#btw i am not ripping on your favourite characters I feel bad for them for having shit creators and they're my ocs now

[bugslaststraw]

Overwatch: the art of writing bad stories on purpose

Clocking in at just over 4k words: a semi-coordinated rant on the topic of Blizzard's history of lawsuits, Overwatch'es history of canonical queerness, and the strange marketing techniques that tie the two topics together. Written by someone who got into the game less than a week ago and likes it in a hatewatch "I love garbage" sort of way, intended for those less familiar with the topic at hand. I tried to source claims but it didn't work so let it be known that I did actual research but I'll probably get stuff wrong anyway so I tried to be funny about it here we go:

Section 1: Frat Boy Snowstorm and it's attempts at being progressive.

Try to focus. This is the most boring part.

So as I hope you all know by now, Blizzard is a pretty shit company. I say shit, because controversial sounds too unbiased. Most of us are familiar with the lawsuits against the company relating to sexual assault charges, unsafe working conditions for female employees and a quote "frat boy environment," of which they've been under fire for since 2018, but recently (early April '23 to be precise) they've also faced a lawsuit for sneakily coming up with a way to underpay their eSports champions. (Both of these are easy to look up if you want more info.) However, the company is a giant, that along with Overwatch released Call of Duty and a bunch of other games I don't recognise (fuck me I'm not an FPS person,) and, aside from the money they easily paid out, they really haven't faced any major consequences for their scummy behaviour.

This is exactly what they want, of course: for the whole thing to blow over as quickly as possible. Keep this in mind as we move on. That's the whole reason Section 1 exists: to remind you that Blizzard, like Disney, is a Big Corporate Company that will go to ridiculous lengths to make sure that the actually relevant controversies are forgotten in favour of smaller stupider shit.

If there's one thing Blizzard loves to do more than make their female employees uncomfortable, it's to tote around their progressiveness. Of course, this usually doesn't extend to Call of Duty or any of their more "grounded" "gritty" and generally masculine domains, but Overwatch specifically is a testing ground for all kinds of bullshit and we can't go a season without one billion articles about "Overwatch first game to have character of xxx nationality on playable roster" etc etc etc. People absolutely shit their pants every time the game announces a new queer hero or whatever, because since it's a Big Corporate Company and it's just barely achieving the bare minimum of inclusivity, of course, that's got to be a big deal right? Except of course that like Disney, Blizzard will do literally fucking anything to make sure their games stay relevant and that more people buy and play them, and these attempts at inclusivity can be assumed to be preformed mainly out of a desire to make money and cover up their scandals, and not because the people who call shots actually care. It becomes incredibly clear how Blizzard sees inclusivity as an idea when you consider their viral invention from last year, the Diversity Space Method.

To some of you this may look like a good thing at first, and originally I think it was, as the idea was to keep track of how many of their characters weren't any of these things displayed above so that they could keep that number down, but as soon as someone came up with the idea to assign a certain number of points to each character, the whole concept crashes and burns. You see, according to this chart here, (and as another Tumblr user famously put it), Torbjörn (3) is older than Lucio (2) is black. And I'm pretty damn sure that's not how that works.

No doubt a percentage of the artists and writes for the game had some sort of passion. After all, there is genuine treasure to be found in the character designs, animations and even some of the voice acting. But you know how it is when it comes to inclusivity; the artists so often never get to do more than drop hints and leave people guessing. Which leads us neatly into the next section.

Section 2: This game's kinda shit!

And I don't mean the game itself. Idk about that, I never played it (and my friends who do all have wildly varying opinions.) I am talking about the stories. When I first started "researching" (hatewatching) the shorts and comics for this game, I was angrily wondering why they all felt so hollow. It was like looking at AI generated art, it was like looking into the eyes of what you thought was a person and seeing two camera lenses staring back, it felt empty, it felt bland despite all the good character designs and the lore and the concepts and the colors and the nice clean lines. Something was missing, and it was uncanny as hell! Eventually though, I managed to narrow it down to a few key issues:

A lot of comics and shorts feel like ads above eveyrthing else, they're made to sell the game rather than be good, and they therefore lack passion.

Possibly as a result of this, they operate almost entirely on "tell don't show" rules, thereby feeling even more empty.

These stories still manage to lack substance and they don't really canonise a lot about the world or characters, especially regarding relations between characters, and,

the really interesting storylines are usually left uncontinued or unexplored, possibly due to aformentioned lack of passion and an egotistical but sadly fulfilled hope that people will download the game or at least read the rest of the comics to find out more.

All this put together make for a very strange experience in which you can, if you squint, see the fuzzy outline of a good story, good worldbuilding and interesting characters, and imagine that the details make sense. Which, granted, is usually what people do. If you use your brain or have experience in writing, however, it all falls apart.

Section 3A: Overwatch is a knock-off

Well, not exactly. But it does have a strange habit of borrowing from other games. For example, did you know I'm a TF2 fan? Probably. Did you know each individual TF2 class has an Overwatch equivalent? Me neither, until now. Scout and Tracer, Medic and Mercy, Sniper and Widowmaker, Spy and Sombra, hmm I'm sensing a pattern here, Demo and Junkrat (we'll get back to him later,) and so on.

"That's a coincidence," you say. "They're similar games, of course there are equivalents," you say. To that I says: you may be right. We may all collectively be overthinking this. We may all also collectively be overthinking the Omnic crisis as a whole and why it's so damn similar to Fallout's synths, they've both got robot racism and violent groups who want to kill the robots one of which is in Australia, which is a plot point in TF2 as well oh look at that, but again I'm sure it's all a big fucking coincidence right and sorry sorry I'll stop now.

It is actually genuinely possible that those are coincidences, no sass intended, but considering how Blizzard operates on the whole, I doubt it. They've already proven to be rather lazy with their stories. There's nothing wrong with having similar ideas or being inspired, but when it's as noticeable as this, along with everything else, I just can't help but feel disappointed.

Section 3B: Overwatch is also a porn category

Oh yeah, speaking of never properly canonizing relationships between the characters (and aging their underage characters up to eighteen for hitherto mysterious reasons, and releasing all those horny fanservice skins,) here's an utterly ridiculous fact: when Overwatch dropped in 2016, quite a lot of people didn't know it was a game because there was so much (animated, drawn etc) porn of it that it flooded and quickly rose to the top of the "games" category on most popular sites (hard to source for obvious reasons, but I've had a friend check for me.) It still sits up there, by the way, surpassed only by funny space bean game (I'm not kidding.) Why? Two reasons. One: all the game's female characters are impossibly beautiful and (in every case but like two post-launch releases) skinny and generally conventional as well. No surprise there. Two: the game models are well rigged, high quality and incredibly easy to get at, making it so that people can tank them down and use them for whatever they like without issue. Rumour has it that this is on purpose.

My question is, what has this influx of smut done to the game? You see, if there's one thing Blizzard loves more than making their female employees uncomfortable, bragging about inclusivity, and copying other games, it's pandering. And they pander to everybody, or at least to as many people as possible, usually all at the same time if they can get away with it. This, I have to theorise, is why all the characters seem to be flirting with one another, but only one or two actual relationships are canon. They simply don't want to piss off any part of their demographic, which they force as wide open as possible because money money money money money. This means embracing the porn and making sly references to that part of the fanbase with skins, voice lines, and odd comments in interviews.

Anyway, back to the lawsuits, or rather the consequences of them. You see, canon queerness in Overwatch comes in threefold. This is the story of two thirds of it.

Section 4: Toy Soldier and Knock-off Scout Adventures

This is Soldier 76. And he's gay.

Everybody clap for Blizzard now. It's coyly canonised in a short story titled Bastet. 76 here was never a very popular Overwatch character, lore wise, so I guess this move makes sense. I can see why, too. He's very plain and simple design wise, almost grounded, but not enough that you notice it at a glance. He looks like a plastic toy. Anyway, his queerness wont piss off too many dudebros long-term, since fewer people play him, but it gives everybody else something to chew on, so everybody wins right?. When was Bastet released again? Oh, January of 2019? What else happened around that time? The settling and aftermath of the first lawsuit? Great. That totally wasn't a cover-up for anything. Definitely not.

It's not like 76 is the first character to be confirmed as queer though. Blizzard's favourite Overwatch character Tracer is too, being confirmed as having a girlfriend named Emily all the way back in 2016.

That's good right? I mean, that was before the controversy even started! Surely they did this for normal, innocent reasons and oh who the fuck am I kidding she's a conventionally attractive female character kissing another conventionally attractive female character in a game dominated by male players with male devs and a porn category more expansive than the Bible and we know damn well why that happened.

We can but pray that someone who was in on this gave a shit. Maybe the artist. The writer. Somebody. But this is a barren and cold world and I dare not hope even for that.

Not to mention, both of these things were distinctly one-off notes. It's mentioned once, and then never again, and after 2019 there was a four year radio silence on the whole subject of queer characters that didn't change until the release of OW2. And yet, Blizzard loved to brag about how inclusive they are at every turn even back then. "Look at us," they say, as the characters stare at you from the computer screen with their dead, hollow eyes, "look at how good we are! Please buy our game."

The status quo would change significantly in 2023, however, with the introduction of their latest addition to the roster; Lightweaver. Lifeweaver. Lightweaver? Wait hold on

Section 5: The most annoying twunk to ever grace the earth flings you into the stratosphere

This is Niran "Bua" Pruksamanee, also known as Lifweaver.

He debuted on the 11th of April, 2023, and he's The First at a lot of things, which, of course, made headlines. "First Thai character in a major FPS game" was probably the most common one. I'd feel better about that if I didn't know it's most likely the result of Blizzard trying to cash in inclusivity points. The second First he has is the more controversial one, however: First Overwatch character to be confirmed queer on launch. That's right, after four years of Jack Shit, they're back on it! And, well.

You see, to fully understand my emotions about this you need to know who Lifeweaver is. Despite Overwatch being a game with Mr black-hole-head toes-out "yet another poor-taste representation of DID" Sigma and a football-sized foul-mouthed hamster in a mechsuit in it, neither of them manage to be very funny. Lifeweaver, however, is objectively fucking hilarious, for these main reasons:

His amicable, light hearted healer-character personality clashes with his backstory, in a way that actually works. Lifweaver is a scientist who dropped out of a prestigious academy to stop people from trying to A: steal and B: jail him for his invention: biolight (which is exactly what it sounds: light that grows like plants, or vice versa.) Because of this biolight stuff, he is canonically wanted in seventeen countries and counting. And yet he's so glad to be here, you can hear the smile in his voice, he's kind, he's carefree. And he flirts.

With, like, everybody. Notably Mercy, and apparently he was roomates with Symmetra and speaks very fondly of her. On top of that he's (very) low-key implied to at least want to flirt with Roadhog of all people (can't say I blame him, anyway I'll get back to him,) and, uuh. Baptiste? Who's Baptiste? Nope, never heard of him. Ex-mercenary who regrets his actions and now plays support to make up for all the murder he did? Is what you may be asking yourself. Seriously, nobody talks about Bap. Maybe that's why he's being brought back into semi-relevance now, as Lifeweaver canonically (and smoothly) asks him on a date at a nice restaurant, to which he, unsurprisingly, says yes. He's always been very flirty himself. That should technically make it four canon queer characters in the game, but Baptiste still has some plausible deniability because of his personality, so arguments can still be argued, as they say.

Back to Lifeweaver. More specifically his playstyle. This bright pink healer wants nothing but to help people and further science! His players, however, will gladly ruin your day for shits and giggles. You see, it's become a bit of a gimmick of Overwatch as a whole to let you move your enemies around the battlefield. Junker Queen has her magnetic gauntlet thing, Roadhog has a hook, everybody and their mom have knockback, etc. Lifeweaver, however, can move his friends around. He has an ability to pull his teammates towards himself which he can also use to sling some of them across the map if they cooperate and/or move wrong. He can also raise a platform under any player that tosses them (or their lifeless corpse) into the air. This is incredibly useful in a coordinated team where everybody's using voice chat, eg. the way Overwatch is actually meant to be played. Overwatch is, however, never played how it's meant to be played. Hilarity ensues.

The circumstances of Lifeweaver's release. Here's the thing. On the 4th of April 2023, exactly one week before his release, Blizzard was sued again, this time for underpayment and mistreatment of their eSports champions. Although it's impossible to create a whole character in a week, it's fully possible that at least some parts of Lifeweaver's personality and some of the stuff he calls to canon (we'll get to The Thing later I promise, be patient,) were influenced by this. It's comically well timed that such a controversial character dropped so soon after that scandal, and while the model and animations were definitely finalized before that, any given set of voice lines could've been phoned in on the night of April 4th for all we know.

Put together, all of this is either infuriating or ridiculous. Some days it's one, some days the other, and some days, I'm just not sure. Originally I hated Lifeweaver. He felt predictable to me, a cheap coverup, a stereotype, and an annoying one at that. But eventually I sort of came around, because he got so annoying that I kind of had to respect him for it. From there, I eventually ended up here. And I think a lot of other people, notably the players themselves, felt the same. Go figure.

Section 6A: No scummy marketing tactic is complete without queerbait!

Valuable life lesson: it is very, very hard to tell wether or not something is queerbait by looking at the media itself. The possibilities that the perceived homoerotic tension is an accident, or a hint that's left vague for stylistic reasons, or simply a slow burn, are all present and impossible to rule out. The real way you find out if something is queerbait is by looking at the actual marketing. Listen to what devs say in interviews. Look at promotional material. Et cetera. Because I don't have the patience to watch those interviews, I can't actually say wether what I'm about to discuss is queerbait or a series of unfortunate accidents made as a result of Blizzard's bad habit of pandering, so I'll let you form your own conclusions and possibly go look it up on your own. (And then come back here and tell me about it because I'm so so curious.) I am probably going to go into excruciating detail on this next part. I am so sorry. I can't help but have favourites. So without further ado;

This is Jamison "Junkrat" Fawkes.

Or at least, it was back in OW1. (I promise the full body transparent background image is crucial.)

Anyway, this absolute bastard is a favorite of mine. (Having favourite OW characters? I am cringe but I am free.) He was in the game from launch, and remains one of the more interesting and, shall we say, least soulless characters in the game to this day. Not that there's that much to him. He never shuts up, he's clinically insane as a result of several concussions and a lot of radiation, and he really really likes blowing things up. Together with Roadhog, he's a freelance mercenary with little to no morals whatsoever, taking on whatever job gets them both cash, action, and buildings to explode.

Oh yeah, right. Mako "Roadhog" Rutledge, the quiet, stoic and occasionally terrifying two meter tall shit brickhouse with a stitched gas mask shaped like a pig snout and a massive hook on a chain. Sadly, although he's crucial to the segment, I can't really discuss him as much as I would like to because he has like five voice lines in total (an exaggeration) and half of them are just him telling Junkrat to shut the fuck up (not an exaggeration.) "Stoic, silent characters can be interesting without speaking," I hear you say. Yes, I reply, if they're well written. But this is Overwatch. Never ever get your hopes up about Overwatch.

Anyway, the trash rat and Mr Whole Hog here have an interesting history. Originally, they were simply friends, running around and doing Hilarious Antics™ (that were never very funny, other than in concept.) They feature in several comics together (none of which are very good,) they chat a lot in game and they have their own animated short called The Plan (which is the first Overwatch thing I ever consumed, also not very good, but hey, it landed me here.) And before I get into the queerbait part of this segment, let me just say that studying just this small part of Overwatch tells volumes about the writing all on its own. The tell-don't-show, the inconsistencies, the rampant ludonarrative dissonance... Stars, the comics want you to take Roadhog so seriously. They're leaning super hard into the edge with a brutal backstory and focus on making him as menacing as possible. Meanwhile, in game he, and I cannot stress this enough, walks around ass out the entire time. Google at your own risk. Don't say I didn't warn you!

There is this one voice line, triggered when interacting with one another, where Junkrat says somthn' like "You'll hook 'em, I'll cook 'em!" and Roadhog just sighs in frustration, but then there's another line, triggered the same way, where HE begins the saying, "I'll hook 'em..." "And I'll cook 'em!" In short, fuck you consistency, and this contrast could be really interesting if it was well written. But of course Overwatch will Never Ever elaborate on this, as per usual.

As the years went by, however, things got... A bit weird. Junkrat has always been friendly. According to him, he and Hoggie (he calls him that, not me) are the bestest of friends. And although Roadhog acts as though he hates Junkrat a lot of the time, this is very obviously just tsundere behaviour used to mask the fact that he does really like him quite a lot. But in what way? "Gayass," said half the fandom. "No, fuck you," said the other half, "this is clearly a father-son dynamic." "You're all homophobic," said the first half. "Maybe we are," said the second, "what are you gonna do about it?"

And Blizzard... Did nothing. Well, they did canonise their ages at some point, and there is about two decades inbetween the two (Junkrat is allegedly 25 although I find that hard to believe, I mean look at him, and RH is in his late forties) which one would assume suggests their support of the father-son thing, right? Man, if only it were that easy. First of all, the writing is so nondescript and vague that their actual dynamic doesn't resemble a parental one even in the slightest, especially not on Junkrat's tounge, and seeing as he's both more affectionate and more talkative I'll lend that it's appropriate weight. Predictably, there is also one line that is inexplicable, unexplainable and clearly an innuendo, where if you run Junkrat and eliminate an enemy RH, he'll say something like "I guess we know who's on top now, don't we?" This doesn't appear to be a reference to anything, trust me, I've tried to check. Excuse me while I take a sledgehammer to Blizzard's servers. Again, we can't assume anything's ever on purpose, but c'mon. Who greenlit that?

So, unsurprisingly, Blizzard is being annoyingly non-commital again, so as not to piss off either half of their fanbase. Things went kinda quiet after that. Anything released was, again, purposely vague.

And then OW2 happened.

Section 6B: Subtlety, lack thereof, and the art of applying a metallic texture to a default Blender orb

This is Junkrat, as his current in game model. Sad, right? How they forced him to take a bath before letting him into OW2? How they regrew his hair and ripped off his cooler patches? It's a fucking travesty. People are calling him "Cluttermouse" as a joke now. Why would they do this? They massacred my boy.

Anyway, if you're observant you'll notice he's got an earring now. Yeah, on his right ear. Yeah. What's that? You were on Tumblr in 2016? You remember all the circling posts about "earring on the right ear means person wearing it is gay" posts? You grew up a bit and assumed that was made up or blown out of proportion? You asked your mom one day and she confirms it was a very widely known symbol until around the century change? Some fans must've noticed. Most of them didn't, though, because most of them are twelve. Anyway, I tell myself (and you) that it doesn't actually have to mean anything. If you look at the design again you'll see Rattie here is very asymmetrical, and leaned to his-right-your-left, both of his prosthetics being on that side. (He even walks unevenly, which I love.) It's likely that the modellers simply had no clue about the earring symbolism thing, and just wanted to play into that asymmetry. Right?

...and then Lifeweaver dropped.

And then everyone lost their fucking minds.

Ya see, dearest readers (thank you for making it this far,) Lifweaver, Pink Petal Supporthero McGoodguy, has not one, but two conversations with Junkrat in game. One of them feels fairly normal, with them discussing the price on Lifeweaver's "noggin" and laughing about it a bit. The other one, oh boy, the other one goes like this:

🌸"Are you and Roadhog together?"

🐀"Do~ you ever see us apart?

🌸"No. I meant: are you couple?"

🐀"Yes!! A couple of dashing rouges! Not sure... What you're missing here."

Yeah. I'd lose my shit too. I guess I kind of did, but not for the reason you think. You see, this right here, in terms of pure writing talent, is fucking genius, because it manages to be controversial without actually confirming anything. By that I mean, that because Fawkes said "yes" quite enthusiastically, the half of the fandom that said "gayass" think he meant yes, but because he noped out of that yes with the "couple of dashing rouges" bit, the other half of the fandom think he meant no! This is where I really start to wonder if they called Junkrat's voice actor at 2 in the morning and went "hey bud take a few extra grand and help us record another few lines will you? We just got sued again."

This shit is simultaneously funny as hell, sad, and absolutely infuriating. In reality, Junkrat has approximately two braincells rattling around in his skull, of which he is constantly frying, due to all the concussions. He probably doesn't even know what his relationship to Mako is. That might've been the case, and it would've been a good joke, had Overwatch been a well-written game. Sadly, it's all shitfuck at worst and boring at best, and this latest little oddity just makes me even more convinced that Junkrat and his partner have been banished to Queerbait Limbo for the foreseeable future.

Section 7: In conclusion,

Blizzard is shitfuck company, Overwatch is shitfuck game, I spent at least three hours writing this up and probably more editing it together and in less than a month, it's June and Overwatch'es first in-game pride event drops. Needless to say, I'm scared.

How much time did you waste reading? Did I state fake news? Do you have additional trivia? Do tell. I'm so curious. This has been four thousand words of nothing. Goodbye.

[crystalclear97]

hi hi hi!!

Name your favourite artists who inspire you! Your arts are so cute

Other ship aside Armin/Annie?

Do you plan to draw more Aruani?

oh hiiii !!! 😊

1.

This is very difficult aaaaaa :_) obviously all the aruani related artists that I follow inspire me a lot, maybe we have very different art styles but I love seeing their art and they encourage me to embrace and enjoy the fandom as I am still a bit self-conscious about that "nerdy" part of myself.

I am kinda shy to mention specific people but let's see...... @nobluesea, @annawayne, @lidatan, @brbarou, @phyroblue, @ghostieking, @pepperjackets, @catfein ... aaand I have to mention @kalruani who I think is my fav aruani artist but I don't think they're on tumblr...... 👉👈 I don't wanna make anybody feel bad if I forget them, so if I follow you, consider yourself part of the list PLEASE :_)

some other non tumblr related people:

Ana Galvañ • Sara Soler • Gabriel Picolo • Bryan Lee O'Malley • alessandro barbucci • Núria Tamarit • Miguel Gallardo (RIP) • Maria Herreros • Laura Brouwers • Gretel Lusky • KAZLAND • Cristina Daura • So Lazo • Dakota Cates • Ingrid Arbiol • Paw Salcés • Xulia Vicente • Beatriz Fletes • LUCIA CUÑAT ORTEL • Paco Roca • Fran Riolobos • Ian • Sha'an d'Anthes • Lucy Zhang • David Ramírez • Julia Kaye • Alex Norris • AND some friends that are also great artists: [RAMUNE] - Alba Flores - Natalia Lucas - Joaquín Guirao

I'm forgetting people for sure aaaaaaaaa I tried my best.........

The alternative / punk / fanzine / local scene inspires me a lot, shows like Adventure Time, videogames like NITW or Omori with great art, and MUSIC!

2.

at this moment tbh I am super aruani focused... but I've shipped a lot through my life haha when I was a child I was obsessed with TK + Kari (digimon) and I usually shipped my fav character from anything, which usually was the misfit / weird / nerd one (I still do btw) 😅 Some ships that I also like at this moment could be zutara, bubbline, tomgreg from succession (in a fun way tbh), OBVIOUSLY tayley from paramore but they are real people so..... HAHA idk if you ask me what do I think of some specific ship I'll tell you my take!

3.

YES!! 🥰

thank you for asking!

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

[midethefangirl]

Your thoughts on the Edenians in Mortal Kombat? Love you btw 🖤🖤

Thanks for the ask. I also love your OCs by the way and I hope to see more of them 💜.

I wish there was more input on the Edenians in the new timeline. I also wish they were given their independence 😩. One thing I loved about the Midway continuity is how every character was given a basic insight on their goals in Mortal Kombat at least. This is one thing that the new timeline failed to do in respect to the new characters. To answer the question, here is my opinion on each Edenian:

My favourite Edenian is Tanya as she was the first female Mortal Kombat character, along with Sonya Blade, that caught my attention. When I played first MK game (MK 4), I was intrigued by this innocent looking Edenian who turns out to be working for Shinnok all along (as I would learn seven years after). Her diplomacy and will for self-preservation also caught my interest.

Kitana: I love Kitana as well. However, my problem is how she was handled in the new timeline. In my opinion, she is one of the characters NRS screwed over. Since infancy, she grew up believing Shao Kahn was her father only to find out that he wasn’t what she thought he was. To make things worse, he had requested that a clone be made to replace her if she dared defect from his side. She joins Raiden side, only to get killed by her mother. In MK 11, her past self is brought back due to Kronika’s time shenanigans. She defeats Shao Kahn and is reunited with Lui Kang...until Aftermath rears its ugly head.

Sindel gets resurrected by Shang Tsung, Fujin and Nightwolf, you’d expect a happy ending, right? Sike, her mother has been a moustache-twirling villainess all along and Kitana ends up being a slave. You know, I feel bad for her as she has been poorly written by incompetent writers. Hopefully, she’ll get a better fate in the reboot, if it does come.

I hate how flat her character arc in MK 11 fell and how her revenant could work with Kronika after knowing the latter was working with Shao Kahn. I’d also have preferred she ruled Edenia like in the old timeline, rather than becoming Kahn of Outworld but it is what it is.

Jade: also love her and her devotion to Kitana. I wish there was more we knew about her other than those two. Unfortunately, she got an upgrade from being Kitana’s bodyguard to being Kotal’s woman. Again, screw NRS.

Sindel: a loving mother and a tragic character in the old timeline...until NRS came and turned her into Shao Kahn 2.0. I’m no longer mad that she’s a villain, I don’t mind that, it’s how poorly the retcon was done that angers me. I’m not really a fan of her but she had an interesting story in the old timeline.

Mileena: a really tragic character in the NRS continuity. She’s not really my cup of tea but imagine being used by a tyrant as a replacement, wanting to take over the realm after said tyrant is dead only to be betrayed by those whom you thought you could trust. Amongst the ones you think you can trust, one is using you to gain independence for her realm, the other is hoping you die so he can reclaim his position as the son of Argus while the one who is really loyal to you is killed. To make things worse, you’re killed by a bug lady under the orders of Papa Smurf of Montezuma (who is no better than SK in my opinion). Man, I really feel bad for Mileena.

Rain: I don’t like him. Neither do I get the hype around him.

Ermac: I am not really a fan of him but I hate how NRS made him a perpetual jobber. This is an entity who defeated Sonya, Johnny, Jax, Kung Lao and Kitana who were being mindcontrolled by Onaga in the old timeline. RIP, fam.

Sorry if this answer is a mess here. My brain is kind of fuzzy today.

[its-all-ineffable]

TUA 1x01 Review: ‘We Only See Each Other At Weddings & Funerals’

The opening scene got me hooked immediately! Kudos to the young girl at the pool, she’s absolutely brilliant at conveying a sweet, innocent romance and then the fear of suddenly and unexpectedly giving birth! The girl and guy are a very cute couple, and I kinda wanna know more about them. And the concern that the guy shows when the girl doesn’t surface immediately after she’s jumped in the pool is so sweet. Also, those women in the pool are hilarious! They all scream in horror when they see the girl start to give birth in the pool and the next scene they're crowded around her, patting her hair and holding her hand! I do feel sorry for the girl though - I personally headcannon that she’s Vanya’s mother. They’re in Russia, as we can tell because they’re all speaking Russian, and Vanya is a diminutive form of the Russian (among others) name Ivan. It’s just an idea, but I like it!

Pogo’s VO (though of course, we don’t know it’s Pogo at this time) is nice - he’s got the kind of soothing and authoritative voice that makes you feel like everything’s gonna be okay. Nice bit of exposition too! ‘HE GOT SEVEN OF THEM’ hahahahaha!! Love the overdramatic text on-screen! Also, ‘Picture Book’ by The Kinks fits so nicely in this scene, the lyrics are a beautiful juxtaposition for the ‘family’ that they become and all the actors manage to walk perfectly on the beat. The swinging arms from Reginald though - every inch the pompous idiot we love to hate already! Though the nannies have some pomp and swagger too. Imagine how weird it’d be to see the Monoply man walking down the street followed by 7 women in the same outfit with prams though? The small, ridiculous moments make the series!

The intro to the siblings is one of my favourite moments in the entire series! It’s beautifully acted and edited and the music is perfect. When we see Vanya for the first time, the blue lighting she’s framed adds a sense of melancholy too the scene, and perfectly sets her up as a lonely woman and an outsider. Ahh, Tom Hopper! And his butt scratching! Love Luther’s intro, Vanya still playing the slow, melancholy music, emphasising that he’s lonely too. Bless him. As we move to Diego, bass, guitar and drums join the violin, which I love, as it gives the music a more dangerous and frantic edge to showcase what sort of person Diego is. Also, what a badass rip-off Batman with a Robin mask! Go Diego! Then we have Allison, appearing in that frankly stunning dress! The violin gets a solo her, possibly to emphasise her fame? Love how gorgeous and stylish she is. Those paps get on my nerves though, the fucking assholes. The music switches again, to a more sombre violin melody for Klaus, indicating his BAG of trauma. The music changes are very cleverly done. Also, the “I believe in you! You, not so much.” - instantly my fave!! And his outfit is on point! And, I just noticed that when the clinic worker says “Stay sober.”, Klaus just shakes his head! 

Then we go back to a nice, slow violin solo, indicating loneliness. Poor Luther, stranded on the moon all alone. Though, he’s the only one that finds out about Reginald’s death directly?! The others all find out from the TV, or in Allison’s case, the paps! Who’s the favourite son?! Also, those paps? Twats! Insensitive twats! Ugh! Moving on - love the rock version of ‘The Music of the Night’ that starts playing when Klaus gets resuscitated! It works so well with the scene and his manic attitude. The way he high fives the paramedic makes me laugh every time though! I love Klaus, can you tell? A very solid introduction to Klaus’ character, to all of them in fact. The finish with Vanya’s sad sounding solo is a beautiful end to the scene. Also, when the lights go off and we have the establishing shot of the theatre, Vanya looks so small and alone. I just want to wrap her in a hug and tell her that everything will be okay. The way she says “Dad” as well, so soft and sad, gets me. Bless her tiny heart, she’s so cute! Ellen Page is such a brilliant actress, portraying sadness, loneliness and shyness at the same time. 

The way they show the passage of time through the photographs is really clever - a brilliant idea! The way we see 2 pictures, then suddenly one kid is missing and we get shown the solitary painting of Five, then we see 2 more pictures, after being shown Ben’s statute? Cleverly done, and deepens the mystery of the missing numbers! Moving on again - the house is a brilliant set and so well-designed. Mom’s intro, with her staring into nothing is weird, but we know right from the get go that this is weird. Another mystery! And the actress who plays Mom is so pretty! Just had to say that! Love her outfits too! 

The reunion - when everything starts to go to shit, though of course, we don’t know that yet. The way Allison is cloaked in shadow on the stairs as she comes towards Vanya - like she’s a threat? Very clever. Also, the tone that she says “You’re actually here” in, bitchy much? But, siblings I guess! I don’t know, I don’t have any. The hug is nice though, and Allison makes more of an effort to interact with Vanya than the rest of them. FUCK OFF DIEGO, with you’re “You don’t belong here!” Stop being an asshole to tiny, adorable Ellen Page! The beginning of my dislike for Number 2, I’m afraid. Sorry, Diego fans! Not happy with him atm! Allison sasses him though, go Allison! And the way she re-assures Vanya. Bless! 

Luther, WTF are you doing sneaking around? Hmm. Ah, and here comes the tense brotherly banter between #1 and #2. It’s pretty funny, but you can smell the rivalry a mile away! And Luther, just forget the monocle. Forget it! Jeez! Loving Diego’s sass though, very good at low blows isn’t he? And finally, the famous book - I’d read it! Looks interesting. I kinda want to know what she says in it, don’t you? And there’s Pogo! Is it bad that when I first watched this, I wasn’t even surprised to see a walking, talking monkey reach out to hug Vanya? Welp, I feel like that says something about me. I liked him straight away, he’s so kind to Vanya and his voice is very soothing. I don’t know okay, it just is?! 

The backstory isn’t exactly subtle, the whole “How long has it been since Five disappeared?”, but it works. The whole interaction between Vanya and Pogo, when they talk about Five, makes me so sad for Vanya. The way she said “I used to leave the lights on for him” tells me that they had a pretty close bond before Five up and left, even when I first watched the show. It just made me feel for Vanya’s character more, she’s so sweet and she clearly misses Five a whole lot. 

They all seem to wander round the house a lot, don’t they? Memories I suppose. The flashback scene here cemented my hatred for Reginald, it takes 2 seconds to say goodnight to your kids!! Fucking dick! Also, looking at the kids breaks my heart even more - Ben and Five are looking at Reginald all hopeful, Klaus clearly knows Reginald doesn’t give a shit, leaning against the doorframe with a ‘I don’t care’ expression on his face, Vanya hiding in the background, slightly separate from the rest of them. They break my heart. Great acting from the kids btw! And the way Ben looks back at Reginald, still hoping, and Luther guides him away - aww!

And back to the present - “Where’s the cash Dad?” Klaus!! XD The gigantic, adorable smile Klaus has when he sees Allison, and he immediately goes for a hug is so sweet! I get the feeling that Klaus genuinely cares about his siblings, but he masks a lot of his true feelings. That could be interesting to explore in a fic. The hug is very tense though - Allison recoils from him and awkwardly pats his back - as if she’s too good for him? Clearly not sure how to feel about him. Klaus in this scene is great, and was already my favourite at this point when I first watched. Though Allison does snort at his jokes, so perhaps they were close once? I want more Allison and Klaus interaction is Season 2! They could be an amazing duo! 

And then Luther ruins the moment, with his “Get out of his chair.” Jeez, Luther, lighten up? Also, this is the first time you’ve seen them in years and that’s your opening line? Way to go big boy. I do love Robbie in that cropped shirt though, and the coat is awesome! Allison, I see you laughing at Klaus! I see you! Also - how the hell did that box fit in his trousers?! XD I’ll leave you be Luther, ‘cause you’re taking the piss out of Diego and it’s funny. Though I’m slightly uncomfortable. Allison & Luther stare at each other with so much longing, and I just...ugh! Also, I know this whole Patrick & Claire situation is supposed to make us feel sympathy for Allison, but immediately saying “shit” when you hear that he got custody, like - don’t judge? It could be a good thing? Don’t assume that Allison didn’t do anything wrong. Sorry, just, the bias. And so begins my dislike of Luther!

The tense silence in the sitting room. Family’s, am I right? Also, Klaus steals every scene he’s in, especially in that skirt! “And here we go,” Preach Diego! Here comes the family dysfunction. Also, how does no one laugh at Klaus? Can you imagine how many bloopers there must be? C’mon Netflix, give me! The family dysfunction is strong, though. “Sober up.” - it’s not that fucking simple Luther! There’s a long hard road to sobriety, even after withdrawals, so just shut up and leave Klaus the fuck alone, yeah? You are part of the problem, the reason why Klaus is the way he is. Just...can you tell I dislike Luther a bit? 

And here’s Diego, who I also dislike, but at least he actually addresses Klaus like he’s a PERSON! So, I like him slightly more. And Luther totally suspects Diego of killing their father. None of the other siblings, just Diego. You can see it in his face. “I’m just gonna go an murder mom” I love Klaus so much! XD And the way they all file out while Luther stands there like an idiot...

The whole flashback scene, to the bank, is AMAZING, all the kids are great and its a great way of showcasing all their powers (bar Klaus’) and what they had to experience. Also, we get some Five and Ben content! Yay! Five’s sass immediately endeared me too him. Poor Ben “C’mon Ben”, Jeez Luther, do you ever stop being an ass?! And there’s Kenny’s mom, running out the bank! Poor Ben again, he clearly hates his power and using it. And being covered in all that blood. Also, can we talk about Klaus leaning on Five when they get outside?! And Five lets him?! I want more Klaus and Five in Season 2 as well, pretty please? And then here comes Reginald, telling Vanya she’s not special. Great parenting strategy asshat! Also, “six children”, GET FUCKED REGGIE! That reporter made me laugh though, the “Are you concerned about the welfare of the children?” one. Nope, no he is not. Take them away from him please! 

Those posters, in the hallway outside the bedrooms, fuck, they’re disturbing! G is for gouge? Fuck me. And here we are, the ‘A+L’ locket. Slightly weirded out by it. Also, love the symbolism of the siblings being scattered throughout the house all in different rooms. Shows how fractured they are at the moment. 

AND NEED I SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE MASTERPIECE THAT IS THE DANCE SCENE?!

“Daddy?” Klaus, I can’t even...XD What was with the fire extinguisher as well? Darling, I love you, but really? “Yeah, get behind us!” cough*toxic masculinity*cough! Now is not the time to try and be the alpha male Diego. Also, Klaus seems to have the most common sense - “I vote for running!” - yep, great idea! Common sense, folks, from the super high medium! Five’s entrance is pretty great though, but I’ll just say this - if it was my sibling that I hadn’t seen for 17 years? I’d be hugging him so tight, regardless whether he likes touch or not. Just saying. I like how we have Five falling right back into the family as if he were never gone, as if him being 13 isn’t a big deal, the banter is great. I also like how he doesn’t look at his siblings at all, and then he looks up for the first time since being inside, and it’s to compliment Klaus. Such a small yet sweet moment in the series. Underappreciated, I feel. Five doesn't seem like the type to give compliments often. The “Well you would if you were smarter”!XD 2nd favourite sibling, here we come! This whole kitchen scene was a great setup for the sibling dynamics. 

The elusive Ben is finally mentioned again. Creepy statue though. I love the fact that they all have big black umbrellas, and then there’s Klaus, with his little plastic one with pink trim! Diego again with the impeccable comedic timing “He was a monster”. And Mom is adorable, I love her so much. Here we go with Luther & Diego again, I guess. “Who’s the alpha male? I’m the alpha male!” Jeez. AGAIN? You 2 ever even tried being nice to each other? The fight scene is pretty cool though, the choreography is really well done. I love how we see them act more like a family here too, Vanya pulling Mom back and Klaus shoving Five out the way. Adorable! Allison’s got some deadpan! Like it. Diego, why are you such a dick? Especially to Vanya? She was trying, is trying, and you just...I’m so done with you and Luther. And y’all just gonna leave Klaus out there alone? Nice. Predication...

This training scene, reinforcing how AMAZING Reginald Hargreeves is as a parent! The tattoo scene too. Poor tiny little Klaus and Allison huddled together, and Ben, Luther and Five looking so scared/nervous. The way Vanya is left out - again - and draws her own tat. These poor abused kids guys! I just wanna hug ‘em all! Also, watching your kids sleep? Not creepy at all! And back from the flashback, Vanya leaving because she keeps being treated like crap. You know in nature programmes, when the baby animals bully the runt of the litter out? Yep. Loving the way Pogo is looking out for her though, clearly he cares about her a lot. Better Dad than Reggie! And no one notices she’s gone, that’s nice.

Love the entire kitchen interaction between Five, Klaus, Diego and Allison. Family banter again! Oh wait, they did notice Vanya left, they just didn’t care? Brilliant. Great family. Also, does Diego always need to be such a prick to his sisters? Asshole. Though I like the way he treats Klaus - he lets him hitch a ride despite knowing that he could leave without him, and listens to him more than the others do. Though you can see David trying not to laugh at Rob’s ‘hippo’ line in the scene. God, he seems like so much fun! 

The scene at Griddy’s is just, simply awesome. Love Agnes, she’s so sweet. Five’s fake smile has me in hysterics every time though! The tow truck driver is very nice, buying for a ‘weird kid’ he doesn’t know. The fight scene, again, is perfect, and the juxtaposition of the upbeat tune “Istanbul Not Constantinople” in the background, just...chef’s kiss! Poor Five didn’t get his coffee though. The quest for Five to have a decent cup of coffee begins! Aidan is a phenomenal actor too, absolutely brilliant! Love the tightening of his tie as he walks away, the cocky little shit!XD Poor Agnes.

The intro to Ben is funny, and cleverly placed so that it doesn’t feel forced, it just fits with the story of the episode. Also, Diego’s a dramatic bitch. But he cares about Klaus. So, we’ll see, I guess. A nice little interaction between 2 brother (3, sorry Ben!) that love each other. Nice to have a moment of the siblings being, ‘normal’, for want of a better word. Vanya and Five interaction, yay! “Rapists can cimb” - Five, no!XD Funny, but...Anyway, I like the relationship between these two. The way he comes to her and trusts her the most and lets her touch him and clean his wound. I love it. The flashback to Five hurts, because he really was just a kid then and I feel so maternal about that...I’m not the only one, right? Aidan’s phenomenal acting again. I love the cliff hanger of the world ending in 8 days. Got me hooked. Also, Van’s response is perfect - “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.” I love you Vanya! XD

Alright, I know it was long, but it’s over now. Thanks for reading all of it, if you did. I don’t know when I’ll get around to the 2nd episode, but hopefully it’ll be soon. Hope you all enjoyed my ramblings! x

[shiro-0197]

God no I'm sorry 😭😭😭 the way Tumblr eats all my drafts, and now your replies. (Someday I'm gonna eat Tumblr grrrr) that must've been so frustrating tho, I'm sorry love.

someday we could go to a country with Highlands together. It'll be super cold and nice. And the views would be really really pretty too!! WE COULD EVEN BE AMONGST THE CLOUDS >//< aww yes I hope you'll be able to try them soon in the future!! I died and had to stay in bed for an hour, (because my spice tolerance is nonexistent <3) but yeah I'm better now! Name is: "대박 ghost pepper noodles" the Korean word 대박 literally translates to "awesome" but— 😭😭

oh I see!! I hope school goes well, it's good that you're excused for a part of the day :D and aww I understand. Replying can be lengthy sometimes, so please please only do it when you're free and comfortable >:(( we're in no rush, after all :D

I was studying earlier too. and I texted my principal about the exams ( because apparently none of my teachers know anything about it, and I was so frustrated with everyone being so clueless ) she just replied with a : "hi Ariana, will let you know on Friday" like excuse me, ma'am. GRRRRR >:( STOP BEING CLUELESS.

awww that's okay!! I'm sure those prep slides were really pretty too :D aww that's sweet of you. some of my online friends sometimes sit in on my Leo events (if it's open to everyone) and it's pretty fun when they do (once, one of them had to talk for like, an activity and my club mates were like "SHE HAS AN ACCENT??". It was hilarious hehe) zoom is great for that reason, and only that. they're just ready-made slides tbh, I use canva :D

Shiro, love, you won't disappoint anyone, I promise you that. I'm sure your mom is more proud than you know, and from the way you talk about her, I can tell that she truly adores you. tho I also understand your worries. If you want to rant or anything, you know I'm here. And I'll just continuously reassure you of how amazing you are :)

that's my boy 🥺🥺 grr, you're so feisty, please imagine me holding a "you go, Shiro" sign everytime you tell someone to fuck themselves :D Laurent is indeed amazing. He's my favourite character for that exact reason >//< there's another character, from a book I read, just like that. His name was uhh, Kieran. And he knew so many different languages, and was just in general; super smart. I remember being so in love with him when I first read it (The title of the book is "genius")

HAHA. ikr. They're all hot, and most importantly; smart. nevermind, when I meet you someday we can cry over them together 😭🤚 pffft no offense, but being evil is hot sometimes 😾 (I mean, Kieran was evil. So's Moriarty :] and I am: a simp for them all)

aww bae that's okay 🥺🥺 your feelings are valid, and it's not wrong to express them whenever you feel like it. Grrr if I ever see your dad, he might be missing a limb >:( sorry, that was violent, but I get especially mad if anyone upsets someone i love )

exactly?? It's been a year?? Where's that blink meme where someone blinks and it's suddenly 2021. Oooh that sounds really nice!! Adding it on my list of things to try in March >.< Honey is really delicious. especially all those desserts which have a lot of them.

glad I made you laugh >////< grr my sense of humour is just so weird tho, so I'm glad you aren't freaked out by it.

KAJDKSJSKS SIR WAIT. There was an explanation for that u but I guess it got cut off in my notes 😾😾 IT WAS MEANT TO BE A Ü (smiley) but I was using my computer and I couldn't add the two dots above, so I typed "imagine the eyes" (but apparently that part got cut off and now it just looks like a random alphabet SKJSKSK IM SORRY 😭😭😭

I understand, the lack of opportunities can really get on one's nerves. But oh yes, Japan and Norway are beautiful countries. Apart from Japan, I've been really into Korea and Switzerland. The Alps 😻

grrr y'all have tough exteriors. But it's so rewarding when you finally get them down, tho I think, you guys have tons of other layers to yourselves. I guess that's just the charm, I find it endearing, because it just means there's a lot more than meets the eye :)

MY FRIEND MAKES FUN OF ME FOR LIKING PINK. HE TEASES ME MERCILESSLY SKSJSKSK (so I published a poem line in the school magazine to get back at him for it, because I'm petty like that)

that's so funny >.< There are two girls, and a girl and a guy, who share the exact same names in my class, and it's so funny because they're opposites of each other xD

he really is precious. The best leader, I would literally die for him, he's wonderful. yeah the book actually started out different, with them just being best friends. Best plot twist 😭😭 AWW

NOOO I'm sure it's cute, in it own way? :P tho that meme tho. LDJCJSBSKS. Don't worry, hehe, the character may be .... Unpleasant to look at?? , but you're not the least bit at all :)

how was your day btw? My day sucked ass and was literally the worst day in the history of uh, days. Yeah. sad. tomorrow will be better.

God, you're so adorable wtf. Marry me rn. AKDJSKSJS I didn't find it lame at all, (tho were you flustered? Because that was cute as hell xD) I love you too 🥺🥺

—☃️

It's okay, it's not your fault. We could storm the Tumblr building together or something..:3

Oh I really hope we can!!! I love cold weather. You can wear sweaters and hoodies and all that💞 and you have an excuse to cancel everything and cuddle up with a blanket or someone else😝

Im so glad you're better now!! Spice sickness or whatever is the worst😔 WBHDJWKX that's hilarious I hope I come across those soon! Let's see who wins😼

Yeah, about that, they started making us do after-class activities, which now leaves less time for the stuff I have to do .... which sucks . But I'm managing, I think, so it's cool xD yeah, I've always been kind of cautious about the timing, it's nice to have a little freedom now, thank you so much <3

Wow😭😭 our teachers usually have the dates set two weeks before the exams, we always recieve a message. Though I've been there, where the teacher have no clue, it's so annoying😭😭

Ohh, that's so cool! I hope I will be able to visit one someday. Though I dont think itll be too soon, but I'm looking forward to when I can😝 also that's funny, whenever I speak people go "he doesnt have an accent???" Even though I so obviously do. They just have no idea 😭

Okay..... that's the best words of encouragement I've ever received, I'm so touched- thank you🥺💘

Bwahah, that's gonna make my day every time 😭 Yeah, hes my favorite too!! He seems like a simple himbo at first, but the more we see of him the better he gets. (That sounds cool!!! I'm gonna check it out when I can!)

Thank you🥺 also, dont worry, I wouldn't mind that. I'd love that, actually, wanna go rip off guys arms together?

MZJXKGJJAKXKAKX IT'S ALRIGHT HAHAH, ITS REALLY FUNNY SO DONT WORRY😭😭

JSNFNMWMDMS IM GONNA MAKE FUN OF HIM FOR MAKING FUN OF YOU how could he . I will eat his eyeballs. Also I 100% agree with the poem and I'm glad you posted it. I hope some people thought about it.

Wow😭😭 its honestly so funny, because they're all so different and yet their names fit them so well either way.

Also, wow I feel so bad it's been almost a week since I responded😐 I'm really sorry. I've been writing snips of this message any time I could and yet it still took me days xD I'm getting free, though, so I'll try to respond faster now. I missed talking to you so much😭 thank you for your patience🤍🤍🤍

How've you been? I'm pretty good, tired but feeling good because I can finally respond😩 I hope your day went well. Love you!♡

[aneilert]

The One With Everything [MAG158: Panopticon]

This episode was delayed almost 20 hours, sending the whole early-access-community into a gradually deafening frenzy even before it launched. And then it took off for real. 

The rest of the day has been a bit of a blur, to be honest, and if I’ve done anything not connected to relistening and speculating, then at least I can guarantee that neither my brain nor my heart was involved in it.

It’s hard to be eloquent when faced with this much content. I have raved elsewhere about the quality as well as the sheer quantity of content this episode can boast, but I’d like at least to post my List of Things We Had Expected, Hoped For and/or Dreaded and that happened, were confirmed or who returned in this episode:

1. Tim mention and grief

The fandom has never stopped grieving Tim Stoker, and every once in a while, someone will sigh about how they miss him and how much they wish his death would be at least mentioned on the show. Did he have no impact? Have they forgotten him? Well, canon has spoken: They have not. 

2. Not!Sasha coming back

I can honestly say I never spent much time on the theories that muttered about how she had been enclosed in the tunnels and probably still was there. My bad. I will certainly never again forget the old rule that if someone (or something) doesn’t die on camera (as it were), they’re not dead. (And fuck were those amazing voice distortions!)

3. Leitner’s book coming back

Don’t forget where you put your evil book. It might not be there anymore when you come back for it a year or two later. (The blood on it, btw? Also Leitner. That bit was hilarious. I despise Peter, but he has brought some of the funniest lines this season; «In my defence, it’s still quite funny» is my personal favourite.)

4. Elias escaping prison

We didn’t think anything was keeping him there longer than he wanted to, and we were right; it was just a matter of timing. He would never want to come sneaking back if he could be making an Entrance.

5. Jonah!Elias

Probably the most popular fan theory (apart from those concerning various ships) is canon. And what a deliciously disturbing visual it is; Jonah Magnus’ eyeless body aging in the Panopticon while his eyes do what they have always done: watch over his Institute. Never has Elias sounded more smug and delighted with himself than in this episode, and you know what? Much as I hate him, I’d say he’s earned it.

6. Elias/Peter meeting

Trust fandoms to make feverish ships built out of characters who have never interacted in canon. And boy, do the LonelyEyes shippers feel vindicated today! Not only did the two horrible old men finally interact, but their dynamic was revealed to be exactly that of an old, dysfunctional and probably multiple times divorced couple. Even Jonny said so. 

7. Martin having A Plan / having played Peter

We love Martin and worry about Martin, and we have been extremely worried about his latest signs of being fully on board (sic) with Peter’s nebulous plan. Is he that naïve? Is he that far gone? Or … is he playing Peter? Is he weaving his own little web, like in the previous season, when he managed to play Elias?

The truth, as so often, is a place in between. He has been playing Peter (and God was that an amazing reveal and a heart-rending speech! And Christ was Elias gleeful when he reminded Peter that he had been warned not to underestimate Martin, but that he still did it!), but he has also been joining the Lonely. There is something to be said for being able to keep distance, I guess. Even though it makes me heartsick.

8. Tape with Gertrude’s death and last confrontation with Elias

This is something I have been wanted for some time now. Gertrude is awesome and marvellous and badass and truly scary, and I have been wondering: did her hubris kill her? How did Elias take her down? What happened? 

Well, now we know. Or … we know part of it. Gertrude’s body had three shots fired in it, but the tape only contained one. And the tape was numbered #0182509-A, hinting at possibly a B existing somewhere. Maybe we haven’t heard the last from Gertrude yet?

Also: How very satisfying it was to see that Gertrude had basically the same plan as Martin: Burn some Institute stuff to keep Elias from seeing the real threat! I love what this says about Elias’ complacency and underestimation when it comes to Martin (but I worry what yet another parallel with Gertrude might bode for his future …).

9. Peter taking Martin into the Lonely

The premise of a lot of fics. Can’t wait to see how it plays out in canon.

10. Hunters returning at an inopportune moment

We all, including Jon and the gang, knew they were out there and that it was just a matter of time. Still fun! (Particularly Trevor yelling JONNY BOY!)

11. Daisy going feral

Oh, this is hard; she wanted so much to be free of the Hunt. But honestly: this is why she was brought back, whether she (or Jon) knew it or not: To reconnect with her humanity, and then to give it up willingly to save her friends. And, why not, to have the savage joy of ripping out a few more throats while she’s at it. 

Will Basira honour their promise? Well, that’s a tale for another day, as the story says. For now, let’s just enjoy the amazing sound distortion on Daisy’s breath, her voice and finally her growl. Daisy scared fucking Julia Montouk, and not many can boast that.

12. Jon and Elias talk

It’s been a long time coming. It was not at all what I had expected in any way, but it was amazing. And Jon hardly even noted what Elias was saying or how he gloated, because he was 100 % focused on …

13. Jon following Martin into the Lonely

Of course he did. Of course. He went into the Buried to get Daisy, and he didn’t even like Daisy, and she tried to kill him. Of course there’s no limit anymore to how much he will risk himself for a tiny sliver of hope that he might save Martin.

I worry so for them, though. Martin has refused Peter’s plans, true enough, but he has not refused the Lonely. He has been sliding into Forsaken for Jon’s sake, but he has still been sliding into Forsaken! And Jon’s journey into monsterdom is if anything even more worrying and harder to reverse.They have both been trying desperately and without any real clue as to how to save the world for each other’s sake, but what have they given up along the way? 

Still. Jon clawed his way out of the Buried fuelled by Martin and by the signal from his rib. Who’s to say it might not work a second time?

Also: the one person we didn’t meet who I almost had expected, was Annabelle. Someone must have put this last tape on Jon’s desk – and someone must also, long ago, have given him that lighter that he never can focus on long enough to remember he has. Is there a silvery Web thread connected to it, where it lies in his pocket? Could he be able to follow that thread out again?

I have no idea. I also have no idea how I am supposed to wait for the next two episodes. Or how my head felt before this podcast ate my entire brain. 

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 140 - 136

140. Greta Salóme & Jónsi - Never forget” Iceland 2012

Oh man, this is just tragic. Like, “l’amore è femmina”, “Never forget” could’ve been near the top of the ranking, but the stakes were even higher. A good performance of “Never forget” WINS this ranking easily. "Never forget” is not only one of my favourite ESC songs ever, it’s also the song that ignited my interest in becoming an freelance Eurovsion analyst, following the backstage, rehearsals and preselections, teaching myself how to gif, etc. It was a key entry in establishing my fandom.

My feelings on “Never forget” are as such, all over the goddamn’ place, so I will attempt to remain succinct: I was a HUGE fanboy in the day and to some degree I still am. Jónsi is probably still my single favourite Eurovision human. Effortlessly funny, disarmingly self-deprecating, overwhelmingly charismatic, constantly spewing off dorky dad humour everywhere. The only other person who can hold a candle to that is (the sadly LESS dorky) Måns Zelmerlöw. He is, simply put, perfect. Here’s a gif of him getting lost backstage.

(caption: “How unprofessional of me🤭🤔😬” 😻)

Greta is pretty amazing in her own right, as well. In addition to being a very talented songwriter who makes consistently magical music, I relate a lot to her permanently anxious, overambitious, perfectionistic self, her crippling fear of “not being good enough” permeating throughout every line she says. I mean, same girl, same. WLU *GREAT*A.

As for the song,man, how much praise can I cram into this? “Never forget” is a brilliant composition: It transcends the boundaries of music by unfolding like an animated chapter from the Edda. The Icelandic version may very well be the single best song in all of Eurovision, and is on my non-ESC playlist.

Sadly, Greta & Jónsi were ALSO struck by the Crystal Acoustics Curse. Not as badly as Compact Disco and Nina were but still, the end result was pretty disappointing. Jónsi was especially terrible which hurts my iceberg of a heart. However, I prefer to not dwell on what could’ve been. The final positioning at #140 is fair based on what “Never forget” eventually became: a solidly good entry, just not a great one. 

________________________________________________________________

139. Emmelie de Forest - “Only teardrops” Denmark 2013

On the other end of the spectrum, we now encounter another song in the “OUTSOLD!!!” category. Emmelie’s rank is limited by the quality of her song: "Only teardrops” is a boatload of nonsense, pre-packaged as pseudo-ethnic schlager <3 To put it plainly: It is a simple song for simple souls. 🤗  Fortunately, I too am a simple soul and was instantly drawn by this charming blend of floral melodies and underlying moody percussion. “Only teardrops” is, by the strict definition of the term, a basic bitch song, but it actually manages to convincingly disguise itself as quality. The presentation is elegant and even lowkey epic and Emmelie absolutely makes the most out of it. It’s not my 2013 winner, not even by a longshot, but I am nevertheless satisfied.

________________________________________________________________

138. Buryanoskiye Babushki - “Party for everybody” Russia 2012

PARTIY VAR EVRIBADIY DENZ. 

ANOTHER VICTIM OF CRYSTAL ARENA ACOU- lmfao just kidding.🤭 We knew well ahead in time the Babushki couldn’t hold a tune and if you care about *that* aspect, you’re just not watching Eurovision right. The only complaints I could’ve had would be if they won and well, look at the year. 

Also, in a year featuring Jónsi (perfect human) and Kaliopi (”I LOVE THE GREECE. I LOVE GREECE MUSIC” + off-screen showmance with Can Bonomo <3), Natalia, a living breathing inner matrjoska manages to capture my heart as one of Eurovision’s best ancillary characters. SO ADORABLE, WHERE CAN I ORDER ONE ONLINE???

All yours, Babooshka, Babooshka, Babooshka, ya ya~

I also really cherish the Babushki because their participation feels like the FINAL time Russia was genuinely without a hidden motive. They were the last Russian entry to win an NF, and they did it with antiquated shit schlager about dogs crawling on cats <3 (Like, seriously. I’m sure there is some obscure uralic legend at the base of these acidtrippy lyrics, which <3). This of course they expanded by baking cookies on the stage while cawing on in offkey Udmurt and broken English. They are genuinely disarming and I question the morality and life choices of anyone who thinks otherwise. ^_^

Oh btw, all of Russia has  now been eliminated, except for Polina. What a Good Eurovision Country. 

________________________________________________________________

137. Sunstroke Project ft. Olia Tira - “Runaway” Moldova 2010

In a bizarre fluke, “Run away” is one of the most famous Eurovision songs of all time.😂  I will not insult your intelligence by pointing out how, and I’ll instead remark that I find it lowkey hilarious. Hilarious, because at the time, the general opinion of “Run away” was a negative one: “a vocal disaster, an undeserving fringe qualifier, the epitome of bad taste & bad music, evocative of eastern-European countries voting only for each other”. Man, do those haters look silly now. 

As for my personal opinion, well, yes, I live for the mess, obviously? Always have, long before it was cool! Pseudo-orchestral trashpop beat laced with incomprehensible coalminer’s English <3 correctly-rated-as-epic sax playback <3 <3 The terrible outfits <3 the world’s least convincing violin <3 Sergei RIPPING OPEN HIS SHIRT AT THE END lmfao <3 Keep on causing rage-induced embolysms with those juror fiends, sweet trash angels. So camp, so lowbudget, so shameless, SO MOLDOVAN <3

and now for the final boot of the ~Like Zone~

________________________________________________________________

136. Uzari & Maimuna - “Time” Belarus 2015

“Time” is like Thunder Oh OH.

‘Time” is such a weird entry and I am barely able to make sense of it all. 

First of all, it’s a physical health awareness anthem aimed at the terminally ill??? Telling them to live their life to the fullest because they have such little time left (which is both endearing and hilariously inappropriate). 

Second of all, both Uzari (pronounced *YOU*zari, no really, he insists) and Maimuna are such intense weirdo’s. I wouldn’t describe their deadlocked gazes as chemistry per se, it’s more like a nonstop spaghetti western staredown.  <3 How did these two people end up working together?

Thirdly this is a pairing between a singer and a musician but it is UZARI who composed the music while MAIMUNA wrote the lyrics <3 "Time” is such a quaint, but entertaining little song, how come everyone overlooks it ::looks at the flag::... oh. 

And that concludes all the songs I ~like~. Now we move on to the second highest tier, to the [chiara] Songs That I ~LOOOOOVE~ 😻 [/chiara]

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Let’s debunk this shit.

First off...why should we, on the topic of Spider-Man, actually place stock by the guy who has in the past argued Sins Past is as, if not more, bad than One More Day when anyone with an ounce of knowledge of how writing craft works would realize this is abjectly false. As a story the flaws in Sins Past amount to it inserting something into the past that doesn’t fit at all. One More Day by contrast not only does this but needs to violently ignore 45 yrs of established characterization to even function and even then it fails since it needs to contradict its own narrative.

  Oh and you know MovieBob is the guy who said ‘That Spec cartoon wasn’t as good as people make it out to be. People like it more for what it could be than what it was.’...WTF was he even watching.

 But let’s dive into some more specifics of Bob’s argument.

 “OMD ‘needed’ to happen.”

 This is objectively untrue.

 Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say what Bob meant wasn’t so much that Spider-Man needed to make a deal with the Devil but rather it was necessary to get rid of Spider-Man’s marriage.

 I can’t bring myself to do a 3000 word essay on why the latter alone is idiotic, sexist, myopic and utterly false but here is a cliffnotes version.

 There are 2 fundamental problems with Bob’s line of thinking.

 The 1st is that to end the marriage you needed to outright alter Spider-Man’s history via a soft DC style continuity reboot thus creating in a literal sense an alternate universe version of Spider-Man who’d just never been married in the first place.

 Put simply Spider-Man’s marital status could’ve been ended in universe through numerous methods that avoided that. He could’ve gotten divorced. The US government as some kind of petty revenge upon Spider-Man turning on the Registration Act could’ve legally annulled his marriage along with certain other legal aspects of his life. There could’ve been a reveal that due to a legal loophole nobody realized at the time technically speaking Peter and MJ had never been married in the first place despite believing they were.

 None of this would’ve fixed the most egregious contrivance of OMD and OMIT, that by simply never having been married magically this = Peter and MJ would break up. You still need to justify THAT separately which OMD didn’t even attempt to do. OMD in isolation erases their marriage but it doesn’t explain or justify why doing this would mean they are now no longer in a relationship. OMIT tried and miserably failed to do that because once again it required the abject ignoring of decades of established (and logical) characterization.

  But what should we expect from the guy who in another video once said Superman would be a jerk if he married Lois Lane because of the stress and dangers it’d expose her to, specifically comparing it to real life people who’s jobs offer comparable examples. ‘Superman would never put Lois Lane through that’ said Bob (though I am paraphrasing I admit.

  Why?

  If REAL people do that then why WOULDN’T Superman OR Spider-Man do so?

 It’s a line of thought which amounts to Bob saying those people shouldn’t have marital relationships. And that is gross.

 The 2nd problem with Bob’s ‘it needed to happen’ assertion is the notion that CREATIVELY it was necessary for the health of Spider-Man.

 Let’s ignore how creatively (and financially) Superman has been on the up and up since 2016 when he got his marriage BACK.

 Instead let’s consider for a moment...why?

 Why CREATIVLY does Spider-Man need to not be married to work? Why does he need to be single for his long term creative/financial health?

 There is no answer because the truth is he isn’t. Spider-Man’s love life is relevant only in so far as the series follows his life and not being asexual romance is a part of that. At which point if you are arguing for his long term creative health he needs to be able to swap out the women he’s going to be romantically/sexually involved with why then does that not also apply to literally every other character connected to every other part of his life?

 It doesn’t.

 It’s a bullshit argument born of an ignorant lack of questioning. It’s born of “Well it’s got to be this way because it’s always been this way and it’s worked that way.” Ignoring how it doesn’t and how you know...Marvel comics itself exists off the back of saying “Maybe it doesn’t have to just be this way. I don’t like that way in fact, I like the idea of trying it this other way.”

 Spider-Man being single keeps Spider-Man stunted and in a state of doomed to failure. It literally renders his love life redundant because every reader (and this applied before 1987 when he got married, but applies a thousand times more now) knows his romances will never amount to anything and that they are glorified Bond girls. And I’ll be honest the substance (such as there is) in the Bond movies NEVER lies with the Bond girls with the sole exceptions of those few movies where they tease you with the idea that he has deeper feelings for them.

 Then you have the fact that marriage as a part of most people’s lives and a responsibility is outright tailor made for the character who’s core concept is entwined around the interconnected idea of responsibility and being a (relatively) normal person. It’s not different to him graduating from High school or moving out of Aunt May’s house or getting a job.

 But let’s look at the franchise in the wake of OMD creatively and financially has it been doing better than before?

 LOL NOPE!

 In 2016 we had the Power Play arc. This arc was THE Spider-Man event of the year. It tied into the previous Spider event of 2015, Renew Your Vows by introducing the incredibly powerful villain Regent who’s powers were that he had the powers of EVERY other hero virtually and in RYV took over all of NYC following killing the X-Men and Avengers on his own. It guest starred fan favourite Miles Morales, the first substantial appearance of the character in Amazing Spider-Man since his migration into the 616 universe. It also guest starred lead character of the MCU and (then) Marvel comics poster boy Iron Man fresh from his hyped up run under Bendis, the biggest name in comics of the previous 20 years. It also teased the appearance of the newest team of Avengers, a brand that has been huge since 2012 for obvious reasons. Oh and it featured the return of another fan favourite Mary Jane who was once more being used to tease the possibility of her and Spider-Man’s romantic reunion which had been a surefire way of raising hype for a story since 2008 onwards. Oh and it was clearly a tie-in to the international blockbuster and critically acclaimed movie, Captain America: Civil War.

 And of course you had much promotion from the Marvel hype machine, Dan Slott interviews and the usual variant cover artificial sales inflation gimmick that had become common to Marvel.

 Safe to say that this story was a big, big deal and sure to sell well right?

 Well....it actually sold less than a barely promoted, run-of-the-mill ASM arc from 2005 by J. Michael Straczynski that featured in the first issue Tony Stark sitting on a chair sans armour and beyond that no guest stars....oh and there were no variant covers....and btw Spider-Man was married in it

  . ...Oh....

  But hey what about some OTHER Spider-Man stories since OMD. Haven’t THEY been creatively enriching?

 I mean we had classics like:

 The Lizard ruins the interesting humanizing aspects of his character when he becomes a cannibalistic monster who eats his own son and maybe rapes someone

 Black Cat’s characterization gets flushed down the toilet so she can be an indulgent juvenile sexual fantasy for Joe Kelly who believes Spider-Man is fundamentally a man child Black Cat’s characterization gets shot to shit again by her ripping off Catwoman by becoming a gangster, something she has never held aspiration for before and seems to want to get involved in now for no reason at all beyond being angry that Spider-Man imprisoned her and exposed her identity that wasn’t even secret in the first place

 Dan Slott who likes Doc Ock more than he likes Peter Parker decides to say screw it and make Doc Ock Spider-Man thus invalidating the entire reason he was hired, which is to write about Peter Parker. He proceeds to make Doc Ock a villain sue and cause readers to wonder if he’s this smart and this dangerous he lost so many times in the past at all? Also he tries to rape Mary Jane in issue 2 and then succeeds in maybe raping Spider-Man himself in the same issue and definitely succeeds in raping the only dwarf character in Spider-Man’s canon.

 Spider-Man becomes like Iron Man thus invalidating the entire point of his character and reasons people like to read about him.

 A mystery surrounding the Green Goblin’s identity that turns out to be the twist that he was Norman Osborn all along meaning this was a pointless mystery the whole time.

 Ben Reilly finally comes back after 20 years but doesn’t act even a little bit like the character people knew and loved causing people to wish he’d stayed dead

  Betty Brant is physically assaulted and Spider-Man tracks down the assailant but when he finds him lets him go (thus enabling him to assault other innocent women) because Aunt May guilt tripped him by saying he was a jerk at age 15 for allowing her, a 50+ year old adult and his parental guardian, to cope with Uncle Ben’s death alone on the night of his death.

  Fan favourite Mayday Parker has her character now defined by the death of her father invalidating the entire point of her character which was the ongoing relationship between herself and her Dad

  Every spider person ever fights a bunch of one note cosmic vampires across alternate niverses who are variant action figures of another one note cosmic vampire villain. The story is utterly reparative and makes Spider-Man play second fiddle to all the other characters cramming for panel time.

 I could go on but I won’t.

 To count the creative successful and enriching Slott and the post-OMD Spider-Man stories is a far easier task than to count the ones which are for the most part mediocre-God forsakenly terrible and miss the whole point of the various characters involved (most of all you know SPIDER-MAN himself!) because the latter is the norm post-OMD.

 Tellingly both volume 1 and volume 2 of Renew Your Vows a book BUILT around the concept of a married Spider-Man have (when judged appropriately given their out of continuity status) garnered perfectly respectable sales (especially in volume 1) prior to their recent time skip (an ill advised move regardless of what the series was about) and critical acclaim. And critical acclaim from people besides Marvel/Spider-Man sycophants like CBR who have vested financial interests in positively reviewing the stories.

 In fact there is a very strong argument in favour of Slott being the single most creatively damaging Spider-Man writer in history. The list of things that need to be FIXED because of his idiocy and incompetence is vast.

 Moving on to Bob’s other points:

 “Peter and MJ being together was a dumb stunt when the did it in the first place”

 If Bob had you know READ the stories leading into the wedding he’d know

 a) That relationship and marriage was being built up since 1984 albeit with the initial intention being Peter stranded at the altar.

 b) A stunt isn’t rendered invalid merely because it is a stunt. A Stunt can make sense and with the build up the wedding had this was one such example

 “The marriage generated very few decent stories that wouldn’t have worked just as well without it”

 Here is a list of a FEW decent or above stories which in some significant way make use of the Spider marriage between 1987-2007

 Kraven’s Last Hunt

 Venom

 ASM #400

 Revenge of the Green Goblin

 A Death in the Family

 ASM volume 2 #49-50

 ASM volume 2 #51-54

 Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #32

 Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007, the only Eisner nominated Spider-Man story ever

 Spider-Man unlimited volume 3 #2 Story 2: Making Contributions

 Eleven Angry Men and One angry Woman

 Parallel lives

 Spider-Man: the Final Adventure

 Web of Death

 Revelations the end of the Clone Saga

  Spectacular Spider-Man #241

  Spectacular Spider-Man #242-245

 ASM vol 2 #39

  Ultimate Spider-Man Anthology book: Five Minutes

  I Heart Marvel Web of Romance #1

  Spectacular Spider-Man #199-200

  Spectacular Spider-Man #250

  The Tombstone arc

  Peter Parker Spider-Man volume 2 #14

 Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12

  Hmmm...it’s almost like Bob sucks at mathematics and story evaluation or something. Then again he did say there was no problem with Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi so you know...I should know better.

  Oh and btw the whole ‘those would’ve worked JUST as well without the marriage’ argument is a double edged sword since there are literally less than 20 Spider-Man stories post-OMD that WOULDN’T have worked with a married Spider-Man and only one of them is good...and only if you also take entirely in isolation of Spider-Man’s wider history. Every other story with tweaks could work AS if not MORE effectively with a married Spider-Man.

  If the argument is there should be no elements in a story that do not actively contribute to it then shit....why should Spider-Man’s SINGLE status be in a book? Why should Aunt May, Jameson or shitton else be multiple stories across the decades of Spider-Man? Hell by this logic Aunt May or Betty Brant are superfluous to ASM annual #1 which inspired part of Spider-Man 2.

   “The Spider Marriage left the franchise spinning it’s wheel for a very long time.”

 This is another lie. After Peter and MJ got married there was precious little wheel spinning. Almost immediately we jumped into ongoing stories involving Betty Brant, Joe Robertson, Peter going to school again, MJ and Peter’s finances taking a hit when MJ lost her job, Jameson being impersonated by Chameleon, Black Cat dating Flash, Peter’s parents returning and THEN you got the Clone Saga FFS.

  Following that we got Norman Osborn running the Daily Bugle followed by the true wheel spinning garbage of the Mackie/Byrne run which was bad BECAUSE they axed the marriage. Following that when JMS took over his wheel spun for maybe 5 months tops? The rest of the time he reconstructed Peter and MJ and Aunt May’s characters, thrust forward with his Spider totem storyline and then began the slow build up to OMD starting with Peter becoming and Avenger.

  There were few months were NOTHING was really happening and the number of issues where that was the case owed much more to the fact that the writers needed to pad out FOUR monthly titles each month!

 “By contrast BND and Slott’s run has been good”

 By objective writing standards this is a fallacy and Bob is offering no proof to this. He just says ‘it’s been good’. Except Bob’s word isn’t proof unto itself despite how much he must like to think so.

 “Peter and MJ are more interesting now”

  This is the proof Bob is not a...I don’t want to say he isn’t true fan. I rarely use that term. It’s more that he...isn’t an informed fan.

 Anyone who knows any legit shit about Spider-Man could tell you Spider-Man is far from more interesting now than he was prior to BND.

  Pre-OMD Spider-Man was the sum of 45 years of experiences. A 30ish average guy who’d been through Hell and a lot of battles and survived them and coped with that pain. He was a competent hero and a flawed human being who was just trying to look out for the little guy and take care of his family.

  MJ meanwhile was a woman who’d also lived through Hell but demonstrated sheer steel by surviving it in spite of having no powers to fall back on. She’d gone from a carefree party animal who was seemingly selfish, to a hero in her own right who had an endless well of inner strength.

  In contrast post-OMD Peter Parker is a man-child fuck up who illegally invades foreign nations with his giant G.I. Joe action figures whilst often playing second fiddle in his own fucking book to whatever guest stars want to steal the limelight. And he’s not believable anymore. He isn’t a grounded guy who copes with the shit thrown at him. He’s the guy who just shrugs off being killed, having his body stolen and his life upended by his enemy and then losing a year of his life.

  That isn’t more interesting unless you are arguing being a Saturday morning cartoon character is inherently more interesting than being....welll actually inherently more interesting than being a certain character Stan Lee and Steve Ditko invented in 1962.

  Which Bob plainly isn’t arguing because he’s also listing MJ as ‘more interesting’....how?

  MJ isn’t even IN the book regularly any more so HOW could she be more interesting. Worse when she WAS in the book she had 2 roles. Ship tease the fans by being Peter’s friend and confidant (i.e. something she used to do BEFORE BND) or being a blind idiot in Superior which is NOT more interesting.

 So what the fuck is he talking about?

 I don’t know WHAT he’s talking about. But when you make a statement like: ‘on balance this story that eviscerated and betrayed everything about who Spider-Man is and invalidates his motivation from now on because he sold out in the biggest way possible, was on balance worth it because we got t see Doc Ock as Spider-Man try to rape people’ I certainly from WHERE he is talking from.

  And the sun don’t shine there son.

[sanny-chan5]

BNHA “ask me” game

 So... I know this is not how this game is suppossed to be played, but I love making this kind of decisions/opinions and I just can’t wait for someone to ask me, so yeah 💪🙌😆🤗

OK this will be cool but long:

💫- What Quirk would you want (your own or existing in BNHA), and why?: One with heal power. Like “light” quirk, but not the physical type, instead, the kindness type one that reaches other’s souls and heals them from within <3 (I don’t think this is possible in BNHA world due to the lack of moral guilt villains have. It’s usually Deku who reaches other’s hearts and “others” are good people- who need to be rescued/heroes more often than not).

❇- Best quirk: OFA, of course. It gives you strengh and you can do a lot of things with that (so, speed too). Even better now that we know what he really stores, iykwim (last manga chapters, 213-5). The problem is how difficult it is to control...

🚫-Worst quirk (except Mineta): LOL. This is really difficult, they all can be used for something... Mt. Lady’s gigantification seems a little... how to say it? uncomfortable? Aoyama’s Belly Laser sounds like a pain: difficult to control and makes your belly hurt 😖 (it’ll be useful, but I wouldn’t like to have it).

😳- BNHA harem? 5-10 people: Not my thing, sorry.

👨‍❤‍💋‍👨- Fave gay ship/s: In this anime, I don’t have one (if the ship isn’t canon, I don’t ship it even if I like them, like what happens with Todomomo: I like it, but it’s not canon).

👩‍❤‍💋‍👩- Fave lesbian ship/s?: Same as last question. Until it’s canon...

💑- Fave straight ship/s?: Izuocha. Obviously (they are somehow canon. At least from Ochako’s part, but you know... pretty obvious they’ll be a thing by the end of the series...💗).

👌- Fave OT3?: Not my thing, sorry.

✨- Most underrated ship?: there aren’t many canon ships, but... I dare say Inko x his actual husband 😂😂 (yes, she has one, sorry, Toshinko shippers :c).

🎎- Most overrated ship?: Pff. Most homo “ships”, TBH x’D We all know fujoshis will conquist our world some day, just as cats are doing it...

👅- Most cancerous ship/ Shipping fandom: I don’t think there is a worst shipping fandom, ‘cause BNHA is one of the anime with more ships there. I think we all respect each other in that aspect even if we don’t like other’s ships, I guess (?)

🔫- Who would you kill?: MINETA. LMAO not really, but it’s the only character I truly dislike u.u

💍- Who would you like to marry?: Todoroki. His personality fits with mine, I’m like a mix of Deku and Ochako BTW. But I wouldn’t care if it was my cinnamon roll Deku 💗 Just, things would be very awkward if it’s just the two little shy emotional frikis we are (him being hero otaku and me just otaku in general) xDD

🥂- Date with?: Mmmm, Bakugo? I want to see that part of him X) (But I don’t think we get along very well, at least from his part, you know how he is... xD). Maybe Kaminari-chan. It’d be very fun 😄

🔭- Gaze with the stars with?: DEKU & AM. At the Seaside Park. Or with Ochako, she’d like it... :) Ahh, sweet moments...

🌸- Fave BNHA theory: I don’t like theories and I don’t want to know anything about them. I also have my thoughts, maybes & possibilities but I don’t like to speell them ‘cause they can become some sort of lucky spoiler (?).

🏞- Fave Arc in BNHA: Still soon, but I liked the Summer Camp + Rescue Bakugo Arc very much (I don’t take into account the arcs that are only part of the manga yet because if I dont watch them in the anime, I won’t know if I’ll feel the same about them. It usually gets better in the anime, with the coloring, special effects, music and acting, though).

��- Stranded on an island with?: Deku. He’s SO CREATIVE. He’ll totally think about how to go out there or just how to survive, at least. I’d helped, of course, but he’s so utterly dependable with making solutions for situations apparently imposible to overcome... O.O Bless him 🤗💫💓💓

🅰- Fave student in Class 1-A: DEKU (I think you all know by now). I also like Ochako very much. They’re my cinnamon rolls, so sweet, gentle and... just the best cuties out there c:

🅱- Fave student in Class 1-B: KENDO. She’s like an elder sister to Class 1-B, but also know their kids and help Class 1-A when Monoma is harrassing them LOL, she’s so mature and I’m very interested in her. She’s totally the supportive kind of girl <3

💪- Best boy?: Deku/Midoriya Izuku.

👄- Best girl?: Uravity/Uraraka Ochako.

🐼- Fave animal-related quirk: Mmmm... Hawk’s Fierce Wings, at least for the moment. I love birds and the freedom flying seems to make you feel.

⚠- Flaws of BNHA that you hate: It’s very fast sometimes, and also a little convenient at times (but it’s pretty easy to fall into this kind of flaws when you’re writing a shounen manga, yk).

🔱- Most fave class: Class 1-A. Our class! :)

⚓- Department/Team: I don’t really get what this refers to (sorry English is not my mother tongue). Like... the Big Three, the Wild Wild Pussycats, the Villain League...??? Like those groups? :( Maybe the Deku or Bagugo team/squad?

♣- Fave non-hero/villain character (civilian): If we’re talking about NOW, Toshinori, if he can be considered a civilian because, you know... But I always loved Deku’s mom and now I’m also interested in Tsukauchi with the Illegals manga going on <3 (Still, Dad Might surpasses all of you guys, haha, sorry not sorry).

🔝- Who is your top?: Not going to answer this u.u’. I don’t really have one! I don’t think about these kind of things while watching a shounen, really xD

⬇- Who is your bottom?: Same as last question.

🚿- Who would you like to take a bath/shower with?: A girl, of course. Whoever it was, but Tooru would be strange and interesting... LOL. DEFINITELY NOT MINETA, out of the guys.

👶- Best kid: Kid? ERI-chan hands down.

👀- Who has the most beautiful eyes?: I like Deku’s and Ochako’s ones’ design. Deku’s are the brightest and Ochako’s the most girlish. Both are the cutest ones.

💀- Fave Villain?: (Bakugou? LMAO jk). Mmmmm. Gentle & LaBrava? Not really crimminals though... I’ll go with Kurogiri then... He looks like the father figure of the Villain League LOL He always try hard to help others staying calm and reasoning, particularly Shigaraki Tomura. It makes me feel guilty but I lowkey like that kind of relationships even if they’re bad news.

💯- Best Female Teacher: ... Not Midnight (not very interested in)... so... is any other woman teacher in the series yet?? xD The poor Masegaki Gakuen one seems like an underdog, gotta support her LMAO

👏- Best Male Teacher: Aizawa, if we don’t count All Might. If we do, then him :) <3 (though he’s not very good at this work... It’ doesn’t matter LOL)

💉- Fave Pro-Hero that is not teaching: Fat Gum is really cute... I also kinda like Kamui & Hawks.

💐- Best mom: Izuku’s one. She’s the absolute best!! (Bakugo’s one is the funniest tho LMAO, poor kid, RIP)

😎- Best dad: Dad Might, I’m sorry but not really x’DDD Actual Dad, I guess Ochako’s one?

🔪- Worst dad: ENDEAVOR. And I know he’s trying to change, I want and encourage him to... but he’s still the worst dad that has appeared in the series yet, you know...

💦- Who’s your daddy/mommy (kink)?:  Not my thing, sorry.

🖤- Who’s your father and mother figure?: Dad Might. Also, my mother is very similar to Deku’s one, so I think I feel her relationship with Deku very close to mine with my mother.

💬- Fave BNHA quote: “Kimi no chikara janai ka?!”/“It’s your power, isn’t it?!”. I had problems to accept myself back then until I found MBTI. I’m an INFP and value authenticity and one’s quirkness (this is perfect xD “individual characteristics”) very much, so...

👠- Best female fashion/costume: We could say Mina’s the most fashionable out of the girls. But I prefer Tsuyu and Hagakure‘s cute fashion (whenever one of them is wearing something LOL), being my favourite her cat-ears-hoodie from the movie.

About hero costumes, Ochako’s one is the cutest (special mention to the Fantasy RPG Game ending one. That’s the cutestest).

👞- Best male fashion/costume: Bakugo. GoD, He’S sO sTyLiSh. I lOvE ThaT aBoUt HiM <333

About hero costume, Deku’s one is the cutest and seems to be one of the most comfortable ones. Particularly the Betta one or the Gamma with the new airfoce support gloves. I don’t like the large ones design (but I know they’re important to protect his arms).

⏺- Worst fashion/costume: Mineta.

🗑- Who is your trash?: Mineta. I’m sorry, but... just, no. LMAO.

♨- Ship that you would go down to: “Go down to” = stop shipping them or support them even in the darkest moments?

If it’s the first, I don’t think I can do that until one of my ships show affection towards another person (for example, Kyoka-chan falling in love with someone who’s not Kaminari = I’d instantly stop shipping them if the other guy will be canon with her. If not, then there’s still a chance for KamiJirou, an so on). I stopped shipping ToshInko when I realized Deku HAS a father, almost instant moment I began shipping it LOL. (Still, Dad Might’s my favourite for Deku).

If it’s the second, Izuocha FTW 💗!

🌌- BNHA AU: I can’t think about an AU world that’s better than the original, so I’ll just answer with my favourite fanfics here (not really AU) and run.

Favourite BNHA fanfics from:

Sevi007: Pure Dad Might +Deku fluff. We all need more of that in this our precious world.✨

Black Fuego Rio: IzuOcha, very IC, fluffy & awkward and has little sunshine Eri & AM/Toshinori in many of them! Perfect 👌

For if you wanna take a look. Totally recommend you to. They’re well written too.

💇- Weird hairdo: almost all the cast.

🎖- Hangout with in real life: Ochako & Tsuyu <3

📝- If you were given a chance to make a request to Horikoshi, what would it be?: I mean 😂😂 MAKE MORE IZUOCHA MOMENTS PLEASE??? Or more DadMight fluff. Or show Eri more :3 <3 Other questions/plot holes will be answered in time, so... just show me fluff :)

🎶- Sing you to sleep?: Awkward. Umm, Midnight? ñ.ñ 💦

🐻- Cuddle with?: ERI-chan.

🐰- Too pure/innocent character: My sweet bean Deku. Bless him.

Eri, oc.

Kirishima too?

Somehow, Toshinori also seems to me as the awkward innocent type. He’s very extroverted, so I don’t really know why I feel like that about him, but he’s still “idealistic” towards his world’s vision, maybe? (And he’s still cute X)).

🌻- Deserve better: Shinsou, I suppose. Poor guy has felt feared and rejected just for being him most of his life.

Also, Ingenium :c

🌷- Wish to have a no tragic background: If I’d say Deku, we wouldn’t have series xD

Where do I begin with?

Deku

Todoroki

Nana (so do Gran Torino & AM enter too?)

Eri

Mirio

Shinsou

Ingenium too

🦋- Most likely to be a gentleman:

From Class 1A:

Iida? Ojiro? Maybe Kirishima?

Kouda

SHOUJI

DEKU

From Class 1B:

Maybe Awase & Tetsutetsu. MAYBE (susprisingly enough), Monoma.

Others:

Tamaki & Inasa? GENTLE (yeah, shock). Maybe Toshi (God, that would be cute x)).

⌚- Fave old/middle-aged character (30+): Goodness, we don’t even know everyone’s age yet (yes, Toshi, that goes for you). We can always guess, you know? 😂😂

So, here’s an iluminating list:

Under 30s:

13

Cementoss

Mr. Joke

Masegaki’s teacher

Kamui

Mt. Lady

Manual

Fat gum

--

La Brava

30s or more:

Hound Dog.

Aizawa (so, AM... 7u7)

Mic (so, AM... x2)

Midnight

Ectoplasm

Power Loader

Vlad

Endeavor

Best Jeanist

Edgeshot (the ninja-like paper hero)

Gang Orca

Rock Lock

Pussycats: Mandalay - Tora - Pixie Bob - Ragdoll

Ingenium

Nighteye (so, AM... xD)

Centipeder

Snatch

Knuckleduster (illegals)

Tsukauchi & Samsa

Mera (the sleepy man of the License Exam)

Tsuyu’s, Kacchan’s & Jiro’s parents

Inko

--

Stain

Gentle

Teruo Hazukashii (wow, great character, greater quirk LMAO)

AfO (100+ LMAO)

Guesses (+)30:

AM & David Shield

Recovery Girl  & Gran Torino (duh).

Snipe & Takeshita (rather secondary heroes)

Crimson Riot, Gunhead & Forth Kind

Selkie & Mick (from Tsuyu’s first practice)

The Samurai-like hero, Nana & Knuckledust (Illegals), very probably.

Captain Celebrity :v (Illegals idiot)

Uwabami, Crust (no 6), Wash & Kota’s parents maybe not.

Miyage (newcaster)

Koichi’s mom (Illegals)

Deku’s dad & Todoroki’s mom

Most of Clas 1A’s parents (and Class 1B too)

--

Wolfram

Kurogiri

Gigantomachia

Giran

Twice, probably.

Mimic

Maybe Muscular, Magne (BTW, he is a she, or likes to be called like that, so maybe she’s transexual), Spiner, Moonfish, Mr. Compress, Chronostasis, some of the 8 expendables.

Tomura & Overhaul probably not.

So I’m between Tsukauchi & Aizawa if we ignore AM’s probable age 😂😂

⭐- Fav opening song: Peace Sign ✌

🌈- Fave ending theme: Long Hope Philia 🌺

🎙- Fave voice actor: Yamashita adorable DAIKI. He’s such a dork. Yet still he can play Deku very well, maybe because he’s so alike him. He can shout too (which is like a must for a shounen hero xD).

🎤- Fave character song: There isn’t yet. Probably someday we’ll have BNHA CS...

🎧- Fave OST: Yuki-san’s perfect as a composer for this series. My favourite one is “You Say Run”, duh.

💥- Fave battle/s: Cliche, but Deku vs Muscular & AM vs AfO. In terms of character developement, Deku vs Todoroki & Deku vs Kacchan 2 were perfectly written.

The fight vs stain was great too (and we’ll have to watch the Overhaul one in anime to judge it...).

🕳- Most shocking plot twist/unexpected scene: Deku freaking standing up against Muscular when he should be finished for right. It was indredible because I didn’t realized how much he had improved until then (even if it’s a typical emotional power up, I really didn’t expect him to have the energy, I swear O.O).

The first episode with AM’s true form was a comical one for this too, LOL.

And the king of the unexpected sceces: the Mirio’s introduction one x’DD

📷- Selfie with: Ochako, Mina or Hagakure :)

📚- Study in a library with: MOMO. Deku and Ochako (I’d feel more comfort with her around 'cause it’d probably be too silent until cinamon roll Deku started mumbling. The cute little dork 💗💗💗). Definitely not with Bakugo 😆😋

❗- Most underrated character: The Class 1A forgotten ones, maybe?:Aoyama, Koda, Ojiro & Sato

❕- Most overrated character: Todoroki or Bakugo, for sure, Well, I’m not even sure if they can bhe considered as “overrated” or just they deserve that position...

Maybe Hawks, because we don’t know him that well yet and he has so many fans already. Guys, calm down.

🔮- If you desire to see one’s ending? Who would it be?: Ending? Like, death? Or how he/she would end up?

✍-Change character design?: No. 13 & Shouji. I don’t really like it, OK? >.<

😇-Looks like a cinnamon roll, but it is a cinnamon roll.

☺- Cinnamon roll but would actually kill you

😬- Looks like would actually kill you, but it is a cinnamon roll.

😈- Looks like would actually kill you, and would actually kill you.

🤚- Over sexualized character

🍳- Cook with?

🤡- Funniest character

⚪- Best hardening quirk: Tetsutetsu/Kirishima?

🖕- Whose penis would be painful to be fucked? (LOL)

🦇- Best Goth character

💰-Shop with?

🎈- Fave OVA

♀- Would you let Momo spoil you with her quirk?

👋- Villain that you’d wish to be a hero

🤤- Needs to calm down

[eggoreviews]

My 10 Most Wanted Smash Ultimate Characters

Like a lot of people, I am very excited for the new Smash game and I reverted to a child when E3 came around and we finally got Ridley. I'm relatively new to the whole fighting game thing (I only bought a copy of Smash 4 last year as my first Smash game so kill me I guess) and that's probably going to show in this obligatory want list but here are my ten picks for if I could haphazardly choose who's getting to punch Mario this time around. By the way, this list is in priority order so my number 1 pick is who I want the most!

P.S I know we're only getting a few more characters if any so obviously not all ten are going to make it in. In fact, chances are none of them will. But I can dream, okay?

10. Captain Toad

I mean, look at this little guy! You can't tell me you don't want to play as him (I only just got a switch and the upcoming Captain Toad game is admittedly where my excitement is right now). While I guess I agree that the Mario series is a bit over-presented in Smash Bros, the fact that a version of Toad is finally getting his own game seems like high time that Toad became more than Peach's punching bag. His moveset would be probably be simple enough, considering how central he is during his game on the Wii U, so I guess they could just import a similar moveset over to Smash. Honestly, I know very little about Captain Toad, apart from the fact that he’s cute and likely to be in it. A Toadette palette swap/echo fighter definitely wouldn’t go amiss either.

9. Spyro

This one seems a bit less likely, but I’m aware that Nintendo and Activision are on good terms (see my number 5 pick) and it’s possible we might see the new Spyro remaster make its way onto the Switch in future, which definitely increases his chances. I don’t have a hell of an attachment to Spyro as I only played one game (very briefly), but he’s on this list generally because he looks cool and I feel like he’s an iconic third party staple that is born to be a smash addition. Again, his moveset could be ripped right from his games, his final smash could be something fire related because, you know, he’s a dragon. Before we continue, I’m fully aware that the vast majority of this list is third party and it’s definitely not realistic that we’ll get any of these characters at all. But hey, the further you get down on this list, the more you’ll understand that realism isn’t really what I was going for on this list.

8. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

Again, fully aware that KH3 hasn’t been confirmed for Switch. But Kingdom Hearts II was a pretty big part of my childhood back in the PS2 days, so I feel like Sora’s spot on the list is more a favour to my inner child. Plus, Kingdom Hearts is a product of the same team as Final Fantasy and Cloud got in, so hey anything can happen! What makes Sora especially unlikely in my mind is that he’d basically function like any of the Fire Emblem characters (which we really do not need any more of), except with a key. Still though, cool laser final smash with the keyblade? With Donald and Goofy? Okay maybe not that, I imagine that’d be a nightmare to sort out in terms of rights.

7. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

If Snake deserves to be slotted back in, I feel like Lara Croft fits perfectly in the roster at this point. The inclusion of Lara would be a huge selling point for the game considering how iconic she is and, much like most of my other picks, probably wouldn’t have a particularly complicated moveset. Maybe a mixture between the bow she has pictured above and short range knife could make her an extremely balanced character, akin to Link. This would be a very exciting third party reveal if it happened.

6. Black Mage (Final Fantasy)

Here’s my wildcard pick. Arguably the most unlikely in my list bar one (you’ll see), this one made it into my top 10 because of the fact that this little guy has also made its way into several games I played in my childhood; the Chocobo Tales game I had for the DS as well as (again) Kingdom Hearts II. I’m not at all familiar with the Final Fantasy franchise, in fact I’ve only really heard of Cloud and Sephiroth (who was very nearly considered for this list) because of their appearances in Kingdom Hearts. And another thing, I have very little idea what his moveset would be but I figured no one was really talking about this little dude and if none of my wanted characters are likely to make it in, might as well make ‘em weird.

5. Crash Bandicoot

Here we go. The one that almost everyone wants. The Crash N Sane Trilogy is coming to Switch and, as I mentioned, Activision are pretty pally with Nintendo right now so this is looking more likely than ever. Admittedly, the only Crash game I ever played was Crash of the Titans on the PS2, which I loved to bits at the time. So while my experience with Crash was likely not the same as everyone else’s, he’s another character with a moveset already implemented and I’d say he’s probably the most likely out of the third party big bois.

4. Shovel Knight

He’s an indie sensation on multiple platforms. He’s a unique and interesting character with a great moveset potential. He even has his own frickin amiibo, this guy was born for a smash inclusion. With Bomberman’s absence, I think that Smash Ultimate is missing a genuinely popular new indie contender. I think that Shovel Knight more than covers this ground, and I reckon Sakurai knows it too. If anyone on this list is getting added, it’ll probably be Shovel Knight and that’s very exciting.

3. Waluigi

Okay, okay, I know. Let the memes die, right? But just hear me out on this one. I’m a Waluigi stan, I won’t lie to you, I’m not proud of it but I love this weird purple egg and that’s just the way the world works. I’ve heard a theory, one that you’ve likely heard too, that suggests (loosely) that Waluigi is still in with a chance of a Smash addition:

They spent a whole lot of time during that E3 presentation specifically highlighting the fact that Waluigi is an assist trophy, even using him as an example for the fact that trophies can be K.O’d now to really drive home the fact that you ain’t getting your purple meme content this time around

During the whole of E3, including all the Treehouse gameplay and the Invitational, there has been no sighting of Waluigi in the game. Obviously, could just be because it’s a demo and we know not everything has been added yet. But still, them leaving out the most heavily focused assist trophy? Seems fishy to me (BTW, I got this info from Alpharad the youtuber, so check out his channel for a better explained version of this)

Daisy was announced. DAISY was announced. I’m not saying Daisy is a bad addition, but there is a lot less hype around her. The fact that Waluigi was explicitly deconfirmed and Daisy ended up as one of only two new E3 character announcements? Doesn’t add up. Could literally just be because it was really easy to include her as an echo fighter compared to giving Waluigi a whole new character, but you know. I love me a conspiracy theory.

So there you have it. I’m holding out a tiny bit of hope that all of this is setting up the biggest gaming bamboozle in history. But come on, they’re bringing everyone back, either way we’ve got to be happy. (Sidenote: I’ve heard people are harassing Sakurai over Twitter because of this. That’s horrible and immature. Pls stop thanks)

2. Sans

Yeah, I know. Told you realism was going out the window. I have decided to dutifully ignore how massively toxic the Undertale fandom is and hope that Sakurai sees the potential of including a character from this still amazing game. An Undertale switch port is rumoured and I’m pretty damn sure Toby Fox would be onboard for Undertale appearing in Smash, but I know this is basically impossible. What would his moveset be? How would he be animated? It’s cool, Sans is punching Yoshi and Bayonetta in my dreams.

I’m a WatchMojo stan so, before I vomit my number 1 pick on you, here’s a few hONORABLE MENTIONS:

King K. Rool (Donkey Kong)

Linkle (Legend of Zelda)

Banjo Kazooie

Cuphead (Again, impossible I know)

1. Rayman

Considering how iconic this guy is and how close Ubisoft and Nintendo are now (Mario x Rabbids anyone?), it looks as if it’s time for Rayman. On top of that, Rayman had a trophy presence in Smash 4, so we know Sakurai has considered him. His moveset makes itself so he would be a brilliant third party add and, considering that Rayman Legends is one of my all time favourite games, there’s no contest here as to who’s top of my list.

Well, there you have it. Feel free to crap all over me anonymously about my lack of knowledge/differing opinions. Or, if you like, send me your wants/predictions for character adds and we can have a cool lil discussion about it because we now have six months to wait so we have to fill the time with something.

Maybe next time I’ll do wanted echo fighters. We’ll see. Have a good one!

[buildarocketboys]

WIP Meme

tagged by @jack-rackhams-sunglasses! thank you!

1) How many works do you currently have in progress?

Ummm...about 4 or 5 black sails fics (at least, ones I’m aware of and possibly at some point intending to finish) which isn’t too bad, all things considered. Maybe a couple of others, but nothing significant. Except my Queer Berling script, but idk when I’m ever gonn work on that lol.

2) Do you/would you write fan fiction?

Yep lol. I’ve written...45 fics (on ao3) this year...since May, in fact. woah. It’s been quite a year. My ao3 user is NahaFlowers btw

3) Do you prefer paper books or ebooks?

Paperbacks, mostly because I only have my mum’s old kindle and it’s shit at charging and I never remeber to bring it anywhere. Plus I like the feel of a paper book in my hand better

4) When did you start writing?

Since...forever, really. I mean I guess properly started writing stories in kind of...mid to late primary school (I wrote a really great story which was basically a rip off of toy story, where all the toys end up in a skip being transported across an ocean (?) and try to escape). It’s always been what I love doing the most, and probably what I’m best at.

5) Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with?

I mean I’m cool with most people reading my work but there’s nobody I particularly share it with before anyone else, or anything like that.

6) Where is your favourite place to write?

Wherever inspiration hits. I write a lot on my phone atm, which is handy (ha. German joke). I quite like writing on trains, or on the sofa.

7) Favourite childhood book?

sooooooo many. Like. seriously so many. How am I supposed to answer this? I read EVERYTHING as a child.

8) Writing for fun or writing for publication?

fun. But I would like to get published (or preferably write TV screenplays) one day. That’s, like, my ultimate life goal lol)

9) Pen and paper or computer?

My phone atm. But I went through a pen and paper phase for a while in the summer, which was actually really great because no distractions. And I wrote a lot of my big bang fic on my laptop, just because it was easier to get a lot of words down like that.

10) Have you ever taken any writing classes?

I took an online screenplay writing course before I attempted (lmao) nano this year, which was actually really helpful in getting a structure/plot/character development down for my project, even if I wrote basically nothing during nano in the end.

11) What inspires you to write?

Well, I have to be super into/obsessed with something to put pen to paper (metaphorically), so for fanfic, it’s primarily great characters/relationships that we don’t get enough of (or don’t explore in ways I want them to be explored) in the source. For original fic..idk I guess I usually just get an idea and go with it, which isn’t always the best because I lose my inspiration, Queer Berlin was inspired by my dissertation though, so I’m definitely planning on continuing it because I love  that period/place in history, and it’s a story that deserves to be told. On that note, it’s Marlene Dietrich’s 116th birthday today!!

Gonna tag @bisexualpirateheart @copper-toned and @thealpacalypse

[pastel-popplio]

1, 4, 19 and 4 for those oc asks!!

You put 4 twice so i just went ahead and did 44 lmao

1. Your first OC ever? Ohhh boy, if we're talking very first character ( bc i didn't know the term then ) , I made up this little dog when I was 3 years old, her name was Puppy. She was a tiny pure white maltese/poodle mix, and I never drew her surprisingly but I pretended to be her whenever my sister and I played pretend if it had to do with animals or I'd toss her into our games with a random toy to act as the body since I didn't have any white dog plushies. Even back then I was a total angsty fuck when it came to backstories because she was always either abused by her owners or abandoned and living half-starved as a stray ( often in the cold rain ) and she'd be super grateful to anyone who helped her/taught her the ways of the streets. She was very playful and sweet but quick to cry when someone was mean to her and I loved her so much dude oh man, I don't think I completely stopped using her ( in the rare times I still played with my lil sister ) until around 5th grade maybe?

I'm super tempted to try and draw her now not gonna lie, in my head she basically looked like the lil maltese in the DOGZ gba game mixed with disney lady and the tramp style lmao

4. An OC you rarely talk about? I'll go with my ( very self-indulgent ) oc Xarrnacc ( pronounced Zar-nack ) . I made her up like a day after I started binging the Ju/stice Leag/ue animated series on netflix a couple years back lmao. Here is the link to her ref pics ( don't bother reading the info bc it's either old or stated below lmao )

http://pastel-popplio.tumblr.com/post/145593516169/oh-btw-guys-here-is-another-dc-oc-of-mine-but-she

http://scourgefeather.deviantart.com/art/Xarrnacc-bust-doodle-614140861

GET READY FOR AN INFO DUMP BC I NEVER GET TO TALK ABOUT OR DRAW HER BUT I THOUGHT ABOUT HER SO MUCH WHEN I MADE HER MMMM

She's a horribly shy alien babe who's a scientific genius ( especially with physics and chemistry ) and also studies Ice Magic. She worked as an engineer for the highest members of her planet in the capital city ( a lot of the planet is still entirely natural resources bc they care more about their ecosystem than we do, so the other scattered inhabited areas make up a small enough portion that they only need the one really big city for the government/royals to rule everyone else from ) , but was eventually framed by a few jealous coworkers. The Mistress ( her planet's ruler who's basically a mix of President and Queen ) had no choice but to ( reluctantly ) exile her from the planet for the severe crime/rule infraction.

She was sent to Earth to die in the arctic ( since not only was it rumored to be inhospitable, but her planet didn't know Earth had really moved past the ice age since it's so far away. They pretty much spun a wheel of dangerous planet names and launched her there ) , but ended up meeting an old man in the cold barren area who was charged with the noble duty of protecting a hidden library of old spellbooks. She befriended him and lived/with worked under him as a fellow magic user until he was killed while on a trip. She didn't know of his death until a couple days after he'd left, when a few members of the League tracked down the library while investigating an unrelated magic incident and she attacked them ( in an attempt to defend the books from strange intruders ) . Once they managed to convince her they weren't thieves and explained they'd found his murdered body in the snow a half-hour's trek from the library, she ended up joining them on what was supposed to be a one time mission to assist with the magic part.

She was inducted into the League permanently after that and wanted to learn more about Earth, so she started living in the space station headquarters with Mart/ian Man/hunter, who sometimes helps teach her written english ( she learned the verbal language earlier when the old man dug up a spellbook that allowed the two of them to communicate by swapping memories ) . She's pretty close to The Fla/sh since he's the friendliest, and he usually is the one who forces her out of space hiding to experience the magic of actual society, fast food diners, and hitting on the ladies ( the latter of which has her a nervous wreck plz stop dragging her on spontaneous blind double dates ) . She admires WW a lot for her confidence and physical fighting skills, and sometimes they have talks or training sessions together. She lowkey has a crush on Haw/kgirl but she's taken and also intimidating af so Xarrnacc knows she's kinda screwed there oops. Super/man is okay but usually too busy being a leader with a double life to interact with her outside of missions, she's terrified of ol' Bats he's very intimidating. Doesn't really feel one way or the other about Gr/een Lante/rn, she doesn't talk to him much so they don't know each other really.

She adores books and can sometimes spend hours in big libraries if she has another league member to accompany her and help translate. She's not huge on public parks, if only because she had a very bad experience once when The F/lash took her and she mistook a squirrel as acceptable food and thought hunting was allowed and tried to eat one in front of a screaming child.

Fun fact: her species is deathly allergic to chocolate, something she found out the hard way after The Flas/h offered her a bite of his Hershey bar and had her in the League ER for like 2 weeks RIP

I have more but this is long enough jfc

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you ( and explain why ) . This boi Darren right here means a ton to me!

https://toyhou.se/606692.darren

Not only is he a pretty personal character bc of certain personality aspects ( hello shyness/social anxiety venting lmao ) or the fact that he was one of my main sort of daydreaming ocs ( aka a character that I would shove into different show universes and think about how he'd interact with everyone when I was bored ) before I finally found him his home, but he was the very first rp character I ever made! Joining the group he was in ( when I was a smol ms paint artist ) helped me learn a ton about everything from rping itself to cat anatomy to writing to character development and all kinds of stuff inbetween, and I made so many friends because of it, even one of my best, who is actually the founder of the group! I never would be near where I am today without that group, or this adorable character that I loved to bits and motivated me to draw him 24/7 lmao.

Plus he has cool lightning powers and a pet puffin, and the silver tabby w/blue eyes is my favourite cat design ever probably

44. Something you like about your ocs in general? The amount of detail I give them, be it personality, backstory or just little goofy facts! I've gotten a lot of compliments on the depth of my chars before, and I really do try to make them all unique from each other!Thank you so much for asking these bby! 💜