#but its jubilee lol

[cherikdogfood]

Anyone remember that meme/joke from Avengers Civil War? The one where Natasha looks at her teammates, and everyone has suits except her, and she's kinda glaring?

Yeah well I was watching X-Men 97 and I thought about it. In ep. 8, Jubilee complains that everyone in the team can fly except her.

Then in Ep. 9, Magneto asks the X-Men who would like to join him. I know she wouldn't do this (I mean this post is just crack, okay), but imagine if Jubilee agreed to Magneto's proposal.

It would go like this:

Magneto: So, who will join me?

Rogue: *flies to his side*

Roberto: *flies to his side*

Jubilee: I'll join you.

Magneto: Then come here.

Jubilee: ...

Magneto: Having second thoughts?

Jubilee: No... I can't fly damn it!

Magneto: ...right, I forgot. *Levitates her to him*

[dapper-lil-arts]

Can we talk about the kind of woman Applejack attracts.

[canyourlawnmowerdothis]

Your angelstone baby is actually everything and the world to me I like how you named them Thanatos (I had them married in Tomodachi Life and I also named their baby Thanatos), this art jsut relaly means a lot to the point I send you an ask directly (But not to the point of unmasking anon sry)

PEACE AND LOVE!! jubilee loves u <3

[autisticredhood]

Me going thru my brother’s old comics: heehee dc vs marvel >:3 wonder what’s going on in here!!

what’s going on in the comic:

me:

[carnivorouswillgraham]

really hate that every political episode on jubilee ties back to trans people. we do not exist as a gotcha for your debate we are real people with real lives

[lumalalu]

papyrus so aro. weee

[prince-leorio]

[rotteneldritchhorror]

I love watching capitalist's circular thinking, its fascinating that they can say "this communist country is bad because its communist, but when it does good things its capitalist and we need to copy them, and when we (usually america) do good things its capitalism, but when we do bad things or things I dont like its communism"

[tofupixel]

Thank you for getting me to finally try pixel art! I‘ve always wanted to get into pixel art but I never knew what to start with and always ended up procrastinating. Your blog and the post you made on learning pixel art were what finally pushed me to give it a go. It was really helpful and I managed this little animation in Libresprite.

I definitely want to improve and your art is like the ultimate goal lol. Do you have any tips or instructions for how to get better or on what to focus on in the future? I‘d appreciate any kind of criticism/input you are willing to give! How do you manage to make such gigantic and beautiful landscapes?

thank you!! and i'm so happy you decided to give it a real go, you're doing great already!! the rendering on the body and the pink shading is really nice.

i can help a little with animation stuff but i'm not an expert, ill write something out about backgrounds at the end

i hope you don't mind but i edited the sprite a little, just to illustrate some stuff

🤺Animation stuff

i added an extra frame near the top of the arc so it slows down. this is called ease or slow in/out and usually happens at the beginning and end of movements. u can do even more slow but this is just a quick version

i also removed the middle frame (where the tail is straight down) to make the swing appear a bit more powerful. this could be the principle of timing in the same video. you can exaggerate smears if you do this, its up to you!! lately i tend to exaggerate stuff a lot, things arent super noticable in motion

i also got a good bit of advice from nickwoz that helped me, basically when you begin to animate, it really puts the rest of the sprite being still into focus. try to think of how you could animate other parts of the body, even subtly. and sometimes if individual pixels stay still they can catch the eye in an unintended way as well, just keep it in mind!!

if you want to learn animation more, you could take a look at duelyst sprites, they have incredible idle and ability animations, i study them a lot

heres one i downloaded a long time ago. i recommend just downloading stuff you like and looking at it!! i have a huge collection of pixel inspo. slowing animations down can really help you understand whats going on. its just a bunch of simple elements put together that makes it look so good.

IF U WANT MORE RESOURCES/ARTISTS I REOCMMEND TO GO AND STUDY LMK!!! IM LIKE A WIKIPEDIA, I AM A BIG FAN of pixel art and love to share

🌿 OK lets talk about landscape stuff

it looks like you have art experience already, but im gonna talk as if youre a complete noob cos it might help some other people who read this!! ur doing great 👍

❓ how to learn: study (and practise a lot)

what i mean by study: draw it, copy it, try to understand it. you can try to change characteristics about it. changing the angle or lighting can help u understand how something works in 3 dimensions.

sometimes it takes time, dont worry, you will figure out your own style through doing studies, its all a process

❓ how to draw landscape details?

study pixel artists and how they do it recommendations: fool, slym, jubilee, deceiver

also please look at real world references!! you got to build that visual library

❓ how to learn composition?

study traditional artists or animation. i did a ton of studies of ghibli backgrounds which i think helped my growth a lot recommendations: arcane, studio ghibli, traditional painters

im gonna break down a piece as well and maybe that will help. this is one from 2022 but its still one of my most popular and its pretty simple too!!

if we remove all the fancy stuff what we have is actually really simple. just a few large, overlapping shapes that all point towards our focal point. it's the brightest area with the most contrast and many edges point into it.

go to pinterest or google and just search "pretty landscape" or "mountains" or something and you can see what i'm doing is nothing special or unique!! break it down into bigger shapes to begin with, its just different areas of material mostly.

and heres how you can make any landscape from any colours. purple sky or mountain? orange grass? ok !! it all works, it doesnt matter. i just blend the colours.

when parts of the landscape are in the distance they become closer to the sky colour as there is more "sky" in between you and it. its called atmospheric perspective. so if the sky was red, the clouds would fade towards red.

OKKK i dont know what else to say so i hope that helps!! honestly 90% of what i do is intuitive and hard for me to really explain, so you dont have to know The Rules, you just kind of pick up stuff as you go.

GL and thanks so much for showing me your art!! please keep going!! 💕💕💕💕

[royaltyspeaking]

Yeah Charles definitely wanted Kate there because the lead up to trooping was a rather grim reality of the state of the monarchy for the Brits. I’m sure Kate and Charles have also gotten closer because of their dual diagnoses, but often times with that family and that institution multiple things can be true. Kate and Charles are closer, the powers that be at the institution were terrified of the grim optics of a balcony without one of its biggest stars, and that family is continuing to bandage over multiple bullet wounds. Trooping in Charles reign has been a subdued event (the “working royals” only balcony is not helping at all), and it probably is more a harbinger of things to come (continued apathy of disinterest in the institution) than a rough patch. The fact that the main stories leading to trooping was the Sussexes being snubbed (Charles sucks lol that came from his comms imo because he had nothing else to give the press) and whether kate would or would not be able to be on the balcony (having a woman with cancer need to be paraded at some point because the institution fumbled PR of said diagnosis so bad will have to be studied one day).That family has never been more about optics over substance before (not that there was ever much substance imo). What is your take?

I completely agree with you.

The attendance at the trooping was awful. I was shocked by the areal photos of the crowds, hardly anyone showed up. Yes, the weather was poor, but that's never stopped people before. I remember the Diamond Jubilee flotilla on the Thames was soaking wet but still, the crowds were enormous. The damage has been done. As you said, this isn't just a rough patch but rather a look at things to come.

[newx-menfan]

X- Force # 2 Review 

*Spoilers*

The issue starts with Sage monologuing about breaking into Wakanda.

One hour before, the group is talking about the change in mutant sentiments and X-Force being “off the books”… (hypocrisy, thy name is Noriko…although I GUESS Noriko DOES have some doubts lol)

Sage raises questions about the plan and while Forge argues with her, an electrical current/evil cloud crashes their plane… (I think it’s an electrical current?) 

Turns out the cloud is actually magic!

Surge, Captain Britain, Rachel, and Tank are all bewitched and sent after Sage and Forge, who are unaffected,as they struggle to process what is happening.

*X-Men #180-191 is referenced, along with the Loki story from X-Men and Alpha Flight (both such are such fun story arcs, BTW!)* 

Sage surrenders but the leader she is taken to sure isn’t T’Challa…

Sage actively heckles the villain and goes on about how much she hates magic…figuring out that the Anansi drum is the cause of all of this.

Sage is able to turn the magic into data with help from her goggles; and while escaping she figures out a plan to close the fracture, but to do it she needs Noriko.

Putting her goggles on Surge, Sage manages to disrupt the magic and tells Surge to take the goggles to Forge.

Noriko speed- runs (really happy to see Noriko doing this again!) to Forge, who is currently chilling out, rebuilding the X-jet while Sage is passing out because the imbalance of magic and reality is too much for her…(like handing someone a Lego set lol 😝)

The goggles cause Forge to see the solution to all this chaos and while Fake T’Challa plans to erase mutants (Hey NOW- only Wanda can obliterate her own race! 😂🤣) ; Forge knocks Fake T down before he can say the words and uses his weird fracture tracking deus Machina doohickey to reset everything by touching it to the drum… (I could go back to the beginning to find the “official” name for it…but I am too lazy 😂🤣)

The Fake T turns into “just some dude” and is taken away by the Archive…

Obligatory “Forge is Storm’s ex” comment ensues by one of the Wakandan guard (AaaaKkkkWwwAaaRrrDDD!) and they let them leave to go on another mission!

(Apparently the plane is self repairing and Forge was just hanging out while everyone was getting captured! 😂🤣🤣🤣)

 Review:

Honestly…I would probably be more forgiving of this book, if it wasn’t called “X-Force”…. Personally I think it would have actually been better off titled something else….

While in recent years, this series has definitely fallen off a gigantic cliff and combusted into flames while being eaten by rabid dogs…this is undoubtedly BETTER than Percy’s cracked run…but it’s still hard NOT to compare it against greater X-Force volumes, like the original or KYOST’s.

It does absolutely have its moments; I DO enjoy Sage and Forge…there ARE moments and dialogue that I do enjoy!…but overall I find it pretty basic in terms of writing (from what I heard- “Exceptional X-Men #1” was much the same…)

I would compare it to that Storm-centric episode in “X-Men: Evolution”…it’s definitely NOT what people remember about Evo…but it’s a passable episode…

I do weirdly enjoy Tessa/Sage, which is surprising to me since I have always seen her as a pretty “meh” character…

Similarly I would say the writer does a great job with Forge and I do enjoy seeing his dynamic with Nori…even if Nori is pretty “wet behind the ears” and more or less playing Kitty and Jubilee’s role in this book…

It’s…fine. While it’s definitely NOT “NYX” levels of excitement…I do enjoy reading it.

Predictions:

Tank HAS to be Colossus or Wrongslide…right?

[m4golor]

Boomer Headcanon dump because i Need to put these into text form or i will go insane

[under the cut because i talk too much]

her real name is Allegra (the music term, not the medicine LMAO) which I believe means fast in regards to tempo, which I think fits her (honestly I just chose the first name I thought of but I got attached to Allegra so whateverr)

her bday is July 4th

she associates her identity with Starlight Jubilee because of her bday - since she was young, her parties were usually done jointly with Starlight BBQ cookouts, and the nights often involved watching the fireworks from the roof w her siblings, causing her to associate herself with the fireworks, festivities, and then the holiday as a whole

she has a big family, like a shitton of siblings - Boomer is probably the middle child. as a result her parents' eyes weren't often on her and she had a distant relationship with them

they didn't abuse her or neglect her shes just ignored but it did affect her longterm

as a result of her neglect she really really likes attention, and especially did when she first started professionally being a daredevil

after a good couple of years (and getting into a couple of accidents along the way), she starts tiring from attention in the sense that she feels a little bit like people put her on a pedestal and think of her as invincible and untouchable in a way? like they can't separate her as a daredevil from her as a normal person and she's just Boomer the World-Famous Daredevil all the time so she gave up and keeps her persona on all the time but is internally Not okay

handles public attention well but can get overstimulated by the paparazzi and social interaction and it makes her snappy and temperamental. like if she's trying to do something like shopping and people are trying to talk to her or ask for autographs she gets pissed off, therefore people see her as always having a short fuse which is Not true

lots of scars. all over. like maybe burn scars (from friction or pyrotechnics) and scrapes. she hides them to make her not look weak though I think if you looked at her hands hard enough you'd notice them there

probably also hearing loss from explosives/sfx [think i got this one from somewhere else]

she's a closer in the first two games she appears in (I think wing and hot dog) and then never again because when she started doing stunts professionally she had a major superiority complex and mighter than thou attitude + was figuring her life out

after those two games she Gets her Shit Together™ and mellows out + reasons mentioned above about being a "normal person".

her greatest fear is getting into an accident that results in her being unable to do stunts - like, dying, okay, fine, it's inevitable, but losing the one thing that carried her through her life to this point would wreck her

this fear causes her to stress out over hers' and by projection others' safety like crazy. like if you don't wear your seat belt in the car she's not driving/going with you, and she yells at kids to wear helmets when they're biking (and they yell ok Boomer back and she cries for an hour /j)

she has two places of residence: one in Starlight City that's like almost a mansion and has an outdoor pool where she keeps her Powseekers, and a small apartment in Toastwood

the latter is her delivery address and her main place of residence. she stays in Starlight City during Jubilee/BBQ and throws kickass parties in her bigass house

the Powseekers in that one 4th of July post are her pets, I doodled them here lol. she just has them

money she makes from her stunt shows goes to charity, usually health-related ones like the ones for hospitals or kids' health

friends with Akari, they go on girlie motorbike dates (please don't yell at me about boomerakari or whatever the ship name is /lh)

probably calls people 'hun' in a platonic way when she's in a good mood

her favorite color isn't red, white, or blue. its probably purple or some shit

knows how to make those cute little paper lucky stars out of ribbons

um thanks for reading!! send post

[wolviez]

FOUND DJWS JUBILEE AGAIN!!! technically its sparrow as said in the original tweet but tbf this design leans more into jubilees style with inspiration from djws robin. also its the amalgam comics she counts anyway lol

[casawio]

the mammalian sighing reflex cover is a reference to the curious incident of the dog in the night and like. oh my god thats fascinating to me.. its a book about an autistic (not explicitly but. the author has said it iirc. either way, explicitly disabled) boy. i dont like the way a lot of the subjects are handled but thats its own matter lol it has a lot of themes that have either appeared in wilburs previous music or he's mentioned before. separated parents / disillusioned couples, trying to find a place in the world, feeling lost (in england), train stations (i cant remember if jubilee line itself is specifically mentioned)

will gold... the poet that you are... the connections you make....

[beevean]

Curious, wanted to ask

What is your favorite level in Sonic Advance 3 gameplay wise, and why?

And what is your favorite level in Sonic Advance 3 aesthetic wise, and why?

We need more Sonic Advance 3 love 💖

SONIC ADVANCE 3 LOVE HELL YEAH 💖🥰💕🥺

In both cases, the answer is only one!

Sunset Hill is not only jaw droppingly beautiful with its bright yet warm colors, and its blend of Classic abstract aesthetic with the more stylized look of the era (you can tell that Adv3 looks up to Heroes lol), but it's the most balanced in terms of level design.

Acts in Adv3 tend to be designed around three concepts: speed, verticality, and gimmick. And they all shine in Sunset Hill: Act 1 is the gimmicky one, where the lower you go the more switches you have to press; Act 2 is the speed one, a short exciting ride; and Act 3 is the vertical one, which not only makes for a very fun act to snap in half, but is a stroke of genius because it encourages you to use Sonic/Tails during your first playthrough, which you need to do to unlock Knuckles!

(and when it comes to Dimpsiness, I'd say its worst sin is the badly telegraphed bottomless pits in Act 1, but I'd take them over the off screen enemies and crushers of Route 99 any day)

Another level I enjoy both for the aesthetic and the level design is Toy Kingdom! Much more flawed than Sunset Hill lmao, but something about its many gimmicks and wide open level design makes it a joy to replay for me, especially Act 1!

Team Jubilee was made for this zone. Look at how cute this looks <3

Twinkle Snow is also a must-mention when we talk about prettiness because of the iconic aurora, and yes it's also fun to play if you know how to keep yourself out of the water...

... and as for a level I like for its design more than its aesthetic, Ocean Base, hands down. No don't look at me like that. Act 1 is a joy to atomize :)

[incomprehensiblelentils]

Hey if you wanna do the thing too, here goes:

❤️🧡🤍🩷💜A WLW ASK MEME❤️🧡🤍🩷💜 List the top 10 ladies you’ve been obsessed with Ever Of All Time! Then send this on to 5 sapphic mutuals 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

I VERY MUCH want to do the thing, thank you!!!

This list is not gonna be in a preference order because if I tried to do that I wouldn't ever stop crying. Also I have been documentedly obsessive about IRL women hello Mackenzie Davis I am free on Thursday but to avoid sounding creepy this list will be composed of fictional characters. I burst into tears writing every single entry on here because I am so normal about women lol.

tl;dr here is the list:

Laura Kinney (Marvel Comics)

Princess Amelia "Mia" Mignonette Thermopolis Grimaldi Renaldo (The Princess Diaries)

Elizabeth Swann-Turner King of Pirates (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Myka Bering (Warehouse 13)

Bennett Halverson (Dollhouse)

Daisy "Skye" Johnson (Agents of SHIELD)

Natasha Romanov (Marvel Comics / Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Rogue (X-Men / Marvel Comics)

Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb series)

Cinderpelt (Warriors)

with honorable mentions to Cameron Howe (Halt and Catch Fire) and Amelia Pond (Doctor Who) because there simply was not enough room!

Laura Kinney (Marvel Comics) - I started reading superhero comics at 16, when a friend at school gave me access to her collection. I have also, since I was too young to articulate it, been drawn to stories about "human weapons," particularly women. (Literally only a couple of years ago it occurred to me that perhaps growing up in fundiegelical culture, which is prone to calling its congregants "warriors for Christ" and using a lot of rhetoric about "God's soldiers," might have had an influence on this preference! I May Be Stupid etc.) Laura Kinney is the female clone of Wolverine, but she has two claws on each hand and a foot claw (yes it’s the kid in Logan, though they changed some stupid shit in that version). I first met her at 16, randomly picking up X-23: Innocence Lost at a Borders one evening and immediately being sucked into the story of a teenager who knows nothing but violence, except for the sole person who sees her as human (Sarah, her surrogate mother). Laura’s comic backstory is fucked-up in a way Marvel really leaned into with their 00s characters - she was forced to slaughter her own mother! then she was a victim of child sex trafficking! then she tried to have a normal life but her past came back to haunt her and she was forced to leave behind everyone she loved to keep them safe! - and I don’t think most of it holds up great, except for Target X which is cute because she and her cousin skip school and steal a car to be normal kids for a day. Anyway! I loved her immediately because in my teen brain, this character was one I could truly read EVERYTHING about, and ever since she has been my daughter. Marjorie Liu wrote an amazing series for her in 2011-12 which had her become Gambit’s little sister and Jubilee’s girlfriend bff, and Liu is to this day the writer I have seen do the most interesting stuff with her. She at one point was using Wolverine as a code name and she got a little sister, Gabby, and that was also good. Anyway, she’s the ur-example of “child weapon learns how to be a person” and also she’s angry and sad and doing her best and I love her the most.

Princess Amelia "Mia" Mignonette Thermopolis Grimaldi Renaldo (The Princess Diaries) - While I very much enjoy and am fond of the films, my Mia Thermopolis is the one in the book series. I first read these at 13, and immediately I recognized Mia as a kindred spirit. Mia in the books is riddled with anxiety and self-doubt, prone to people-pleasing but will push back if she reaches her limits, passionate and loyal to sometimes self-sabotaging degrees, and a connoisseur of pop culture. Every time I open a Princess Diaries book, I feel like I’m hanging out with my best friend, and to me she is. A dream of mine is to make a character that feels as real and dear to readers as Mia feels to me. I am not and never have been great at doing “girl” (hi, butch), but Mia was and is a glimpse into a world that I always felt on the outside of. The books are certainly not perfect but I will never get tired of hanging out with Mia.

Elizabeth Swann-Turner King of Pirates (Pirates of the Caribbean) - I got into these movies kind of late, just before the third one came out, but Pirates was one of the most significant fandoms I have ever been in. It taught me about meta, how to analyze subtext, and how to multiship. Elizabeth was a big part of that, being a cool bitch who got to fight and did not take shit from anyone and was also part of a ship full of Yearning. I used to think I had a crush on Will and that’s why I was so into the ship but…no it was Elizabeth. I wanted to be in Will’s place so I could kiss Elizabeth! She’s smart and capable and passionate, and when you’re 16 that corset line sounds really cool, sorry. And she’s the Pirate King and gets a badass rallying speech. Also she gets to wear a sick pirate coat in At World’s End, which is less questionable for me, a Chinese person, to be wearing, and my mother-in-law made a dream come true and made it for me. As far as I’m concerned she was only stationed on that island for as long as it took for baby Liam to be transportable, and then she put him in a sling and ran around being a fucking awesome pirate king again. (Movie 5 does not exist to me, nor does “Henry,” his name is Liam, thank you for understanding.)

Myka Bering (Warehouse 13) - I actually did NOT start watching this show for the gay content, I started because one of my college roommates/best friends was enjoying it and we both found it deeply charming. I actually thought Claudia was going to be my favorite, but Myka quickly took that spot in my heart. I found her deeply relatable, as someone who tends to keep myself pretty emotionally distant until I trust someone, and as a fellow Bad at Being a Girl sufferer. Myka starts the show wary of everyone, but wanting to do her best, and she slowly begins to let her new team in and start to trust them. One of my favorite Myka things is how well she knows herself and what she wants. And of course there's the HG of it all - her insistence on saving and trusting HG even after she betrayed them the first time is so indicative of how much she wants to believe in people. I really hate what this show did to her by the end, because to me it was devastating to watch this incredible, self-assured woman turn into somebody who apparently had feelings for her self-admitted brother figure and whose entire arc was about that now?? It sucked!! But anyway, that's not what I think of when I think of Myka. I think of her hitting Pete with a snowball and then doing a little hop of joy.

Bennett Halverson (Dollhouse) - Bennett is the reason I met my wife, and she is also played by Summer Glau, who I rarely post about anymore but who is involved in multiple shows that are part of my heart, so Bennett had to go on this list. She was one of the most significant characters that fell into my "angry and sad" women niche, as her whole thing is that she's out for revenge against the girl who broke her heart. AND YES SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH CAROLINE I HAVE RECEIPTS. (god this essay is TWELVE years old?? nobody @ me if it's bad) I love Bennett because she's me, or at least, a really stark portrait of the kind of person I could have become in a similar situation. Bennett feels like an outcast and Caroline seems to be the first person who ever showed her positive attention, to a degree that clearly turned romantic on Bennett's side. She's also devoted to Caroline to a degree that is objectively unhealthy ("You're not pissed because I used you?" "I'm hurt that you wont") and her memories of Caroline leaving her are colored by her misunderstanding of why she did it; Caroline was trying to protect her and take the fall for what happened, but Bennett didn't see it that way at all. I am very...dramatic...in my head and 1000% I would've been like that in a similar situation. It's really good B and I met each other and are obsessed with each other exactly the same amount because we would be terrible partners for anybody else. Anyway, Bennett's fucked up and I love her so much and Bennett/Caroline is why I'm like this now.

Daisy "Skye" Johnson (Agents of SHIELD) - If I were pressed to pick one favorite character, period, it would almost certainly be Daisy. SHIELD and I have had a special relationship from the moment it was first announced; if you look I still have a few posts tagged "s.h.i.e.l.d." and a minor regret of my life is that I was too late to get into the pilot screening at SDCC '13. Anyway, similarly to Myka, Daisy wasn't my immediate pic for favorite, but she quickly became my favorite, especially when I found out Chloe Bennet is also a "Chinese dad white mom" girl like me. I called it from the first character bio that she would be divisive, and she was, because fandom is horrible, but to me she is the best character. I wrote an entire essay about how much it means to me that she's biracial, even if I do not love the Inhumans stuff necessarily. But I remember spending the first season and a half desperately wishing for her to be biracial, and then she was! And she's also so funny and brave and kind and angry and sad and good above all else, she does her best to be a good person. I recognize a lot of my worst tendencies in some of hers; B and I joke that sometimes I will "drive off in emotional van" when I try to shut down and process big shit by myself. But I also relate to her in a lot of positive ways as well: we're both deeply loyal, passionate and hopeful. When they teased someone being killed off in the s3 finale, I literally had a panic attack the morning of the finale at the thought of losing her. When the show finally ended, I was happy she survived and even happier that they had her reconcile with her mom and her surprise sister, and now she and Kora and Danny are hanging out in space and sometimes Daisy goes home to hang out with her girlfriend Jemma. If she never comes back in MCU canon, I'll take that ending for her.

Natasha Romanov (Marvel Comics / Marvel Cinematic Universe) - WELL SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS WHO GOT FUCKED OVER LOL. Never mind the Scarlett Johansson of it all, I love Natasha with a tenacity approaching lunacy. (Not as much as my friend Amy, because Nat is her most special blorbo, but almost that much, I think!) Once again: Natasha is a living weapon character who is emotionally closed off and snarky and also very angry and sad, and also she was one of like 3 women in the MCU in the beginning so of course I became obsessed with her. Her comic counterpart is a little different, of course, but the same notes are there, and once again Marjorie Liu wrote the best arc for her (The Name of the Rose, which deals with themes of motherhood and infertility way better than some films I could name). Some of my love for her is me truly putting my hard-earned fandom analysis skills to work with the pittance of canon information I have to work with, and some of it is the five months I spent writing an AU where she didn't die in Endgame and also she and Laura Barton were polyamorous that whole time. (I did a lot of sobbing in the car when I found out about her death, and I'm resolved to never watch Endgame again.) That fic is my tribute to her, so I guess if you want to know all my feelings, go read it.

Rogue (X-Men / Marvel Comics) - Rogue was the X-Men character I imprinted on when I watched the movies at 16 (hey is that a pattern I see here?) because she was sad and emo and, although I didn't know it at the time, I wanted to kiss it better. I affectionately refer to Anna Paquin Rogue as "Diet Coke Rogue" because she's a very bad interpretation of the character, but also I love her. My favorite version of Rogue is actually in the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, where they made her an angry and sad goth (again: pattern) but with her usual reserve and level of sass. But I love every version of her, and I can't wait to watch the new cartoon because I have been sorely lacking in Rogue lately and I miss her. If I can't pick Laura, Rogue is my favorite X-Men character always and forever. Also, I felt so strongly about her and Gambit that I made a 40-part powerpoint presentation to explain their love story to B, while I was on a road trip with my family. This was one of our notable courtship gifts because she had also imprinted on Diet Coke Rogue and I needed her to understand how epic Rogue and Gambit's relationship is. Someday we will cosplay as them.

Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb series) - The newest entry, but she made it on here by dint of being, well, so intensely relatable. I too am an awkward butch with a praise kink raised in a weird dead-end religion who falls to pieces in the presence of a pretty girl, whose brain is completely full of jokes and memes to cover up my various damages, and who is so bad at expressing my feelings to the object of my affection that I spent literal years pining after them only to do something exceedingly reckless to try and prove my love (I did not kill myself so they could use my corpse, but it was equally stupid and dramatic, and I have a 1/2 success rate - one of them was a guy, long story). Gideon Nav is Weird Girl turned up to 1000 and I love her for it. I am very short and chubby and not at all muscly, but I love cosplaying as her because in our souls we are the same. If we never see her again I will not recover.

Cinderpelt (Warriors) - I am genuinely not sure if I've ever explained Cinderpelt on this blog, so here's a quick summary: Cinderpelt is the first apprentice of the POV character Fireheart, and quickly endears herself to everyone by being enthusiastic and clever. She wants to be the best warrior ever. As an apprentice, she is hit by a car and survives, but her leg is injured severely enough that she is unable to continue warrior training, so she pivots to becoming a medicine cat. (Yes, Warriors is very ableist and this is not even in the top 5 worst examples.) We don't get a ton of insight from Cinderpelt on her thoughts about this until she's a bit older, but basically she determines that she will ensure the Clan is protected and cared for just as valiantly as she would have as a warrior. She becomes one of Fireheart/star's closest friends, and a constant source of comfort and wisdom throughout the first two series. Somewhere in there, I decided she was my favorite character. Enter series 2 book 5, Twilight (I am almost 15 when it comes out), which features a climactic battle as badgers invade the ThunderClan camp while Cinderpelt's best friend Sorreltail goes into labor. The way I remember it is Cinderpelt kicking absolute ass to protect her friend and maybe killing at least one badger, but I think I may have edited this to be more epic in my mind. ANYWAY she dies from her wounds and I cry for like an hour. In the next book, it is revealed that StarClan (cat heaven) thought Cinderpelt was so cool that they wanted her to have a second chance, and she got reincarnated as Cinderkit. I think this is maybe where the mythology really went off the rails objectively, but you won't convince me it was anything but beautiful. Now she lives as Cinderheart, who had her own journey through rehabilitating an injury but has become a badass and respected warrior herself. (There is also some bullshit about Cinderpelt having been in love with Fireheart lalalala I do not care she is a cool bitch and more than her relationships!)