#i am in my sonic forces arc let me the fuck out!!!!!!!!

[braingutzz]

⚠️ [SPOILER WARNING FOR IDW SONIC #63/#64] ⚠️

i know im late to the party and not to start an argument but the duo arc in sonic idw is very stupid and badly written.

i keep seeing people agree with this stance for different reasons (aka. LANOLIN DUMB AND DOESN'T BELIVE SILVER!!) when like- she kinda has reason not to.

i just think its way way way too forced because none of the characters are doing things that they would fucking do-

first of all, HE KICKED YOU TELL THEM HE KICKED YOU

whisper literally saw it happen- she saw him kick silver. she knows what duo did!!! and even though silver didn't know that she saw what duo did, it would be very in character to tell them anyways! he's very honest and headstrong! he's not a loser who will fold the moment someone tells him he's wrong!! HE TRIED TO KILL SONIC!!

STOP ACTING LIKE A KICKED LITTLE PUPPY YOU ATTEMPTED MURDER, YOU FOUGHT GODS, YOU RID THE WORLD OF THE METAL VIRUS WITH SONIC. FIGHT BACK

"it was an accident" he literally kicked you. you were already rightfully accusing him- WHY NOT BRING UP THE FACT HE KICKED YOU??

also dude his eyes literally changed colors and he gave you an ominous and obviously evil grin.

he brought up the eye changing to whisper and not the rest of the team for some reason??????? later in the issue, whisper confides in silver. they talk about their suspicion and come to the conclusion that this is mimic! for really valid reason! now, let's move onto the next issue. SURELY they'll tell lanolin about this... right? RIGHT????

"do you have any proof?" "we will soon."

and then the girls start fighting.

dude- JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER— lanolin, you are the leader of this newly form group. two of the members who are extremely skilled and have so much experience under their belts are telling you something. maybe don't immediately jump to defending the dude you've known for like two days??? like don't let them assault the bitch, but call a group meeting or SOMETHING.. but she's new so i can excuse that i guess. but SILVER AND WHISPER?? SAY SOMETHING!!! PLEASE!!!!

this kind of plot is genuinely so annoying it makes me want to rip my hair out. i hate this trope so much- I HATE MISCOMMUNICATION TROPES WHEN THEY'RE SO OBVIOUSLY FIXED- YOU COULD JUST SHOUT OUT ONE SENTENCE LIKE-

"HE KICKED ME!!" or "HIS FORM STARTED CHANGING!!"

also one thing that could've made this infinitely times less infuriating..

DON'T TELL US ITS MIMIC LITERALLY THE PAGE AFTER HE GETS ACCEPTED INTO THE DIAMOND CUTTERS!

anyways i believe that's enough ranting today, i genuinely love sonic franchise so so so much. i am just annoyed by this specific trope to no ends. everything else about this comic? ive loved it! genuinely such a fun time to read, but this plot feels so aggravating and redundant. it just makes silver look like a loser who will fold at any pushback. it makes lanolin seem bossy and untrusting of her team and like she just wants to put them down. it makes whisper look incompetent and like she has no idea how to make a point or cooperate in a team. and it makes tangle... not exist, lmao.

anyways have a nice day bye

[checkoutmybookshelf]

My Favorite Star Wars Book Ever

At this point, my deep and abiding love of the Star Wars EU Legends Continuity Books is no secret, and I have apparently pissed off a few people who were fans of Kenobi (the book, not the the show). Them's the breaks in the fandom that is helmed by Anakin *bring the goddamn drama or get off my stage* Skywalker. (Please realize that that is said lovingly; I am HERE for Solo/Skywalker legacy shenanagins.) And speaking of legacy shenanagins, the fact that this book is the culmination of arcs for so many characters that we have literally been able to watch grow up and survive many adventures as the Yuuzhan Vong threaten to annihilate the galaxy is what makes it my unequivocal, hands-down, ride-or-die favorite Star Wars book. Let's talk Star By Star.

*Spoilers abound below the break*

So, like many Star Wars books, the plot of Star By Star is pretty darn straightforward: The Mission to Myrkr to kill the Voxyn Queen and it's immediate aftermath, interlaced with the fall of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong. (For anyone who needs a refresher or an explanation, let me direct you to the one, the only, the wonderful Wookieepedia.)

What makes this book absolutely fucking AMAZING is a combination of the character work and worldbuilding, much of which comes to a glorious head in this book--as well it should, this is very much the turning point of the Yuuzhan Vong war. It also launches a solid half dozen long-ranging new arcs for characters that I just adore.

Normally I do my best to have coherent, organized thoughts about books, but at this point what I really want to do is just a big, messy, disorganized list of stuff I love about this book. So, in the immortal words of Captain Han Solo: Punch it!

The whole concept of the voxyn and the voxyn queen. Let's be real, predators bioengineered to hunt down and murder the crap out of jedi with their ability to sense force-users, sonic blast roars, acid saliva, retrovirous-laden paw pads, and a poisoned tail barb. These things are horrifying and genuinely felt like a threat to the jedi, which honestly got kinda hard to do sometimes in the EU. The big "they're all cloned from a single queen" is a wee bit video game weak spot/boss fight, but honestly I'm not complaining given the sheer grind that this mission becomes.

The Jedi Strike Team Dynamics. This TEAM you guys. This team is an absolute disaster from start to finish. Not only do you have all three Solo kids with their sibling fuckery dynamics--specifically Jacen and Anakin's crippling fundamental disagreement on force use ethics that ultimately is a rehash of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's debate about the living vs. unifying force but in an apocalyptic combat zone--but almost every member of this team is potentially a disaster. You have Tenel Ka, Tahiri Veila, and Zekk on the team, who are collective love interests for the Solo siblings, and I'm pretty sure that sending siblings and couples on life-and-death missions is not a good idea because instincts and motivations get all sorts of fucky and tangled. Then you have Alema Rar, whose sister gets acid-in-the-faced-to-death by a voxyn in chapter 1 of this book, which is just a disaster waiting to happen. Then you have the friendship dynamics with Raynar Thul, Lowbacca, and Tesar Sebatyne, which arguably carries over some of the young jedi knights dynamics that never got solved. This team was a TIME BOMB, and frankly the fact that they managed to pull this mission off is a miracle.

The Battle/Force/Jedi Meld. So, not only do we have a team full of hideously complicated and unstable relationships, but they spend the entire goddamn mission in a meld that basically lets them all be in each other's thoughts and feelings and share extreme physical sensations, including pain. Which like...The Vong are major pain fans, so this might have been a poor life choice. Plus, it sets up some of the complicated stuff with Raynar and Jaina and Zekk in the Killick War later. *weird telepathic forearm rubbing* That said, I love the idea of the battle meld, and it really is just a great ride to watch this shred the team.

The Yuuzhan Vong Worldbuilding. Literally the worldbuilding for the Vong in this whole series is A+ horrifying and fascinating. We just get a lot of it here, and it's used to excellent effect.

Anakin's Death. Ok, so this was fucking heartbreaking, and it might seem like a weird thing to put on a list of things I love about this book. But what makes this death just an incredible read is the quality of the writing, the impact on the mission, and the fact that this death sets Jacen on the path to becoming a Sith Lord, pushes Tahiri into becoming the badass she grows into, fundamentally changes how we think about the unifying and living force, and honestly adds some stakes because if the Solo kids aren't safe, then literally ANYONE could die here. This death is so critical and changed so much and was done with respect and weight.

Borsk Fey'lya's Death. We don't love this Bothan. He's kind of a dick. But uh...I will give him credit for buying time for people to get off-planet during the fall of Coruscant, and for blowing 25,000 Vong to hell along with him.

Lando Calrissian Being the Only Adult in the Room With Eyes. Lando delivers the strike team to the Vong, but before he does, he starts a fight. Lando Calrissian HAS EYES IN HIS HEAD and can clearly see the lines along which the strike team is destined to fissure. He tries so hard to get them to air it out before the mission and to clear the air. It doesn't work, but he TRIED, and that's more than Luke or Han did. I guess that's what happens when you're a farmboy who has never had to lead a pre-fractured team and a gruff loner who did everything himself. Lando though...Lando understands that even Jedi have fracture points and conflict points. Give this man more credit.

I think that more or less covers the things that I love about this book. If you love the EU Legends Continuity, I strongly recommend this whole series. There are more good and great books than there aren't, and the Yuuzhan Vong are such great antagonists.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Hey Corner! Lil fun dare for ya: Search for a "omnitrix playlist template", choose one of them, and then make your own playlist for which aliens you would like to have on your own if you had the omnitrix! Or you could just say, if you are lazy (The minimun are 16 aliens, 10 alredy unlocked, 6 for unlocking later)

Okay okay okay spending too much time here so I'm not even gonna try to make a visual and by fuck I'm just gonna use what Ben called them rather than their official species names but here we go

Also since there's no visual I'll comment on my choices!

Initial 10:

XLR8 - Look. Y'all. Y'all should see this coming because I just like this alien a lot? idk what it is but XLR8 is a fave.

Blitzwolfer - first off. Big werewolf? With the claws? And a sonic howl move? YES.

Wildmutt - Gonna be honest, I am choosing this because I am 100% curious in experiencing how this species 'sees'. But also large dog!

Big Chill - ngl? Out of the initial ones in Alien Force, Big Chill is the only one I was really interested in when I saw them! The others are neat once you see some of them but like. This one made me interested.

Pesky Dust - They are baby! Also I'm a sucker for Dreamwalkers.

Diamondhead - Honestly another fave from the old days and I want to be shiny like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck

Upgrade - Literally just. Just. Everything. I could have so much fun with this.

Swampfire - Honestly I want a Fire Type on this and a Grass Type so like. I could either go with Swampfire or have both Heatblast and Wildvine separately. And while I love the classics, Swampfire is the best of both worlds.

Ripjaws - the fishman from Shape of the Water will treat you right! Though yeah I just. I want my aquatic bitch too! Bonus points for this species having a side character who is a reference to 'The Incredible Mr. Limpet'

Chromastone - Honestly I would like to see a little more of this one but they seem pretty neat actually!

Bonus ones to unlock:

Armodrillo - I just think they're neat!

Lodestar - How do magnets work? Fuck you I don't know!

Chamalien - Invisible? Always fun!

Buzzshock - Love these chaotic little fuckers

Four Arms - Look. Look! I just. Let me be the really tall buff lady with four very muscular arms.

Feedback - Despite my feelings on how that arc was tossed in, I do like this Alien.

Okay. That's great but also a bonus!

Because that's just species that are canonically in the Omnitrix but here's a few shoutouts of species I'd probably toss in if we're going with any species from Canon!

This includes whatever Vilgax's species is, whatever Rook's species is, Osmosians(Yes I know they were retconned to 'mutants' but FUCK that), and Lenopan. Also I know Anodites can't be in the Omnitrix but if they could they'd be in there. I can't remember other species rn but hell yeah!

[voids-cave]

me waiting for my dad to come home so i can talk about getting adhd meds because i really wanna get commissions and projects done and my life fucking organized

[idw-sonic-fan-blog]

The Mandates

Just wanted to share my thoughts on the pro-ported mandates because they cast a shadow on this comic.

“Game characters cannot have relatives unless they were estabilished in the game canon, i.e. Cream and her mother.”

This one is understandable and you can blame Penders for this. Mind you that most licensed comics of gaming franchises don’t actually delve too much in personal family relationships or expand on them. So this is expected and honestly Sega should have put the screws on Archie decades ago about this.

“Game characters can not die. There are workarounds for this, such as being Mistaken for Dying or "Mistaken For Dead”

Again. Yes. Not a big deal.

“Game characters cannot have wardrobe changes unless approved. Chao Races and Badnik Bases has some characters (mainly the female game characters) wear different clothes for extreme conditions. Male characters remain the same.”

This is a useless rule but whatever. I mean Sega, you are the ones putting bad wardrobe choices on the characters so again it’s whatever.

“Sonic can't be shown getting too emotional (i.e;cry)”

This is one that it complained about because it really wouldn’t matter unless it is called attention to. A lot of superheroes don’t cry. But that doesn’t prohibit them from expressing themselves. IDW Sonic has been sad. He has been pissed. He has been furious.

Is this not too emotional?

Is he not expressing himself appropriately?

I don’t even know why this is brought up. When in this comic has Sonic not been expressive or displaying the appropriate amount of emotion? When did Sonic needing to cry be necessary?

“Game characters cannot enter in a relationship.”

Oh GOD YES. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

“All major Character Development must be approved by SEGA.”

Yeah, of course. Let me remind you that Penders and Archie ruined any strand of trust Sega could have in comic media. They played loose at first and all of the sudden, they are involved in a lawsuit about characters in a Sonic comic that they didn’t even know about. They probably lost a video game business relationship because of it. If they want to be involved in the comics, fine. That means that they are now forced to World Build. They have to invest in it now and not just be like Lucas Films and let anybody do anything with their flagship title.

“Much like the post-reboot of the Archie comic, the words "Mobius" is banned—the planet is simply called "Sonic's World". Unlike the Post-Boot, which allowed the names "Mobian" and "Mobini", anything related to Mobius is banned in this comic.”

…Of course but how about you throw the writer’s a bone and I don’t know, name the fucking planet. If it is not Earth, give it a name.

“Sonic must always win at the end. Even if he and his friends are at the losing end in an overarching story (the Metal Virus arc, for example), they must come out on top when it concludes.”

I don’t even get this rule and the knee jerk hatred for it. Why even have it? Why even share the existence of this rule? Archie Sonic didn’t really lose too bad. It’s more on how you frame a victory. The fact of the matter is that Eggman is still actively trying to conquer the planet. Sonic stops him but Eggman still has control of land and has military installations all over.

This rule is offset by this. While Sonic can’t lose, Sonic can’t completely win.

“Characters and material from other licensed properties (Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)', Sonic Underground, the OVA, Sonic X and the Paramount films cannot be used. This rule extends to characters and redesigns done by the current writers. The only exception is Sticks from Sonic Boom, and that's because she was created by SEGA themselves and showed up in non-Boom media, but any ideas regarding her use still need to be okayed by SEGA.”

First off I am glad that Sticks was spared by this rule and I look forward to her eventual inclusion. Second, again, this is not much of a big deal as it was expected. Sorry Freedom Fighter fans but honestly deal.

“Male characters, sans Eggman, can't wear pants, which was also a thing in the Post-Reboot, albeit never explicitly stated. The inverse is also true; female characters have to have some form of lower clothing.”

Okay this is a pedantic rule. It is so weird with how precise it is. Like…huh?

“Classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bean, and Bark won't appear in non-Classic issues, as Sega doesn't want Classic and Modern Sonic to mix.”

One of the most bullshit mandates fueled by the nostalgia boner fans created. Like this is stupid because Archie Modern Sonic has added more character and depth to all of these mentioned characters than any of the Sega Sonic games they appeared in which only amounts to 1 or 2 at most. Why neuter your own potential stories with this stupid limitation?

“According to Ian Flynn, a specific incident involving Shadow's characterization when he's exposed to the Zombot infection was written in a specific way because of Sega mandating that he be written as an "overconfident asshole rival" character, similar to Vegeta. He later followed up with an explanation that out of every character, Shadow has the most mandates and notes attached to how he's portrayed. According to the podcast, Sega says that Team Dark is no longer a thing. The three members are not a team and they have never worked for G.U.N.; Shadow also doesn't even consider them friends.”

This is my opinion is the worst rule. First it’s contradictory to the character Sega introduced us to. Stop trying to be like Dragon Ball for once and actually be your own thing. It’s one thing if we are changing it because Shadow was unpopular because of his personality. But no one likes this Shadow. People miss the somber but reserved Hedgehog that continued to fight in spite of the world betraying him. Hothead Shadow is a cheap Knuckles. And I don’t even understand why Shadow even has so many mandates when he wasn’t the most egregious offender. Knuckles was.

Also, Team Dark aren’t a thing and Shadow doesn’t even consider them to be his friends. First off that doesn’t even fly in your own games. Who outside of Sonic does Shadow interact the most? Rouge. They have teamed up and were a packaged duo since their inception. When Shadow appeared, Rouge appeared right next to him. If Rouge was in a game, so was Shadow.

Team Dark or just Rouge has fought alongside Shadow in every game they appeared in. Who else does Shadow talk to if not Rouge?

“Sega has stated to Flynn that only male hedgehogs are allowed to go Super with the Chaos Emeralds.”

Except in Sonic Mania.

“Ian isn't allowed to directly reference a game, since the comic is supposed to be its own thing.”

Okay. Not only is this rule stupid. But it’s untrue.

This references the end of Sonic Forces.

The first page of comic.

It has referenced Sonic Adventure, SA2, Sonic Generations , and Sonic Unleashed.

This referencing Shadow the Hedgehog.

I don’t believe this rule exists and even if it did, it is dumbest rule since the whole point of this comic is to base it off the games more. The dumbest rule.

“Knuckles is not allowed to leave Angel Island unless he has a very good reason to.”

For decades, people have complained that Knuckles routinely leaves the island. For decades. Now does this mean Sega is going to 1. Use Knuckles and 2. Amplify the importance of Angel Island and the Master Emerald? No. Again, this criticism should be levied at Sega because they often conveniently forget Knuckles purpose and just hand wave it instead of giving Knuckles more to do on the island like I don’t know, have other entities invested in attacking him.

In summary, here is what I think is going on. Do I think most of these mandates are real? Yes. Given what happened to Archie, I do think Sega is doing some brand alignment. I think they got the clamps on.

But what I think is going on is a Japanese cultural thing called Power Harassment. It is normalized abuse of power. Sega of Japan is normally laxxed about their brands. They don’t mind blatant rip-offs of their mascot nor do they get stiff about fandom creations or mods. The comic division, however, is getting tough love because not only did it cost them a publishing deal, but ruined a relationship with a high end developer. So the IDW writers and staff are being subjected to intentionally hypocritical rules and strict mandates that they know don’t make sense until they’ve shown to be obedient.

A lot of the mandates aren’t strict. But some are so asinine that I don’t think they aren’t aware with how stupid they sound imposing those rules. Like Shadow is the most narratively complete Sonic character and yet, Sega puts this tight mandate as if Archie Shadow was the most egregious thing. Archie Shadow was overpowered. He wasn’t out of character like Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were. They can’t be that stupid or be that intentionally dense. So they want to see if the writing crew can follow orders. That’s it.

But that’s just my take.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 286: VESTIGE ANTICS ARE A GO

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “what’s the record for most consecutive bone breaks within the span of a single minute” and, without waiting for an answer, proceeded to unleash roughly 17 Smashes onto Tomura. Kacchan was all “THAT DOES IT, I’M TAKING THE REINS OF THIS SHITSHOW” and carried Endeavor and Shouto up to where the action was so Endeavor could hit Tomura with a Prominence Burn. AFO was all “Tomura would you rather burn to death or let me take over your body” and Tomura was all “...” and so AFO TOOK OVER and was all “STABBITY STABBITY” and used his Stabbing Quirk to do some Good Old Fashioned STABBIN’. First he stabbed Endeavor, and then he was all “hee and now I’m gonna stab Deku”, but Kacchan was all “SIR THAT’S MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT RIVAL” and so he rushed on in AND GOT HIMSELF STABBED INSTEAD. And so basically THIS PAST WHOLE WEEK HAS BEEN A RIDE, LET ME TELL YOU.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan is all “sup Deku lemme just downplay how I totally took this fatal blow for you just now” before he dramatically passes out and is caught by Todoroki “BTDUBS I CAN FLY NOW” Shouto, who is also carrying his dad because the kids really are just doing it all, here. AllForRaki Tomura For One is all “HAHA BAKUGOU IS PRETTY DUMB”, at which point Deku just LOSES IT ENTIRELY and ASCENDS INTO A NEW PLANE OF FURY LIKE A LITTLE GREEN RAGE BUDDHA. But then like two seconds later Tomura is all “ANYWAY, SO” and FUCKING TOUCHES DEKU’S FACE, CAUSING THE TWO OF THEM TO ASTROPROJECT INTO THE FREAKY OFA/AFO MINDSCAPE BECAUSE THIS CHAPTER IS BANANAS. Vestige!AFO is all “reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated but aren’t you glad I saved your life though, Tomura”, while Tomura is all “!!” because he’s hopefully starting to get A Clue, and meanwhile Deku just stands there watching all “what the fuck.” The chapter ends with SHIMURA MCFUCKING NANA showing up all, “HI, I HEARD SOME BITCHES WERE TRYING TO HAVE A GIRL POWER ARC, AND THEY DIDN’T INVITE ME.” Go on, Nana. Give ‘em hell.

you guys. I’m not normally one to take pleasure in another human being’s misfortune. BUT THAT SAID, there are exceptions to every rule, and so let’s just say certain events have transpired early this morning which have PUT ME IN A VERY, LET’S JUST SAY, NOT-TERRIBLE MOOD which this chapter will hopefully improve upon!!

oh my god Deku’s one non-fucked-up eye that he still has control over is SO WIDE YOU GUYS

hmm I know I shouldn’t be all (゜▽゜) while the two of them are all (； ▼ Д ▼) (⁰ Д゜;) ... and yet here we are. btw I’m worried tumblr’s formatting will ruin those two emojis which I worked so hard to get just right so I’m gonna repost them on another line here just in case

(； ▼ Д ▼) (⁰ Д゜;) that’s them. Kacchan and Deku. my boys 

HERE COMES THE CHEESY “JUST GOT STABBED BETTER PLAY IT OFF ALL COOL!!!” ONE LINER OH MY GOD

(ETA: really love how my son, with what for all he knows could be his dying breaths, decides that the absolute most important thing is to preserve his selfish asshole facade so as not to fuck up his status quo with his rival. “LOOKEE HERE I GOT MYSELF ALL STABBED AND SHIT FOR YOU, BUT I TOTALLY JUST DID IT BECAUSE I WAS TIRED OF YOU GETTING ALL THE COOL HERO MOMENTS” yeah, that’s right! SELFLESS MOTIVATIONS, WHAT ARE THOSE sob.

also tbh I’m glad they didn’t delve any further into their feelings right here and now because this really isn’t the place or time for it sadly. WE WILL JUST PUT THOSE ON HOLD UNTIL AFTER THE ARC ENDS, when they are all recovering from their various wounds and traumas and have time to catch up and have some long-overdue heart-to-hearts. it deserves its own chapter or two or three. maybe time to head back to Ground Beta once they’re healthy? “healthy” perhaps being a relative term given their current condition fjsdjkf.)

by the way it looks from here like only the ones through his torso and shoulder actually hit, so that’s something at least. WE’VE LOST ENOUGH LEGS TODAY. I need to conserve my remaining puns

MEANWHILE TOMURA IS HAVING A CRISIS

ARE YOU MAD AT YOUR EVIL DAD TOMURA. HE JUST WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER WILL HE, THAT GUY

anyway so it looks like Kacchan might have caught a break here because AFO/Tomura is pulling the stabby quirk activation tendril things back out! rip, “Kacchan vs. Deku part 3″ theories

p.s. I got ALL CAUGHT UP IN THE DRAMA and thus glossed over the chapter title which is “one among us”! hmmm this is definitely AFO/OFA related, calling it now. ooh lord I am excited

NOW MY SON IS DRAMATICALLY FALLING

THE BLOOD FROM THE MOUTH OOF NOT GOOD AHHHH. DEKU’S FACE AHHHH. HIS BODY JUST WENT TOTALLY LIMP DID HE PASS OUT AHHHH. SOMEONE CATCH HIM!!

BY HIS FOOT, SHOUTO?!

well NOT EXACTLY THE MOST GRACEFUL THING I’VE EVER SEEN, but we’ll allow it because HOLY SHIT BOY. ARE YOU ALREADY CARRYING YOUR DAD ON TOP OF THAT?? HORIKOSHI PLEASE CONFIRM, IS TODOROKI MOTHERFUCKING SHOUTO FUCKING FLYING AROUND UNBALANCED AF ON HIS ONE FLAMEY LEG, CARRYING HIS 500 LB POP AND NOW HIS FLOPPY PASSED OUT BEST FRIEND AS WELL?!? HOLY SHIT TODO?!?!

LADIES AND GENTLEFRIENDS OF THE VILLAIN STANDOM, FEAR NOT, TOMURA’S HAIR IS THE FIRST THING THAT GREW BACK LOL

even before his eyeballs kfldkakjk. which, btw, how does he even know what’s going on right now? “this fight has shed a lot of useless blood” sdkmkjl okay well (1) WHOSE FAULT WAS THAT, AGAIN??, (2) SERIOUSLY THOUGH, HOW DOES HE EVEN KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO YOU STABBED?? ARE YOU EFFECTIVELY BLIND FOR THE NEXT FEW SECONDS HERE, WHAT’S GOING ON, and lastly (3) I seriously can’t tell if this is AFO or Tomura talking right now. or are they going back and forth?? help this is so confusing

HEY

THE DISRESPECT. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW KACCHAN ANGST IS NEVER USELESS!!

AND NOW HE’S BACK TO THE STABBING JFKJLKJLF I AM NOT TOO HAPPY WITH YOU RIGHT NOW MISTER

okay and now we’re cutting to some quick panels of the unconscious Aizawa, Gran, and Ryuukyuu, along with the “still conscious but in a very real sense might as well not be counted” Manual who is really having a day, that poor guy

anyway but then there’s also some dialogue boxes being all “if you act out of rage your power will respond accordingly, the most important part is to keep your head clear.” which I’m like 90% sure is Deku/OFA related, but honestly NOTHING ABOUT THIS CHAPTER IS CLEAR SO FAR YOU GUYS. except for the Shouto-is-a-badass part anyway

HMM YEP I’M GONNA GO WITH DEKU-RELATED

it must be a callback to some line I’m forgetting. maybe Lariat explaining Blackwhip to him that one time. probably should have been in italics if it was a flashback quote, but hey. anyways the point is Deku is absolutely, 100% following this advice to the letter (/s)

(ETA: yep I’m almost positive this is the same quote from chapter 213. “listen, when you use this power out of anger, it’ll really start working for you. what really matters is controlling your heart.” which is still one of the weirdest pieces of advice in the entire series, but basically I think he was just trying to tell him it’s okay to get mad, so long as it’s calmly mad. like, controlled fury, as opposed to this white-hot berserker nonsense he’s been running on as of late. anyways I do still love me some shounen rage all the same but Lariat has a point.)

...

it took me a minute to realize THOSE WERE DEKU’S EYES. holy --

AND ANOTHER MINUTE TO REALIZE THAT DEKU FUCKING GRABBED THE ACTIVATION TENDRIL WITH HIS BUSTED UP OFA HANDS AND BIT INTO IT WITH HIS RABID OFA JAWS AND SNAPPED THAT SHIT LIKE A FUCKING KITKAT KLJLKSJDLKJFLK WOOOOOOOO I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BUT GODDAMN. POWER MOVE

(ETA: this is a two-page spread omg. I didn’t even realize at first. this scan ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT DO THIS BADASS PAGE ANY KIND OF JUSTICE but I can’t wait to see the real deal on Sunday holy shit.)

LMAO

DEKU RAGED SO HARD HE TURNED INTO AN ANGRY GHOST SONIC THE HEDGEHOG FKLSKG

(ETA: he actually looks a bit like the Vestiges/Kurogiri tbh.)

meanwhile Tomura basically has the exact same face I would have had in his position. yeah for real man. I don’t even know

p.s. WHEN will people learn to STOP INSULTING KACCHAN IN DEKU’S PRESENCE. WHEN, I ASK!!

WHAT IN THE CINNAMON TOAST FUCK

if this was a physical page I was holding I would have FLUNG THAT SHIT AWAY LIKE THERE WAS A SPIDER CRAWLING ON IT. WHAT THE FUCK

HOT DAMN. well uh. so that’s SUPER DISTURBING, what a lovely panel of Tomura’s melted face slowly growing back while his ears lag behind, and meanwhile that little scar that had been growing and growing and which at one point certain people (ME) thought might turn him into a BEAUTIFUL BUTTERLY instead RIPS HIS FACE IN HALF to reveal the KINDER EGG AFO SURPRISE UNDERNEATH AHHHHH TAKE IT BACK

THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T LET MAD SCIENTISTS PERFORM EXPERIMENTS ON YOU, KIDS. PSA. JUST SAY NO

-- NO!!!

HORIKOSHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fuck

oh my god. I almost would have rather cut away right after the Kacchan incident than freaking cut away NOW of all times, jesus. THAT’S JUST A BITCH MOVE, IS WHAT THAT IS. if we don’t cut back within the next three pages I SWEAR TO GOD

anyway so GUESS WHAT GIGANTOMACHIA’S DOING YOU GUYS. if you guessed “the exact same thing he was doing last time we saw him” then you are absolutely right, because it was actually PRETTY EASY TO GUESS

anyway but he says he detects “master’s scent”, except that there’s apparently two of them. interesting! one in Tartarus and one in Jakku, right? lol Horikoshi has burned me so many times already with his excruciatingly slow reveal of this that I’m not gonna hold my breath just yet, but I’ll get the hype train warmed up JUST IN CASE

okay so meanwhile in downtown Jakku, the heroes are handing off the civilians over to the police and rescue forces while they prepare to engage with “the villain”, by which I assume they mean Gigantomachia. does this mean Iida and Ochako are gonna fight Machia you guys omg

OOH!!!

“PLEASE INFORM THEM ON FOOT” well I know a certain SPEEDY BOI who would be PERFECT for that job oh my. make haste, Tenyar FastmLeggy

WAIT WHICH WAY ARE THEY HEADING

ARE THEY HEADING TOWARDS MACHIA OR TOWARDS DEKU AND AFO

so rather than answering my VERY PERTINENT question, Ochako is instead spending an entire page thinking about how their complete clusterfuck of a life keeps getting exponentially worse all the time! well but she’s not wrong though

NOW SHE’S ALL “GUYS...!” and, rather than explaining ANYTHING AT ALL, Horikoshi is again cutting back to THIS, OMG AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: good thing Kacchan wasn’t awake to see his dramatic “I’ll just get myself impaled for Deku’s sake” plan result in this outcome ALL OF TWENTY SECONDS LATER smdh.)

I ACTUALLY PREFER MY DEKUS NON-CRUMBLED, THANKS. ALSO JUST ON A SIDE NOTE, POOR SHOUTO THOUGH. THE LAST NINETY SECONDS OR SO HAVE BEEN ENOUGH NIGHTMARE FUEL FOR A LIFETIME HAVEN’T THEY

so now he’s all “MIDORIYA!!!” because OF COURSE HE IS. his best friend just got impaled, and his dad too, and now he fully expects to see his other best friend crumble to dust right before his eyes holy shit. T R A U M A ™

-- !!!

somehow in the excitement of the moment I forgot his actual goal for a sec lol. meaning I instantaneously switched from HORRIFIED to GRINNING LIKE A MANIAC :D :D :D come on OFA time to show him what’s what

AND NOW WE’RE SWITCHING OVER TO EVERYONE’S FAVORITE TRIPPY DREAM LANDSCAPE FOR ADDITIONAL DRAMA, WELL OKAY

I’M ON BOARD WITH THIS, WHATEVER. also it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Deku is in fact nekkid underneath that mystical cloud bs, so let’s hope one of his remaining yet-to-be-unlocked quirks is a pants-conjuring quirk lulz

“this place...” yeah we all fucking know what this place is son, let’s get on with this. by my count we’ve only got four pages left so PLEASE BUDGET THEM WISELY

OH MY

holy shit. I have so many screaming thoughts about this lol but I just want to keep on reading lkjlkjlkjl okay I’ll come back later and edit them in, how’s that

OR MAYBE I’LL JUST RANT ABOUT THEM NOW GODDAMMIT

shit. okay let me just try and sum this up as quick as I can

so just in case it wasn’t already crystal clear, AFO’s soul being roommates with Tomura’s seems to be just about 100% confirmed now. good for you, All For One For All theory!! the “Kacchan loses his quirk” theory died so that you might live on in glory

AFO does seem to have almost fully taken control now. it looks like Tomura’s still fighting back, but AFO clearly has the upper hand now if their body language is any indication. Tomura on his knees with AFO calmly holding him down and ignoring his struggles... not looking too good for him at the moment

people seem to have somewhat lost sight of this in the midst of the great “heroes vs. villains Who Is Right Who Is Wrong What Are Morals” debate of 2020, but just a friendly reminder that AFO is in fact responsible for 100% of all of Tomura’s suffering from pretty much the moment he was born up till this very moment we’re now witnessing!! like, you can go ahead and blame Nana and Gran and The Complacent Apathy Of Hero Society and whatever the fuck else from here till Sunday, but All for One is the reason Kotarou was orphaned. All for One is almost certainly the reason why the seemingly quirkless Tenko suddenly just magically developed THE MOST FUCKED UP QUIRK OF ALL TIME at the worst possible moment. All for One is probably the reason why no one helped Traumatized Baby Tenko in the immediate aftermath (I can and likely will write a separate post about this in the near future). All for One is definitely the reason why no one helped Tenko at any point after that. All for One is the reason why Tenko grew up all fucked in the head (“HERE’S YOUR DEAD FAMILY’S HANDS, MERRY CHRISTMAS”), and the reason why he grew up blaming Heroes and Society rather than the sole person who was actually responsible who was literally standing right in front of him the entire time. and lastly, All for One is the reason why Tomura has now been manipulated into unknowingly sacrificing his own body and possibly even his mind. so THANKS A LOT FOR THAT. more like jerk for one amiright

basically what I’m trying to say is that Deku and Tomura are not actually enemies here, and they never have been. the two of them have a common enemy, and I’m convinced Tomura’s story is about him eventually coming to realize this. and this looks to be the first step towards that, for two reasons. one, because AFO is finally starting to out himself to Tomura as the rat bastard he has always been. and two, because Deku is catching a glimpse of this now for the very first time. up until now he didn’t have a damn clue lol. but this is now something for him to file away in the back of his mind, and perhaps follow up on at a later date, once all of this craziness finally subsides and he has some time to process

anyway, so that’s basically it! tl;dr AFO is the final villain and unless I’m very much mistaken, this scene is going to finally start to set that up. let’s read on!

OMG

NANA?!?

lKDSJFLKSHGLISHDOGIHOLRKL

NOOOOOO I can’t believe it fucking ended there I can’t fucking believe it, fuck everything

smdh. what a place to end it. didn’t confirm a damn thing. not even whose mental landscape all of this is actually taking place in! like, don’t mind me though Horikoshi, it’s not like THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGES ON THIS QUESTION OR ANYTHING except oh wait it really kind of does. kljkj

but seriously. because if it’s Deku’s mind, it means that Tomura’s attempt to take his quirk wasn’t successful. but if it’s Tomura’s mind, though... well... hhhhhhkhfff

or it could be both, I guess. more of that “AFO and OFA are the same quirk and thus linked” goodness. oh man. anyways stay tuned for next week when Nana presumably helps Deku out with the rest of that black fog and also hopefully finds him some pants. or maybe Nana can just go fight AFO herself. a little payback for everything he’s done to her protege and to her grandson. either way I CAN’T WAIT omg. VESTIGE ANTICS ARE A GO

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

ok attention all follow you readers: i'm gonna need some hiatus-breaking advice because the burnout is hard, but my academic work is harder... and i need a distraction

if you don't read my fic, skim this anyways because it isn't just infinadow, and i'm infamously a rarepair shipper, so you have a solid chance of getting content you like!

so, idk if i have made it clear or not, but the initial fic outline had over 100 chapters (each about 3-4k words each) so um. yeah we arent doing that!!! i'm already making a separate folder/fic for all the timeskips and filler i was too burnt out to write so i don't take a billion years to update (it's supposed to be slow burn, not spending multiple cycles of the universe hoping that oxygen molecules will get hit with a warm breeze to create a spark)

HOWEVER! this is, unfortunately(?) only one instalment in this series. there's a sequel, a couple spin-offs, an epilogue, and some other shit stuffed in there too. this means there is a lot of content still to create, and i want you guys to feel heard and satisfied so here are a couple options for what i post next:

1. my collection of chapters that take place during/after Forces with all characters (literally everyone! resistance members, the rogues, metal, maria... i also take requests/prompts for this so it's very participatory on your end.) some mandated chapters involve silvjet, espave, vectilla, sallaze, sonamy, knouge, charmy and cream being besties, the return of Mighty and Ray (cough and Mighty's boyfriend, take a wild guess who), and even eggman and infinite interactions! this one is great because you can read what you want and avoid stuff you don't like

2. a flash forward of established shadfinite/infinadow/dog&hog. it's not "giving the people what they want because i am impatient" but after all this pining, i feel like i should show y'all where they end up (it makes the journey much more thrilling)

3. a random, tumblr-exclusive release of ONE (1) pre-written chapter from either the friends or lovers arcs. some limits apply, but i'll be picking the chapter anyways. not as fun as these other options but i can literally do it in 2 seconds (i have written a lot just not the right order)

4. an infinite flashback fic. i keep teasing at his childhood but i could actually post something stand-alone for some insight!

5. a shadow flashback fic. my STTO5 fic that i uploaded here is universe-compliant, but i can ALWAYS do more of these

6. i could start the Chaotix & Rogues spin-off... like, it is very ready to go right now. super ready. has a playlist and everything. the only reason i haven't posted is because it is espio and wave centric, and that's basically a me-exclusive ship with two characters who aren't even popular in the first place! it still has stuff like silvjet and vectilla and infinite being an honorary babylon rogue, reflects on Espio and Mighty's breakup, Scourge is there because now that i'm aware other people ship Mightourge i'm ecstatic to write it (FINALLY I HAVE A SHIP OTHER PEOPLE ENJOY WITHOUT MY PANDERING) and like. a lot of cool fun dark shit about both parties with some Forces lore explanations!!! idk, i'm passionate about this but i keep shoving it away because i can't bribe people with fan-favourite characters or popular ships, but it's based on my first ever fanfic from when i was a kid (with somewhat improved prose) so it's something i can write with ease

7. literally anything else (which is weird because no one knows my personal sonic canon besides me, but it's worth a shot if you wanna suggest something because it might fit or be something i had planned anyways)

8. i shut the fuck up and just write the next 2 chapters so i can spam-post the set i've already written since they come come right after 🤡

NOTE: i am literally okay with everything here. like, all of it. i would not offer if i would hate writing one of these, so don't let some of my biases sway what YOU want from me.

first 5 votes via comment or ask (anon or not) will form my decision! i'd normally say 13 bc lucky number but i don't usually get that much interaction 🥴

[we-rate-tmnt]

I request: Leonardo. Please and thank you 🙏.

Idk if everyone loves Leo or if my header and avatar just remind everyone about this amazing blue boy. (This one’s super silly btw. I’m just sillier as time goes on. Character development I guess?) 

The iconic leador Leonardo (1987)

Bro idk why but I loved this Leo. I have a tiny memory, especially with this version but I clearly remember that I thought he was the funniest and the coolest. I mean, he had swords, what was I supposed to do as a 7-year-old. NOT like him??? Anyway, while Raph was the best at insult comedy, I think Leo had the best puns and punchlines. I really like how nonchalant this Leo is compared to his iterations, going along with really silly ideas and having fun along the way. But because of this, his leadership is a little forced at times, he seems like such a chill and fun dude that when he gets serious, I have to squint and ask ‘are you Leo? Or were you just putting on act a moment ago?’ Or my perception is entirely warped over time. Either way, good turtle boy, could have used some work tho. 5.7/10

Here comes grumpy lad wooo this is all read very monotone btw Fearless Leader (2003)

What. What the fuck happened. I was actually so confused when Leo turned really angry and serious and almost manic. I thought that episode when he popped into Casey’s window and was like ‘Hey bitch lets go beat the shit out of some lowlifes’ I was WOAH THERE BUDDY BACK UP BACK UP BACK TF UP. It was so sudden to me and when it was finally explained, it made some sense??? Like yeah, character development is great an’ all but this ain’t it chief. I can’t imagine what it was like having to wait for these episodes to release one at a time. Bc I watched every episode back to back on Youtube and I was genuinely bamboozled. But when you have an experience like that where guilt is weighing down on you from a situation you couldn’t control, it would’ve been HELLA HELPFUL to have at least a flashback, like a line saying ‘I was so useless!’ at BARE MINIMUM. Like right after Shredder is booted off to Planet Zula, Donnie would notice that Leo didn’t seem all that happy and would ask why and Leo would get upset and yell at Donnie saying that ‘You wouldn’t understand’, ‘You don’t know how I felt, how I feel because of that’, etc. Like you don’t even have to say he felt guilty or helpless, just give us something to grab onto. We’re merely six-year-olds who thought they could climb the YMCA rock wall in easy mode but instead the script riders harnessed us up on the hard one and wouldn’t let us come down until we rang the little bell at the top. I think that is the only problem I had with his Leo. The sudden change of calm and decisive to angry and irrational was so jarring that it felt unnatural without that crucial context. If you want a surprise reveal, at least hint at the reveal (like just about every Disney movie with their ‘twist’ villains) not wait until the very last moment. I think this might be my least favorite Leo and I think the season where he stood out the most and seemed the strongest was Fast Forward (Which was GOOD FIGHT ME), especially in scenes with Dark Leo, his clone. He sees so much of himself in Dark Leo but he also sees something he had once grasped (AKA the poorly written character arc, I CANNOT stress how bad I thought it was). Although, I honestly think he’s a really good character and he’s a pretty neat guy. However, this score is entirely held up by Fast Forward and his connection with Usagi, sword bros to the end of time. 3/10 (2 for FF and 1 for Usagi)

And now a Leo that makes me genuinely feel UWU Leo (2012)

I cannot stress how much I like this guy! Like his design is so appealing, his dedication, his obsession with Space Heroes, like I FUCKING LOVE IT. And everyone knows, that shit with Karai, at first when they didn’t realize they were related, I can let slide but kajsdflksadf what even like why did the writers feel the need to add in more ‘love interest’ implications like yuck yuck yuck. The only two interactions with Leo and Karai that I really like are when Leo defeats her using the healing hands technique and when Leo has a goth/emo/punk/idk I’m new here phase and they team up and EXPLOSIONS. He was introduced to us as being incredibly naive and his idea of leadership is from some old cartoon that’s basically star trek but ethically questionable. After his fights in season 1, to the finale with the technodrome, you can see his growth. He’s able to formulate plans and make life or death decisions. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. When Leo got hurt, I felt like the oof sound effect mixed with some tears I normally shed at some Shojo manga bs. While the episodes following were super weird, it was a nice way to help Leo recover, not only physically but spiritually (Although I don’t remember the spirit arc at all except the epic Raph vs Fishface fight, so we’re skipping that). When Master Splinter really died, you could tell there was a huge impact on Leo, but he had to remain stoic and lead the family now. A lot of heartbreaking moments in this series came from Leo and I’m glad they took at least some thought into developing him. Tiny head Leo will haunt my nightmares, but the giggly fanboy will warm my heart constantly. 6/10

I only have one word for this Leo (Heroes in a Half Shell: Blast to the Past)

This is a super crazy bad idea accent on the super crazy bad part have I mentioned it’s also a really terrible idea/10

Okay, spoiler alert, didn’t really think this Leo was that grand Leo (2014/2016)

Painfully average. He didn’t stand out that much, Raph was part of the focus and had that touching scene at the end, Donnie was ICONIC and Mikey (with his weird-ass eyes) was super lively and funny! Leo? Uh, I don’t remember a single line he said. Because he never really grabbed my attention, I don’t have too much to say on this version. The Raph and Leo fight felt forced and the whole ‘keep this stuff that could turn us human a secret’ was pretty pointless and was added just to cause drama, I don’t even remember what that Splinter and Leo conversation was about. Design-wise, really neat! You can see some more traditional Japanese clothing/style mixed with modern (I’d feel a lot better about this assumption if some could tell exactly what the heck he’s wearing, but I get traditional Japan warrior vibes from it) in his look which was super neat! Other than that, if you like him, please tell me why because I don’t get. He was just kinda eh. 5/10

AHHH MY BOY YASSS WHOOO!! Neon Leon (2018)

Okay, I loved Ben Schwarts already from Parks and Rec but like him being Sonic AND Leo, like DUDE. He’s super funny by himself but teamed up with this shows writing and animation, it makes it hilarious. I literally love this Leo so much, maybe because we’re alike but honestly, he’s amazing. I love his design with the red and yellow crescents accenting his skin and livening up his color pallet. He has a very healthy and natural dynamic with his brothers, he’s the first to know what’s wrong and tries his best to make up for his actions. This is really prominent in the most recent episodes, along with the episode portal jacked. In both, Leo is separated from his brothers. Portal Jacked is in a more literal sense, while Air Turtle handles in more of an emotional sense. While both are brief, Leo sees his error and tries his best to make it up to them. I love his dynamic so much and it’s so nice to see something like this compared to the unnecessary drama and tension between the brothers in the previous series. It’s refreshing and this is something a younger audience needs to see; instead of fighting, it’s better to work together and improve yourself along the way. Improvement is a big theme for Leo here. He’s a goofball, makes jokes at every opportunity and isn’t quite skilled at fighting or using his weapon. But he grows over time, he learns to manage his power and he’s working on mastering it. He’s trying to put aside his narcissism more and focuses on his family. I think the approach they took with him rising to leader rather than slapping it on his forehead was the goddamn best decision they could make. He’s making plans, finding loopholes, helping out and getting out of his comfort zone. I cannot stress how well this show has handled Leo, along with the other characters. I can’t wait to see more episodes about his growth and I am awarding him with one of the greatest honors I could give... 10/10

Storytime: I drew a super cute 2012 Leo, you should look at him. Shameless self-promo, but you should follow me on my main blog bc I’m nice and I draw pretty pictures. Also. I have a little 2012 Leo Happy Meal toy??? I think??? guarding my window and he’s been there for YEARS. I need to bring him in and refresh his paint job.

Wow! I didn’t expect this many requests for Leo, so the blog will be momentarily spammed with the requests, but it shouldn’t be too much! Up next should be the last turtle (Mikey) and then we can get to some REALLY great requests I’m eager to answer. As usual, please comment and reblog! I’d love to hear your opinion!

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

At this point I’m just watching the seasons to keep the momentum going after two great (and one flawed but still okay) seasons. With Friday being a Bank Holiday, I might get the rest of the pre-11 stuff wrapped up by the weekend. But enough of the future, how about the season I watched, Sons of Garmadon?

It had a lot to live up to based on its reputation, and I’m happy to report that it delivers on what it sets out to do. Issues with the season are fairly minor tribbles, but that’s something I can cover in the notes.

-Hoo boy, let’s get this out of the way; the movie did fucking wonders for Lloyd Garmadon. Spending like five seasons stuck to his blander “chosen one must learn” characterisation, this season gives him a very long overdue overhaul into a more modern chosen one protagonist who is way more entertaining to watch. Bonus points for having a look I can take seriously now...yeah, sorry, but the Anakin hairpiece with the strange approach to voice commitment never did for me, even as it became the norm for what I was viewing.  -To be honest, his teammates get some good material here too. Some more than others (Zane especially has a really good little arc where he gets to show his more calculating side. Cole’s arc is okay but I don’t feel it quite nails the landing as well), but they all get chance to banter and have character moments, which is mainly what I come into shows for as opposed to straight up development constantly. Shout outs to Jay who has small moments, but important ones that do really good for his character (I could go into why Lloyd and Jay make the most sense as leads...probably after my season watching is done). I also like the callback to a character moment he had in season 3. Also this finally feels like the writers are sticking to characterisation, this season mostly keeping what Hands of Time did with them. Not so much design-wise, but I’ve made it clear many times that I prefer the new designs to old. Also, I get to throw in Pixal as a main character now since she’s clearly on the team full time. She’s good here too. -The dynamics get their own section just because I want to restate how I prefer the dynamic between Jay and Lloyd compared to Kai and Lloyd so far. Seriously, Jay seems to step up to bat for Lloyd more than Kai at this point. And yet no-one really seems to be interested in it within the fandom. -There wasn’t really much in the way of side characters this season (I am aware that next season will change that). Misako was good for what little material she had, Wu was fun and actually became a solid character in his own right once he became a toddler, Dareth is solid and really gets to show his alternative way of helping out, and the police commissioner...eh, better than season 6 but I’m still not big on him.  -I can sum up Harumi in one sentence; Skylor but done better on every count (and also evil). She’s engaging when she’s acting as the more humble Princess figure, and she’s nicely hammy when she’s unleashing her evil side. I can see why people would be into Lloyrumi with such a investing act (for the record, I’m not). This all being said, those who say that Harumi had a point are missing one important detail; as much destruction has been caused with the ninjas’ close call; what alternative is there? I don’t see anyone else stepping up to save Ninjago so it would have probably fully fallen a long time ago. And even with the Great Devourer, Lord Garmadon was channelling his good side to deliver a finishing blow, he still needed the ninja there.  -We have three other villains and two of them are enjoyable. Ultra-Violet is committed to her crazy shtick and amusing, and Killow is definitely different to how I thought he’d be, but it’s a lot more enjoyable (especially when Garry Chalk is channelling every bit of his Sonic Underground Robotnik voice he can. Kind of like how Clancee was Ian James Corlett channelling a lot of his scrub monkey third class). Mr E can go rust though.  -Unlike the other seasons which people cite as dark, this one feels like it does actually go there. It’s not completely a dark season, mostly the end of Jade Princess and scenes between Game of Masks and Big Trouble, Little Ninjago. It was still pretty fun and light-ish hearted outside of that. -Weirdly enough, most of my quibbles are on the technical side. People cite this season as having the best animation...but I don’t really see it. In terms of visuals it’s a step up, but the actual animation doesn’t feel that different to Hands of Time. They learned to use flashier graphics everywhere. Which is probably why the intro is the way it is, and I’m sorry but this is probably my least favourite intro. I can’t appreciate the spectacle when focusing on anything is difficult to achieve. On top of that, there were still some glaring graphical fuck-ups (like when Cole is shown with the other ninja in a scene where he was captured, or when Lloyd was shown with green eyes in a shot despite being drained of power at that point), which aren’t really any different to the ones Prime Empire has.  -The pacing of the season wasn’t entirely smooth, but unlike other seasons it’s not like one set issue. It’s more like a concertina effect; it was very quick at first, then slows down, then speeds up again, then slows down, then finally hits an even tempo about halfway through. This is why I didn’t mention the likes of Hutchins, the parents or the Mechanic before; because of the pace, you don’t really get enough time to really get attached to them (doesn’t help that the Mechanic has Alan Marriott doing the voice in his cameo, and man does it not fit compared to Skybound. I’m glad when the Mechanic got more substantial stuff they went back to his original VA, that voice is so fun).  -My other big thing is actually the complete continuity snarl that’s Harumi’s backstory makes. They’ve thrown in so many random events over the seasons but because of the sheer vagueness of the timescales it doesn’t really break suspension of disbelief. But Harumi’s turn to darkness is clearly during the ending of season 1, which we have a much more tangible sense of time for. Harumi seems like she’s about 8-10 then, the ninja seem like they were 14-15 then, Harumi seems like she’s 15-18 now but the showrunner still insist that the ninja are teenagers? How does that work, the most generous allowance for time is five years, and that would barely make them still teenagers in season 8. Certainly don’t believe they could be teenagers as of the most recent seasons. -On a completely different tangent, can we talk about the toilet humour? Yeah, it’s not like it’s never been there (there’s been poop jokes, fart jokes, halitosis jokes, and who can forget that one utterly cringe scene in S3?), but Hands of Time and Sons of Garmadon do it in a way that just comes off as really weird compared to earlier toilet humour. Like, there’s the implication by Jay in season 7 that Kai has issues with constipation, Cole’s truth tea dose forces him to say that he pees in the pool, and then there’s Kai, right to Harumi’s face, all but saying that Jay has issues with peeing himself. Her reaction to it is fucking hilarious, but it’s still weird, even though knowing Vincent Tong he would totally do that. 

Overall, this was a great season, and it’s clear to see how this became such a draw to the series (meaning in hindsight, LEGO’s method of dealing with the new style was pretty much a winner). The issues I have don’t stop the quality being across the board. Aside from Possession, I think this may be a favourite season from the pre-11 stuff. 

Next time, we effectively get the second part to this story. Yep, it ended in a cliffhanger so we’ve hardly wrapped it up here. Time to see how the OG ninja and newer recruits handle themselves alone in Hunted. 

[tenrose]

Doctor Who Tag Game

Tagged by: @sopheirion​ thank you!!!

Favourite Doctor: Ten, ten and always Ten. I just love David’s portrayal’s of the Doctor more than I can say. I love the good, and I love the bad. I love when he’s being an idiot, when he’s flirtatious as hell with Rose (omg the memories) like you two get a room, when he finally snaps, when he’s a dumb oblivious as fuck and you want to smack cause he’s being an asshole, I love when he’s heartbroken. The faces David pulls are the best thing in the world. Like his ‘I don’t want to go’ ARE YOU KIDDING ME DAVID??? And the whole Doomsday episode, his blank face against the wall omg I’m gonna cry right now. And when this bitch has the audacity to disappear before saying it aaaaahhhh. But also the way he talk quickly and absolute nonsense. His ‘er’. When he’s being silly as hell with Donna, those were the good times. When he’s angry yelling, but also when he’s cold angry in the end of The Family of Blood. When he realize things and make the ‘oh i’m so stupid thing’ but also when he’s realizing sad thing like with the end of Donna. Bitch when he cries under the rain like some edgy boy, I cry too. His smile when things are getting exciting, but also the smile going into his eyes that is just for Rose and only Rose Tyler The various face he makes with Donna, all  the non verbal communication. Also when Martha decides to leave and you can see that he’s (too late) proud of her, and after that when he sees her again he’s being honest with her..The way he pronounces certain words if that makes sense???? Also David’s whole acting in Midnight, that was insane on so many levels. And least but not last : his iconic hair. I don’t think I need to tell more. And aside from that, I love all his season’s arcs, all his companions are my top three favourites. And of course, my close second favourite is Nine, cause without Nine, Ten wouldn’t be the Doctor he was.

Favourite Master: tbh I’m not that much into the Master, but I guess it’s Simm!Master cause I love his arcs. But I also love Missy as a character (not sure about her arcs though)

Favourite Sonic: I love both Nine/Ten’s sonic and Eleven’s sonic. 

Favourite Companion: aaaaahhhh not this question lmao. So I can’t really choose between Rose and Donna. I just love them both too much. So I’m not even a hardcore shipper of anyything by tumblr’s standards at least lmao, but the Doctor and Rose (both Nine and Ten) as been the first fictional couple I deeply rooted for (like I’ve enjoyed a lot of other ships before but never as harder and deeply) and that I still root for after all these years (in fact Clexa is the only other one that goes that hard, but everything else is just phases, they come and they go but they never stay). I love the tragedy of them, bitch who am I kidding, I love it that much cause it’s a tragedy lmao. I just love how they both make each other better, but also how they flirt like dumbass teens, how they communicate, how they cry for each other. BUT, and it’s very important, I love Rose for herself. She’s not just interesting because of the Doctor. She’s so relatable for instance? Like she’s not from a wealthy family, she clearly doesn’t give two fuck about fashion (or was it 2005 who was like this?), she’s not too smart, too pretty (ok she’s definitely is for me), too much of anything, she’s average. And I love this a freaking lot you can’t imagine. She has flaws, and yes that’s exactly what we want in a character. Yes she has moments when she’s being selfish (but who doesn’t? especially when in love), and yet she has some of the most beautiful selfless moments,sacrificing herlself in Doomsday is the best cause she was literally gonna end up in the void but she didn’t hesitated for one second. Also when she’s showing empathy for other people, she’s being caring and understanding. And she doesn’t take anyone’s else bullshit, she call them out, and that include the Doctor first. Just because she loves him doesn’t mean it’s gonna stop her from telling him to stop being a punk ass bitch. Also she evolved so much between s2 and s4, and I don’t think it’s character inconsistency, it’s just that it happened off screen. BY THE WAY I WOULD VERY MUCH A SPIN OFF ABOUT ROSE TYLER HOPPING WORLDS THANK YOU VERY MUCH @BBC!!! 

Now Donna? Where do I start? She’s also average, and also very relatable. In fact, personnally I think she’s the most relatable for me. Using humour, snark and sass to hide 10 thousands insecurities? Yes that’s the most relatable thing ever. Donna is the funniest character but she’s also the one who has the saddest ending in my opinion. Cause she grow up, she sees the world, and she understand that she is THE shit, she matters, she is important, and then she forgets all about it. That’s so cruel, and heartbreaking and angering, cause she deserved everyfuckingthing, she deserved the world. And her departure hit me so fucking hard. She’s going back to her life, thinking she would be not enough, I can feel that so deeply. Aaaahhh I’m hurting myself writing this. But she’s so amazing, she’s smart, thinking out of the box really make her so great, and she’s the one who take the least shit about anything. She stands up, yells, makes a scene, but she get straight to the point. Also she’s not the young and conventionally attractive companion and she knows that. And she’s so funny and sassy, and close to the Doctor. I mean she’s the Doctor Donna for a reason, she’s like a human version of the Doctor, with the sass, the babbling, the clumsiness. God I love Donna so much, I wish I had so much more of her. Also she has absolutely zero romantic feelings for the Doctor and the fact that they are the bitchy bffs of the universe is the best. 

Favourite Story: I love a lot of stories, but my favourite is The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End no doubt. The story is a perfect mix of happiness, having every RTD’s characters together, all my fave working together is the absolute best, and of sadness, the departure of Donna (I won’t re talk about it ok) and Ten letting Rose go AGAIN. And the fact that there’s everyone he loves in these episode but then he ends up all on his own. God why do I love being hurt so much??? And the Daleks are also my favourite villains (it’s just such DW bullshit as a villain tbh lmfao) so I have everything I want. Generally speaking I love RTD’s arcs, cause the sign are here the whole seasons (Bad Wolf, vote Saxon, the bees disappearing and she’s coming back) but it’s not a ‘HEY LOOK THERE’S SOMETHING FISHY TO SEE HERE HEYYYY’ or ‘WE ARE STARTING THE SEASON WITH ONE QUESTION, ONE PLOT POINT AND THAT’S WHAT YOU’LL WANT TO BE RESOLVED BY THE END OF THE SEASON’,  it’s subtle, it’s casual mention, and it’s when you’re in the last three episode that you’re starting to realize something is wrong...That’s one of my favourite type of writing ever (that’s probably why I love Sanderson’s books too). It’s not some mystery to solve, cause there weren’t any mystery to solve, because me, a dumbass viewer, weren’t even paying attention at first. But it’s here, it fills the plot. And when you see it you’re like ‘of course’. It’s not forced on me if I can say it like this. It allows me to see other stuffs. It’s not attention seeking I guess? But yes the end of s4 is my favourite story, all is in place. All characters do what they do best. There’s laugh and there’s tears, and I love it.

Favourite Soundtrack: everything Murray Gold has been doing for the show is pure gold and I think that’s a thing the whole fandom can agree upon. My artist of the decade according to Spotify is him, and considering I haven’t listened daily to his songs (except for some still regularly) I think that say a lot about how much I used to love both his music and the show at some point. My favourite of his are Doomsday’s Theme ofc, Love Across the Distant Stars, I am the Doctor, Rose’s Theme, Amy’s Theme, Clara’s Theme, Vale and cry. All of them. And that include the one soundtracks for episodes I don’t even like lmao.  

Dream Actor for next Doctor: I don’t know, why not John Boyega? He deserves to be the main character and be treated well, of a sci-fi show. 

Dream Composer: Murray Gold come back to me. Or I would love a glimpse of what Lorne Balfe could do.

Dream Story: Something that involves seeing Rose and Tentoo, and Martha as the Earth counselor, with Thirteen still having feelings for Rose. And Rose too.  But the plot? Idk lmao. However the end would be sad cause Thirteen would have to see Rose and Tentoo coming back to their world, and I would cry. Also Thirteen would aknowledge Martha as the smarter companion the Doctor had ever had lmao.

A Companion You’d like to see back:  Martha, but like not as a companion cause she made it clear that she would not come back, and that wouldn’t be fitting her character if she changed her mind. But she could always be accidentally stuck in the TARDIS, I mean it happened once. But really I would just love to have her coming to the rescue when shit on Earth goes too far and the Doctor needs help of a specialist. That’s Martha you need Doctor.

An Enemy/Alien/Creature you’d like to see again: I’m always here to see the daleks. 

If you could travel with one of the Doctors, which Doctor and why?: Ten? Because he’s my fave, but also Thirteen because I’m gay and I would like to take my chance lmao

[toaarcan]

Sonic X, Sonic Heroes, and IDW, or: How a bad anime from 2004 spoiled a comic from 2019.

Now, I haven’t been following IDW Sonic all that closely. I get regular updates from Nemesis via Discord, and additional info from some of the Tumblrs I follow that are invested in it, but I don’t really have a desire to touch it myself. Here’s why.

There’s a multitude of reasons for this. Starting with the background of Sonic Forces wasn’t really a good place to begin from, and being based on present-day game lore in general was always going to hurt it, mainly because SEGASonic canon is currently a confusing mess of retcons brought on by Iizuka taking the J.K. Rowling approach.

Wait, no, he’s just saying stupid shit that contradicts previous canon, not trying to score woke points and hoping nobody notices the frankly terrible stereotypes and TERF tweets. Iizuka is taking the Greg Farshtey approach.

Added, as anyone that’s had experience with my opinions will tell you, I started falling out of love with Ian Flynn’s writing somewhere around Issue 200, and moved to outright dislike during Mecha Sally, and to make matters worse I started noticing that some of the flaws in the 200-247 era were also present in the 160-199 era, retroactively making those harder to go back to.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I kept up with Archie for the SatAM cast. SatAM reruns back in 2004 were my Sonic, moreso than anything else, and even now I still have way more attachment to those two seasons of animation than I do to most other aspects of the franchise, warts and all. So Archie providing me with additional content for said characters was a major draw for me. I’d generally put up with a lot just to get myself more SatAM content.

That in itself is a large part of why I fell off the Archie train during Mecha Sally. The entirety of the SatAM cast were removed from the regular lineup, just leaving three SEGA characters with their personalities stunted, even if that didn’t make sense in-universe. But that’s a discussion for another day.

So being written by someone whom I no longer enjoyed the writing of, set in a mess of a canon with a thoroughly shite game as the main basis, without the cast I read the previous comics for gave me little reason to invest in IDW Sonic. It wasn’t for me, I’d just keep reading Transformers and move on.

Then MTMTE/LL ended with a heart-twister and Ex-RID ended with a giant Unicron-shaped fart, and the new comic is dull as fucking dishwater and started by killing off one of my favourites, who was also one of the franchise’s confirmed LGBT characters. So now IDW is getting none of my money. Which is good because I’m broke.

Tangents aside, my lack of interest wasn’t something set in stone. If it turned out that the comic was actually really good, then sure, I’d try it. I was up for being proven wrong. But so far, I haven’t felt compelled by the responses from the internet. If anything I’ve been more turned off.

I could talk about how zombies are really fucking boring. I could talk about how SEGA’s recent confusion over what to do with Amy has combined with Ian’s need to include a Sally-esque character to make IDW Amy into Sally Lite. I could talk about how Ian seemingly fundamentally misunderstood everything that was cool about Neo Metal Sonic and somehow managed to reduce him to a boring Eggman minion in an arc where Eggman was out of action due to amnesia… But I won’t.

Instead I’m going to talk about how the comic has done something that would legitimately make me think twice about picking it up even if the FF were to debut tomorrow.

Yeah, I would pass up a SatAM fix because of this, that’s how much this ticks me off.

Now, I presume that if you’re reading this, you have a favourite Sonic character. And you probably feel pretty strongly about how your favourite character is portrayed. If they get a bad run in a game or two then you probably get a little salty about that. Tails and Knuckles fans in particular, as of late, seem to be the ones getting the short end.

Well, my favourite character in the entire franchise is Emerl the Gizoid. I will take Gemerl as a worthy substitute, they’re basically the same character. And the comics have been doing them dirty since the Archie reboot.

(Sidenote: I will be referring to Emerl with male pronouns from this point on. The Maria-soul thing isn’t as widely known as I’d like it to be, so I’m going to compromise for the sake of keeping the focus on the actual point)

However, not everything about this can be laid at the feet of Ian Flynn. Arguably his portrayal of said character is merely a symptom of a long-running issue that has plagued Sonic storytelling for roughly 15-16 years now.

But before we get into that, let’s get into something important: Why Emerl is my favourite Sonic character.

Part 1: Emerl in Sonic Battle, or “How I learned to stop worrying and love the Gizoid”.

This game doesn’t get enough love.

Now, I totally understand why it doesn’t get enough love. There are game design choices, like the grinding and the repetitiveness of the story mode that really drag it down, and because of that, Battle can become a slow-going and tedious experience, and that’s a real shame, because the story that’s hidden in this game is a thing of beauty.

Like most Sonic games from the 2000s, this game introduces a new character to join Sonic’s list of friends. Unlike the games that aren’t SA2 and Sonic Rush, this new character is actually good (This is hyperbole, Omega, Silver, and Shade were fine too).

Emerl enters the story as a mute, barely-functional robot that doesn’t do much of anything for a while, and only seems to come to life when Sonic locates it and attacks it. However, as the robot absorbs more Chaos Emeralds, slowly a personality starts to form, largely pieced together from other characters’ traits.

Emerl, as he is dubbed, is initially childlike and naive, but as he grows he develops a sassy streak, and his speech becomes a lot more developed. Maturity sets in, as Emerl grapples with his own nature, particularly the legacy he carries from the ARK, and Shadow’s ongoing turmoil with regards to the whole “Living Weapon” deal. Ultimately he becomes a hero, following in the footsteps of his mentor, parental figure, and closest friend, Sonic.

That’s right, Sonic, not Cream, is Emerl’s closest friend. We’ll get to that.

But this heart-warming story of Sonic becoming a dad for a robot doesn’t have a happy ending. Despite Shadow and Rouge finding a way to neutralise Emerl’s destructive Gizoid programming, Eggman has a way to reactivate it anyway, driving Emerl into a berserk rampage. This is kind of the one sticking point I have with the game’s plot, Eggman shouldn’t have been able to do this after Shadow and Rouge neutralised Emerl.

Additionally, while Emerl was on the ARK getting Maria’s soul crammed into him, Gerald also added a self-destruct mechanism that would trigger if he ever went Ultimate again.

So with Emerl quite literally exploding with all the power of the Chaos Emeralds, but his destructive programming forcing him to turn Eggman’s latest Death Star knockoff on Mobius/Earth/Sonic’s World, Sonic races up to confront his mecha-child, and things take a turn for the Old Robot Yeller.

In a moment that really deserves more attention, Sonic confronts his own child on the bridge of a space station, while Emerl is running on the power of the Chaos Emeralds and outputting more energy than he can physically take, and they fight. In the space of thirty seconds, they have a ten-round knock-down, drag-out brawl, and at the end, Sonic stands triumphant. Without using a single transformation. Yeah, that’s how powerful this guy is, that’s not travel speed, that’s combat speed. Looking at you, Death Battle.

It’s not really clear whether Sonic outright defeats Ultimate Emerl, or just survives long enough for his opponent to reach his limit and self-destruct, but the end result is the same. Sonic cradles a robot that became his own child over the course of the past few weeks, someone he raised from a baby-like state into a mature and heroic individual, and Emerl looks up at him and asks “Sonic… am I going to die?” And despite Sonic desperately trying to get him to keep it together, Not only does Emerl die, but he’s aware that the end is coming, and bids farewell to all of his friends as Sonic pleads with him to hold on. Shadow is equally distraught, his only friend with a connection to the ARK, someone he can call a brother, someone who carries the soul of his deceased sister within him, is dead.

Emerl: “Sonic I don’t feel so good.”

Like it’s canon that Eggman basically murdered Sonic’s kid.

And goddamnit this ending hits me hard. It frustrates me that Eggman was able to pull a means to drive Emerl into his Ultimate freakout mode out of his arse, but other than that, it’s so gutwrenching, I love it.

Gamma’s story from SA1 gets a lot of praise on the Internet, but for me, this is even better. It’s like Gamma’s story, but if Gamma was actually central to the plot of the game and the characters other than Amy gave a shit about him, and gave a shit about him for longer than a single cutscene, after which they are never mentioned again. Hell, due to Chaos Gamma being a thing, Gamma gets more love from the other characters in Battle than he does in SA1.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.

Part 2: (Sonic) Anime was a Mistake, or: “Sonic X ruins everything.”

I’ve made my dislike of this anime quite clear in the past. The characters are flanderized, Sonic is a B-lister in his own damn show, the villains are weaksauce or boring or both, the plot is only remotely close to good when its cribbing from two videogames which told the stories in question better, and for the first two seasons the entire show actually revolves around not Sonic, but the least relatable audience surrogate ever made. The third season would continue to include him, but shove him (And everyone else) to the side in favour of a Pokemon whose only move was “Flashback”, making audiences the world over question why he was even there in the first place.

Oh, and it also near-singlehandedly destroyed the thin shreds of character development that Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Eggman had received in Sonic Adventure 2.

All four of these characters had been significantly enriched by the then most recent console game. Eggman had been revealed to be motivated by an admiration for his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, but in the same game learned that Gerald had lost his marbles and programmed the ARK to smash into the planet and kill everyone on it, probably including his surviving family, i.e. little baby Ivo Robotnik. Gerald betrayed Eggman posthumously, and it’s clear from Eggman’s interactions with Tails during the credits of the game that this is giving him a lot to think about.

Knuckles is a weird case because most of his characterisation in SA2 is conveyed via… the lyrics to his rap music. Yes, really. He gets minor growth through the cutscenes, most notably in his decision to shatter the Master Emerald early on. Having already reassembled it once after it was broken in SA1, he’s now confident that he can do it again, so is willing to break it to prevent Eggman or Rouge stealing it. Via the rap lyrics, however (Yes I just wrote that), we also learn that Knuckles is slowly warming up to Sonic, gaining a greater respect for him, that he is more in-touch with his history and ancestors after SA1 (Though fortunately not in a Ken Penders way), and that he’s also struggling with feelings for Rouge, a plot element that went completely out of the window after this game.

Tails and Amy, however, get it the worst, as both went through arcs in SA1 that are followed up on and expanded in SA2. Amy had come to the conclusion that she didn’t need to rely on Sonic for everything, and that she would make him respect her as a hero in her own right. And while Amy is clearly in way over her head throughout the events of SA2, she still makes a significant difference, not only freeing Sonic from his cell on Prison Island, allowing Tails’ invasion to be a distraction and stealing a keycard to facilitate it, but of course, she later saves the world by motivating Shadow to join the fight to stop the ARK drop.

Tails had a similar plot, about learning to believe in himself as a hero, without having to rely on Sonic, and in SA2 he gets to prove it, not only partaking in the same rescue operation as Amy and fighting Eggman on even footing, but effectively taking command of the heroes and becoming their new leader, and for the first time, Sonic defers to him.

And then Sonic X came along and fucked it all up.

Eggman became a clownish antagonist with no semblance of nuance, and he actually got off the easiest.

Knuckles became a loud, dimwitted loner who got tricked by Eggman constantly, which would go on to be his personality for the rest of the franchise, ultimately culminating in the travesty against all sense that was Boom Knuckles.

Tails was reduced to a wimpy taxi driver, incapable of doing anything without his giant mecha plane to sit in. This was largely exacerbated by the presence of Donut Steele, who usurped his role as Sonic’s best friend and sidekick for two seasons, a problem which only got worse in the third season when Donut Steele suddenly became a genius inventor too, encroaching even more into Tails’ territory. Tails did get himself some more focus in S3, but only to make googly eyes at the Pokemon, a role which frankly could’ve gone to literally anyone else and would have made no difference on the plot. I would say that Tails being involved in a romance story at all is weird, but given the comics and Boom the weirdest thing about this latest tragic love story for the kid is that the Pokemon was actually close to his own age, because outside of this it really does seem like Tails goes for older ladies. Though she did turn into an adult at the end so I guess that counts?

But Amy arguably got the worst of it. Not only was her crowning moment in SA2 taken away from her and given to Donut Steele, but the poor girl had her promising character arc cut short and replaced with an obsessive, unhealthy fixation on Sonic, combined with a violent temper and an eagerness to smash anything that displeased her, Sonic included, with a giant hammer. Her admiration and crush on Sonic were warped into her being a possessive, mean-spirited stalker, whom only got away with it because she was an anime girl and therefore it was cute rather than creepy.

I want to take the time at this point to stress that stalking is not okay, under any circumstances. A girl obsessively following an older guy and threatening him and everyone around him with violent assault if they ever so much as imply that he isn’t interested in her is not cute, it means it’s time for a restraining order. Sonamy is not cute.

Now that I’ve swatted that particular hornet’s nest with a cricket bat, let’s move on!

I’ve always found it ironic that, despite being the adaptation with the most oversight from SEGA and Sonic Team, and the most endorsement from them too, Sonic X had easily the worst characterisation of any of the shows at the time. But, for all its faults, I can’t blame everything that went down in the aftermath on it. It had a comrade-in-arms. Mediocrely-written arms.

Part 3: Partner in Crime, or “Sonic Heroes also ruins everything.”

Sonic Heroes has a lot to answer for. And I mean a lot. It was the beginning of the franchise’s obsession with references to the classic games, it codified the really awkward ages for certain characters, and it seemed to be dedicated to completely unpicking everything established in the Adventure duology.

Shadow’s sudden resurrection is one thing, at least they had the graces to include a means to preserve his sacrifice via having him be an android, the blame for that not taking should be laid at the feet of his own game.

But the rest of the cast? Ohhh boy. Sonic’s still fine, he didn’t change much in the Adventure games, but then there’s Tails. Despite all the development he went through in SA1, in this game he needs to turn to Sonic when Eggman returns, and honestly this whole setup could’ve been fixed if Tails sought Sonic out not for the sake of having him lead the charge, but rather simply to recruit him into the counterattack he was already planning. Nevertheless, throughout the rest of the game Tails is almost as wimpy as his X counterpart, not helped by the voicework he’s given. No offense to William Corkery, who was probably like six when he recorded his lines, but this what you get when you choose actors via nepotism, rather than talent. But at least he does something.

How about Knuckles? As the other side of his derailment, Knuckles just turns up in this game, buddy-buddy with the characters he was only just starting to warm up to before, and blatantly not caring about the Master Emerald until Rouge mentions she’s going to steal it at the end. This will combine with his becoming a dumbass in Sonic X and become basically his entire character for… ever. Even in Forces, where he’s supposed to be doing slightly better as the leader of the resistance… but he’s a dumbass, and even Ian Flynn, who kept Knuckles as competent and intelligent in the Archie comics (Making the best version of Knuckles we’ve had in forever), kept this ongoing in the IDW comic. The Forces prequel portrays him as deciding to become leader of the Resistance (To an empire that hasn’t actually formed yet) purely to be a glory hound, and then goes on to establish that he was basically a figurehead while the real work was done by Amy, of all people.

And speaking of Amy…

Yeah, poor Amy is basically her Sonic X counterpart. But worse. I didn’t think that was possible, but at least X’s Amy seems to care about her friends. In Heroes, we’re treated to an equally violent and stalkerish Amy, who ostensibly starts searching out Sonic because he’s implicated in the abduction of Cream and Big’s pets, but when they actually catch up to him, Amy clean forgets why she is looking for him in the first place and tries to force him to marry her. Despite being twelve.

Y’know when Amy said she wanted to marry Sonic in SA2, she was joking, right?

This is why I find the idea of Amy being the real leader of the Resistance frankly absurd: Because the only time she led anything, it was a team that consisted of herself, a small child, and a man less intelligent and aware of reality than said small child, and she completely forgot their actual objective the moment she set her eyes on Sonic. Add in an unfortunate stint of very poor eyesight that got less and less understandable with every instance, and we got Amy’s rough personality for the next decade.

While Knuckles mostly stagnated at the same level of stupidity during that time, Tails got worse and worse, losing all of his badass traits with every game, a factor only increased by the “Sonic only” mentality costing him playable status, until he reached his nadir in Forces, cowering in terror from Chaos 0, and crying out to Sonic to save him, despite knowing full-well that Sonic was captured already.  Amy, meanwhile, limped along at the same level until about 2014, where it seemed someone at SEGA finally realised that A) Having the only female character you regularly use be a pink-coloured gender-bent version of your male hero whose only function is lusting after said hero doesn’t and shouldn’t fly in this day and age, and B) violent stalkers aren’t cute, and dropped this trait. Unfortunately, this has been more of a lateral move than a fix, as, much like Antoine in the comics, they forgot to give her anything substantial or fitting after she lost her negative traits, leaving her a bland and dull character, and when you’ve had a character be consistent for ten years, even if they were consistently bad, then changing it without cause or warning is still going to be jarring and awkward.

Part 4: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, or “Why the fuck did this happen?”

As I said in Part 2, Sonic X was made under heavy oversight from Sonic Team, and was heavily endorsed by them at the same time. There were promos for the show inserted into Sonic Adventure DX, a few episodes were released on GBA cartridges, and it received a long-running comic from Archie that ran alongside the main book, even after the show had ended. Additionally, characters that debuted in games from 2002-2004 were restricted from appearing in Archie’s main book for years afterwards (Which will become relevant later). The third season was commissioned solely off of the response to the first two, and primarily overseas response, hence why the original sub was never aired in Japan.

Sonic X was huge. And with that in mind, it’s plain to see that the portrayals of the characters in Sonic X were intended by SEGA. Yeah, all that horrible characterisation was intended as the vision for the franchise going forwards, and subsequent games were adjusted to match it.

And unfortunately, not only did this have a serious impact on the main cast of the games, but it had an even worse effect on Emerl.

Part 5: Emerl in Sonic X, or “Emerl vs. ‘Emel’”

Sonic X’s original mission statement was to adapt Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Battle. Why they skipped Sonic Heroes, despite Shadow being a major player in Battle’s story, I don’t know.

For whatever reason, the show took a full season to actually get to the first game adaptation, SA1, and instead spent the first 26 episodes on bland episodic “adventures”, in some kind of strange reverse-Isekai series. However, once it got there, the adaptation work was fairly faithful to the source material, which the exception of Donut Steele’s being crammed in to the plot. However, he mostly followed Big around, and since Big was the least involved in the game’s plot, he didn’t disrupt too much.

Sidenote, after 26 episodes of filler, the actual SA1 adaptation only lasted six episodes.

SA2 was likewise only six episodes, but with the exception of Amy’s big scene, it likewise wasn’t too bad. Tails suffered this time around too, which is somewhat surprising since he was mech-dependent in the anime anyway.  

After some more filler, which introduced the Chaotix and then did nothing with them, Emerl finally made an appearance, albeit they got his name wrong.

‘Emel’ looks like Emerl, and somewhat works like Emerl, but might as well be completely  different. ‘Emel’ stays completely mute for the entire time he’s around, never advancing much beyond Emerl’s initial silent, pre-first Emerald persona. He does get better at fighting, but he’s limited to only absorbing a single skill at once (Except for when he isn’t).

Dispensing with Battle’s interesting, rich, and heart-twisting plot, Sonic X instead has ‘Emel’ linger in ensemble for three episodes, before condensing the entire game’s premise into a two episodes of really bland tournament arc, where Sonic himself doesn’t actually fight and we get two rounds of Donut Steele being a dick to his friend and his father.

‘Emel’ wins the tournament, and is given a Chaos Emerald, and just when you think it might kickstart him becoming an actual character, instead it just drives him insane and he immediately becomes a pathetically weak version of Ultimate Emerl. After kicking the crap out of the entire cast, he is defeated by Cream and Cheese, because even though he can take on Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge at the same time and win, along with Tails, Amy, Donut Steele and everyone else, he… can’t handle two opponents at once.

This is stupid.

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about Sonic’s relationship with ‘Emel’, and that’s because he doesn’t have one. The wonderfully-written parental bond that these two characters share in the games is completely excised, and instead the focus is put on Cream. Bare in mind, Cream is so inconsequential to the actual game that she doesn’t even get mentioned individually in Emerl’s dying speech like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow do. Instead she’s just grouped in with Amy.

This is also stupid.

And as a result of this, it means that what is arguable base form Sonic’s most impressive feat just doesn’t happen in the anime, instead Emerl dies because he is lightly kicked a bit by Cream. Yeah, unlike the Advance games, Sonic X’s Cream is not an unstoppable engine of destruction, she’s basically just a small child who can sometimes fly.

Instead of Emerl’s tragic speech and Sonic’s desperate attempts to keep his son alive, we get treated to a prolonged scene of Cream crying over the death of her “friend”, something that is probably meant to tug at heartstrings but doesn’t because Cream’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

And Shadow isn’t even there! He doesn’t come back until a third of the way through Season 3, and never meets ‘Emel.’

This is really stupid. And, for those keeping track, that means of Sonic X’s originally commissioned 52 episodes, and the full series run of 78 episodes, a stunning total of seventeen of them were actually adaptations of the games that the series was supposed to focus on, leaving us with 61 episodes of what might as well be filler.

And, unfortunately, that franchise-wide initiative had damning consequences for Emerl.

Part 6: Gemerl and Sonic Advance 3, or: “An incomplete resurrection.”

So, Gemerl. I know his name is apparently G-Merl now but fuck that I’m calling him Gemerl. If the comics can do it then so will I.

Gemerl is the worst thing Eggman has ever done to Sonic. Like, there is no contest. Some of his other schemes might be more destructive and generally evil, but in terms of personal pain inflicted, nothing has topped this.

Eggman salvaged Emerl’s corpse, and brought him back to life as a mindless murderbot under his control. So not only did he kill Sonic’s robo-son, but he also brought him back as a weapon.

Come the conclusion of the game, Gemerl predictably betrays Eggman, steals the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and goes on another rampage. I have… headcanons about this fight, but that’s something to worry about later. What’s important is that, once again, Sonic is victorious, and Gemerl’s defeated body plunges into the atmosphere.

Fortunately, Tails is able to bring Emerl back properly this time, presumably using the Chaos shard that was left over at the end of Battle’s finale. So, it’s all a happy ending, right? Sonic has his child back, Shadow has his connection to his history restored, and Emerl is alive and well, right?

Wrong.

See, the vile spectre of Sonic X rears its ugly head once more, and sabotages this conclusion. Gemerl doesn’t return to Sonic, in fact we never see him reunite with his father. Instead, Sonic X’s version has enough clout now to take precedence, so Gemerl is now Cream’s playmate.

Bear in mind that Emerl’s idea of a fun game is all-out combat against his friends, and Cream doesn’t like fighting (Even if she’s really good at it in Advance 2 and 3).

And then he never shows up again. Even when Cream is part of the game’s plot, like in Rush or Generations, he’s not there, and most egregiously, in Sonic Chronicles, where Cream is not only an active player in the plot, but so are Gizoids, the creators of said Gizoids are the main antagonists, and Emerl himself is mentioned… Gemerl is not there.

But he did make it into the comics, for better or worse. Mostly worse.

Part 7: Embargos, knock-offs, and misused tropes, or: “Ian Flynn dun goofed.”

For a long while, Emerl/Gemerl was barred from the Archie comics, due to the Sonic X embargo, and when it was lifted, he didn’t appear until the reboot. We did, however, get a suspiciously similar substitute in the form of Shard.

Shard was the original Metal Sonic, but when he was brought back and rebuilt for the Secret Freedom arc, he was given a colour scheme ostensibly derived from Metal Sonic 3.0, but one shared with Gemerl, and a personality that was a lot like a watered-down version of Emerl’s own.

On some level I can understand Ian’s decision to bring back Metal Sonic v2.5, rather than use the character that seems to have been an inspiration for this new incarnation in some way. He’d need a fully-formed Emerl, necessitating a skip over the whole story, since there wasn’t room for an adaptation during the Mecha Sally arc that the Secret Freedom story was framed within. Heck, for all we know, the similarities between them may simply be a pretty sizeable coincidence.

But then the reboot happened and Gemerl finally joined the comic cast. And to say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.

You’ll notice that I said “Gemerl” rather than “Emerl”, because his entire story was indeed skipped. The events of Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3 had both happened already. This wasn’t Ian’s decision, as far as we know, his intention was for the comic to start over from the beginning. However, due to the interference of Paul Kaminski, who wanted a softer reboot, Ian was forced to fill the characters’ active histories with a large chunk of the games’ stories. Battle and Advance 3 were among those that had already happened, so Emerl made cameos in both incarnations via flashback… which unfortunately led to a plot hole.

See, Advance 3 and Sonic Unleashed are rather difficult to keep in the same continuity, because both share a common plot element: The world breaking into seven pieces.

For a long while, it was generally assumed that the handheld games and console titles were only semi-canon to each other. This avoided the awkward question of “If the Gaias were already there, why didn’t they emerge when Eggman broke the planet in Advance 3?”

Ian shoved them blatantly into the same continuity, and gave no attempt to explain what was different about the Advance 3 world-break compared to the Gaia incident, which served as the backbone to the reboot’s three year long Shattered World Arc. Why didn't the Gaias wake up during Advance 3? Because that's now a question we have to ask of the comics' world.

When Gemerl finally showed up doing something other than yard work for Vanilla (Despite allegedly being Cream’s friend, Cream spends all her time with the rest of the cast, and Gemerl is basically Vanilla’s maid), it was to get effortlessly dispatched by a brainwashed Mega Man with a terrible name in the extremely lacklustre Worlds Unite event.

This one was more than a little bit of a slap in the face, considering that Emerl and Mega Man are very similar in concept- robots that can copy the abilities of other characters- but Emerl is demonstrably more powerful. Now, if Ian had established that Gemerl had been nerfed when he was rebuilt, either by Eggman or by Tails, that would be fine. But he didn’t. In fact, Gemerl is given the title bubble “Super Gizoid”, implying that he’s stronger than a regular Gizoid.

Worlds Unite is generally pretty bad for having its corrupted heroes easily curbstomp every other character around, to the point that the only thing that can stop them is each other, but in Gemerl’s case it really serves no purpose.

This is the only thing that he actually does in Worlds Unite. He shows up to get beaten up and make Mega Man look stronger. That’s it.

This is something that TV Tropes refers to as “The Worf Effect”, a trope wherein an established powerful character is defeated easily by a new character, in order to demonstrate the latter’s power. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using this trope, but please note that I said establishedpowerful character, which Gemerl wasn’t.

At the point that this comic released, Gemerl’s last appearance in any Sonic media was over ten years prior. None of the comic’s intended target audience would remember him, and they wouldn’t know why defeating him was impressive. And this was, in addition, a terrible way to introduce him to new fans. Though the worst part is easily that this was unnecessary. Mega Man had already defeated everyone else, and had established his power pretty well just on them, and he was about to get removed from play permanently in the next issue. There was really no reason to throw Gemerl under the bus for this.

He made one more appearance in the event, getting controlled by the Zeti along with every other robot, and after that he got bopped on the head and just flew away.

Later, he’d make another appearance in the Panic in the Sky arc, and while his portrayal was far from the worst thing about Panic in the Sky, it only adds to the issues caused by the previous showing.

Gemerl makes one appearance, and promptly gets pinned down by the Witchcarters and Team Hooligan. Bear in that one of those groups are the joke villains who nobody takes seriously, and the other are a gang that was defeated by Tails before he met Sonic.

Archie Gemerl was a character who only existed to lose to villains in a vain attempt to make them look better, and that’s legitimately all Ian ever did with him, which makes me wonder whether he disliked the character. And it didn’t even make the villains look good, when you think about it. For anybody that was actually the intended audience for this book, Gemerl had no significance. He was just a robot that got beat up all the time. But for anyone like me, who does remember the games he appeared in, it stands out, not as good writing, but as a blatant narrative device and misused trope.

In this situation, I would simply rather Gemerl never appeared in Archie. At all. If Ian wasn’t going to give him time to shine, or at the very least be an adequate member of the supporting cast, he shouldn’t have used him at all.

Part 8: A Fresh False Start, or: “Wait, how did this get worse?!”

And now we arrive at IDW.

The one nice thing I can say about Archie Gemerl is that at least his personality was mostly on point. He read like a generally accurate take on the character that Emerl was at the end of Battle, which is what he’s supposed to be.

The same cannot be said for IDW.

In the pages of IDW, Gemerl acts like the most generic robot. He speaks in emotionless, stilted sentences with little in the way of actual grammar, leaving him to read like a poor man’s Soundwave, or Soundwave in one of those comics where the writer can’t decide whether they want him to speak normally or adopt his speech pattern from the G1 cartoon, so they just sort of do both.

Emerl pretty much never talked like this, as far as I can recall. His speech development is much more reminiscent of a child learning words, and the only time when he did adopt a more robotic speech pattern, it was a clue that he was slipping back into his destructive programming. He only spoke like a generic robot when he was in mindless destroyer mode.

He gets thrown for a loop by a simple logic flaw, unable to reconcile “Protect Cream and Vanilla” with “Don’t kill the zombots”, and has to be talked out of killing everything around him, when the entire point of Gerald’s modifications to the Gizoid was to make him a bringer of hope rather than destruction, and give him a compassionate heart.

The part of Battle’s story where Cream imparts a pacifistic mindset doesn’t frame her as being right. In that part of the game, they are cornered and under attack by hostile but ultimately mindless drones, and when she convinces Emerl to stop fighting, he almost dies. It’s Cream that learns the lesson there, that sometimes fighting is okay.

This character is already compassionate, he shouldn’t need to be talked into not killing the zombots by a small child, nor should he need her to point out that they’re innocent people who have been made this way by Eggman, because he was made into a killing machine by Eggman twice, and the first time he did die because of it. The character that lay dying in Sonic’s arms, scared and bidding his last goodbyes to his loved ones shouldn’t be the one experiencing this struggle when Omega is also in this arc.

That’s it, really. He’s not Gemerl. He’s a second, less goofy Omega. And it boggles my mind that, despite getting Gemerl’s character, if not his combat abilities, down almost perfectly in Archie, Ian is now subjecting us to this travesty.  

Like with the Archie example above, therein lies the crux of why the steady decline of Emerl/Gemerl that began with Sonic X is pushing me away from IDW: I don’t want to read Ian’s take on this character, because, to me, No Gemerl is better than Badly-Written Gemerl,

This isn’t the first time I’ve said this, either.  Way back in 2016, when I complained about Ian’s portrayal of Gemerl in Panic in the Sky, I said that the way he handled characters that I liked tended to make them the least likeable parts of the stories he wrote. As well as stating my dislike for his handling of Gemerl, I also stated that I used to really like Fiona Fox, moreso in concept than in execution, but under Ian’s pen she was largely an insufferable antagonist, little more than a trophy to make his pet recolour look better, and almost every story she was in only added to the “List of reasons she needs to stop lying to herself and just start the redemption arc already”. Additionally, I said that I didn’t want to see him bring back Neo Metal Sonic or Mephiles in any context, and we got the former, and it was exactly as bad as I thought it would be.

So, that’s basically why I don’t want to read IDW. That’s why, even if the aspect that was a big sticking point for me back when the comic launched was to be undone soon, I still probably wouldn’t pick it up. Because I don’t want to see my favourite Sonic character continue to be written badly by a guy that should know better, and has done better in the past.

If he were simply screwing up Gemerl’s personality the first time he wrote him, I would file it away under the same category as “Emel”, but the fact that he’s done better before, in a book where he had greater restrictions on what he could do with the characters, really settles this as an interest-killer for me.

Well done, Mr. Flynn. I legitimately didn’t think you could make me actually miss SEGA’s tighter control, but you somehow managed it. I would be impressed if it weren’t so sad.

[pelicantowne-blog]

for the sonic asks thing: tell me abt a sonic character that not a lot of people like/know about that YOU like :eyes:

you opened this can of worms, prepare for an essay-length reply under the cut

mighty the armadillo is the most underappreciated but best goddamn character in the sonic universe and i’m about to explain why

mighty the armadillo (right) is a pacifistic, honest, and hard-working strongman who deserves the entire world. and that’s not me exaggerating. almost every single game he’s been in has done him so dirty, starting with segasonic the hedgehog. in said game he made his debut as a prisoner on eggman island along with ray the flying squirrel (left) and sonic to be executed. yes, executed. in his debut game. obviously they escaped and in doing so thwarted robotnik’s plans, in turn destroying the island, but still, how fucked up is that?

the second (and only other, until sonic mania) game he was present in was knuckles’ chaotix, having been captured AGAIN (can he catch a break) and turned into a statue by dr. eggman. our hero (knuckles), along with espio, rescue him however, and he helps them put an end to robotnik’s plans again and officially joins team chaotix along the way. sega, however, completely forgot about this, as in the games he would go missing in action for 25 more years before finally showing back up in sonic mania where he was, you guessed it, captured by robotnik. 

literally. can sega please just let this guy be free for once in his life all he wants to do is explore.

games aside though, let’s visit archie comics, who added MUCH MORE to his character and is literally my life force when it comes to sonic.

mighty is a reoccurring side character within the archie comics verse who spends most of his time travelling or partaking in freedom fighting with the rest of the cast. he was born into a family of thieves, who were sent to prison when he and his sister were still extremely young and before he really understood what they had done wrong. he sought out mogul, who i am not even going to make an attempt to explain the character of, for help freeing his parents, which is where he was gifted his super strength, but he still couldn’t help them and exiled himself due to his own guilty conscious.

with his strength also came INCREDIBLE paranoia, as ever since he’s been afraid of losing control of himself and hurting someone, whether they’re someone close to him or an enemy on the battlefield. this isn’t helped by the fact that he has quite the temper, though studying with moss the sloth and spending time with ray has helped with this.

ok i’m running out of adrenaline but i also want to mention that he had this HUGE character arc in which he found his long lost sister in the dark egg legion where she’s been robotised and has no memory of him or her parents since she was a baby when they were sent to jail and he exiled himself and also very young when she was legionised. he goes undercover and risks his life MULTIPLE TIMES for her even though she doesn’t care about him because she’s his sister and he would do anything to make sure she’s safe and ok i have to stop this is way too long but basically he’s an AMAZING CHARACTER and the fanbase has done him SO dirty

[itsallavengers]

oh my GOD the Peter & Tony stories! My heart! If you want I have a prompt for you: after The Scene Peter starts to get a bit claustrophobic in simillar situations. So just imagine Peter and Tony getting stuck under a rubble and Peter freaking the fuck out, because it reminds him of before. Tony knows an anxiety attack when he sees one so he calms Peter down and reminds him he's not alone.

Peter gasped as the air was forcibly knocked from his lungs by an overly large fist, hitting him in the sternum and sending him flying across the street.

He tumbled, hitting concrete and rolling a few times before running out of momentum. Getting straight back up to his feet, he looked over apprehensively at his attackers from over the road. “That’s not how we greet people on Earth!” He called out grumpily.

There were at least twenty of them; all probably nearly double Peter’s size, and sporting muscles similar to those of Greek Gods. They were clearly alien- that much was obvious from the massive portal hanging over them all- but seemed…defeatable. He’d already stuck four of them to the wall.

But more kept coming from the hole in the sky, and for every one of them Peter took out, another just took it’s place.

“Tony?” He called out a little breathlessly through the comm.

“Coming as fast as I can, Spidey, just hold tight and try keep out of tr-”

Peter lost connection for a brief second as one of the aliens smashed their staff against the ground and sent huge chunks or rubble flying in Peter’s direction. He yelled, flipping backward and latching on to a nearby wall a second before the space he’d just inhabited was ripped apart by fragments of gravel and concrete.

“-Kid! Spidey! Peter, come the fuck in, are you-”

“I’m fine,” Peter assured, running along the wall and trying to spot an opening. “They have…staff thingies, that seem to be releasing some sort of powerful sonic wave- it’s shattering concrete, so it’s gotta be intense. I could use one of them,” Peter muttered absently, aiming a web at the next creature he saw and then yanking harshly, knocking their aim off-balance before they could fire their weapon at a young man taking cover behind a car.

“Just stick to holding perimeter and getting out civilians, Spidey,” Tony ordered, and Peter heard the brief mutter of FRIDAY saying “if we go any faster, boss, we risk damaging the flight stabilisers.”

“I’m holding it, it’s fine, Tony, there’s no point damaging your suit-”

“Focus on the battle, kid,” Tony ordered loudly, and Peter huffed in frustration, but leaped back down to the ground, somersaulting over a deadly whatever-beam and grabbing the man he’d seen earlier by the collar. “Time to go, Mr Sir,” he said cheerily, before pulling him up over his shoulder and beginning to sprint over to a nearby alley. 

Once they rounded the corner, Peter dropped him. “Run,” was all he said, and the man obeyed; turning tail and scrambling through the thin alley toward safety.

Peter threw a web over to the building on the opposing side and then yanked taught, just in time for two of the weird rock-alien things to tumble over the thin line. Wasting no time on words this time, he simply stuck them to the floor and then leaped away before he was assaulted by more gunfire. 

He heard Tony swearing through the comm. “I’m ten minutes out, kid, but I called backup, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

Peter frowned. “Who’d you call?”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll know when you see them. For now, stay on the comm and stay out of the trouble, you understand?”

Peter grimaced, nodding his head before realising Tony couldn’t see that, and so said “yep,” sharply, ducking under another huge chunk of rubble.

God, these things were big.

A few of them began clattering off down the abandoned segment of Park Avenue, and Peter cursed, swinging off his web and hauling himself over to them, landing a few yards ahead. “Hey, fellas, has anyone ever told you violence doesn’t solve everyth-”

The creatures all roared collectively, loud enough that Peter winced in pain. Obviously they weren’t in the mood for talking. If they even could.

Peter glanced over his shoulder, looking at the group of people that were huddled, terrified, in the cafe a few buildings down from them. The aliens were looking too. 

That wasn’t a good sign.

“SitRep, Peter,” Tony ground out down the line, hearing Peter’s muttered curse.

Peter didn’t have time to reply; at that moment three of the ten aliens lifted their staffs, getting into a formation and then looking forward, before banging down with force.

Peter felt the world crumble underneath him, lifted off the ground as concrete shattered underfoot and flew around him, sharp edges slicing across his body, barely kept from cutting through the material of his suit entirely.

His first thought was: cafe.

That was the target. And it was a target that was about to be directly hit in less than three seconds, unless Peter did something.

Righting himself as he flew through the air, he laid eyes on the large piece of debris directly ahead; hurtling through the street and heading toward the window of the building. If it hit, everyone in there would be crushed. Instantly.

His arm flew out and he bit back a cry of pain as it was met with razor-fine rubble, but he didn’t relent. Letting his web fly, he flew through the air as if in slow motion, praying and praying and praying that it would reach its mark in time-

There was a familiar tug of tension as the webbing connected, but Peter had no time for relief. Using everything he had in him, he wrenched it toward him.

The sudden yank as the block of concrete was pulled to a complete standstill was powerful. Too powerful. 

He felt his arm wrench out of its socket, and this time he wasn’t strong enough to hold back the scream of agony.

But he couldn’t stop. The momentum had begun, now, and all Peter could do was twist it, roll it, manoeuvre it until it was arcing back around again, a perfect semi-circle that led right back to those aliens. They could only watch as suddenly 10 tonnes of rock and concrete was thrown in their faces.

Peter was still flying through the air, in between dust and sand and rubble, and his arm felt like it was on fire. He could hear, in the back of his mind, Tony. He was yelling something through the comm, but it didn’t register. All he could think of was the fast-impending wall that his body was about to fall into.

And, as predicted, second later it did.

This time, Peter didn’t cry out. Unconsciousness was immediate.

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A few seconds later, when his vision faded back in, Tony was still screaming down the line.

Wincing, he mumbled something. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the screaming stopped, replaced with something like a choked-off groan, so Peter considered it a win.

“-Peter, do you understand me, you get away from there, right now, this is too much for you, backup is imminent and so am I, so you need to get the fuck away before you actually get-”

“No,” Peter hissed, rolling on to his hand and knees. He could do this. “I can do this.”

“NO YOU CAN’T, YOU ALMOST FUCKING DIED, I AM TELLING YOU TO-”

“Karen, mute,” Peter whispered, palming a hand over his eye as he sat up.

The last thing he heard was an infuriated “PETER FUCKING PARKER IF YOU DARE-” before the line cut, and silence soothed his banging head once more.

He stopped, taking a deep breath before standing up.

And then choked on yet another scream as something smacked into his dislocated shoulder and sent him hurtling. Again.

It was pain, pain, pain- but he was Spiderman. He could deal with that.

Staggering back to his feet, he threw out another web with his good arm. The alien dodged, just by an inch, but it was enough. 

Peter growled, throwing himself to the side and ignoring the horrible spike of pain at the movement. He lifted his arm to shoot another web, but then paused as he heard a feral roar behind him. Had it not been for his enhanced instincts, he would never have dodged the fatal swing across the back of his head in time.

Lucky for him, all he felt was the wind pass over his head, rather than the uncomfortable feeling decapitation would undoubtedly have brought.

Rolling forward, he sprung back up, trying to figure out which one to face. They were both advancing, heavy metal (was it even metal? Maybe they were just gloved? Who knew??) fists swinging ominously, and Peter didn’t even have both arms in use at this point, if the one on his right got in first, then he wouldn’t have an arm to fight them off-

There was a revving noise, and Peter shot to the side on instinct, thinking deathbeam, rubble, horrible magical instrument of doom-

There was the sound of crunching metal and horribly forceful collisions, and then the monster screamed out in agony. Peter felt the reverberations through his feet as it toppled.

“Duck, Spiderman!” 

Again, instinct and reflex alone made him follow the order. He didn’t know who was speaking, but they sounded like they knew what they were doing, so he dropped to his haunches and raised a hand protectively over his head.

There was a blinding flash of light- identical to the ones that had been fired at Peter minutes previously- and then another alien screamed.

The one on Peter’s left dropped, too.

There was a heavy silence, before Peter’s head shot up, wide-eyed as he stared at the person who’d just taken out two the crazy aliens in less than two seconds.

Steve Rogers– Captain America– stared right back.

“What in the name of fuck?” Peter blurted, as the man shook his head and jogged forward a few steps, until he reached Peter’s side. “What the fuck are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, in the depths of Africa?”

“I was in town,” Rogers muttered, before a hand lifted gingerly toward Peter’s arm. “I need to reset this. It’s gonna hurt. You ready?”

Peter looked warily down at his arm, before jutting out his chin and nodding. “Yeah.”

Rogers grinned a little. “Brave. I like you. Okay, on three. One-”

Peter felt another white hot burst of agony rip through his arm, and he let a choked off cry fall from his mouth as his joint was forcibly shoved back into his socket.

Rogers was running a thumb soothingly across Peter’s shoulder as he attempted to compose himself. “Knew you… weren’t gonna do it on three. No one ever does,” Peter muttered, panting a little. The pain had died down as fast as it had come, and although it was still damn sensitive, Peter knew he could work it. 

He was spiderman. He could do it.

Looking up again, he frowned as he saw the crushed-up remains of a motorcycle sit on top of the first alien. “Did you…did you run that thing over?”

Rogers looked a little defensive. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Peter stopped, shrugging in agreement. Everything felt a little surreal. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Rogers looked a little  vacant for a moment, before getting back to his feet and pulling Peter along with him. “I got a call. I was needed. So I came.”

Peter’s mouth opened in surprise. “Tony called you? Seriously? He said he’d rather cut off his own tongue than-” he stopped when he realised Rogers just seemed to get a little droopier with every word, feeling a little like he’d just kicked a puppy.

“What can I say, kid- you must mean more to him than his pride, because he said all I had to do was keep you safe. No idea how he knew I was even in New York in the first place-” Rogers chuckled a little as he hefted the stolen alien gun over his shoulder, “but I guess that’s just Tony. Now- about you,” he said, turning to Peter and raising an eyebrow. “You need to get out of here. My team have this. You’re inured.”

“No,” Peter said roughly, pulling out of Rogers’ grip and then making his way back toward the main street fight, where he noticed a few extra people had joined the fray, “someone’s gotta stop the portal, and keep the civilians safe, and fight the aliens. You and your team can’t do it alone and you know it.”

Rogers stopped. Pursed his lips, and then looked over to the horrible thick-skinned aliens, currently tearing apart half of Park Avenue. “I…right. You stay in. But you stick with me the entire time, you understand? I’m here to look out for you until Tony can get here and yell at you himself, and so that’s what I’m gonna do. We clear?”

Peter grinned, giving his right shoulder a tentative roll. “Crystal,” was all he said, before shooting out a web and hauling himself back into the main fight.

Rogers would catch up in a few seconds. For now, Peter had to go fight some aliens and save New York.

Flying through the air, he webbed up another two of the creatures who looked like they were giving some of Rogers’ folks hassle, saluting them with a grin on his masked face before attaching himself to a wall and taking stock of the situation.

There were about fifteen creatures, all being desperately herded by the Rogue Avengers, although it was clear they were struggling. They simply didn’t have the sheer strength to go toe-to-toe with creatures like this.

He was about to launch into the middle of the fray and get his hands dirty, when he noticed another alien as it fell through the portal. It somehow managed to go unnoticed by everyone else; all of them too caught up in fighting the other ones- and the so when it dropped, there was no-one there to apprehend it.

Peter noticed, with a growing sense of horror, that there was something glowing ominously in its hand.

Wasting no time, Peter threw himself downward, swinging off a lamppost and feeling the air push against his face as he arced downward, knowing his trajectory would take him-

“Yoink!” He called, snatching whatever it was directly out of the alien’s hands and then flying onward, landing a good 60 yards away when he eventually came back down again.

Rogers turned to him, briefly, nodding in satisfaction when he saw Peter, unharmed at the side of the street.

He was at an angle, though, and it meant he missed the object clutched in Peter’s hand, which had just begun beeping.

Beeping objects were never a good sign.

His mind worked faster than it had all day as he glanced down at the weird beepy cube. 

Okay. Right. Chances were, this thing was a bomb.

And by the rapid rate in which the beeps were quickening, he guessed he had less than fifteen seconds before it detonated.

He was almost certainly going to die.

Question was- how could he do it so that he was the only one? How could he save everyone else- all the Rogue Avengers, all the civilians still hiding in their cafe’s and retail stores and apartments?

He didn’t even know what the blast radius was. He might not be able to do a damn thing.

For a brief, rather amusing moment, he considered trying to swallow it. But he realised he’d never be able to get that down his throat- it was probably three times bigger than the width of his gullet in the first place.

So no swallowing.

Turning his head frantically, he looked for…something. Anything.

There was the portal. He could…he could see if he could throw it through the portal- but there was a big chance he wouldn’t get it in. The portal was facing the ground- the aliens had been jumping in and falling down to the floor below. Peter would never be able to get the angle right. And he was too far away to run any closer to it.

Okay. Two options down, one second passed- what else did he have?

Across the road. An old hotel- all grand stone and gargoyled features- currently waiting to be demolished.

Big. Heavy. Could probably hold a decent-sized explosion.

Peter sprinted forward.

The space between beeps was slowly becoming shorter. Peter guessed at about ten seconds until it went off.

He’d be well into the middle of the building by then.

Leaping up the stairs all at once, he burst through the doors like they weren’t there at all and then stopped, quickly deciding which route would take him further in.

Eight seconds.

The corridor veering just slightly to the left, that was probably the one. Peter shot forward, clutching tightly to the ticking bomb and adamantly refusing to think about the fact he was going to die in 5 seconds.

He kept running. The building really was huge- he wasn’t even sure he was in the middle yet, and he’d been sprinting for almost-

Something grabbed his hand.

He yelled, turning around, spare hand raised and ready to fight, but it paused a fraction away from the Ironman faceplate as the metal grip pulled the bomb from his fingers and hurled. A proper, fearsome hurl that sent the bomb careening forward, further and further and further.

Tony didn’t say a word. As soon as he’d thrown it, his hand grabbed around Peter’s waist and once more, Peter was yanked forward at a truly immense speed.

They were flying through the building, so close, maybe they’d even-

Sound ripped through the air like scissors through paper, and he knew they were too late. They hadn’t made it.

Peter shut his eyes, feeling as Tony whirled them around so his reinforced back was facing the explosion. His whole body curled around Peter in the air, and Peter felt them drop as Tony cut the thrusters, so as not to smash them straight into a wall.

Fire ripped through the walls, and Peter curled further into the embrace on instinct, shielding his face from the flames by tucking it up against a metal shoulder.

Peter wondered if his suit would hold out, or the fire would rip through it.

They hit the floor hard, and both of them rolled across the stone, Tony’s hands never releasing their grip against the back of Peter’s head and waist. Over and over and over; it didn’t feel as if it were ever going to end. like they’d never lose momentum. Peter’s arm was aching, and so was the rest of his body. He was pretty sure they’d rolled just out of the blast radius, but the heat was still searing, and Peter steadfastly kept his eyes shut.

He felt scared. Terrified, even.

After what felt like an age, they stopped moving.

Their entire world was still shaking apart, and Peter could hear the explosion and the fire and the pieces of falling debris as they clattered to the floor, close, too close to his head.

With a heave, Tony grabbed hold of his shoulder and rolled, one last time, so he rested over Peter, rather than the other way around.

Immediately, everything dimmed a little. Bits of rubble bounced off Tony’s armour, clinking rhythmically against the metal, but honestly, Peter was just grateful the boiling chunks of rock were no longer burning through his own suit.

“-Peter, Peter, buddy, listen to me- you gotta get up, we gotta move, that beam is coming down, you gotta move-”

Huh. Was he gonna get crushed again?

…Fuck. 

Was he going to get crushed again?

“Oh no,” Peter whispered, chest constricting almost painfully in memory of the Other Occasion, of what was almost a carbon copy of the scene he was looking at right now, rubble and dust and falling pieces of debris as supporting beams caved in on him-

“MOVE!” Someone was screaming, and Peter felt the hand that yanked his weakened shoulder, pulling him across the floor, sliding him out, over jagged rubble and burning metal.

He watched as Tony scrambled to his feet, arms raised as the suit suddenly found itself bearing the weight of the entire building on top of it.

Peter curled up again as once more, various things were dislodged from the ceiling. 

This felt too similar. This felt like a nightmare. The space was too small. They were trapped. Peter couldn’t bear being trapped, not after-

“-You absolute IDIOT!” He heard the words to his left, “I told you to GET OUT! TO LEAVE! What did you do? You grabbed a god damn shitting bomb and went on a suicide run! How dare you turn off the comms, Parker- do you have any fucking idea how serious this shit is? You do not ever turn off comms- I didn’t know if you were dead or alive! Do you genuinely have a fucking deathwish? Is that what this is? Because we’re stood under what has to be a fifty tonnes of rubble and I can’t move the suit an inch without it all coming down on our asses, so-”

Oh God. Too real. Too real. Too small. He hated small spaces. And it was dark. Inescapable. Tony was here too- fuck, this was it, this was just a nightmare, one of many, he dreamed this all the time, if he could just wake up, it would be okay-

“I cannot believe you’d… wait…Peter?”

Just a nightmare. A nightmare. And he had to wake up before Tony died. Because they always died. Whether the dreams held Ned, or Aunt May or Mj or Tony or all of them, they always died without him, leaving him alive, crushed under the weight of the building he couldn’t lift-

“Peter! Buddy, you need to-”

Oh God. How did you wake up from a nightmare? Did you pinch yourself? Scream? Dying usually worked, didn’t it-

“Peter, hey, hey, look at me. Look up, come on, come on, follow my finger. You can do that for me, right? Can you look at me, Spiderman? Please?”

No. He couldn’t. I he looked, if he saw the rubble or the crushing darkness or Ton’s dead body, then it would mean he was too late, he’d be too late, the building would trap him forever and ever.

Something clicked, twice, in front of his nose, and it was surprise more than anything that made him open his eyes and look. 

“There we go,” Tony said, clicking them again, lifting them out of sight, and Peter followed, because he wanted to see the life in those fingers, wanted to hear the faint pulse through his enhanced ears. That never showed up in his nightmares, that was always the one thing that was absent.

“Hey, Spiderman,” Tony said quietly, when Peter eventually worked up to looking him in the eyes. He wasn’t in the suit; horribly exposed to all the elements, crouched down with one hand clicking occasionally near his face and the other hovering nervously around Peter’s shoulders. “You back in the room?”

Peter gasped. “You… where’s your suit, what’s holding up the building?” He yelled, head turning rapidly in panic, arms immediately coming up to brace for impact-

“The suit! The suit, Peter, I stepped out of it- the suit’s still holding it up, okay, it’s fine, it’s fine. I got you. You’re good,” Tony explained hurriedly, hand moving to compensate for Peter’s jerk, but still refusing to land on his shoulder.

There was silence, and Peter heard his own ragged breathing fill the room. Fuck- what if he breathed in too much oxygen- what if they ran out, what if what if what if-

“Steve’s on his way, Spiderman,” Tony said, fingers still clicking at his side, still grounding Peter to that staccato rhythm, the one thing that seemed not to fit in with the themes of his nightmares, “he saw us both go in, and they’ll be finding a way to dig us out, right now.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Peter shook, voice barely above a whisper, and he realised absently that he’d curled up in a ball on the ground, looking at Tony as he crouched above.

“He will,” Tony assured him, hand ghosting over Peter’s shoulder, “I know he will. He’s Steve. It’s what he does. Insufferable bastard,” he added on at the end, pulling a little face as he glanced over to the thoroughly concaved area around them. It seemed that the beam was the only thing keeping this tiny little pocket empty of rubble.

Peter took a deep breath. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. This was what was happening, and Peter had to get through it.

“Can we… can we meet them half-way, do you think?” Peter asked quietly, just desperate to leave, to get out, to see daylight again.

Tony winced, and shook his head. “We have no idea what stones need to stay where in order to keep this whole thing standing. They’ll have equipment for this. We’ll be in here an hour, max.”

Maximum. One hour. One whole hour, stuck here.

“You know, one hour is really just six lots of ten minutes,” Tony began, still clicking as he leaned back so he was sat on his ass, looking up at the ceiling and shrugging, “which is also, like, 12 lots of five minutes. That’s roughly one song and a bit, 12 times over. Not that long, really,” he mused.

Peter nodded, arms curled tightly around his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Tony sighed across from him. “Can I touch? Or will you detach my hand from my wrist if I put it on your shoulder?”

Wordlessly, Peter just nodded, and Tony immediately let the hand drop, until it was running softly along Peter’s shoulder. “You….God, I cannot believe I’m saying this, but you shouldn’t be sorry. You just saved a tonne of people. Not that I’m still not pissed that you disobeyed orders, again, may I add,” Tony said, flicking his shoulder lightly, but his voice didn’t sound harsh- only exasperated, mixed in with a little bit of fondness, “but… you did what a great superhero would do. You put everyone else before you. Objectively, I can’t fault that.”

Peter swallowed, and uncurled, just a fraction. Tony was smiling at him, ash smeared across his face, cuts bleeding down his face, animated and exasperated and alive, not dead, not dead, not dead.

“-of course, from literally  any other point of view ever, it was a horrible, terrible decision, and believe me, I am going to murder you when we get out of here. But not yet. For now, let us bask in the success of your endeavour,” Tony declared, throwing a hand up around him and gesturing to the lightly smouldering room.

Peter raised an eyebrow. And then, incredibly, he found himself laughing. “Yeah. I think I did okay.”

On the other side of the room, a chandelier suddenly fell to the floor, crashing loudly and sending glittering diamonds skittering across the tiles.

Tony sighed. “God, is this what it feels like to be Pepper? I am exhausted. You have exhausted me, boy, I swear to god you’re gonna give me an aneurysm from worry.”

Peter opened his mouth, but at that moment, there was suddenly a shifting in the rocks. Peter jerked and Tony jumped to his feet, hand that had been resting on his shoulder suddenly turning tight as he dragged him back. 

Fuck. Peter had been starting to think they might make it out, as well. This sucked.

“Peter, follow me, right now,” Tony ordered quietly, and Peter did, unable to do anything else. It was either he followed, or he stopped being able to function.

Tony guided him backward, shifting around so that rather than dragging Peter backward, he was pushing against Peter’s chest.

He kept going, blind with terror, until he found himself stumbling over something, into something-

Tony grabbed his forearms, lifting them up and pushing them against something soft, and then there was a soft little “close up, FRIDAY,”

And suddenly he was surrounded by metal.

Peter stared at Tony through the eyes of the suit, stomach dropping further than his shoes, further than the ground- he felt like someone had just poured a pint of lead into his blood- he’d taken Tony’s suit, he’d taken Tony’s defence-

“No,” Peter said quietly, barely even audible. He attempted to move, but the joints were locked in place. “No, Tony, NO- get me out, get me out-”

“Just a precaution, kiddo,” Tony said softly, a hand patting the chestplate as Peter squirmed around helplessly inside, begging to FRIDAY, to God, to anyone who would listen to let him go again, to put Tony in instead, this was his suit, Tony was the vulnerable one here, he wasn’t even fucking enhanced like Peter, he was just a human underneath all the metal- the metal that Peter had just stolen from him.

The rubble shifted again, and he watched Tony brace through his tear-filled eyes, all the while begging uselessly for Tony to take it back, take it back, take it back-

Suddenly, a large chunk of rock shifted, and…

Light.

That was a crack of light.

“Tony?” Someone called, baritone voice a little bit desperate as it ran through the destroyed building.

Tony blinked, and then sighed in relief. “Oh thank fuck- hey Steve,” he said, in between huffs of laughter, “see, Spidey, I told you he was an insufferable bastard who just couldn’t let a thing lie.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say about a person coming to save your ass,” Steve replied blandly as Peter watched fingers curl around another hunk of rock and pull, widening the crack further.

“Okay, okay, I apologise. Hey, FRIDAY, let Spider out, it’s okay,” Tony said, waving over to the suit.

And just like that, Peter was out again.

He looked at Tony, standing next to him like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t been about to put Peter in their only chance of survival and leave himself out, despite the fact there was a better chance of both of them surviving if it had been the fucking other way around-

“Spidey, the gap’s probably big enough t- whoah, whoah, oh…uh, okay then,” Tony said, as Peter threw himself into Tony’s arms, grabbing the man’s shoulders and hugging as tight as he could without bruising.

Jesus, fucking….fuck.

Tony made a few more noises, before his hands came up and clutched right back, tight and grounding and warm.

When Peter released, his hands were damp, and he frowned.

“Hey, Spidey?” Tony asked, grabbing the back of his neck and looking into his eyes anxiously, “you okay now, right? You’re good?”

Peter thought about it. He wouldn’t really say he was good- he’d never had a panic attack that bad before. But it seemed the worst had passed. 

He nodded his head.

Tony smiled. “Oh. Good.” He nodded back, and then made a face, “hey, so now that’s sorted, I’m just gonna-”

And then Tony blacked out in Peter’s arms.

Turned out a piece of rubble had managed to lodge itself under Tony’s right shoulderplate and impaled him.

“Oh look, it’s the village idiot,” Tony mumbled, when he woke up on the hospital bed a few hours later.

Peter jerked, turning to look at Tony. from his seat. “Me? I’m the idiot? You were the one who didn’t tell me you were impaled! I could have webbed you up! Stopped the blood! What the hell, Tony?” Peter hissed, leaning forward and pointing an accusatory finger over to Tony’s face.

“Ugh, you sound like Steve,” Tony said sleepily, eyes unfocused. He was pretty knocked up from the meds, and it seemed he wasn’t going to last long before drifting off again.

“He’s waiting outside, by the way,” Peter added grumpily, leaning back in the chair with folded arms.

“Who?”

“Steve.”

“…Oh.”

Peter huffed again, and Tony pulled another exasperated face. “Okay, listen, I’m supposed to be mad at you. You were the one who fucked up here, not me. I was just being the responsible adult-”

“You put me in your suit, Tony,” he whispered.

“Yeah, because You’re Peter Parker and you’re damn nearest thing I got to family, kid, so I wasn’t exactly gonna watch you get crushed to death, okay? Capiche? Do we understand one another?” Tony snapped, leaning forward in his bed a little as he glared up at Peter, before he waved him off, wincing a little when it jarred his shoulder, “doesn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t a cave-in, only Steve Rogers, riding in like a knight in shiny fucking armour. Did you know he grew a beard? What the fuck is that about? That’s unacceptable- I’m not going to be able to focus on anything for weeks after this, fuck him, fuck everything about him, to be honest.”

Peter listened to the ramble, unable to stop the grin from hearing drugged-up Tony talk. “Yeah, okay then. I’m still pissed at you, though.”

“Well so am I” 

“Great.”

“Good.”

“Nice to know.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

There was silence for a while, and then he heard Tony sigh. “Glad you’re not dead, kid.”

His eyes were already closing, but Peter said it anyway. “Yeah. Glad you’re not dead, too. And… you’re the closest thing I got to dad, so…you’re family too, I guess.”

Tony huffed out a tired laugh. “How beautifully put, Mr Parker,” he said sarcastically, before his eyes closed completely and he fell back into sleep.

Peter exhaled, shaking his head a little before getting to his feet and walking out of the room. He didn’t have to go far to find what he was looking for.

“He’s okay,” Peter said, and Steve looked up at him from his chair in the waiting room for a moment before visibly deflating in relief. “Yeah- just spoke to him now. High as anything, but okay.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah- kay. Good.” He replied, smiling slightly as he looked away. “I expected as much, to be honest. Takes more than that to put Tony down.”

Peter huffed. He was still sort of pissed with Rogers, because Tony was and Peter was unequivocally on Tony’s side- but he knew two idiots who were avoiding something important when he saw it. “You should just talk to him. And not when the world is in danger or you’re pulling him out of a collapsed building, either.”

Steve exhaled, before shaking his head. “I don’t think… I’m not sure if either of us are there yet, son.”

Peter sighed. And they said teenagers were angsty? “Say that however much you want, but he trusted you to come. And you waited for him, here. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

Steve looked caught out for a moment, before his whole body did a funny little jerk and he stood up. “I’m gonna…go. I’ll see you around, Spiderman,” he said quietly, like he wasn’t going to come right back tomorrow morning and check up again.

Peter watched him go, shaking his head. People made everything so complicated- honestly, Peter didn’t really get that- he was a simple guy, at the heart of it, he did what he thought was right, and was too mature for all the petty fights-

In his pocket, his phone began to ring. Absently, Peter pulled it out and checked caller ID.

His face went a little green.

“Uh oh,” he whispered to himself, as Aunt May’s face beamed back at him.

Okay.

So he was really going to die this time.

[geek-gem]

Sonic Forces First Impressions

11:17 am just saying went to the submit thing twice but decided to click text the third time I went to it.

So I have finally played some Sonic Forces after months of waiting. Including I'm gonna say this. I can't play stage 15 or this secret mission 1 because the game is still installing. Even the first part of episode Shadow. It said the game has 55 more hours honestly over time it will get better hopefully I don't wanna doubt oh my head.

I'm gonna say I'm gonna post spoilers in this. Including I have a set of pictures mainly of the custom character. Including liked a ask about well fan indie thing taking over modern Sonic.

After playing for some hours but not long.

Now my opinions I honestly like it. I think it's very good. Just my head including I didn't wanna start off saying I honestly like it.

Yet really it's nice to play.

I'm gonna mainly say some good stuff.

First I wanna say the visuals are possibly some of the best in the franchise next to possibly Sonic Unleashed. Honestly I don't know which one is better. Mainly I wanna say that first because you really see it with this.

Now with gameplay. I'll talk about modern Sonic first.

I do like it. Yet honestly I've been thinking. This is mainly my opinion and I remember seeing this in the first gameplay video. But I don't like the idea that you have to get wisps instead of rings to boost. Unleashed started that first, Colors used wisps and Generations I think brought rings back. I feel it kind of holds me back.

Including the way the game is also I'm gonna mention this. Their are only two modes normal and hard. I'm surprised theirs only two modes. Yet in a way normal is basically the easier route also I'm playing the game on that difficulty. But I find it kind of stupid it doesn't record the time. You have to play on hard mode to do times. I'm guessing just they want you to play like that. I even question at times should I change the difficultly. Also maybe because they want to challenge you or I thought aware and some shit.

But back to gameplay. It's nice yet compared to Sonic Unleashed and Generations and I haven't played Colors in years and never played Lost World. The game feels a bit slow.

Yet it plays well. But also could be I have it on normal mode. It's the way it's set up where you get go to the extreme and even having to be careful when trying to spin dash well home attack enemies.

Including I'm gonna mention theirs no lives instead you can keep trying it doesn't matter how many times almost left lives but doesn't matter how many times you die. You still play the stage. In a way that's a nice thing. I died the most as modern Sonic on Egg Gate and Mystic Jungle seriously just....meh I think I like Sonic Unleashed a lot okay.

Now let's talk about Classic Sonic who comes up later in the story. It's kind of the same with updated visuals. Yet think theirs some new jump forgot what it is. But the gameplay is enjoyable. Including for anyone who likes the classic gameplay. Remember I didn't die as Classic Sonic on the boss with Eggman in his Egg Dragoon.

Yet honestly okay remember this. You need to be careful when getting close to enemies. Ether I thought I was pretty nice at classic stages a bit or whatever. Just be careful when getting close and using your jump and spin dash.

Yet despite that it still works well.

Honestly didn't die much as Classic Sonic yet Modern Sonic I seem to have that move fast while being awesome shit. No wonder I kept dying in Mystic Jungle even a part twice I think forgot where I had to just not jump and wait for the ramps.

Now the custom character something I've despise since the day it was announced.

It's honestly nice. Yet like I've said I'm just trying to play as the character we've been seeing the first time Buddy The Wolf and let me say this. I started over the game once to make sure if I didn't miss any gear and stuff. Turns out had to play without gear at first.

Including after completing stages and missions I'll talk about that later. You can unlock more gear for your character which is cool. Which is something makes playing levels worth it.

Honestly the custom character is okay. Yet even during that said in my head I still despise it. But honestly it's nice if your a big fan of customization. Yet it's honestly not for me.

Including I looked at my laptop first at the announcement trailer for the character and Google images but decided to look at my laptop to get a closer look. Seriously I tried to make it as the character from the cgi trailers and what we've seen. Because I just don't want to make my own version.

Luckily you can make your own character still while on this world map. Meaning you won't be stuck with the same get up the entire game.

Okay I chose this 2nd voice because I thought bit fit okay. I just really didn't wanna put any creativity alright.

Okay I should talk about the story. I wanna talk about other stuff. Yet I'll get to that later.

The story basically starts off with Eggman talking about so long Sonic has beaten him and he's found a way to beat Sonic.

Honestly the stages are short for some. Yet I did thought when writing that they are in the same place or whatever. So your not replaying levels.

Sonic is gonna save the day first saving Tails and civilians first. When all of a sudden Shadow stops Sonic from harming Eggman and Zavok, Metal Sonic, and Chaos in order. Honestly had a smile on my face hearing Sonic say Chaos's name again. Then we have Infinite appears yet because Infinite is too powerful and the help of these other villains.

They basically kick Sonic's ass before Sonic's eyes close when seeing Infinite's feet.

After that Eggman takes control most of the world because Sonic is gone. But what the game says a rag tag band of resistance members try to fight him off.

With people losing hope because Sonic is not around with characters doubting and hoping for a miracle. A character which is the custom character by the name of Rookie has joined the other characters to stop Eggman.

Really the custom character gameplay is nice and makes it different a bit compared to Sonic. Since it mainly plays like that without no boost.

Including during the story Classic Sonic appears out of nowhere to save Tails from Chaos. Along with Tails trying to fix Omega or something. Including before hand their were talks of Tails losing it without Sonic. Now happy to at least see another Sonic.

Also the other characters Sonic is still alive captive aboard a new Death Egg and Eggman kept him alive to have him see his finished empire. Then he would banish Sonic into space.

Including a boss I didn't die from yet difficult Zavok was pretty nice. Yet turns out that spoiler was true. Is that Zavok isn't real.....

Honestly before I was gonna write about Zavok I'm just thinking of Chaos and when I wrote a post talking about I want Tikal to return to try to relax Chaos..... really I'm fearing it might be the same thing for Chaos. Including I think over the course of the game just or that part how I feel it seems lazy for the developers to not even just I'm disappointed.

Yet honestly the Deadly Six hate Eggman but having to reason with them would be difficult. But it's idea that would make Eggman's empire more terrifying. Instead of this simple boss it's just lazy or some shit some what sorry wanna say not meh okay not sorry.

Oh wait I remember that comic with Chaos from IDW my God it is Chaos those comics better be damn canon. Seriously God damn I want at least Tikal in there. I can pass with Zavok but still.

Including the characters meet up later. I'm also gonna say really the game seems to have a problem with saying dead. Or the idea that Sonic could be dead. Honestly it seems to be quite hard for them. But I feel okay yeah even thought the developers are honestly panzies however that's spelt. Because seriously it's just the word dead. They can't even fucking said they when Lost World did exactly that saying stuff that was honestly dark. Yet the way the characters are it could make sense. I'm sorry or just was bothered. They don't even have to balls to say dead just some what sorry.

Also for the custom character I should just call him Buddy like those leaks months ago said do they still call the character that in this game I haven't heard it no head I need the name not sweet. Theirs this storyline or just a subplot along with Classic Sonic appearing.

Is that Infinite has met Buddy and basically let him live. Telling him he should just stop and be in fear. So from what I'm seeing theirs this subplot of Buddy trying to stand up against Infinite and basically just.... honestly that cutscene stuck with me. Basically this subplot of Buddy trying to brave and stand up to these larger then life threats. I'm guessing that is the arc yet I haven't played more of the game because it's still installing.

Now let's talk about well I should mention the tag team shit. It's basically both the custom character well Buddy and Sonic into one stage. It's don't lie just my head.... really I played it once I guess nice. Really I feel I should play it more after this.

Now to talk about something I wanted to talk about the missions. Also this is sounding like a review but it's not. I'm just being detailed about my first impressions that's all.

The missions is something nice. They give you tasks honestly simple as I've played it for the time being. Such as do a homing attack or slide as Sonic. Or use the astroid or lighting weapon as Buddy which I see doing these missions unlock more gear. Which gives me a reason to try them out. Basically making the experience different then the last sometimes.

Yet it's honestly nice and it's not that detailed as I've played it. But it gave me something to do while waiting for more of the game to install.

We also have these sos missions. Including the first time I saw you play as other people's custom characters. The green one shows you but as soon as I tried the red one on the Death Egg. I immediately paused the game and pressed give up seeing it wasn't mine.....

I really don't wanna play other people's character okay that's all.

Will say some other positive stuff yet I wanna talk about Infinite.

A character I honestly liked before the game was even released. I like him he's honestly cool. Also his song is still beautiful and just amazing to hear before the first boss fight against him. I didn't even die in the first boss against him.

His voice is great and he's a threat. Honestly very cool and something I wanted. Not like my extreme meme versions where he's the ultimate douchebag in history or this Darkseid/Thanos villain where he's just basically the devil. Basically stuff I thought about him.

Seriously the visuals are beautiful even when he appears it's lovely. Took off s behind villain but seriously he's super cool and kind of what I wanted from him. I'm just hoping during the game he gets better.

Including I wanna talk about this too. The voice acting is great said sucks in my head or just no or suck. Sorry just my random negative mind it was an emotional rollercoaster to get to this game why bother.

But honestly the voice acting is very nice. Despite some lines just... really from what I've heard that the characters don't take the situation as seriously. Yet at times they seem too. But it's not as extreme considering it's a E10 game but it's mainly Sonic at times. Despite I like his jokey nature to keep the stuff less stressful.

Really I shouldn't of thought this game being so stressful. Just that theme of Infinite's is beautiful and was expecting more of an end of the world situation where everyone seems to be out of control at times or some shit. Maybe not much.

Including the music is lovely even for the stages. Honestly just I never cared for Fist Bump yet I've been thinking about it and hearing exuse me burp in mouth. But hearing it in the tag team stage. Also it's the invincibility music for Classic Sonic it sounds nice. It's honestly my preference of metal music which is why I love Infinite's theme so much.

Also about the voice acting while I don't like Kirk Thornton as Shadow. Seems like he's gotten better. Even what I've seem with Lego Dimensions. Yet not as iconic or just good as David Humphrey and Jason Griffin. Really again all the voice acting is good. Even Roger Craig Smith as Sonic honestly. While quite a lot of the lines aren't the meaningful. It's still very nice to hear the voices.

Really I feel that's all of my first impressions. I'm gonna post a photo set after this. Overall good first impressions I honestly left my PS4 on to install the rest of the content

Got tags done honestly and retyped honestly oh God ticks and even typos. Just sorry yet again honestly good first impressions oh head seriously typos just I'm being weird. Again good first impressions 12:20 pm

[rocket-sith]

Top 5 favorite fic tropes?

Oh snap, here we go! Okay, in no particular order (and these are mostly Star Wars focused since that’s my current fandom and where my one-track mind is at) -

- Time Travel Fix-Its. I love the shit out of time travel stories and temporal anomalies and all that shit to begin with. Maybe this is a result of too much Back to the Future and Star Trek in my formative years, IDK, but I love it. I also love Fix-Its in general because fuck the canon police, I wanna see my poor babies happy (my poor babies being whichever tragic or ill-fated characters I’ve come to adore in whichever fandom I’m into). So finding a good time travel fix-it is like the ultimate jackpot on AO3, like when you were a little kid and you found a box of your favorite sugary cereal in the cupboard and then saw there was a really cool prize at the bottom. 

- Sith AUs. I love me some Dark Side shenanigans, ESPECIALLY considering the ridiculous levels of moral ambiguity a lot of the Star Wars prequel/TCW era characters possess - for some of those characters, Sith ain’t that far of a leap. Plus I find it fascinating to see how different writers approach it, like which character(s) they make into Sith/Darksiders, what changes about the character other than just their name or how they self-identify, what stays the same, what triggered their fall, how being Sith/Dark changes the character’s story arc, etc. 

- Bantering, arguing, and affectionate trashtalk between my OTPs. In the X-Files fandom, it was Mulder and Scully. In the HP fandom, it was Remus and Sirius. In the SW fandom, it’s Anakin and Obi-Wan (though I love Han and Leia’s dynamic on screen too, and Vader/Aphra has a lot of potential.) There’s something that’s just equal parts adorable and smokin’ hot about a battle of wits, and I’m pretty incapable of getting into any pairing in the first place if this isn’t a large element in the canon material (regardless of whether the ship itself is canon). So when I find a fic that’s got my OTP all like “I love you, I troll you, let’s have brainsex” I am allll over that. 

- Playful, affectionate, or just plain fluffy BDSM (especially bondage). Oddly enough, this only applies to Obikin rather than all my fandoms or even other SW ships, and I have a strong preference for Anakin being the one getting tied up. Not to say I don’t enjoy reading some straight up kinky porn sometimes, because that’d be a damn lie, and not to say I don’t enjoy seeing them take turns topping/bottoming with vanilla sex, because that’d also be a damn lie (I actually think Anakin enjoys the attention he receives when he bottoms, so he prefers that most the time, but they’d still switch it up sometimes and..I DIGRESS, I AM WAY OFF TOPIC, ANYWAYS.) My biggest weakness in the Obikin kink department isn’t some super rough fuck-a-thon, it’s a loving, playful bondage session that’s more about mental and emotional intimacy than sex. I think it’s just like - these characters already have ENOUGH pain in their lives. Anakin always seems so restless and on edge, Obi-Wan always seems wound so tight and like he’s trying so hard to be the perfect Jedi - I wanna see Anakin get tied down and loved, and I wanna see Obi-Wan decide the hell with Jedi decorum and just allow himself to have some guilt-free affectionate fun with that smartass other half of his.  

- Flogging, pissing, and shitting all over the Jedi Code and Jedi dogma. (Metaphorically, I mean. Not into golden sonic showers or a lothcat-o-nine-tails or coprolitesabers or whatever the fuck might happen if this were literal). But yeah, it is SO DAMN GRATIFYING when a fic comes along that thoroughly eviscerates the toxic Jedi mindset. Sometimes it’s a matter of Yoda or Mace’s own bullshit blowing up in their faces, sometimes it’s Anakin or someone else flouncing the fuck out of the order because fuck that noise, sometimes it’s the Force itself being like “y’all motherfuckers done GOOFED” and then the timeline gets reset or someone has a vision or WHATEVER. If the Jedi Code is being artfully shat upon, I am 100% there for that. 

[kellodrawsalot]

Top five worst Sonic Archie issues

So a while back me and @greenyvertekins​ talked a bit about our favorite Sonic Archie moments, I was thinking of doing a TOp five/top ten favorite Sonic archie issues but honestly the moments I and Greenyvertekis mentioned were pretty much my favorite/best issues. So if you want to read here! most of them are also from the best written arcs so .....

Then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to do a top five WORST Sonic arche issues instead? :) (warning Im from the Netherlands so my English is bad, feel free to spell correct me!)

Number 05 Issue 172

Going pretty low in the list because despite this being one of  my least favorite issues it should be noted that this was the start from the comic getting better and better at this point, this ugly-face just was the blacksheep from that collection.

Not only was the cover a bad reminder that the comic was seen as bad-furry-romance-drama which I really hoped the comic wanted to distant itself from it, the entire issue is a sadlyalso  bad-furry-drama. It starts off with Amy Rose confronting Fiona Fox about the rumors that she heard from Tails that she is cheating on Sonic with Scourge, (the Green Edgy Sonic recolor) Now the story of Fiona Fox is a pretty sad one, she never had much of a character to begin with. She was first introduced as a robot in her child form to lure Tails into a trap. It turns out that Eggman based her off a real person: Fiona Fox who someway or another was left behind by Mighty and Sonic in Eggman’s prison and she manage to escape but stil holding a grudge and got angry at them for it, That is mostly what I remember her from in the past issues. From then on she would just be background character number 55 a freedom fighter with no dialog, the only times I sort of remember her was that she liked the idea of using guns, and that Sonic was afraid for Tails to be rejected by the too-old-for-you girl Fiona.Sonic wanted to talk to FIona about this issue and she mentions she still thinks SOnic is selfish for leaving her behind but that his sacrifice in issue 125 made her change her mind somewhat, That’s it. Now the weird story behind Fiona is that Karl Boilers planned to use her as a second-love interest for Sonic after Sonic broke up with Sally. Sonic was supposed to enter a relationship with Amy Rose shortly after the Sonic/Sally break up. (Keep in ind that Amy Rose back then was still 10 years old mentally at that time YIKES.) and Fiona for whatever reason was to become a rival to Amy for Sonic’s affections. Now Ken Penders apparently interfered with this idea and Karl and Ken changed it into...Fiona Fox becoming Sonic’s girlfriend instead...out of the blue....out of nowhere. At least with Amy you knew she had a crush on Sonic but with Fiona? why would Sonic ever enter a relationship with a girl he hardly interacted with and with a girl his best friend was crushing on? ..moving on various issues later and writer Karl Boilers and Ken Penders were no longer on board and new writer Ian Flyn entered into the picture it was by then far too late to clean up this mess and I could tell from the comic’s writing that Ian wasn’t sure what to do with Fiona, he tried to give her a more Sally-personality with a bad history but that felt tripped and forced. He knew he had to break the two characters off and he thought the best way to do that was to reveal that Fiona Fox became a bad-girl who fell in love with Scourge due to the events off Sonic 150 (dont worry that issue will be brought up later)

Not only did this came out of no where, it felt forced even if Fiona had no character it felt like she really was just a pawn of a writer not sure what to do with her. It also didnt help that the issue ends in a weird anticlimatic way  and in the next issue most of the characters dont even talk or seem to be phazed with Fiona’s betrayel and  Sonic would be slightly flirtatious with Sally and Amy in the next issue too, (Really Sonic you just got dumped.) The issues saving grace is a cute side story with Amy Rose and Julie Su training together and some decent/good art overall.

Number 04 Knuckles the Echidna issue 32

Yes Knuckles does count as part of the Sonic series, and if the list would be Knuckles comic focused this would have been number one. Not only was this the last issue of probably the most boring arc I ever read It also nailed the coffin on the Knuckles series as it was canned after this issue. It introduced two very uncreative very Un-SegaSonic like characters: Monk and Hunter whose design and motivations are as generic as you can imagine. Ken Penders tries to make you feel for the Monk-character but I dont think anyone was convinced. I own this issue as well and HONESTLY I forgot I even read this issue as a child it was that forgettable, even in my Knucklesfangirl phase as soon as I finished reading the last 3 issues I forgot about it, It also doesnt help that the covers while nicely drawn by Galan were cluttered and too busy, Ken Penders did the book’s art and while he did a perfect job drawing Hunter his cartoon characters were always off-model and the way he draws large mangaeyes didn’t look well. In other words the art wasnt good either.

I only remember these issues  because of @hedgehogscantswim​ review, which I suggest you guys read into as they go into much greater depth on their blog on the flaws of the art, the character designs of Monk and Hunter and the overall big problem the last issue has.  

Number 3 Sonic issue 134

Oh Yeah let’s talk about the big one, let’s talk about the issue that caused many Sonic fans to drop the comic, lets talk about the issue that split the fanbase in half and what made the Sonic-Archie comics the laughing stock of Sonic spin offs for years to come until Ian Flyn joined and the much later soft-Reboot. If the Sally/Sonic/Mina love drama didn’t convince people that the comic had badfurryromance drama this issue sure did.

Sonic sacrificed himself in issue 125 to save the world,  but was transported to a different planet cause science, he survived and had space adventures with Aliens, met up with Tails parents somehow...(Really those issues are all a blur too me at this point.) he came back to Mobuis only to discover a year has passed since then, he reunites with his nowwithlonghair girlfriend Sally and by issue 125, Sally makes it clear to Sonic that she wants him by his side as she is sort-of forced by her parents to no longer be on the battle field. However Sonic cant possibly do that, he is the hero after all, he cant be tied down Sally clearry suffering from trauma after Sonic’s death begs him to stay by her side, Sonic  tearfully tells her he can’t and Sally takes Sonic’s rejection pretty well and says that she knows being a hero is in Sonic’s blood and decides to reject her parents wishes and join her boyfriend and the rest of her friends on the battle field.

No wait Never mind, she SLAPS him across the face and calls him Selfish and breaks up with him afterwards.

Not only did this issue came in the worst possible time when the Sonally/Sonamy ship wars was rampant in the Online Sonic fandom communities. The motivation and reason for Karl Boilers to do this was in such a bad taste as well. Karl who MOST Likely was aware of the growing popularity of the Sonamy ship and the hatred the sonamy fanbase had for Sally, from people calling her a marry sue, a slut because her lack of pants, ugly due to her brown color sceme, and other funny-horrible things because shipping is serious business, Probably wanted to win and be favored by a part of the Sonic fan base and had outlined plans to have Sonic and Amy Rose become an official couple in the comics. (Even if Karl wrote Amy Rose as a 10 year old mentally girl with a body of a 12 year old together with a 17 year old teen Sonic.) They had to become a couple. How to do this you ask? by breaking Sonic/Sally up and portraying  Sally out to be a selfish cunt of a woman, not only was this so disgustingly out of character and a slap to the face to the sonally and Sally fans, it was all to make the fans to transaction to the idea of Sonamy instead. It didnt help Sally’s position in the fanbase and she along with Chris and Elise would be among the list of the most hated characters where extreme Sonamy fanbrats now had valid proof on their side.It would take years for Sally to recover. To add insult to injury the only nice thing about the issue is the introduction of new artist John Gray (whose animish-cartoondisneyish style was colorful, pleasant and very pleasing to the eye! was more then needed at that time since the art quality standards was low back then. )John has stated he did NOT like working on this issue either due to the content and story. I am so thankful that Sally has been much better written for years now.

Number 02 Sonic Super Special issue 07 Crossover with Image Comics

Where to start with this, oh boy oh boy. I put this very high on the list because this has to be one of the worst crossovers spin ofss I have ever had the pleasure of reading. and I mean that the Powerrangers/TMNT crossover was more enjoybale that this mess. This is also very high on the list not only because the art was below average and many characters were off models but Mister Ken Penders used this crossover special to shoehorn his own ‘’characters’ from his comic book series the Lost Ones. (who btw got canned after only volume 01) his characters got the most attention out of everyone else. A image-comics with Sonic crossover already sounds sort of weird and silly but hey I am Spawn fangirl, I am intrigued. But I dont even get that.

(oh wait, this is fucking it, Spawn appears for about a page to say no to Sonic and then leaves thats it??) FOR FUCK SAKE....

Honestly @robotnikholmescomicblog​ gave this comic a great review and I suggest going to their tag of Ken-Penders-Why as they bring out most of the flaws of Ken Penders writing and they said it better then I ever will.

Overall the issue is just a mess, with shallowcheap cameos of image characters, Sonic and the freedom fighters being DICKS to most of the human characters for no reason, a very anti climatic ending and a giant commercial for Ken Penders doomed and boring characters that nobody gave a dam about) characters that he planned to use in ‘’The Lost ones’’ and Knuckles 20 years later. With a character hinting to become Knuckles’s greatest enemy yet with a very ugly boring design that could rivals Hunter. (btw none of these concepts go anywhere, Lost Ones was canned, and Knuckles 20 years later didnt come in fruition the way Ken Penders wanted.)

and number 5, worst issue Sonic issue 150

This is my most least favorite issues up to date and why you might ask

well for one thing the art is okay, I give it that but it doesnt even start with Sonic,

no we get a quick-reveal  of AntiSonic pretending to be the real Sonic flirting with all the girls in knothole

We get uncomfortable panels of Mina Mongoose almost cheating on her boyfriend with Sonic, Sonic and Bunnie making out and falling asleep next together, Sonic being creepy at Amy ect and none of the girls seem to realize that this is obvious not the real Sonic but ANti-Sonic. Everbody fails to notice that Sonic is  trying to flirt with all the girls he gets his eyes on. Only Tails seems to quistion it. Shows how much his own friends seem to know him. Or his own freaking family. The real Sonic is stuck in anti-mobuis and is busy trying to convince them that he is not AntiSonic, it’s very boring and dull. Also since the real Ant was stuck in anti Mobuis couldn’t he have tried to come back to his own world with Sonic? I dont know that just confused the heck out of me, The extra side story also doesn’t help, Its the conclusion to TailS ‘’the Chosen One’’ which was,,,pretty lame too with bland-art, and has the unfortunate of introducing the fanbase to the still-hilarious Titan Tails

(OHfuckmethat’sstupid.)

So the stories are stupid, the art is okay and lame. Why is it so high on the list?

It’s THE 150 anniversary issue and this is how Karl and Ken apparently wanted to celebrate it? It also doesn’t help that the cover is really underwhelming and boring compared to the 125th issue but that’s it’s least of its problems. A short while later Ian Flyn and Tracey joined the team and Ken and Karl left. For the better. But talk about a lame way to celebrate a 150th milestone. What a waste.