#i added ages to some of the events to put things into perspective

[greeenchrysanthemums]

The timeline of past events for the GG rivals au

Year 547:

War breaks out between Wintertide and Coral Crest.

Impulse and Skizz join the army.

Etho leaves his village to fight in the war (he is 16)

Years 548-49:

Etho grows to be feared and infamous.

Year 550:

Grian and Pearl meet (they are 14 and 13).

Year 551:

Ren becomes king following the suspicious death of his father (he is 24; young for a king)

Year 552:

Scott becomes Impulse's squire.

Grian vanishes, leaving Pearl all alone.

Joel becomes Lizzies personal guard.

year 553:

Etho is captured by Coral Crest -> set free by Joel.

Mumbo and Grian meet.

Pearl starts her mercenary work.

Wintertide and Coral Crest enter a tense and hostile truce at the very end of the year.

year 554:

Whispers of a resistance in Wintertide begin.

Year 555:

Etho helps Mumbo and joins the resistance.

Scott becomes a knight.

Pearl and Scott meet.

Martyn joins the Wintertide army.

Year 556:

Gem leaves her village and becomes Impulse's squire (she is 17).

Gem and Grian have their first run-in and Gem is promoted to knight.

Cleo joins the resistance.

Year 557:

Jimmy and Tango join the resistance.

Bigb joins the resistance.

Marytn and Ren grow close -> Martyn becomes his personal guard.

Etho and Gem cross paths again.

Year 558:

Pearl reunites with Grian.

Pearl befriends Gem.

Year 559:

Grian and Mumbo meet Scar.

Scar agrees to help + joins the resistance.

Year 560-561:

Lots of back and forth between Gem and Grian.

No other major events.

Year 562:

war breaks out again.

Year 563:

Wintertides Commander dies -> Gem takes over.

Year 564:

Coral Crests ruler dies -> Lizzie takes over.

another uneasy truce is made, and fighting is halted.

Years 665-66:

Relative peace between the kingdoms

Some back and forth between Gem and Grian, but things seem to be pretty quiet on the resistance's part.

Year 567:

Current events

[galedekarios]

gale, waterdeep & coinage

just musings on gale's means as well as waterdeep lore bc i love waterdeep:

Gale: Believe it or not, but I witnessed a similar standoff back at the Yawning Portal. Of course, an establishment like that invites all sorts of outlandish entertainments. Player: What's the Yawning Portal Gale: An inn in Waterdeep. Never a dull moment there. Adventurers come from all over Faerûn to try their luck down the well: Leads into the Undermountain, you see - full of death, danger, and vast amounts of treasure. Hard to resist. Player: What was the standoff about? Gale: Oh, a drow, a dragonborn, and a cleric of Cyric walk into a bar. Your standard fare. Maybe someone was cheating at cards, maybe it was some weird lovers' quarrel. In any case, out came the crossbow, and a hush fell over the entire room.devnote Player: What happened next? Gale: I stood up and yelled: 'Shadowdark ale for everyone!' The crowd cheered, the tension drained into five dozen tankards, and soon all was well again. Gale: In a place like the Yawning Portal, the most powerful magic is calling for a round of drinks. Gale: Mind you, all I did was call for ale, but you went and stood in front of that crossbow. I'd drink to that.

i will definitely take a look at the yawning portal itself at a later date (as well as other points of interest within the city) bc it's very interesting as a focal point in waterdhavian history and society.

while we can only speculate about what gale's background in terms of means, wealth and standing looked like since things like tutors and even maids were not uncommon in waterdhavian society, it is interesting to note that he - whatever his personal means at the time this event took place - felt the need to defuse the brewing fight with 'five dozen tankards'.

we do actually know how much one such tankard costs at the yawning portal:

[source]

17cp x 60 = 1020cp

this was interesting to me in terms of this meant in actual terms of coinage and wealth and money spent.

here's an overview of waterdeep's various coins:

source: volo's waterdeep enchiridion

gale spent over a 1000 nibs/copper pieces that evening (or more than one sun/platinum coin) to de-escalate a potentially lethal fight.

to put that into perspective, i'm adding this reference of prices here:

source: volo's waterdeep enchiridion

gale also attended blackstaff academy, with elminster as his mentor. the academy had costs attached with it:

Acceptance to the Academy was predicated on either demonstrating extraordinary magical aptitude (those who could not cast arcane spells were very rarely admitted) or having a particularly compelling personal history. Joining the Academy was free, however monthly dues were required to continue attendance. These fees started at 10 gp per month and increased as a student gained seniority and required more advanced tutelage. In addition, it was a requirement that any new spell that was discovered or researched by an apprentice had to be added to Blackstaff Tower's library. [source]

ten gold pieces per month as fees, although with gale being elminster's mentee, he may have chosen to assist gale and morena partially or fully with any costs that blackstaff academy may have charged.

it does sound, however his childhood may have looked like with a presumably absent father and a mother with her hands full with a young genius, able to conjure rabbits as a babe, summoning a tressym, a magma mephit who set a room on fire, as well as casting a level 3 spell (fireball) at age 8 or younger, that gale at least during the height of his career as a wizard, lived comfortably.

ending this with more food for thought and a banter between gale and karlach:

Gale: They say wealth offers a form of magic. Alas, it's one I've rarely dabbled in. Karlach: Nor I. Never had more than a few coppers in the city, and any soul coins in Avernus went straight to Zariel. Gale: Make no mistake. Souls are sold for coins up here as well. All too cheaply, in most cases.

[bluepallilworld]

Hehe 4th edition of...

DARK CREAM (AND POST DARK CREAM ) SHIPCHILDREN COLLAB! <3

After the summer vacation, the kids are invited to join the dark cream shipkids school! For their first day and class, all ages are mixed in one singular classroom... Will everybody stay quiet while waiting for the teachers or will chaos arise???

What's that?

3 years ago, I hosted a big collab for christmas, 2 years ago it was for the new year then last year we had an halloween celebration and now the fun continues!

This year, I'm hosting a big collab with a theme of "going back to school" to make some kind of a "family picture" with some of the dark cream ship children ! Nor Cross or S!Dream will be in the final picture as there aren't exactly the same depending on the child.

How to participate?

1- You need to have a dark cream/dark xunshine ship child (Cross x Shattered Dream kid). I'm making an exception for post dark cream kids ;). As long as Dream has been Shattered at one point, the kid can participate.

2- Draw your kid wearing a proper school outfit! (They will be indoors so you may choose to have them sitting on a chair, on a table or standing up, you can give them a school bag and anything you can think of! You can draw accessories aside if you want me to put it on their table or something (pens, notebook...) but no obligation here ^^)

3- Send me the drawing or tag me on it so I can get it! The drawing must have a transparent background so I can easily edit it. If you put a watermark, please put it on the inside of your drawing so that I don't have to erase/move it to make place for the other children.

You need to send me the drawing before the 10th of august so I have time to edit it properly before the big day and in case there are some problems. (It can however be discussed if needed, exceptions will be accepted or refused case by case)

I'll post it the 1st of september (probably early in the day) !

If you have any questions, please ask!

If someone without a kid wanna participate (or just want to participate more for funsies), you're welcome in the background+ team ^^

(being in the background+ team means drawing some elements of the background like all the lil' things you can find in a class, desks, posters, books... or some other stuff. It's usually me and music fairy @diofasolia (if you've got some free time to participate of course, solia) on that team)

PS: You can't use a kid belonging to someone else for that event ! You must be the creator of the kid and send me a drawing you did at least mostly by yourself (it doesn't mean you can't have help or collaborate with someone however) ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧

PPS: Be creative or more classic with the outfits! Have fun! Do as you wish!

If it helps, the kinda perspective I'm going with (same as every year ;3). I'll adjust the size of the room depending on the number of kids. The kids are not obligated to be staring at us, from the side, showing their back... Also the pov will be from the white board ✨

Pose ideas for those who aren't inspired: awkwardly standing in a corner, reading a book criss-cross applesauce, tripping and falling on nothing (or something), chatting with someone, writing stuff on the wall, perfect student sitting pose, already asleep, climbing, fascinated by something (might be a poster, might be the class pet), showing something that really shouldn't have been brought here to someone, I'm late!, what an insteresting window, staring at the clock...

If you need a special accessorie/furniture/thingie to make the pose work, tell me and it'll be added in the background ^^

[stomach-bugg09]

summary: [y/n] has always been an angry girl. why wouldn't she be ready to fight any avatar that puts their hands in her siblings?

sully family x sully!reader

a/n: i just did this one for fun because i wanted one where she's an absolute boss and a half. love her !! remember , reqs are open and waiting. i probably won't write anymore fali x [y/n] stuff unless i get specific reqs because they're really difficult to write without direct inspo and ideas. once again , motivation is really important to keep me writing , so please comment feedback + reblog !! i would seriously appreciate it. ( also , for some odd reason my two most recent works have barely gotten any interaction -- idk if that's just bc tumblr is being a problem , or if it's because fali has lost his magic touch ( which if so , i completely get it ) , but if you guys could help me out to try and figure out what's going on ?? )

warnings: violence, guns, fighting, weapons, death, killing

tags: @rafeslovergirl @wxnderingthoughts @liyahsocorro @bonnibuckets @hjkshshjkhklhkl @itssiaaax @grierpilots @23victoria @nyotamalfoy @gcldtom @eywas-heir @historygeekqueen @missroro @sweetheart-bo

angry spirit

nobody quite understood the rage that naturally flowed through the veins of the women in the sully family. nobody quite understood the urge to protect that seemed to be carried between each and every one of the children that jake and neytiri shared and adored together. nobody quite understood… not until they experienced it themselves.

and trust me, plenty of people have experienced it, humans and na’vi alike. even from a young age, there were times where one of the kids were ( one-hundred and ten percent ) willing to fight another kid if it meant they would stop picking on their siblings.

luckily — of perhaps unluckily, depending on the perspective — that shared agreement only seemed to get stronger with age. as the relationships between each kid developed, as more seemed to join the family in general, there was a camaraderie between the five sully kids. even tuk, just a tiny thing herself, was well aware of her willingness to risk her own life if it meant she could save her sisters and brothers.

that being said, there was absolutely no way any of her older siblings would ever let that slide, but it was a sweet sentiment on its own.

even though this habitual response seemed to run through every sully’s blood, it was strongest in the eldest girl.

being neteyam’s twin — younger by just a few minutes — allowed for [y/n] to balance him out. while he had the expectations of future olo’eyktan on his shoulders from the moment he graced pandora with his birth, [y/n] was a freer spirit.

she was also a much more angry spirit.

not that she held fury against every person she interacted with, but [y/n] wasn’t scared of disliking anyone. she also wasn’t scared of letting them know that she didn’t like them; a blessing and a curse, the sully family often called it.

but it stemmed further than that. it ran stronger than that.

from a young age, jake taught his oldest daughter how to channel her anger much healthier. what did jake sully consider a healthy outlet? well, fighting, of course.

so, the sully child that’d been this close to fighting another kid in lo’ak’s honor? yeah, that was [y/n].

not to mention her iknimaya — the rite of passage that quite possibly boosted this girl’s ego far too high. she deserved it, though. not many young na’vis could complete the event in such little time, especially against the pain that her ikran was.

he was a bitter fellow, similar to his spirit sister. angry at the world for every little thing and always ready for a fight. they truly were connected in every possible way.

but, her iknimaya was physical evidence that fighting fire with fire never worked. the truth was that one flame had to overcome the other — one flame had to envelop the other. it was just a matter of which flame was stronger.

[y/n] knew from the moment she locked eyes and that joyful, adrenaline-filled grin blessed her face that she would win.

thank eywa she believed in herself, because neytiri and jake nearly lost all of their faith at the sight of the monster that towered over the young girl.

another notable moment — or perhaps a series of moments — of her oh-so optimistic and joyful personality was prompted by her very own father. if there was one thing that the oldest daughter was confident in, it was her father’s love. she knew that he loved her — loved all of them — and that made it extremely easy for her to argue with him on any topic she disagreed with.

as annoying as it happened to be to jake, neytiri loved that she was raising a strong woman. it often reminded her of herself at a young age.

but, every single one of those stories were child’s play compared to the raw anger that surged through her body when her and her siblings’ lives were held under knife and gunpoint.

[y/n], the original rebel and inspiration for lo’ak’s ‘admirable’ choices, was happy to join the crew on their adventure through the jungle. with lo’ak grounded from flying due to his choices just the other night, he’d practically begged his older sister to join them.

they were partners in crime, afterall.

once neteyam decided to become all responsible and stuff ( not that [y/n] blamed him… but it was disappointing ), [y/n] and lo’ak seemed to have magnetized toward each other, although that might be a sign to turn the other way and run as fast and as far as you can.

either way, [y/n] found herself exploring the similar jungle scene alongside all of her siblings minus neteyam and with the additional presence of spider.

as soon as the familiar scene turned not-so familiar, it seemed that [y/n] had a feeling. a feeling that something was wrong, that something else was creeping. she should have listened to her gut.

and that same thought resurfaced as soon as the stomach-dropping view of the avatars overcame her view from the bushes.

it was only once said avatars put their hands on her baby siblings that the familiar settled, bubbling beneath her thick layers of skin. it was only when [y/n] fell into an eerie silence and state of pure calm that every other sully sibling felt their own fear.

even as tuk squirmed and cried against the bruising grip of the avatar’s, even as kiri cried out at the sharp knife edge against her throat, even as spider fought his restraints, even as lo’ak stared into the terrifying eyes of the same man that had nearly killed his father…

[y/n] stayed perfectly compliant. stuck on her knees, queue throbbing at the feeling of her opponent tugging it, [y/n] merely stared straight at quaritch. silently, her urge to fight was building, and everybody that knew her was perfectly aware. and ready.

she ran her tongue smoothly against her fangs, eyes narrowed straight at the man that threatened the lives of her siblings.

a solid thirty minutes had already passed, eclipse coming quicker than [y/n] would’ve preferred. she just had to hope that, without being used to their forest and bodies, the avatar’s didn’t have the same keen night vision as she did.

“you okay there, kid?” the avatar teased, attempting to startle her with his threatening voice. he tugged her braid, nearly drawing a hiss from deep within her rib cage, but she held it back. he seemed to be bothered with the fact that her eyes hadn’t once left the body of their colonel.

but, for once, she drifted her gaze to meet her perpetrator and summoned english for his benefit. “ask again in a few minutes.”

and, almost as if [y/n] could feel the presence of her parents, a familiar bird call echoed through the nighttime breeze. her ears pressed back against her head in shock before she quickly recovered and flashed an innocent smile to the avatar.

he merely grunted, pulling her braid one last time for good measure, and looked back up at quaritch.

now, she just had to be patient. she could do that. well, as long as she got what she wanted in the end, and that was a good fight. she deserved it after letting the chains rub back and forth against her wrists, eating at her skin through the friction.

that being said, as soon as her mother’s signal became clear, she straightened up and locked eyes with lo’ak. a discreet nod was enough between them. grab tuk and go. she knew kiri and spider would handle themselves.

plus, the extra connection between spider and quaritch was just another layer of protection for her baby sister. perhaps it was a terrible way of thinking, but [y/n] wouldn’t dwindle too much on it. the urge to survive had its faults, afterall.

and finally, once neytiri’s arrow soared through the air, it was go time.

while lo’ak and tuk bit the arms of their restraining avatars, lo’ak also doubling duty and releasing whatever gas canisters had been accessible on the guy’s belt, kiri and spider were lucky enough to be given a chance to run as soon as the avatars lifted their guns.

[y/n] liked to do it the hard way, though.

she swung her legs in a swift motion, wrapping them around the avatar’s. she weighed his bottom half, keeping him from being able to move far, and in a split second, neytiri’s arrow was embedded in his chest.

[y/n] let go, scrambling to her feet and up the nearest tree, finding a moment of solace nested in the upper branches. she could see everything, and they couldn’t see her — she was a master of disguise and hiding, if anything.

and then, it seemed the world went a few clicks quieter, gunfire calming down just a tad. one scan of the scene, and [y/n] knew it was because they’d lost sight of her siblings.

“the kids are gone.” a voice crackled through the walkie strapped to a dead avatar’s chest at the base of the tree, the small noise quiet against the chaotic scene. [y/n] was merely lucky she was in little enough of a proximity to even catch the words.

“what do you mean gone?” quaritch. she could tell from his stingy accent and infuriating pronunciation of vowels.

a beat of quiet against more raining gunfire. “the boy and youngest girl ran off. tarzan and the other girl split to the opposite direction.”

“which other girl?” [y/n] felt a familiar smile on her face.

“what do you mean —”

quaritch was angry, and [y/n] couldn’t help but find pure enjoyment from the scene. little did he know that the young na’vi girl could now see him from her spot in the tree, eyes narrowed on the colonel hunched behind a fallen log.

“there are two girls. one of ‘em quiet and useless, the other looks like her devil of a mother.” the same mother that managed to kill him the first time.

[y/n]’s eyes focused on the demon in na’vi skin, watching his face contort at the familiar arrow pierced in the wood beside him. it was almost as if he’d conjured her very own “devil of a mother” into existence. “seems that very mother might be in attendance this fine evening.”

[y/n] scrunched her nose in disgust, her skin crawling at his words. she really could not stand him. but, her attention was quickly pulled back to reality when he dropped the walkie and called into the open air, all while reloading his gun, “that you, mrs. sully? i recognize your calling card.”

instantly, [y/n]’s head whipped around, locating the exact tree in which her mother hid behind. unfortunately, [y/n] was a few feet away and at the worst possible angle to help.

“why don’t you come on out, mrs. sully?” quaritch continued, and [y/n]’s eyes followed a different avatar that began to creep past the colonel. “you’n i, we got some… unfinished business.”

“demon!” neytiri’s voice caused panic to spike in the young na’vi’s heart, blood pumping with adrenaline. “i will kill you as many times as i have to.”

it was only when [y/n] looked back at quaritch that she noticed the other avatar was missing. a million different curse words rattled deep within her brain, eyes widening in fear.

meanwhile, quaritch would not be distracted from his tangent. “i guess you an’ the corporal have been pretty… busy, haven’t ya? got yourself a whole litter of… half-breeds.”

what could she do?

as quickly and as silently as she could, [y/n] scrambled through the wet tree branches, cursing herself every time her feet lost grip. nerves added up with rain never helped.

at the very last second, [y/n] reached a spot in which she could just barely see her mom. well, her mom, and the avatar that had a gun aimed right at her. just as [y/n] opened her mouth and prepared to scream a distraction, an arrow flew right through the avatar’s body.

gunfire followed almost immediately after, and her dangerous balance finally lost way, causing the girl to topple from her position and into the muddy ground below.

[y/n] was quick to stand up — she had to be — but the scene was not a pretty sight to behold.

she was surrounded. surrounded by three different avatars, each with their own weapon that could quite easily hurt her, if not kill her on the spot. she just prayed that, if they did manage to get to her, she could make them scream first.

[y/n] knew she would. it was always just a matter of mentality, right?

and so, as if the clock slowed down just for her, [y/n]’s eyes flashed around her and gauged every detail possible. the machine gun, loaded and prepared ( although she had noticed that it was already halfway empty ), in the hands of the avatar to her right, the two knives ready in the hands of the avatar to her left, and the last avatar just in front of her. nothing but his fists.

a smile surfaced.

she could deal with that.

and then, before the rest of her body returned to the consciousness of time, her feet began to move. [y/n] lifted her arms so she could see her wrists — still wrapped in chains — and she leapt upwards.

her long legs gave her a higher jump, bringing her and her hands to the perfect height to wrap her chains around the weaponless avatar’s neck. she swung herself around, legs hooking his torso as she tugged with every bit of strength she could muster.

at the chaotic sounds around her, [y/n] knew that bullets were being fired now. lucky for her, she had her very own personal shield, but that meant the tree she was choking was about to go timber.

once she felt the warm splatters of his blood against her stomach, she knew she only had a matter of time before getting squished under a dead man’s weight. [y/n] shifted her weight, unhooking her legs and placing her feet on his hips very carefully.

[y/n] kept her ears aware at all times as she leapt up and off of the now dead avatar, pushing him onto the ground with her jump. her ears moved vigilantly, picking up the sounds of the bullets just before they were shot so she could move just in time to avoid any casualties.

and then her favorite sound rang through the air. an empty cartridge.

at that, her infamous smirk surfaced as she locked eyes with the now useless avatar.

now, behind her, the third avatar with the knives thought she was being slick, creeping behind her with both weapons raised to stab her in the back.

luckily, [y/n] was far too aware and far too pissed to miss such an important detail.

just as the third avatar broke through stabbing distance, [y/n] whirled around and disarmed her in a quick movement. both knives flew into the air, and she swiftly grabbed each of them.

each blade found their own homes embedded in the chests of her enemies

and then, just like that, she’d won.

[y/n] huffed for air, three dead avatars laying around her feet. blood pooled, swirling in an overwhelming pool of maroon. and none of it was hers.

[minecraftbookshelf]

Marriage of State AU Character Designs: The Mad King of Mezalea

Joel actually has three major looks through the course of the AU; Prince of Mezalea, Trophy Husband, and King Joel, with the subcategories of "armor" for each.

They all have the same base design of "human", differing by (apparent) age and general sense of style.

Some Joel Skins to start us off and provide the base we're working off of, and also the Mezalean banner because color pallet

And also, because it is actually relevant, (bear with me here) some samples of Mezalean architecture.

The Matral Palace and the Villager area.

Based off of Joel's final skin, the vibe is kind of "Victorian military dress uniform" however there is something very, very important to take into consideration from a worldbuilding perspective.

The Mesa is a warm weather biome. Its a colorful desert. Which means high temperatures during the day and cold at night. So tight-fitting, thick fabrics in a Victorian style would be incredibly impractical.

So we turn to the second possible source for fashion inspiration: The architecture, which gives mostly Byzantine vibes.

So what would Byzantine clothing look like, especially for nobility?

First off, taking into account that the Byzantine Empire lasted for approximately a thousand years and, naturally, underwent some dramatic changes in clothing style during that time, we'll pick a specific vibe out of the options. I settled on a bit of a mix between Early Byzantine (think the Theodora Mosaic shown below) and Middle Byzantine (see the mosaic of Emperor Constantine IX below)

And here are just some screenshots from my pintrest board for Mezalea and Mezalean!Joel, because if I put all these on here separately I'll hit the image limit too soon.

(General disclaimer: yes, Pintrest has an art theft problem, yes Pintrest is much harder to effectively use now due to the pervasiveness of ads on everything, no I don't use it for like, formal things. It remains one of the best ways to collect visual references and figuring out The Vibes)

(Yes, we get to go full Material Gworl vibes for the Mezalean King, as is only right and proper.)

General characteristics I'm adopting here for Mezalean clothing:

Brocade (and bejeweled) kaftan/kaftan-esque outer layer. This is a formal wear thing, and is absolutely a "showing off the wealth" power move.

Lots of Big Chunky Colorful Jewelry

I don't know what it's actual name is, but that general style of having jeweled tassel-like things hanging from the front sides of the crown/headdress.

Light-weight and loose fitting under-layers.

And of course, bright colors.

Prince Joel: Before he became part of the main cast in an epic fantasy adventure spanning several hundreds of years and an entire continent (and the adjacent ocean) Joel was the youngest of three princes with two older brothers who were both married and had kids.

Which is to say, it did not look like he would ever be the king.

His role in the kingdom was very much that of an ambassador to and direct connection to their people. He spent a lot of time working on fishing boats and in the mines and quarries. While he did receive a standard royal education on things like diplomacy and combat, international interactions were not his focus at all, much more involved in the day to day operations of his own home. (And yes, that is a very vital aspect of the idea of "royalty" in general, supposedly, and that being a particular point of Joel's upbringing will make more sense when I get around to writing and posting the post about how royalty functions in the Empires. tldr; its related to the whole thing where Pixlriffs accidentally redefined "war")

Basically, Prince Joel = the first skin, the simple green one. He's wearing more lightweight, practical clothes that allow him to engage in physically demanding dirty work without costing a fortune every day. He still dresses up for formal events, but he doesn't even attend all of those and he is far from a daily sight in court.

Trophy Husband: For a couple hundred years, Joel didn't live in Mezalea. Instead, he was one half of the chronological first arranged marriage in the "au in which all the marriages are arranged" situation. And this one was the one that most resembles the set-up of a generic "period" bodice-ripper novel (though that is not how it played out ultimately, for the parties involved, despite the romance that does happen.)

Basically, this is his War Prize Era. In which Lizzie won a husband in combat and then didn't really know what to do with him.

During this time period, Joel mostly wore ocean styled clothing, though during formal occasions he would wear a notable amount of Mezalean accessories, that were part and parcel of the treaty with him. (I'm trying so hard not to derail this into just a breakdown of the events of the Joel & Lizzie arc of the au im trying so hard)

He did tend to mix Oceanic and Mezalean clothing, due in part to Oceanic clothing being primarily designed for underwater wear, while he lived above the surface, finding the balance of practicality and appearances demanded by the political nature of his existence at the time. (Also a personal comfort thing as Mezalean clothing tended to afford more skin coverage and also had shoes) Once he and Lizzie were more comfortable both in the world and with each other he had more opportunities for personalization and tended towards Mezalean styles in oceanic colors. He did develop a significant appreciation for the Oceanic idea of skin-tight under-layers for water travel.

King Joel: He did end up back in Mezalea as king, which is when we hit the style closest to the second skin, which mostly for this is really an indicator of color scheme. Formally, he is now wearing the full Kaftan and Jewelry look, day to day its more of "colorful, simple, and lightweight" because he still is very active in the day to day commerce of his empire. He does usually wear significantly more jewelry than he did as a prince, he grew a taste for it during his trophy husband era XD. The details of his day-to-day wear are also fancier. finer fabrics, more embroidery, brocade hems, etc.

Most of his earrings are gifts from Lizzie, some in Oceanic colors, some in Mezalean, but all with little chips of prismarine to remind him of her even when she can't be there.

Armor: Joel's armor preferences are simple netherite plate. He also does have a ceremonial trident, as a member of the Oceanic royal family. His is gold-plated.

-

art

Lizzie || Jimmy ||

AU Masterpost

[coraniaid]

Of all of Buffy’s (many) retcons, I think the one I’m most conflicted about is the introduction of the Watcher’s Council in Season 3.  

That this is indeed a retcon – and not just the show gradually revealing something it had always secretly factored into its world-building – is, I think, pretty hard to dispute.  We’ve known of Watchers other than Giles for a while – Kendra’s Watcher Sam Zabuto is named but unseen in Season 2’s What’s My Line?, and Buffy’s original Watcher is seen but unnamed during the flashbacks in the same season’s Becoming – but it’s only in Season 3’s Faith, Hope & Trick that we start to be told that these other Watchers have any sort of internal structure of leadership, let alone one that sidelines Giles himself.  And the (retroactive) existence of the Council raises obvious questions (How did Kendra and her Watcher not know Sunnydale already had a Slayer?  Why was Giles not told that another Slayer had been called?  What do all the Watchers who don’t have a Slayer to train actually do all day?) that the show is rather typically uninterested in answering.

On the one hand, I think this retcon has some potential – Quentin Travers in particular is quietly one of the show’s better human villains –  and I’d stand by what I’ve said in the past about the show not really utilizing the Council enough after Season 3.  They show up a few more times, of course, but one gets the impression the writers grew pretty tired of the concept and found it pretty limiting from a story-telling perspective.  Notably Buffy herself insists that “there’s no all-knowing council” in Season 7’s Selfless (and this is before the Council gets blown up).  

After Season 3, the Council primarily exists to occasionally show up to try to kill Faith (or Buffy in Faith’s body) and otherwise stand around being pompous and useless in the face of any actual supernatural threat.  I do kind of wish the show had done more with the idea than this.  As it is, the Council is one of those many parts of Buffy’s worldbuilding that seems to have a position in the fandom that is not quite proportional to the relative lack of attention it is given by canon. 

On the other hand, the mere existence of the Council does slightly odd things to Giles’s established backstory.  In particular, he goes from being somebody a lot like Buffy – somebody who was told at a young age he had a destiny which he had no choice but to comply with – to … well, having an employer.  Having a job, the very thing we’re repeatedly told that Slaying isn’t for Buffy.  And unlike Buffy, Giles even gets paid, at least if Season 5’s Checkpoint is to be believed. This makes Giles a little less sympathetic than I think he was intended to be in the first two seasons.

Yet equally -- and in the opposite direction -- the Council as a concept tends to be used – both by the writers and the wider fandom – to represent the more negative aspects of the idea of a Watcher, often in a way that means pretending that those same aspects aren’t present in Buffy’s own Watcher.  

The most blatant example of this, I think, is the way that, in Checkpoint, Giles’s own complicity in Season 3’s Cruciamentum is handwaved away, with Buffy reacting to news that the Council are heading to Sunnydale by telling Giles: “I don’t trust them … they put me through that test” [emphasis added].  I mean, you just have to watch Helpless to realize that this is a very odd spin on the events of that episode (did Quentin Travers drug Buffy?  Did he lie to her face about it afterwards?  Did he listen to her dismay at the prospect of losing her powers forever and say nothing?).

And we often see this selective criticism of the concept of Watchers in the wider fandom too, particularly when it comes to Buffy’s temporary new Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.  I mean: yes, obviously, Wesley seems pretty clueless about the reality of life on a Hellmouth and blatantly owes his selection as Watcher to nepotism.  But that was true of Season 1 Giles as well.  

In rewatching that first season especially Giles often seems incredibly ill-prepared for the task at hand.  It takes him weeks to work out who Angel is (something Kendra manages in seconds, because – she tells us – “I read about him”).  He frequently gets the dates of important prophecies wrong (in Never Kill A Boy On The First Date), or is wrongly dismissive of his Slayer’s intuitions (in The Pack, in The Puppet Show), he reacts to the discovery of new supernatural threats and dangers with a slightly inappropriate level of academic glee (“Witchcraft … it’s classic!” in Witch, in response to the news that a student has been blinded and almost killed), he is somewhat hostile to perspectives and attitudes other than his own (Buffy’s attempts to join the cheerleading squad in Witch again, for example, or his arguments with Jenny Calendar in I Robot, You Jane).  

These are all very like the ways in which Wesley himself is shown to behave, especially in his attempts to micromanage his Slayers and in his misplaced confidence that Balthazar is definitely dead.  And this isn’t a coincidence.  I think it’s a very intentional writing choice.  This similarity is the reason why the show introduces Wesley: he is very clearly meant to be a (version of) a younger Giles.  (Note, in particular, the way they unconsciously mirror each other’s glasses-cleaning routine in Bad Girls.)

And as for nepotism, well.  The first Watcher other than Giles the show talks about isn’t either of the examples I gave above.  It’s Giles’s own father.   In Season 1’s Never Kill A Boy On The First Date, Giles tells Buffy:

“I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher.  He was one [...] and I was to be next.”

Later, in Season 2, we find out that Giles dropped out of Oxford and abandoned his preparations to become a Watcher, dabbled with using magic and summoning demons for personal gain, and ended up getting a man killed.  And yet, despite this, he somehow manages to go back to Oxford, graduate, and become a Watcher.  How do you explain that level of special treatment if not nepotism?  Do the Council pull strings to get Buffy back into college after she drops out?  Did they turn a blind eye to Gwendolyn Post’s misuse of magic? Do they seem relaxed about Faith's role in a man's accidental death?

(This is, I think, largely unintenional on the part of the writers. There is a significant difference between the original Season 1 idea of Giles -- somebody who was compelled to be a Watcher from the age of ten because his father was one and he doesn't get a choice in the matter -- compared to the later (implied) Season 3/Season 5 idea of a Giles who got a (paying) job as a Watcher because his father was one but is, in fact, ultimately replacable and can be -- and eventually is -- fired from or rehired to do this job.)

And note that I don’t think any of this makes Giles a bad character (or even a bad person, if you care about that sort of thing): he has to be flawed, or Buffy would have far fewer problems and far less agency of her own and the show simply wouldn’t work.  He gets better at acting as a mentor to Buffy over time (well, until he doesn’t).  He obviously does care a lot about Buffy’s well-being, right from the beginning, even if this affection is shaped and constrained by his own upbringing and the fact he believes himself responsible for the fact she will very likely be killed in the pursuit of the Calling he has trained her for.  They do both have destinies, but Buffy’s destiny is to die and Giles’s destiny is to watch.

But it’s very odd to see, for example, people convincing themselves that the Council sending Wesley to Sunnydale, despite his inexperience – and apparently for no better reason than because his father is a big deal and the Slayer he’d be monitoring already managed to get her first Watcher killed and nobody more senior wants the job – represents some big change in how the Council operate (well, retroactively operate, that is, if we agree to pretend they existed in Season 1).  

This has to be why they sent Giles himself, doesn’t it?  He can’t have been their first choice if they were picking on merit and experience.  If he was, why do they so regularly keep him in the dark?  The difference is, of course, is that the audience finds Wesley very irritating and he is treated by the show as an antagonist, or at least a nuisance, but we are already predisposed to like Giles (and yes, to be clear, I do like Giles).  And in Season 1, the audience is just as ignorant of the show’s later worldbuilding as Giles is, so his omissions and errors seem less obvious.  It’s only after the show starts building up the idea of the Whirlwind as a huge deal (in Checkpoint, again, we see that there are Watchers who wrote whole theses on them), that Giles not having the first clue who Angelus or Spike were until after Buffy met them starts to seem a little weird.

But the fact that the Watcher’s Council is written to exaggerate the problems with the concept of a Watcher shouldn’t mean that we retroactively pretend those problems didn’t exist before then, or that Giles is somehow blameless or unaffected by them.  And I think it’s a shame that both the writers and the fandom often act as though it does.  Those flaws and contradictions are what makes Giles interesting!

(Actually, while I'm on the subject I guess I'll admit I'm still a little irritated years later by the fact that the hosts of Buffering watched Revelations and somehow decided that, of the two people claiming to be Watchers in this episode, it was Gwendolyn Post who was the face of the patriarchy.  Because, sure, Rupert Giles is a man who works for a largely male-dominated and centuries old organization, an organization that has traditionally given itself the job of telling young woman what to do, and canonically he only has this job because his father had it before him, and none of these things apply to Gwendolyn Post at all -- she isn't even a real Watcher anymore -- but ... uh.  Well, we like Giles and she's kind of rude to him, so I guess none of that matters and words don’t mean anything.  The patriarchy only benefits people we don’t like, doesn’t it?

After all, that nice Mr Giles can’t possibly be a representative of the patriarchy.  Why, he’s Buffy’s Dad!)

[sineala]

What do you think was the better* “later addition to canon”?

Steve being frozen post WW2

Or

Tony being an alcoholic

Because those aspects weren’t part of the original sell of the character but it’s such a big part of each

Or a third option!

*better can be “I think this adds the most interesting things to the canon from a writer’s perspective” or even “I like this most 🙂”

Interesting question! Thank you for asking! Honestly, I feel like both of those things are very different from each other, in terms of narrative function, and if you're actually looking for moments in canon that added something new and major to Steve and Tony's characters that wasn't there before, I wouldn't pick either of those moments for either of them.

I have some thoughts about this!

Steve getting iced was basically just a retcon to put Steve in the comics at the age that they wanted and not having to deal with him having reached the ancient and decrepit age of 40, an age that is clearly forbidden for superheroes. It's not really much different from how they keep adjusting things as the timescale keeps sliding -- Sharon is Peggy's niece and not her sister, Tony's origin story moves to wars that are later than Vietnam. It's just one of a number of changes Marvel makes regularly to keep character ages consistent; sure, it might even be the first of them. But I don't think the icing itself is a fundamental change in who Steve is as a character.

Now, you could argue that the Man Out of Time aspect -- which came in as a direct result of the icing -- is a fundamentally different part of Steve's character that wasn't present in earlier comics and changed who he was. But in response to that, I would argue that, in a lot of ways, Golden Age Captain America isn't really the same character at all as later Steve Rogers. I would say that the Steve we know and love is one who has pretty much only existed since Avengers #4 and in a sense has always had the ice in his backstory. Sure, a character with the same name, powers, and origin as Captain America existed in the Golden Age -- but that guy, he doesn't really seem like Steve, and modern canon sure doesn't treat him like Steve. The fact that there was also a discontinuity in publishing -- unlike how DC, IIRC, never really stopped, Timely kind of isn't actually Marvel, and everything from before Fantastic Four #1 kind of doesn't count. I think.

I don't know how much Golden Age Captain America you've read. I haven't read all of it. I've only read about a dozen issues, but I feel like that's enough for me to get a sense of the character. So the thing about Golden Age comics is that they all just feel… really weird, compared to anything from the 60s and later. You get a sense that everyone at the time was still working out what a superhero comic, and maybe just a comic at all, was going to be like. The plots are weird, the villains are… okay, the villains being usually Super Racist is sadly not unique to the Golden Age, but it's really prominent. The characters don't really behave in ways you would expect. Bucky is treated as an actual child would have been in the forties -- like, there are panels of Steve threatening to spank him as discipline -- and the characters just don't feel the same.

Other than the fact that the super-soldier serum turned Steve Rogers into Captain America, and the fact that Bucky is his sidekick, and what Steve's powers basically are, nothing in these comics really feels a lot like the same character. Canonically, most of it isn't the same character! Everything after Captain America Comics #48 has been retconned to be people who aren't Steve, which shows you how much he isn't like Steve. Even the stuff that supposedly happened to Steve and Bucky doesn't really get referred to all that much. When later comics talk about Steve's time in the war, it's almost never the events of the Golden Age comics themselves -- instead, Marvel created a whole lot of stuff via flashbacks and then they refer to that. You never see Steve and Bucky talking about, say, the time they had to be in a drag show as punishment, although I swear this was a real comic. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos? Not in the Golden Age. The Invaders? Not in the Golden Age as a team! The All-Winners Squad was, but again, that features Captains America who were later retconned as not Steve (William Nasland, Jeff Mace). Most of Steve's villains other than Red Skull are not really there. It's just… not really the same character and there's not much of a meaningful sense of continuity between any of the events in the Golden Age and later comics. Later comics are working mostly from their own retellings and flashbacks. So I feel like Steve basically starts anew in Avengers #4 and thus has always been a Man Out Of Time.

Okay, so what about Tony's alcoholism? Tony before and after Demon in a Bottle is still Tony Stark, but the thing is, I feel like Tony's alcoholism isn't a drastic alteration to the character, and it fits very well with established canon, and it has been easily accepted as part of Tony's character, unlike something that just comes out of nowhere and is true now and everyone is all WTF at it (looking at you, adoption arc).

Tony's worst villain has always been himself. Specifically, it's been his own body. At the beginning, it was his heart damage and the chestplate, and the terrible curse inherent in Being Tony Stark was that someday soon his heart was going to give out. There are so many panels of him dramatically plugging himself into the wall and thinking about how close he is to death. Tony's origin story was essentially Here, Have A Disability. His body betrays him. His body doesn't do what he wants. He can't control it. There's something wrong with him and it's hurting him. Every so often they take away whatever's wrong with him, but they always revert to it -- his heart's been bad, and then fine, and then bad, and then fine, and here's the alcoholism, and oh no now he's paralyzed, and now it's his brain and he has amnesia, and so on.

In that sense, the alcoholism really feels like a natural escalation from the heart problems and that it fits well with all of this all of this. Here's something else about his body/mind that isn't right, that's causing him harm, that he initially tries to hide from almost everyone, and that he often has difficulty controlling. It's just that it's not his heart anymore.

So what would I pick for canonical moments in comics history that weren't part of Steve and Tony's original character conceptions and that really represented a new addition to his character?

For Steve I'd pick either the original Secret Empire arc (Nomad) or The Captain, because those basically both show the same thing. Sure, Captain America has always been a symbol of all the ideals of America as a country, and sometimes America lets him down, and sometimes he has to lecture people about how they should be better people -- but, as far as I know, Secret Empire was the first time Steve basically said, "Yeah, no, fuck the government." He loves his country. He doesn't always love his government. He doesn't think what happened in Secret Empire (which, yes, we all know, is secretly Watergate) is right, so he's going to… simply stop being Captain America. He's going to be Nomad. The government itself has now massively let him down, and they don't get to tell him what to do anymore. And now we're all like, "Oh, yeah, of course Steve is mad at the government and has decided to stop being Captain America right now! He's gonna go on a road trip to find himself! Here he is in Civil War telling the pro-Registration side they're wrong and becoming a fugitive from justice." But… he didn't start out like that.

This is a character who was created to be a soldier and to do what his country asked of him. Sure, there are early arcs where he gives up the shield for a little bit, but they're because he's going through one of his usual "who am I when I'm not Captain America?" crises and then he comes back pretty quick. It wasn't that he didn't believe in his government; it wasn't that kind of crisis of faith. But then Secret Empire happens and he's like, "yeah, no, I can't represent a country when the president was conspiring with aliens to take over the world" and he's just out of there. Same deal for The Captain. The government wants to tell him what to do because he's Captain America? Nope! Someone else can be Captain America now. Of course, then John Walker does a terrible job and Steve has to come back anyway. John Walker is like your awful roommate who half-asses the dishes so no one will ask him to do the dishes again even though he clearly knows how to wash dishes and chooses not to, except with murder instead.

But, anyway, the moral stance depicted in Secret Empire and The Captain is pretty much the same -- when the government does something he thinks is wrong, he just simply stops being Captain America. He's not afraid to go against the government in Civil War or (for a more modern example) Devil's Reign. And it's not really a stance he had before Secret Empire, as far as I know. If you told comics readers in, say, 1970, that you really liked the fact that Steve wasn't afraid to quit being Captain America to protest unjust laws, they would probably be very confused. Steve is Captain America! He works for SHIELD! He does what the government tells him! Why wouldn't he? Except, well… these days, he doesn't.

And I think you can tell that this is important to the modern conception of Steve's character because it made it into the MCU. Okay, true, any adaptation of Civil War was probably going to have to involve Steve going against some kind of law about superheroes because he thinks it's the right thing to do -- that personality trait is basically baked into the plot. But they put it in the MCU way before Civil War, presumably because they thought this was important enough to Steve's character that it needed to be included. CATWS is an adaptation of Brubaker's Winter Soldier arc that I would say is a lot more faithful to the comics than many of the MCU entries that share names with the comics. But you know what the 616 Winter Soldier arc doesn't have? A plot where Steve decides that he's unable to trust anyone at SHIELD because they're secretly Hydra and therefore we are right to be suspicious of the US government which may not be acting in our best interests anyway because apparently even the good guys in SHIELD were still interested in building helicarriers to shoot people down -- they just had a different target list than Hydra did. The 616 Winter Soldier arc does, in fact, have the Red Skull infiltrating SHIELD. He then proceeds to successfully murder Steve. There's not really a Trust No One plot going on because Steve doesn't get that far, and he dies before any of this is discovered and also misses out on Secret Invasion. Plus, hey, the scene that introduces us to Steve way back in CATFA shows him sitting there staring at a sign saying it's illegal to lie on his enlistment papers and then we find out he's been lying a lot. Because he thinks doing the right thing is more important than obeying the law. Yeah, they went there pretty early.

For Tony, my pick for a similarly significant character development that absolutely wasn't part of his original character is his decision to stop making weapons in Iron Man #78. He was created to be a defense contractor. He spent about ten RL years making weapons and, as far as we can tell from canon, not really experiencing any kind of crisis of conscience about, say, being a superhero and also making weapons at the same time. And then (because readers complained) he meets a pacifist, changes his mind about everything, stops taking SHIELD weapons contracts, and then stops making weapons entirely. This is a pretty significant career change for a character who started out happily making weapons. He just stopped. He doesn't do it anymore. He hasn't in years. And now it's absolutely part of who he is as a character, such that it ends up being a defining trait of his in multiple universes -- even in 1872, Tony stops making weapons. In Superior Iron Man, one of the first things he did when he went evil was make weapons again. If he is making weapons, we know that something has gone very wrong with him.

This also made it to the MCU -- "Tony becomes Iron Man and stops making weapons" is basically the plot of the first Iron Man movie, right? They decided that "Tony stops making weapons" was important enough that it is absolutely had to be right there in the first movie. Sure, alcoholism is one of Tony's defining traits in modern 616 comics and I'm not saying it's not, though I am saying it's not coming out of nowhere -- but that didn't even make it to the MCU. (I'm sure a lot of that was Disney's fault, yes.)

You also might not know this from looking at modern comics, but The Government Wants Tony To Keep Making Weapons is actually a pretty salient arc after Tony stops making them. Half of the reason Demon in a Bottle happens is because Tony is forced to kill the Carnelian ambassador because Justin Hammer sabotages his suit, but the other half is because Tony is incredibly stressed because Nick Fury keeps trying to find a way to make him make weapons for the government and Tony doesn't want to. (Maybe Tony would have fewer control issues if people stopped trying to control him.)

If I had to pick a second new character trait for Tony, it would also be his willingness to defy the government (and, really, anybody else) and do what he thinks is right. (He and Steve are more similar than I think a lot of fandom gives them credit for. But that would be a different meta post.) I mean, they do what they do with opposite reasoning but they both kind of have the same problems to solve a lot, because comics plots are very often Here's The Trolley Problem. Utlilitarianism versus… what's the other one? Deontology.

Anyway, yeah, I'm talking about Armor Wars. The arc when Tony decided that the ends justified the means and he was simply going to steal his technology back from everyone who had it, including the government, and that he was willing to hurt anyone who got in his way (hi, Steve) and alienate both Avengers teams in the process, because he decided that he knew what he had to do, what he had to do was right, and nothing was more important, no matter what the consequences were to himself. This is the thought process that gets you Armor Wars, Operation Galactic Storm, and eventually Civil War. And before Armor Wars, Tony just… didn't do things like this. After Armor Wars, he does, and everyone expects him to, and none of that was there before as part of his character. So I'd say that's a pretty big change.

Interestingly, of the four things I've named, two of them each basically happen at the same time -- Tony stops making weapons in the early 70s, around the time the Secret Empire and Nomad thing is happening for Steve, and of course in the mid-80s Steve is The Captain when he confronts Tony during Armor Wars. I guess those were two very transformative time periods for Steve and Tony.

But yeah, those are my picks for the biggest changes to Steve and Tony that weren't part of their original conceptions -- Steve's willingness to say Fuck the Government and go do what he thinks is right even if it means not being Captain America; and Tony's decision to stop making weapons, as well as Tony's willingness to say Fuck the Government (And/Or Possibly Also All His Friends) in order to do with he thinks is right. There's a sense in which they're really not all that different.

[cowboyjen68]

Hi Jen,

As a queer person in my 20’s I had been feeling like LGBT+ acceptance was growing through my lifetime, and that things would continue to get better, but the way hateful/violent homophobic and transphobic rhetoric have become so politically mainstream again in such a short time is extremely frightening. I’m sure it concerns you too so if you need to ignore this ask for peace of mind, I understand. But if you can talk about it, do you think there’s hope? How does it look from your perspective as someone who lived through harder times? I feel like LGBT+ support is so much more broad now, and we’re more visible in popular culture and even some public offices that it can all only be rolled back so far, but I’m truly scared. Thanks, and be well.

I again apologize for the delay and this answer comes at a weird time since the Club Q shooting is less than a week ago.

I honestly am not sure my generation experienced harder times in some ways. Just different ways. We didn't have much legal protection such as the right to same sex marriage or civil rights to housing or employment. Many states had laws making homosexuality illegal although the laws punished "acts" more than the actual same sex attraction which was just a sneaky way to keep us in line.

The laws are not in as much danger as the right and left want us to think. But when we are panicked they make more money. Not that there aren't reasons to be concerned and we certainly don't want to sit back on our laurels and think there is no threat. From experience the far edges of the political extremes are working very hard to convince us all that no one can possibly come together on anything and the divide is so great there is nothing in the middle. MOST of us fall in the middle because we are just trying to keep our family safe and fed and pay our bills without the governement in our bedroom.

Now it is not so much about fighting laws on the books but about keeping shitty laws from being added. Similar shit, different times.

This next part is from my experience and STRICTLY my opinion since I am not a political analyst nor a professional activist A little of my background:  I was very active in the AIDs ACT Up movement, in producing Prides and other events locally AND In organizing trips of local LGBT people to attend larger events like Stonewall 25 and the early 1990's March on Washington. I also have consistently created small lesbian gatherings and enouraged lesbians to form intergenerational friend and mentor groups either privately or at existing festvials and venues. I was in Stonewall Democrats (a delegate for Obama) and the Affirmitive Action Chair for my County Dems for many years. I have been around the activism and political block a few times.

 I can’t see the future but I can assure you we have see rough times as a community and will continue to see them but we always seem to get our shit together enough to focus energy and effort on making change. Life and politics are a cycle and history shows that. Nothing is ever a guarantee for all times. All of us live in a world where rights are always subject to threat. That is just reality. My best advice is do what you can with where you are and what you are able. We can’t all lead big protests and we can’t even all vote (age, previous felonies, mobility etc) but we all can do something. 

What brings me the most joy, fulfillment and happiness is strengthening connections with lesbians and gathering to share stores, experience and knowledge, whether that means life skills or how we over came obstacles. It feels right to have those conversations and to understand younger generations and their concerns AND to be able to share what worked. I have been exposed to a very particular legacy of lesbian communicaiton and organizing. And what I was taught has helped me in so many ways.

 Find what you are most passionate about and put your focus and energy into that. We can’t all change the world but we can ceate small pockets in our lives and those of others where we feel happy and welcomed and understood. And sometimes those groups end up working on change together which can be a very powerful force. 

[tzigone]

What age first comes to mind when you think of each of the original NTT?

I've asked this previously with the JLI. It's not about how canonically old they are or you think they should be (absent de-agings, universe reboots, etc.). But when you first think of each of these characters, how old do you think of them as? So much depends on the eras you read with them, and what of that sticks with you, and which eras and aspects and relationships you most value. Not to mention how fast in-universe time was moving in your favorite eras.

Wally, of course, got married and had kids. They never let Dick do so in main timeline, but he has associations with younger Batfam members that make me think of him as older. Poor Raven and Gar were deaged and kept on younger teams even before the universe reboot. And we have Vic and Kory after.

For me, so much depends on the era I read them in. All have eras I just don't read them in, either because I don't like what's going on with them or because of general disinterest in what's going on with DC at the time (that especially covers recent times, as I kept waiting for continuity to settle, then the constant Events, which aren't my thing).

Speed-aging Wally's kids throws him off to me, too, as I'm not fond of speed-aging kids at all (or skip-timing as with Jon Kent). So in my head he ends up a new dad in his mid twenties.

Dick ends up late 20s in my head. Relative ages of other Bats play in, but I sort of cut off for him before New 52 (and I honestly never think of him as Batman) because I've never really gotten into anything of his after that (hate the de-aging). He should be older, of course, but I don't first think of him that way, again probably due to not reading later stuff much.

The others haven't had the same degree of solo work after the team, and I abandoned NTT shortly after Titans Hunt. I've read stuff with them here and there since, but never consistently read a Titans title since.

Raven and Kory pretty much stop for me then. It's hugely important from a storytelling perspective, but I simply dislike the whole concept of Dark Raven or Rachel Roth or the goth-y influences from the cartoon (which I liked when I watched it, but didn't want to influence the comics I didn't read comics then and now resent character being largely remade from it), and even though I know they exist, they don't enter my headspace. So Raven ends up in her early twenties.

Kory, as I said, is in a similar headspace to me. I know other storylines happened, but I'm even vaguer on those than Raven's. Another dead husband, more pain for Tamaran - sounds like basically story on repeat to me, though I didn't read it, so can't speak authoritatively. Don't get me started on having her and Jason (or Roy as Jason) as a team or even worse on putting her on Damian's Teen Titans. Anyway, I always think of her as early twenties, too.

Gar, interestingly enough, I tend to think of in his slightly older, more mature fashion. Not making his obnoxious jokes and sexually harassing female teammates. And operating in a time when Dayton simply isn't around (and Rita is dead). I'm not at all sure it isn't some not just amalgamated, but constructed version of him built out from what I wanted him to grow up to be. Anyway, he sits in his early twenties for me.

Now Vic - I kinda feel in some aspects like I do with Gar and in some aspects like Raven and Kory. Certainly the post Titans Hunt events don't factor in at all (I didn't like storyline even a bit before like, quit reading a few issues after, and forget a lot of what happened after that era with Vic even happened). More like Raven and Kory and less like like Gar, he was older and more mature. I think of him early or mid twenties and having found peace with himself and belief in his own humanity (which happened a couple times before he'd reset on it), but don't think of that as having just happened, so ending up adding a couple years.

Donna is the wonky one. I tend to stick her in two categories - recently married early twenties or recently separated mid twenties. While I think motherhood and her son were extremely important to her in-universe, I didn't read that era, so it doesn't stick with me. I have the before, when I was reading NTT. And I have some of the time during the separation (when she showed up in other comics I was reading) and cutoff before Robert dying, as that was really part of a soft reboot of the character/origins that didn't work for me. I mean, her origin has always been a mess, and moreso since COIE, but another changeup was not the solution.

[protoslacker]

1968

On Monday Earth Day, I was thinking about the student actions for Palestine at universities across the country. I am inspired by the students' bravery. I am sure they are aware of the dangers and that no matter what they will bare costs. I felt sad too.The thoughts about this year brought up memories of 1968.

I was only 13 in 1968. I am sure I conflate things that happend later with that year. But I am just as sure that 1968 rocked the foundations of my world. I was all shook up. Itwas a year that cuts time, where nothing would be as it was.

I was surprised clicking on an old link from my blog to a 50-year retrospective of 1968 in photos put together by Alan Taylor in The Atlantic. To my amasement The Atlantic let me see the article--for well over a year I have not be able to get around their paywall for any articles. If it opens for you it's a very good collection of photos.

I'm sure there are many 13-year olds taking in the events of this year sensing that this year is different. And they are wondering how to proceed.

I was thinking about Earth Day, in 1970. We had moved to Charlotte, NC and I made a really groovy teenager room. On my desk I had envelops with literature about Earth Day. I also had the book The Strawberry Statement. That book is why I had some sense of the 1968 campus protests from a student perspective, albeit a few years after. The title of the book comes from one of Columbia's Deans said in the press which students mocked as "the strawberry statement": "Whether students vote 'yes' or 'no' on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries." The bitterness about diminishing the humanity of studnets ressonated.

One of the parts of the book I remember is the author of the book, James Kunen telling about picking up a hitchhicker. I remember it because he was driving a Dutch car called a Daffodil. In 1968 one of the moms in the car pool drove a Daf. My mom drove an Opel station wagon with a puny engine and another neighbor had an Isetta--it's a bit strange to think of small cars in the sixties. The hitchhicker was Black, Kunen read the guy as Black, but he also observed that hisskin was lighter than his own. It made racism visible in a way worth wrting about.

In 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech laying out the three evils of society: the sickness of racism, poverty--excessive materialism, and militarism. I probably didn't know about the speech, but do believe that I'd internalised, at least by 1970, connections between poverty, militarism and racism. A white kid in the suburbs understood that to be anti-war was also to be anti-racist and anti-colonial. It was important to know that I wasn't the only one.

My education in whiteness was also ramping up, perhaps most obviously as a factor of my age and schooling. I went to a school that was under a court-mandated desegregation plan. I was a new kid at schoo and didn't have lots of friends. There was an underground press that I didn't have much connection to, but I had some. The Earth Day materials are an axample. I would send self-adressed stamped envelops off and sometimes tape quarters to index cards, or send stamps to adresses found in the want ads of The Village Voice and Rolling Stone.

I am really happy when I see Zines on the Internet because they're familiar with the life line that made me feel connected. Young people are seeing the news. I am sure that they want to "connect, "to find the other ones" as Timothy Leary famously advised , just as I needed to.

[aikesmenrouger]

Some speculation about the hacker's past

From my perspective, Hacker's identity is actually very subtle. His mother is the guardian and ruler of cyberspace, and his father is the mother's chief technician and chief technician, and also manages the people's livelihood. If this were our country, Hacker's mother would be the president and his father the prime minister. This kind of people in China we call them the children of senior cadres

The children of a country's chief executive are no worse, but they are also likely to be harsher and even subject to outside pressure. hacker is inferior to his classmates in some ways, which makes him feel inferior, but his identity does not allow him to be so imperfect, adding Marbles and Motherboard to manage the entire cyber space, and not knowing how to raise a child, it is possible to ignore hacker's inner heart and lead hacker to go to the extremeI don't know if you saw the point I mentioned before, hacker's therapist didn't give hacker enough treatment at all, instead he was more like the one who fanned the flames

There aren't a lot of psychologists out there, but I would venture to guess that Hacker is probably the best tool that psychologists have for attacking motherboard

Combining my guesses about the past of Motherboard and Marbles with some of Hacker's reactions, I put together a story about a hacker's childhood

It's possible that Marbles originally created Hacker with a utilitarian mind (out of fear of old friends, similar to the idea that some people have children for old age), but after Hacker is born, Motherboard and Marbles will certainly teach him and gradually develop a relationship. Motherboard, in particular (otherwise she couldn't have been so disgraced when Hacker came to the control center, because his presence in the control center reminded Motherboard of the good old days, and as good as they were, the present reality is cruel) and the three of them had a great time.

Then in order to allow hackers to receive more education, they chose to let hackers go to school, basically all the people in the school know the relationship between hackers and Marbles and motherboard, so they will subconsciously feel that he is very strong, but hacker is always less than his classmate, causing him to feel a little inferior (think about a scene is that the hacker is walking in the corridor with a book, people around him talk about it, Then he is under pressure to return to the position) and then go home after the want to call mom and dad, the result Marbles is not, motherboard is in contact with others, hacker silently walked away when motherboard just see hacker take a time and hacker say hello, hacker is just a smile response.

After learning to come back, hacker and Marbles together to protect motherboard, and then do a lot of things with Slade's father. Gradually the events of the past and people's discussion finally overwhelmed hacker, and under the fanned by the psychiatrist he decided to attack motherboard, until he did so and was driven out of exile by Marbles (Personally, I don't think hacker wants power at all, he's just a poor repressed emotional child.)

[weatherman667]

Climate Change

Long Post

Climate Change is a completely and utterly bullshit term.  What they mean is Global Warming.  The reason they changed it is the Global Warming is something that can actually be MEASURED.  And if it can be measured, it can be refuted.

Every time a major weather event happens, people bring it out as proof of Global Warming, without the slightest effort to look into the data.  I live in an area that became a worldwide exemplar for how Global Warming is killing us, but the fun thing is I’ve lived here my entire life.  We had a similar heat dome 25-ish years ago.  The reason it had record temperatures was that it happened earlier in the year than the last heat wave.

The Canadian government also uses REARWARD PROJECTIONS to prove the veracity of it’s forward projections for temperature.  What this means is that we cannot believe anything the Canadian government says about temperature data.  For the record, before the government did this, the temperature graph was basically flat.

Just before the change happened, there was a study that looked at mostly rural sites around the country, and showed no change.

But wait, is Carbon Dioxide a greenhouse gas or not?

Yes, yes, yes it is.  And yes, for a time, the increase in global temperatures did match the increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

So, Global Warming is real then?

First, to put it into perspective, the three biggest contributors to global temperature, other than the Sun, obviously, (we’ll get to that later), is:

Water Vapour

Rayleigh Scattering

All Other Gases.

Carbon Dioxide is the biggest contributor from All Other Gases, but Oxygen and Ozone also apply.

Gas light absorption graphs are logarithmic.  You need an order more gas to produce a linear increase in absorption.  What this means is that at a minimum, for Carbon Dioxide to absorb more light, we’d need to double the current levels, and 10 times is not out the realm of the possible.

Before we jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon without any proof, (more on that later), the scientific consensus is that we were likely going towards a new ice age.

None of these theories are mutually exclusive.  We added Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, and put off Glaciation, and then Carbon Dioxide reached saturation, (reached a point that it would require 10x more to increase the Greenhouse Gas Effect it can produce).

No onto some other issues that are often brought up as counterproof for Global Warming:

Acid Rain:  We restricted the chemicals that were making acid rain.  We did a fantastic job of cleaning up our emissions, until we started worrying about Carbon Dioxide.

Hole in the Ozone:  This was caused by CFC’s, and we banned them.  And the Ozone layer healed everywhere but Australia.

By contrast, CO2 is, literally, plant food.  A number of green houses use CO2 generators because higher concentrations of CO2 allows them to grow more.

Alright, let’s say we want to stop producing CO2.  Even if not for Global Warming, then as my father suggested, to save some carbon for when we’ll risk going back to glaciation.  So, we want to reduce our carbon emissions, what do we do?

Solar Power:  This takes a of energy to create.  There are other problems, but the biggest one is that we don’t have storage.  California has too much solar power, as they cannot store it for usage when they actually need it.

Wind Power:  We are doing this in an insanely stupid way.  I’m seriously, most wind turbines are the worst way we would do it.  Wind Power is also highly temperamental, and we don’t have a good way of storing it.

These both work on smaller scales, and are something we can slowly lean into, but they cannot provide most of our power.  Actually, we can learn from Germany.  Germany had the highest amount of power from renewables in the world, and decided to increase the ratio.  The rest of their power was from nuclear, so they shuttered nuclear power plants to replace them with solar and wind.  But, solar and wind are temperamental, and you need something that can quickly spin up to make up for any shortfall.  And that is fossil fuels.

So, Germany trades nuclear for fossil fuels, which they were getting from Russian.  And then the Ukraine war started, and the US convinced the EU to no longer pay Russia for gas.  And that’s how you get an energy crisis.

Nuclear Power:  Canada solved all of the problems with Nuclear Power in the 60′s.  And I do mean all of them.  CANDU reactors CANNOT go critical, cannot meltdown, and can use natural uraniums, so they don’t need enrichment.  Nuclear power is the only method we can quickly scale up for out usage.  Quite frankly, if we are going to replace fossil fuels, this is the only method of producing power we can use to do it.  Like I said, Solar and Wind can be developed slowly, but we need to work on storage.

The best / only way to store power in the grid currently is pumped hydro.  Which works, extremely well, but the problem is that regions that can use pumped hydro can just use hydroelectric dams.  Hydroelectric dams and geothermal power are both fantastic, but you have to have the right environment.

How can we store power?

Lithium:  It works.  It’s extremely expensive, extremely inflammable, and we probably don’t have enough for the entire world’s needs.

Hydrogen:  Hydrogen fuel cells work.  Hydrogen combustion engines work.  Hydrogen never went away.

Synthetic Fuel:  One of the major car racing organizations, (can’t remember which one), is planning to switch to wind-generated synthetic fuel that is made using atmospheric gases, (primarily CO2), and water.

And now for electric cars.  If everyone switched to electric cars, it would be better for the environment?  No.  Ignoring the fact that a lot of people cannot use electric cars, the switch would cost most energy than we would save.  Gasoline cars can work for 20 years without a problem.  Electric / hybrid cars typically need a battery replacement after 5 years, which is often the same value as the car at that time.  This means you cannot buy the car for any price, as you will have to shell out thousands, (maybe tens of thousands for a truck), for a used car.  I bought my first car for $1,000.  I traded it in for $500.  Not only are we locking most people out of the car market, but we are making it so that financially, you might as well just buy a new car.  For electric cars (US):

New Nuclear Power Plant every 2 weeks for 20 years.

Quadruple the electrical infrastructure in all regions, without taking growth into account.

Have every - single - apartment building have individual garage stalls that can have a charger hooked up.

Even then, it’s still terrible for people living up North, as the cold takes a HUGE amount of power from the batteries.  With gasoline cars, we use waste heat from the engine to heat the cabin.

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I've Read So Far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

___

82. Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I remember randomly coming across this book while at work and I'll admit, it was the cover that pulled me in, the synopsis was just a great bonus.

One of the things I loved about this book, other than the speculative edge, was the amount of twists this had. I always thought I knew where it was heading, but there was always a twist to counter any theories I had. There was so much potential in this world where time travel existed and I'll be honest, it felt like the author took that to its full potential. This was fun, adventurous, sometimes a little terrifying, and a whole lot of addicting. It's such a clever novel and I really want to read Riddle's other books to see if he uses this same level of intrigue in his other works.

LOST IN TIME also made me think of some of my favourites, and I think that definitely added to my enjoyment of this novel. On one hand, it gave me similar vibes as DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch, and on the other, it made me think a bit of Stephen King's 11/22/63. It's one of those books that you encounter only a few times and end up trying to re-experience for the first time whenever you pick up new sci-fi speculative fiction novels.

The main reason why I'm not giving this full stars is because while beneficial to the story, the back and forth kind of interrupted certain aspects and moods of the novel. I would be really into a scene and then boom, new chapter set in a different place and time. I wanted more of one place than the other and feel like the story would have benefitted from further exploration of the place one of the MCs goes to during the first half of the novel.

All of that being said, however, I really and truly enjoyed this book. I want to read more from this author!

___

83. Vampire Breath by R.L. Stine--⭐️⭐️

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. It was probably one of my least favourite GOOSEBUMPS books, but that ending was very on brand, so as cheesy as it was, I enjoyed it!

I can see why this would be a fun one, though, if I was younger. I know I'm not the audience for this and usually I'm able to separate my age from these stories, but this one was not...an enjoyable one for me. It was kind of forgettable, to be honest.

Anyway, onto the next GOOSEBUMPS!

___

84. I Am Number 4 by Pittacus Lore--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Re-Read May 2023:

I don't know why, but I was wanting to re-read this book and maybe read the rest of the series. I remember really enjoying this and I won't lie, I totally still enjoyed this. There were a lot of things I forgot about, but I especially enjoyed (read: eye twitched through) the scenes where the mc was like "I'm an adult!" while being a 16 year old putting himself and his pseudo-father in danger.

This may not be a perfect book, but this is a great example of how much teenagers want to be grown. I remember being that age and thinking I knew everything. That invincibility complex hit hard here and being able to see it from this perspective nearly ten years later is very eye opening.

I'm excited to read the rest of this series to see how he grows!

___

85. The Melancholy of Summer by Louisa Onomé--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I received a copy via the publisher because I was the panel host for an event with the author. This did not affect my review at all.

THE MELANCHOLY OF SUMMER was such an emotionally explosive read that it took me a couple of tries to finally allow myself to fall fully into the Onomé's writing.

Set in the beautifully described City of Toronto, we follow Summer, the MC, as she tries to survive and find the freedom she is so desperately seeking in a city that is actively hunting for her criminal parents.

The author did a fantastic job of showcasing how difficult it is to both acknowledge and deal with emotions at such a young age, especially as a young woman of colour. I think how the author treats this topic may resonate with readers because we're taught to control our emotions, or to "be strong" in the face of adversity, but as Summer grows and finally starts to process her trauma, we see that feeling those emotions can also be incredibly therapeutic.

Summer's relationship with her cousin, Olu, could also be seen as an incredibly healing one because they both have trauma to work through. I loved that Olu was this incredible support system that Summer didn't know she had. Watching Summer thaw towards her cousin was such a beautiful moment, especially after the heartbreaking climax of the story.

I highly recommend this book for those who want characters who have to deal with complex emotions, depictions of travel through Toronto, and Japanese Pop Stars.

___

86. Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the great disservices I did to myself was starting the audiobook for this amazing memoir when I was on the cusp of a reading slump. I read about 40% of this book and then kept putting it off, until I told myself it was time to either DNF it or keep going.

I'm so glad I kept going!

And that is where the star is lost (if I had been in a better head space to read this, maybe it would have been a five star read, but alas.) But even though this doesn't get a perfect rating from me, I really and truly enjoyed this memoir.

I enjoyed reading about Tran's experiences in high school as he came into his own and eventually found his footing in his life. His writing pulled me in and I could see him experiencing so many things that made his life all that more fascinating, if not a incredibly heartbreaking thanks to his complicated and abusive relationship with his father and the racist and discriminatory relationship he had with the people and society around him while growing up.

Tran did a great job of not only sharing how music formed who he is today, but also how his understanding of the space he inhabits in this world is one that will always challenge the people around him who want him to stay "where he belongs". There was a particular scene where he is riding high on his successes, but a racist punches him down. It's a sad situation that can be seen even in today's society, especially social media.

One of the reasons why I also really enjoy memoirs like this is because of the immigrant experience, and the tokenism of living as a person who physically looks different and comes from a different place than the people around you. In these recollections, I can see the younger me trying to survive the halls of schools full of people who don't look like me, speaking two languages when everyone else normalizes using one. And speaking of languages: what happens to Tran in this with his first language was one of the great fears of my parents--but it is also a literal representation of how some immigrant families want their children to be a part of their new and "better" society so much, that something like a language is an okay sacrifice.

I've been lucky that most of the immigrant memoirs and autobiographies I've read have been so poignant and incredible. I'm very happy to add SIGH, GONE to that list of memoirs that I will happily recommend to my customers!

___

87. The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

While this isn't my first Linwood Barclay book, it's the first one I've read in a long time. I had forgotten how twisty and complex his mysteries and thrillers could get. I won't lie, reading this made me want to read more of his backlist titles.

THE LIE MAKER was a fun and interesting read that followed a handful of characters as their lives intertwined in the most dangerous of ways. At the heart of it all was a father who made some pretty horrible choices, and a son who just wanted his father back again. While the dangers and deaths happen around them, you can't help but root for these two characters to find some sort of peace together again. It's most likely because of that heart wrenching prologue, or because the MC never gave up on his father throughout the whole book.

I did like seeing the chapters were Evil™️ was taking place because you knew something was going to happen, but you didn't know HOW it was going to happen. The twists the filled the book and the big reveal were slowly shown to us until we had an aha! moment.

I enjoyed this book for what it was. Was it a work of art, or an especially memorable read? No, but it was entertaining af and I think it'll be a great read for those wanting a thriller for their summer reading list!

___

Have you read any of these books? Let me know!

___

Happy reading!

[alynnl]

actually I want to know your thoughts on Legend of Dragoon too. And throw in Legend of Legaia while you're at it!

Oh my. It's been ages since I originally played either one but I'll answer to the best of my ability.

For Legend of Dragoon -

Favorite thing about that game: The dragoon spirits and their different abilities. Each one had different uses in battle and then there was the elemental rock, paper, scissors that led a player to target weaknesses, which is a JRPG staple. Also I thought the dragoon armor designs were cool.

Least favorite thing about that game: I guess it's the fact that I saw the whole deal with Shana coming from a mile away. I recognize both the childhood friend romance and the "person being key to a world ending event" tropes being key parts of storytelling in its time but I don't know. The whole "People as objects" (it's almost always female characters!) - puts me off.

Favorite character in that game: Albert, my man! I will admit to my younger self (14-15 years old) having a crush on him, but all in all he's just a decent person. He wants to be a good king and help others, and he's willing to pick up a lance and do the fighting himself if that's what it takes. Also I liked his bromance with Lavitz quite a lot.

Would I recommend it? Why? I don't know if I could recommend it now. The actual hardware to play it would be hard to come by, and I think a lot of the writing and the mistranslation would date this game quite a bit. But it does remain a fond memory of its time.

Free space to go off about something! Can Legend of Dragoon get a remaster? A remake? Something to bring it into the 2020s? I feel like it's becoming a bit of lost media at this point and it's kind of a shame! I'd like to experience it again with fresh eyes and a new perspective as an adult, but at the moment it's not possible!

Rating out of 10: 6/10. I don't remember hating it at the very least. Some of the characters and plot points were enjoyable but others I could take or leave. It's a mixed bag, but I still think this game is worth something because I do remember it well over two decades later!

For Legend of Legaia -

Favorite thing about that game: I liked the combos that you put in. It's similar to a fighting game (but you're not putting in the Konami code!) It was interesting finding out the different moves you could use, and even better when you added the Seru into the mix. Gameplay wise Legaia was very fun.

Least favorite thing about that game: Some of the battles are tough, especially in early game. You really have to be on your toes all the time if you want to win. This was a game in the era where they did not hold your hand, and it shows.

Favorite character in that game: Noa. I love her first meeting and then finding out her origin story later. And I also like her fighting spirit. She might have a simple understanding of the world because she was literally raised by a wolf/Seru, but she does come to know what love is and she wants to fight for it! I respect her writing for that.

Would I recommend it? Why? For the same reason as Dragoon, I can't recommend it solely because it's so hard to find now! But if money and hardware were no object, I would say go for it? The world building is solid, the storytelling simple but enjoyable and the music is quite nice.

Free space to go off about something! Same as Dragoon above but... can we somehow bring this game to modern hardware? I think that it would be a good addition to other classic JRPG collections that are included on consoles like the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4. I know I would definitely play it again if I had the chance.

Rating out of 10: 7/10! Cool world building, nice imagery, and gameplay that shakes up the JRPG formula. I also like the fact there's only three main playable characters, since it gives each of them more than enough screentime and development. (Even silent protagonist Vaan is enjoyable!)

[drewandareview]

How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), and 22 Jump Street (2014)

Originally published June 14th, 2014

I'm not going to say that I didn't pay to see all these movies, but I will point out that when I went in to see the first movie, the ticket-ripping guy was busy elsewhere and people were just walking into theaters.  So in theory, I could have seen all three movies for free.  That said...

How To Train Your Dragon 2

People compared the first movie in this installment to Brave, but it actually reminds me more of Monsters, Inc.  And similarly to Monsters, Inc., I thought it would be hard to make another movie in the franchise that could compare to the world-changing events that shaped the first movie.  In the first HTTYD, practically the entire world went from hating dragons to loving them.  That's a huge change.  What could top that?

I don't know, but I had faith the writers could figure something out.  The first HTTYD was a complete fluke for Dreamworks, some of their previous works being very smart but nowhere near as grounded and powerful.  If they managed to pull something off the first time, they could manage something the second.  But I don't really think they did.  The events of this movie just didn't seem extremely consequential.  Rather than a story about changing perspectives, it was really a story about getting rid of one bad guy.  The stakes just weren't as high for me.

I found there were characters with very strong roles in the first movie that didn't have much to do in the second one, notably the dad and his longtime friend.  In fact, it didn't seem like any of the characters had anything to do that was as dramatic than what happened in the first movie.  The main character (Hiccup) had the task of proving to (practically) the world his radical viewpoint on dragons while overcoming his own awkwardness.  The sequel had him trying to convince a bad guy to not be bad (which failed) and trying to de-hypnotize his dragon with love (which of course didn't fail).  And he also had a very sloppy arc about "having to become a leader" with hardly any time dedicated toward it.  

He was also too confident to have any true impediments to overcome.  I'm well aware (well aware...) that a lot of the appeal from the first movie was over the gargantuan crushes many girls had for Hiccup.  A misunderstood, clumsy artist who was cute and had a loving bond with a dragon in a fantasy world.  Grab the mobs.  This movie seemed to have intentions of building on this fandom by growing Hiccup up, making him an adult with more masculine features.  It essentially had the crush grow up with his fans.  Even if that's pandering, I don't think it's inherently a bad idea.  Why not, really?  The only problem is, when they aged Hiccup, they took away a lot of the quirks he had that made him interesting in the first movie.  I'm not upset that he grew out of those, but without them being replaced by something else, the character just became less interesting to me.  Sure, he still has humorously unique physical idiosyncrasies (even jabbed at by his girlfriend in the movie), but it still feels like less.

One thing that had really disappointed me about the first movie was the ending.  There was a giant battle that ended rather suddenly, and I was begging for something more dramatic to have happened.  This movie repeated that ending, but on a worse scale.  An ending like that helped to lock in my opinion that the movie just didn't feel like taking risks.  Even Shrek 2, Dreamworks' first (of many) sequels, took risks from the original.  The biggest risk I could say this movie made was making Hiccup less cute, and let's be honest, that wasn't exactly a risk.

But as a standalone movie, I thought How To Train Your Dragon 2's strongest aspect was the little touches it added.  Little touches are those things in movies that don't need to be there but are put there anyway.  One part that really stands out to me is when a girl kissed her boyfriend on the cheek and accidentally got some saliva on herself.  It was a quick moment that was funny and awkward, but it wasn't there to develop her as a funny or awkward character.  The girl was already established as a confident character.  That moment was just there to be there, and I vastly appreciated that.  Little touches make movies seem so much more authentic because they bring a movie beyond its core building blocks.  I see it in so few movies, and this movie did it very well.

At first, I thought that was the purpose of a small scar on the character Hiccup's chin.  It hadn't been there before, and it wasn't explained, so I thought it was just a little touch.  Then the scar turned out to be a way for a character to identify Hiccup from when he was a baby, which was less cool, and then confusing.  The scar hadn't been there in the first movie when he was a teenager, so how was that even possible?  But then I looked it up--the scar HAD been there in the first movie.  Which made it EVEN COOLER.  The scar went from been a little, unexplained touch in one movie to eventually getting an explanation in the next movie.  That's just--that's just awesome.

The animation was also spectacular.  It was the blend I like of cartoony with a very detailed rendering.  (That is a bit weird the more I think about it.  It's like if a traditional cartoon and a human had a child.)  

One thing that bothers me about movies that are supposed to have a variety of creatures in them is that sometimes, the creatures repeat themselves.  This was something I noticed in the Monsters, Inc. franchise; in a world full of monsters, I was seeing a lot of monsters that looked very similar.  I wanted some variety.  How To Train Your Dragon 2 totally delivered on that.  There were a lot of dragons, and they ALL seemed different.  It was very, very cool to see.

Overall, there were very smart people working on this movie, and I wish there was a more interesting story they had been working on.  But hey, this movie will undoubtedly be successful.  Not because it's a franchise, not because it's well-reviewed, and not even because of Hiccup, but because it will have NO competition from other animated movies this summer.  Nothing from Disney, nothing from Pixar, nothing from Blue Sky or Sony... Just nothing.  Frozen had that benefit and is now one of the top five highest grossing movies of all time.

The Fault in Our Stars

I was acknowledging earlier today just how many movies I've seen, and how I'm really developing a fine understanding of not only movies but art in general.  I think I have a nice, broad appreciation for the styles and genres offered.  That said, I do find myself having a preference for imaginative, animated movies.  So I foresee myself writing less about movies like this one.

The Fault in Our Stars was simply a very good adaptation of the book.  No, it didn't have everything from the book, but it had a lot of what was in the book, and certainly all the important things.  I remember growing up how picky people used to be about book adaptations, feeling rage at even the tiniest changes.  It's interesting to see how culture has become much more accepting of difference in adaptations.

And I rather liked the book.  I even reviewed it earlier here.  I thought it was wonderfully provocative, even existential.  And while I had some issues with the male love interest, I found myself liking the sincerity and passion of the characters.  And since the movie was a faithful adaptation, I have all the same nice things to say about the movie.  The only thing I was bothered about is that the movie did condense the many provocative themes of the book, which I can't exactly blame it for.

That said, I'm not sure it had to be a movie.  One of my favorite parts about the book was what it made me think about, which I didn't need or want condensed.  Some of the book's events also seemed more boring on screen.  Maybe it's just because I knew what was coming, but I suspect the perspective I got from the book was more interesting than that from the movie.  Perhaps the first person narrative offered me more--perspective.

I think it was a fine movie, but for what might be the first time, I find myself thinking that a book could not be as good when made into a movie.  I had always THOUGHT that was a possible outcome, but I don't think I've ever officially ran into it before.

22 Jump Street

The movie ripped off the first movie, which a lot of sequels get torn apart for (the most recent one in memory being The Hangover: Part II).  But despite having the same overall plot, it was a completely different movie.  All the jokes were new and fresh, and really funny.  Unlike The Neighbors, which is the last comedy I saw, this movie had jokes that were cleverly written into the plot and didn't compromise the overall story.  I find comedies so much funnier when they're able to build a strong movie at the same time.

This was another first for me, because I don't think I've ever seen a movie sequel rip off its original so successfully.  It makes an intriguing point about what we ought to expect out of our stories.  I hear a lot of people these days complaining about the lack of original ideas, and I entirely understand those complaints.  But it's fascinating to see a movie that's able to recycle an old idea in a fantastic way.  It makes a point that something doesn't have to be new for us to enjoy it; it just has to be made really well.  I wonder how many original movies out there could rip themselves off and still be fantastic.  I'm sure there ARE some of my favorite movies that do just that.

I was happy to see Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum back doing the same old thing.  They're a great comedic pairing and they both hold their own impressively in this movie.  It's not just funny because they're funny things being said by silly people: There's a much more intricate craft behind it.  While it's all definitely funny, it's still grounded.  Even in the various improvised sequences, the actors never go off the rails, and always stay within the borders of the movie.  They keep the comedy seeming like it's actually happening, which makes it leagues funnier to me.

I'm not so sure there will be another sequel to this (as the end credits mocked the potential existence of it), but I'd be curious to see if it could rip itself off again.  I bet that it could.  I'd also be curious to see a sequel that wasn't a rehashing of the original.  Whatever the case, it's very exciting for me to be finding myself wanting a THIRD movie of something.  I don't remember the last time that happened, if it's ever happened.

[felassan]

Some snippets of insight and guesses from Mark Darrah in his recent Old Game Dev Advice Summer Game Fest 2022 opening live event co-stream video: 

[prior to the show beginning] "I think the chance of us getting Dragon Age: Dreadwolf news is basically zero because it doesn't make sense to me that you would announce the name so close to the event if you were gonna show something. I think there's probably a 5% chance that we get BioWare news, but it probably won't be Dreadwolf news if that happens. But, you know, 5% chance. And if it is something it would be, either, they finally managed to decide to do a Dragon Age remaster or something to do with SW:TOR or for some reason EA has decided they need to talk about Mass Effect. Hopefully not that third thing because it's a loooot early to be talking about Mass Effect. But if we get something that would be my guess. But I honestly think we're not gonna get BioWare news. So maybe we'll all be surprised." [nb this event has obviously now passed]

[answering various questions and comments from the sidechat] "I don't mind 'Dreadwolf' - question about what do I think, what would I have called Dragon Age [4]. I mean we were starting naming discussions before I left. I think Dreadwolf was on the list, it's, there's nothing wrong with it as a name. I think that the franchise should definitely put 'Dragon Age 2' in the past and stick to subtitles. At one point I was actually pushing for calling it 'Dragon Age' with no subtitle. I got talked out of that. I think probably that was the right call. But I think, yeah, Dreadwolf is fine. You want something that's short and say-able, so things like 'Minrathous Nights', it just gets too cumbersome and long, it becomes awkward. I do think there is something to be said for a made up word. ‘Skyrim’, or ‘Dreadwolf’, or that sort of thing, because it lets you dominate the search. Whereas if you are 'Inquisition' or 'Oblivion' or those sorts of things, you can kinda get lost in the Googles, at least at certain points in your campaign."

"My bet is that we'll see Dreadwolf at the The Game Awards [this is in December]. That was actually my assumption before they announced the name, now it's even, now I'm even more confident in that."

"Yeah I mean, you have a wolf and a dragon in the name, that's a bit confusing, that's fair".

"I don't have a problem with the font. I think that we'll probably see some refinement on the word form before it launches. Yeah, we'll see."

"I don't know if the Spider With Hands is gonna be in Dreadwolf or not. I mean, I would be, I would hope they wouldn't just toss away an asset they have.”

"I mean because there's more Tevinter stuff in Dreadwolf, I imagine that they're gonna be able to turn the magic level up quite a bit, which lets them do a lot more experimentation with creature design."

“Definitely I feel like the Dragon Age team has heard the, 'please stop making us kill wolves, it's making us sad', so I don't know/think there's gonna be a lot of just, animals, as enemy factions in Dreadwolf. Except spiders."

“I feel like the BioWare games have always been undermarketed. I remember when Mass 1 was coming out, that was around the first Assassin’s Creed. We were going out to dinner with Microsoft I think and I could see a television over someone’s shoulder and in the time we were at dinner I think I saw fifteen Assassin’s Creed TV ads and Mass Effect got zero. So I do think there's always been, BioWare's always been undermarketed, not just by EA but just in general, I think there has been a tendency to undermarket BioWare games. I think Cyberpunk put the money behind the game and it showed, from a marketing perspective."

"I mean the writing team tends to shy away from going back to followers, especially ones that have a lot of quantum. Anyone that was a romance option inherently has a fair bit of quantum. They do re-occur, you've got Varric twice and you’ve got Isabela twice, like, you get people coming back, but Dragon Age tends to shy away from that just because it just puts a lot of extra work that nobody sees, because you just see what matches your quantum state, and all the other work is basically a waste. Quantum just means that there are a lot of different potential states for the character."

"Everyone in Dragon Age 2 except for Varric and Aveline is very quantum."

"Dragon Age 4 was marketed in 2018 because EA needed something - well, two reasons. One, EA wanted something at the The Game Awards and didn't have anything else and two, by putting it there you also made it way less likely that the game was gonna get cancelled. So. There was some politics on both sides of that one."

"I don't think Obsidian would be the right partner for a Dragon Age remake even though, you know, they have a long track record. But I do think that, you know, someone that would be willing to spend the money, would probably do a better job than EA, who would [inaudible] remake".

"Yes the progression in Inquisition multiplayer was bad unfortunately. I've been fighting for co-op campaign, campaign co-op in Dragon Age for a while. In Inquisition it was a huge fight with EA because they just didn't understand why anyone would do it because they were all competitive sports game players and on Dragon Age 4, it was, one of the problems was getting the writers on board. But there was also the whole - we'll get to it when we talk about Anthem [in an upcoming vid] - but there was the whole 'everything should be a live service' stuff going on within EA at the same time as well. I do think campaign co-op, if you commit, could be amazing."

"I suspect that multiplayer will be purged completely from Dragon Age 4. That's my guess."

"The next Mass Effect is really early [in production] so."

"[quoting someone] ‘Mass 5 isn't releasing next year according to Jeff Grubb'. No. No it's not.”

"Yeah, I think he [Jeff] may be right about Dragon Age 4 next year. I think they're probably aiming for Christmas next year."

"There's a reasonable chance that Starfield doesn't come out in the same year as Dragon Age 4."

“I don’t think there’s an EA day. I don’t think so. I think EA’s plans is to spread their stuff across the year, I think they realized that too much stuff was being pushed out, they didn’t have enough to show, so they’re not doing, so EA Play isn’t happening this year and they’re just gonna show things as it comes out. So I expect to get BioWare at The Game Awards. Probably just Dragon Age. Probably nothing for Mass Effect this year. That would be my guess.”

“Pretty sure they’ll be at The Game Awards. Pretty sure that Dreadwolf will be at The Game Awards because, that would fit, that would make sense with announce the name now in June, six months to get a trailer together, get some gameplay together and show. If they are on track for next Fall, like, November next year, that would also make sense. I mean, they could delay and wait for next summer, which would be more in line with the shorter marketing cycles that games have been moving towards. But I think because it got announced already in 2018, you kinda don’t get to play that game, you kind of have to show early because you’ve already started. Yeah, I mean, the devs care about DA Day. The problem with DA Day versus N7 day, you’ll get something on N7 Day but it probably won’t be anything related to Mass 5, because it’s just too early. You might get something else. The problem with DA Day is it’s too close to The Game Awards, they’re usually only a few days apart, so you either need two assets or it’s, it’s too bad, if The Game Awards were actually a little bit earlier, you’d be able to piggyback them a little bit better.”

“The Game Awards are usually early December, but usually the 8th or 9th as opposed to the 4th. Yeah, that sort’ve thing, the short stories, for DA Day, is more what I would expect to get just because it’s a more community-focused thing, maybe, I mean that would also be a place for something else if, you know, if they’re gonna have a TV show or a new novel or something that would be the place to announce it as well probably. There was a bunch of TV announcements at Summer Game Fest, so maybe do that at The Game Awards as well.”

[source link and full video to check out]