movie certainly confirms. But why? They’ve barely talked, ad most of it was pure exposition or telling David to do something. Is it because she hasn’t been as bad as the others? Because that’s going to change later. 

David’s hopes are pinned on the Engineer rejecting Weyland. This is a reasonable assumption. The way the scene plays out, however, is not entirely reasonable.

And that will have to wait for another day. Before we get to that, I want another ramble all to myself. About something I like.

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Alt-text rambles:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbhartzog/558247427/in/photostream/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble 

https://youtu.be/cOrcwL5MHYg

Overflow Ramble 1

The kitchen counters don’t have any grippy surfaces on them, and no lip. The *stove* has no lip, which I have seen before, but it’s stupid. Most modern designs for stovetops meant for installation on ships have a high lip and/or grippers that hold cookware in place. There are multiple open shelves that have no lip. And there’s yet another piece of Decorative African Art just hung on the wall above a food prep counter, within the potential reach of steam or grease splatter. The chair Holloway sat in last time is revealed to be free-standing, as is the coffee table.

No. No free-standing furniture, unless it’s collapsible and used at rest. Put lips on every counter and table. Have lots of grip mats you can throw down anywhere. The design in here is more along the lines of airline tray tables, which are meant to be stowed during rough flight. There is no way to stow all this shit in a reasonable and timely manner. Airline furniture is also designed according to hostile forces, which, frankly, might be relevant here. This comfy, beige apartment space was designed by someone who did not give one fuck if a glass went winging off that 2m tall open shelf and gave you a concussion.

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[grey-gazania]

Self-rec time! What are your favorite five fics that you've written and why? After replying to this ask, feel free to pass on to five other writers to spread the love. 💗 — @emyn-arnens

My dear @emyn-arnens, you sent this to me weeks ago, and I saw it and then unfortunately forgot to answer it, because Real Life has been kicking my ass, so I want both to thank you for the ask and to apologize for how long this took me.

My 5 Favorite Fics (Which Are Not Necessarily My 5 Best Fics)

Loyalty (yes I know this is actually a series, not a fic, hush)

In some ways this series is the bane of my existence, and in other ways it's one of my favorite things I've ever started written. I began planning it in 2011, began posting it in 2015, and, uh, still haven't finished it, whoops, because I think I need to drastically restructure the whole thing before I can proceed. But I've had a lot of fun creating my conlang, and Tókhesh/Tavoreth is one of my favorite OCs I've ever come up with for any fandom, not just Tolkien. I also really wanted to give the Easterlings the chance to be well-developed people in a well-developed society, instead of just being a glorified plot device, and I like to think that I've succeeded.

Unconscious Arithmetic

This story is by now quite old, written in 2011, but it was both my first foray into writing Caranthir and my first attempt at writing in 1st person -- a style I've since found works particularly well for Caranthir, or at least for my version of him. It was also my second story featuring Parmacundë, though she had yet to earn that epessë at the time this story is set, and was the beginning of my plan to work her into the broader story of The Silmarillion. I think I conveyed a particularly vivid picture of how I imagine adolescent Caranthir and what kind of person he might risk befriending.

The Flight of Birds

I hold great affections for the Kidnap Family, as you have probably noticed, but damn, those poor twins must have been pretty messed up by the time they were returned to their parents' people. Transitions are hard even when you haven't began kidnapped and raised by the people who tried to murder your mother, and I thought it would be interesting to explore the turmoil the twins must have felt through Elrond's eyes. I feel like Elros often ends up getting treated as the conflicted twin, while Elrond is the one who is wise and serene, but I think Elrond should get the chance to be an angry adolescent full of turmoil, too.

Root and All

This story is a favorite less because of anything I've done with the characters and more because writing it was a trip down memory lane. I spent large swaths of my summers as a child at a camp in the NJ Highlands, where we spent a lot of time hiking in the woods and swamps and learning about the nature that surrounded us. My fondness for those hikes and that part of NJ was really the driving force behind this story. I first encountered and learned about both ghost pipe and water hemlock at summer camp, which are the two plants that anchor this story.

Darkness and Light

Bet you guys were starting to think we'd get through this list without any representatives from my Woman King AU, but fat chance! The Woman King AU is my life's work, and this is my favorite installment of it. It's short, but I think I did a very good job of portraying Ereiniel's grief and pain following Fingon's death. Fingon and the shadows he cast after his death were a massive influence on the woman Ereiniel grew into, the Gil-galad she became. In some ways the Woman King AU is just as much about Fingon and his wife as it is about Ereiniel, because their choices, successes, and failures echo down to their daughter and shape the woman she grows into.

[opheliathebluelantern]

Justice League Dark Reading

JLD 2011 It's in the new 52 but wanted to have more of the magic side so i read that that. The sass between Zee and John, these two are really a great duo. I loved Madame Xanadu who is a great narrator. Love these team up and loved to see Deadman, this character is pretty interesting. Felix Faust is a good villain. I've seen many time Phantom Stranger in the magic side so i will have to read more about him later. Swamp Thing return, really love him. Love to see regular hero like the Flash and triying to understand the magic.

JLD 2018

Oblivion bar is a really good place, loved to see Traci 13, want tpo known more about her. Bobo was one of my fave, pretty funny with good storyline. Loved to see Diana in this side of DC it work, really loved her duo with Zatanna. Swamp Thing continue to be my favorite magic character. I loved to see all the Parliement and return of Abigail Arcane and want to knom more about Animal Man. I loved to see all the different magic and myth. Doctor Fate is pretty interesting i will try to read more about him too. The upside down is really great and pretty scary. This run was pretty good and interesting.

So for now i've finished my reading of the magic side of DC; Next will be either Wonder Woman or the JSA reading, i don't known wich one first.