#i have the rest of the comic all good but this one scene is improv

[its-hai-time]

oops it’s Klavier Gavin self-sabotage time.

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[absolutebl]

Pit Babe - it's time for a Trash Watch!

I had to. Well, no I didn't, but COME ON. It's like Thailand is negging me. Let's burn rubber, shall we? Burn rubbers...?

The things I had been told going in about this show:

it's about car racing (this bores me)

it stars Pavel (my BL ult bias, he is my icon for a reason)

it started as an omegaverse y-novel but the A/B/O aspects would be stripped from the BL series

it's high heat

(There some chatter about whether point 3 was a mistranslation of something the author said, but don't bother me with trifles.)

Here's a definition of omegaverse:

Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (alpha/beta/omega), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas".[1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.[2] (Wikipedia)

In my experience and opinion, omegaverse archetypes and tropes are often used to strip out female characters (and The Feminine) and as a tool to excuse extreme hyper-masculine behaviors without a critical feminist lens (leading to lazy characterization). Just as heat is an excuse to get nkd quickly, A/O/B is often an excuse for taboo and dubious consent actions and behaviors. Do I get why writers/readers enjoy it? Yes I do. Do I personally like it? Not particularly. (Although there are always exceptions.)

Putting all that aside, the above represents my foundational knowledge before Pit Babe started.

Oh and that the familiar BL faces appearing in this show were follows:

Pavel Naret (aka Pavel Phoom) from 2 Moons 2 & Coffee Melody - Pavel is a fluent English speaker, a bit of a drama monger, and a motorcycle rider/car-dude, this role suits him

Nut Supanut from Oxygen & Something in My Room - has an amazing voice, his somewhat wooden acting has improved steadily since Oxygen

Pon Thanapon - one of Star Hunter's stable first seen in the Gen Y series (where he stole the appeal of an intended pair), also v good in Make a Wish, I wish he'd get a lead role as he has a likable screen presence

Pop Pataraphol from La Cuisine - he's playing the Alpha rival and I'm not convinced he's suited to this role

Michael Kiettisak from Love Sick, Oxygen, Call it What You Want, Till the World Ends - playing the comic relief this time rather than his usual tortured stoic... huh

All the rest are either fresh faces or older experienced actors. Interesting mix. They must have some money behind this.

And now, get out your marshmallows! The dumpster is on fire! Let's start the roast.

Episode 1 - Platypus, Pickles, Pavel, & other Smoking Hot Problems

This first segment told with a 4 day retrospect, because I decided to do a trash watch only after @aliceisathome said I should.

My initial reaction:

the sheer audacity of Thailand being like "PitBabe is not omegaverse" and then serving "Alpha" to us on a platter in the first sex scene is

how dare

but also

what the actual fuck is going on? what world are we living in where a/b/o is LIVE ACTION ON OUR SCREENS?

we getting heat, knotting & mpreg next?

apparently this is my reality now

I'm not sure what weird quantum time stream I've jumped into but someone was all,

yes the whole world is hella screwed, but also...

Thailand has decided live action mm fanfic is gonna win it the culture wars

and I'm beginning to think they may be right

BL is now the platypus of the film industry

4 days later:

Considering how much chatter this caused there's a part of me that wondered if it was all intentional and a marketing ploy (to say it wasn't omegaverse when obviously it is). In which case... brilliant Machiavellian tactics, production.

But Thai studios are rarely this calculated in their promo. So I think it's all accidental. But it certainly caused a raucous few days on Tumblr.

On a completely different note, Babe's house looks like it started life as a particularly inventive Olive Garden. Or is that just me?

More random thoughts:

Pavel has had work done, why honey? You were the definition of perfect.

The smell thing is great, I love stuff to do with scent and necks. If omegaverse brings this to the table, fine. But...

Being all Alpha perfect butch manly man = I do not like Babe at all, I kinda want him to be brought down a peg. (Woo... pegging!) I never like narratives that glorify the captain of the football team (side eyes Cdrama CEO romances and Love O2O), Babe better have depth and damage (forget the pegging) of some kind or his behavior will get old FAST, faster than he drives (also, forget the pegging idea)

Nut is ideal in the Beta role. I mean, that's Way's character right? We all can see that. If it's not intentional, it's a miscast. I love how soft he is as as screen presence. He's great in this part.

None of the other characters are sticking out to me yet, but I'm prepared to love the side dishes in this, please make them swoon worthy!

I'm glad they didn't hold the Charlie = trickster reveal off, I like knowing he is a double agent up front.

Finally, with respect to an adequate trash watch, I'm in a pickle.

How am I going to drink for this show when there is so much else airing on Frigay? I can't keep track, if I'm drunk.

I need a strategy for this trash fire if the puns and snark are to spout forth! (HA Fourth!)

Controlled burn?

Anygay, see you all next week.

Episode 2 - Side Dish Addiction + Second Lead Syndrome are both infecting me at once

[FYI I gotta have my backup computer to watch this so that's why Imma sometimes be delayed getting the trash out to the curb.]

3 minutes! 3 minutes in and I needed to pause and wax snarkful. (Ouch, bet that hurts. Is waxing snark similar to a Brazilian but for BL? Is that why they all so hairless in The Sign?... I digress, where was I?)

Okay so the subber said Daddy but I don't think that word means what they think it means. Because Way said simply nong paa.

Usually they'll use the English word Daddy (pronounced Dah-deee) for, ya know, Actual Daddies (tm).

Wait wait:

Calling Daddy Actual

(My dumb sci-fi loving arse will see myself out the back before I start drawing Battlestar Galactica = Pit Babe connections. TOO FAR ABL. Too far.)

Look, I like the tension in this show. It's good to set up an unlikeable Alpha dog and then immediately turn him into an underdog, makes him a bit more likable. I still don't like Babe, but now at least I'm on his side.

Charlie = cute but v sus. Fortunately for him, Babe = cute but v thick.

Everyone calls Charlie Babe's dek. Yes sounds a bit like what you think but also means kid/child and SHOULD be translated as boy in this show. Why doesn't the subber get that? They a sub...ber after all. (I'll see myself out.)

Honestly, the script writers might know what they are doing with abo but our eng sub translator sadly does NOT. I'm so glad this is coming now in my BL watching life. When my ear and knowledge of Thai is so much better than it once was. Others much be SO CONFUSED.

Snicker. They just fucking with us, but it's fun to watch the mpeg speculation abound.

File this one under: Thailand's trouble with ESL plurals and also "you should have Pavel helping with these subs" sweethearts.

Production knows entirely what it's doing with this show and its omegaverse shizz (even if the subber doesn't) and I am very much enjoying the online carnage that results.

This dumpster fire continues off screen into the blogosphere and I continue to roast things over it.

Meanwhile, hi Pon! You so adorable! When you gonna lead out a BL for us?

Is Idol Factory stealing all of Star Hunter's talent? Are they the Red Racers of the BL world? These are the questions I ask myself as I watch this.

Is that AGE GAP I smell before me?

Is the 20 yr old college kid meant for the pit boss? Cause you all know I am a slut for age gaps.

Moment of a/b/o: Jeff's fear of touch/heightened personal space would be a plot marker for "baby doesn't want Alphas close cause he smells like an omega" but of course this show it not omegaverse. Not omegaverse at all.

nuh-uh

Linguistic corner!

Lung (sounds a bit like loo) is uncle(ish) it means basically a male relation older than phi. So Alan is the oldest in the crew.

Alan calls Jeff nu (which the subber translated as boy I would have gone with cutie or little one). Nu is a diminutive affectionate term that's technically gender neutral but is most often used by/on cute girls/women. Jeff did NOT like it. Then Alan sort of dodges through pronouns/particles settling on phi for I, ger for you, and ja for a particle. This is interesting because ger & ja kinda lower his age and status into a casual sphere. Not more intimate more equal to jeff... fascinating.

I love the new "Korean" red racer, he drinks my brand of soy milk. He is now my baby snake in the grass.

Get it? Snake.

He and Babe should end up together.

The fight wasn't bad, do both actors have kickbox training in their backgrounds?

Who am I kidding, I care only about Uncle Alan and Nu Jeff now. All others are irrelevant to me.

Also...

WHERE IS A BOY FOR WAY?!!! Or a Daddy. I do not care. (Methinks nether does he.)

I am now captain of the Way Appreciation Society. Let's all find a way... to get him some dick.

Also the BTS stingers are tons of fun. Looks like the set was a blast.

Finally, and I mean this kindly. Why isn't Noh Phouluang in this? He should have been cast as Winner. Bah. I'm biased.

But one should be with Noh.

Episode 3 - Side Dishes Delux

Gayest bridge n Thailand has made its obligatory appearance.

How much do I love uncle & nu? They are SO damn cute. Also nu flustered is the best kind of nu.

I could not care less about Babe and Charlie. Except I do love the smell thing.

Way will break my heart by getting his broken. He is right tho.

Tra la la. I feel like this is a bit like KP 2.0.

Charlie is a such a princess (and ace manipulator). Good thing Babe clearly likes being buttered up.

Babe's backstory was more interesting than I expected, I didn't think we would go so far into the paranormal side of a/b/o. I like it and I hope they lean into it quite a bit more. Make it part of the plot.

Unlike the kissing thing which seems to have been gotten over rather quickly.

I gotta say I'm enjoying the corporate sponsorship jockeying and tension more than I thought I would. I'm curious as to who Jef and Charlie are working for and what their motivation is. The plot itself is keeping me intrigued and that is rare for me with BL.

So no trash talk this ep, I was largely absorbed and entertained. I didn't event need booze. Shocking behavior on my part.

#giveWayaboy2023

Episode 4 - I (who never ship) am shipping the impossible

Here’s the thing. I just want this to be a better story than it is. Right now it’s kind of like a soap opera. I don’t hate lakorn, I really don't. To Sir With Love is a glorious chewing of the diamanté scenery (completed with death glitter). But...

If this is gonna be a soap opera it needs to lean into the messy side more than the tailored high concept side. Support characters and evil needs more screen time.

Instead, right now, I don’t know where I am with this show because it doesn't know where it wants to be. I’m kind of dangling in the middle of a dirty situation. It’s uncomfortable for me, and the show feels uncomfortable for the performers. 

Also... I have questions.

Yes, of course I want to know what Charlie & Jeff are up to. Why can Jeff see the future?

But more importantly I NEED to know why Babe has a flying saucer bed?

That kind of lighting makes nobody look good, especially not at that angle. It’s very traumatic and I’m not wild about the shag rug either. I have concerns about Babe's taste. I guess is what I am saying. 

On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note:

There’s absolutely no chemistry to justify this, but I have decided that I am going to personally advocate for, and ship, Way and the interloping not-really-Korean. They are both sort of own-moral-code types. I have tiny crush on Kim, and Nut is the prettiest, and Way is Best Boy so there it is, I would like them to hook up, please & thank you.

#giveWay2Kim2023

Arrow guy is cute, too. Will we get to see him bone?

Is he going to be another one of the adopted alpha super-kid pets?

What the hell, throw Arrow Boy a bone! All hot boys in BLs deserve bones.

Plot thickens.

Hah.

Thickens.

(I am an immature idiot.)

Episode 5 - wait wait way-t, can arrow boy have Way?

Look, BLabies, I didn’t get any screen caps this episode because frankly there wasn’t anything worth capturing.

I guess Charlie really does love Babe? Very dramatic if idiotic saving from the burning car. But Babe has gone to the broken Alpha place of extremely unlikeablability (frankly he was almost there at the start). If I were Charles B Spectacled I would be OUT by now. 

Is that?

NO.

Don't get the plastic bowl.

No white towel sponge bath. Please kill this trope.  

I mean, it's not as bad as singing, but that's because NOTHING is as bad as singing in a Thai BL.

AND the main boys are back together.

I don’t find their relationship or Babe’s lack of senses a particularly interesting aspect of the plot.

Unless, of course, Babe is pregnant and that's why he lost his Alpha sniffer.

BUT I do love the sides.

Jeff = the introvert precog who can’t/wont do people and Alan = the extrovert people person who WANTS but doesn’t understand him. 

Were Jeff and Charlie ALSO raised by Evil Daddy MacEvilPants? 

I liked the way Arrow CEO & Way looked at each other. Way, hon, give up on Babe (he sucks) and get thyself a billionaire bf with great aim and BDE.

On a completely different note, the best thing about this show is the blooper reel. That thing with the green smoothie going down his pants was hilarious!

In conclusion, this was a green smoothie down the pants episode. I was entertained, and it’s probably gonna be good for the plot in retrospect, but it was kind of squishy and unpleasant at the time.

Episode 6 - Are they actually listening to us now? Is Tumblr bugged?

This was a fun ep full of like actual racing and shizz.

Whatever.

Charlie is on the team now. All the teams, apparently.

Can we talk about Jeff and Alan?

The apology scene! Did you hear that Alan dropped to chan/ger? Eeeee!!! So cute. (He equalized their relationship in a soft way.)

Get it with that language play hottie. Next up: lengua play.

Please & thank you. 

Meanwhile, as all of the Internet knows, they went fully in for omegaverse - no bars.

I have to say, one of the greatest typos (or whatever) in existence is enigma instead of omega.

That's where I personally would rank in the omegaverse.

Hello, my gender is... enigma.

 Apparently it's a/b/o and sometimes e!  Also sometimes switch-ee 

Oh I'm very proud of myself with that one.

Funfunfun

Charlie. Babes. When a man asks to be thrown up against the wall. You throw him against that wall.

OMG is that arrow boy looking at Way in the bar?

3 seconds later.

Noooo.

Wait come back.

Noooooo.

That’s what I actually want to watch! 

OMG. Who said nu was the first step to teelak?

I flipping love Alan. 

Ah the boyfriend ep. Thank you, but I still don't trust Charlie.

Poor Way.

But nice crying jag, and I don’t say that often in Thai BL.

Now let him go, Way.

A boy with his arrows is waiting. 

(source)

Note for the future: tumblr has a bug that stops allowing edits after a certain time/number, thus my full trash often occur in 2 segments as a result. Click on the "abl trash watches bl" tag for the full thing if you're reading this and later episodes are missing.

[ponett]

Hello, wanted to say thank you, I'm really glad I found your work and I find your insights very helpful.

I wanted to ask something strange, as someone who has gone out of their way to dedicate a very detailed blog to the works of an outspoken artist, can you give me advice how to maintain healthy distance with ideas and individuals I might outright oppose, but have morbid sense of curiosity about them? Or it it just better to not indulge at all?

It's a difficult balance to achieve, and I won't pretend I've always been perfect about it on TKP

The thing is that you have to not obsess over the person too much. You have to focus on their work, not detailing every single thing they've ever done or said to keep receipts on them. You do not, under any circumstances, want to turn into the freaks who make and watch hundred hour long "documentaries" on CWC and Sonichu, or the people who run the Bad Webcomics Wiki

The point is to do media criticism, not to make a callout blog. Details the artist has shared about their life may sometimes help inform your reading of the work - art isn't made in a vacuum, and artists' life experiences and worldviews often shape their art. But you don't need to pry too much and piece together their full life story and psychoanalyze them if that information isn't already available in an autobiography or whatever

On TKP, one of the most important things I do to try and keep that distance is simple: I don't follow Penders on Twitter. I don't need to know every single thing he says, nor do I need to report on it. I'll check in when I hear he's made some kind of announcement regarding his work, and when looking for behind the scenes info I'll sometimes term search on his Twitter because he's far more vocal about what happened behind the scenes than the rest of that creative team, but that's it. I'm not thinking about him every day. I also haven't gone in-depth on his non-Sonic work to help drive home the idea that TKP is a blog about the American Sonic comics with a quippy url, not a blog about shitting on Penders

(On that note: I don't interact with him directly, either. I do not need to dunk on him in his Twitter replies. I do not need to lure him into an interview where I totally own him. I am not sending him my criticism like he owes it to me to read it and improve his work. I leave the guy alone)

As the blog has gone on I've also tried much harder to be objective about him and his work. I'll admit that early on, before the blog blew up, I was eager to see what all the drama was about and why everybody hated the guy. But my goal isn't just to find excuses to hate on him, or to spread baseless gossip, and that shouldn't be the mindset you go in with. I've offered praise for some of his work where I thought it was deserved, and I frequently correct people on misunderstandings about him and the lawsuits, even defending him on certain points

This is an extremely basic and hopefully obvious element of good media criticism, but it should also be said that just because an artist depicts something doesn't necessarily mean they endorse it, and that your goal isn't to piece together the artist's beliefs based on their work and then call them out over it. It can go the other way around - you can analyze how an artist's stated beliefs and values are reflected in their work - but, like, Penders writing a story where Knuckles decides to forgive his shitty fascist uncle for no reason does not mean that Penders is a Nazi apologist. It's just a story.

Again: your main goal should be to criticize the work, not the artist

And, of course, a huge factor is simply how famous the creator in question is (and also if the creator is still alive). You wanna do a deep dive on the works of Steve Ditko and criticize his Randian objectivism? Go nuts, buddy! You wanna shit all over Lovecraft? Have at it! Wanna tear apart the neoliberal politics of Harry Potter? Well, okay, Shrieking Shack already did that one. But if the person you're thinking of doing a sprawling, in-depth teardown on is, like, a smalltime webcomic author? Some hobbyist indie dev? A fanfic writer? That sort of thing? Hell, even someone in the middle like a cartoon storyboarder, or a freelance writer who does articles for Kotaku sometimes? Maybe reconsider. Just because someone's online doesn't mean they're a Public Figure, and there's a line where a deep critical dive on someone's work quickly turns into painting a target on their back

(This ended up being more about Criticism than how to just engage with stuff you hate, but also you can just, like. Look away. And find something else spend your time thinking about.)

[imagionationstation]

DA BOIS

I SAW THE MOVIE

I WAS INTRODUCED TO THE UTTER NONSENSE THAT IS MM /aff

I HAVE THOUGHTS

NOT, LIKE, ANALYSIS WHICH MAY COME LATER

JUST THOUGHTS

AND SPOILERS

So I’m studying the boys and at first I was just “They really are leaning into this whole teen thing, huh” but then I thought back to every memory I have of my brothers and how they interacted and was just like- OH

OH WAIT

THIS IS ACCURATE

🤣 The bacon and egg scene- literally my brothers in a nutshell. The constant quotes and references- a little on the nose, but accurate.

BUT I SPENT

THE ENTIRE MOVIE

Waiting to see which turtle would spike my patented they need some hurt/comfort and at first I was leaning towards Leo- BUT THEN WHEN THAT BUS/TRUCK (I forget exactly what it was) FLEW STRAIGHT AT DONNIE AND MIKEY’S WATCHING IN HORROR AND DONNIE IS STUMBLING AND HURT AND OBLIVIOUS AND LOOKS ONLY HALF PRESENT-

Hands down. That got me.

I has a favorite and he’s so innocent and bright-eyed and deserves injury and kidnapping. I will make this happen.

The boys as a family were so fluffy and vibrant and relatable.

The boys as individuals…?

Leo has personality and concerns and attachments and a crush and flaws and strengths and he just felt like an person.

The rest seemed kinda… Plain. Raph had the anger thing going for him, but I have a hard time distinguishing Mikey’s and Donnie’s personalities. Mikey was friendly and liked improve, but that was never really touched on at all. In battle or otherwise- Donnie was the one who was thinking fast and taking the lead when talking to the Superfly. And Donnie was the one who Leo described as the best with people.

I’m not exactly sure what Mikey had going for him…

Donnie isn’t much of a techie, other than his headphones and phone, which is only used casually. He can drive and read comics, but that’s not really an abnormal teen thing. Like, any of his brothers couldn’t have driven using game skills? Or come up with a comic/movie solution to defeat Superfly?

That’s more nitpicks than anything tho. I might have missed things as well- it’s only my first watch. You shouldn’t make any firm decisions or judgements based on a first meeting. Hopefully, I’ll spot differences between them later on or they’ll flush out the characters more in the series.

They pushed a LOT into this movie. Everything was happening all at once. Like, they didn’t skip a BEAT when shifting from evil mutants trying to kill the boys to TCRI is locking them up.

And what the heck did Leo expect April to do?? SHE WAS ON A HIGHWAY BRIDGE?? DID HE EXPECT HER TO JUMP DOWN- SHE’S COMMENTED ON HOW CRAZY THEIR ROOFTOP TRAVEL IS! What makes him think she can do that??? 🤣🤣

At the very least she had to bike around and off the bridge to do anything, and he would have been unconscious by then. Boi just like “she abandoned us 🥺” when she could have been trying to help them while they were being loaded before going to get Splinter.

All hypothetical, of course. Would make for a good OneShot tho.

I like how the April betrayal was just a “I guess I was wrong” type of disappointment and not some dramatic heartbreak, because that feels more realistic to me. Relieved the crush wasn’t played off for laughs and all the brothers seemed disappointed.

April was such a good teen. They never played her off as anything but a normal person who didn’t have quite the right amount of self-preservation. Probably where the journalism comes in.

She was also a good representation that you don’t need green skin to not fit in. Life is hard, man, and I hope the series explores that even tho people don’t scream when they see them, that doesn’t mean life will be any less difficult. School is still prey grounds and people are still predators .

OMGEE SUPERFLY THO

DUDE WAS SCARY. BUT THE WHOLE TIME. I WAS WATCHING.

I COULDN’T NOT LIKE HIM FOR BEING EVIL

Dude got his daddy KILLED after daddy talked about raising him and his siblings and being a loving family by a bunch of weapon-using scary humans that also tried to kill them WHILE HE WAS A BABY

TCRI CREATED A FORMATIVE MEMORY THAT WAS STRAIGHT TRAUMA! OF COURSE HE HATES HUMANS-

That poor fly 🥺😔

The parallel between Splinter and Superfly was interesting. Felt a tiny bit forced at the end there, but I can respect it. Can’t dictate a fam’s every choice. That’s not fair. Gotta let your fam be free to grow and make their own mistakes and create their own morals~

I have a couple other thoughts, but I want to formulate them a bit more. See if I can make stuff off of them.

One last thing before I go…

MY SOCIAL ANXIETY HEADCANON STILL STANDS

NOT ONCE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE WERE THEY SEPERATED UNTIL THE SCHOOL

And even then it’s in a controlled environment. They all know where the other is. It seems safe.

But what happens when that illusion is gone…?

[neonshrike]

Thoughts on Bruce Banner in She-Hulk

Thank you @themarysuep for inspiring me to write this out!

I’ve had a few discussions about this, since he’s one of my favorite characters of all time, but I decided to write out my thoughts on how Bruce is written in She-Hulk. My overall thoughts are: not very well. 

I’ll start with the things I like, starting with the first episode. It was nice seeing a glimpse of his life in the five years after the Snap, seeing his lab and home. The fact that he lives on an island by himself makes a lot of sense to me, both Bruce and Hulk are the type of people to enjoy quiet and solitude. It seems like they’re trying to undo some of the things in Endgame, like the idea that Bruce became this celebrity/public figure, which never made sense to me.

Getting this out of the way: I personally like Professor/Smart Hulk, I just wish we had more time with it and that it didn’t happen off-screen. He’s happy, he deserves to be.

Bruce talking about his integration, and the fact that Tony gave him this place, helped with the process, and was a friend for all those years (the Scott Lang book mentions that Tony is the only person who visited him on the island) was great to see. I think they really show that Bruce is now a combination of himself and the Hulk better than Endgame.

Something that really interested me was the use of one of his character strengths as a flaw: his empathy. Bruce legitimately wanted to help Jen with her new situation, and didn’t want her to feel alone like he did. However, it was through his own trauma of being feared that caused him to start projecting his wants onto her.

I think it’s really cool Bruce has a spaceship now, that seems like a pretty fun direction for him to go in, having adventures in the cosmos and the excitement of learning more about the universe.

And now for the bad…

A few scenes definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t personally like the idea of Bruce drinking, considering his father in the comics was an alcoholic and that would put him at a very high risk of becoming one himself. It’s seen as a good thing that he and Jen can drink copious amounts of alcohol. With that note, the MCU continued to erase his childhood which is integral to the Hulk.

(However, I do recognize that this is Jen's show!)

I definitely didn’t like when he flat-out told Jen that she had an obligation to be a superhero now that she has powers. That is the very last thing he wanted, to be an Avenger and for his abilities to be exploited by organizations in power. It would have been better if he just warned her not to use her new powers selfishly or irresponsibly.

I don’t really mind Bruce having a sense of humor, but I don’t like the type of humor they gave him from Ragnarok on, where he acts very clueless and it definitely shows here too. In Avengers and Age of Ultron, he was pretty sardonic and deadpan, and cut people down with words alone; It really fit his character. Here, he’s still the same as well as a goofy prankster for some reason, something he never really did. 

You could argue he’s like this since he’s around family, but they barely give us any indication whether Bruce and Jen are even that close. They’re 20+ years apart in age, they weren’t really raised together, and it’s not really mentioned what his relationship with the rest of the family is like other than seemingly positive. He’s been gone for years either on the run, as an Avenger, in space, or trying to improve himself.

And finally, the finale, where Bruce reveals that he had a son while he was on Sakaar. That came out of nowhere and makes absolutely no sense. In Ragnarok, Hulk was just the Grandmaster’s champion, he lived alone, his only real friend there was Valkyrie. Also, his only focus was on fighting, avoiding calming situations so that Bruce wouldn’t be able to come back.

(Forgive me for oversimplifying things or getting details wrong about the comics, I'm trying to summarize to the best of my ability.)

In the Planet Hulk comics, the Hulk alter isn’t Savage Hulk like in the MCU (who is more or less mentally a child), he’s a different one called Green Scar and his time on Sakaar is dramatically different. He does become a gladiator, but forms a group called the Warbound and basically overthrows the leader of Sakaar. There’s a developed story between him and Caiera the Oldstrong, his wife and the mother of Skaar.

But none of that exists, and the reveal in the show just seems like a throwaway reference. I would have been happy with a more simple, mundane explanation of why he was gone the whole series, even no explanation would have been fine (another story for another time?)

An overwhelming amount of fans want World War Hulk to be adapted, but I think with the way that they adapted Planet Hulk (which WWH is a sequel to) it would be nearly impossible. He has a reason to go all Worldbreaker in the comic. Basically, the ship that Hulk was sent to Sakaar with blew up the entire planet, destroyed his home, and killed his pregnant wife.

In the MCU, Bruce is definitely going through hardships (losing two of closest friends and being apart from another, figuring out his place in the world besides being an Avenger, navigating the post-Blip world), but he seems to be pretty well-adjusted. He’s accepted after years of people being afraid of him, he has a loving, supportive extended family, he does have a few friends left out there and is making some new connections.

I’m not exactly sure what they’re planning for Bruce next or what exactly I would want to see next, but I’m not completely happy with this current direction they’re going in.

[sunny6677]

Ramble about my day today + Photos

FACE REVEAL BELOW IF YA DONT WANNA SEE, KINDA VENTY AT SOME PARTS

Morning was about the same, but it looked pretty as always. Cloudy sky's, humid air, the sound of crickets. I saw my friends cat outside her house this morning so I pet him again and even took a video of him I posted a while ago. I ended up taking the bus like usual, listened to some music on the way, took some photos, and when I got to school, I just ended up having Gatorade again for breakfast as my friends talked and also complimented my new haircut./lh

(One of them said I looked like a Victorian woman lol)

(New haircut—)

Psychology came once again. I got kinda scolded for having my headphones on without realizing, but it's fine kdndnsn. I didn't have a dream last night, so I fortunately had nothing to write down for my assignment regarding my dreams this day. We ended up just having some light hearted banter though, and were told to write about something we like and why. So.. I ended up writing a (technically) two page essay about spooky month that I finished in like fifteen minutes. And then just spent the rest of the time playing roblox on my phone during advisory because the site I use to work on Geometry stuff was being laggy.

Spanish came around after—and we didn't get much done, but we kinda just went over the stuff we're gonna be doing to help us learn for the subject itself and weren't able to go over a story in Spanish our teacher was gonna read us. I also said hi to my Geometry teacher during the beginning period of second period, and my Spanish teacher complimented my haircut./lh

Chemistry came around, and not a lot happened aside from filling out a bunch of notes and cutting out stuff we're apparently gonna use later. But it was fun since I was able to listen in on some funny conversation, and also one of my friends only just now noticed my spooky month hoodie./lh

Technology came around. We're supposed to be coming up with concepts for an animation movie, so I wrote a concept for an animated movie where the main character is a sassy sarcastic easily anxious female cashier who gets isekai'd into a stereotypical fantasy world (the cashier is inspired by Kevin kdndndn). I finished rather quickly, so I spent the rest of the time working on the Hot To Go comic.

Didn't do much for lunch, aside from play roblox and eat some chips while my friends talked. They were saying some pretty bad stuff though like usual, so I kinda tuned em out. I know they're just teens like me and act all edgy and will one day learn their lesson, but Jesus fucking christ it's really hard to remember that sometimes. The only reason I haven't said anything about it is because I'm scared of what they might do to me if they don't take my concerns that well.

English came around—we read our books for a little while, and ended up playing a somewhat stressful but rather fun game where we have to circle a bunch of tiny/giant numbers on a paper in order. And my team ended up being the winning one. We weren't able to read the book we're supposed to be reading cuz of how long the game went on for tho.

Theater also came around—where we were all grouped up into four, and because my table had six, I split up to a different table with this guy, his partner, and some random dude. The assignment was to do our skit, and our prompt was someone being pulled over by a British journalist (changed to a cop for our skit). We weren't given enough time to prepare so we had to improv, and I was the British oddly gruff uncomfortable police officer who basically interrogated this guy as his cat just wondered around the car. We played 'Freeze' during the last minutes of class, and I got to change the three 3 times—with the scene changes being me as a arrogant classist person accusing someone of not being good enough for their daughter, a Disney channel bully, and an eldritch crab entity that growled and chased people around. The random dude I partnered up with said I was just too good for everyone since they kept kicking me out like a few seconds in and seemed to find me funny.

Geometry was kinda boring as per usual—with me just working on different Geometry stuff online as my teacher sort of bothered other people in an attempt to be friendly and ended up just arguing with some random student because he accused him of 'doing nothing all day'. And he also started getting really political for some reason. And going on about how much he loves America.

The last period was World History, where I joked around with one of my friends and finished an assignment I was working on with him. Then we filled in some notes about what we learnt so far, but we didn't have much time left, so we're just gonna be working on them tomorrow.

..today was kinda meh.

Photos I took today:

[kroosluvr]

My entire life I have been so bad at reading manga or comic books or anything like that, because I just want to read the text and I never stop to appreciate the art. Then I saw one of your VioletFox comics, the one they're walking on a bridge discussing their pursuits of gymnastics and painting. I remember getting absorbed in Yusuke's wall of dialogue, and then the beat panel of Sumi silently crying hit me like a gut punch. That one image affected me more deeply than the whole moving block of text I had just read. I went back and reread the comic, and I saw that every facial expression, even the panel layout, was telling a whole complex emotional story underneath the text bubbles.

Now every time I see one of your comics I end up reading it twice, once for the text and once just to look at the artwork. The dialogue you write gives the characters so much more depth than they ever got in the source material, and your art style is so evocative and fills every scene with more emotion than the words can convey by themselves. And I've started doing this with other comics I like as well. It's stunning to see how much I've been missing, but my enjoyment of them is so much greater now.

I dunno, this feels like one of those things that's obvious to everybody else and I'm only just now figuring out because I'm autistic. But I've been reading comics online for at least fifteen years, and yours are the ones that finally made me look at the artwork as more than a backdrop for the story being told in the dialogue. Thank you for using your art to feed my Persona brainrot, and thank you for making me better at appreciating comics as an art form.

oh my god thank you so so much for such a lovely comment ;--; this is the first thing i read after waking up and I WAS CLOSE TO TEARS UUAUHHH im so amazed and so honored that my art could have this sort of impact on anyone,, ;o; <3333 LIKE IM SERIOUSLY SPEECHLESS IM SO FREAKING FLATTERED TO RECEIVE THIS LEVEL OF PRAISE FOR MY WORK!!!!!!! my latest persona comics and stuff is straight from the heart so when people also connect with it or resonate on a deep level i feel so so happy....

the violetfox..!!! AHHH that comic carries such a deep weight in my heart........ sumi and yusuke carry such complicated feelings abt their passions and they had no one to talk to abt it (before akira) (but i want them to talk to each other and share notes ehehe...) im so happy that one could resonate with you... //w// i really like drawing facial expressions!!!!! that one is kind of old so now i look at it like TCH.. I COULD DO BETTER..... but art is all abt improving every day amiright ehhewhe

im so SO happy you enjoy my dialogue too!!! ////w//// not a writer by any means..... but it really does come straight from the heart eheh.... so if the shoe fits amiright //w//

but seriously im so happy to hear this, thank you so much for telling me LIKE IM GONNA THINK ABT THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE IM SO SERIOUS. im so so amazed and happy that my art could help you also enjoy other art/comics/works.... i didn't know i could have this sort of impact ;w; thank you again so much!!!! I WILL KEEP DRAWING FOREVER (AND PERSONA FOR A LONG TIME IM SURE!!!!) thank you again for your lovely comments waaaah my heart so warm... please have a good day/night!!! //w//

(sorry my reply is so not eloquent compared to yours IM CRYINGGSJDFSD AAA

[volfoss]

Hiiiii <3 I remember you talking about the boys comics vs the show, and I just finished the third season and it's really funny to me how almost every time there's an interesting storyline happening the little trivia window on Amazon says something like "this was not on the comics this was invented by the TV show" . Like yeah I'm not surprised lol

What character do you think is the most improved by the show? Is there anything that you think was actually better in the comics or is it just trash altogether?

hiii!! first off, SO glad you're enjoying it!! second off good god this may be long (i love to hate on mr ennis) so. under a cut :3

As for characters, let me first give a small run down of how every woman is treated in the comic:

the female (as she um. does not have a name in the comics) has barely any development other than oh she was raised in a fucked up lab and her mom sucks and that she and frenchie kind of have something going on. all of the really good stuff during the show w her brother or just... any of it is not there. again i need to emphasize she does not have a name. ennis does not care enough to give her an alt form of communication (like in the show, her teaching frenchie her own sign is SUCH a good thing. not in the comics lmao)

starlight. oh god where do i even START. so where the show handles her sa well and respectfully, um. well you see mr ennis loves to put rape in his stories and also loves to be bad to women. so its MULTIPLE scenes with her (where like. all of the men of the team line up for her to give them a bj. which to me really kind of... ruins the messaging he could have been going thru). hughie is like... genuinely really bad about her sa in the comics (as in. when he finds out via butcher getting tapes of the headquarters and purposefully setting it up so hughie SEES HER GETTING SA'D and goes to confront her about it. its great ennis loves women) and he BLAMES HER FOR IT. and then dumps her. and hes not supposed 2 be in the wrong there so thats great.

the only thing w her character that i DID like was at the start of the comics, she was pretty religious and as it went on, she started to lose her faith in religion bc she didnt get why jesus would let this happen to her. which was imo an interesting take but also ennis is OBSESSED w shitting on religion so like. its not surprising i guess that hes putting that in there lmao. she never really gets to confront the members of the team who REPEATEDLY either do/attempt to sa her other than doing a threat once or twice. theres none of the commentary on how society views women heroes or anything like that with her (i cannot emphasize enough that they kept like. the intro for the comics in terms of what kickstarted stuff and then just like... left the rest behind. which was for the best bc my god i think if u counted the amt of slurs and just bad stuff overall you would lose count (ik i did)).

maeve. good god its bad. so she was there when... homelander had part in 9/11 (tldr for that incident: in the comics, the supes are sent out to prevent one of the planes that was gonna hit (i believe the pentagon?) and then ended up crashing it elsewhere. but the plane scene in the show was THAT plot point done better) and that just made her become an alcoholic. and that is like 99% of her character in the comics. it is so so shitty bc the show did SO much w her and the comics just... did not.

the other non prominent women (stormfront was a man in the comics for like... clarification) are all... well what we call the ennis morality compass victims. a lot of the comics are the boys going to learn abt a supe group and learning they did smth bad (which youd think murder. or like smth equally bad. youd be wrong) and then its revealed that they are having orgies, being GASP gay, or being mentally ill (there is an entire team that hughie goes undercover w that the ... entire joke is that theyre too nice bc theyre not as mentally stable as the boys are. one of the bits is one of the teammates has tourettes so he has tics of just saying fuck or something similar and its treated as a joke). so if theyre not mentally ill or being gay or doing something that ennis sees as kind of fucked up (as the entirety of the comics is a test to how much garbage he can put in one series) theyre being used solely as sex objects. its pretty bad to put it lightly.

the men dont get out of the bad writing treatment either but. the women get it the worst. as for who gets improved the most, id say easily kimiko (it is NIGHT AND DAY) or maybe oddly enough butcher (his comic issues are... bad. we would be here all day if i got into them). and MM. oh my god you do not want to know how he was handled in the comics. honestly there isnt a character that DIDNT get improved a ton, all of them did. i dont know how the writers pulled it off but it is infinitely better for everyone.

as for anything i liked more... honestly not much. i think the shock value didn't work most of the time because ennis just made it the ENTIRE comics point to be edgy. i guess the fact homelander is bi in the comics is kind of funny but its just... not handled well (shocker right). as i mentioned earlier, i think the stuff with starlight starting out as super devote to religion and then becoming disenchanted with it was interesting. the only other really good thing about it is the art. it is HIDEOUS but i feel it kind of is intentional against the comic art of the time (as the artist is genuinely amazing outside of that). oh and if you can ignore all of the bad stuff, there was a kind of cool plot point that the show hasnt hit yet/wont touch, where they discuss the comics in the world with the context of them being propaganda. one of the owners of the local comic shop used to be a comic editor, and discusses how the comics were used to cover up the bad deeds that the supes were doing irl. it was an interesting take, especially since a lot of older comics WERE propaganda (ie like the wwii era comics are INSANE propaganda). tldr do not fucking touch the comics unless you want to see how many slurs ennis wants to drop (too many).

[darthkvznblogs]

Total non sequitur of a question but what do you think of the DCEU?

I like the non sequitur! I hope y'all don't feel like you can only send me asks about the Kverse lol (though of course I'm always happy to answer those!)

I'll give you a very brief review of each:

-Man of Steel: I enjoyed it for the most part. I don't really gel with all the Jesus-y imagery, the bizarre choices with Jonathan, or the incredible amounts of collateral damage (you can't avoid everything but Superman would definitely try to limit it), but I kinda dig the look of all the Kryptonian stuff, I like Henry Cavill's more brooding Superman, and Zod was a cool antagonist.

-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: wayyy too many things going on. I can't McFucking believe they made Jimmy Olsen a CIA plant and killed him off immediately. I don't completely hate that version of Lex Luthor but he gets grating pretty quickly. The Knightmare stuff is pretty eyeroll worthy IMO (especially once they double down on it later). The titular duel is pretty good, but very short, and leads into some of the worst stuff in the movie. Doomsday sucks!

-Suicide Squad: aside from some cool freaky stuff with Enchantress, and Viola Davis and Margot Robbie being great casting choices, this one's kinda nothing to me. Rick Flagg, Capt. Boomerang and Deadshot are various flavors of decent to good. Tried to do a Guardians of the Galaxy-y thing and failed miserably. Top contender for worst Joker adaptation of all time.

-Wonder Woman: Great, if very simple plot-wise. The Ares stuff at the end really lets the rest of the movie down, but most of the movie's very cool and fun. I still get chills from the no man's land scene! Chris Pine's Steve Trevor is pretty damn good (but Chris Pine is just good in general)

-Justice League (Whedon's version): I actually like the choice to have a more colorful look for a Justice League movie, but yeah, not good. To say nothing of the behind the scenes drama, they tried to do what the MCU did with the Avengers with half the build-up. Doesn't feel earned at all. Some good action and character interactions, but that's about it.

-Aquaman: Pretty fun, I really appreciate the commitment to being just kinda bonkers, from the more comic-accurate looks to the ginormous underwater battle. I don't really love Momoa's Aquaman but I didn't mind him too much on his own.

-Shazam!: One of my favorites in the DCEU. Doesn't overcomplicate itself, doesn't exhaust itself with references to other stuff, just a good story about found families with real heart, some good humor, and a decent villain.

-Birds of Prey: Other than the bizarre choice to give Cassandra Cain's name to a character that couldn't be more different, I fucking love this one. Very fun, great action, and it reminded me I have a crush on Mary Elizabeth Winstead lol

-Wonder Woman 1984: Sucks. I hate to say it, I went in thinking I'd really enjoy it but it was genuinely painful to watch for the most part. Not even the power of Pedro Pascal and Chris Pine combined could save this one.

-Zack Snyder's Justice League: Definitely an improvement overall compared to the theatrical release, but dear lord it did not need to be 4 hours long. Flash's turn-back-the-clock gambit was super cool. Legit kinda ruined by the Joker monologue in the Knightmare, lol.

-The Suicide Squad: Didn't watch it! I saw how bloody and murder-happy it'd be and just shrugged and moved on. I'm sure it's as good as people say, but I'd have to be in a very particular mood to wanna watch it, tbh.

-Black Adam: Enjoyed it quite a bit, though the presence of the JSA in the modern day with very little explanation is a bit jarring. The Rock's Black Adam is a bit too heroic and personable for my tastes but brutal enough that I'm okay with it. Kinda loved Pierce Brosnan's Doctor Fate (except for the suit design, I hated it)

-Shazam! Fury of the Gods: Haven't watched it yet, but I don't hear great things about it, so not super enthused about it. Probably will watch it eventually.

-The Flash: I categorically refused to watch this one because 1) I got spoiled on what happens to Supergirl and y'all know I love Kara so it pissed me off, and 2) the CGI nostalgia fest felt extremely cynical and cash-grab-y to me. Not particularly interested in watching this one, but maybe someday.

-Blue Beetle: Gods, I really wanted to watch this one in theaters. It was in my town for all of two days and I couldn't go :( I plan on watching this one soon-ish - even if it's really bad I'll probably enjoy it, I'm a Jaime simp haha :P

-Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Genuinely didn't know this one was coming out. Also not particularly interested in watching it, but also not against it, so I'll probably end up putting it on some really boring weekend hahaha.

[sebeth]

All-Star Squadron #1 (Revised 12/30/23)

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

“The World On Fire!” by Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler. Published in 1981. This must have been early in Jerry Ordway’s career as he’s listed as “Jeremiah Ordway” in the credits.

The opening caption states: “On the world we know as Earth-One, the planet’s mightiest heroes have banded together since 1960, as the far-famed Justice League of America. In 1940, in a parallel dimension we call Earth-Two, the precursors of those heroes became the legendary Justice Society of America, even as total war raged in Europe, Asia, and Africa, That was nearly two years ago.”

We open with a scene of Hawkman flying, noting it took him well over an hour to fly from Washington to Manhattan.

Hawkman debuted in 1940.

Hawkman enters the JSA meeting room only to be ambushed by Plastic Man? 

“Good Gravy!”  I love the old-school expressions of surprise.  Less realistic but more charming than cuss words.

Hawkman says he recognizes the “outfit – and that stretched out shape – from the newsreels several weeks back”.

Plastic Man debuted at Quality Comics in August 1941. Assuming Plastic Man kept a low profile after he debuted, its quite possible that Hawkman wouldn’t have heard of Plas until the fall of 1942. DC didn’t purchase Quality Comics until 1956 and later began integrating the characters into the DC Universe.

Plastic Man reveals that he’s here on the direct orders of President Franklin Roosevelt.  Plastic Man realizes that Wesley Dodds, the owner of the penthouse, must be a member of the Justice Society.  Hawkman tries to play it off but Plastic Man isn’t buying it.

Plastic Man is impressed that Dodds can afford “one of those new-fangled television sets”. 

Hawkman and Plastic Man listen to the radio and discover that the rest of the Justice Society have been captured by various villains:

1)      Solomon Grundy captured the Flash, Green Lantern, and “non-member” Wonder Woman in Los Angeles.

2)      Professor Zodiak captured Batman, Robin, and Superman in Gotham City.

3)      Wotan captured Dr. Fate and the Spectre in Salem, Massachusetts.

4)      Johnny Thunder, Starman, and Sandman disappeared aboard a flying Spanish galleon in New York City.

Plastic Man points out that one of those individuals had to be Wesley Dodds. Hawkman’s deflection abilities clearly need improvement.

Hawkman reveals that he, along with Dr. Mid-Nite and the Atom battled the Monster a few hours ago at the Lincoln Memorial.  The Monster gasps out “Degaton” and vanishes. 

An editor’s note reveals the flashbacks are from “the prevue issue – see letters page for details”. I miss editor’s notes.

Hawkman and Plastic Man head to Washington, DC.  The duo is attacked by a men dressed like insects.  The insect men vanish before they can be questioned.

Mr. Hopkins, a member of the FBI, is urgently awaiting contact from the JSA. If no contact is made, “Sunday, December 7, 1941” is liable to go down as the most tragic day in America’s history!” Cue foreshadowing.

We change locations to the Hawaiian Islands as the Shining Knight is taking Winged Victory, his Pegasus, for a ride. 

The Shining Knight debuted in 1941.

Shining Knight is reflecting on his origin and his teammates in the Law’s Legionnaires.  The team consists of Vigilante, Crimson Avenger, Star-Spangled Kid, Green Arrow, and the Shining Knight. Justin notes that he is from the time of King Arthur (his liege-lord) but was “cast adrift, in a prison of ice, within which we slumbered for a thousand years..aye, and half as long again.”

Justin and Steve Rogers can be frozen-in-ice buddies!

The Law’s Legionnaires aka the Seven Soldiers of Victory formed in 1941.

Sir Justin encounters a red-haired damsel on the beach: geologist Danette Reily. If you are familiar with the pre-Crisis Earrth-2 characters, you know who Danette is.  If not, you’ll find out soon.  Danette is studying a local volcano.  She also mentions that her brother, an Ensign in the Navy, had to head back to Pearl Harbor.  Cue more foreshadowing.  The duo enters a cavern and encounter Professor Zodiak and Solomon Grundy.  Justin notes “’twas a battle with such an ogre as you which caused my passage into this modern world”. Grundy doesn’t take being called an ogre well. Solomon quickly defeats Danette and the Shining Knight.  The duo re-gain consciousness only to discover that they are prisoners of Grundy, Zodiak, Wotan, the Sky Pirate, and Per Degaton.

Per Degaton notes that two of their number – the Monster and King Bee – are no longer with them.  Per Degaton states that he has travelled back in time – from 1947 – to conquer the world itself!

Per Degaton debuted in 1947 and is a persistent foe of the Justice Society to the present day.

Solomon Grundy debuted in 1944 as a foe of Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern. He frequently battles the Justice Leage and Batman.

Wotan debuted in 1940. Best known as a nemesis of Doctor Fate.

Professor Zodiak debuted in 1948. He battled the World’s Finest.

The Sky Pirate debuted in 1947 and fought the Green Lantern.

King Bee debuted in 1943 and battled several members of the Justice Society.

The Monster debuted in 1944 and fought several members of the Justice Society.

Per Degaton, Solomon Grundy, and Wotan are fairly well-known characters but Roy Thomas’ use of the obscure Professor Zodiak, the Monster, the Sky Pirate, and King Bee shows his love of the Golden Age of comics.

Degaton informs the Shining Knight that he is a time-traveler from the year 1947.

Rod Reilly, Danette’s brother, is at Wheeler Field.  Rod reveals that he is Firebrand – a fact unknown to his military superiors. Rod has been picked up by his sidekick/chauffer Slugger Dunn.

Rod and Slugger debuted in 1941. Danette debuted in this very issue.

The attack on Pearl Harbor begins.  Rod Reilly and Slugger are wounded/killed from the gunfire of a Japanese plane. The time is noted to be 7:35 am.

We head back to Washington DC where the Atom and Dr. Mid-Nite – in full costume – are watching a football game.  Ed Simmons of the FBI approaches the duo and informs them of the ongoing attack on Pearl Harbor.  Robotman meets up with the duo and they head to the White House. Doctor Mid-Nite notes that he “read a police report on you, just a couple of weeks ago – how you came out of nowhere, to catch the murderers of Dr. Robert Crane”.

Doctor Midnight debuted in 1941, the Atom in 1940, and Robotman in 1942.

Johnny Chambers, a cameraman for Sees-All-Tells-All News, bumps into Libby Lawrence, a famous radio war correspondent.  They also head to the White House.

We get a quick recap of Libby’s background – she has spent most of World War II in Europe. She had to flee Poland when the Nazis attacked but her father was killed in Warsaw by a falling bomb. She had to flee Holland and France when those countries fell to the Germans. She was at Dunkirk and only escaped by swimming the channel over to England.

Plastic Man and Hawkman arrive at the White House.

Johnny and Libby split up and change into their respective heroic identities: Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle.  They also storm the White House.

Johnny Quick and Tubby Watts debuted in 1941. Liberty Belle debuted in late 1942/early 1943.

Johnny & Liberty are quite aware of the other’s secret identity – not that they choose to reveal it.

The Justice Society members try to pull rank but are shot down by the newcomers. As Johnny Quick states: “Much as I admire you JSA boys, especially the Flash, if the White House needs heroes with fancy powers, I’m as much an American as any of you!”

The heroes are ushered into a meeting with FDR.  FDR explains that his original plan was to get the JSA to Hawaii before the attack.  Obviously, that’s a no-go at this point.  The new plan is to mobilize every one of the nation’s costumed heroes into an All-Star Squadron.  Responsible only to FDR himself.

FDR assigns Plastic Man to be the liaison to the FBI.  Plastic Man was an FBI agent early in his comic book career. FDR refers to the heroes as “mystery men” and not as “super-heroes”.

FDR wants the group to fly to California to protect the mainland if necessary.  Liberty puts in a quick call to Philadelphia to have the Liberty Bell rung – it gives her a power boost. Thomas Revere, a member of Liberty Belle’s supporting cast, answers the call and rings the bell. Thomas debuted with Liberty Belle and is a descendant of Paul Revere.

Per Degaton, his cronies, Danette, and Sir Justin arrive in San Francisco.

Per Degagon brags that he has conquered time, and he will now conquer the planet.

Next: “The battle for San Francisco!”

A great first issue.  I’m always amazed by how much the older era comics crammed into a single, normal-sized issue.  In one issue, we had the capture of the Justice Society, the death(?) of the original Firebrand, the revelation of the bad guy, the formation of the new group, and glimpses into the origins of Liberty Belle and Shining Knight.  We also saw the start of the Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle romance.  This would take at least 4 issues in modern comics.

Roy Thomas has a lot of love for the characters of this era, and it shows. He not only has the heroes but they’re supporting cast and some rather obscure villains. I would recommend tracking down the 1980’s Secret Origin series if you would like to learn more about these characters.  Roy Thomas would write the origin stories for the Golden Age characters – they were interesting and entertaining even if you had never heard of the characters before.

[falconcoast]

thin ice | childe x reader | afterword.

masterlist to the series

a/n: this is a rolling document, so if you have any more questions, i can still add them here :D

congratulations for completing this 100,000-something word monster of a fic. whether you read this as it was posted, or as an AO3 nightly binge (bless your heart), i want to sincerely thank you for taking the time to read thin ice.

it has been an absolute pleasure to interact with you all. i’ve seen all of your kind words, screaming “please don’t break them up” or “gdi grace are they gonna ever confess or not”, and incoherent sobbing.

at times, i thought i would never see the end of thin ice, because, well, it’s long! everyone’s support motivation was the reason why i saw through the end of thin ice. you all have given me such kind words, and i hope that thin ice has lived up to at least some of it.

i would like to give a brief thank you to some folks:

piper, you will never read this, but this whole damn thing is dedicated to you. if y’all don’t know who she is, piper is one of my good friends who plays hockey. piper served as my muse for both childe’s technical hockey terms and y/n’s blunt and fierce personality.

my wonderful beta, thank you for proofreading this whole thing so some of it makes sense.

and of course, to all my moots, especially @wolfhookk​, for always being there when i needed you most :D

now, i asked for some of y’all to send in questions for a q&a, considering the time it took to write thin ice has been approximately 643 days. here are your answers.

Q: what made you write thin ice?

A: it was a combination of a lot of things tbh. piper is the obvious answer, but the earliest, i think, was my crush on this hockey guy in seventh grade. i was absolutely in love with this guy, he was respectful, kind, intelligent, and his only flaw was that he played hockey (never date a hockey guy. they are walking red flags. unless they’re named childe). anyways, to get his attention, i started watching hockey. i unironically love hockey now tho.

there was also this online web comic series called check please! that i really adored and loved :)

i was also making thin ice as a way to write enemies to lovers, which was one of my favorite tropes to read. plus, nothing wrong with a good slowburn :D

Q: did any movies or books really inspire you to write thin ice?

A: hmm outside of check please!, not really! i will say i watched a couple of documentaries about hockey, and the mighty ducks a couple of times, but that’s about the extent of my inspiration.

also while in the middle of thin ice, i was looking for books to read about hockey and found so many not safe for work novels D: was not a fun time

Q: what made you write y/n and childe’s love story the way you did?

A: i’ve always enjoyed reading enemies to lovers, no matter the au. so!! i just transferred that love into this fic :)

i also wanted to display everything that builds up into a relationship, because realistically, i don’t think love builds overnight. everything, from the first “what the fuck you taught my brother how to skate” to “what the fuck why did you injure yourself” to “what the fuck i kind of love you” to “what the fuck i want you to marry me and i want to spend the rest of my life with you”, was something that i truly believed could happen in real life. small, quirky things, like when y/n gave childe the soup or when they walked in on childe taking an ice bath, are what i loved writing about their relationship the most, and again!! realistic slowburn y’all!

(also y/n and childe never stopped their banter because that was always their way of showing affection for one another, and like. it made more sense to me over them being all over each other; that’s a pretty sharp turn of relationship lolol)

Q: What’s your favorite thing about thin ice? maybe a scene or an experience while you were writing it?

A: i really really love the dialogue in thin ice!! i think it gradually improved over the course of its existence, which i am super proud of :D

my favorite scene would be the entirety of chapter 22, the kiss scene on the ice (had that planned out from the third chapter), and the scene where y/n and childe sleep together on the couch (personally i call it the “stay” scene :D)

my favorite experience would be teasing some angst. love seeing y’all cry in my inbox <3

Q: where did you struggle with thin ice?

A: i definitely struggled with technical terms as i’m not really a sporty person lmaooo i do speech and debate, mun, and literally every other extracurricular except for sports LOL so i struggled with how hockey technicalities works (ironic since i watch it every wknd) and figure skating jumps and spins too ^^; eventually i got the hang of it, but thin ice is not 100% accurate to ice hockey or skating

Q: around what age is y/n and where are their parents?

A: for most of thin ice, y/n is 22, as they are a senior in college. towards the end of it, they would be around 25 in chapter 25 (as it’s been three years since childe and y/n got together), and about 26 in the epilogue because they got married a year later.

as for their parents, i wanted to make sure that y/n was able to be anyone and everyone. since not everyone has a great relationship has a great relationship with their parents, i left them out of it. whether or not they actually have parents is completely up to the reader.

Q: got any writing rituals?

A: ooh i actually really love just writing in bed !! am i aware that it’s not good to write in bed bc you end up sleepy ?? yeah,,,, do i really care ?? absolutely not !!

i also like tea and some background music when writing :D usually puts me in a good mood!!

Q: why did thin ice take so long?

A: imo i think it took so long because of my writing process. for me, i don’t sit down and write out a plan and get at it. i often have to spend a couple of weeks figuring out what i want for this next chapter and write it up in a few days' time. i had a very brief outline for thin ice a couple of months after i started writing it, but mostly let the whole thing unfold with time.

Q: will we ever see a sequel?

A: nope! can confirm that this is is basically the end of thin ice and i will not be returning to write up another sequel. i feel like the story is complete as it is, and honestly i cannot think of anything that would induce a sequel. i would be willing to write a drabble or two, but no more full-length series from here y’all.

Q: like y/n and childe, where do you go from here?

A: again, no sequels for thin ice as far as i’ve planned ^^; i think i’m just gonna do a few fics and headcanons here and there while i plan for my next series. but first and foremost i will be taking a nap after this

lastly, thank you all so much for reading thin ice. i hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day! :D

grace falconcoast. <3

p.s.: the next series is, in fact, another childe x reader fic! the au can be found ~somewhere~ in my tumblr tags. happy hunting!

[goddamnwebcomics]

Rascals

*Already on the rifflist, but I didn’t like how the original submissioner made it vague. 

It’s a comedy, slice-of-life webcomic drawn and written by Kevin Challenger (AKA Mastergodai).

It stars our plucky young adult named Chrissy starting off her new semester at college. She meets a guy named Quick after being confused as one of his best friends during a prank off, which she proceeds to attack him for. Afterwards, the two quickly start growing some interests in each other. Follow the adventures of Chrissy, Quick, and the rest of the oddball cast as they go through various misadventures of juvenile debauchery and cheesy romantic drama.

This comic…. This comic here! There’s a lot of things to say about it. It’s definitely one of those really bad fanservice-y types of comics that want to be an anime, but feel like just the author cramming in enough clichés, jokes and pop-culture references as possible. Don’t get me wrong. There is a story between the cast members that the comic tries to explore and even flesh out a few of them through concentrated plots depending on who you’re talking to. But this damn thing is lazy in how they pace them (and also written if you ask me) and even at times gets bored of them during a storyline with how often the author cuts them off and moves on to something else. The author also likes to use as many sex jokes and cheesecake related scenes and jokes as possible in the comic. It’s like a harem anime when these scenes come up, especially when Quick is involved. Dialogue can also sound childish and awkward in some places, especially when it comes to the adults. I don’t want to sound like there aren’t any good comedic moments in there. Because there is. But they’re as few and far between as you can imagine, unless you’re one of those readers that can handle all the mediocrity.

The art. God the art. I could save you the trouble and say it’s a cheaper worse version of Chalodillo’s art, especially Las Lindas (which it very much is), but no. That would be too easy and I need to go a little deeper in it. The art style looks stiff with the characters looking like they’re placed on top of the background rather than with it. Action shots are not choreographed or even posed correctly. They feel like they are just stiffly placed over dynamic looking panels. And the backgrounds look like stalk images you would use for a dating sim. Which isn’t bad completely. It’s not bad to use stalk images for backgrounds. I’ve seen enough comics that use that to avoid having to draw them and can fit it in a scene (examples include Carry On and Endless Summer Syndrome being ones that can do it). But most of the time with Rascals, it feels cheap and pretty noticeable if you look at it long enough, but since these are all just backgrounds you won’t pay attention to it long enough as it does its job. It’s still something to mention though. His art is a far cry from how it started where I actually liked when there was a lot of effort put into it with how characters looked and mostly designed. With backgrounds that still weren’t great, but more fitting to use. They were still stalk images, but they were used fine enough when he didn’t rely on them too often unless they were really needed for some scenes. Personally, I would say if he went with how he used to draw the characters but with improved designs and drawing techniques, it would’ve been a well drawn comic to look through and stand out more compared to what we have now. I can’t say the art style he chose for the comic nowadays is “bad”, but it just feels too cheap and recycled to say it’s anything more than okay.

Overall, it’s a piece of work to go through and read. To be honest, it depends on the person reading it. You’ll either like it, hate it, or be stuck in the middle of it. Where you can enjoy most of it, but be very aware of its flaws. Say what you want about Las Lindas, but that comic has more character and story development with a better fit art style than this one. Which is ironic because I despise how the art style looked in the beginning of Las Lindas besides a few characters than Rascals. It understands what it wants to be (or at least tries to anyway) than Rascals where that comic screws around a lot of the times with only a few good qualities in between the rougher parts.

Well, a comic that makes Las Lindas look and sound better in comparison is certainly something. And no offense but this is the first time I’ve heard of “stalk images”, are you sure you don’t mean stock images?

[pathfinderunlocked]

Chitauri Power Staff Soldier - CR4 Monstrous Humanoid

A technologically advanced melee soldier based on the Chitauri from the MCU. 

Artwork is official concept art from Marvel Universe LIVE!, by Marvel Entertainment.

This creature was created as a commission.

Chitauri are an alien species of ruthless invaders with an extreme military society.  Although capable of acting and thinking independently to some degree, all chitauri soldiers within a fleet are connected with the other members of that fleet in a massive hive mind, and are subservient to their hive queen.  If the hive queen is killed, the entire force immediately falls dead, so the hive queen typically stays far away from combat (often in a vehicle or fortress of some kind).

From a young age, most chitauri are designated as soldiers, and are given cybernetic implants and drugs which improve their physical capabilities at the cost of stunting their mental and emotional growth.  Their entire culture is dedicated to combat and conquest.

This version of the chitauri is based on their appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially the 2012 Avengers movie.  There is an alien species called the chitauri in the Marvel comics as well, but they are shapeshifting reptilian infiltrators and bear little resemblance to the chitauri from the films.

Some of the chitauri soldiers in the films had actual guns, but others used a power staff which could perform limited ranged attacks, and I used that as the inspiration for this creature’s weapon.  The fact that it’s biologically keyed to the chitauri isn’t accurate to the films (Black Widow fights with one in a deleted fight scene), but I did it for balance reasons.  Of course, if you actually want your PCs to run around with stolen technological weapons for the rest of the campaign, you can remove that aspect - a good alternative limiting factor might be that the chitauri power staff counts as an exotic weapon, and any magical enhancement treats the staff’s melee attack and ranged attack as two different weapons that have to be enhanced separately.

Chitauri Power Staff Soldier - CR 4

The dark grayish skin of this extremely muscular soldier is covered only by gold-colored metal armor that appears to be fused directly onto its skin.  It’s carrying a metal staff that’s flattened on one side, the end of which buzzes with some kind of mysterious energy.

XP 1,200 LE Medium monstrous humanoid Init +2 Senses darkvision 60 ft., hive mind; Perception +1

DEFENSE

AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+6 armor, +2 Dex) hp 45 (6d10+12) Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +6 Defensive Abilities fused armor

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft. Melee chitauri power staff +9/+4 (1d8+4 plus 1d4 electricity, see text) Ranged chitauri power staff +8 touch (3d6 electricity, 1d3+1 round cooldown, see text) Special Attacks chitauri power staff

STATISTICS

Str 17, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 4 Base Atk +6; CMB +9; CMD 21 Feats Distracting Charge, Great Fortitude, Power Attack Skills Acrobatics +8, Climb +13, Swim +13; Racial bonuses +4 climb, +4 swim Languages Chitauri SQ coordinate, hive mind Gear chitauri power staff

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Chitauri Power Staff (Ex) Once every 1d3+1 rounds, a chitauri power staff soldier can use its chitauri power staff as a ranged weapon with a range increment of 30 ft. that targets touch AC.  The power staff deals 3d6 electricity damage when used in this way.

On the round following a ranged attack, until the end of the soldier’s next turn, a chitauri power staff deals no electricity damage on melee attacks.

A chitauri power staff is a technological item that is biologically keyed to its user.  In the hands of any creature except the chitauri power staff user it was created for, it functions as a heavy mace.

Coordinate (Ex) When a chitauri power staff soldier attacks a creature in melee, allied chitauri gain a +2 insight bonus on melee attack rolls against that creature until the start of the chitauri power staff soldier’s next turn.

Fused Armor (Ex) A chitauri power staff soldier wears metal armor that is permanently fused to its body.  This fused armor cannot be removed, but can be sundered (10 hardness, 30 HP).  This fused armor counts as light armor, grants the chitauri power staff soldier a +6 armor bonus to AC, and has no armor check penalty and no maximum Dexterity bonus.  These bonuses are already included in its statistics.

Hive Mind (Ex) Chitauri are linked to a hive mind, which consists of a hive queen and a maximum number of chitauri based on the hive queen’s hit dice.  All chitauri within 50 miles of their hive queen are in constant communication with her and each other.  If one is aware of a particular danger, they all are.  A chitauri does not lose its dexterity bonus to AC against an attacker unless all chitauri from the same hive within line of sight are also denied their dexterity bonus to AC against that attacker.  A chitauri is not considered flanked unless all chitauri from the same hive within line of sight of it are also flanked.

A chitauri immediately dies if its hive queen is killed.

[mari--lace]

thank you for the tag @novasforce

Number of stories posted to AO3:

17

2. Word count this year:

38568 (on Ao3. It doesn't account for what I only published on an italian fanfiction site [which doesn't have a word count like Ao3])

3. Fandoms I wrote for:

taking the list from AO3:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Black Widow

Daredevil (TV)

Harry Potter

Hawkeye (comics/TV)

The Mirror Visitor

Miraculous Ladybug

Moon Knight (TV)

Ms Marvel (comics/TV)

She-Hulk: Attorney at law

Spider-Man (MCU)

The Avengers

4. Pairings:

I mostly wrote gen relationships this year, but here are the pairings:

Matt Murdock/Jennifer Walters

Matt Murdock/Claire Temple

Matt Murdock/Natasha Romanov

Clint Barton/Laura Barton

Michelle Jones/Peter Parker

Draco Malfoy/Luna Lovegood

Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng (MLB)

Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng (MLB)

5. Stories with the most:

Kudos: What am I looking at, Matt? — published right after She-Hulk ep 8 and the hype for the episode did the rest, my most popular story ever :")

Bookmarks: same as above!

Comment threads: A marvelous october, which has 31 chapters. The fic with more comment threads on a single chapter would be the same as above!

Word count: Same as above with its 31 chapters. As a writer, most of my stories are pretty short; my longest one-chapter story on Ao3 (for 2022 at least) would be Sorelle dal sangue diverso, a one-shot in Italian.

6. Work I'm most proud of (and why):

What's in a soul? I'm really proud of how this turned out. It has Natasha coming back without her memories when Bruce snaps his fingers and it delves on the bond between memoried and identity. Is she still Natasha? Is she not? She meets Matt along the way.

7. Work I'm least proud of (and why): maybe a short hogwarts!au I wrote in italian for a challenge. I'm not super satisfied with the final result (mostly because it doesn't really go anywhere), but it was one of the first things I wrote for the Daredevil fandom, so there's that.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

"oh my goshhhh this is so poetic and beautiful. "Would you like to tell me why?" MY HEART.

Also, Nat saying she “Swapped it for an orange rock.” made me smile. A very Nat thing to say. (And she says she's not still Nat!)"

"oh wow, this is so good, and so poignant? in a way. how you portrayed Nat’s identity issues and struggling to be someone you’re not, someone everyone expects you to be, felt so real. this fic was so lovely. thank you so much for writing! <3"

Both those two comments made me smile so much 🥹

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: Pretty much all the first part of the year, from January to September. I wrote next to nothing then.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: Maybe that I actually wrote about Clint and Laura. Also Jennifer Walters, I wasn't expecting it but I found writing from her pov pretty easy and kinda fun.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: from What's in a soul?:

“I'm the ghost of a sister. I'm the ghost of a friend. I'm the ghost of a killer and a hero.” She pauses. Her heartbeat slows back to its usual steady rhythm. “I'm a shadow who is more comfortable talking and fighting with a vigilante than surrounded by people who say they love her.”

12: How did you grow as a writer this year: I wrote a lot directly in English, which is something I didn't really do before (I've translated a few stories in the past, but translating and writing are pretty different processes).

13. How do you hope to grow next year: I hope to keep writing, first of all, in both English and Italian. I hope to improve and to be able to write meaningful stories.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): I can't not mention @ceterisparibus116. I read pretty much every Daredevil story on her profile and I fell in love with everything – the themes, the characterizations, the plots. So good aaaaaaaaaaaa

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: there's always something from my experiences in my writing, usually in a not very explicit way, but yeah.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: Don't write to cater to an audience; write to cater to yourself. If you love what you do, readers can see that love, and they'll believe in it, too. <- I'm keeping @novasforce's advise because it's really good! And I completely agree. Write what you like first and foremost, without worrying about how many people might or might not read and appreciate it.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: I am working on something for the DDE, so there's that. I'm also joining a challenge to write a story a month according to certain themes, so I hope to be able to fulfill that too (last year I only got 7 months/12).

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read:

Just, anyone who wants to do this feel free to! Plus @reginadiutopia @drogatadiapifrizzole @folkloristico

[warriorcatsamino]

The Warriors “manga”.. the only canon medium we really have (other than the book covers maybe) that actually depicts our beloved battle cats in a visual format. Just to clarify, the Warriors “manga” are labeled incorrectly. Manga, on Google, is defined as “a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically aimed at adults as well as children.” The Warriors comics are not made by or for Japan, which means they don’t classify as a manga. The artist of the manga varies but most of them are either American or British. The redraw of the comic page was drawn by the lovely r4ven._.krkr on Instagram. However the artist behind the original page is James L Barry! If you are at all in the loop in this fandom, you probably recognize his work. He has done the artwork for almost all of the Warriors manga minus the Tigerstar & Sasha manga. He has also illustrated the little comics at the end of the super editions and had worked on other works besides Warriors. On YouTube and Twitter, he has done tutorials on how to draw in his style. For more information about Barry and examples of his work, check out his website.

Now that we have some backstory on both artists, we can talk about the actual scene taking place. This comic page came from the Ravenpaw centered manga: Ravenpaw’s Path. This series has a total of 3 books: Shattered Peace, A Clan in Need & The Heart of a Warrior. These 3 books are also available together as one big book and can be found in black & white and full color. This particular scene takes place in The Heart of a Warrior. For those who haven’t read the comic or forgot what happens, I will summarize the events that take place before and then explain this scene. Spoilers of course ahead for Ravenpaw’s Path, you have been warned. This comic takes place right after Ravenpaw & Barley help Thunderclan fight off a group of Bloodclan cats who have been causing trouble for the both of them after Scourge’s death. These Bloodclan cats have been attacking clan patrols, stealing prey. A group of them also took over Raven & Barley’s farm, kicking them out of their home. After a visit to the moonstone, Ravenpaw goes to Thunderclan to help them finish Bloodclan for good. As it turns out, Bloodclan is being run by Barley’s twin brothers, Hoot & Jumper. They have renamed themselves Snake & Ice. After being defeated, they plead with Barley to let them stay with him because the rest of Bloodclan was sick of listening to them and wanted to kill them. Barley agrees, because they are kin, and the two brothers move onto the farm. All is not well however, both Jumper & Hoot are very lazy and have Ravenpaw do everything, all the hunting and cleaning. Everytime Ravenpaw attempts to complain about them to Barley, he ignores it and takes everything his brothers say to heart. This angers Ravenpaw and the two of them have a rift between them.  Now for this actual scene, this is the scene when Barley finally discovers what his brothers have been doing to Ravenpaw and kicks them out for good. After Barley apologizes to Ravenpaw and they rekindle their bond. The comic ends with the two of them standing on the roof of the barn, looking out at their territory contently. 

This redraw was done as practice, as the artist wanted to practice drawing comics. In their post, they talk about several critiques for the art style of the comic that they aimed to fix with their rendition. They are of the opinion that the artist could have put more effort into the comic. They think the art style is okay but they don’t really like it. The things they improved upon were the designs of the cats, the mimics, and the speech bubble. For the designs, the redraw artist thinks that Barley and his 2 brothers look identical. They think a little more effort could have been made to add external features to make them different, even if the two brothers weren’t main characters. Likewise, the artist thought the expressions were kinda stiff. So they made the expressions more exciting when the expressions show different emotions for a more realistic effect. They think it makes the characters less frozen. Finally, the speech bubbles, they thought it was a good idea for each panel to have different speech bubbles. Again, they think the speech bubble helps emphasize emotion like Barley yelling in the first panel. What do YOU think? Do you prefer the redraw or the original page? Do you think these critiques are fair? How else would you edit the original comic? Me and the rest of the team would love to hear what you think in the comments below. Likewise, if you like this art style, consider leaving a like on the original post. Directly supporting the original artist benefits this account greatly. It motivates more people to allow us to use their work. Are you interested in seeing more Warriors based content? Join the Warriors Amino! We have daily posts all about these battle cats, ranging from artwork to writing to crafts!

Original Post linked here.

Original Artist linked here.

~ 🍵🥔

[ultrahpfan5blog]

The Flash Season 1 - Retrospective Review

So I started watching The Flash from scratch again. With Season 9 on the horizon sometime in 2023, I figure I will slowly work myself through the rest of the show. Watching season 1 of the show again reminded me of how good it was. I am not of the opinion that The Flash has become a bad show now. But I admit that Season 1 is probably still its strongest season and the rewatch affirmed that to me.

In all honesty, season 1 of The Flash is definitely the single best season in the Arrowverse. That includes S&L seasons, Arrow season 2, Legends season 3 onwards etc... Everyone obviously has their favorite shows so this is obviously a subjective opinion. But in my mind, The Flash season 1 is right up there with the best seasons of superhero tv, and its even more impressive given its a full 23 episode season while other great seasons of tv like seasons of The Boys, WandaVision, or Peacemaker are under 10 episodes. Daredevil, arguably my favorite streaming superhero show, clocked at 13 episodes.

Everything in season 1 felt very fresh and I think one of the most appealing things for me in season 1 is watching a very vulnerable hero at work. I mean, coming into The Flash, a lot of network heroes on the CW like Clark in Smallville, Oliver in Arrow, Sam and Dean from Supernatural etc... were all pretty tough men, sharpened through hardship. So even though all had moments of vulnerability, they were all characters who would brush it off and move on. But what was interesting about Barry was that he was genuinely very young, and while he had experienced a giant tragedy, his life outside of those events were still positive. He was a bright young man, in a supportive environment. So when he's faced with enormous challenges, he is not as sharpened and toughened like the heroes I mentioned above. He behaves a lot more like I would believe a regular person to. That's what made the character relatable to me. Frankly, this was true with a lot of the supporting cast as well. Cisco and Caitlin felt very realistic as characters. Not heroes independently just yet, just nerdy scientists. Joe West was a new creation in this show that doesn't exist in the comics and that character was a masterstroke and helped provide so much heart. He was the everyman amidst the unbelievable. This is true with other characters like Iris and Eddie and Ronnie and Martin Stein etc...

I think another thing that really worked for me is the tone. Season 1 managed to balance humor and drama incredibly well. The show embraced the fun of having powers like Barry had. Again, this added to the relatable quality of the characters and the show. The way people reacted to the events, felt quite real. And Barry's joy was quite infectious. But the show also didn't shirk away from drama. 'The Man in the Yellow Suit', 'Out of Time', and 'Fast Enough' are three of the most dramatic episodes of the season, dealing with quite a bit of drama and emotion, but they are all incredible and amongst my favorite episodes of the show. But the season also embraced the fun in episodes like the crossover Flash vs Arrow. There are just some memorably fun episodes, like Crazy for You with the hilarious Karaoke scene.

The villains were initially a little weak. Certainly in early episodes with characters like the first Weather Wizardd, Multiplex, Kyle Nimbus, and Farooq, but they did improve as the season went on. There were a few excellent casting decisions, like Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold, Dominic Purcell as Heat Wave, and Peyton List as Golden Glider. Mark Hamill returning from the 90's Flash series to play the Trickster was glorious. Hartley Rathaway was a pretty good villain as was the 2nd Weather Wizard. We also had Grodd, which was not something I expected to see executed on the show. But they were very smart with how they peppered him throughout the season and gave him an episode late in the season. Clancy Brown as Wade Eiling was another piece of excellent casting. It's a pity they never brought him back after the first season because he would have been a great recurring government foe. It has to be said that it can be argued that the best solo episode villains were all brought about in the first season itself.

Obviously, in a 23 episode season, not everything works perfectly. There are certainly some episodes that are a bit weaker than others and certain relationship dynamics that don't work. A couple of the early episodes has the show still ironing out the kinks. I think they perhaps overplayed their hand with Harrison Wells a bit when he killed Simon Stagg in just the 2nd episode, because that did make him very obviously villainish. Also, one of the key aspects of the season was the whole Barry and Iris one sided romance thing. 'All Star Team Up' was not as fun as it should have been. I'll be honest, I don't think the show has ever been able to properly nail down the WestAllen relationship and some of the issues come from the first season. I think Candice Patton is great but the character is written a bit flaky at times and she just isn't able to find the right fit in the show which is a problem the show has struggled with all its 8 seasons. I do think they should have continued the path of her being a reporter at an established newspaper and moving up the ranks, which would have felt more realistic than what they ended up doing eventually. Eddie Thawne was a character that initially felt a bit of a bore but the show figured out what to do with the character midway through the show and he became immensely more likable. One of my issues with WestAllen also became that I quite liked the Eddie and Iris relationship by end of season, to the point where I didn't really root for WestAllen that much. Also, Barry suddenly changing his opinion on Wells felt a little abrupt. I think it would have been a bit more plausible if his opinion had changed in the Trickster episode as opposed to the previous episode.

The casting of the main characters were all terrific. As I mentioned earlier, despite my issues with the character, Candice Patton was terrific as Iris. Rick Cosnett was excellent as Eddie, particularly in the back half of the season where he was more than just the stock boyfriend character. His death scene is definitely one of the powerful moments in the finale. Jesse L. Martin was outstanding as Joe. You can tell what a seasoned actor he is. Carlos Valdes does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to the humor on the show but he showed himself to be equally adept at doing drama. Danielle Panabaker was wonderful. Incredibly appealing and her dynamic with Cisco is great. The whole Barry/Cisco/Caitlin nerd trio was one of my favorite parts of the first season. They all had excellent chemistry with another. It was a masterstroke to bring John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen. A casting decision that has benefited the show throughout its run. Robbie Amell and Victor Garber were very welcome additions to the Arrowverse. As was Matt Letscher as OG Thawne.

But unarguably the two lynchpins of the first season were Grant Gustin and Tom Cavanaugh. Tom Cavanaugh as Thawne is still the best single season villain the show has had. And while he has returned many times since then, season 1 is still the highwater mark. I think it's because Thawne is such a layered character. He is bad guy but his motivations are very identifiable. He somehow manages to blend and inherent creepiness with a certain likability. He has many moments of dry humor but also fantastic dramatic moments. It's a brilliant performance and he executed the wolf in sheep's clothing character to perfection. This was also a case of hero and villain performances going brilliantly toe to toe with Grant Gustin just blowing away expectations as Barry Allen. Grant has me already invested in his two episode appearance in Arrow season 2, but he had me hooked from the scene in the pilot where he meets his father in prison. Grant Gustin's ability to show vulnerability was one of his best strengths but he also imbues the character with a lot of lightness and joy. He is just immensely likable and even when Barry does bone headed things, you are always on his side thanks to Grant. Grant and Tom facing off in these roles have always led to some of the best moments. Also, Grant absolutely owns the finale. The scene where he talks to his Mom is phenomenal acting.

All in all, this was just an excellent season of television and I had a lot of fun watching it. Arguably one of the most important seasons of tv for the Arrowverse because its success introduced the idea of time travel which fed into Legends of Tomorrow and the success of the first crossover led the way to a huge part of the success of the Arrowverse for the next 8 years. All in all, a 9/10 season.