#i'm just. handwaves. sorting some shit out

[loyalhorror]

semi-related to my chronic inability to feel like i'm part of the actual world. i've been going on walks lately, you know, to stave off The Horrors (but also just because it makes me feel better in general), and something that just catches me constantly is just... the feeling that i am Disconnected from everyone around me. that there's no-one within reach i can touch or talk to. that people have communities, families, friends, support networks in the real world that i simply do not have.

i do have friends in my city. a small handful even! but nobody that i can just show up to anymore. no-one with their door always open to me, no strings attached, no feelings of guilt or burdening to carry. i... am realising as i type this that this is part of missing harri, but it's also just a feeling i've been carrying with me ever since i left home, this feeling that, you know, i walk out into the street and it's like i'm a ghost. you know. the most human interaction i get is from my neighbour if i see him. or from shopkeepers that i can barely say two words to. you know.

ghost is a good word for it. hm.

[abyssal-author-and-artist]

My drawing stylus died yesterday but I got it to work again! Divine Falls Mabel and Dipper will be out tomorrow in all of their glory with creator notes! I'm actually enjoying Mabel's design way more than I thought I would.

Anyways, I feel like I should post Divine Falls lore/plot because... I want to.

In chronological order, not in order of how the show goes.

Ford and Stan, the twin gods of Life and Death respectively, are born to Caryn and Filbrick, married gods of Propecy and whatever I decide Filbrick gets because I literally can't think of something good for him. Ford, as Life, is put on a pedestal. For the first few years of their lives, Stan and Ford (and Shermie, god of conception or some shit, I'm still working on it) have their own wings of the main temples that their parents have. Caryn and Filbrick have one shared temple with a bunch of wings for various things.

College in this AU is replaced by temples, or rather, the status of temples. West Coast Tech is replaced by Ford being offered a large temple so large that a large city will be built around it. Think Athens. And yes, this era is very ancient Greece era because god au. Don't worry, we'll hit modern era.

So Stan wants to travel to spread his blessings. As the God of Death, he doesn't have many, but what he does have are the blessings that go unappreciated. Like granting a peaceful death to people or letting people say final goodbyes. Extending someone's life just long enough that that they can say goodbye to those that matter to them. And he wants to adventure. He wants to spread his blessings silently and see as many things as possible. He wants to do all this with Ford, whose blessings are way more obvious - long and prosperous life, fertility, that sort of thing.

When they're about to set off into the world, a human architect approaches the temple that's run by Caryn and Filbrick offering a huge temple to Ford. Filbrick wants those sweet offerings that mortals make to gods, but Stan doesn't want Ford to take it. Ford is conflicted but promises that if something goes wrong, he'll go with Stan travel the mortal world.

As an accident, Stan accidentally kills the forest where they want to build the temple and the town surrounding it. Stan becomes a pariah because he messed up his brother's chance to have his own temple. Stan goes on the run, pretending to be a mortal and spreading blessings more subtly. He still ends up in jail because people think he's suspicious, but he manages to break out every time.

Meanwhile, Ford is struggling to make his own mark. Because his first temple was ruined so dramatically - rotted trees and cracked stone all the way down - architects see him as a bad omen. He manages to share a temple with Fiddleford for a while, then finally gets his own little temple in a small, newly founded lumber town, where he becomes the main religious figure. People have to make pilgrimages to him, but for the most part, he's free to just exist as a god in a remote mountain town in butt-fuck nowhere, oregon.

One day, he's wandering around disguised as a mortal when there's not many people praying to him as he often does. He finds a cave and senses divine energy and decides, fuck it, he's gonna go in. He finds an inscription on a wall in a language long lost, even to him, and recites it in stuttering words. He's almost disappointed until Bill shows up.

To Ford, Bill feels divine, but weakened. So, naturally, instead of assuming Bill is a fallen Old God (which is the correct answer), he assumes Bill is an archangel for a fallen god - "Maybe even Stanley's archangel? Did he ever have one?" - because archangels are much closer to mortal life than gods are and can be seen in their most powerful form without driving a mortal insane. Basically near-mortal vessels of pure divinity. Bill being a triangle, well, it's odd for an archangel, but Ford's willing to handwave it because divinity does strange things to the mundane and a part of him is latched to the idea that Bill is somehow the mortal hand of Stan (where mortal hand is shorthand for archangel or other mortal vessel of divinity) despite the fact that that makes no sense. Bill uses this to convince Ford that his power, his remaining divinity, can be restored by a certain magical artifact that needs to be remade.

Now, Ford is good with creation and life, but not so much with recreating ancient artifacts with inscriptions from gods and divine entities long dead. So he calls up his old pal Fiddleford, god of Science, to help. Instantly Fiddleford is suspicious of Bill because something feels off. Additionally, Ford was always the one who preferred learning new things about mortal life and ancient artifacts, yet he didn't even bother trying to translate the text? But alas, Fiddleford doesn't know a lot about translating the odd and the strange, so he leaves it at just an odd feeling.

As I'm sure you know if you are a Gravity Falls fan, Fiddleford is right to be suspicious of Bill. In this, Bill's trying to restore his powers and status as an Old God. Part of the way through the reconstruction of the artifact, it goes haywire and Fiddleford receives a fraction of Bill's sealed power, which includes a lot of very not good things, like straight up mass mind control with no cooldown or wind up. It makes him realize that, oh, Bill is an Old God in disguise. He leaves the project and Ford gives up a fraction of his divine influence so Bill can use it to finish the project. He's nearly at the end when Ford takes over again to go grant a blessing. And then he realizes Fiddleford was right.

He calls up Stan, first verifying that he's been tricked and that Stan never had an archangel or other mortal hand due to being an outcast despite the fact that, as Life and Death, Stan and Ford could have mortal hands. When Stan affirms this, Ford calls him over.

Despite being a god, Stan has to manually travel to Gravity Falls, Oregon - his divine influence is weak and many people don't even know that there's a god of Death anymore, let alone worship him. He's stealing offerings from other god's altars just to survive at times - and often gets thrown in jail because he's seen as thieving from the gods when he, himself, is one of them. When he gets to Ford, Ford has descended into paranoia and the town is nervous and anxious due to their town's patron deity not interacting with them anymore. Ford is in his human form, which seals most of his divine influence, when Stan gets to the temple. He's paranoid and isn't even letting people in his temple. Luckily, he has enough offerings to sustain himself, but he's basically starving himself so he and Stan have about the same amount of influence - basically none.

The journals are literally the same except they cover different topics. Basically, Ford gives Stan a book (Journal 1) that covers how best to perform the duties of Life. Journal 2, as held by Gideon, describes how best to use offerings and influence granted by worshippers. Journal 3, once discovered by Dipper, is a record of divine phenomena such as how festivals affect divinity and how the flow of time can sometimes warp strangely (see: The Time Traveler's Pig in canon for why I need to write time travel into the journals). All three have mentions of Bill, and the diagrams and notes for how to recreate the divine artifact.

Ford, instead of getting thrown into the multiverse, has his influence sealed and his power is scattered across the universe as a rogue natural force. He's sentient but he can't interact with anyone, not even as a wisp of influence. His power has been sealed in the same place most of Bill's is, which makes it so he can interact with Bill's well of influence. He spends his time attempting to annihilate Bill's power while sealed, resigned to never being brought back because the artifact is partially crushed, mostly used, and two of his journals have been relocated around the town.

Stan takes over the temple. It starts small, where he just uses some of the stockpiled offerings, one after the other, but eventually, he runs out of influence and needs to reopen the temple. Luckily, if he steals some of Ford's accessories that are the things most vividly depicted in murals of him, he can pass as Ford, the God of Life, pretty easily. He uses the journal to bullshit as many of Ford's powers as possible, but that's rather difficult so he ends up just using any of his powers that he can. Because he has a lot of blessings he can give, it works, and he's able to pass as a somewhat-subpar Life for a few centuries.

Fast forward to probably about the same time Gravity Falls takes place (if not a little earlier). Mabel and Dipper, twin Gods of Earth and Space, live with their parents, the Sun and the Moon, until they're sent away to live with "Stanford, god of Life" in his temple. The idea is that they're learning how to harness their powers best with an experience god on their power level while also using the small town that's very used to the divine and supernatural due to the sheer amount of gods walking among them to learn how to interact with mortals. Dipper finds Journal 3 and uses it to learn a lot of things about divinity and the anomalies.

Something that might be seen as a plot hole: the Earth and Space have existed probably longer than Life of Death. As have a lot of the concepts embodied by children - Pacifica is the god of Change which is one of the oldest concepts ever and Gideon, as the god of Magic, has existed as long as magic has existed. To cover for this, every once in a while a God's essence needs to be returned to the fabric of the universe to merge with other concepts and create new world and religious orders. For example, when Pacifica and Fiddleford (Change and Science, respectively) die, their essences will meld together into Progress. Therefore, Mabel and Dipper were likely part of an entity known as Reality before they died and split into twin gods.

Dipper, as Space, is naturally inclined to keep learning everything about everything - things symbolized by space include mystery, magic, and knowledge, after all, so he's likely to seek out the strange, paranormal and divine.

Mabel, as Earth, is a free spirit who adores creation and finding new, fun mortal pursuits. In general, she's a lot more focused on the mortal side of things than Dipper is - where he wants to learn everything about godhood and their divinity, she wants to enjoy walking among mortals for as long as possible.

When Ford gets brought back, he yells at Stan, revealing he was about to destroy the seat of Bill's power and now they have to go about it the hard way.

Most of the series plays out mostly the same except Weirdmageddon is replaced by Bill regaining his godhood and is defeated by erasing his divine presence with something similar to the memory gun, which has been invented by Fiddleford to prevent his influence from fracturing. There's new logistics behind it which I will. get to. eventually.

So that's basically a broad overview of the plot and I might end up making this into a fic because I have gone feral over this AU. In case you. Couldn't tell.

I might make a separate blog for Divine Falls stuff one of these days because this is a lot, but I'm not sure I will.

[papermint-airplane]

I felt a bizarre and troubling urge today to play a horsegirl. Honestly, I found this hair retexture by Mels Sims (my new favorite hair supplier 😘) and I was like "THAT IS FUCKING HORSEGIRL HAIR!" And so, we were off to the proverbial races.

Meet Savannah Colter

Only a CAS shot for now because I'm still loading into Appaloosa Plains. I should have made her a teen living with her wizened uncle who owns a horse ranch but hindsight is 20/20.

When I was a tween, I was a voracious reader like nothing else. I absolutely bodied every summer reading contest like it was my calling in life. I want to make it abundantly clear that I was not a horsegirl in any way shape or form. I had some hand-me-down gen 1 My Little Ponys from my sister and I had a singular horse and horse trailer for my Barbies, but that was the extent of it. I guess I've never really understood the appeal of horse culture. Like, yeah, horses are cute and I guess riding is pretty cool in theory but, Idk man, they're just horses. If it had not been for my self-appointed mission to read every single mid-grade chapter book in the library, I would not have touched horsegirl literature with a ten foot pole. But I read every single horsegirl book written for 8-12 year olds that existed by the late 90s/early 00s and do you know what I remember? The tropes. Not a single specific godforsaken storyline, but those tropes are etched into my brain wrinkles.

So I aimed to make this Sim as true to my tweendom as I could muster. Her name is Savannah because of course it is. Her surname is Colter because nominative determinism was always big in tween books. "My name is Pizzalisamaria so pizza is my entire life," you know, that sort of thing. It's a thing, I promise. She likes blue because she's basic as fuck, indie music because she's deep as fuck, and hamburgers because she's NoT LiKe tHe oThEr gIrLs wHo oNlY EaT SaLaD. 🤪 The locket she wears is your classic Orphan Trinket™ because her parents died saving her in a mysterious fire because it's always a mysterious fire. Always.

And the traits? Did I keep up with the horsegirl theming in the traits?

You bet your *Googles horse terms* Martingale I did.

Shit that would have been a better surname. Oh well. Hindsight again. *dismissive handwave*

She is an equestrian (obviously). She loves the outdoors, so much so, she's hardly ever indoors. She's lucky because how else does she escape all of those horse-related trials like getting caught in brambles or discovering a rattlesnake on the riding trail? And she's brave as a result, because there's no need to fear any obstacle in life when you just shimmy out of trouble like an oiled up hog. And the pièce de résistance, clumsy. Because every horsegirl novel heroine needs one single flaw and it has to be the quirky endearing one.

Her horse's name is Casserole because I'm still me.

[wannaeatramyeon]

You hit the nail on the head! I‘ll ask for more professional assessment: honest opinion on Crystal?

Following on from my ramblings about Sally Park. Oops! Edited to add in Zoe too.

Well written female characters in Lookism? Uhh...

When the bar is at an all time low, it's really not hard to step over it.

At this point, I've been pavloved to think that any female character that expresses a personality trait other than 'simp' is pretty good. Simp is fun when it's part of a list of characteristics (Zack, Ryuhei). Not so much when it's the only thing.

Long live PTJ, the greatest feminist. Anyway.

Female characters I like

Mary Kim

Love her. Empress of 2 seconds. Queen of my heart.

Surprisingly kept a platonic relationship with Vin Jin, showing quite a healthy mixed gender friendship. Sassy and smart. Loyal. Good taste in men (Jace). Is shown having a life and interests outside of a man.

On my hands and knees praying that PTJ doesn't ruin her. Kinda glad she hasn't appeared in a while so she is kept away from his incessant need to turn everyone into a love interest.

Lua Im

Once we got over the odd Johan panels, which I heard the Korean audience didn't like and I'm quite happy about, she's fine. And it's not that I care that much about Johan staying a single dog-dad, I just needed a coherent reasoning/build up why they would be interested in one another.

Lua has potential.

Sourcing intel, even impressing the likes of Gun? A little Muay Thai knowledge? Jake and Jerry scared of her? Lol. Ok. Good. Let's build on this.

Just please don't white knight her.

Crystal Choi (meh)

And Ms. Choi, because anon specifically asked. I really don't mind her? I know she's meant to be anti-Lookism but still judges people based on their looks eh. That's fine. Pretty realistic actually. Whatever.

She can be a bit bitchy for no reason. So can I. Handwaving all that.

What I do take issue with though, is her so called title of Business Genius. Please show me the chapter where she actually does something to earn that title besides the one where other people ooh-ed and aah-ed over her in the meeting with DG.

Wow she's sooooo gorgeous. Ok good for her. If that's the route they're taking her character then at least OWN. THAT. SHIT. Use her beauty and looks to sign deals and get what she wants. GOOD. DO IT.

Zoe Park (also meh... Wait)

Sorry anon, I think 'really well written' is a bit of a reach... She does have some decent character development, starting as quite a flighty, shallow girl and then showing that she has a heart of gold, liking both Daniels and. Huh.

Wait. You're right. She is pretty well written. She's selfless and kind and loyal to her friends, putting up with Logan's bullshit. There's enough of a character arc for her from the Zoe we're introduced to at first.

And I do like that she's good at maths too.

Wasted potential

Minseong Kang (Jake's momma)

Appreciate this is the older generation and from a much more conservative culture. Saying that, I am so over the slighted and bitter housewife rotting at home while her big powerful husband cheats on her.

And then some sort of marriage redemption cos they pop out a kid. Whatever. (Sorry Jake bb, I love you).

If you were going to do that, give me the most toxic red flag shit where they are constantly at each other's THROATS. Show me how they are equals. Can't live with or without one another. That's the good kinda shit.

Leonn Lee

I just. What the fuck was this.

A girl in Burn Knuckles? A group that reeks of testerone and (positive) masculinity? Show us why she joined! Show us why she stays. SURPRISE. Main character trait?? Having a crush on Vasco.

She could have been SO interesting. And she obviously trains, why not get her to fight?

Hate for irrational reasons

Joy Hong

Listen, she's not really in enough or significant enough for me to really feel one way or another about her. BUT. The reason I HATE her is because I was trying to write a headcanon involving everyone and then I got to Joy and I was STUMPED.

Sub in a plank of wood, and it would have the same depth of personality.

Truly. Who is she apart from Jay's sister and a Daniel simp? At least everyone else has something.

Others

I don't really think about them. Sera Shin has potential I guess.

And of course a special mention to Daniel's momma. She's not exactly a unique character, but who doesn't love her?

LET. THEM. FIGHT.

Lastly. Why can't we see women fight? Like the men's fights are realistic LOL. Ultra instinct? Smashing through walls? So why are women fighting men outside the realms of this.

And yes yes. Men are SoOoOoOo strong. But can they take a kick to the balls?

Are you saying Gun Park has been training his dick and balls and would be able to eat a hit there? He wouldn't go down like a heap of shit??

HUH. TELL ME THAT.

In Summary

Mary by and large is pretty well written. Lua has improved.

I don't care much about anyone else.

And I wanna see Gun, Goo, Sammy, Vin etc. get kicked in the balls in a fight.

[aphverse-confessions]

hello hey, self-proclaimed favourite anon tossing my hat about Jesson. I wanna take a crack at how people talk about Jesson because it's infuriating to see people be total extreme polars between the two. People think Jessica is an irredeemable monster, or they think Jessica gets way too much flack from her audience without understanding/acknowledging the questionable stuff.

REALLY HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE!!! I don't want this to be condoning the idea that people should be held accountable for 5+ year old behaviour. People can and will absolutely change, we shouldn't deny that people can change for the better and learn from their mistakes. Jess herself is capable of growth: she changed Kawaii~Chan's name to an actual name, Nana Ashida, actually gave a backstory to Nana and completely dropped Nana's weebish way of addressing people and dropped Kawaii~Chan as a name entirely. Give people credit where credit's due, treat people with grace and empathy.This entire confession is just my personal reflection on the Jesson debacle, just sorting out my own feelings about the two and trying to find a middle ground between the two extremes of hating Jesson and defending Jesson.

Speaking generally and not just in regards to Aphblr, a lot of people seem to completely completely blame Jess for everything wrong with the series and. Like, I don't think thats fair at all to Jess because it was Jason also contributing and helping out with the stories. We don't know who did what and quite frankly Jason did had an influence on the writing on the series so people shouldn't just scapegoat Jess.

Jess had self inserts, Jess was cringe, Jess butchered the love triangle are criticisms I saw during Youtube, Wattpad, etc during Jesson's hayday and some of these criticism's still persist. Which like... guys, Jess being cringey and self inserting into her stories isn't the most pressing issue you think it is, I'd LOVE to make mad dough self inserting and roleplaying with a harem of hot bishonen boys. I'm gonna be blunt, a very fair share of criticism towards Jess was quite misogynistic and I'm not going to deny that. Back in 2016-2019 people were awful and bashed her for the aforementioned which... ew. Hell!!! I even see some of this misogyny to current day on Youtube!!! Which . Fucking Sucks.

If you're gonna give Jess flack, give Jason flack. If you're gonna call Jess cringe and dumb for self inserting onto a cute perfect anime girl with her boy harem, call Jason 2x amount of that cringe for self inserting onto an edgy werewolf alpha + getting jealous over minecraft cubes. It takes two to tango and Jason definitely had a hand with how the series were written.

Something honestly more important to mention that people cite Jesson's badly written stories as a moral failing instead of actually criticizing the contents within the stories when portraying certain topics*** (put a pin in this, we will come back to this class). Like, people were putting more effort in dragging Jess about the bad writing of MCD and MyStreet with the love triangle + Aarmau, than actual problems with the portrayal of sensitive issues such as racism.

However, in spite of my defense of Jess, I'm gonna be blunt. There were a lot of fucking problems here, Scoob!!! Like. Actual problems with both Jessica and Jason as people that people sometimes overlook due to the more pettier criticisms/complaints. Yes, Jess was a victim of Internet's misogyny and that's 100% valid to acknowledge that, however I feel it's a disservice to handwave and not acknowledge the actual problems Jess had. Jess being a victim of misogyny and Jess doing bad shit are two statements that can co-exist.

Jesson being pariah-ed out of their own fandom isn't exactly undeserved considering all of the legitimate issues there were with the duo (not just Jess herself). It's not a 'hate-train' to not like Jesson or to still be discomforted by their previous behaviour because yeah. It. Was bad. Because we do point-proof-analysis round these parts bitches™, I will provide proof where I can.

To list the issues with Jesson off of the top of my head in no specific order: - Jess absolutely fetishized mlm on multiple occasions. Admitting she's Septiplier trash and fetishizing two real men's friendship when Jess was a 23 year old woman: (https://tinyurl.com/aph-confess) / (https://tinyurl.com/aph-septi-vid-react) - Adding onto the previous point, Jason 'Fans-shipping-my-wife's-Self-Insert-with-other-fictional-men-is-'whoring'-her-out' Bravura even admitted Jess's queerbaiting (https://tinyurl.com/jason-admits-the-queerbaiting) - Jason Bravura as a whole person: from his extremely possessive attitude towards the fanbase when it came to ships (https://tinyurl.com/jason-temper-tantrum), from how he absolutely fought with his tweenage fanbase back in 2016-2018-ish, him being really aggressive online in general, him having a horrible influence on the writing - Apparently Jason was responsible for the Ein-Aphmau incest??? I have no source for this, but would not be shocked if this was the case. - *** Romanticizing grooming/creepy as fuck age-gaps thru Aarmau and Gene PDH. I blame Jason for him being an alleged freak (going off of Jess's Draw my Life). Throw the whole man into the rancor pit at this point - *** The horribly done racism subplots of MCD and MyStreet. Oh my fucking god. I already went into this on my initial confession with Kip and Zoey+Aph being racist to him, the cutesy microaggressions. I already discussed about it in depth, here's the link to read more about it -> (https://tinyurl.com/confession-about-racism)

Jess using mlm to queerbait fans and fetishizing two REAL people as a grown ass woman was shitty, Jason is an entire cesspool of a person and was shitty. The horrible, tone-deaf messaging and portrayal of racism being so prominent throughout MCD/MyStreet was shitty. These problems don't suddenly stop being issues just because people raising petty points about Jesson.

Like there were a ton of problems with Jesson as people/content creators, it's not fair to just dismiss all of the listed as totally petty fandom wank. I feel like in modern day, it's a fair compromise to celebrate the media that they made without falling into praising them as people just because they made a cool Thang™. We can enjoy the stories they made without having to totally enjoy the people behind them. With my previous confessions, it sparked some healthy discussion within Aphblr and I hope this confession will raise some healthy discussion about Jesson as a whole where people can find a middle ground between totally loving/hating Jesson. This was a wholeass essay, so here's a shrimp as a reward 🦐

.

[rei-ismyname]

From The Ashes - Mystique

So, Mystique has her own book once more with issue #1 dropping on October 16th. Given the state of the Marvel world at the moment (or at least the X-books, everyone else seems focused elsewhere while mutants are being slaughtered and imprisoned... again) it really feels like Raven Darkholme's time to shine.

Looks cool but feels like something's missing

She hasn't had a solo book since 2004 - 20 years - and a lot has changed since then. She was quite the breakout character during the Krakoan age - she got her wife Destiny back, she found a sort of understanding with their son Nightcrawler (and we all learned the truth of the retcon in a pretty slick way), and perhaps most importantly we got a sense of her interiority. I'd be remiss in not mentioning Rogue, but they weren't really in each other's orbits until Fall of X. YMMV, but she became sympathetic for the first time ever. We got to see her interact with almost everyone as an uneasy ally while still being her bad bitch black ops self. Not friends, but on the same team with the overarching investment in keeping their shared home working. There was a foundation of connective tissue there right until the end.

Be Gay, Do Crime?

Alas, the wheel has turned again and Krakoa is no more. The connective tissue is gone. However, out of the three people she was closest to narratively - Destiny, Kurt and Rogue - the relationship I'm truly invested in seeing more of is her and Destiny. The book isn't called Mystique and Destiny, and she's not in any of the solicits or preview artwork, but surely they wouldn't do a Mystique book without her, would they?

My favourite sapphic terrorists

Yeah, I think they would tbh. Destiny is a very complex character to write and she was so entwined with Krakoa from the start in HoxPoX due to the nature of her gift - seeing possible futures. As the narrative pulls away from Krakoa, as we look for those pieces of connective tissue, as character growth is left by the wayside or undone, the world and stories are getting much smaller. Destiny had reached the promised land and her gift was focused on survival - of the married couple and Krakoa itself. I'm just not sure where she'd fit in a From The Ashes world.

Such a strong partnership too - Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler.

The elephant in the room is that the pair are very popular and I'm pretty sure the Mystique-buying demographic would have something to say about Destiny being absent. I'm thinking the Magneto treatment is likely, some contrived way of keeping her in the margins of the run or even depowering her. We know Mystique is going to be more of a face than she's been in the past, 'protecting mutants.' That is a good thing as her motivations were often baffling pre-2019. Her behaviour was often handwaved with 'craziness' which is not good for any character, especially a woman.

Destiny in her distinctive mask is visible in this header, although...

This was somewhat explained in Fall of X that Xavier's (consensual) memory tampering knocked something loose, for lack of a better term. I'm hoping the growth we saw sticks, and I don't think that's unrealistic, it's the rest of it. What prompted me writing this was the AIPT review of the first issue. It all sounds exciting but the only other character mentioned is Nick Fury, nothing on Destiny. Any reviewer worth their salt should have a sense of expectations, and the absence feels meaningful.

Obviously this is all speculation, which is fun, though I'm not going off nothing here. I'm trying to be mindful of being the 'Krakoa was the best and this shit sucks' person, but Krakoa WAS the best and I really don't want From The Ashes to suck. I don't have any control over that, though I do have control over my expectations.

Bling! knows what's up, leaning on the fourth wall.

The last thing I think needs consideration is that the couple got the Wedding Special very recently. It was pretty good, though I thought the best parts were the Claremont interview and Anole's ongoing protest. But it was popular!

Mystique would LOVE that. Bisexual Menace for life.

He ended up putting it on a t-shirt. I need one!

As fun as it was and as much hype it got at the time, remember that it was a Pride Month thing. Ever the rainbow capitalists, Marvel picked a winning focus but I don't think they'd have done outside of Pride Month. Sadly, that might apply to their relationship as well. I think it would be a miscalculation, but the signs point to it being a solo book. As I often say in my doomsaying posts, we shall see and I hope I'm wrong.

They're just too iconic and work so well together. Don't get me wrong, good writing can make anything work. Aside from my ongoing mourning of Krakoa, WLW rep is important and for all their faults they deserve love like everyone else. Maybe a Sisterhood of Evil Morally Ambiguous Mutants is on the cards?

[utilitycaster]

You commented on not being a fan of non-pc pov scenes in ap, something that Aabria used in the first go of exu (which was one of the main things that put me off of it, tbh). Do you have any thoughts on how this is applied in EXU compared to WBN?

So for EXU there's some parts that are better, and some that are worse. The good thing is that they're very brief snapshots vs. the one in WBN that was like, an extended several-minute scene. I also actually kind of like the ones for Ted, since that makes sense; we know it's impossible to really get Ted's perspective otherwise and you can kind of handwave it as being related to Opal and floating about in her unconscious.

The ones for My'ratta and Poska on the other hand, while again, brief, sort of underscore their lack of development. We did not know what Myr'atta wanted until episode 93 of Campaign 3, and as I've said before I literally could not tell you what the goal of the Nameless Ones or Poska is. They serve no purpose narratively except as a ticking clock and shadowy threat to get the Crown Keepers to leave a place quickly.

I mentioned Otohan in my original post on this topic as an example of an underdeveloped antagonist, something Brennan mentioned as something he hoped to avoid, and Myr'atta, Poska, and Otohan are all ultimately cut from the same cloth: cool aesthetic, cool abilities, and a severe lack of in-game development. I don't know what motivates them (or in Myr'atta's case, didn't while they were an ongoing part of the story) and so they all bore me. They are flat, dull villains who say threatening shit that means nothing because I don't know what drives them. I don't want to keep getting into it because it kind of derailed my original point anyway but what frustrates me the most is how people keep saying "oh but I'm sure they have a motivation." Like yeah bitch. I'm sure they do. The GM has a responsibility to convey that in-game. And they can do so subtly! Believe me, I am glad to do the work of unpicking motivation from allusions or what is carefully unsaid; this is what makes Ludinus and Liliana (and Lolth in EXU) interesting! But it's telling that whenever I'm like "what the fuck does this character do other than serve the purpose of a Plot Device to either threaten or move the characters", no one ever like, explains their motivation to me; it's always "give it time! I'm sure the GM has something in mind." Well, both Myr'atta and Otohan died before we got that (we still don't have it for Otohan) so I think we can safely say the waiting game is for suckers. Like, if you like characters based on aesthetic alone that's valid as a choice, but I'm not taking your meta or arguments seriously because that's a superficial judgment.

It's also frustrating because it's like...the GMs and the fans who keep insisting to be PATIENT long after a boring antagonist has worn out their welcome for me are simultaneously like "the audience will not remember this guy if I don't shove them in their face in a stilted cutscene" and also "clearly, the audience will infer that this boring-ass antagonist MUST have something deeper going on and therefore they will extend credit indefinitely." It's the absolute opposite of what they should be prioritizing. Instead of trying to jingle the antagonist in front of me like keys while still doing nothing to develop their personality, maybe have the party...idk, have a vision. find a letter. learn something secondhand from someone talking in a bar that sheds light on their motivation.

In WBN it's actually a totally different problem. The scene is 100% unnecessary. We know what the Man in Black wants. We know what's going on with him. We know his goals and his allies. We saw him only a couple episodes ago and he's been a topic of discussion throughout a good chunk of the arc. Hell, we even know how dope-ass his aesthetic is. This is just showing something the party doesn't know and can't act on, for several minutes of Brennan talking to himself, and I think it actually destroys what would be a gut-punch of undead Sir Curran showing up on the opposite side of Eursulon, whose entire deal is being inspired by him.

So: The EXU scenes are less intrusive for their brevity, the fact that the Ted ones are pretty good, and that at least they don't spoil a moment, but at the same time they still don't solve the problem of an underdeveloped antagonist for Myr'atta and Poska. The WBN scene meanwhile drags on, and actually does too much by taking what could be an unbelievably devastating reveal and having it happen when Eursulon isn't even there to respond. I couldn't tell if this actually spoiled it for Lou, since they record well in advance, but if it did that's such a missed opportunity.

Anyway I think my point is that (with the exception of the very first scene of a campaign that is setting the stage, before the PCs are introduced) these cutscenes only work if they are extremely short and purely for vague flavor. I think if you want to have a scene with no PCs present, you should perhaps write a book or a screenplay instead of playing D&D.

[loudmound]

jingling miserably across the floor to bring you yet another goddamn post about james sunderland (and the broader themes of sh2 in general)

part one: silent hill is the world's worst exposure therapist and that's honestly it

for starters, i think it's best to get out of the way the notion that the town itself is actively punishing its inhabitants is... silly. it's just silly. when you operate by the logic that silent hill is punishing james for what he did to mary, that logic quickly becomes concerning when we take angela and eddie into account.

does angela deserve to be tormented by a manifestation of the sexual abuse she endured from her father? does eddie deserve to be tormented by manifestations of the emotional and verbal abuse he faced from his bullies? if you have any modicum of compassion, you'd say no.

but we cannot then say with a handwave that "oh well angela and eddie don't deserve it, but james does! because james did something bad!" and like... yes, i do agree that there is a sort of sliding scale of moral justification and negligibility given each of these characters' acts of violence, but all of these people did such to escape their circumstances. and, most importantly, angela, eddie, and james all feel like they deserve to be punished in some way, shape, or form.

angela's been so horrifically abused that she's resigned to the notion that she deserved what happened to her. eddie's been so horrifically abused that he's resigned to the notion that he is just a fat piece of shit. and, with james, while having a tangible distance from any kind of abuse, feels he deserves to be punished for killing mary; something that he'd unwittingly repressed to even keep himself upright. he drove to silent hill to kill himself—to be with mary in death in the last place they were happy together.

and that right there is exactly what silent hill is doing; silent hill is a functionally amoral entity, i'd argue. it does not care whether its inhabitants live or die, it does not care about punishment or exoneration, it is merely drawing from their psyches and projecting manifestations as a means of confrontation, and seeks to see what that person chooses to do in the face of the darkest and ugliest parts of themselves, traumas and all. will you succumb or will you overcome? that's the only question it cares to ask.

part two: stop pretending james is a violently misogynistic sex pest

now, this part is gonna come off as biased, because i am a james fan. i like him a lot. but i'm also not going to pretend that he's not a divisive character or that he did nothing wrong. he most certainly did. that's not the point and i don't want to come off as defending his murder of mary, nor am i trying to convince people to like him. he's a fictional guy, like and hate whomever. i don't care.

what i do care about is analysis, and some people insinuating that james killed mary for the sole, superficial, and juvenile reason that she wouldn't fuck him anymore? it truly baffles me beyond words.

i've seen this take enough times for it to be concerning; the notion of james' deed solely surrounded being denied sex and lashing out with murder because of it. if that sincerely were the case, james would be a very different man and sh2 would be a very different, markedly worse game, because how fucking one-dimensional is that? seriously, think about it for longer than 3 seconds and let it sink in how much worse that would be for sh2's story and overall message.

contrary to this belief: james loved mary! james loves mary! that's kind of the whole point, really! i'm not denying that there isn't a sexual component to the whole ordeal, there most certainly is. maria is the apex of that, as are a good handful of the monsters like the mannequins and the bubblehead nurses. hell, i'm not going to deny that there aren't shades of misogyny within these monsters' looks, either!

but these monsters aren't made for james' wanton, sexual consumption; they're a means of confrontation. they're terrifying and warped. there's a certain shame about them, too, in so far as they're manifested from a man who seems guilty about even existing as a person at all. that he even has sexual thoughts to begin with when his wife lay sick and dying in her hospital bed.

james doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic about much of anything, least of all sex. him never even alluding to such or even saying the word out loud speaks volumes to me at just the magnitude of shame he feels surrounding such a concept, when everything around him is so loudly saying that it's a part of him he's terrified to look in the face. (think of the pin-up he sees in the hospital where he mutters to himself in his head "...this is no time to be looking at a stupid poster.")

your libido doesn't screech to a halt when your significant other is terminally ill, and finding other people attractive when you're in a relationship with someone else is pretty normal, so long as those feelings don't breach the bond you have with said partner. if james fantasized about fucking the hospital nurses or whatever, so what? that's within the realm of fantasy, and i'm sure he's cognizant of such. that doesn't make him an "incel", that doesn't make him unfaithful, it makes him a regular person with a sexuality, and he feels shame for such because his partner—the one that he truly wants—is sick, dying, and sexually unavailable because of the latter facts. the audacity to think of sex at a time like this? how dare he? how disgusting of him!

(sidenote: i really don't like the conflation of the term "incel" with "misogynist". yes, incel culture at large is misogynistic, but literally anybody can be a misogynist and incels are largely self-identified. misogyny is systemic, and incels are a symptom of that. also, james has a partner and is certainly implied to have had sex before. by definition, he is not an incel. a strange, miserable man, yes, but not an incel.)

part three: james did it for so many reasons and sex wasn't one of them

james killed mary because he couldn't watch her suffer any longer. james killed mary because he wanted his life back—to be free of such a burden on his shoulders. james killed mary to be with her in death not long after, because without her, he's got nothing. together, beyond the grave, they could be happy once more.

while james is not a reliable narrator, it's impossible to me that the reason he did it was purely because he couldn't have sex with mary anymore. it's reductive and insulting to insinuate that sh2, a game about death, about grief, about guilt and loss and trauma, as well as love and sex, would have its main protagonist be a flat as a fucking board when it came to the reason he did it.

hell, i'd argue that his reasoning is more complicated than angela's and eddie's reasonings for their respective deeds because they're fucking rock solid reasonings. it's easier to empathize with an sa survivor killing their abusers and a victim of bullying finally snapping and attempting to kill their respective abusers than a man who finally got so sick of it all and killed his wife before the disease eating her from the inside out could kill her instead. there is an obvious callousness in james' deed that repels such a level of compassion, and that's perfectly reasonable. which is why it's so goddamn complicated!

it's already such a terrible thing to do to somebody else, imbued with so many reasons, both selfish and selfless, both loving and resentful, and to just write it off as "oh well james did it because he was mad he couldn't get his dick sucked anymore and silent hill was so bad for him because the town thought he deserved it <3"... see me after class.

anyways, thank you for reading. i'm gonna go the fuck to bed now.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I wanna start by saying I'm not trying to start a fight, but you saying that Chloe had some kind of mental break or dissociative episode in Queen Wasp as a way to excuse the train incident has always felt like a bit of a reach

Idk if you've ever had a dissociative episode or mental breakdown or anything like that, and I'm not demanding you share if you have, but I have, and the way we see Chloe act in Queen Wasp is not how someone who is dissociating would act in my experience

She's too cognizant

After snapping, transforming, and running, Chloe has the presence of mind to stop on the closest vantage point she could find, look around for an idea of how to prove herself, focus on the subway, come up with the idea to stage a crash, dial Nadja Chamak's number to tell her about the train so there are cameras present, and stop and paralyze the driver before trying to stop the train

There was a time when I was dissociating after a massive fight with my parents and walking through my neighborhood, and I came to a cross light.

I remember seeing that I couldn't go straight across bc of the red light, and seeing that a car was coming down the street, but I kept walking straight.

The car was too far away to be dangerous to me, but they did slam their brakes and honk.

I didn't register any of that, I just kept walking. I didn't even realize what had happened until hours after I had gotten back home and calmed down.

That's not what happened to Chloé in Queen Wasp. She wasn't thinking clearly bc she was rightfully upset and hurt and acting impulsively, but it wasn't a mental break

BUDDY

Okay okay okay we're just gonna.

Firstly: Different experiences and different words for different things!

Yes, some people's breakdowns are the type of disassociation where they're not aware they're just in full zombie mode.

Other people's breakdowns are organized and focused and seemingly aware! They're still not quite in the right state of mind! But they do things that are a little off and they wouldn't usually because they think it'll make them feel better!

This isn't a disassociation state, this is more like a manic episode. Like, I'm not saying that this is genuinely a manic episode for Chloé because I am not an expert and I don't know if she hits more checks for that sort of disorder and it's a very short episode as far as we can tell while a proper episode would be a longer period of time. It's just the best word I can find to describe this type of breakdown But I have 100% seen and experienced both the 'zombie mode' and the 'oh let's do something about this!!' breakdown.

And yes, in the real world, an episode like this wouldn't result directly to 'fake a train accident', it does result in extremely poor decisionmaking as they ride it out. Things like impulsively chopping off hair, spending money they can't afford to, taking risks in sexual situations, etc. But in a kids show with superheroes, that is 100% on the table.

Again: I am not an expert, but Chloé was going through some hell and I've seen people snap in that sort of way where, were they a cartoon character, could end up in that situation.

Secondly:

You make it sound like I'm just excusing it like 'haha whatever it's chill'. Which, to be fair, Canon did that! The train thing is just never brought up again and she never faces any consequences for it so Canon thinks it's fine!

But even if she is in the most manic or dissassociative or whatever state? She is still responsible for what happens when she comes down from it. And yeah in a fictional world like this you can handwave that action when everyone ends up fine instead of having her go to jail or some shit.

Thirdly:

We aren't talking about how this incident should be ignored. We're talking about how this is considered the worst thing that Chloé has done, and proof that she's 'evil', but it was something done while not only not in the right state of mind, but something that never intended to harm anyone, didn't end up harming anyone, and also did in fact get brushed off by the rest of the cast.

[doomerpatrol]

Comic Log: The Year So Far

this does not include the assorted works of Grant Morrison which will get their own effortpost(s).

Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon: Truly rancid. Fundamentally does not work. I'm softer on the first and third arcs, while I think the fourth is a letdown and the second is abysmal. While Whedon's humor is characteristically hit or miss, and his characterization of just about everybody except Cyclops and Emma Frost is quite poor, what actually frustrates me is the way Astonishing squanders its opening ethos of reinvigorating the status of the X-Men as classic "traditional" superheroes (rather than the soap-operatic introspective subjects of Claremont or countercultural militants of Morrison). Despite this being the explicitly stated function of the ongoing series, it's only told and never shown. Instead we get a few different arcs themed around mutation and guilt, which is also fine, but again, those themes are barely fleshed out (the "mutant cure" that seems like it's going to be a really big deal and presents a lot of interesting thematic questions is summarily handwaved away).

Favorite arc/issue: "Torn" is a compelling exploration of Emma Frost's survivor's guilt, and the dynamic between her and Cyclops which extends into the final arc (which I otherwise loathe) is really great. Sad that it doesn't exactly get a real ending, just so the X-Men can go to space and endorse biological determinism, though!

Detective Comics by Greg Rucka: What could have been! This has some really brilliant creative decisions going on, particularly in the beautiful artwork which uses monochromatic color palettes based on the theme and tone of an issue, but ultimately gets taken out and shot by the event mandates of "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive." The central idea here is the fallout of the "No Man's Land" event, which shifts the social and political tensions in Gotham, and causes Bruce to get saddled with a new bodyguard, Sasha Bordeaux. Having a constant tail that he needs to be able to shake without exposing his dual identity is a fun idea, but I don't think it gets as much time as it deserves, and the treatment of Sasha as a character isn't my favorite either. She's basically turned into a disposable love interest by the events of Fugitive/Murderer and the way it all resolves left me really cold. Ultimately the best ideas here get picked up in Gotham Central.

Favorite arc/issue: "A Walk in the Park" which covers Poison Ivy's expulsion from Gotham City's park after the "No Man's Land" crossover, with some nice characterization for Bruce and Ivy (if you like a redeemed/sympathetic Ivy).

Wolverine by Greg Rucka: Inherits the Frank Miller treatment of a solo Logan as a sort of wandering ronin or cowboy. I have some complaints - I really do not like the characterization of fellow Weapon Plus victim "The Native," because it hews too close to gross racial stereotype, and the AFT agent that basically falls in love with Logan at first sight because she just loves a bad boy is CORNY. However! These three arcs have great action and tightly knit simplistic plots, which see Logan forced into morally and personally tight spots - a vengeance quest on a trafficking ring, a moral dilemma over how to deal with a pregnant cartel leader, Wolverine and Sabretooth begrudgingly teaming up against Weapon Plus as both of them look for the first opportunity to betray the other. It's not the most amazing set of stories ever, I don't think any of them would make a Top 10 Wolverine stories list, but it's very well-executed pulp fiction.

Favorite arc/issue: "Brotherhood," the first arc, which sees Logan hunting down a misogynist cult who sent assassins after one of its runaway victims, and its follow-up featuring Nightcrawler having a beer and shooting the shit about the soul. I love how squat Wolverine is drawn in this arc. That's not the deepest commentary but it is true.

Catwoman by Ed Brubaker: Pretty solid! Has some of my favorite creatives (Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke, Mike Allred) on board. This series brings Selina back into the DCU after some time away, trying to turn over a new leaf and reinventing herself as a kind of defender of the downtrodden in Gotham's East End. An excellent new costume, a new attitude, new supporting cast - it's such a step up from the 90s Catwoman book. To be honest, the art from Cooke and (terrible person) Cameron Stewart and the various colorists is the big draw here, turning this part of Gotham into something both vibrantly cartoonish and appropriately noir-inflected: alternatingly poppy and moody and sensual as the story necessitates. At issue #25 the art team turns over, and the tone of the comic shifts towards something more conventional and "realistic." This was pretty much my jumping off point - I think it loses a lot of its charm and heart at this point and then has the misfortune of intersecting with the "Batman: War Games" event (not to mention that the new art is, uh, quite bad). But up through #25, the stories are pretty solid with some fun heists and capers, with a strong supporting cast and central arc of Selina figuring out how she wants to exist in the world.

Favorite arc/issue: "Disguises" is a highlight, which sees Selina going up against crooked cops as she and Slam and Holly very actively get in harm's way in pursuit of the truth. I also like "Relentless" where Black Mask tries to very ruthlessly destroy Selina's life; it's exceedingly dark and definitely derivative of "Daredevil: Born Again" but I appreciated its bleak, expressionist qualities. And the road trip arc "Wild Ride" is also really fun and cute!

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction: A total treat. Interestingly bifurcated - the first half is slightly more episodic, putting a bunch of assorted pieces into play (our two leads Clint and Kate, the Tracksuit Mafia, Cherry the runaway mob wife, the Polish clown hitman, Lucky the dog, and the local community), with a domino effect from a particularly cruel death to our two Hawkeyes splitting from each other. From there, I do think the series spins its wheels just a squeak too long, as we alternate between Kate pounding the pavement trying to make some cash in LA and Clint steadily trying to figure out how to shoulder the burden of protecting his community, with some filler for good measure. But once Clint concludes he can't do it all on his own, and circumstances force the Hawkeyes back together - oh man! The last two issues are excellent, one of the most satisfying conclusions I've read in a comic in an age. I particularly enjoyed the communitarian theme. And the paneling and layouts and especially the artwork from David Aja and Annie Wu are all so delightfully creative and colorful and expressive. (The cover portrayed above is indicative of the kinds of spreads and layouts that we get throughout the book.)

Favorite arc/issue: definitely the two-part finale. Also loved the issue focused on the dog Lucky. The whole thing is immensely readable, it really works together holistically.

Punisher (and Franken-Castle) by Rick Remender: Starts strong with Frank trying to take a shot at the politically ascendant Norman Osborn, which is an inspired choice: it automatically makes Frank a touch more sympathetic because we know Osborn is a sadistic fascist, it gives him the motivation to really up the ante with a high-tech arsenal (so a little bit of a sci-fi twist), and it offers an opportunity to do some of that hack sociopolitical commentary on post-9/11 American society that Marvel loved at the time. But the series finishes super weak. Most notably, the Osborn plotline is unable to meaningfully advance because all the relevant players were under Brian Michael Bendis' purview, so the series quickly devolves into a dull supernatural slapfight with The Hood and throwaway villains, and then quite abruptly turns into the underwhelmingly odd "Franken-Castle." The action is solidly drawn but the plot wears thin because it hinges on shallow contrivances, and there's an odd refusal to commit to any big thematic ideas or strong emphases of characterization, like the main supporting character of Henry. Honestly, I don't think Garth Ennis' run is likely to be outdone, it really captured the only version of Punisher as a protagonist that I think is particularly tolerable to read.

Favorite arc/issue: honestly really didn't care for this one, but I'd say the first arc "Living in Darkness" is the strongest - it sees Frank brutalizing his way out of tight spots in some fun ways, and I really like Opena's artwork. But the ending (featuring the return of old Punisher supporting character Microchip) is just really lazy and uninspired.

JLA by Mark Waid: A rare Waid miss, unfortunately. I like the first arc, Tower of Babel, for its examination of how Batman's paranoia and isolation and obsessiveness can blowback without leaning into full-throated "Batjerk" characterization, but the "Ra's al Ghul destroys language" plot is a little underdeveloped for how high-concept it is. And the subsequent arcs, which emotionally center around Batman's reincorporation into the group, really didn't land for me, both because of the departure of Howard Porter as penciller and because the stories are just less interesting. I really did not like the "Queen of Fables" arc, which I found to be corny and overplayed (I feel like I've seen or read some version of this in cartoons and comics and speculative fiction media a million times), while the rest were just kind of middling. These later stories carry less thematic weight when compared to the parallel "communication breakdown" of Tower. It's not terrible, but just pales in comparison to the Morrison run that preceded it, despite trying to speak in a similar register. I hope that I will like Joe Kelly's run more!

Favorite arc/issue: Uh. Tower of Babel, if that wasn't clear.

[boethiah]

first impression of almalexia??

First impression

oh no, generic motherly goddess character :/

Impression now

she is literally me i am literally her

Favorite moment

when she repeatedly tries to get her ex-husband killed by sending him to do frivolous tasks in the sewers. DEFEATING MEHRUNES DAGON. getting so mad at molag bal that she cried about it and the tears turned into powerful explosives that she made her servants use to blow his shit up. the fact that she prophesised the oblivion crisis. the regicide. etc.

Idea for a story

i am literally in the process of writing a 70k+ fic about her pre-nerevar mortal life and that only scratches the surface. but hey, if anyone wants specific almalexia-themed writing prompts, i have about ten million

Unpopular opinion

she is definitely a hardcore badass but i don't think she's like, The Ultimate Hardcore Badass that some of the fandom seems to make her out to be. she's strong and rational and a fantastic leader but she's also deeply unstable and has some sort of trauma that distorts her ability to reason quite severely-- e.g. she's behaved borderline suicidally at times, not just in fighting mehrunes dagon but also in her response to tiber septim's invasion, there's good evidence that she was prepared to get herself and her army killed in a futile resistance effort, and vivec had to drag her (and sotha sil) out of a suicide mission to red mountain, when dagoth ur stole the tools of kagrenac. in the same vain i get kind of annoyed when people say that her apparent madness in tribunal is "just misogynistic writing". i think she can be both very strong and smart AND inherently unstable thanks to massive trauma. both sotha sil and vivec canonically saw her as a ticking time bomb who would inevitably hurt herself and/or others during a supermassive breakdown and i don't think that sentiment came out of nowhere

Favorite relationship

obv it has got to be almsivi. they are groundbreaking pioneers in trauma-bonding. honourable mention to whatever the fuck is happening between her and boethiah in eso

Favorite headcanon

once again i just need to kinda handwave at my ao3 for this one but uhh. recently was talking about the headcanon that ysmir wulfharth is her bio father which is really just canon to me. i'm not considering almalexia being dragonborn as a headcanon because that's basically textual

[popculturebuffet]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Boom! Retrospective: Issues 4 and 5: The Power Rangers Explode!

It's morphin time once again you happy ranger. TLDR iv'e been covering Boom Studio's Power Rangers for my good patron brotoman.exed in between transformers reviews. This will be the last for a while as I have Transformers One Next month, possibly Transformers: The Movie after, and Transformers: More than Meets the eye returns after. But the power will protect us again in 2025.

For now though we wrap up the round of mighty morphin with a giant cliffhanger and a flashback. And get used to those clliffhangers as Mighty Morphin, both during this run and when Ryan Parrot takes over tends to be one big continuous story. But rather than just.. do power rangers then get back to more than meets the eye in a few years, we're going back and forth so expect a lot of cliffhangers from both.

So to breifly recap for those just joining us, i'll collect the link to this arc in one post later, in an arc set in an alternate timeline where Mighty Morphin takes place in present day but green with evil still happened Tommy laser eyeing bulk and skull into a trashcan and all, Tommy is dealing with his ptsd in the shape of a rita ghost haunting him and hid it from everyone, while the real rita plots her hideous revenge using a mysterous black crystal powered by the green energy. As for everyone else Billy and Trini are hanging out and being good buds, Jason has doubts about tommy, Kimberly is thirsty as hell and Zack is

Constantly bitching about "WELL MAYBE TOMMY'S EVIL GUYS". And spoilers despite being called out on it he only gets worse in this one now he thinks he's been proven right. And on top of all of this, Rita has hyjacked the dragonzord and sent it the rangers way. And shit's only gonna get worse as we see how our heroes save the day only to still loose while we find out WHY Zack won't shut up.

So we begin the issue with the dragonzord having wrecked a cruise ship. There were some surivors but scorpina defintely just killed some people. Unless that boat was just haunted then the ghosts are fine.

Point is shit is bad as the dragonzord is headed for land and our heroes head to stop it.. minus tommy who Jason benches.. not unfarily given you know, the untreated ptsd he just confessed to and the fact the one strategy Tommy does have, telport into the cockpit, isn't available.

The rangers strategy after a badass looking half page of the zords

Such a cool panel. I've given this comic's art some crap but it's megazord art is incredible. So their solution is rather than you know, form the megazord since last time they fought the dragonzord it was on par with it they ... use their zords to drag it into the sea to hang out with godzilla and cthulu.

Rita is actually ready for this as she NEEDS the dragonzord to kill people so she has finster... send a bunch of generic shark monsters and make them grow because.. rita can do more than one at a time now?

Look i'm not the kind of nerd who goes nitpicking every minuta of a plot. I like to analize stuff yes, find deep meanings, character arcs, that sort of thing. I'll poke fun at stuff I don't like, i'll call it out but I try not to nitpick. There's stuff in power rangers like "Why don't they just call the zords right away", "why dosen't rita make her monster grow right away" i'm willing to handwave or can be explained in a more grounded take like this. This very comic , in the only issue i've read besides this arc pre-ryan parro, has a great issue we'll get to in a few years i'm sure that explains WHY Zordon picked 5 teenagers with atittude instead of experinced adults. I'm not saying it's not fun to try and fill said holes with your own theroes, but it's weird to mock a show with a pumpkin rapper. Some later power rangers series do deserve more praise and scruitny but mighty morphin is camp personified so it can get away with weird lore swings.

This series takes it seriously.. and thus really can't jus tsay "oh finster could always make more and didn't because shut up" I dont' mind saying he can do that.. but you have to explain HOW. Rita building a new dragon dagger made sense and they gave it the limit of being far more unstable. This is just plot convience and the comic just proved with said dagger twist it can do better.

So with Rita pulling out the cheat codes, our heroes are in a bind, angle grove's about to be attacked and Tommy is getting impatient.. and for the final time has a confrontation with his PTSD Ghost... and it's confirmed that I was right, I had genuinely forgotten but yeah.. PTSD Rita..is just that.

It's a great scene and pays off the PTSD Ghost rita well: doe sit mean all of Tommy's problems are solved? No. It isn't that easy and I don't think the comic is implying "oh well solving your PTSD is just as easy as confronting it". But it is right in that simply burying trauma.. dosen't fix it and from personal experince same with self loathing. The only way to deal with it is to face it head on. It's.. honestly inspired me a bit. I may not like this comic on the whole.. but it has it's moments of greatness.

So Tommy decides fuck it, he's going to ingnore jason's orde rand go to help. Zordon.. isn't so sure, partly because he knwos damn well this will rattle the stick firmly planted up Jason's ass, and partly because he's worried about the ptsd ghost. Granted Tommy could've given him more than "I'ts handled now", but what I like is this isn't Tommy trying to prove something entirely. This isn't a one side thing: Zordon is right this is going against his friend and commander and that's going to have consequences.. but Tommy's right that if he CAN save lives, he has to. No question.

So Tommy ports in directly on top of the dragon zord to try and control it proving Tommy Oliver being the biggest badass of any reality he's in is a multiversal constant. This gets him bucked off the thing but kim catches him in what I feel's also a sweet moment. While Sure Tommy could've just been winging it, given his next step it feels like he KNEW kim could catch him and tells jason he has a plan to just trust him. Jason reluctantly agrees and Tommy... well TOmmy tops himself

FUCK YES. The climax here is awesome as the rangers take down generic shark man while Tommy takes down scorpina. She does the normal villian bragging "It's too late" "our plans can't be stopped" and tommy just.. breaks her dagger stopping the zord while the rangers can this fish.

Back at the center though.. it's sadly not a happy ending. Jason at his limit with Tommy is pissed he defied him. Tommy does make a valid point: he wona nd had no hallucinations.. but he is being a bit of a dick basically saying "We won shut the fuck up" instead of being apologetic that he broke orders.. but still making his point. Still he does try to walk away, and while dickish it PROBABLY would'e solved things. The divide would've festered a bit... but cooling down and not biting each others heads off was the right call. Jason however.. just can't let it go saying we're not done. Which they arne't, Tommy is being a dick but as i've learned when your getting into a really heated fucking argument sometims it's best to take a break and circle back later. Don't ignore it, running away, as we established in this arc, dosen't help either, but the two of them bickering over whose right isn't going to help anyone. Unfortunately.. SOMEBODY DOSEN'T AGREEEEEEEEE

I will lay into this bitch in a second, but as a DIRECT RESULT OF HIS ACTIONS, Jason and Tommy resume their fight, Tommy is a petulant ass saying jason isn't a good leader, which apart from not adressing the zack thing better, isn't true, and Jason wonders if they really need 5 while Zordon begs his kids to stop fighting.. and as they prepare to throw hands.. the crystal is fully powered. The villians have won: the black dragon.l.. is awake and the comman dcenter explodes as Jason has the rangers put their helmets on and we meet the big bad this has all been building towards , the black dragon

Yeah while he is intimdating to a point... his deisgn is so damn generic and clashing with power rangers as a whole , like the other monsters it feels like a let down. We'll see if he gets better next year.

For now though... let's circle back to why this is Zack's fault and why i'm tired of his bullshit. Tommy was walking away. Tommy was a doucheballon, I havne't sugar coated it, but he was walking away.. ZACK is the one who grabbed him and ZACK is the one whose been doubting tommy, constnatly assuming he's evil, being a prized asshole. Jason's only leadership failing is not recognizing that and reining it in, telling Zack it's okay to have some doubts but to TRY or having the two talk it out. The last part's a bit understandable given how much has been going on, but Jason KNEW Zack was constantly being a dick to tommy, was saying shit behind his back, being passive agressive as fuck did nothing, and then ends up fighting his new friend because of that. Zack didn't START the fight, both tommy and jason share blame, tommy for his ego, jason for not accepting tommy made a good call and sometimes the rangers need to make a hard call by themselves. Being a team means both respecting your leader AND knowing when to break rank if it saves lives. On those two arguing it's well done: Tommy seroiusly rankled Jason by not telling him then disobeying while Tommy solving his issues dosen't solve his tendency to lash out, he just switched targets from himself to Zack, who deserved it and Jason, who didn't entirely.

But Zack's petty grudge against Tommy, his refusal to belelive tommy was a victim and not evil because of his own backstory, his own moment of weakness we'll get to caused it to escalate. It's fine to be wary, tommy was hiding serious hallucinations from everyone and his own doubts, and while he had reason to, he shoudl've been honest. Tommy did get cocky and did defy jason. But Zack isn't doing this because he's jason's friend he's doing this becauasse he WATNS tommy to be evil, wants to pick a fight with him and has ever since zordon recurited him. Billy and Trini have doubts, but genuinely tried to be welcoming: Billy apparently also put Tommy in their group notifications and Trini had that nice heart ot heart last issue. Kim is the most welcoming due to her crush but tried. Jason has clear doubts that explode here, but tried. Zack didn't give a fuck, was a petulant toddler and now the whole team is going to pay for his bullshit. The character gets way better under Ryan Parrot thankfully and will HOPEFULLY get some development from this debacle, but for this first Arc zack is easily the worst part: I don't mind having a ranger doubt tommy, but they take it WAY too far with Zack who spends the entire arc being a giant dick then caps it off by causing the next one. Fuck.. this.. dude.

Now I will say this last issue of the arc proper.. is pretty damn good. The conflict that ultimately leads to the bad guys winning is well built up and I like it more on this read through: Jason has shown to be way too far up his own ass in trying to be leader, and Tommy has shown to have a loner streak, so both's actions, Jason taking Tommy's last ditch move personally and Tommy being a spiteful dick and then getting utterly pissed Jason keeps having Zack's back all feel natural. Zack still sucks, the three sharks thing makes no sense.. but the rest of the issue IS pretty great and does give me hope when we get back to power rangers, i'll enjoy it more. That Higgins simply needed time to sort things out or was building his story slowly.

This first arc.. still has issues but their more structural: boom shoudl've just started from scratch instead of trying to dance between the raindrops of ranger history, though it does a decent job of it and would sustain 100 issues, so it worked out in the end, but I still feel the fresh start their doing now is a good call. Let them use the wide canvas instead of just the most profitable one. But it's not as bad as I remembered.. which I know, it's faint praise, but there's a lot more good character work than I remembered: Zack aside, the other rangers all feel like distinct well built indviduals building their sterotypes from the show out into something: Jason is a scott summers style leader, good at what he does tactically, carring for his men, but also with a tendency to expect military precision and obdience when that's just not always fesable. Kimberly is sassy, won't hestiate to confront her friends on their shit, but warm and kind. Trini is the team's heart, helping both billy and tommy with their self doubt issues and wanting to help the world as a whole. And Billy is the brains but is self concious, knowing he's the only one in the team whose not a trained martial artist or gymnist. Zack is an ass but at the bare minimum the next issue gives us context for that, showing he has a deep well of resentment and is quick to anger. It's not good still, and I hope the character grows and I prefer Ryan Parrot's take, but I appricate fleshing these 6 teenagers with attitude out as people. I've been hard on this book and might be again, but I respect what it does right and hope it fixes what it does wrong.

So onto our last issue. It's a flashback that takes place one month before Tommy arrived. The prime minister of italy is speaking out against Rita.

Now THIS... this is really neat. I like this idea: that while yes Rita tends to target one american town's abandoned warehouse district constantly, other countries probably WOULD have throughts on giant fucking monsters being real. Honestly it woul'dve been neat if we saw how other countries responded, maybe saw some try to make their own rangers, though that last part at least DOES get used much later in the continuity. But this little snippet is still fun as is Rita's response. After sending more generic monsters with no real creativity previously we FINALLY get a goodun.

That my friends is leonado da vinchi's vitruvian man, which I and you likely know better as this

See THIS is the kinda camp we were missing. I'm not asking the monster break tension, but i'm asking for some creativity. Just throwing a generic monster or a shark, and I love me some sharks, at the rangers is boring and you could do better. now throwing a fucking da vinci design at them spouting out generic quotes Squatt and Baboo got off the internet as it attacks italy with twin swords and a crossbow. Fuck yes. And it's still intimdating. Rome is still in deadly danger and this thing still comes off dangerous. But you can have fun and make a threat for your heroes. It's what I love about superheroes; you can have dark gritty stories dealing with police shooting a masked criminal they unleahsed to cover their tracks and getting away with it or a ghostly highway man who hates the poor who has to be defeated by batman using a magic ritual with alfred's help. BOTH of those are plots from the recent series Batman Caped Crusader, which slaps by the way, and both work swimingly. Even in a moody work you can have camp and when your heroes are the power rangers.. it's kinda demanded. It's why I hope while this new reboot seems serious it still has some fun with it.

Our heroes head to italy to fight the giant naked man.The finish is also awesome. The Vitruvian man is about ot kill the prime minister so jason leaps out of the cock pit, also a nice parallel to tommy leaping in last issue, and fucking stabs the bitch. Tommy may be the supreme badass of all power rangers universes, but Jason is easily #2. Carter Grayson is #3 of course.

Zack also gets a moment of triumph out of this, piloting the zord, and I like the touch that it's shown doing so isn't easy, it requires them all working in concert and thus zack filling in for both himself an djason with a killer swipe is impressive. Sadly.. he gets no credit and stews a bit as Jason did the flashier heroics.

So as Goldar admits they already have a sequel in the works, Rita decides nah... she notices Zack's quiet stewing.. and has an idea. So the next afternoon Zack is kidnapped by putties and brought to fog machine dimension from Green with Evil. Rita is being nice.. which can't be good and it's not: She tries to play zack admitting she only did so because he wouldn't likely come to hear her out willingly and wants to show him her place. Which is creepy given she's a grown ass woman and he's a teen, but I feel the predator vibes are intetnional without overplaying them or making them actual text.

Zack to his credit.. dosen't buy her sales pitch that she's misunderstood, the world would be better than her and Goldar's entirley bs claim she didn't start growing monsters until Zordon pulled out zords. Especially since... most rangers are linked to some set of Zords. While zordon didn't build his, most ranger teams are both some sort of ancient force and have zords attached from the get go or linked to them in some way. I mean there are wild ones from wild force wondering the world at this point. So Rita, especially since they fought before, KNEW Zordon had them and Zordon knew she could lkely make them grow. it was an even repsonse and Zack figured it out without any of that evidence.

Rita does try to make a good pitch: that yeah she wants to conquer the world.. but to make it better. Is it really that good without her? It's a great sequence too as she tempts him, shwoing a vision of him and the green ranger. She even sympathizes: she knows what it's like to be an underated second in command, a nod to Zed before he properly debuts after the time skip and something I like: while working in the confines of the original show limits the series slightly... it also means they have the whole map: everything that will happen and things they never built up to because the show was only lightly seralized: having strong continuity but only occasional story arcs before season 3. They ddin't plan for zed, master vile or rito. But they can hint at that, hint at dark specter or other future events and other rangers.

Zack things about it and decides.. nope. not going to betray his friends and tries to yoink the dragon coin away. Zack does go straight to Zordon which explains why the others didn't know during green with evil. I'ts also why again I wish they'd adapte dit: it would've been a decent starting point and while most fans know it, ther'es a lot you could do to deepen the character and stakes. Still it works:W hile Zordon is midlly stupid for not telling them about the power coin.. it makes sense he'd be careful.. and is also being respectful knowing Zack's probably ashamed they came to him. Zack in turn is honest: he WAS tempeted by the power and the good it could do for the world, and Zordon assures him, as a good mentor should that he's only human: of course he considered it, what matters is he didn't and zack honestly wants to DO more, again setting up the peace confrence that'll never happen here. And Zordon to his credit agrees they should, he just has to think it over. Unintended consequences and all that.

So I do like this explination: that zack was offered the coin, reseted and thus resents tommy as he probably assumes he wasn't so easy and is projecting his own insecurties about nearly saying yes. It dosen't fix things: Zack is still a giant ass even with that explination as he's projecting all his bullshit on tommy instead of empathizing with him and using this incident to help assure his new teaamate. Zack still sucks.. but this does show the potetial for the character when given some more depth and that he could be fleshed out well if given the chance.

It ends sweetly though... Zack goes to meet the others who welcome him and praise him for what he did, making it clear their a team... Jason may of gotten the glory but they needed each other. A shame neither jason nor Zack remembered this lesson, but it's some good irony. We also end on another om inous hook, the black dragon talking to rita saying the green ranger will fail.. and when he does.. he'll be waiting as Rita plans to grab tommy.

So now for Bulk and Skull which to my delight is not ending after 6 issues. We pick up from last time as trini and Kim despatch the putty.. as they shoudl've. Like again your martial artists, it's fesable. But they use baskeptball. and spot bulk used some of the same streamers on the putty as he did on himself, so not only are the girls pissed.. but our heroes.. get arrested.

We gloss over Bulk and Skull go to jail sadly, but it's compesnated for by something truly awesome I forgot happened a sthis was the last issue I read monthly before giving up. (I also tried the trade later and thus didn't even get this far). So the judge sentences our heroes to 1993 hours of community service, a bit excessive.. but also a fair punishment given their jackassery would've gotten someone who wasn't a power ranger hurt bad and I like said judge, the principal's brother, 's logic: thedy want to be heroes, they get an actual shot at it. And their officer monitoring this? LT STONE

For those who forgot him, Lt Stone was Bulk and Skull's boss in season 3. Our heroes joined the junior police to meet women, and Stone thus served as their straight man. Stone would actually last a shockingly long time, being their boss still in Zeo and running a juice bar in turbo for some reason. So it's a neat way to get him in early, with Bulk still afraid of him this early, clearly havnig met him before. It's a fun way to bring in a character from later that makes perfect sense and frankly our heroes having a straight man does help their comedy. They work fine without one, but with the rangers kinda busy unless your giving them a bigger story, putting stone against them is great.

So that's MMPR for now. We'll be back I assume next year for more, and i'll see if it improves. For now may the power protect you and thanks for reading.

[soot-and-salt]

14 for "forever yours, nocturnal me" & 3 for the "we should've been enemies" series as a whole!

Hello anon! Good to see you!

(Question from this list of fanfic author questions - come ask me more!)

14. Talk about the fic's opening scene & how you approached it

Listen, I don't want to be one of those people who goes "yeah, my shit rocks" because I generally suffer from crippling feelings of inadequacy but I have to go on the record to say that I think the opening scene in Forever Yours, Nocturnal Me FUCKING SLAPS.

I LOVE gothic fiction. I love haunted mansion stories like Crimson Peak and books like Jane Eyre. I studied Victorian horror novels in college. Like, this shit is my JAM. Since I was writing a gothic story, I wanted to involve a scene like that so badly but I wasn't sure how to make it fit. I just knew I had to have it.

That scene almost came like three installments earlier but it wasn't a dream so it was regular Lucifer walking around holding a candle after a black out (because the hotel is fucking with him) and him remarking "huh this is very gothic women running from houses of me" but I cut it (and the black out) because it didn't really work. When I started thinking of dreams for Alastor and Lucifer to share, immediately I knew this was my chance and, just like a gothic woman escaping a haunted mansion, I fucking ran with it.

I am SO GLAD people seemed to like it just as much as I do. I'm absolutely so happy with it. I like that it feels a little cinematic. I saw it SO clearly in my head when I wrote it. I'm no one in this fandom but that is the scene my heart desperately wants fan art for. Who DOESN'T love the hero of a doomed gothic horror story to run from the house in the flimsiest, most see through nightgown?

Huh. Did I say doomed? Weird.

3. Did the idea change at all by the time the fic was complete?

Okay, listen. I am not a smart person. I wrote the first part of We Should've Been Enemies as a one shot. Pure vibes. I wanted something visceral and gothic and I think it did that pretty dang well. Then I realized I wanted to keep playing in the sentient hotel so I wrote the next installment. I wanted a Mardi Gras dance scene. I wanted Alastor to suck Lucifer's blood like a vampire.

Cool. More vibes. Love it.

Turns out, though, you can't survive on a vibes based economy alone.

So when the absolutely lovely @radiaurapple asked me some questions about the overarching plot, my brain sort of flatlined.

Oh yeah I needed one of those, huh.

I had a general trajectory of what I wanted to happen, of story beats I wanted to hit. It was the stuff in between I was kind of handwaving. So I took their advice, sat down, and plotted EVERYTHING out. I know how it all ends, now. I know how we get there. I know what's happening to Alastor, to Lucifer, and to everyone else. I've been able to throw misdirection in, and give hints to the plot, so that's been fun.

Should I have thought of this before like installment three? Yes, totally. 100%. In my defense, I didn't expect Be It Ever So Humble to be more than a really lovely/gory one shot. If I had set out to make it a full story, for nine installments, there are definitely things I would change or hints I would plant sooner. But ah well. Hindsight and all that. I still think it's coming out really well (fingers crossed) and I'm excited for everyone to react to the next few parts.

I'm not good at episodic writing. I tend to write one shots that get delusions of grandeur and grow into more. I'm trying to be more mindful of it and I want to really TRY to write an actual fic with chapters instead of a series, which would really push me to write in advance and have everything planned ahead of time and maybe break me of my horrible need for external validation?

That is to say I may or may not be cooking a human radioapple AU fic up in this morass of anxiety I have the absolute gall to call a brain. We shall see.

Boy, that was a lot of words to say "lol no oh god help why am I like this".

Thank you for reading my silly little gothic series. <3

[flame-cat]

okay kim stans, now that I have your attention I'm dropping a fic idea that I'll never ever make. free to a good home. kisses kisses kisses <3

kind of smashing together a bunch of little ideas I've shown off and also kept in my brain privately for fun-having reasons. it's kind of just my dissertation on why kim is absolutely pathetic when you take down his walls. he's a tin soldier. nothing but thin walls and hollow insides. <- OUGH THATS GOOD USING THAT AT SOME POINT

so basically vague handwavey idea that I think its some time into like, the point a lot of the meta-fandom narrative has gotten to, some time down the line after a lot of the initial Mess post-martinaise smooths out into something that looks normalish, or at least isn't an immediate crisis. harry is on a sober streak, [the Hetero-Sexual Life Partners are at the very least not constantly trying to kill each other (kim has had a Talk with Jean, who is mostly just privately seething and malding now and feeling incredibly sorry for himself). ] <OR> [there was an Incident where Jean got really REALLY sorry for himself and made a whole fucking scene and basically tried to kill himself, heavily based on a fic i read (called Trigger Warning) it kinda woobifies jean a bit but other than that its soooo fucking good but tl;dr the jobwives have made up and ] kim and jean are kind of both Harry's partner in ways? jean is still a satellite officer but a lot of times he gets paired up with Harry and kim and they're kind of the nightmare blunt rotation right now.

soooo again handwaves somehow one of the old cases Kim's partner left behind that was left cold picks up a lead again out of the blue and Kim is. well. he's normally a workaholic but this is intense even for him. like Jesus. nobody at the 41st has seen him like this. he doesn't sleep for days on end. (maybe he picks up speed? from jean? he considers doing it in-game to improve his Performance so I don't think thats above him).

anyway rock meet hard place Harry finally gets the poor sod to take a god damn break and go home, he and jean can sort out his disaster area of a desk and cover for him. Kim obliges, goes home and- OH SHIT WHO IS THAT! uhhh its all very vague in my head here but tl;dr Kim gets jumped maybe? nd this was all some sort of like. Ploy? to uhh . idk I think maybe the moralintern is involved in ways. but uh eyes is alive and was an espionage and faked his death and is now like. idrk yet if He stabbed Kim or what, or why its all even. happening in the first place. and tbh its not important to me cause I'm never gonna write it, I don't plan to its just something to play with at night to fall asleep.

important bit is now Kim is Leaking Everywhere and well. doesn't exactly have time to call gotlieb. so. he stitches himself up (NOT THAT WELL) and trudges back to the precinct to report to pryce. understandably people are freaked out by the Blood and stuff. harry comes with Kim to the briefing. shit gets Revealed. Kim dissociate. harry is like uhhhh okay well his home isn't safe anymore. jean can he crash on your couch can you drive us there while I sit in the back with him. and jean is like. fuck. okay. and yeah Kim kinda comes back into it on the ride there, has a Teensy Weensy (HUGEBADMASSIVE) panic attack, eventually calms down enough to clamber out of the car and. jeans apartment is 4 floors up and there's no elevator. hell on earth. Kim refuses to be helped up but 2 floors up he trips and let's jean help him, then they get to the top and Kim is like. Jean. and jean is like what- ohgodyoureunconsciousnowokayharryopenthedoor. and uhhh the rest is pure self indulgent "the boys nurse him back to health mwah" but way messier obvs. like fully "ok I have to take out the stitches you did and restitch you, throw back this glass of whiskey and try not to vomit on me. oh well he passed out. at least he's not feeling it?" and yeah.

anyway there's a Conversation between jean and harry at one point because the through line here is that harry is trying to keep his Boys safe but he doesn't know how they can keep doing This *gestures to the cop thing* and so jean is like okay well are we gonna work the case without him orrrrr and harry is like I am NOT moving a MUSCLE until Kim is 100% okay. he stayed with me for 2 days after I got shot. and jean is like okay bye- and harry is like no listen. I don't. we are killing ourselves here. and jean is like yeah? point? and harry is like maybe we. shouldn't. and they have a whole argument about it but that wakes up Kim who eats shit trying to get up and they both like rush in to make sure he didn't fuck up the new stitches or bust his head open right, and Kim is like. okay conflict resolution time. refuses to back down until everything is explained in detail to him even if he's still loopy. anddddd tl;dr Kim agrees with harry and idk what happens next but there u go

[loyalhorror]

uhh, the ask emoji fandom thing but whichever ones you want to answer for RDR, Black Sails, and Sandman, with a bonus side question of have you done any of the Manderville quest stuff in ff14

OUGH. marxz i am so fond of you (not just for sending this ask i prommy). let's see.

Have you done any of the Manderville quest stuff in ff14?

I DEFINITELY HAVE but I don't remember it at all... maybe @notjusthespongenextdoor can tell me what the fuck I did sdlfksndfkjg it was so long ago

👿Least favorite character

RDR: hmmm I can't really think of anyone I genuinely dislike as a character, at least within the main 'cast'? obviously everybody fucking hates Micah but I love him as a character even if I think in some respects he's sort of WAY too obvious as a villain in a way that makes some gang members look like idiots for allowing him to stay... but then on the other hand I think that's kind of the point + it's proof of how much control Dutch has over everyone. HANDWAVES.

BS: Fucking Vane. I don't like the shit he did in-universe to Max (though I will accept that that was a poorly written plotline in general... or at the very least one that made it just really hard to empathise with anyone responsible afterwards) AND I feel that his redemption arc was kind of "eh". But mostly I think fandom kind of burnt me out on him because I just don't get the hype around him.

SM: hmm it probably depends on what version we're talking about... I don't really like show!Lyta (whereas I love comics!Lyta) but I think that's just because like. The acting and writing in the show isn't always Great(TM). I can't think of anyone where I just HATE them when they're onscreen or anything in either version... with the show I don't like the scenes with Desire+Despair but that's because their dynamic creeps me out as someone who is VERY squicked by codependent sibling relationships in media, I love both characters individually.

WAIT. I JUST REMEMBERED. In the show it's definitely Joha.nna Constantine I'm sorry I just. Do not like the actress much to begin with. I also don't really like what they did with Constantine's gender-swapped design, so to speak - she doesn't look like Constantine at all aside from the trenchcoat. They couldn't make her a cocky blonde gal (preferably with short hair, give me butch sapphic Constantine or else)? I know they were probably going off what they wanted from the acting rather than anything appearance-based, and it's better to have a good actor who looks different than a bad one who matches the comics version, but. GESTURES. I wish it'd been ANY other actress skldfndkjfng. I'm picky with my cocky English people. The wrong vibe can turn it rancid.

😍Character you have the biggest crush on

RDR: HMM good question. it used to be Dutch (yeah yeah I know) but nowadays I have no idea, once a character becomes my blorbo/I start writing them longterm I tend to lose whatever 'crush' I had on them... BS: [head in hands] it's hal gates. i am not immune to fat old men. i want him to [REDACTED] S: HM depends on the day and it depends on which character(s) I'm relating to the most on a personal level. Tends to rotate between Dream, Lucien(ne), and lately, Hob.

💐Comfort character

RDR: John my beloved... BS: Somehow it's Silver, but that's mostly because of what I've written with my friend Seras over the past several years with him + Seras' Horst. S: Dream, most of the time. Sometimes it's the Corinthian (specifically pre-runaway era Corinthian) but not often.

❤️‍🩹Character who deserved better

RDR: Abigail... I feel so fucking bad for her in so many different ways. Not in a "John was sooo shitty omg" way (though he WAS a dick) but just like, man, what a tragedy of a life. BS: MAX. The s1 abuse arc was awful in a thousand different ways but primarily I just don't think it was sensitively written at all. It's not necessarily that I think they shouldn't have included it, but holy FUCK the like... implications that it leaves about every other character who stood back and allowed that to happen or was otherwise complicit in it is uhhh. Not great. S: Dream but also not at all because I think the tragedy of his story is my favourite thing about it. Like Abigail, it's "he deserved better if we look at it in-universe but from a narrative standpoint the agony is so fucking tasty and I wouldn't change it at all".

[rei-ismyname]

The Phoenix/Phoenix Force sucks

If you're not familiar with Marvel/X-Men's The Phoenix catching you up on the full context is not really possible. I'll summarise the salient bits, but I definitely recommend checking out The Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas in Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men. The big dumb Firebird has appeared earlier in the timeline for better or worse, but that's the definitive phoenix story (and very entertaining.)

An abridged Publication History of the Phoenix

- The Phoenix is introduced as a cosmic abstraction, a vital entity that is part of the universe. Jean Grey is sacrificing herself to save the rest of the X-Men and this happens.

And this.

It's wild shit, totally iconic and mostly internally coherent, though it doesn't end well. Jean as the Phoenix eats a star and destroys a planet of broccoli people. A very effective use of girl power. A lot happens and she ends up sacrificing herself again. It was established that Jean is The Phoenix, now and forever.

- Rachel Grey, Jean and Scott's daughter from an alternate timeline shows up and is a phoenix host for years without any genocides or whatnot. There's angst, but it's just a part of her. Rachel was a bit of a Jean expy at times but it still made sense and was exciting. She's Jean's daughter so it doesn't take too much handwaving to accept her as a 'host.' (She still is btw, no idea how this works but I like her.)

- Over the next few decades the Phoenix showed up an awful lot. Avengers Vs X-Men is probably the most well known instance. The bird is a lot less picky about hosts now. Hope Summers is the intended host (another Jean expy at times,) but due to Tony Stark's arrogance the phoenix ends up in five other people - Namor, Emma Frost, Scott Summers, Magik and Colossus. It makes very little sense tbh, but after much needless conflict it ends up in Hope and she uses it for some cosmic magnificence.

- Over the next few decades it's all over the place. The Stepford Cuckoos, Quentin Quire, tean Jean, this Shi'Ar dude with a big sword, a prehistoric woman called Firehair, this utter dipshit called Faithful John, and others. It's become a problem of the week, deus ex machina, and worst of all - the stories are not very good. The lore of the phoenix is nonsensical at this point but Marvel was not showing any restraint. Personally, I'd groan whenever it appeared because it meant repetitive plot points and further muddying of how the thing works.

- The Avengers got hold of it and the less said about it the better. It's the mid 2010s and this supposedly unknowable universal abstraction, a god of sorts, has become frankly silly (derogatory.) The wonder has been strangled through overuse and conflicting lore. I'm actually understating it a bit - if you don't believe me check out the wiki for The Phoenix. This cosmic abstraction, one of the most iconic X-Men concepts/moments/arcs had become cringe and boring through overuse and lack of imagination.

- In 2019 Jonathan Hickman's House of X dropped and it was a great time to be an X-Men fan - the Krakoan age. A decade plus of deeply average stories and nostalgia bait were in the past and the status quo had changed in wonderful ways. The Phoenix received a mention on a data page, but it was in a list of powerful entities to give context to a new and interesting concept. At the time it wasn't necessarily foreshadowing.

- In 2023 Marvel was (unwisely IMO) speed running an end to Krakoa and the aforementioned concept emerged as the endgame threat. The Phoenix found its way into the story in an organic fashion and the X-Men put all their hopes in The Phoenix to defeat the threat. Kieron Gillen, under difficult circumstances and with less time than promised, actually did it! He used the Phoenix in a quality story with appropriate gravitas and wonder - and he cleaned up the lore so it made sense again. That run (and era) ended in a better place than most of us imagined it could. It didn't surprise me because Gillen is the best writer in comics today IMO, but we got lucky. He left it on a high note but Kieron Gillen is not at Marvel anymore and Tom Brevoort is in charge of X Books. I'll come back to this polycule erasing bozo.

Phoenix (2024) picks up where he left Jean and The Phoenix (and some infinity comics but let's ignore those for now) - both lore and characterisation-wise. It's explicitly solicited as a cosmic run and the first issue has delivered on that. It's not hard to imagine an ending with The Phoenix seeing itself out of the story in an entertaining way with clean lore and sense of wonder intact. Hopefully without killing Jean again 😅.

Ideally, Marvel will have the good sense to leave it alone for a few years at least. The books are already milking nostalgia and historically X-Men keep returning to the Phoenix, Apocalypse, and some new hate group/the US government deciding genocide is on the menu again. Apocalypse has had character growth (and if they ever undo that I'm doing violence) and moved on & we've just had an attempted genocide plus past victims resurrected - so I'll be generous and say they're off the table. The X line has all new writers and seems to be looking to synergise with '97 and the MCU while claiming they're going for fresh and exciting.

We might get lucky again. X-Men 97 is way past the OG Phoenix stuff and so far has avoided using bottom of the barrel storylines from that time. The 2000s contains danger, but most instances don't fit the 'greatest hits' style they've used so far. An exception to that could be Avengers vs X-Men, but I think they'd save that for a summer blockbuster if anything. I suspect a lot of people would get hype about a movie called AVX, especially if they never read the comic. The MCU hasn't been shy about reconceptualizing events for movies, like Civil War, for instance. The essence of the premise was there but the film made a lot more sense. There's plenty of other reasons (better ones even, ones that don't feel OOC and forced) for the X-Men and avengers to fight, and they'd have to set it up with Disassembled (kinda already happened, not Wanda's fault,) House of M (please no) and then all the Hope Summers/Messiah events. The Fox Movies already did the Phoenix, too, bad as it was. I don't think they'll go that way.

Secret Wars has a phoenix egg in the comics, but it's not important and it's barely an X-Men story. I don't see The Phoenix menacing our screens anytime soon, thankfully. What I fear most is editorial playing it safe and/or nostalgic (which is why Tom Brevoort concerns me - check out his Spider-Man manifesto and you'll see what I mean) and a writer returning to the well when pitching story ideas. Everyone is confident at the start of a new era bc it takes a while to internalise that Marvel repackages and reskins the same 25 tropes while deliberately presenting the 'Illusion of change.' Once the initial ideas dry up and it's crunch time it's natural to look to the past for ideas and characters to reuse. Maybe sales dip a little, or the comics are in a holding pattern waiting for the MCU to do something. Whatever the cause, it will get pitched again and Brevoort will likely say yes. I don't want to be unfair to the guy, but he's been failing upwards for years.

After all, it's happened so many times already. Metatextually, The Phoenix is a symbol of rebirth. That would be a good thing. It can be easy to mistake repetition for rebirth, but it's the avatar of life and creativity. In universe one of its roles is to destroy stagnant ideas or species. Anything that's static and has stopped evolving. Ironically it's been used in some of the worst instances of creative stagnation in Marvel comics. The Phoenix, recent goodness aside, sucks.

I genuinely hope I'm an old 'man' shaking my fist at a cloud while telling Tom Brevoort to get off my lawn. I love being wrong. Nothing would make me happier than Spider-Man or Magneto hosting the Phoenix being an Impossibility. I know I'm not the target demographic but I don't just hope these things for myself. We all deserve good stories, new ideas, the joy of being vulnerable enough to get invested in escapist media. The Mouse, like all capitalists, does not give a fuck about those things though unfortunately. They care about profit. Eh, there's always Fan Fiction. If it does happen I'll commit to a million words. 💜

Don't even think about it.