#forgotten and underutilized characters

[wolfsbanesparks]

I'm curious and making a seperate post about the forgotten and older Captain Marvel characters from the past comics, but what are your thoughts on them? A bunch of them aren't even used anymore, but have so much potential to them if they're ever brought back.

Like Joane Jameson, apparently she was Billy and Captain Marvel's secretary at Whiz Radio, who knew of both of his identities and helped them. I really like this idea and think it would really be useful for a Billy Batson that's a street kid and constantly wary of adults who might want to turn him back in to the foster system, she provides a safe example for Billy to look up to and actually trust. Not just that, but she could also provide assistance for Billy/Captain Marvel on missions, things he may lack insight on or informing him of villainous attacks/incidents.

Are there any characters you wish to see be brought back to the present day comics or see them be included in fanfictions more? I also really like the idea of Dr. Sivana's children be brought back into the action more, especially Beautia, since she's actually a good person (from what I remember) and on good terms with the Captain

So it's taken me literally forever to answer this because every time I do I go down a mini research rabbit hole about older/unused characters because there are SO many that I would like to see more of.

My thoughts under the cut because it got long.

This isn't even everyone, but it's a lot of cool underutilized characters I'd love to see brought back.

Because of the number of characters, I'm splitting them into categories for ease of reading:

Civilians

Cissie Sommerly: Billy's girlfriend and the niece of his boss Sterling Morris (who also needs to used more tbh) She is a sweetheart who loves her little brother (Pete) and is very kind hearted. She didn’t get much development in the older comics, but she often had to deal with Billy and Cap’s shenanigans. I would love to see more of her!

The Sivana kids Beautia, Georgia, Thad Jr, and Magnificus: we recently got an adult Georgia in the New Champion of Shazam but I want to see the whole family together! And exploring their family dynamics with only half of them being supervillains would be so fun! They love each other but it's complicated. Georgia and Thad jr were basically parallels to Mary and Captain Marvel Jr and that was a fun balance. Meanwhile Beautia and Magnificus weren't really interested in their father's evil scheme though they gkt roped into them sometimes. And of course Beautia's crush on Captain Marvel causes problems but she's still awesome and even tutors Billy for school.

Sunny Sparkle: basically he was so universally beloved by everyone who met him that they just gave him things. Bank robbers would just hand him their stolen cash. Car jackers would give him the keys. He was gifted so much stuff every day that Billy had to help him donate and sell stuff regularly. In modern comics, I think it'd be cool if he was unknowingly a metahuman whose power was being hypnotically charming.

Freckles Marvel: she was Uncle Dudley's niece and despite not having powers, liked to tag along on adventures especially with Mary. She's a lot like Darla with her upbeat little sister energy. I can see them being friends in modern comics (or maybe even related since they both have the last name Dudley)

Dexter Knox: a child prodigy and inventor who was good friends with Billy. He's basically the smartest person in Fawcett and he loves showcasing his inventions to Billy.

Villains

Arson Fiend: an insurance salesman that uses extortion and threats of arson to meet his sales quota. He drinks a potion that gives him fire powers which he uses to commit arson against people who didn’t buy insurance from him. We've talked a bit about his connection to other Captain Marvel villains like Lady Blaze who healed him and gave him his powers back when he lost them. He's such a simply evil character that works really well for comics.

Chain Lightning: a teenager with multiple personalities and the power to control lightning. She has 4 personalities: Amy (the "main" alter), Amber (the more angry/volatile alter who protects the system), the Inner Child (no name besides that but encapsulates their child like wonder), and ID (the embodiment of their id, thus more impulsive than the others). She actually absorbs some of the Marvel’s magic lightning which allows her alters to temporarily have their own bodies. Amy is in love with Captain Marvel Jr because he saved her life, but the other alters are more wary of him, especially Amber. While any adaptation of Chain Lightning needs to be conscious of the ableism that happens when depicting a system, I think there's a lot of great potential with this character.

Sabina: she is technically from the Trials of Shazam not Fawcett comics, but I think she's cool. Basically she was raised by a cult called the Council of Merlin. She was destined to be 10th in line to receive the powers of Shazam so she starts killing those ahead of her in the order to ensure that once Billy was mo longer the Champion the powers would go to her. But when Billy was transitioning to become the Wizard he chose Freddy as his Champion, bypassing Sabina and the predestined order of things. So Sabina decides to kill Freddy AND the gods he was going to get his powers from. She's so evil and cool and I really like her design. I definitely think there's a way to bring her back.

Fawcett Heroes: there are a ton of fun characters that weren’t necessarily Captain Marvel characters but were part of the same world before he was a DC property.

Bulletman and Bulletgirl: literally Billy’s favorite superheros! He reads their comics and everything! They were very popular at the time, Whiz comics second most popular characters behind the Marvels. They are a husband and wife duo that gave themselves superpowers (strength, durability etc) which they use to fight crime, particularly supernatural villains.

Mr Scarlet and Pinky: Brian and Pinky Butler are a father-son vigilante duo. They were so good at their jobs that Brian barely had any work as a district attorney because of such low crime rates. They were basically a working class version of Batman and Robin. They're good friends with the Marvel family and when Mary got her first solo series, part of the advertising was having Pinky send her pen pal letters inviting her to have new adventures with him and the other Fawcett characters.

Ibis the Invincible: an Egyptian prince whose mummy was uncovered and brought back to life (by Shazam). He uses the Ibistick, an extremely powerful magical wand, to help people as he adjusts to modern life. He can do just about anything as long as he has his wand and often gets thrown in the middle of conflicts between gods.

Kid Eternity: aka Kit Freeman, Freddy’s long lost little brother with ghost powers! After dying in a boating accident when he wasn’t supposed to, he was brought back and given powers as compensation. He can summon spirits, turn invisible, and become intangible, though his powers shifted over time. He's such a cool character and he deserves more love!

Whew that was a lot! If anyone else has characters to add (and I know there are many) I would love to hear about it! And if any of these characters intrigue you I encourage you to check them out and sneak them into your fics!

[oriandcate]

me, leaving the theater after multiverse of madness: where vision? where quicksliver? where magneto? where deadpool? where hank pym? where tony? where supreme strange? where watcher? where caecillius? where ancient one? where kang? where loki? where darcy? where jimmy? where shang chi? where miles morales? where gwen? where venom? where

[lets-try-some-writing]

okay but what about robots in disguise?? its not a favorite of mine but it’s still pretty good. russel and his dad are decent lol

Frag that show.

It disrespected TFP on every level and for that it has my eternal hatred and contempt. The humans were annoying, and I HATED how many interesting plot threads there were that were either done poorly or with so little tact that the writing team should have just scrapped it. The designs are tolerable, but I hate how canon TFP characters lost so much of their individuality in their designs (coughtheopticscough). Smokescreen is fricking GONE, which bothers me more than I care to admit. We see the rest of the team enough to be reasonable, but they all appear in ways that don't really make me happy.

Ratchet was done well enough in my opinion. I like his RID design. It suites him. Optimus's design can go die in a hole, they brutalized that mech. Same with Jazz. Frag those stupid shoulder pads.

Grimlock is fun, I appreciate Sideswipe, although his helm hair thingies I think need a redesign to make sense in relation to his alt mode. Strongarm was HORRIBLY underutilized and I hardly saw any character growth in her. Drift and his crew were interesting, but similarly not given much room to grow. I really liked Windblade for the most part, especially the episode where she tries to baby Optimus and comes out having relearned that Op is still a PRIME with MILLIONS OF YEARS OF WAR EXPERIENCE.

The Primes who've done nothing but sit on their rears had NO RIGHT to belittle Optimus at every turn. Nor did the show have the right to make him an idiot for the sake of making Bee look smarter. As @nova--spark has pointed out, the personality Bee got in the show matches Smokescreen better. Bumblebee wouldn't have SUCKED so much at the whole leadership shtick. What happened to all that skill shown in the movie huh? HUH WRITING TEAM????!??!?!

While I am on this train. OPTIMUS DIED SO GOSH DARN LEAVE HIM ALONE!!! He should have stayed deceased, or if they REALLY needed him back, he should have either returned as an Civi or came back with actual issues. Like dang hear me out mate.

Optimus is forcefully returned to life, beats the Fallen with his borrowed power, but then has to actually deal with the consequences of essentially being a walking bomb for a while. Make him start losing plating, make his frame HURT, make him slim down again into the TFP base design. Just, give him a reason to have to sit back and RECOVER. Not this whole half hearted limping around garbage. To add to that, don't baby the mech. Let him stay at base and fulfill the role Ratchet did in TFP. Let him use his knowledge to teach and offer wisdom, plan battles and locate enemies. For Primus's sake he could have gone undercover on Cybertron or something if they really needed him to go be useless elsewhere.

THEY COULD HAVE EVEN HAD AN ARC WITH HIM GIVING THE TEAM A WAKEUP CALL!!! SIdeswipe has no respect for the mission, Grimlock is a fool, Strongarm is too snarky, and Bee in this seems to have largely forgotten about the seriousness except for during key moments. They could have made Optimus a minor antagonist, forcing the team to follow wartime standards since they laid down this plot thread regarding issues between leadership styles and Optimus trying to take control of the operation more than once.

I would have paid money to see Optimus's wartime mentality show itself in the best and worst ways through how he worked with this group of non war vets on a Decepticon capture mission. Maybe even have him use lethal force once or twice, or at least hint at it so that people can be reminded that he is a mech who went to war, killed countless bots, and both drove their people to and saved their people from extinction.

Bee could have had to teach Optimus to calm down. He could have helped eased his leader out of his wartime mindset. Or following that whole council running Cybertron route, Optimus could have had his moment of being very much right when he points out WHY he fought at all and gestures towards the new council. There was SO MUCH potential in this show, so many good threads and interesting Decepticon character that could have given so much depth to the war and the aligned continuity as a whole, but they were almost ALL ignored.

*deep breath*

Alright, sorry about that. I have big feelings in regards to how dirty Optimus was done. Moving on, the Predacons were killed off supposedly and that pisses me off ESPECIALLY because it was done in a fricking offscreen setting. What the hell happened to Predaking??? WHERE DID HE GO????

Starscream's design was rad though, not going to lie.

Where is Shockwave? No seriously where is that fragger? After several years of the map he MUST have an army growing in a tank somewhere.

Soundwave. Why. ARe. YOU. HERE??!?!?!? I love you man but dang you are so out of place. He made sense in the context of trying to get to Megatron, but idk he felt like he deserved better. He should have been the big brain behind the Cons on Earth if you asked me. It would have made everything far more intense, especially if the Cons dont follow Decepticon creed as seen by Soundwave.

The humans were annoying. Sorry they just were.

Fixit is Primus's gift to RID and he's one of the few individuals who makes it less annoying. Idk, I just like him in reasonable doses.

WHERE ARE THE TFP KIDS?! WHY HAS BEE NOT CALLED THEM?? GOOD HEAVENS THERE IS A WHOLE SUBPLOT RIGHT THERE!!!

*yet another deep breath*

Apologies.

To put things simply, I would rather a group of fanfic writers put RID together than whoever the writing team was. They could have made a coherent story with deep characters that actually address the ramifications of millions of years of war and lingering functionalist mindsets. They would have done the lore and the world justice even if there were no main characters popping up.

I think RID has so much potential, but that almost all of it went right down the toilet due to either the higher ups sticking their noses where they don't belong or because the writing team couldn't go two minutes without retconning or otherwise destroying established everything.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[red-balloon12]

Everybody Hates Lila (And Why It’s Concerning Sometimes)

Lila Rossi is not a stranger in the Miraculous fandom. In fact I’d argue she’s more infamous than Gabriel in some cases. She’s despised by nearly everyone and while some reasons are more justifiable than others, she’s all around not a good person and a mid at best character.

But here’s my deal with it. The fandom hates this girl to I’d like to say an….unhealthy degree. Like the amount of salt this character gets is unmatched. And I feel like the causation of all of this salt doesn’t really live up to the response.

Lila is a liar who causes characters to act out of character very often. And not only that but she also is Marinette’s main rival now and is a jerk to her. She’s underutilized and her lies aren’t that convincing and yet the story wants to convince us she’s more important than she really is pre butterfly miraculous.

This is Lila’s character summed up. At the most I’d expect is frustration mixed in with mild dislike. Reasonable but not over the top. Instead though, I see SEVERAL people make so many salt fics and talk so much shit about her that I just have to sit down and say….y’all need to chill. You all seriously need to chill.

The fandom talks about this character like she’s the spawn of Satan, something we’ve been criticizing Astruc for doing with Chloe, all because she doesn’t have as many redeeming traits as her. Did we forget that they’re BOTH kids? Both of them still have room to improve on themselves.

And I’ll admit it, I was one of those people who kept on saying “Why demonize Chloe when we have Lila” but thinking on it now, neither of them deserves to have that fate. If we REALLY need a character to do the whole “people don’t change” thing, why not Gabriel?

It’s so much better to have this lesson taught to adults to not be like Gabriel, to accept change and loss and to be better. To teach how heavy the impact of a lost love can be and how old age isn’t an excuse to be “stuck in your ways”.

Plus the lesson works better for someone who’s older than for teenagers who’s literally at the stage of their lives where change is everything. And I’m not saying Lila needs to be redeemed or she isn’t allowed to be a villain. What I’m saying is that the over salting on her character, a character that can be easily fixed and patched up, is kinda dumb and kinda annoying to see…especially when some people do like Lila.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened years ago with that one fan that claimed that they loved Lila. That’s what happens when you take salting on a character WAY too far. And I can say that it’s only gotten a little better.

I just don’t understand why people can’t spend their energy talking about how to make a character better instead of salting on them 24/7 and this goes for all of the characters in ML.

I’m gonna be in the minority when I say this but Lila doesn’t deserve to be salted in as much as she does. She deserves reevaluation and a true villain arc. The constant bashing and insulting her at any chance ain’t it.

But you wanna know the thing that frustrates me the most about the Lila salt? How she started getting salted on in the first place. Aka, her being another barrier to Adrienette.

If y’all don’t know already, I don’t like the lovesquare and even back then I didn’t like it. And when I started seeing people hate Lila for this reason, I got very annoyed. It’s the same reason as to why people hated Kagami and it’s a stupid reason (imo). At least the other reasons why she’s hated had some foundation and sense.

TLDR: Lila is a mess but she’s not a mess that’s beyond repair but the constant salting on her and her character isn’t going to do anything. (If you really wanna salt on someone, salt on the writers for making her writing so subpar)

[indigodiskmybeloved]

Terapagos' Wasted Potential and My Rewrite of This

Aside from Pecharunt and Zygarde, I think Terapagos may be the most underutilized and wasted potential in all of Pokemon.

The second I saw Terapagos' design, I was hyped for the little turtle. I was attached to the theories and predictions surrounding it.

I am a HUGE fan of the trope of "ancient giant dead creature being the land in this world." Like the Titan's body in The Owl House.

I know it was just a theory and most likely wasn't going to come true, but I was hoping that Terapagos was Paldea. Imagine how cool it would be for Heath and Professor Turo to be searching in vain for Terapagos, only for it to be the land of Paldea the entire time!

That would be a generally more interesting idea and honestly kind of cool to see in the DLC!

So what did Gamefreak do? How did they write the story of Terapagos?

Simple. They didn't. There is not much of a story for them, which kinda sucks.

All we know about Terapagos is that there were more of them before they went extinct, and it's the source of Terastal Phenomenon.

How does a small turtle have enough power to put Tera crystals all over Paldea, Kitakami, and Blueberry Academy?

Short answer: It's a magic Turtle, stop asking.

Because why spend time developing the basic world building of your region when there's other things to explore.

Which brings me to my second point:

The Indigo Disk Was More of Teal Mask Part 2 Than Its Own Story

The Teal Mask DLC was FANTASTIC. It had an engaging and interesting story, especially with the role swap with the Loyal 3 and the Ogre. Still wished they did something with Pecharunt relating to the Loyal 3, but it's acceptable.

But the Indigo Disk should have focused more on Area Zero and Terapagos, rather than Kieran's revenge arc. Terapagos was just a plot device for Kieran to grab, not its own separate character. Have Kieran's arc be a separate story from the Terapagos story.

Or shit, wrap up Kieran's story with Possessed Kieran in Mochi Mayhem or something. If you give too much spotlight to a character, other characters end up forgotten about, or underdeveloped.

And that is my main issue with Terapagos. We learn NOTHING.

How did the little turtle give Paldea so much power? Why is this one hibernating for all this time? If this baby could hibernate and be fine, why couldn't the other Terapagos' do so? If they had enough power to potentially danger the world with crystals I doubt tectonic plates could kill them!

Which brings me to my third point.

Terapagos Being the Land of Paldea Would Make a Fuck Ton of Sense

Let's look a the Pokedex Entries:

"The world as the ancients saw it" and "resembling a planet floating in space"

Terapagos is referencing the World Turtle, the story about a Turtle who CARRIES THE WORLD ON ITS BACK

You cannot give us this information and have a design inspired by a turtle carrying the world on its back and NOT GIVE US TERAPAGOS BEING PALDEA

Past legends like Necrozma and Eternatus had giant otherworldly magical forms, which looked threatening. They resembled the source of what power they give to the region! Ultra Necrozma stole the world's light, and Eternatus turns into a giant fucking hand!

If you wanna make Terapagos a bit of a threat at least, make it the region. Up until this point, we've been told that Terapagos terastilizing is gonna doom Paldea and put it in danger.

So, in the scenario of the giant Terapagos being the land of Paldea, what would happen if it woke up?

Kieran pulls out the crystal of its child, and the big Terapagos notices that their child is not near them.

And then the world shakes, and Terapagos awakens. Kieran and the others find out that the world of Paldea is on a giant turtle with no way to calm it down.

Now there's much more at stake here, and it genuinely sounds cooler than a baby turtle choosing its new parent.

Now you might be asking, "Its a Pokemon game! They don't need to explain everything!"

This is the same company that brought us the story of Scarlet and Violet. We got the AI Professor, the truth about Team Star, Nemona, Arven, Penny, the Teal Mask, just all of it.

To end the Indigo Disk on a bit of a lackluster note, it's kinda sad. There was so much they could have done with Terapagos, but they just left it empty.

[kitnita]

oooh just saw your tags on the stucky post - do u have any good stucky fics to rec?? im talking like looong fics. shit that like changes ur life. i was never into stucky when the fandom was super active but now im like !!! theres a goldmine of good fics out there i just know it

yeah absolutely!!!! but okay so. a lot of the stucky fic i read, i read back in high school before i started obsessively bookmarking things on ao3. i'm almost positive there are some blind spots on this list because i'm just going off the things i do have bookmarked rn. like i also want to dive back into the tag at some point & see what stuff i've missed / forgotten.

THAT SAID pretty much all the big stucky fics i do remember were in my bookmarks so i'm working off those! also thank you so much for sending this because i queued that post & didn't actually end up going back to read any stucky fics. i want to reread everything now.

actual recs under the cut!!

sincerely, your pal by lettered (rated m, 65,620)

i will always be obsessed with an epistolary fic. 10/10

to memory now I can't recall by etharei (rated e, 102,600)

uses time travel in a really interesting way, with it almost acting as a bodyswap scenario between the past and present. really interesting device in a fic with bucky pov.

building from the ground up by emilianadarling (series, various ratings & various lengths w a total wordcount of 68,687)

soooo good. i remember the (chronologically) first & the (writing order) first in the series better than the other two, but they're all good!! spans time from during the war to after the events of the winter soldier.

you know i dreamed about you by napricot (rated e, 59,311)

dreamsharing!! underutilized fanfic trope!!!

between everything, yourself, and home by napricot (rated e, 24,396)

i reread this one more recently than a lot of the others on the list & it hit so good, definitely recommend it.

United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015) by fallingvoices & radialarch (rated t, 20,605)

the formatting & framing & storytelling devices in this one go hard, like, i'm pretty sure it was one of the fics mentioned on that post. it'd be worth checking out for that alone except that the fic is just Also good.

the way to a man's heart by niitza & whatthefoucault (rated t, 43,837)

this is one of the stucky fics i think about all the time. food as a healing device hits every time and it's SO good in this one.

the size of perfection by phoenike (e, 31,193)

if you want a lot of 1940's angsting about what the supersoldier serum does to a guy's dick, this is the fic for you.

all the angels and the saints by speranza (rated e, 48,740)

in the authors note of this one it's described as "a motherfucking 95 year epic love story of socialism! science fiction! and hard core gay fucking!" so. worth a read for sure.

roll on by jaxington (rated m, 89,113)

the historical queer themes in this were so good!! the supporting characters & world built up Hit. also i forgot/never knew it was part of a three fic series that is 306,592 words long. definitely read those too.

steve rogers at 100: celebrating captain america on film by eleveninches, hellotailor, M_Leigh, neenya, saintsideways, & tigrrmilk (rated e, 10,228)

exactly what it sounds like. from what i remember this probably barely counts as a stucky fic but it's so fun.

tin soldiers by idrilka (rated t, 19,743)

another one where the formatting & framing & storytelling devices go hard!!

a line that goes all the way by napricot (rated e, 45,218)

realizing now this is the third napricot fic on the list so probably anything else you find by them will also hit!! this one's more recent than a lot of the other fics here but i remember really enjoying it.

tezeta (nostalgia) by vowelinthug (rated e, 20,140)

another more recent fic set in wakanda!! it's steve's turn to be a total maladjusted disaster <3

sparked up like a book of matches by sena (rated m, 26,734)

didn't remember a lot of this one from my bookmarks so i started reading it to jog the memory & now am going to continue reading it. the vibes are vibing.

always stay near me, for tomorrow i will have much to do by roguewrld (rated e, 39,990)

this one's framing isn't as wild as some of the others i've rec'ed but it's still a little noticeable. a great non-linear bucky centric fic.

there's nothing left of you by notallbees (rated e, 22,346)

a fic set during the war!! those are always fun!!! and by fun, i mean. you know. it's good though, very in bucky's head.

i can feel the cold changing us inside by tesselated (rated m, 24,140)

a really good post-winter soldier recovery fic.

might never be normal again (but who cares) by napricot (rated e, 51,540)

okay one last napricot rec from my bookmarks. tagged 'Steve's Slow Motion Midlife Crisis' so you know it's good.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Mark Waid got the chance to write about his long-forgotten, underutilized Golden Age blorbo and gave him an in-depth backstory, complex characterization, and an arc as an ultimately very positive father figure. Max Mercury is by no means perfect, but Waid clearly loves the character and brings the audience in on that, and subsequent Impulse writers followed suit.

Jack C. Harris and Christopher Priest got the chance to write about their long-forgotten, underutilized Golden Age blorbo and gave him an in-depth backstory, complex characterization, and...the absolute jerkiest approach to fatherhood. Harris and Priest both write about how much they loved the original Ray, and it's clear from their investment in the story how much they do, but somehow they're also determined to make both characters and audience loathe him.

The two approaches to fandom.

[dragongutsixofficial]

I think Ladislava is incredibly underutilized, In the cannon yes, but also from a fanfiction standpoint. She deserved better than an offscreen death, (If the cast'd had any reaction at all you could have considered it fridging) and "captain of Edelgard's personal guard" is prime real estate for named character. I'm not asking that she become majorly important, but I think that just having her around makes the world feel open and alive. To have her around just doing her job is comforting, and for it to be done by a named character rather than Imperial Guard No. 3 is far more interesting

When I work with her, I imagine Ladislava as a woman of strong will, loyal to the crown and dedicated to doing her job. She would have been around since Edelgard was very young, making her a grounding force in Edelgard's life. In fact, I have her leaving her position as general to become captain of the guard again after the war, perhaps even on her own request. Edelgard is happy to oblige as she's missed having Ladislava around.

I also think it would be really funny if Edelgard had a crush on Ladislava as a small child. She's obviously forgotten all about this and is thoroughly embarrassed when Hubert brings it up, but Dorothea eats this kind of gossip for breakfast and Edelgard has to beg the both of them to stop talking.

I absolutely agree !! As a general rule, i think Ladislava, Randolph and Fleche are all under-utilized.

As for me, I agree with the fact that Ladislava and Randolph were probably in Edelgard's life way earlier than the plot brings them in! I did think Ladislava was younger though, so I pictured them more as starting their careers in Enbarr as soldiers around the time Edelgard (and the other siblings) are let out of the tunnels after the experiments- but that's just my headcanon. I'd like to think they became friends at this point (especially with Aline and Adel who would be closer in age to them), so that they'd be some of the first to learn about Edelgard's plans!

I also like to think that Ladislava, Randolph, Adel and Aline took bets on when and how Metodey would die and they found it all extremely underwhelming

I feel like Three Hopes fixed that problem with Randolph by giving him another role than just dying and being someone you can chat with at camp more often and all that but Ladislava is just. Forgotten yet again from what i remember xD

[gil-estel]

January 2023 Reads

The River of Silver, S. A. Chakraborty (2022)

Silver in the Wood, Emily Tesh (2019)

Drowned Country, Emily Tesh (2020)

The Spear Cuts Through Water, Simon Jimenez (2022)

Shards of Earth, Adrian Tchaikovsky (2021)

Eyes of the Void, Adrian Tchaikovsky (2022)

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky (2015)

Children of Ruin, Adrian Tchaikovsky (2019)

River of Silver ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It's been over a year since I finished Empire of Gold, but jumping back in via The River of Silver, it was like I never left Daevabad. Reading these shorts was much the same comfort-food experience of scrolling through AO3 after finishing a series in search of fics tagged "Missing Scene". Some of my favorites were "Duriyah", the alternative epilogue to Empire of Gold, and the last chapter with Nahri & Ali. It's testament to the vividness of Chakraborty's characters that each of these stories felt like visiting an old friend.

Silver in the Wood ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A cozy little book, which manages to be sweet but not saccharine. At times it felt like events could use a little bit more room to breath, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Drowned Country ⭐⭐⭐½

A bit of a disappointment after Silver in the Wood. Silver is an altogether less sympathetic narrator than Tobias, and the story itself is much more disjointed and the ending a little too neat. I find myself wishing for a book about the adventures of Maud, Mrs Silver, and Tobias (sans Silver himself) all of whom were rather underutilized in this story.

The Spear Cuts Through Water ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It was initially a little difficult to start this book—the second-person narration and setting seemingly disconnected from the synopsis raising the barrier to entry. But boy was pushing through it worth it! The prose really manages to convey a sense of mythic weight and wonder and the crush of ages. That being said, this book isn't going to be for everyone—it has ritualistic cannibalism, for a start. While some books are perfect on their own, I will admit that I find myself wanting to read more in this universe; it feels like room still remains for a sequel (a thread still unknotted, or just loosely so... easily unraveled).

Shards of Earth ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book scratched the hyperspace-navigation-shenanigans itch that the Rebels sequel probably won't. I fully enjoyed the world-building and the ensemble cast. The romantic tension/chemistry fell a little flat for me, but honestly that's not really the point of the story so it's not a big deal.

Eyes of the Void ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This one was *very* fun and I'm excited to see how the series concludes! My only complaint is that at times the exposition felt repetitive, with the narration rehashing events multiple times as if we might have forgotten over the last 100 pages.

Children of Time ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am obsessed with the world building in this book, and utterly fascinated by the time scales across which the plot occurs. Very unexpected and so interesting.

Children of Ruin

I'm currently at 51% and loving it! Both a direct sequel to Children of Time and an exciting, new narrative.

[lesbianrobin]

is it just me or is the script so bland and dry compared to what the actors improvised? we know joe quinn did an amazing job with eddie, but joe keery also seems to have improvised some great lines. if you take away all of this, it's so devoid of content and personality. these actors were really pulling this season by its bootstraps. damn, i'd say the whole show. i fully believe that if we didn't have this extraordinary talented cast, it would've been easily forgotten.

no yeah i think stranger things would absolutely not be anywhere near as big as it is without their cast. the duffers got extremely lucky finding the people that they did, particularly mbb, david, joe keery, caleb, sadie, gaten, maya, and jquinn. they all made those characters Their Own and i cannot imagine anybody else in their places.

getting winona was also obviously instrumental to the show's success and she does an amazing job with everything they give her, even though she's been severely underutilized lately. finn and noah were a huge part of making s1/2 successful, though i personally think they've both kinda been phoning it in for s4 and parts of s3.

overall i think the cast is the reason why st is memorable and So popular. while the show has some interesting ideas and impressive production, the writing itself isn't quite enough to carry it to its current level of iconicism in the media landscape and i think we owe a lot to the cast.

[mylittlerwde]

Nitpick November speedrun

Ozpin group a bunch of failures Day 18

This has been stated by all. But Ozpin group has done nothing. I can't think of a single thing they accomplished. And to be clear, I mean as a part of Ozpin group, not as individuals. For example, if Oz sent someone to protect the fall maiden, I consider that an Oz group thing. While saving your niece is an individual thing.

The only ones I can say did something for the cause are Oz, and Ironwood. And even then, it wasn't much. If Glynda was still a character, I would consider her as well. The rest has done nothing or has failed every mission they have been given.

Lionheart was a traitor who helped Sabotage the cause. While we're told he did good, we're never going to be shown what he did, so he might have done nothing.

Qrow was supposed to be a spy, but nothing important ever came of it. The one time he could have been useful is locating Cinder and her teammates. Yes, emerald shielded their face from him. But he's been spying on Salem for a while. Enough for him to be traumatized. You're telling me he never brother to get a good look on who Salem is working with. He was also supposed to watch the fall maiden, and he failed.

Raven did nothing and ran away.

Summer ran off and died. She may have done something, but we don't know what it is, so she might have well done nothing.

Glynda has been forgotten. But we know she is repairing Vale.

Ironwood attempts to get communication back on, and he tried to go on the offensive on Salem. But nothing came of it. He became a (badly written) villain.

Theodore is only now coming up, and I haven't read the book. But I doubt he do anything important in the plot.

Ozpin is killed, so we know nothing about what he did for the cause.

Oz is underutilized. The only reason I'm not calling him useless is because the writer showed and told us what he has done. But they might retcon it someday.

I wish them being a part of Ozpin group meant something. But it doesn't, so we're left with a group who accomplished nothing on screen.

[erumai-maadu]

I recently watched those war arc episodes around 370s to 380s and I observed that most of the moves were only of space-time ninjutsu and flying raijin.

If Kishimoto ever used her potential to the fullest, she would've contributed much more in the war arc but... Sounded like nobody wanted her to do and just let people sh*t talk about her not doing much 😞

"If Kishimoto ever used her potential to the fullest, she would've contributed much more" WHAT I'M SAYING ABOUT EVERY WOMAN IN THIS SHOW!!!!! >:(

Tenten was done especially dirty (during the war arc, yeah but also through the whole series). She got her moment to shine with the Sage of Six Path Tools, but nothing further than that. She's criminally underutilized, which is saying something because that's true of every woman in the show. But it's especially bad with Tenten because so many of the moments she gets aren't even manga canon, they're scenes added in the anime.

Her power set is so cool and having her use any kind of space-time ninjutsu would be amazing, she's clearly got fuinjutsu and space-time ninjutsu capabilities so like... take it further?? There are so many cool space-time ninjutsu that seem within her capabilities and I think she definitely could have played a bigger role during the war if kishi hadn't forgotten about any character that wasn't a Hokage, an Uchiha, or Naruto.

[thelreads]

I've been reading and enjoying your live-blog of Vigilantes as someone who couldn't get into it (Soga. I hate him!) I'm glad to see I haven't missed much! I don't think anyone's brought it up but you comment that Aizawa's backstory should have been in the main series (which I agree with) and I wonder if it was in Vigilantes to boost sales/interest/readership/etc. IDK how well vigilantes did sales wise but I haven't seen a lot of fan works for it

Oh I'm glad you're enjoying it! It is a shame the problems this series had, I wanted it to be better so much... But well, the end is approaching anyways, and if this is how we're gonna go down, well...

We can always reforge reality.

And I do wonder if that was some ploy to gather more readers. I talked a lot before about how... Distinct, the start and the middle of the story were. At some point the characters changed but not in a way that signified growth, it's more like they started to become more in line with the stereotypical tropes. Koichi went from a cynical but good-hearted straight-man to a dense doofus, Pop went from a small celebrity secretly in love with Koichi who was looking for a chance to tell the truth but happened to have a short fuse to a generic tsundere, knuckles went from a funny bloodthirsty fighter hiding secrets from his friends who decided to pass the torch once he saved who was truly important to him because his fight was over to, well *gestures wildly* to whatever happened to him along the way.

And we won't even touch Soga and co.

My point is, it seems like they started to conform more to the usual shonen molds as it went, and I can't help but think it had something to do with getting more readers. The heroes from the main series also showed up constantly and pretty much highjacked the plot every single arc, which, sure, is cool when it was Tensei and Fatgum, since they weren't seen too much in the main story, but Aizawa got a whole arc dedicated solely to him, where Koichi showed up only twice.

And what about all the cool characters we got to know? What about Tamao, Monika, the criminal twins, that girl who puked on Koichi, the magician and his band, the president and her dancers, the people turned into nomus that were having trouble reintegrating into society, Rachel and Bam, the X-bros, koichi's mom... all of them discarded or forgotten or there just to fill the background. There were so many cool people back then who were severely underutilized, even Stain could have been more prominent in the story if handled correctly. Hell I wanted to see more of Pamela, she stole my heart, the best character in the series.

It is a shame, I wanted this to be so much better, I can see all that untapped potential just there, waiting to be used but alas, that will fall for us to solve...

The end is approaching for this series... And a new beginning shall take place... (:

[sirdust]

alright friends and followers who haven't yet smashed that unsubscribe button. since the new episode jingled the bells on its jester cap in such a way that i sat pleased upon my guilded throne, i am going to offer up some proper thoughts/analysis for the first time in Like A Year. as a treat, for all of us.

i haven't been posting about new episodes for a few reasons, the main three of which are:

A) on the basis of her much-documented shady (and sometimes queerphobic) character and poor leadership over the past few years, i no longer support vivziepop. (don't argue with me in the replies about this.)

B) i don't support the type of crit culture that has made a home for itself on this website. i think it's toxic, trite, and full of bad faith actors who don't know when to log off.

C) i prefer to spend my time focusing on the things i enjoy. the hellaverse served that purpose for me for a few years, and i wanted to move on when that was no longer the case.

all that being said, i feel much more positively about the latest episode. some of these positive qualities are still unfortunately marred by the overall dip in writing quality and number of contrivances that have become endemic to the second season, but my special interests have only rarely gone away for good. helluva's faded as an interest, but i still enjoy talking about it privately, and i figure i might as well use this blog once in a while, since it's still up.

the main issue that has plagued s2 up until this point is that nothing has felt necessary or consequential. without going into great individual detail, the previous three episodes have failed to build upon what's been previously established, and have instead continued adding new elements, or delivering poignant scenes with a total lack of proper setup. the circus was unnecessary and, in fact, hurt the show and its characters by establishing that their values and goals are the same now as they were at a very young age (with the exception of fizz). seeing stars was badly paced (even for this show) and inconsistent with what had come before in terms of character writing and development. exes and oohs was a worldbuilding nightmare that exploited images and scenes of physical abuse for cheap, unearned drama, along with adding yet another recurring villain to the show's underutilized rogue's gallery. none of these episodes were even centered around the show's premise, but instead of deviating from the story engine to meaningfully develop the story or raise the stakes, the storylines have all felt tangential, and this has lent them a fanfiction-esque quality.

western energy gives me a glimmer of hope that things could get back on track, because even though it also deviates from the central premise of the show, it demonstrates a return to the show's original b-plot of goetia family drama. although it introduces new elements to the storyline, it does so in a way that pays off what came before and raises the stakes. in the harvest moon festival, striker said he would finish the job on stolas the next time he saw him, and if it hadn't been for the phone call from stella, striker would have successfully killed stolas. we see stolas use abilities that have been previously established such as his demon form and paralyzing gaze to try and fight back rather than being forgotten about for the sake of plot convenience. this makes the episode feel like a proper continuation of s1 and a meaningful moment of forward motion for the story, rather than an episode based only on an idea the writers had and thought would be cool.

striker is a particularly good example of what this episode does right, because even if his escape at the end feels cheap (and was possibly changed later in the process after the role was recast), the episode uses the tools at its disposal to develop striker's character and add a new level of mystery and intrigue that is directly tied to the show's central theme of class tension. class tension was OOZING from every episode of s1. it has been almost completely ignored in s2. the return to the development of characters around this central theme is fundamentally necessary in order to maintain a sense of identity for the show, because even if there isn't a serialized plot, there needs to be something for the show to be ABOUT. even though the b-plot with loona felt like a complete contrivance, its inclusion at least supports this theme by demonstrating how difficult it is for lower-class demons to access the resources that they need to survive. it also allows for the ending sequence to take place in the way it does, and that sequence, as a moment, was actually very effective.

i've been typing for a while and am starting to get sick of it, so i'll wrap it up.

essentially, i have more hope for the show's writing now than i've had in nearly a year, but it needs to continue following through on the basics of storytelling (such as setup and payoff) in order to meaningfully recover. i still worry that the show is only capable of compelling moments over a coherent full picture, but this episode does seem to indicate that the show hasn't lost its way entirely. while this blog won't return to its former level of activity, i'll be keeping an eye on things, and if i have more thoughts in the future, i'll offer them up here.

now take this small cowboy with you for good luck on your travels, and enjoy his radiating miasma of not-yet-wasted potential.

[best-kirby-character-tournament]

This isn't at all relevant to the question of waddle representative but I just want to remind everyone that bandana dee debuted in kirby super star, in the megaton punch minigame, where, although he is the weakest opponent, he can still punch through part of popstar. We know and love him for his spear but never forget that he's also perfectly capable of Just Straight Up Decking A Guy and i think that's a great and oft forgotten aspect of his character that's been underutilized over the years

^^ Valid! :3

[dans-den]

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review

What's going on everyone! Dan here and today I'll be reviewing Shazam! Fury of the Gods!

I'll try to not give as much spoilers as possible but there will be some, you've been warned.

First off I'd like to say, I loved the first Shazam! movie from 2019. I thought it was the best DC hero movie made in the 2010's even beating out movies like Man of Steel and the Dark Knight Rises. So when I heard Shazam! was getting a sequel, I was excited and looking forward to it thinking it'll be as good as the original, maybe even better. Unfortunately that was not the case as this movie was a bit messier than the original in terms of plot and some character development issues. This movie was horrible, but it wasn't as great as I was hoping either. I'll be going over the strengths and weaknesses of this film.

Now this is where the real problems start, Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock. As we all know, Johnson wanted the role of the Black Adam character and years later as he is now one of the top A list actors in the business, he got his wish. However, He would only do the role if he got his own stand alone Black Adam movie which he did, I have a full review of The Black Adam movie and mentioned this in that review but didn't go into how it would hurt the Shazam! franchise. At the cost of giving Black Adam his own solo film, it crippled the sequel for Shazam! especially given that Black Adam is the most iconic villain Captain Marvel himself has in his rogue's gallery. I'm sure this sequel was meant to have these two meet but unfortunately Dwayne got his way and pretty much left the Shazam crew scrambling. It's a similar situation to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever where they had the plot ready but due to the death of Chadwick Boseman they had to rewrite the script which had a very mixed reception to say the least. I find it to be a real shame we didn't get the battle of Captain Marvel vs Black Adam on the big screen, that would have been epic. Who knows? maybe they'll work something out to where they'll meet and fight, maybe Superman can get in on this too like Superman/Shazam: Return of Black Adam (which is honestly great). Though I highly doubt that as Zachery Levi and Dwayne Johnson are going through some beef due to this issue. But as it stands, they had to rewrite the script and salvage what they could.

The plot now is there are three daughters of a god named Atlas, these gods were sealed away and because of the events of the last movie, the seal is broken and they are free. Now they're after the Marvel family deeming that mortals should not have powers of the gods. They try to take those powers away all while trying to get the gold apple to plant the tree of life back at their home to restore it to its former beauty. The villains here were more or less made for the movie and aren't really Captain Marvel villains, they fit more as Wonder Woman villains if I'm being honest. The villains aren't bad and I do like the actresses who portrayed them. The sisters provided three different sides/views such as Anthea (Rachael Zegler) being the good side of the sisters, Hespera (Helen Mirren) being the neutral side of the sisters, and Kalypso (Lucy Liu) being the evil side of the sisters. They all did a great job in their role, their powers are cool but I feel are underutilized from their full potential against the Marvel Family. Hespera controlling elements she should basically be the Avatar and use all the elements to greater degrees but is mostly used as like a power puncher, Kalypso has the power to whisper in your ear and make you do as she commands and even spread it like a plague but its only used in the first half of the movie and is pretty much forgotten about later on when she has her dragon to destroy everything. Anthea has the power of accessibility where she can pull a Doctor Strange and can warp the room and areas around which is honestly cool VFX. The fighting and VFX were not bad honestly, definitely better than what Marvel has been churning out lately. As I said, they did good and served their purpose, but I would have preferred Black Adam or even another Captain Marvel villain like say Chain Lightning, she would probably be better to add to the story than random gods.

The main cast did a great job again like in the first one, Zachery Levi as Captain Marvel did great, I enjoy his humor and him as a boy in a grown mans body just like the rest of the cast being kids in adult bodies. I love the dialogue and humor with the Marvel family. I will say that there is a bit of development for Billy with having abandonment issues which makes him hold on too tight to everyone around him and Freddy especially gets sick and tired of it which causes some issues within the Marvel Family. Freddy was basically the B plot of this movie with him wanting to do his own thing whether it be as a hero or just his personal life in general but Billy is just reluctant to the idea of anyone in his family going off and doing their own thing. I wish these aspects of character development was more prevalent through out the film but it was sprinkled in here and there. at the end, Billy realizes that his family will always be there for him and this helps him realize that the wizard chose right with him. There is a cameo towards the end of a familiar hero and they'll be crucial towards the end after the final battle.

Post credit scenes are a bit jarring but reflects what plans they have for the Shazam franchise (if they can get any backing behind it now). There are two post credit scenes this movie has and both I think are meant to set up another Shazam! movie in the near future. Though after the mixed to somewhat negative reception of the Shazam! sequel, odds of there being another Shazam! movie is a bit slimmer than before. I honestly wouldn't mind another Shazam! movie but right now DC is just a complete mess with projects being cancelled out of nowhere, The Flash still going forward as planned despite the Ezra Miller controversies, and with Warner Bros just being a complete fiasco right now. Things are uncertain but hopefully things will be better from here on out or at least after The Flash movie.

Overall, the sequel wasn't as good as the original. I felt that Dwayne Johnson really threw this franchise under the bus and left them to pick up the pieces. As I said I like the Shazam! movie, I like Zachery Levi and I wanted to like this sequel but so many problems plagued this production. I wish they could have taken more time to make it better but I guess it is what it is. It's not terrible, just underwhelming compared tot he original. Hopefully DC/WB can get it together and churn out bangers in the future.

Rating this movie I'd give it:

6.5/10

Despite the problems it suffered in production, it is still a fun movie to watch and if you're looking for a fun movie with kids or family then this is definitely serviceable. I'm hoping The Flash and the upcoming Blue Beetle movie will be better but we'll see. That's all I have to say.

See ya!