#i have read a lot of comic books but weirdly enough not a lot of Sandman

[genericpuff]

The Mishandling of LO’s S3 Mi(n)season Hiatus - Part 3 2/2

ALRIGHT. THIS IS THE LAST PART. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

I had completely forgotten how long the mi(n)season finale for S3 was, but I suppose it makes sense considering it was operating as the true cliffhanger before the 4 month break.

If you haven't read the first 3 parts of this episodic breakdown, please go check these ones out first:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 1/2

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

CAUTION: THIS IS PART 2 OF THE THIRD PART OF A 3 + 1 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS TOPICS SURROUNDING SEXUAL ASSAULT. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.

We've gotten delusional Leuce. We've gotten erasure of the SA. We've gotten a complete bastardization of the original myths that this story got its claim to fame on. The dread has set in, and all I want to do is get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride. But we have one more stretch of mind-numbing track to go, because the reveal of Persephone starting winter was not the end, oh no. The true cliffhanger of this episode - upon which the fans and critics alike have sat on for 4 months - proves that when we think Rachel has gotten crazy enough in this circus she calls a "retelling", she manages to prove that yes, she can make things even crazier, and no, you will not have a good time.

Ironically, despite that opening, I actually have a lot less to say about this last part of Episode 253 than I did about the first part. Obviously there's no feasible way to top "Persephone causes winter", but this episode does come rather close in its absurdity. Ultimately, if these essays have proven anything, it's just how much Rachel retcons things, to such an extent now that she seems to be retconning or outright forgetting information that she established just a handful of episodes prior. You'll see what I mean here as we go along in this.

As soon as it's hinted at that Persephone has started winter, we cut away to Apollo. Because, as per LO tradition, we can't spend longer than 10-15 panels on a single scene.

Already this seems like... really odd framing.

This is Apollo. A character who has been a villain since basically the beginning of the comic, when he sexually assaulted Persephone. This is not something that's up for debate. This is not something that can be refuted, as much as the comic may try to erase it or twist it into something else.

And yet, the vibe I get from this is, "Misled but good-deep-down character being taken advantage of by a sinister being." This isn't the type of framing we should be seeing around a character like Apollo.

I mentioned it ages ago in my post about the SA erasure that it really feels like Rachel is slyly trying to make Apollo empathetic, from giving us an entire episode in his perspective to adding extra panels into the books to making Persephone weirdly reminiscent of feelings for Apollo that she never had.

One thing I also touch on in that post is how Apollo is framed against Zeus. Zeus is also a villain character for much of the series, and even after he's "redeemed", the fanbase still considers him largely to be an antagonistic force. So to have Apollo be trying to take down Zeus comes across as very "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and I really don't like seeing that framing when it's regarding a rapist.

And this scene largely feels the same. It feels like Rachel's trying to sway the audience into believing Apollo is like Draco Malfoy - a misled boy who "didn't know any better" and was being manipulated by a greater evil. If you haven't guessed by now, that "greater evil" is Ouranos.

Why is it Ouranos? In my opinion (so take this with grains of salt) this is because they need to somehow "one up" Kronos and give Persephone and Hades a tangible force to fight against, to draw a clean line in the sand between "good" and "evil" so that we, the audience, will be forced to categorize Persephone and Hades as "good" and someone else as "evil".

But really, why Ouranos? We're told that he manipulated Gaia to use her powers in an attempt to create "hierarchy" (whatever the FUCK that means, I don't think Rachel really understands how societal hierarchies are created) but there's NOTHING to imply that he was tyrannical or "evil" in the same way that Kronos has been depicted. Rachel's basically submitting this whole plotline to "well it's in the prophecy" but there was NOTHING dictating that she had to try and write a "prophecy" storyline to begin with. So as a result, it feels very tacked on and it's hard to tell what the point is, it really just seems like Rachel watched too much Marvel one week and decided that Lore Olympus - a fantasy romance - needed a big bad.

And by extension it feels like Apollo is being used as a pawn in this dynamic. By making him subservient to an "evil" force, it means he can labelled as definitively "evil", and thus it gives Rachel a vehicle to have Apollo taken down - or even perhaps empathized with much like in the Draco Malfoy sense - without having to touch the SA plot that she set up and never resolved.

He was evil before, but he wasn't the kind of evil that Rachel could write around. Because she doesn't know how to write SA or give her female characters any sense of retribution or agency. We've seen that already with her robbing Demeter of winter and Persephone of her feelings regarding the SA. There was never going to be a chance in hell she was going to be able to write herself out of a plotline she's been procrastinating for 4+ years.

That said, this is just a vibe I get, so I'm not gonna speak on it much more. This is one of those "we're really not gonna know until the comic returns" situations.

Once again, Rachel's trying to make Apollo seem like a "master manipulator", but she's also trying to make him seem like he's the one being manipulated, but she's ALSO trying to write him as a big dumb idiot who literally can't grasp consent. Apollo has to be one of the most inconsistently written characters in the entire comic, and yes, that includes Persephone. Again, it just goes to show she hasn't been able to fully commit to the SA plotline because Apollo's motivations and intelligence levels change with each passing episode. Sometimes he's being nefarious and plotting to overthrow the King, other times he's literally asking a nymph if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone. The comic can't choose and so we, the audience, can't tell why Apollo is even still here.

Again, this is SUCH bizarre framing. If we're to believe that Persephone has been "cursed" by no longer being able to create Spring, only Winter, then does that make Ouranos and Apollo the heroes here? Because Ouranos is right, if Persephone is causing winter, that's going to kill the mortals, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what she's trying to do. So what are we left with? A plotline where Apollo and Ouranos might actually have a point about how she rushed into a marriage with the King of the Underworld and sacrificed everything that gave her agency and power - both metaphorically and literally - in the process?

Again, this is why Rachel fundamentally misunderstands the original purpose of The Hymn to Demeter and how she's, by and large, made her retelling worse in an attempt to be "subversive". It puts the plot and character motivations in a place where it's hard to tell what the story is trying to say, I can understand if maybe Rachel's trying to write a conflict where Apollo uses this information to manipulate her, but it doesn't help that knowing EVERYTHING we know about the H x P relationship within the context of this comic, Ouranos has a point that Persephone's union with the King of the Dead is problematic. It might not be the same "problematic" that we're all thinking of, but it really just reinforces the criticisms of this relationship. Is the comic really asking us to say "fuck the human race, they're in love" ??? Because that's NOT what the point of the original myth was in the slightest and it's just a really weird place to put your audience in.

It's 4:45 AM right now as I'm typing this so my thoughts are a little scattered, but all this really feels like is an attempt on Rachel's part to create a new "big bad" for her to use as a distraction from the SA plot and to give Persephone a "flaw", but that "flaw" really only takes away the strength of another character.

Oh, and by the way? This whole "you need the fertility goddess" thing? THE COMIC HAS ALREADY TOLD US THIS WON'T WORK BECAUSE SHE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH APOLLO FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO USE HER POWERS. SO RACHEL'S ALREADY WRITTEN HERSELF INTO A CORNER THAT SHE'LL EITHER HAVE TO SOLVE OR RETCON ENTIRELY. DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS SO ABSURD???

This line is kind of jarring because we had the Kassandra prophecy at the beginning that talked about the herb, but the prophecy Ouranos is talking about is the one about the sons of kings overthrowing their fathers. I definitely forgot about that one for a hot second reading this, I didn't get how this sequence related to the poisonous plant thing because they're framed as completely separate prophecies. It's not like Kassandra said in her initial prophecy that this plant would be used to overthrow a King again, she just said that the plant still existed and Psyche figured it out on her own that Apollo was gonna use it on Zeus. IDK that's just something that bugged me (also again, why are they believing her prophecies when we literally just had it established an episode ago that no one believes her prophecies LMAO)

Because if it wasn't enough for LO to have one Evil Robot Jeff Bridges villain, it had to throw in another one for good measure. It's just a line of dads and grandpas going back centuries waiting for their turn in the ring with Persephone.

lmao I love this 'hint' at Apollo being the one to write the note from Hebe and leave the cupcake for Zeus. Like... duh? We already put that together as SOON as Psyche said gasp "Zeus!" and then it showed Zeus eating the cupcake while Psyche called him on the phone telling him Apollo was gonna try and harm him. This sequence of 'revealing what really happened' doesn't work here because we've already been told what happened.

Except we know he won't. There's no tension to this whatsoever.

That's Hebe by the way.

It's odd that Apollo is embracing this prophecy when he has a kid himself. He literally has a fully grown son in this comic. I guess Apollo forgot about that, just like Rachel.

And that's it. That's the midseason finale. Ouranos is the new twist villain and Apollo is... whatever the fuck Rachel plans on doing with him.

Now, this leads me to my original motivation to create this series of reviews. It spawned from a conversation we were having in the Discord, discussing what it must be like to be a free reader who hasn't paid for the FP episodes that are still behind a paywall. This is not standard for LO, it hasn't kept FP episodes behind paywalls in the past during long hiatuses like this. I can even prove this with screenshots from the Wayback Machine, during the last midseason hiatus:

(whoof, that rating has dropped. I know it doesn't seem like much but for a series with millions of readers, by law of averages it takes a LOT of poor ratings to pull that number down compared to a series that only has a few readers)

Point is, this is the first time Rachel/WT have done this. Now, I will make this perfectly clear, I don't think this was a decision that was purely on Rachel. WT controls much of the backend like paywall costs, release dates, etc. so I'm not gonna go pinning this on her.

However, I do think this is a completely bungled attempt at trying to get people to pay up. LO has been dropping in views steadily but surely since the midseason break for S2. It's not pulling in the peak numbers that it used to, while it does still pull in a lot more views and money than other series on the platform, it's nowhere near the juggernaut that it once was in terms of record-breaking numbers, and I think WT knows that. So this really comes across as a stunt to get readers to FP, assuming that people will HAVE to pay if they're left waiting for 4 months.

But here's the flaw in that logic - people are still going to have to wait 4 months anyways. Reading those 3 locked episodes, especially all at once, will still leave you in the same place as you were beforehand.

And it shows in the numbers that people aren't falling for the bait.

Again, 17k likes still isn't anything to sneeze at for a FP episode, but it's still just barely above the new average that LO has gained over the past two years. I remember a time when those like counts would be 30k+. And now, despite being on break 4 months with these episodes still locked behind a wall, it's barely able to scrap by its new average of roughly 14-15k, and that average is when episodes are actually updating.

Obviously like counts = / = viewcounts but when they fluctuate, we know that the views have to be as well by extension, at least to some extent, and that's still engagement that's dropped of in and of itself. And we can also see a rough look at how the views have dropped off through the comic's landing page. Now, it's hard to compare data because there was a time when WT actually didn't give follower/view counts on the landing page (this was also when the like count capped at 99k) but we can still see a downslide in growth very visibly in the view count, sub count, and most of all, the rating, which has been steadily dropping for years now.

August 2020:

May 2021:

November 2021:

March 2022 (don't get confused by the 995 million, this is where view count comes in):

September 2022:

March 2023:

Today (October 24th, 2023):

Again, there's no way to get a true clear picture of LO's stats beyond this surface level data, but it does show that LO is just not getting the rapid growth it used to. People are moving on from it. And while its view and sub count are steadily increasing (albeit slowly for a webtoon that gets as much marketing as it does) the average rating is going down. It's clear that the majority of LO's growth happened between 2018 and 2020, which would make sense as the series was still relatively new compared to how it's become old news today, and Webtoons experienced a boom in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns - a boom that they think still applies in the year 2023, judging by their attempts to import as many series onto the platform as possible and capitalize on an audience that just isn't there anymore.

All of this leads me to wonder - what's in it for free readers after all this? Because if you recall from where we started, the cliffhanger they started on was Hades - possessed by Kronos - attempting to strangle Persephone, a cliffhanger that was resolved within seconds for FastPass readers. If they don't FastPass after that, they'll be met with numerous reveals that don't even make sense for the plot as a whole (such as Leuce making up the text messages).

Again, I don't want to claim that this was a decision on Rachel's part, but it really seems like either she didn't plan this hiatus, or her inability to write naturally without the need for addictive-style formatting as a crutch made it so that the free readers would be given the worst midseason premiere ever.

And what are we, the FastPass readers, going to return to? There are still so many plot threads that have been left unresolved, multiple villains being setup, and as far as Webtoons and Rachel have revealed during NYCC, LO is supposed to end by the spring. That's 20-30 weeks TOPS, which isn't exactly a whole lot of wiggle room for a writer like Rachel who's chronically bad at pacing and getting to the point of the plots she's established.

I know there are so many readers right now anticipating the return of this comic, some of whom genuinely believe this comic is "better than ever" and others who are critical of it but hope that the comic will come back in a better state after the hiatus. But right now there's so much evidence to support the contrary - that LO is about to come back in as bad, if not worse, condition than it was in when it left.

And through all this, for a comic that's finally ending after 5 years, I have to ask - where is the hype? Why are Webtoons and Rachel keeping the finale of this comic behind closed doors? Where's the promotional art, the hinting at what's to come, the attempts to generate any semblance of excitement for the readers who are still left after clinging onto this ride for 5 years? Why were the fans themselves barred out of their own communities during the majority of the hiatus?

And that just leads me to an even more discouraging thought. This is not meant to accuse Rachel or make assumptions. It's simply a thought that I had while thinking about what the series could possibly pull upon its return, so please, take this with MOUNTAINS of salt. It's one thing I hadn't considered with the knowledge that LO will be returning with 3 episodes still behind a paywall, a 'buffer' in and of itself for Rachel to work off of.

Rachel only technically needs one episode ready for the release. Not three as she normally would if the episodes had been unlocked like in previous hiatuses. That's not including whatever buffer episodes she would need beyond the upload schedule, but she's proven to be chronically bad at maintaining a buffer as well since day one.

We haven't seen any promotional art. No hinting. No hyping beyond what's been seen for her "Rachel Smythe Presents" series.

With all that in mind, I have one question to leave this on:

Has Rachel even started working on Episode 254 yet?

[monsieuroverlord]

My honest reaction to this week's comics:

Spoilers Under the Cut:

Wolverine #50:

FREEDOM!

The ending wrapped up a little too neat, much like X-Force did.

Basically, before the battle against Graydon could even comence, Sabretooth got him first with a lethal blow.

I was kind of expecting a bit of a fight, but okay.

Also, Logan's a godddamn hypocrite:

How much have the writers just kind of glossed over? I'm guessing they've never read Remender's X-Force at minimum.

Like, Logan acting like killing your own son is inconceivable? It would've made more sense for Logan to harp on his angst regarding his own son here.

Sabretooth lures Logan to the heart of former Krakoa to be captured by the residue pit, but it just ripped his armor off.

But the side purpose of the armor is to reactivate his healing factor (because fuck it, of course it is).

The X-Force crew subdues Sabretooth, but Logan faces him one-on-one, and hacks him to bits as revenge.

This panel was actually a cool visual (artist did amazing):

With Akihiro front and center :(

And also Logan realizes (once again) that he's happier with "family" -- both found and blood family.

Laura doesn't get to react to her brother's death.

Phoebe turns off the Quire-head device (but we already know he's going to be resurrected anyway)

No Beaubier twin cameos.

Even Logan's man-pain is absolutely glossed over. Weirdly, he's not hating himself enough for a man who just lost his beloved son.

(I thought we were pretending that everything was fixed off-panel and he loves his son)

(The only other Akihiro cameo in this book. At least he doesn't have a beer this time)

Like, I know denial is a stage of grief, and its not unheard of to compartmentalize things, but we could still have had a moment where Logan just ~breaks~ at the end, you know? Like it all comes flooding in after the war is over and won.

I'm sorry, the ending was weirdly too hopeful for my tastes. It comes across as very shallow to me.

In general, I think the writing between Akihiro and Logan just lacks a lot of depth.

The most we've gotten from this writer is a brief mention or small moment here or there -- for example Jeff Bannister had mentioned once that Logan told him about Itsu during one of their hang-out sessions (from the Wolverine ongoing). Or Logan conisistently referring to Akihiro as "my son" with a more positive connotation.

There's just no real depth being built between Logan and Aki -- not even in monologue form. No reflection on how his son has grown and changed, become a hero, no thoughts on Itsu -- there used to be a time when Logan couldn't even look at his son without thinking about Itsu.

Its not like Akihiro was a product of a one-night stand -- he was originally a WANTED child. Logan not only married Itsu, but also knew he was gonna be a father before all that shit went down.

I'm just not seeing the expected reactions of man who was granted the opportunity to reconnect with his long-lost child in a relatively healthier format, only to lose him AGAIN. After implied healing progress was finally made. AND in a BRUTAL fashion -- that alone should be tramatizing.

Just in general, the writing style is great for a comic book format, but also, I think a lot of the plotline choices/character development are lacking if you've read up on Akihiro (and other characters in general -- Laura is written a little odd, like a mini-Logan)

As far as the side story by Larry Hama/Daniel Picciotto -- it was fun. It was a nostalgia trip. I have nothing to add and I liked it.

We also got ink pages (unlettered/uncolored) for the upcoming Wolverine series out in September -- Kurt is tracking down Logan, who is living with wolves again.

Hellverine #1

Oddly, I don't completely hate it yet. Like this issue had quality set-up, but its weird. The plot choices are weird. The implications of what's happening are weird. It's all weird. It's too weird to bash yet.

But its not bad writing, in terms of quality. The story flows well, it kept my interest -- but I still have reservations regarding upcoming plot deicisions.

Essentially, Akihiro, possessed by the spirit of Bagra-Gul, is going around hunting bad guys -- human traffickers, a corrupt priest, a cannibalistic supper club, etc.

The secret underground Pentagon organization is also trying to figure out the Hellverine is doing. They had harnessed Hellfire and infused into a bunch of of deceased elite soldiers--who immediately went rogue and escaped. But Aki/Hellverine showed up and tried to stop them -- presumably sensing the Hellfire stuff going on. But they managed to blow him up and escape while he healed.

In response, the Pentagon organization captured Logan, believing him to be the Hellverine (to be fair -- in the demon form, it looks a lot like him with a flaming skull). The head of the org interrogated him, lying about the Hellfire soldiers' origin, so Logan agreed to help him locate the Hellverine to take the soldiers down. Upon reviewing the video -- particularly at the moment of explosion, Logan recognized his son's tattoo.

The issue ends on a cliffhanger, with Aki going "flame-off" to reveal his beautiful face.

So Aki is NOT part of the secret underground Pentagon organization like I thought. He is an oddity. I'm assuming as this progresses, we'll find out why -- I'm currently assuming its an old shell, like a Krakoan era resurrection that was never disposed of properly, you know? Then mix it with demon-magic.

I still don't get the all the stitches -- I mean, if its an old shell, it would explain the mohawk (I miss the long, fluffy hair already. I mean, I guess the mohawk is more iconic, but he already has a unique tattoo, let him change up his style for a bit longer. I never got my messy hair-down panel ☹) .

But also, he 100% looks like Logan with a flaming skull in his demon form. Like, the tattoo canonically disappears, and he's short and hairy, and has Logan's claw placement.

The implications of it are weirding me out -- like I know Aki canonically has his father's shoulders, but he's taller and I've always headcanoned him having a relatively slimmer/wiry build overall. Mostly taking after his mama with hints of his father here and there. I guess it could be explained away with demon magic transformation, but I don't know how I feel yet. (like it would be weird to be specifically transformed into your father, right?)

The explanation for Bagra-Gul is that bonding to Logan fundamentally changed him -- as in, as a demon, Bagra-Gul still feeds on pain and violence, but now tinged with a sense of twisted justice so he feeds on the sinners/scum of the earth and taking the same demonic pleasures.

Does this mean Akihiro is also feeling his father's influence on Bagra-Gul? Is Bagra-Gul influenced by Akihiro at all? Does Aki know what he's doing? Is there even Aki's soul in there, or is it just an empty shell for a demon?

I guess we'll have to wait and see?

However, I am 100% worried with how this is going to play out. (Especially considering its likely the writer was planning this out since the beginning of the Sabretooth War arc)The Hellverine mini lines up perfectly to the relaunch of the Wolverine series. And I know I've said it before, but Logan only turns his back on civilization for two reasons: braining-washing or grief (or both.)

The caption teaser for Hellverine #4 is as folllows:

"HELLVERINE VS. WOLVERINE! BAGRA-GHUL has come for LOGAN's soul, but when the heat is on, who will survive - the HELLVERINE or the WOLVERINE?"

I really just hope it is just a fake-out and it means purifying Akihiro's soul and not making Logan kill him again. I am so tired. (and Aki gets to keep the character growth -- no hard reset making him a villian again)

But it really seems like they want Logan to hate himself for some reason and wouldn't be the first time they made him kill his son (or kids in general) to make him feel bad.

Or even just kill a shell of his son could be just enough -- Logan has never needed much to trigger the self-loathing.

Its lining up a little too well for comfort, if that makes sense.

I just want to be hopeful. Such as, maybe now that Akihiro is relatively front and center for this mini, we'll actually get some proper father-son relationship development. Maybe it'll end nicely wrapped up on a positive note -- where Akihiro is resurrected, relatively fine, and set up to join a new team, such as one of the books that hasn't been announced yet (Editor Tom Brevoort mentioned in an interview that there are still "first wave" new era books that haven't even been announced yet)

[velvetvexations]

AND ANOTHER THING!

People talk a lot about how very very early Golden Age Superman initially attacked abuses of structural power but I really need you to understand how completely weirdly unusual that was at the time.

I've read a fuck-dozen of comics from the 30s through the 60s and almost every single one of them treats Crime, as a concept, as some kinna malevolent force equivalent to Satan and his legions of Hell, as though some people are just born evil and choose to make the lives of their good law-abiding neighbors harder to earn petty cash from numbers rackets. Supervillains in comic books were, for the longest time, just criminals who happen to be really flamboyant about it, they're muggers, jewel thieves, bank robbers. Once in a blue moon one might be ambitious enough to try taking over the world, in which case they're cast in the same mold as Napoleon Bonaparte and the way Western media treated Hitler before the true scale of the Holocaust became known, sometimes buffoonish bullies who need a good kick to the seat of their pants.

Now that's so antiquated that Catwoman is an unrepentant thief and this doesn't really stop her from literally marrying Bruce much less teaming up with him. Some supervillains may still have profit motive, but generally speaking the drama is no longer "how will we get the Hope Diamond back from that dastardly arch-fiend?". But back then, to have Superman going after war profiteers and slumlords was hugely different to anything before or for a very long time after. It's a shame it was forgotten so fast.

[moonyasnow]

My HCs (or since their my OCs, is it just canon?) for my OCs sleeping and morning habits

Putting it under the cut since it's pretty long (weirdly enough)

Tomoe

She always goes to bed at 22:00 / 10PM and wakes up at 05:00 / 5AM, because she's used to needing to do this to be able to wake up in time to make breakfast for herself and her two younger siblings, and wake them up for the commute to school.

Cooking in the morning is actually quite calming for her.

She usually does a few minutes of stretches before going to bed, and she gets really good sleep during the night and wakes up feeling rested. (I wish)

She's definitely a morning person.

She and Irina can't really afford to buy sleepwear, so they both sleep in their Ceremonial Robes; it was what they slept in their first night at Ramshackle since they didn't have anything else, and the robes do manage to keep at least some of the cold that seeps through the walls at bay.

But if she COULD choose, she'd be wearing a matching shorts + short-sleeved button-up combo, along with underwear and a comfy bralette.

Irina

She barely gets any sleep most night. Either because she wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and can't fall back asleep, or just because she can't fall asleep in the first place. At night, when the world is asleep and her room is quiet, she thinks she can hear her parents fighting just outside her door, and that's always when it's the loudest. Sometimes when she's desperate enough to escape it she tries to go outside for some fresh air.

That's how she met Malleus~

It's very easy to wake her up, since if she does fall asleep she's usually still not sleeping very deeply. And if she hears a sound, it'll spook her and have her on edge so much that she wakes up because her sleepy mind identifies it as a threat.

She often goes to bed hungry. She doesn't eat a lot in general, on account of her just never quite being given enough food as a child— it's just what she's used to, and she doesn't think there's any problem with it. And she's used to going to bed hungry, too. She's done it practically her entire life.

If she could choose, she'd just wear a pair of underwear and a very oversized T-shirt to bed. Normally she'd also sleep with her stuffed rabbit Clover. But sadly, she woke up interested Wonderland without it. Not having it also makes it way harder for her to sleep, and just makes her mental health worse in general; it's her emotional support plush.

Spike

He usually falls asleep pretty late, sometimes in the middle of reading a comic book. He's definitely more of a night-owl. And he can fall asleep basically anywhere.

He snores a bit, and isn't super easy to wake up. But yelling close to his ear will usually do the trick. He's kinda in the middle of how 'awake' he is when he's woken up. But he's the kind of person who can't really eat breakfast in the morning; his mouth tastes too bad and he just has no appetite that early. He tries to make up for it with a big lunch, at least.

Though he doesn't always get great sleep, which only adds to the dark rings under his eyes.

He sleeps in just a pair of boxers.

Junia

She has some sort of superpower of being able to fall asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. She snores a little bit, and drools in her sleep, and when she wakes up, her hair and blanket have always become a mess.

She 'properly' wakes up really quickly after she's woken up, and only needs a few minutes to be up on her feet cooking herself breakfast, maybe singing a little tune as she does. She's also a morning person, and it's VERY hard to wake her up. And if she doesn't get breakfast, she'll feel terrible for the rest of the day.

To bed she wears underwear and a non-see-through yukata. The yukata is also usually a bit messy when she wakes up. Sometimes she'll have forgotten to check the mirror before going to eat breakfast and Azul, who's always up the earliest, will have to tell her with a flushed face to readjust her yukata because her cleavage was showing. She doesn't really understand why since her Lounge Dress also shows her cleavage, but she figures it's yet another one of those weird unwritten rules she doesn't understand but should follow, and always thanks him and fixes it.

She also sleeps hugging a pillow. Said pillow usually has at least a bit of drool on it when she wakes up.

Lisle

He goes to sleep wearing a face mask. He also doesn't move at all when he's asleep. His roommate calls it 'kinda creepy'.

He's a night owl who's trying to force himself into being an early bird. He REFUSES to talk to anyone until he's had a cup of tea and some breakfast. He also refuses to drink coffee because he's worried about it staining his teeth.

To bed he wears boxers, an old dress shirt + comfy pants.

Veronica

She can fall asleep fairly easily because she's always so active during the day. Because Vil has mandated it, she has an extensive nightly skincare routine, as well as a morning routine. This also involves taking a shower and washing her hair.

Her favorite part of her morning routine is always doing her makeup. She's actually quite upset she's not allowed to wear as much makeup to school as she can for after-school activities with her club or dorm. She always feels like she's not putting enough effort into her appearance when she has to wear her School Uniform, even though she's already modified it quite a bit. She hates the school's dress code.

She's more of a morning person, and likes waking up early to get in some extra exercise. Other than that, there's not a lot to say about her here. Though she sometimes wakes up for about five minutes in the middle of the night for no reason.

She wears a bra, underwear, and a dark blue silk nightgown.

Victor

He has always been the kind of person to wake up at 05:00 on his own. When he still lived with his guardian Warren it was really important to him, since it meant a few hours of just calm and quiet to himself away from his abusor. Nowadays it doesn't make too much of a difference though, since Ignihyde is always quiet, and it's not like there'd be people around anyway.

He's usually pretty groggy in the morning though. Though a small cup of coffee usually solves that. He takes the extra time to do some chores, like watering plants in the Botanical Garden, or checking up on the animals that live on school grounds, like the horses and chickens. He prefers spending his morning with them; it relaxes him. He just has an aversion to being around people in the morning, especially since he won't have had time to prepare his 'mask' that he always shows people yet.

He's also the kind of person to read news papers in the morning.

He wears boxers + an animal kigurumi to bed. And he also always cuddles a stuffed animal.

Artemisia

She is the most night owl-person I think you'll ever meet. She likes the night way more than the day for a lot of different reasons. It's rare that she falls asleep anytime before 02:00 / 2AM since she's always up late reading, and she will never, despite how hard she tries, feel anywhere close to awake before 09:00 / 9AM. But because of how many stairs the Diasomnia Dorm has, and that walking up or down a lot of stairs often make her need to stop once in a while to catch her breath, she has no choice but to wake up quite early if she wants any chance of making it in time for her first class.

And she HAS to sleep in her own bed or she won't be able to sleep, or at least not well. When she first got to NRC it took her a week to adjust to the bed in her first room. When she was moved to Scarabia she didn't get any time to adjust, before she was once again moved to Diasomnia, where she also needed about a week to begin to sleep comfortably.

She also has to drink her medicine: a dark purple powder she measures in the bottle lid and mixes into a cup of tea. It's medicine against her heart condition, and thus good for her heart, but it tastes incredibly bitter.

To bed she wears a wholeass Victorian era nightgown— with the high collar and everything, and lots of frills. And no underwear.

Tag list:

@another-random-paradise @thehollowwriter @faefum @cactus13-rolloflammesimp @beneathsakurashade

[linesonscreens]

Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – May 1954

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

May 3, 1954

~tugs collar~

Yeah... About that.

May 9, 1954

Aw yeah, here we go! I was wondering when this would pop up.

May 15, 1954

1) That's not a joke

2) Yes, Violet. I got that from him kicking the radio.

Also I hope you enjoyed this strip because “Charlie Brown doesn't like coconut” is now a running gag.

May 16, 1954

This definitively proves that adults exist in the Peanuts Cinematic Universe, they just happen to be 20 feet tall for some reason. Or maybe the kids are like 2 feet tall? It depends on how you look at it I guess.

May 23, 1954

Oh man! What's going to happen!? I'm freaking out!

May 24, 1954

Lucy is so unbelievably awful to Linus in these early years. Granted, she's literally four(?) years old so I can cut her a bit of slack but god damn do these kind of interactions not endear you to her.

Weirdly enough though, I actually like that the strip doesn't punish her for doing stuff like this. Others have made this observation long before I came along but the fact that Schulz is willing to just sort of... let bad things happen without immediately having the universe make an example of the perpetrator or teach them a lesson is one of the things that sets Peanuts apart from the competition. Life just kind of be like that sometimes and it's OK to show it.

May 30, 1954

(No, really. That's the last one)

Thoughts:

The golf tournament arc is kind of notorious and nobody really knows what the hell is up with it. You have continuity in the Sunday strips (very unusual due to how they are made), weird off-model art, the cast acting out of character, and of course, on-screen adults. Then it all just kind of... stops. It's very odd.

I've heard people speculate that this might actually have been ghost drawn (is that a term?) by another artist but I'm not sure if I buy that. The art is a bit different but it still very much feels like Schulz to me, particularly in how he draws his backgrounds. I ~do~ think there might be something to the idea that this is a repurposed experiment from another project though.

What this feels like to me is Schulz experimenting with “bigger” stories, perhaps something intended to be sold as a proper comic book rather than just a collection of strips. The art looks different because he's trying to set it apart from the strips by adding more detail and action (kind of like when an animated TV sitcom gets a theatrical movie).

As for why it just ends like that? Well that's a sort of punchline Schulz does in a lot in his daily strips so it's not actually that weird if you think about it. I think he just didn't realize that this kind of anticlimax punchline works with a 4-panel strip but not a 4-page event comic.

There's no official word on the matter though so your guess is as good as mine.

[fantastic-nonsense]

This is a bit arbitrary, but is Oracle’s existence public knowledge pre-Flashpoint? As in, does the average citizen know of Oracle? I’m reading up on Barbara because I’ve only read her pre-Crisis Batgirl stuff so far, but I’m kind of… iffy about the BOP book because of the writers.

No, Oracle's existence wasn't public knowledge. Babs' identity was completely secret until halfway through Ostrander and Yale's Suicide Squad run and even after that most of the heroing community didn't know who she was, much less the general public. Birds of Prey as a book largely functions on the reality that the team is, essentially, a covert ops team led by a figure whose existence isn't public knowledge and whose identity is somewhat unknown even to the larger heroing community. As we move through the post-Crisis timeline, Oracle's existence largely stays secret from the public but most of the heroing community knows that she exists and works with her. She even had a stint where she worked closely with the JLA during the Watchtower era.

In terms of her secret identity: the Bats know that Babs is Oracle, and the Birds know that she's Oracle, and various individual heroes (like Ted Kord and certain members of the Justice League that she regularly works with) know that she's Oracle, but there's still several people who have no idea that Barbara Gordon and Oracle are the same person (much less that she used to be Batgirl).

By the time we get to Blackest Night/Brightest Day in 2010, Babs decided that too many people knew about her existence as Oracle and way too many people out of that group knew that Oracle was Barbara Gordon. So she faked Oracle's death to the larger superheroing community in a very mid and weird BOP plotline called 'The Death of Oracle', leaving only a select number of people (most of the Bats and the BOP) aware that she was still alive. This canonically had major consequences for several heroes who were relying on her intel and were in the middle of dangerous assignments when she went dark, but also wasn't properly explored as much as it could have been since a) The Black Mirror, which Babs co-starred in, was also happening at the time and b) the reboot happened shortly afterwards.

In terms of Birds of Prey the book, Vol. 1 (1999-2009) is pretty solid the entire way through:

Funnily enough I consider Dixon's Birds of Prey run to be one of his Top 3 comics. There's a reason an all-female team title written in the early 2000s survived long enough to be handed over to another writer and it's because Dixon made it work. Babs (and her relationships with other characters) is his one exception when writing women and I still don't know why 20 years later. There are definitely still significant amounts of Dixon Flaws™ that shine through in that run, but he's one of Babs' best writers and is still probably the best Dick/Babs writer we've ever had–largely because he's one of the few writers who actually gives a fuck about Babs as a character separate from her relationship with Dick. Which is weird because it's Dixon, but it's still true.

Gail Simone's run is well-written with good plotlines and has better treatment of the characters overall. It's also extremely racist at times (specifically anti-Asian) and occasionally veers into weirdly immature "high school mean girl bickering" interations. She writes an excellent Babs, but I think she was also dealing with a lot of external and internalized misogyny as one of the only major female writers at DC and as someone who got to where she was because she played somewhat nice with the "good old boys' club." Her work on BOP is not without significant flaws, but it's also a really fun read and I recommend it.

I wouldn't really bother reading BOP Vol. 2 (2010-2011) unless you're a completionist and every post-Flashpoint iteration of the team has been either "decent concept, bad execution" (the New 52 book) or "this is just bad, pull it now" (every version of the book since). If you remove Oracle from the equation and pretend like post-Flashpoint's watered-down Batgirl!Babs is a suitable replacement, you've already lost a fundamental aspect of what made the book work in the first place.

[gffa]

THE HIGH REPUBLIC READING PROJECT UPDATE: Since I finished Phases I and II (aside from Young Jedi Adventures previously), in the interests of not having a mile long post, I'm just doing Phase III stuff now. I've also decided against including The Vow of Silver Dawn since I don't think there's an official English translation--though, I am reading the fan translation. (Slowly, I've been reading ORV when I do have time to read.) Look how close I am! I'm even an hour and half into Defy the Storm and I've started the Phase III comics and I'd guess I have about ten issues left in total to catch up on and I finished Young Jedi Adventures. I can totally do this over the next week and a half!

MAIN STORYLINE NOVELS - PHASE III:

The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness

The High Republic: Escape from Valo

The High Republic: Defy The Storm

MAIN STORYLINE COMICS - PHASE III:

The High Republic: Shadows of Starlight - 4 issues

The High Republic (2023) - 7 issues [ONGOING]

The High Republic Adventures (2023) - 5 issues [ONGOING]

The High Republic - Saber for Hire (2023) - 1 issue [ONGOING]

ONESHOT COMIC ISSUES - PHASE III:

The High Republic Adventures: Crash Landing

EVERYTHING ELSE:

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures - 25 episodes + 6 shorts

I enjoyed Escape from Valo a lot more than I thought I would, Older's and Wong's books usually just aren't my jam, but when they got in a bunch of new characters, I found myself more intrigued this time around. Part of that is probably that Phase III feels a lot tighter and more impactful now that they've had time to really get in gear as an initiative, but also I think maybe it feels like Older and Wong are spreading the story around to more characters and ones that resonate better with me. A lot of it is that I feel like Older is a little too close to Ram's character and winds up making him feel like The Most Specialest Boy Ever, but putting him into smaller chunks made him go down a lot better for me and I found his struggle to connect with the Jedi younglings versus becoming attached to them (in the way the Jedi mean it/more Buddhist-aligned) worked well for me. I think the book still fits into the overall trend for me--mostly one of my lesser faves of the Phase, but with 2-3 absolutely BANGER scenes about Jedi philosophy that make it worth reading for. Now, on to Defy the Storm and I'm curious how this will go, I like both Ireland and Gratton's work, but I do get a little "...." at Ireland's writing for Avon, who I thought worked well enough in the first book but starts to feel like she's not allowed any real flaws because she's too special. I just want a little more variety with the heroes, to let them have some genuinely unlikeable moments to be relatable. (This is personal preference, I might feel different if these were established characters or I was more in the target range.) I also finished Young Jedi Adventures and I honestly enjoyed having it on in the background! It's very much aimed at a preschool audience, but it does so with charisma and charm radiating out of it in every scene. The voice acting is top notch, the animation is gorgeous, the character/setting designs are stunning, and I admit, I got a little invested in the characters over the time spent with them. To the point I'm kind of genuinely champing at the bit for a second season because I NEED Taborr resolution, YOU CANNOT END IT THERE??? I NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS TURNS OUT???? I NEED ANOTHER SEASON!!!! At least tell me that someone else is in the same hell that I'm in of wanting to see how that conflict plays out and getting weirdly invested in that little shit that just wants real friends. ;__;

[bloodgulchblog]

Hi!! Ok sorry for the mammoth question I’m about to ask but you’re super knowledgeable on Halo stuff and I need help- sorry if I don’t word things well my brain is having a day

Ok so I’m writing a Spartan character and I can’t find too much on the specifics of how they were trained. I’m trying to determine what kind of trauma would come out of being beaten into a Spartan, especially the IIs and IIIs.

Basically trying to figure out what kinda trauma they have/how bad it is so I can roadmap my character’s recovery yknow

*CRACKS MY KNUCKLES*

You came to the right nerd. This is pretty much like throwing a kong ball full of peanut butter into my enclosure. This post is gigantic and I had so much fun.

If you want to read it directly for yourself, you're looking for Nylund's Halo books. The Fall of Reach covers the Spartan-IIs, and Ghosts of Onyx covers the Spartan-IIIs. I'd happily recommend either of those, they're well-liked Halo novels for a reason. Ghosts does work pretty well on its own if you want to focus on the IIIs, but it benefits from having read Fall first. (...And First Strike, but I will contain myself.)

If you want IVs, which are very different because they were selected and augmented as adults with military experience, your options are New Blood by Forbeck or the comic Initiation. (I'm not really a big fan of either so it just depends on if you'd prefer it from Buck or Palmer.)

That said, let's get going.

(....I want the readmore cut to be here, but Tumblr keeps moving it when I make edits. So.)

Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs: Training

These guys have a lot in common, and they feel weirdly familiar to one another. (Just enough that the differences feel even weirder.)

Both groups started training as young children. The IIs were all six years old, the IIIs cast a wider net. Ghosts mentions kids as young as 4 in Alpha, but that doesn't... make sense actually. Because we have canon DOBs we know Carter would've been 12 and Jun would've been 8, and those numbers feel closer to right, but I'll get to why in a bit. (Researching this post has made me have a revelation about Spartan-III ages.)

Spartan-IIs were selected for genetic matches to a profile that Dr. Halsey determined was likely to accept the augmentation procedures. (The failure rate was still very high though. I'll talk about that.) They were kidnapped from their homes by ONI operatives and brought to Reach. Here's what they were told because hahahahaha big iconic moment:

(One note: Spartan-II training began in 2517. This was 8 years before the Covenant attack on Harvest in 2525. They were absolutely trained to bring down human targets, and were taught that it was necessary to sacrifice human lives for the good of innocent people. The first class of Spartan-IIIs kicked off in 2532, and they would focus from the beginning on Covenant.)

There were a total of 75 Spartan-II candidates. No one died during training (...at least I am pretty sure, if someone died during training it was a retcon introduced later) but it was hard. Halopedia has a pretty thorough rundown of things we know they did. Most of those are in The Fall of Reach. The Tango Company bit is from First Strike. Bonus: Here's a story Gray Team tells in Envoy that isn't mentioned:

(If you want to know who the most feral and defiant S-IIs are with the most atypical profiles, you want to look at Gray Team.)

Surviving Spartan-IIs are going to be 49 years old as of Halo Infinite. (Though, like all UNSC infantry, they've spent huge amounts of time in cryo during ship travel over the years. Sergeant Johnson was chronologically 78 in Halo 3, if that helps.)

Spartan-IIIs were selected along a wider profile because the augmentations were changed by Colonel Ackerson to be 1) cheaper and 2) have a much higher success rate with a broader margin for compatibility. They were working with orphans the UNSC picked up on planets the Covenant attacked, so they also could not be as selective as the original project. The young S-IIIs' fear and anger toward the Covenant (and their desire for revenge) were huge motivators. There were hundreds of Spartan-IIIs in all 3 classes. (They exhausted the available candidate pool after Alpha, and Ackerson was pushing for efforts to more widely genetically profile children from colony worlds as a result…. 😬)

Here's how the first company of Spartan-IIIs (Alpha Company) got the intro. (We don't know what Beta and Gamma were told, but it's likely to be similar):

(Ghosts of Onyx, Chapter 6, this is immediately followed by a bit from the perspective of a boy named Shane that would probably be really useful to you if you're looking for some insight to what those kids were feeling. It's just too long to paste.)

Another note: Chief Mendez trained both groups of Spartans. We have fewer detailed descriptions of S-III training shenanigans, because there is a lot of time skipping during Ghosts of Onyx to demonstrate the catastrophic losses suffered by the Alpha and Beta companies. Given that Mendez was involved, though, they are likely to have been highly similar.

Based on what we do get of training in Ghosts, I see the S-III teams being pitted against one another in exercises more often than we see mention of the IIs doing. (This is likely because S-II was on Reach, a huge ass military base, and had much more access to personnel that could be dragged into this than Onyx, which was extremely remote and established solely for the purpose of minting Spartans.)

The Spartan-IIIs had much less training time than the IIs... at least originally. S-III Alpha Company had 4 years compared to the S-II's 8 years. ONI was banking on improved augmentation protocols and technology to make up for it. Kurt pushed for the later two classes to get more training time.

Another another note: Kurt, if you were not aware, is Kurt-051 (Kurt Ambrose, using the name ONI gave him to work under.) Kurt was a Spartan-II abducted by ONI (making it look like he died on a mission) specifically for this job in 2531. Kurt loved those kids. Their deaths weighed heavily on him. More on that later.

Spartan-II Augmentations

I wasn't sure where else to put this, so it's going here: Spartan-II augmentations had a huge wash-out rate. S-III had a much much much smaller percentage.

There were 75 Spartan-II candidates, and only 33 came out as intended. The rest of them suffered serious side effects, and several died.

Halopedia once again has a big pile of information.

I bring this up for two reasons: the first is that it's a thing they all went through and all lost people who were as close as siblings to.

The second is that some Spartan-IIs that initially washed out of the program at this point were rehabilitated. Dr. Halsey worked on individual therapies for Spartans whose bodies rejected augmentations, restoring some quality of life and, in some cases, successfully getting them back to a point where they could continue training. (Black Team and Red Team (Halo Wars edition) are both made up entirely of former wash-outs.)

ONI created jobs for and retained most Spartan-II wash-outs that couldn't continue as Spartans. Serin Osman, Musa, and Fhajad are examples.

Differences Between Spartan-III Companies

There were 3 companies of S-IIIs trained, so if you're working on a III you'll want to establish which one they were from. You can identify the generation of S-IIIs by the letter in their tag number: Jun-A266, Lucy-B091, Ash-G099. Alpha, Beta, Gamma.

(Sidenote on picking Spartan tag numbers for OCs: There's a specific range of numbers. S-II had 150 candidates observed even though only 75 were taken and trained, so their tag numbers range from 1-150. Alpha Company had 497 kids, Beta had 418, Gamma had 330. WIki's really good for making sure you're not duplicating an existing number. Spartan-IIs are pretty much all accounted for canonically but if you're writing a II OC you're already in your own city anyway.)

Here's a good wiki trailhead for you, individual articles for the companies tell you what we do know about their training, too. But if you like reading my words about things:

ALPHA COMPANY:

The first group Kurt and Mendez trained, starting in the last days of 2532 and going active in 2536. There are very few surviving members of Alpha Company, only seven canonical, because almost all of them were killed in one operation.

Ages are kind of fucky for Alpha Company, as I mentioned earlier because Ghosts implies they were really young, but the problem with that is that after only 4 years of training they would have not been old enough to undergo augmentation. Jun, Emile, and Carter were Alphas. Jun was 28, Emile was 29, and Carter was 32 at Reach, so they would've been from 8-12 years old at the start of training. I feel like we're meant to go with that.

That means surviving Alphas would be in their late 30s as of Infinite.

BETA COMPANY:

Started training in 2539 and went active in 2545. Kurt was devastated by the loss of the Alphas (he's terribly upset when he finds out what happened to them, the information was kept from him.) He tried to train Beta company better and harder (he managed to squeeze two more years in for them), but in the end it did not save them from a similar fate. There are a handful of surviving Betas that were not present for Operation TORPEDO, but Tom and Lucy were the only survivors that were there. Kat and Noble Six were Betas. They were both 22 when they died on Reach. (That puts them both at 9 at the start of training. Tom and Lucy were a little younger, they both would have been 6.) Ages are still slightly fucky there because that means Lucy and Tom would've been 12 at augment, but that... is close enough to almost work, sort of, I guess, oh Halo you're so silly. Anyway. Surviving Betas would be in their late 20s/early 30s as of Infinite.

GAMMA COMPANY:

The last class of IIIs started training in 2545. (I had to do a little digging to confirm this year because it was authorized in '44, you're welcome.) They had just been deployed in 2552 and most of them left Onyx a week before the Onyx Conflict (you know, where the whole planet disintegrated into Forerunner nonsense) kicked off, with only three teams left on-planet for that shitmess. They were being shoved out the door because Reach had just fallen and everything was on fucking fire.

They had the most training and Kurt and Mendez were terribly proud of them. These guys would be the youngest S-IIIs both in terms of yes, that's how time works, and in terms of how old they were when they started training. We have canonical DOBs on several of them that put them at 6 and 7. This is significant because the Gammas are the ones that were being rushed into production: They were put on hormones to induce puberty early when most of them were 12ish, so that they could be augmented. (You know, horrifying!) (This is the thing that kicked off my wild confusion about Spartan-III ages that has consumed me for the last hour. Thanks, Halo! :,) )

The big thing to know about the Gammas is that they got built different. Kurt hated what had happened to the Alphas and Betas, hated it desperately, and was willing to do anything he thought would give the Gammas a chance at survival.

Kurt changed the augmentations. He did this without authorization. The Gammas' brains got tweaked to give them a heightened response to stress/adrenaline that makes them more able to block out pain/shock and keep fighting, which Kurt hoped would help them make it through the meatgrinder missions ONI was determined to use them for. The problem? The Gammas require regular injections of antipsychotics to keep them emotionally stable, and they can become less rational and start having extreme responses that make them a danger to themselves and others if they are deprived of them. (They call these drugs "smoothers.")

Anyway, the Gammas were 13-14ish at the end of the war, and surviving Gammas (there are significantly more of them) are in their late 20s by Infinite. Their altered augmentations mean they're considered unsuited for high-visibility work, ONI considers them a potential huge liability if a Gamma ever goes off the rails so they prefer to keep them away from people. A lot of Gammas that are still alive have ended up as Headhunters. (That's also the case for a lot of surviving S-IIIs generally. I don't know as much about Headhunters, they're a part of the lore I find uninteresting.)

Also just because I feel like it, here's Kurt with one of the Gammas dying in his arms:

What Are Spartans Like?

"Records show Spartans routinely exhibited mildly sociopathic tendencies, difficulty with socialization. Furthermore…" - Halo 4

We're getting into more and more headcanon and interpretation, but hey. I offer this as creative compost for your bin.

Spartans are weird. Spartans are weird. The overall portrait of an adult S-II/III is that they're mostly quiet, serious, and very intense about whatever they're doing. Some are more talkative and sociable than others, some are more unsettling than others. There's some wide variability on how careful they are about other people and how responsible they do or do not feel toward them.

As far as Spartans go, I feel like John is high on the polite end, and I have reams I've said and could say about how he handles himself. You've got Spartans who are very contained like him (I'd say Owen-B096 is another good example, he's able to be shockingly gentle with a pack of scared high school kids in Battle Born.) But you've also got examples like, say, Emile, and Gray Team, and Kevin from this one story in the Fractures anthology:

Let me break down some major traits:

LACK OF NORMAL SOCIALIZATION/GENERAL SPARTAN WEIRDNESS:

Overall, Spartans are poorly socialized. Their priorities and experiences are so wildly different from most peoples' that it's a difficult gap for them to bridge, and they're required to hide the details of their personal histories because that's very dangerous and inconvenient information (you know, for the UNSC) to have around. They were isolated from other people as children, and as adults they are extremely busy and the things that make them different make it difficult for them to make up for lost time on this.

If you've seen me writing John, I have him struggling a lot because it feels like social situations are always full of weird traps he can't see because he just doesn't have the background for them. There are so, so many things you casually assume another person is familiar with in conversation, and so many little social call-and-responses that someone who was raised under such weird circumstances wouldn't have.

There's a post that goes around sometimes about a small child who has never heard "Later, alligator" responding with "Goodbye, hippo" or something like that because they'd never heard the "After a while, crocodile" response and had to guess at what they were supposed to do. I think about that post sometimes when I'm thinking about Spartans. They're smart, and they can imitate and figure things out and get good at faking more experience than they have (and the older a Spartan is the longer they've been picking things up), but they need something to work with.

A Spartan-II never snuck out with friends after curfew to go to a concert, was never nervous about who was going out with who, and never stressed about what they were going to do after high school. But they know that enough people experience those things to pretend they understand.

It's easiest to lie by not saying anything at all as much as possible, because then you don't give anyone who's watching you a little too closely something to pick apart. Let other people assume you're what they expect, and don't give them details to the contrary.

This makes most of them quiet and sort of awkward, unless they've put in effort on their own part to work on it. If a Spartan cares enough to learn to socialize and banter smoothly with non-Spartans, that tells you something about their priorities and who they are. (And possibly that they got extra training for a specific purpose that requires it.)

Getting out of socialization: Spartans were raised in a highly structured environment, and I think most of them find comfort in routines, rules, and regular procedures that are done the same way. Following general everyday UNSC rules = not being bawled out or punished. Following some extra important serious rules = feeling like you're doing the best thing you can possibly do to prevent disasters from happening. How much that has broken down for someone vs how much they still hang onto it is gonna be real individual. Some of them really will not like being pulled out of doing things the way they "should" be done.

Amongst themselves, Spartans communicate a lot by body language and hand signals. (S-IIs and S-IIIs use similar but slightly different hand signals because Kurt was a II and they innovated on what they picked up from him. I'd also say it's very likely that each class had some variations unique to them, like a dialect.) They're also so used to being in armor that they do a lot with just flashing different status light colors on their HUD, which is neat (and also on that page.)

As a footnote re: sex and romance, it's a thorny fandom question that is up to you to answer for how you prefer to read things, but it's fair play to say that most Spartan-IIs are probably at least mostly asexual due to their augmentations. S-IIIs have no major lore implying either way about it, though later depictions of the Gammas have seemed to indicate they're not particularly interested either. It's up to you how you want to go.

REACTIVENESS

The other thing about Spartans is they are trained to react immediately in a crisis and have had that tendency reinforced by horrible traumatic experiences. I don't like throwing around real world serious words for fictional character things, but I think PTSD is fair for most Spartans. Do real research if you want to incorporate that, I don't know the most about it and won't pretend whatever I'm doing is an actual portrayal. But I do think a lot about reactiveness.

The problem with being constantly ready to react to everything like it's a life-or-death situation is... most things are not life-or-death situations. It's hard on a person, and it makes you blow some things out of proportion in a way that can become a serious problem. (For example: A Spartan that feels safer when following specific routines and procedures getting way more frustrated than is really justified by someone breaking from protocol in a harmless but definite way.)

Spartans are really good at controlling anger and fear and probably will not go all the way off the handle, but they still tend to go for immediate responses to things that startle or scare them. Make a loud sound in a room full of Spartans, expect hands on weapons and some pointed barrels. They are always always always ready to go. It is incredibly difficult for them to relax.

Most Spartans probably remember a point (or multiple points) somewhere in their lives where their guard was down, and then everything exploded under them and maybe somebody died.

LOYALTY AND SACRIFICE

This is a lot more personal and individual. The majority of Spartans are very loyal to the UNSC, it's been trained into them from childhood. The degree to which a Spartan may possibly have become embittered about it is going to be super dependent on who they are and what has happened to them.

I think a lot of them probably tend to fall back on their mission and sense of purpose (especially re: the defense of humanity) for a bare kind of comfort when miserable (which they have reason to be often.) They have sacrificed so much of themselves, but it was worth it, right? They helped save humanity from the Covenant, right? They're helping save humanity from new problems, right?

Spartans were all taught that their cause is worth their lives, and they're willing to die for it. They have known people they loved and grew up with who did die for it, and this fits pretty naturally into coping with those losses.

If the cause isn't paramount and loyalty to the UNSC isn't worth dying for.... what does that make everything they've done, and everything they've lost? What does that make the deaths of their fellow Spartans?

(Survivor's guilt is gonna be big for all of them, but especially S-IIIs. 2/3 Spartan-III companies died in almost their entirety in one go. The surviving S-IIs had remarkably few losses until... Reach....... )

I've talked/thought about sacrifice a lot with the S-IIs, especially John because I'm always in hell writing about John and people have poked my askblog about it. If a Spartan could go back in time and change how their life went and prevent them from becoming a Spartan, would they?

Being a Spartan and that sense of purpose is so core to them that I really think most of them would not. This is their world. This is their lives. This is such a huge part of who they are that they don't know who they'd be otherwise.

I don't care for Mortal Dictata much (that's a whole different post), but a huge part of the plot of that book is that Kilo Five's S-II (Naomi) is reunited with her father as an adult and it's a very uncomfortable process because... she's not the little girl he lost, anymore.

......

I think that's everything I have on this.

I am a perpetual wellspring of information on this topic tho so you guys let me know if you have more things you wanna talk about re: this. :V

[earl-grey-by-the-lake]

Random Glitch Trio Headcanons

(aka i'm in my idw sonic brainrot era and remembered i have a tumblr to dump stuff in)

Starline

• Really into long baths (the type with candles and rose petals everywhere)

• Would be obsessed with Lush bath bombs if they existed in Sonic's world

• Acts really pretentious about music, books, films, etc., only claiming to like highly obscure and experimental stuff (bonus points if it's technically complex). While he does genuinely like this stuff, he's also a fan of more 'popular' music like disney songs (or would be if they existed in Sonic's world), musicals and 80s synth.

• I could weirdly see him being into old detective novels/movies, e.g.- Poirot

• He doesn't like science fiction because it tends to be wildly inaccurate

• Spends hours daily doing his hair and makeup even if he knows he's about to get into a fight which will inevitably mess it up again (if he's going to get his hands dirty he might as well look good doing it)

• Had an emo phase in his undergrad years, refuses to talk about it

• Claims to strongly dislike cursing (it's vulgar and juvenile) but swears like a sailor when he's angry or drunk (I stole this one off the Bumblekast but come on)

• Occasionally gets drunk (he normally drinks wine because it's classy but switches to whiskey when he's in a bad mood) and makes extremely unhinged vlogs ranting about stuff, mainly Eggman (e.g.- why doesn't he notice me after everything I've done for him, why does he love his robots more than me, what does Metal Sonic have that I don't, etc...) This happened a lot during their divorce arc

• His ideal date would be a classic romantic candlelit dinner, bonus points if there is singing involved. However there is absolutely no one who could meet his impossible standards for a romantic partner except maybe Eggman and even then he's on thin ice

• Probably a good dancer

• Feels a sense of superiority over extremely 'chaotic' individuals (e.g.- Eggman, Orbot and Cubot, Rough and Tumble, his adopted children), hence why he tends to gravitate towards them. He has a habit of trying to correct and fix other people to show off how put together he is (spoiler alert: he is not put together whatsoever)

• Hopelessly addicted to caffeine

Surge

• Into shounen manga

• Has tried vaping before for the sole purpose of pissing off Starline

• Likes J-rock, metalcore and punk music

• Not really into movies or books because they're long and boring. Her attention span is like 5 minutes max, hence why she prefers comics and manga

• If she was forced to watch a movie, she'd go for a really over the top silly horror movie. she's easily scared by psychological horror/anything with a lot of jumpscares though (not that she would admit it in a million years)

• Likes spicy food and sushi

• Has shoplifted before and will do it again

• Commits arson on a regular basis, Kit frequently depletes his water reservoir trying to put out the fires before Starline finds out

• Would shop at Hot Topic

• Her ideal date would be something super energetic like paintball or laser tag. She would then proceed to get excessively competitive (read: violent) and scare off any potential suitors.

• Starline once took her and Kit to a Disneyland equivalent for 'family bonding'. She used her super speed to cut the lines, made a rollercoaster go faster with her electric powers (because it was too slow- boring!) causing it to derail and almost murder the several children unfortunate enough to be on the ride with her, and set fire to at least one food stand. All three of them are now banned for life.

• She would probably hang out with the Babylon Rogues from time to time

• Unlike Starline and Kit she is a morning person, and is extra loud and obnoxious around them at this time of day just to be an asshole (Kit doesn't mind though)

Kit

• Likes reading technical manuals/long academic texts (aka Surge's worst nightmare)

• Really into horror, especially psychological and body horror (he would really like Junji Ito manga), but doesn't get to watch horror movies much because Surge doesn't like them

• He doesn't like music that much, if he had to listen to something he would prefer white noise because he finds the repetitive sound comforting

• Doesn't really have any food preferences but he likes coffee

• Secretly returns the stuff Surge shoplifts because he feels guilty

• Likes tinkering with bits of tech in his free time

• On the aforementioned 'family bonding' trip, Kit almost murdered the employees of a haunted house because they startled Surge (not that she would ever admit it), contributing to the lifelong ban

• Sometimes stays up all night reading or working on a project, he always looks tired during the day because he doesn't get much sleep

• His ideal date would be a non-existent one because he can't be away from Surge for more than 5 minutes without feeling anxious (also he's like 8). However he would probably stalk Surge on her date and try to sabotage it because he doesn't trust the other person to treat her right

• Is going to have an emo phase in a few years' time, following in the footsteps of his father (ik he's already emo but I mean like he'll start getting more into the music and fashion)

• Is actually capable of being pretty snarky but is too shy to say most of it out loud (he mocks Starline relentlessly in his head though)

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Weirdly enough, I assume you're some sort of nature type artist, like, I get the vibe you started out drawing nature scenes and got obsessed with plants enough to keep drawing.

Partly true!

Did a lot of nature drawings and paintings when i was really young and i enjoyed it very much but i also went to an art program once a week because my parents wanted me to have a creative outlet and there we did diferent projects that made me excited about drawing all kinds of stuff not only nature

And at some point when i was like 6 i found the comic section in my local library and it was over for me. I was absolutly obsessed with a lot of comic books like Asterix und Obelix, Tintin et milou, Spirou und Fantasio (espechially anything with the marsupilami), Lucky Lucke, valerian and so many more. I know btw that this will be gibberish to a lot of people, sorry

Well i also read some old (like 80s/70s) fantasy and science fiction comics that were definetly not ment for my age with deep philosophical and nihilistic themes and a lot of naked boobs (there are surprisingly a lot of those comics). Because the people at my library aparently thought comics are for children so we gonna put the comics with adult themes into the children section and not age restict checkout. And then i found the manga section and well

Well anyways i started drawing my own comics back then because i wanted to tell stories too. But you are very right the my facination with nature drawings is still very much there and impacts my art but thats more my private art than what i post here. I draw a lot of inviroments for the fantasy worlds i create.

[salty-seaz]

Internet Tales and little rants - Mini Story #1 [May contain topics of politics]

[TRAGIC BLUE]

Damien: the one wearing the red cap

Hades: The one with the beads in his locks

_____________ _____________ __________

Damien: “okay so we got the Chris chan documentary, the sharpie pen incident, pretty interesting video essays that I haven’t watched yet… but if you know one yourself then feel free to show me!”

[Hades snickers a little, he hadn’t been this drunk before. Especially with Damien… but he felt weirdly comfortable with him? Typically Damien starts chanting weird shit and acting like Tarzan when he’s drunk but this time he’s chill. But that didn’t matter, what mattered now is that they are both having them together. Even if they probably won’t remember it the next day]

Hades: “Eheh, Ain’t it really funny how there is so much videos of people doing dumb shit?”

Damien: “Yeah, that’s the joy of it. Watching people witness the consequences of their own actions, like don’t act victim if you kept doing it”

Hades: “nah, but imagine their digital footprint?”

[Damien began laughing a little, he knew Hades had a point. But he had another comment to add]

Damien: “Yep, Chris chan for example. For the amount of stuff they done… But yet again, I don’t think it really matters as much people make it out to be.”

Hades: “how come?”

Damien: “because there is actors, celebrities and just people who would say the most racist thing in the book. But yet they’d still have their job. And not only that, they still get their arses wiped for them.”

[Hades nodded, he then suddenly snapped back into remembering that does happen unfortunately]

Hades: “You have a point, this may be off context but Johnny depp for example… During the court case a good majority of it was him being childish as fuck. Like eating candy and doodling in a case about domestic violence?? My guy, if I did that in a court case I would’ve been fucked. But yet people saw it comedic! And what really boiled my blood was when people kept making it about Jack sparrow as if it were a meet and greet.”

Damien: “You absolutely nailed that. When I saw clips of the trial I thought the exact same, though I never really cared. But I don’t think both Heard and Depp are good, like Heard deserves better but she’s a fucking Zionist. So I don’t care about either of them.”

Hades: “Yeah, that’s a fair point. Anyways enough about the whole trial that happened 2 years ago, If we should worry about digital footprint. Bigger names should too.”

Damien: “Exactly.”

[Damien was now just searching for a good tale to read or listen to with Hades…]

Hades: “Damien, I have a video essay I think we’d both like.”

Hey to whoever read this! Thank you for reading. And if you want you can comment what you think and what I should improve! It may not be pirate related in this one or in a lot of the comics but this is only because it’s mainly just comics of the 4 main characters interacting! And you may have noticed but I put a song from Spotify there so you can listen to it while reading so it sets the vibe more!

What is this series?: This is Tragic Blue! A Series I want to keep working on until I can turn it into a big Series one day! And hopefully it going on Adult Swim! But for now I am making little mini-stories and comic type things for now. :-)

The main characters for those who are wondering!:

Damien

Hades

Mei Xiao

Miranda

See you soon!!

[purplesurveys]

1727

Did you get enough rest last night?  I really didn't. I slept at 5 AM thinking that would surely let me sleep in the entire morning, but my body still automatically woke me up at 9 and didn't let sleep again by then.

What was the last thing that kept you awake?  That would be right now – I finished off the entire first season of D.P. which I ended at around half past midnight, and now I'm back in my room downing the rest of my coffee with no intention to sleep yet, even with just four hours of rest haha.

If you have pets, do they sleep in your bedroom at night?  No, they have their own corner in the living room.

Can you sleep with background noise or does it keep you up?  It helps me fall asleep as the light noise gives me a sense of security, so I kind of need it.

Do you ever take naps? Do you take long naps or little power naps?  Occasionally. I can never do power naps as they always end up feeling super insufficient for me, and I prefer having 3-4 hour naps.

What helps when you have trouble sleeping?  I'd need to go through my phone and watch a lot of videos since that quickly gets the job done.

Who was the last person to cook you a meal? What did they make?  My mom made pasta for sharing a few days ago.

Who was the last person you cooked a meal for? What did you make?  I don't cook for anyone, because I don't cook.

Who is your female celeb crush? (If applicable)  Song Hye Kyo, Park Jihyo.

Who is your male celeb crush? (If applicable)  RM of BTS.

Tell me about an interesting article you’ve read recently.  Andi shared a pretty unique piece with me this morning which was basically a personal essay of why McDonald's' Coke seems to taste better than Coke literally anywhere else. It was silly yet insightful, mundane yet so weirdly intriguing and fascinating. For somebody who doesn't even like soda, I found myself reading until the very end. I liked it a lot and subscribed to that author right away lol.

Do you have a favorite Marvel character?  I'm not into anything superhero.

Favorite DC character?  Yeah, no.

Do you read comic books?  I tried getting into them but I got tired of faking it LOL so I just accepted that comic books and superheroes and I will never mix.

Has a horror film ever actually scared you? Which one(s)?  I found Paranormal Activity to be a refreshing horror concept for its time and it successfully gave me the creeps, especially with the multiple endings. The sequels unsurprisingly didn't hold up the same magic but I'm very much willing to defend the first movie to my grave haha. OH Midsommar was also super freaky. I nearly refused to drive home that night because I was afraid of seeing the trees in the neighborhood suddenly pulsating.

What was the last horror movie you saw? The Menu counts as horror-ish, no?

What was the first horror movie you remember seeing? What did you think of it?  The Exorcist. I was 12 and immediately downloaded a torrent when a quick "what's the scariest movie ever" Google search led me to that movie. In hindsight, though, because I already had expectations of how scary it is, I think that sort of pre-conditioned me to be more sensitive to the jump scares and all the freaky shit that happened in the movie – so 13 years ago, I was definitely spooked.

Realistically though, I feel if I watched it again now at 25 I'd probably find some of the effects more comedic than scary, BUT one thing I'll never get over are *those* demonic images that pop up like three times across the movie. Regardless of how old I get I feel like I'll always look away from those lol.

Name a few historical figures you find interesting. Why?  I recently learned about Herbert K. Pililaau, the US soldier who fought off Korean soldiers on his own while the rest of his crew? platoon? (idk terms) had been assigned somewhere else at the time. Fucking dude kept firing until he was out of ammunition; then switched to grenades; then when he ran out of those too, ended up with knife in one hand, fist in the other to fight the best and longest he could before he was finished off; when he was found, he was surrounded by more or less 40 soldiers he managed to kill. Obviously I don't support war and this is a shitty story all around, but this scenario is straight out of a movie.

What is your favorite historical film and why?  Gone with the Wind. I have yet to understand the complexities and deeper contexts behind the Civil War and all other questions related toit; and when I say it's my favorite it's largely because of the production value and how unprecedented such a movie was to have come out at the time it did.

Do you usually enjoy historical films?  Yes, as long as they don't extremely deviate from or betray things that actually happened, especially if we're covering atrocities or human right violations.

Name a sequel film (any franchise) you like better than the first film. Why is that?  Shrek 2. It's the Shrek movie I grew up with so I'll always be biased towards it.

Which do you find most interesting: Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology? Why?  Eugh, I really dislike mythology haha.

Which tale from whichever mythology you listed above do you find most interesting?  I read Percy Jackson and that's the most I'll read as far as mythology.

Do you collect anything? What was the last item you added to that collection?  Just BTS merch. Last things that arrived were my copies of D-Day and Face, but I'm expecting my orders of Jack in the Box and Layover to arrive October latest.

Do you have any houseplants?  We do, but it's my mom who takes care of them.

How do you like your tea?  As coffee.

Who is your favorite Muppet?  Wasn't really raised on Muppets.

What is your favorite type of bird?  Penguins. < Yes.

Which streaming platform do you use the most, if any?  Spotify.

What is a skill or useful piece of knowledge you wish you’d learned sooner?  How to pack smart.

What is your favorite vampire movie?  TWILIGHT SAGA ALWAYS AND FOREVER

Your favorite fictional couple?  Chandler and Monica from Friends; Glenn and Maggie from The Walking Dead; Mark and Joanna from Two for the Road.

Do you have a favorite historical couple?  Not really, no.

Have you received any good news recently?  Nah.

Have you learned anything new recently?  I took the 16 personalities test earlier for my ~annual check-in and found out I've switched from an ESFJ to an ESTJ. No big change other than the fact that I apparently think more with my head now hah.

[canmom]

comics comints 1: The Incal

I’ve been reading a whole buncha comics, let’s talk about them on Tumblr!

In fact I’m gonna talk about a bandes desinée, a manhua, a manga and an american comic book. I need to think of more countries that have comics to read! Anyway since I have a bunch of comics to talk about let’s split it up a bit for the sake of your dash.

First up, The Incal!

The Incal (L’Incal)

(Alexandro Jodorowsky and Jean “Moebius” Giraud, 1981-88, trans.Sasha Watson & Justin Kelly)

Oh Moebius. You know I think he’s the shit [c.f. Animation Night 71], so I won’t spent too long here talking about how great old Jean was.

The Incal is one of Moeb’s best known comics, a collaboration with infamous alchemy freak Alejandro Jodorowsky [Toku Tuesday 27]. The backstory of this comic is basically, after Jodo’s Dune collapsed - leaving Moebius, O’bannon and Giger to go work on Alien - he went to comic books, teaming up with Moebius to make this comic. Knowing a bit about Jodo’s whole deal, and watching The Holy Mountain in particular, definitely made it easier to figure out what the Incal is getting at.

Well, sorta understand. I would probably need to crack open some grimoires to get the whole thing. But I can think like, oh, this is the bit where they were on the mountain getting confronted by their fears.

On one level it’s pretty straightforward! It’s a space opera in which hapless private investigator John DiFool (Tarot symbolism!) gets caught up in a big cosmic conflict to stop d-d-d-d-d-darkness from eating all the stars in the universe. On another it’s a kind of symbolic occult narrative where just about everyone is a tarot card and a lot of stuff that happens you just have to say, ok, alchemy is happening.

Apparently it was first conceived in a lucid dream in which Jodo got the image of two pyramids. He says he would conceive the story in a trance and dictate it to Moebius, who would sketch it out in real time. So it’s not quite so simple as ‘Jodo script, Moebius art’, but directly a collaboration between the two. Jodo is full of praise for Moebius’s subconscious, which he calls a ‘lake of colour’. They worked in this way for about ten years.

The result is... a curious tone. It’s actually generally pretty upbeat and funny, otherwise ‘alchemical acid trip’. Of course, Moeb handles everything with perfect aplomb. This is just the second page. I was lucky enough to be given a paper copy by a friend in America, and read it on the plane back, and it’s a treat to just hold this thing in your hands.

For (I can only assume) alchemical reasons, John Difool has no idea what’s going on and just kind of bumbles his way through the plot, chivvied along by the Incal itself, his pet parrot..lemon...thing, and the various characters who join him along the way like square-jawed Metabaron (who Jodo would later expand into a whole line of hypermasculine Metabarons who replicate through child abuse) and austere sexy space princess sisters Solune and Aminah. Before long they’re doing stuff like sending Difool to do various missions to advance their plan while the rest of them have shrunk their spaceship down to a tiny enough size to fit in his blood vessel.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole bunch of stuff kicking off in the background: a growing planetary rebellion, a decadent noble who adopts a series of bodies, the schemes of the Technos... which tie back in to the main story sooner or later. Big sweeping space opera stuff.

This being a Jodo story there’s a kind of weirdly mechanical hetero relationship in there, though he definitely puts some fun twists on it, like the time that a space bug alien impersonates John DiFool’s love interest (for diplomatic reasons), leading down the line to an entire planet of John DiFool clones. That’s kind of what it’s like: there’s never a huge amount of tension, you’re just along for the ride to see what wild turn the story will take next.

(this isn’t the nicest scan, unfortunately. it looks better on paper! anyway sometimes your page is a spider.)

There’s a curiosity to me in that, while the story involves a lot of rebellion, it’s a rebellion to restore the rightful Emporess (a Perfect Androgyne in the form of conventionally male and female bodies kind of sutured together - the Metabarons series goes a lot more into the galaxy’s iteration through a series of Perfect Androgyne candidates) to power against the schemes of the Technopope.

All in all, it’s easy to see why this comic is so influential. Of Moeb’s work, it’s definitely one of the ones that most ‘actually has a plot’, and Jodo doesn’t do the whole rape fixation thing (not that the weird deranged sex shit doesn’t add a lot to Jodo’s works lmao); it’s just fun.

It’s interesting looking at Moebius’s drawing from a more technical eye. He’s very good at balancing areas of detail with space. Panelling is generally conservative, just boxes of various sizes, and occasionally big full page spash panels - though the composition within each panel is exquisite. And what really blows me away is the amount of complex backgrounds and crowd shots.

Moeb knows exactly how to compose a big geometric form; he can supply his characters a great variety of faces and physiques. And there are so many distinctive outfits and character designs. It’s interesting to see how he shifts the art style to fit the tone of the scene; in a comedic scene John’s nose will be long and pointy, in a dramatic scene his face will get angular and accentuate the cheekbones even more, as in this scene where John meets Animah and spontaneously feels motivated to give her the Black Incal (check out the colouring as well):

In the writing side, Jodo remarks in one of the commentary interludes that he wished to have characters who change a lot over the course of the story, reflecting his beliefs about the mutability of people (unlike such infamously static characters as... Shakespeare’s Hamlet. oh, jodo...). For this reason, he writes...

John Difool, for instance, never stops changing. He metamorphoses, progresses, sometimes regresses. In the second volume, he becomes handsome. Then, he loses his beauty as he loses the Incal, but something different remains inside him. He’ll never be the same after that. In the beginning, John Difool is introduced as someone who is not too bright, but he gradually becomes wiser. He is never a totally moral character, he always remains subject to temptation. He might steal or betray, or do anything, because he is human. His energy is sometimes positive, other times negative, but is never properly channeled. In a way he never benefits from his own energy, because he uses it poorly, and usually for the good of others.

This is true so far as it goes, but honestly I don’t feel like any of the characters in The Incal change all that much - it’s not really about that kind of intense character study, they’re all much larger than life. A lot of the changes that do happen feel like they’re more driven by fate or cosmic forces than internal development of the character. And that isn’t a problem, by any means - it might well bog down this kind of comic. It surprises me though that Jodo writes something like this when to me, the characters seem much more like icons or symbols.

John's role is to be the everyman viewpoint character, a role he fulfills well; at one point he gets split into four elemental mini-selves with different emotional valences but this feels more symbolic of like, the forces of work in all of humanity than like, specificity as a character. Jodo is right to say that he rarely ever acts of his own volition so much as gets pulled along by the whole Incal affair. Which fits, because there’s enough batshit stuff happening at any given time that we, too, are just along for the ride.

The digital version I have only goes up to the end of volume 4, so I can’t post any scans of the later pages. Later things get... quite abstract! It ends on a curious note: instead of our ‘pull back camera’, the darkness egg threat is resolved (by a plan that involves sending everyone in the entire universe to sleep at once), and the universe kind of snaps back to the very beginning with John falling down the shaft. It’s not clear if this means the entire story is going to repeat itself endlessly on a loop, or if this time things will play out differently.

Apparently there’s a whole bunch more Incal stories, such as Before the Incal, After the Incal and Final Incal. As well as other Jodo-authored comic books like The Metabarons, which I really need to finish. I’d love to get my hands on those, this comic is such a treat.

Next up: Solo Levelling!

[lemon-inferno]

Weak Hero Class (spoiler alert?)

I didn't know it was a webtoon before I watched the drama, I only found out after binging it. Now that I've seen it, I'll probably read the webtoon too... Probably. (Mini explanation: If I know a show is based on something like a book or comics, and I haven't read it, I'll watch the show first, read whatever later. If I've already read it I'll avoid watching the show. I have a twisted backwards logic that when I read/see the original, whatever follows should be exactly like it. If it's not I'm either greatly disappointed to the point where I can't enjoy the show, or I judge it too harshly even for the smallest changes. It's just how I am. Not so mini I guess.)

I really, really loved it as a drama. I can't judge how well it was adapted, yet, but as a drama by itself I really loved it. The intro was probably my favorite thing. I'm usually not a fan of school stories, but this one just hits different for me. It weirdly reminded me of the movie Blue Spring (it's more violent and weird though). I loved their chemistry and how real the characters felt. I mean they are real people, but it felt like someone you know or knew in school? Not only the chemistry between the actors, but also the chemistry between the show and the viewer. The pace was great, the acting was great, the visuals and tone were great. The story wasn't overbearing, but it also wasn't boring. I think what happened was just enough to keep the balance between all the character.

The end was really emotional and had me sobbing in my bed at 4am, but it's so worth it. It's not a sad ending and it's not a happy ending. It feels logical that after everything that happened, those were the consequences. I was sad, because that's what the drama wants you to feel, but I was also contempt that it wrapped up well. And correct me if I'm wrong, but season 2 was confirmed? I saw right after I binged it, so I didn't feel as sad about Soo Ho. He's not dead, so maybe he'll come back in season 2? Again, I have not read the webtoon and if I do, it'll probably be after season 2. That way I can give both a fair chance in my head (and heart).

Note: If you've read the webtoon please don't spoil it for me, or don't tell me about any existing differences between the two. Thank you.

To wrap this up I just wanna say, even if school dramas are not your thing I recommend you give this one a chance (only if you want to), because I think it'll win a place in your heart. It's not as heavy as Extracurricular or as cheesy as (name a cheesy korean high school drama of your choice, because there's a lot). It's got the right temperature, the right actors, the right plot. It keeps you intrigued and entertained seemingly effortlessly. You just fall into it. There is violence in it but it's nowhere near, say Blue Spring.

Mmmmm okay. That's it.

[ankhisms]

have surprised myself with how much ive been able to get done today altho i know ill be hit with exhuastion soon enough, rambling under the cut about things having mixed emotions but not all bad really

so my room in our house isnt really exactly my own room, its the room with the eletric box, water heater/softener closet, furnace filters, and the washer and dryer. its always been this way so im used to like not really ever having a space thats mine and mine alone but i wont get into that. anyway any time the seasons change (or often on my parents whim and never without any warning) we have to get to the water heater closet and the furnace filter so my room has to be torn apart to get to them. my bed is pushed up against the water heater closet so its like i sleep right next to a door so the bed has to be moved. anyway this is usually a very jarring and upsetting thing since it usually happens without warning or telling me and i have everything i own just moved without being told or warned. but today i decided to take agency in this and i was the one who moved the bed and moved all my things so my dad could get in and turn on the water so we can use the outside hose to water things.

ive been meaning to really deeply clean and sort like, everything i have and everything in my room for probably half a year now and to see what i might want to give away/keep and reorrange things and just like take stock of things for the HOPEFUL future where i can move out and be having my real own space yknow. i finally started this process and it felt good to get everything down and to really deeply dust, ive also been meaning to properly wash old stuffed animals of mine bc i love my stuffed animals dearly but some of the ones i had when i was younger are very clearly showing their age so i looked up tips and instructions on hand washing old stuffed animals and i tested it out on two ones that dont mean as much to me to see if it goes ok before trying to wash ones that i absolutely dont want to ruin and it went well! i definitely can feel myself starting to get tired and having more pain as i write this but im still happy with how much i cleaned and sorted along with washing my sheets/pillows/blankets

the thing that makes me have mixed emotions is that what ive also been meaning to do is.... take down and get rid of the things that were drawn by/given to me by the old long term friend who just suddenly cut me off with no warning or explanation and then only messaged me one more to weirdly say "well im hanging out with my new friends and theyre so cool and great" and not responding to me begging him to tell me what was going on or if i had done anything wrong and wanting to talk things out. we were long distance internet friends for over 10 years so i have a lot of drawings and books hed given me and i didnt really get to taking down a lot of drawings but i sorted through one book in particular, he used to do this thing where hed give me a comic book and hed put in sticky notes in a lot of pages with his thoughts on them. so i went through the pages and took out all the sticky notes one at a time since i want to give the comic book to someone i know will like it. and it was a very... weird feeling. taking them all out. i had read the notes and the book when he first gave it to me but now reading them it felt like.. more bitter than sweet but there was still sweetness there. i recognize looking back that i had rose tinted glasses on for the majority of our relationship and it was probably more toxic than i realized and i often blamed myself for harmful things he did. not at all saying hes a bad person or anything btw i just think we both were very damaged kids from abusive homes and i was probably toxic in ways i didnt realize as well im not without blame here but its weird to realize that our friendship wasnt as healthy as i thought it was. but reading those notes as i took them out it was like... he wrote these at a time where i know he loved me and considered me his close friend and i felt the same. and i still love him. the love i have for anyone, especially a close friend, does not just disappear. it stays within me and is not wasted. but it certainly feels like a weight on my chest in this moment.. i keep thinking, what happened? what changed? he didnt even give me this book that many years ago, maybe three or four at the longest. what happened to make him decide to cut me off like that? i dont know, and i know im not going to get closure. so i just have to hold the love i still have and let it ache but then i have to let go and continue trying to live

i dont know how soon im going to have the opportunity and resources to be able to leave my home situation, its become increasingly obvious to me that its not something i can achieve on my own for a multitude of reasons, i know ill need help and i try to remind myself that im not alone in it and that its not impossible for me to get to a safe environment where i dont feel scared and like a cornered animal. for now i feel good about my decision to try and make my living space feel nicer for myself, although im aware that it never really feels like my own space nor does it ever fully feel safe i still am trying to make jt more comfortable for myself while im here and i feel proud of myself for that

anyway thanks if you read this all, i hope youre doing well mwah

[kitewithfish]

Wednesday Reading Meme - Nov 16 2022

What I've Read

Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir by Jeremy Barlow - A comic book that covers some plot that didn't make it into the end of the Clone Wars cartoon. I'm glad to have read this stuff, I think it would have been nice to see in the Solo movies that got killed by virtue of not being very good, I found the comic books heavy on plot and low on character moments. 

Ocean’s Echoby Everina Maxwell - A queer sci-fi romance between a very messy and charismatic aristocrat and a deeply intelligent solider with actual morals (something this military system tries to discourage). They fight crime! Aka, stop a military coup, discover the propaganda behind their understanding of a  past war, work for the good of some second-class citizens, and also fall in love a bit. I really enjoyed this - it's got a lot of plot and lots of chances to see both main characters reveal their core character traits in high tension situations. Many many chances for the main couple to be wildly into how competent their partner is. (I personally read one of the main couple as potentially autistic, but it's not explicit on the page bc scifi.)   I kind of adore how they play with the soulbond/psychic link element, dealing with all the ways it could be awful while allowing the characters to avoid it and form a connection on their own terms. I think this would actually be a great book for someone who does not like pyschic bonds at all in their fiction, weirdly enough! Maxwell does great books for couples who are stuck together through circumstances and come out triumphant on the other side with a deep appreciation for their partner's qualities as a person. 

What I'm Reading

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - "Hard" sci-fi in the sense that we're paying a lot of attention to quantum computers and their potential for murder!  Book club book that I think is actually interesting - I think now that I find the exploration of what sex and gender might be like in the future to be a bit cis-centric. (A large number of space-based people have longevity treatments that involve sex organ modification such that many, many of the characters can both inseminate someone else and become pregnant -the author does not seem to be interested in what that would mean for gender in space or on Earth?) I suspect there is a romance in here building but it's hard to pin down. Definitely one of those books where some readers will bounce off the main character "making stupid/bad choices."

To Seek and Find- Tamryn Eradani - This used to be Destiel fanfic and I cannot tell you how well it reads as a non-fandom book, because I'm definitely reading it as a fandom book. Kinky and cozy! Might technically be a novella and I will probably opt to purchase the next few books in the series. 

What I'll Read Next 

Library books in the house:

Maul: Lockdown - Joe Schreiber

The Whale Rider -Witi Ihimaera

Tiger's Daughter - K Arsenault Rivera

Riot Baby - Rochi Onyeuchi

The Silence of the Wilting Skin - Tlotlo Tsamaase

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

Recently purchased and need to read: NK Jemisin's The World We Make, Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, California Bones, the Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk 

Own but reminding myself - Penric's Demon! Get on that! Fansplaining podcast just described it as Venom-the-movie but in the middle ages, good god, ride that like you stole it.